Up a ladder

To the Renoir with Seiji and his cameras. It’s Stuart the manager’s last day. Love of movies got him into the job but now he wants to get out more. What shots would we like to take? The big sign out front, mainly. ‘You mean the Canopy?’ Is that what it’s called? It’s raining: the Health and Safety gods won’t allow us up a ladder in the rain. We shoot inside first and come out into bright July sunshine. I go up the ladder first. Female Agents and Couscous are up there. I take down Couscous and reuse the O, S and C. Seiji isn’t happy and goes up too. The film’s name, outside a proper cinema looks and feels great - even if we are faking it.

Love. Expulsion. Revolution.

Meeting with Phil Casey, our poster designer. I have Rushmore on my office wall with its collage of legendary figures mingling with the characters of the film (still for my money Wes Anderson’s best film). Phil is a design purist: we look at Woody Allen’s Manhattan, Saul Bass classics, etc. We talk about how actors are billed on poster - the annoying way names are paired with the wrong pictures. Is that for contractual reasons or is it just an advertising manoeuvre to try to create some eye traction? Anybody know?

A superior person

The Curzons (Mayfair, Soho, Renoir, Chelsea) are the nicest cinemas in London and supporters of independent films. A digression: why is it that cinematic things happen to you after you have watched a film? I remember one Christmas at the Curzon Mayfair, coming out of the Umbrellas of Cherbourg into - of course - a rainstorm. Emily my wife had left her umbrella inside (you couldn’t write it) and I waited for her on the corner of Shepherd Market. A car pulled up, a window buzzed down, a finger beckoned. I assumed the woman was lost. Kinda. ‘Looking for a good time, love?’ A sort of reverse kerb-crawling, then. When we need some cinema photos for the site I call the Curzon group. Clare Norton-Smith is helpful: we can use the Renoir for a morning.