My new house - My new film career.

Well, today I write to you not as Kieran Wyatt International Music Journalist (and Professional Caner) but as Kieran Wyatt International Film Star. Yep, last weekend I made my silver screen debut and the results of
which are to be shown in January at the Sundance Film Festival, the most prestigious showcase in America for independent films. However, more of that later - first the headlines...

Well, the past fortnight has been taken up mostly with moving from Roach Motel (the rodent infested crackhouse) to my new fancy pad on Haight Ashbury. New housemates are supercool - all of them involved in internet stuff (hey, who isn't in this town?). Tow of them also work from home so there's quite a communal atmosphere. And it's a relief to be able to type messages like this without sitting on a futon getting a sore arse.

Finally worked out what I'm doing for the millennium - raving at a warehouse party of course. Plans for either Detroit or Las Vegas fell through so SF seemed the best option. Five million people are expected into
the city over New Year so I thought it best to stay away from the town centre (there were riots there last year). The warehouse party is invite-only and in a funky space (it's actually being held where betalounge.com broadcast from - see MISF4). Four friends from Muzik magazine have just announced they're coming to SF for NYE so hopefully I an convince them to attend as well.

Anyway, back to this film business. Well, I must make a confession. You're not actually going to *see* me on the screen.  You're only going to hear me. Probably. Ummm, maybe. Here's the 411...

Over the past 12 months an independent filmmaker has been shooting a rave/dance music orientated film called "Groove" in and around San Francisco (www.groove.415p.com). Pre-press on it likens it to a "US Human
Traffic" or a "US Trainspotting". Lots of warehouses, disco dancing, drug taking, that sort of thing. John Digweed as musical consutlant. But it's a professional thing - this is no videocam-tastic Blair Witch style
production.

Anyhow, they finished the photography back in the summer (unfortunately before I arrived here otherwise I could have been an extra...). In the past few weeks they've been working on the sound - which is where I come in.

One of my new housemates knows the production crew and invited me along to a recording of "background noise", known in the trade as "wallah noise" (as in "wallah wallah wallah" or "rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb"). Basically, wallah voices are the background voices you hear in various scenes and are recorded separately to that of the main actors. [For example - take a scene the talking of everyone else in the bar. Now this talking is real talking and real conversations but it's muffled and muted so that you can't quite work out what's being said (unless you played it over and over again on video). The dancefloor scenes are even weirder. What happens is that the music is pumping out and everyone is dancing but when the camera zooms in on two of the main actors talking, the music is switched off so the mics can pick up what the two are saying - but everyone around them has to continue dancing as if the music (which is added later) is still pumping out. Everyone on the dancefloor has to keep the imaginary beat going in their head.]

Anyhow...around 30 clubkids, wannabe actors, friends-of-the-crew and myself gathered at a warehouse on the East Side of San Fran to record lots of different types of wallah sound. We'd all sit down on these comfy leather chairs and just eat pizza and talk to one another while a couple of sound recordists moved among us with furry mics. We had to speak at different levels depending on what scene it was for - quiet in the chillout room, a bit noisier in the bar, shouting on the dancefloor. We did one scene where the police had busted the party so we had to get up from our seats and start talking loudly and sound pissed off and get it going angrier and angrier and basically stomp around. My favourite scene was the dancefloor one (natch) where we had to whoop and cheer, pretending we'd just heard the DJ drop a blinding mix. Whistle posse maximum effect booyakka selectah etc etc.

The upshot of all this is this - if you go and see "Groove" and you watch the climactic dancefloor scene and you can just about make out a loud British voice bellowing "Come on, let's 'ave it!" - then that's me! I was
the only Brit there so I figure I'm going to stand out...:) The film really has been selected for showing at Sundance so it could go really big...

Anyhow luvvies, I've got my agent on the other line so I need to dash - she's lined me up to do the voiceover for "gurning fool on the podium" in "Saturday Night Fever - The Return". Lights, camera, action...

Namaste,

Kieran

PS Some club pictures to follow in a few days...  

Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Live life like there's no tomorrow.
Love like you've never been hurt.