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FEATURE IN FOCUS
INHERITANCE TRACKS
RECREATING THE STRANGE WORLD BEHIND THE SIXTIES HIT TUNE TELSTAR
etween Bill Haley and The Beat- Bles, there was Joe Meek. The
name’s pretty much forgotten now but at the time – on the London music scene of the
early Sixties – he was very much the “British Phil Spector’.
Working out of the unlikely set- ting of a flat above a shop in the Holloway Road, the West Country- born independent record producer, was responsible for monster pop hits with a unique sound like ‘Johnny Remember Me’ and ‘Telstar’.
The latter is also now the title of a new film, adapted in turn from an acclaimed stage play of the same name by actor Nick Moran who also makes his feature directing debut.
Meek’s turbulent life – which ended violently in 1967 aged just 37 - was not just about trying to stay one step ahead in the highly com- petitive music business. The maver- ick was deeply troubled, sexually repressed and a depressive who also dabbled in the occult. And that was before he’d eventually turn dan- gerously paranoid. Some non-music parallels with Spector hardly need to be emphasised.
Moran, together with co-writer James Hicks, first staged the play in 2005 – 10 years after they’d first had the idea for the project - and it earned Con O’Neill, who is now also playing Meek in the film, an Olivier Award nomination.
It was two years after that when flamboyant Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan, an old friend of Moran’s, got in touch and said he finance the movie version.
As well as O’Neill, the film stars JJ Feild, Pam Ferris, James Corden, Tom Burke, Ralf Little and Kevin Spacey, as Meek’s stiff-upper-lip finan- cier, Major Wilfred Banks, yet another colourful player in an ensemble, which you couldn’t really make up.
Moran first met cameraman Peter Wignall when they both worked on Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels 10 years ago. Wig- nall, whose recent work includes City Of Ember and, currently, Kick- Ass, relished the job despite the miniscule £1.25m budget. “I was operating, doing Steadicam, lighting and storyboarding.”
The six-week schedule com- prised two weeks of exteriors includ-
ing some frantic weekends on Hol- loway Road - where a frontage for Meek’s HQ had been recreated not toofarfromtheoriginalsite–a couple of days at Richmond Theatre for the live performance segments, and four weeks on the two stages at Twickenham Studios.
“The house set was twice the size of what it really was just to make it feasible to shoot in it. And it was still very cramped. The record- ing area was in reality very bland- looking so we tried to make it look interesting.
“Technically, it was very tough. Most of it was 360 degrees all the time and you often had up to five
actors all talking at the same time. We were trying to keep that backlit look and also allow the poor old boomopinthere,too!” QUENTINFALK
Telstar, to open in the UK early 2009, was originated on 35mm Fujicolour ETERNA 500T 8573 and ETERNA 250D 8563
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