A Quick Look on the Artistic Process

 

The film All Together Now (which will be shown on April 4th in the Cultural Center at 18h and 22h in the special program “The Day After”, from the travelling collection of UNAFF, is the story about the cooperation between the “Cirque du Soleil” troop, that has resulted in the creation and operation of a theatre production entitled “Love” in the Mirage of Las Vegas. This film tells about how “Love” as a project emerged from the personal friendship between George Harrison and the founder of the Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte. Harrison saw that the double talents and skills of the Circus and the Beatles’ music may be merged into something new and original. Travelling between London, Montreal and Las Vegas, the awarded director Adrian Wills, who is a guest of this year’s Festival, is following the human story behind the production, from the studio to the historical premiere. Using archive footage, as well as intimate interviews with Ser Paul McCartney and Ringo Star, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, this documentary is a quick look to the artistic process with the creative circle. Speaking about what had inspired him to do the film, Adrian Wills mentions his previous engagements with Cirque du Soleil. In the course of the joint cooperation, they had reached an agreement to make a film. Adrian Wills quickly saw that interviews with Yoko Ono and George Martin needed to be filmed.

 

The interviews what I wanted to see. My producer thought that it was impossible. I didn’t want to give up and continued trying. We started the shooting and were joking at times. I was saying how this is the most expensive film to be watched by my mother only. Later we went to London and shown the footage to the co-producers, who were satisfied. Many wanted to see what we had filmed, including Yoko Ono and Ringo Star.

 

How long did you work on this film?

-It took us about three years. We spent a year in the editing room only. We have made several versions of the film, including the English and the French one. But it was fun. We were surrounded by people who followed very closely our work. We were fortunate to have been allowed to do everything we had planned.

Sounds like one fun shooting...

- There were many fun stories; it’s hard to pick one. In addition to this film, I worked on several other projects. On day, I was in the editing room, working on an important film, when I received a telephone call. It was my producer, who called to tell me we had been allowed to interview Paul McCartney. I was thrilled and asked when, and my producer responded: in 14 hours. I started to explain how I was busy editing the above mentioned film and asked whether it was possible to postpone the interview. She just told me: “it’s now or never”, but mentioned that someone else could do it instead of me. I couldn’t allow it. I took a plane and came to Vegas. Unfortunately, my crew couldn’t make it so I was forced to work with a local crew from Las Vegas. Some of them were huge fans of McCartney and they were thrilled to be able to do the interview. We had set everything in place for the interview and we had four hours. I wanted to check the questions and went to my room. Before the beginning o the interview, Paul McCartney was sitting in his hotel room with two body guards. He didn’t’ even wear shoes, he was bare footed and very relaxed. The guys from the crew were finishing their respective preparations and several moments before the start, the cameraman looked at me and asked whether I had a tape. I looked at him thinking he was joking, because I was used to have the tapes provided by the cameramen working with me. I never had tapes on me. I again asked the cameraman whether he was joking. Paul McCartney was sitting there and only then I realized the trouble we were in. The cameraman also realized, it seemed that he had made a mistake. There was no time and I had no tape. I called the producer and told him - with a smile on his face because McCartney was sitting there – what was happening. My producer said he would take care of it. We were in the middle of a casino, in Las Vegas, in the middle of nowhere and McCartney was in a good mood, waiting for the shooting to start. I began to think of some silly excuses, things that didn’t even exist. I was saying how I should check the level of grey, saying how colors aren’t right. I then said that something was wrong about the echo and started like questioning him. Paul McCartney asked when we will start and thought in myself – when the tape arrives. Fortunately, he didn’t notice it. People are nervous when they do an interview with McCartney, think about whether the questions are right and I had a huge problem before the interview even started. Believe it or not, a similar thing happened when I interviewed Ringo Star. It wasn’t a tape that time, something even worse. We were also shooting in a hotel. My producer was with Ringo Star and the interview was to begin and at that very moment I had to go to the bathroom. The two of them left and I didn’t know about that or where they went. I have a poor orientation and when I left the bathroom, I was in the middle of the casino in Vegas and I didn’t have a clue as to where to go and interview Star. I was running around like crazy and couldn’t find my way out. Finally, I ended up on the set where everyone was waiting just for me. I was breathing heavily and that’s how the interview started. These are two of my biggest interviews. Both went very well, but when I recall these events, I feel sick. Nobody should go through this.