BAD ROAD (47 min. 2003) Documented by Brian Mitolo, edited by Lester Alfonso, this docu-road-trip captures The Silver Hearts — a 12-piece band from Peterborough early in their career on their first East Coast tour and in the studio for a recording of “Bad Road.”
Check out also: The Silver Hearts showcase, it includes a player that presents the compiled films by LA about and inspired by the band throughout the years, the articles Hearts on Fire: An Oral History of the Silver Hearts and Tales from the “12-way polyamorous death cult of a band” by Gabe Pollock of Electric City Magazine provides more background context.
NOTE: Because I was not able to attend the film premiere of BAD ROAD — this film I made with Brian Mitolo in 2003, I ended up writing a little piece for the publication that Peterborough Arts Umbrella distributed at the time. These words were to accompany the film and provide further context to how it was made. For the very first time online after a long seventeen years, they are finally together on this website. Enjoy! —LA
Diary of an Invisible Man
Illustrations by Sunny Paxton (age 5)
April 16, 2003
How long will it take to shape eleven hours of raw digital footage into a short film? Maybe with a little too much bravado, I say I can do it in a week. I can’t commit to any more time than that. Also, I like the idea that I am editing the Silver Hearts band East Coast Tour Movie with a time limit. The deadline pushes me to work hard. Until it’s finished or abandoned or both.
I tiptoe late at night in the kitchen when I step on something small and hard — OW! A sudden sharp pain wakes me up. ZING! It’s a tiny figurine, one of my daughter’s toys, the Invisible Harry Potter – a clear plastic figure, representing Harry wearing his invisibility cloak. I end up having this toy in my hand as I go back to the editing room with my replenished glass of water and before I sit down to begin editing, I place the accidental totem on top of the video deck that was to output the final movie in only one week.
Film editing goes out of its way to stay invisible. I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job.
The challenge begins when Brian Mitolo gives me twelve one-hour digital videotapes in a white Tupperware container. He gives me his hand-printed logbook detailing the contents of those tapes organized by time-code. My job is to make a collage or a montage from the available footage. And the computer I’ll be using has to be back by next Monday morning no matter what.
I remember Brian saying, “I think we can push this one a little bit.” Rock & Roll. I went with that. I sit down and start editing without ceremony. I’ve done it so many times before. Images are so foreign at first and then you get to know them fast and slow – every single frame. I see this image: a silhouette of a man walking down a dark hallway. I think of that line from Jim Morrison. And he walked on down the hall… And it makes me want to see the shot in slow motion. So the first thing I do is slow this shot down. This becomes a visual anchor for me. The image suggests that I’m going somewhere mysterious and dramatic.
Okay. So while that’s rendering, I watch footage from the Khyber club in Halifax. The Silver Hearts are giving it their all with the song “Bone Yard Jubilee” and it’s just blowing my mind! I love it. It captures a kinetic, almost menacing quality. The camera is trying to dodge the spontaneous dancing that happens at the club to catch glimpses of the band’s performance. I inter-cut the camera movements there with shots from a “fight” scene between Trevor Davis and Brian Sanderson done for the camera at a different location earlier during the tour. Marrying the two different scenes, punching each other from one location to another, with that amazing song, I hit the ground running.
I get a lot accomplished that first day. I decide I’m not going to use dissolves at all. I just want to build the rhythm with hard cuts. Bam. Bam. Punching keyboard shortcuts into the night.
In one scene, Trevor jokes that he’s in the Silver Hearts “for the love of music and free pancakes,” my mind races – isn’t there footage somewhere of someone offering the camera pancakes? I could inter-cut that scene with…
The computer freezes. It can’t keep up with the accelerated number of mouse clicks I’m making to keep up with the lightning speed connections I’m making in head. The tape deck starts losing its connection with the computer. Everything begins to stutter. I get less accomplished. But sometimes glitches give me a welcome break – distracting my concentration, changing my direction and giving me a moment’s pause.
The night of the Big Premiere I am weak and my fever is 105 degrees. Invisible to the end, I stay home and miss the screening. In my haze, I try to imagine how the movie is being received by the band who are seeing the results of my labour for the very first time without me. Are they laughing and clapping? In the silence of my sickroom, I edit dreams in my sleep.
We agree that I am just to work on the footage shot by Brian out east. We realize early that this is not going to be the Definitive Silver Hearts movie. That can only happen years from now. The credits show the current title as “a” Silver Hearts movie to emphasize the idea that this is only one of many. To date, there’s already a total of SIX (6) Silver Hearts “movies” put out there (including, unofficially, this one I’m editing) and also includes Brian Mitolo’s Close to the Voices of Trains and the Silver Hearts’ own fiddle player, Jenny Ball’s documentary of the early formation of the group. These “series” of films are beginning to chronicle important moments in the band’s life and work together in a gradual accumulation of grand details.
I am using AVID DV software on a Pentium computer with a firewire connection to a dual Mini-DV / SVHS deck. I have 11 hrs. of footage but only 7 hrs. of space on the computer. I am watching every single Silver Hearts performance at all the clubs and note all the qualities that will ensure its rightful place in the film. I digitize only what I know I’ll be using in the final version. I am watching for little nuances and sound quality, camera work and lighting – and energy: the spirit of the moment.
I digitize, name and organize hours of material into virtual “bins.” In each bin, I organize the material by name – so that I can type a word in like “trumpet” and find all the shots I’ve digitized with a trumpet in it. That way, I can sort a bin and do a montage of Charlie Glasspool’s trumpet solos in a snap!
In the olden days (film school), we had actual wooden bins with spools of film hanging out of them. Editing is done on a flatbed. Which means you can only edit one film reel at a time. Apparently, Spielberg is the only one left in Hollywood that uses the archaic method to this day. He says, for him, editing is a physical process and he doesn’t mind sometimes getting his fingers cut with the sharp edge of the celluloid itself. He equates the art of editing on a flatbed with someone working with a potter’s wheel to make pottery.
He’s a little bit country. I’m a little bit rock & roll. If I used the old method, I couldn’t do it in a week.
I know I have to include footage of Pat Walsh’s performance of “Whiskey Talkin'” at George’s Tavern in Sackville the night after his legendary last drinking binge. Everyone’s feeling pretty rough but always giving it their all. Pat dedicates the song to everyone [in the band] who had his last drink of whiskey with him the night before and then delivers a worthy performance. But no footage exists around the background story behind the dedication. Brian elaborates for me that Walsh had to quit drinking for health reasons.
So I am agonizing over the fact that I can just take my camera and microphone and steal away to the Montreal House (right now it’s a Wednesday!) and do an ad hoc audio interview with Pat Walsh to help the footage from Sackville. Give it some context.
Led by the hand by Ms. Patti Train, we catch up with Mr. Walsh in the smoking room at the MoHo. My recording equipment hangs discreetly inside my parka; I’m wielding a shotgun microphone like a magic wand. Patti asks him the questions and I maintain my Harry Potter invisibility. Just trying to make the best film I can possibly make. Later, I will marry the sound bite from Walsh’s interview with one of those beautiful black and white pictures by the Silver Hearts saw player Cathy Petch.
BEEP! Brian leaves a message on my answering machine. “I was nervous enough for both of us but – the screening at Artspace went really well. The band loved it…”
Stay tuned! More soon! —LA