Local Interest: Video Jam
April 15, 2013 Blog Ben Milnes
You can’t spend all your time indoors watching TED videos, you know. Sometimes you should watch some videos outside of the house.
I did that recently at Video Jam, “an experimental night of short films with a variety of live musical accompaniment”. The first Video Jam took place in January 2012 at Antwerp Mansion but the event is not confined to any one space and has appeared in various locations since. I went to the most recent one at Islington Mill.
The basic idea is that a number of films are played, silently, and musicians take to the stage to provide a live score to each one. This may feel like a radical concept today but in the silent movie era it was of course far less unusual.
Initially daunted by the length of the programme – 13 films in one night! – I wondered what I’d let myself in for, and just how tired I would be getting up for work the next morning. But the average length was maybe five minutes and the diversity was fantastic. The audience were taken on a journey through a range of experiences, from moody beaches to to a surprisingly engaging film based around a detailed close-up of a snail. But it must be said that these shouldn’t be considered a representative sample of Video Jam’s films because the typical Video Jam entrant doesn’t seem to exist. While everyone’s attention was focussed on the videos, it was far from an atmosphere of silent, awed reverence – we sipped beer and discussed the films between each one.
The films were matched in diversity by the music, from those who reacted spontaneously, improvising as they went along, to those who had prepared accompaniment beforehand. The event was headlined by Two Chix and a Beer who provided accompaniment to the first film and played a set at the end. I was particularly impressed by a song apparently written entirely during that day by Anna Louise Hetherington (synth player from the band Letters to Fiesta) to provide atmospheric accompaniment to a film with clips of travelling shots from Asia. And interval entertainment was provided by Video Jam organiser Mike Seal’s band (if you like your Rockabilly music you should certainly give them a listen).
At the end of the night the whole thing degenerated, in a good way, into everyone having a good old dance till the early hours. Nothing like behaving like it’s Friday night on a Thursday. The whole thing made for a provocative, playful night, and was quite the logistical feat, involving as it did thirteen different films and thirteen different musicians.
I had a chat with three of the minds behind Video Jam: Sarah Hill, Mike Seal, and Shereen Perera. As is often the case with such artistic endeavours Video Jam is not the day job of any of the organisers and provides them with no income, but is clearly a labour of love. They love the “anything could happen” vibe created by the event, and the fact that it has now become well known enough that material is being created specifically for it. We talked about the way that two different pieces of music accompanying the same film can evoke a completely different mood, and how it’s this possibility that inspires the experimental artistry of Video Jam.
Both musicians and filmmakers are keen to get involved. In the past, the organisers have trawled for good films on Vimeo, YouTube and the like and say it is rare that filmmakers they approach don’t want to be a part of it. Local auteurs and musicians are sought out but submissions from further afield are welcomed as well.
Its creators are keen to stress that Video Jam is not any one thing. Experimental is an important part of its description and they have many ideas about where it could go next, including longer films, and work made specifically for the location of an event. And in fact that’s happening with the next one: if you want to check it out, the “Manchester School of Art special” at MMU Holden Gallery Café is on Wednesday 24th April and will (at least in part) be a response to the artwork.
Come to Video Jam with an open-mind and you might well find yourself very entertained. Your more conventional “videos out of the house” experience is of course the cinema, which at its best can provide flawless, thought-provoking entertainment. But every time a bus passes me advertising Oblivion or Olympus Has Fallen (about every six seconds in Manchester City Centre), it makes me think that the world might need a bit more Video Jamming.
Image courtesy of Wall Fly Photography
