Below is a flyer for next week’s launch of the shop-window installation trail, at Urban Outfitters [map] from 5.30pm on Thursday 5th March. A little tour will wend its way around the shop locations on the night, ending at COW Vintage in DIgbeth around 8pm. We’re really excited about what the artists have come up with; read Tessa Burwood’s splendid BBC writeup for more of an idea of the trail.
(Flyer by Jaskinder Kaur, Birmingham City University.) Oh and for those of you who can’t make it near a nice pile of brochures, here’s a handy PDF we uploaded.
So what else is new? It’s getting to that time when people ask ‘how’s everything going?’ with a slightly worrying/worried smile. It’s actually going really well. (I’m going to get this printed on a tshirt.) On Tuesday we had about 60 volunteers congregate at Friction Arts, all up for it – as always the point when the festival feels like it’s happening. Even more exciting for me was going through the techy schedule with our video fellas and concluding that it is all just about doable (though no doubt this feeling will pass!).
But the best thing has been how damn excited everyone else is. When you’re pretty much at the end of your tether with list-making and problem-solving fatigue and wondering why you bothered, along comes a palpable audience buzz to buoy you up and keep you going. Extra pressure, but a good kind of pressure.
Here are a couple of lobby-cards used to promote the original release of Peter Watkins’ Privilege in 1967. At the top you can see Steven Shorter’s homecoming parade on New Street in Birmingham, and below the weird religious rally which closes the film, shot at Birmingham City’s ground. With thanks to Oliver Groom at Project X Distribution, who were behind the recent and long-awaited DVD release of the film. Privilege will be showing on 16mm at Ikon Eastside on Sunday 15 March as part of Flatpack.
A few people have been writing about the festival…
> BBC online on the Travelling Picture Show
> The Bioscope on Curzonora
> Evil Monito on the Outside Art strand
> and here’s a slightly incoherent piece I wrote for the Birmingham Post.
Sometimes print publicity seems a bit pointless; all those piles of flyers when you can do the same job online with none of the expense or wasted paper. Yesterday in the Flatpack office though, the printed page was god. 20 boxes of brochures came trundling through the door, the first instalment in a hefty shipment which we’ll be scattering across Birmingham and beyond over the next couple of weeks. Much as we love embedded video-clips and drop-down menus and the endless scope for cross-referencing you get with the web, there’s still nothing like flicking through a film festival booklet and scribbling little asterisks next to the stuff you want to see. (Ok, so I’m a train-spotter.) Putting the thing together is almost as much of a mission as putting on the festival itself, especially when your designer lives and breathes every spread like ours does, but the result is an artefact which you can pull out years after the festival itself has been forgotten and the website has disappeared into digital oblivion.
Well that’s quite enough rhapsodisin’ over our PR. If you want to pick up one of these beauties they will be appearing in all sorts of places around Birmingham over the next week, in particular festival venues and shops on our installation trail [map]. And if you think your town might be interested in Flatpack let us know and we might send you a bundle.
Hello? Anyone there?
Here’s the new Flatpack 3 site. Dont break it now.
And excuse any typos, we’ll be polishing for a little while.
