Current mood: killing time
Category: killing time Movies, TV, Celebrities
So, I park the bike and meet up with the some of the rest of the crew...
Mo introduces himself and tells me that the event is to be a celebration of the Somalian New Year (Mo is half Somali and half Saudi)
The plan is to film the proceedings using 4 different camera crews from which a DVD will be made..
3 of the 4 crews are to be down in the main room and the fourth is to be upstairs away from the action. That crews job is to do interviews with some of the key figures in the UK Somalian Community as well as the acts performing...
Mo, introduces me around and tells me what I have to do...
The job is pretty simple. It's carrying bags, labeling the tapes, keeping an ear on the CB, and doing the odd run to the bar for the cameraman...
I feel good and ready...
It's 10 or 15 minutes later, that I realise one of the cameramen looks familiar...
He appears to recognise me as well - we're both doing that quizical look????, as we try to filter through the memory banks to understand where and when we might have met before...
We work it out.
I held an umbrella for him when we were both working on an episode of National Geographics Docu-Drama series 'Seconds from Disaster'
To cut another much longer blog short, I played the part of a terrorist called Tony who gets shot during the Munich Olympics debacle in Germany in 1980..
It's one of the few extras jobs I've seen and have a copy of...
It was a good night out.
I got to carry a real gun, jump out of a helicopter, get shot and then lie and roll about screaming in pain at 3.30am at an airfield on the outskirts of London, that was pretending to be Munich.
Then, once my being shot and dying painfully was done with, I held an umbrella for this guy I was now in Stratford with, as they filmed the other scenes and shot off the guns some more...
So, me and this guy start chatting away like we've known each other for years and probably because of this, we get paired up and sent upstairs to do the interviewing bit...
I'm quite pleased about this.
For 1, it sounds like the easiest of the available jobs and for 2 having done it before, I feel confident I can work with the guy without any problems...
The only disadvantage is that we're gonna miss the party downstairs, and though I'm a little scarred of what might transpire, I'm also intrigued...
The thing is, there are 2 stereotypes I know of concerning Somalians...
The first is that they're an inherently violent people, and the second is that all Somalian women are impossibly beautiful...
Now, I would have put both of these notions down as being pure crap, if I didn't then know a Finnish film maker who was married to a Somalian woman, who'd told me all about both aspects of the culture.
It's a very tribal set up there he'd told me, violence can be quite casual.
Needless to say, he also believed in the beauty thing...
All this so, I still wasn't and remain unconvinced that it's possible to be that general, but if either myth was even half true, the evening down below could well turn out to be a very interesting one. And though I'm completely terrified of violence and beautiful women, I also quite like the idea of watching both from a safe and secure distance...
Well, as the evening progressed we were basically left upstairs with nothing to do...
We sat and chatted about football and film making and all the usual crap.
Kevin told me that Mo had made his rep doing Grime music videos, but that he was now sick of the violence and trouble of doing them and was looking to branch out...
Occasionally I'd repair to the bar for more beer...
When down there, I'd look about for the action, but about the only interesting thing I'd seen after 4 or 5 hours was that no fucker was drinking.
No boss, Somalia is generally Islamic, there was therefore no demand for alcohol at all, and never before or since have i found it so easy to get served at such a crowded venue...
That aside, everything seemed to be happy and completely quiet...
 | Currently listening : Long Live the Chief By Count Basie Orchestra Release date: 2006-01-02  |
No comments:
Post a Comment