 |
| © 2010 Moog Music - Ph (828) 251-0090 - Fax (828) 254-6233 - Specifications subject to change without notice |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Making of the Moog Movie - the New York Diaries...
Moog Movie travels to New York
The making of the Moog Movie documentary went to New York in February, where Bob was filmed in a variety of locations, with some old freinds (Herb Deutsch, Gershon Kingsley, and Walter Sear) and some new ones (Pamelia, DJ Spooky). The following are accounts of the experience from Bob Moog himself!
The crew consists of four people. Elia is a Swiss-born camera guy who
lives in Brooklyn. All his clients know him by reputation. Adriana is
Hans' regular assistant. She lives in Tijuana and is a video artist in
her own right. Ryan is Hans' partner and is the producer. Hans, the
director, is also a musician.
So far, Elia has done all the shooting while holding the camera (no
tripod). Adriana takes care of the sound, which is usually picked up by a directional microphone attached to a high quality video camera. (The video
will not actually appear in the final film, but rather will used as a
guide when the film footage is edited.) Use of a hand-held film camera and
a directional microphone are going to give the documentary an informal
"evening news" quality, rather than a staged presentation.
Ryan takes care of all the administrative and business stuff. He rented all the equipment, and the SUV out of which the crew operates. He does all the scheduling, makes sure all the people who are filmed sign a release, and does the driving. And of course, Hans directs the actual shooting. He's constantly thinking about the footage that's already been filmed, and then visualizing how it all will go together.
We started shooting at 10:30 yesterday, and finished at about 8 PM. The
first stop was DJ Spooky. I had thought that, with a name like that,
Spooky would be a rough urban kid working in some rough urban environment. Wrong. DJ is in his thirties, speaks clearly and quietly, and is well-read. He lives and works in a sparsely furnished small loft with a beautiful maple floor. His "bedroom" is a mattress on the floor plus a tubular clothes rack, at the back of the loft. A couch divides the bedroom area from the rest of the space. There is a small but well equipped open kitchen. The rest of the space is empty except for a plant, a pair of speakers, a couple of chairs, and a work table. The stuff on the table consists of two wide-screen G4 Macs, a rack of six high capacity hard drives, and a bunch of CDs. That's it. We were filmed talking about what it's like to use computers for musical performance, and how it's different
from synthesizers and from traditional keyboards like the piano.
Next on the schedule was Gershon Kingsley. Gershon's place is not a
sparsely furnished loft. It's an upscale midtown apartment with a large grand piano, a video editing workstation, a music production workstation, and comfortable overstuffed couches. Gershon and I were filmed talking about his early work and the First Moog Quartet.
We ended at Pamelia's apartment in Brooklyn. It's in a very diverse,
relatively quiet, middle class neighborhood. Pamelia lives with her
domestic partner Jay on the third floor of a small tenement building which has been completely renovated into three elegant apartments. Pam played a little on her Ethervox, then we talked about what it's like to play the theremin. We ended with me unpacking the prototype Etherwave Pro, Pam
looking on, and the camera rolling. It SURE sounded good when Pam played it!
The plan today is to shoot some street footage "to establish that we're in New York". Then we'll drive out on Long Island to Frank and Camille's, - about an hour and a half drive if the traffic is not too bad. They're predicting snow. We'll see.
Report on Wednesday
We spent a couple of hours yesterday morning doing some filming on the local streets. Luckily, it was a bright, dry, sunny day. (They had predicted snow the night before.) The purpose of the shots is "to establish the location." In other words, you have to know that it's New York, even if they don't show the Empire State Building or the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. So I walked down quite a few streets and past things like art galleries and an architecturally striking synagogue.
We landed up on Canal Street. When I lived in New York, fifty years ago, Canal street was where you went if you wanted all sorts of electrical stuff and junk. Today Canal Street is a part of Chinatown. Halfway down the block from where the filming was done, there's a big MacDonalds. Under the golden arches, in place of the words "MacDonalds", there are three Chinese characters. In fact, nearly all the stores on the street have signs in Chinese. Hans says that he will use it to provide a smooth visual transition from his Tokyo footage to his New York footage.
After Canal Street we headed across the Brooklyn Bridge to an overlook in Brooklyn that Elia knew about. They got some great shots of the lower Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge itself. After that, a long drive on the Long Island Expressway to the the Mother Store of Frank and Camilles. (It's the "Mother Store" in more senses than one. It's where Camille's office is, and she's the CEO of the Frank and Camille's chain.) I had a long and interesting talk about the PianoBar with Camille, the store
manager Sam Varon, and John Watts, the manager of the midtown Manhattan store. Meanwhile, Hans, Elia, and Adriana were setting up in the salesroom (pianos as far as the eye could see), in preparation for their shooting some footage of Herb Deutsch and me.
Herb arrived around 3 PM and Hans seated us in front of a beautiful Yamaha grand with a PianoBar on it. We talked about our memories of 1963 and 1964, the time when the two of us came up with some ideas for the early Moog synthesizer modules.
Herb had brought all sorts of memorabilia from 1963 and 1964, which he showed us after the filming was over. Herb had a copy of a tape that I sent him early in 1964, showing some of the sounds that I was able to make with the circuits I was working on. They sounded like s**t, but back then
it was big stuff. I absolutely don't remember making that tape!
We drove back during the evening rush. There was a three-tractor-trailer wreck on the Long Island Expressway, and we had to take a detour. We had plenty of time to watch (and listen to) the helicopters that were reporting on traffic conditions. It took us twice as long to get back as it did to get out there.
Today is some heavy interviewing stuff, and then a session with Walter Sear at Sear Sound.
Bob
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
