9 Jun - Now... in the wings (etc) premiere

For some odd reason, the PR and Promotions people of London had a collective brain aneurism and scheduled three events at more or less the same time on the same day. I flipped a coin and a magic eight-ball and went to the one with Kevin Spacey. I'd never photographed him before.

There was one sobering issue, though. There weren't many autograph dealers present, providing an ominous indication that the premiere for the movie 'Chef' on the other side of town might feature more than just Iron Man director John Favreau... and might actually include Iron Man, Avengers and Thor alumni like Scarlett Johansson,Robert Downey Jnr and Mark Ruffalo, all apparently in town filming Avengers 2.

So with that hanging over my head, here's how it went down.

We're off to a promising start, and it has nothing to do with this film / documentary, which apparently is about "Kevin Spacey, Sam Mendes and the Bridge Project Company reveal(ing) some of the most intimate moments behind the scenes of their staging of Richard III." Thanks, imdb.

Kevin Spacey is wearing a crown and glowering at me from the poster, which suggests I'm in the right place. But the title of this thing is a ridiculous mouthful _"Now : In the Wings on a World Stage"_ - and I SWEAR I had to go online to re-re-remember it because it' appalling. It's as if a focus group met up and couldn't decide between three different titles and decided not to settle it with Trial By Combat like civilised people would.

Our first arrival is wearing a slinky black dress, and at this point neither wireimage nor getty has any photos of this event.... even imdb has most of the cast in 'friendly' grey silhouette rather then biographical pics. That's a pity. Nobody looking this cheerful in a black dress should be snubbed like that.

Typical. Throw out a compliment and somebody else takes the credit.

Edited to add : she's Annabel Scholey, and according to imdb she's best known for being the voice of Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows video game. Really? Bonnie Wright couldn't do her own lines?

"Two questions. Firstly, is THE Kevin Spacey really attending this thing???"
"Yes. Next question?"
"Who's THE Kevin Spacey?"

"Smile! Grimace! Pout! Pretend you're harpooning a whale! Pretend you'd rather be at the John Favreau premiere!" Oh, I'm already there.

"I'll sign this as me if you can tell me my name, if not then I'm signing it as Kevin Spacey". Thanks to this premiere, I've now seen Kevin Spacey's autograph and I'm willing to suggest a fake one would have the advantage of being more legible.

"General Kenobi. Years ago you helped my father during the clone wars and all I got was this crappy t-shirt" Oh, look. Princess Leia during her Grunge Years.

"I think I nailed the audition"

Edited to add : she's Katherine Manners. Not that the name helps much : imdb has no idea who that is, while wikipedia helpfully prompts me that she might be Katherine Manners, 19th Baroness de Ros, who died in 1649? Well done, internet

"Smile! Grimace! Shift Left! Look Right! Change your trousers cause they're destroying my autofocus!" Yeah, my eyes are hurting a bit, too.

I don't know who this is, but based on the number of females on the imdb cast listing, my options are limited to Maureen Anderman ("Duchess of York"), Haydn Dwynne ("Queen Elizabeth") or Andrew Long if Andrew is a girl's name and the girl is playing the role of The Bishop of Ely.
Edited to add : she's Haydn Dwynne, so pay up if you lost that particular bet

"Hi, I'm Kevin Spacey and I've won two more Oscars than any of y'all, unless you were in one of those technical categories in which case I congratulate you". I've never actually photographed Kevin Spacey, and I've never been snubbed by Kevin Spacey either, but both of these things were set to change on this hallowed afternoon!
 

"Hey, you two should know totally each other. You were both in that movie" If it's not the improbably named "Now : In the Wings on a World Stage" I'm sure its title is/was a lot shorter.

"The huge guy behind me? He's here to beat up anybody who wants me to sign something from a movie I'm not actually in. Ten Commandements by Cecil B DeMille? I was totally in that..."

When Al Pacino signs autographs, the music in his head is probably heavy metal, but for Kevin Spacey, I'm thinking Bach. Alternatively, it's a special request from the security dude who'll beat up anyone who tries to get Kevin Spacey to sign something from a movie he's not actually in.

This, based on an intimate analysis of the imbd cast listing of this thing, is most likely to be director Jeremy Whelehan. And his hat.

This man, on the other hand, I can't track down, but the hair and beard are both lustrous. And an open shirt without tie is a great look, I've been told. (My wristwatch is a Seiko).

Giant security guard also takes a dim view of wonky horizons. Bad composition in photography is a sign of a lazy mind (and Dutch tilts are often over-used). I think the actress is Gemma Jones, and she plays Queen Margot in the film / documentary.

Nick Moran breezes past just long enough for me to recognise him from the Paparazzi list. He's best known for being in the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but was also the unfortunately-named "Scabior" in the last two Harry Potter films. Not playing a heroic figure, I'd assume.

Meanwhile, being the great actor that he is, Kevin Spacey is answering questions with just his right hand. His right hand is his Acting Hand, as everyone knows. The left one mainly answers fanmail and does sudoku.

I think she's a singer and she's not affiliated with the film. So that should narrow it down...

Edited to add : she's actually artist Tracey Emin, whose (unmade) work 'my bed' was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner prize and was bought by Charles Saatchi £150,000 and is currently on sale...

"Alright, my right hand's got this next autograph. And whoever I sign for is going to FEEL it" Oh, they wept alright.

"OMG You've Got To See What Justin Bieber's Been Up To!!"
"I'm going to go out on a limb and surmise you don't want this autograph of mine as much as you said you did a few seconds ago"

"Joke's on her. I signed it as Jeremy Renner" The kids today probably don't know who Jeremy Renner is either, though.

"I'm heading in for popcorn with Right Hand. Left hand will stay and answer questions. Rightey and Spacey out. Peace"

So... that was some kind of thing.Kevin Spacey elected not to sign my Moleskine journal, but that's okay so did Heather Graham at Hangover part I, so he's in good company (or vice versa).

In the end, I'm still not sure whether it's called "NOW", "Now" or "#NowTheMovie" or whether you have to refer to it by its full title "Now colon In the Wings on a World Stage".... but one way or another it goes into The Archive of Movie Premieres 

Until next time!

And if you ever want to know when I post one of these journals, feel free to follow me on twitter @berndt2_photo or facebook at premieresdotco.

11 Apr - The Amazing Spider-Man 2 premiere

After three  premieres in three days last week, this week I have to make do with just one. On the plus side, it's a World Premiere for the new Spider-Man movie. And after arriving somewhat late I luckily was able to talk my way into the main pen to a spot in the third row next to the main stage. With the lovely Emma Stone set to be in attendance, and a huge heaving crowd already there, I had low expectations but high hopes.

Here's how it went down.

My spot isn't actually all that bad, and Sony have certainly spent pretty big on this particular premiere, from the custom carpet to the three-axis premiere setup that stretches to a cinema on the other side of the 'Square.

"Threaten the city with destruction or update Twitter? Why do I always have to make these compromises??".

"When's Batman going to be here?" Sadly, there's still about an hour and a half to go before this premiere gets going. And we still have to have a costume competition and a rap battle. AND I have to do a danger assessment on which of the girls around me would cheerfully knife anyone getting between them and an Andrew Garfield autograph.

"Dont be concerned about your lack of height in this competition. Haven't you been watching Game of Thrones?" Tyrion Lannister does totally rock. But this was, like, really a four year old kid, I think.

We're underway and our first arrival is Spider-Man himself, Andrew Garfield, half an hour early to start signing in all three axes of this premiere's layout. The bus didn't linger.

Did I mention they also had free facepainting, toy and merchandise giveaways, and the distribution of Spider-Man themed 3D glasses? They certainly didn't have that at Steven Spielberg's War Horse back in 2011, that's for sure.

"Kitchen Sink? We're keeping that under wraps"

Matthew Tolmach is one of the four (five?) producers of this film... which might sound like a lot, but there are at least that many people with writing credits, too. _Kitchen Sink_ is a movie he's producing that is currently in post-production.

"Kitchen Sink's gonna blow your mind" I just checked on imdb and read the synopsis. It kind of might.

Avi Arad is one of four (five?) producers of this film - but he's particularly noteworthy as he's produced Marvel movies from all three major studios to own portions of the movie rights. X-Men with Fox, Spider-Man with Sony, and Iron Man with Paramount. That's kind of like fighting with complete loyalty on three different sides of a war.

"Let's have a moment of silence for Tobey Maguire. He was a good soldier" and a semi-decent Spider-Man in a prior iteration. Still, if Sony wants to keep hold of the rights they'll have to keep making movie which means everybody on the planet will possibly eventually get to play Spider-Man. Like, even Avi Arad.

Marc Webb also directed the prior Amazing Spider-Man movie which in my opinion was approximately 'adequate' on a scale of 1-10 (I was at the end of a lengthy 24hour dual sting plane trip to the UK so that might have been a factor outside of his control), as well as directing Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in "500 Days of Summer" which I really liked. The tie he's wearing is nicely understated, too.

I'd like to think my guarded approval of his tie was what meant the most to him.

"I only picked it up about twenty minutes ago. I don't know why everyone's making such a big deal about it" It's summer. I'm not even wearing a beanie to premieres at this stage.

Dane DeHaan was great in the movie 'Chronicle' which I didn't like as much as I would have because, as I'll tell anyone who plies me with a couple of drinks and asks me to elaborate, I wrote a NaNoWriMo story that had the same premise as that film (except it would have required a James Camerom sized budget to realise and might actually have been more economical to build a whole city to destroy than model it in CGI). Never mind...

"Dane DeHaan is going tie-less at this premiere. Can we get Jamie Foxx to come over to our side and make director Marc Webb feel totally over-dressed?".

Jamie Foxx evaluates his loyalties.

People raising hands to ask questions. How quaint? (At this premiere they had bonus-type questions submitted by readers on Facebook)

"You honestly think Disney is going to get the rights to Spider-Man back, like, EVER??" There are ways it could be done. Probably not legally, but there are ways...

Jamie Foxx won a Best Actor Oscar for Ray in 2005, and has been Nominated for three Grammy Awards. As for Nobel Prizes for Physics? He and I have an equal number of nominations for those.

"Hey I know that guy - like me he hasn't won a Nobel Prize for Physics!!" I just hope he remembers the five dollars he still owes me.

"I liked it how at the Iron Man 3 premiere Robert Downey Jnr just kidnapped a kid and took him on stage, so I'm going to do the same. Except I'm not going to ransom him or anything. I'm just going to keep him" I suppose I'd probably be best off not getting sued by Sony or Jamie Foxx's people, so I'll concede that he was the son of the guy who designed the suit Jamie Foxx was wearing.

It's Emma Stone, which means over and above the director, actors, rap and dance music pumping at volumes sufficient to confuse migratory birds, heaving crowds, intermittent warm sunshine and general okay-ness, this premiere just got even better!

Emma Stone was great in the prior Amazing Spider-Man movie, where I'm not sure her miniskirt labcoat either advanced or set back gender equality in the sciences as such...

"That labcoat had no safety use whatsoever, but as I like to say: if you're careful enough you also don't need to wear a bib and napkin when eating" Hydrochloric Acid generally wipes off quite easily, too, I hear.

"You say the nicest things. Besides, that labcoat served its purpose : it made you think about safety"

"I'm not sure which of the questions I asked that you're responding to, but please feel free to elaborate as much as you feel is necessary. I feel a lot is necessary"

"Yes, I've seen the trailer for that movie. Also, I'm in it" Emma Stone has won the same number of Grammies and Nobel Prizes that I have, but we both have one less Oscar than Jamie Foxx. We have so much in common it's got to mean something.

"My favourite superhero? You're trying to trick me into mistakenly mentioning one that Sony doesn't own the rights to, aren't you?". I say Condor-Man. I think there was a movie, once.

I will eventually stop posting one long sequence of Emma Stone photgraphs from this premiere. But not yet.

Andrew Garfield was previously in the prior Spider-Man movie, as well as "An Education", "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and he may or may not also know kung fu.

... And how to convert a try in Rugby League.

"I hope the Australian government doesn't actually allow stripmining of the Great Barrier Reef or authorise its use as a nuclear waste dumping ground. Oh, and I hope that the School of English to my left finds its missing letter 'H' " I say grab it from the word 'English' and confuse the hell out of people.

"Peace out, guys. I was not only paid to be in this movie, but I've got a free ticket to see this movie as well. That said, I hope I've inspired you to pay to see it." Well... surely nobody wants to see Disney owning Everything, so perhaps there's a reason to wish this movie well.

"You there! What rhymes with 'put your hands up in the air'??"
I believe that since 1994, the answer has been 'wave them around like you just don't care'.... Jamie Foxx has taken to the balcony to spin diskz with DJ Whatsisname up in the Hizzle.

"That's not the new song from Skrillex, it's just static from the feedback, and some roadworks on the other side of Leicester Square"

Oh, cruel fates. It seems Emma Stone can take better photos of herself on an iPad than I can of her using a top-end DSLR.

Needless to say I will not be traveling home by Silver Merc or in the company of Emma Stone. When traveling to my abode, I choose to spend eighty pounds per week for First Capital Connect services that are typically running fifteen minutes late. They don't even bother apologising or providing reasons anymore. (Sorry.. we were talking about Emma Stone?) (she's pretty awesome)

"Flat Whites? At Starbucks? Since when?" Excitingly (?), they've already announced a FOURTH Amazing Spider-Man, even though the second one has yet to be released.

I guess it's true of movie franchises like it is of attracting women : confidence counts for a lot..

So that was rather exciting, I felt. I got home rather late..... but I also got photos of Emma Stone. And on most days, that's a trade I'm confidently happy to make.

Until next time, it's another one for The Archive of Movie Premieres

Which includes The Previous Amazing Spiderman premiere

Until next time!

Oh, and if you ever want to know when I post one of these journals, feel free to follow me on twitter @berndt2_photo or on facebook at premieresdotco. (Or why not both? you never know which gets posted first)

1 Apr - The Quiet Ones premiere

For the third premiere in three days (behind Divergent and Noah), it was a much smaller, intimate affair. However, as I'd decided I wasn't going to make it four in four days, I thought I'd better go anyway. And even though I'd photographed both Jared Harris before (as recently as yesterday) and Sam Claflin at the premiere of The Hunger Games Catching Fire , I still felt it would be worth it.

Here's how it went down.

The UK has entered summertime, which means premieres are now held in daylight! (What's odd is that this is a horror/thriller movie... probably the one kind of film that doesn't really benefit from a pleasant sunny day)

"We're hoping he shows up, but if not we're going to ask Jared Harris to hold up this picture and pose with us".

"I don't recognise any of these people, but if this Rory Fleck-Byrne dude can unravel my iPod headphones I'll be forever grateful" Damn... that could take hours.

"You've seen my film Ouija? That means you're either a time traveller or dead, right?" Olivia Cooke seems unfazed by either possibility.

"When Sam Claflin shows up, please don't get him to sign ALL of your Hunger Games stuff. It'll make both of you uncomfortable, plus you could have done that on set"

"Be honest, that's Justin Bieber coming from your earpiece, isn't it?" Sam Claflin has arrived, and he's just taken the moral highground away from the security staff.

Sam Claflin and actress/wife Laura Haddock pose for the engraver who'll be releasing a newly minted coin in their honour. Laura Haddock is best know for being in The Inbetweeners movie, and also apparently as "Autograph Seeker" in the first Captain America movie.

"It was a CREDITED role, so it totally counts!!" Sure it does. Just like I was living in Sydney during the time they filmed The Matrix, so there's every chance I'm in the background and worthy of a best supporting unaware wandering extra nomination.

Laura Haddock prepares for an outsourced rhymes and lyrics Rap Battle. I've just come off watching the movie Frozen and its seminal masterpiece 'Let It Go' rhymes 'Go' with both 'Dawn' and 'Sky', so I think rhyming dictionaries are out the window.

"You watched Frozen? Wasn't it delightful??" Please do not ever get me drunk and allow me to explain to people why Frozen, in spite of its amazing animation and fantastic music, is actually a story whose script tends towards incoherently illogical and verges on irrationally incompetent. That said, I liked it. It's just no 'Tangled', is all. Seriously, watch 'Tangled' and tell me it's not infinitely superior.

Yes I've watched Frozen, and I have listened to Miley Cyrus and I am aware of both the 'Selfie' craze and instagram..... I even attended the 'Divergent' premiere. But through it all I have to admit that I don't understand today's youth. I mean... is this business attire? School uniform? Somehow and in some way ironically meta?

It's an uncomfortable composition, but I like the aggressively indifferent pose of the journalist to my immediate left. Probably prefers Divergent to Hunger Games and doesn't care who knows it.

Woohoo! It's the payoff shot. While Sam Claflin explains the complications of being Sam Claflin in this hyperconnected world, journalist lady is elsewhere, in a better world, in a happy place.

Just found out about Battle Royale. Mind = Blown. (Just don't watch the sequel... it'll blow your mind in an entirely different and much more unpleasant way)

Jared Harris has arrived. Though I photographed him slightly blurrily at yesterday's Noah premiere, prior to this I'd only photographed him in the dark flurry of the Independent Film Awards a few years back. I'm surprised he seems to remember me.

Wait.. is Jarred Harris looking at me like that, or the woman in the Black Dress?

He's looking at ME? I'll be honest... I hadn't anticipated that. Mainly because my camera and I were... otherwise occupied.
 

"My wife is in attendance. I had no choice, people!" Ah. An excellent strategic choice, sir.

I think Jared Harris and I are having the same silent battle of wills and virtual kung-fu boxing as he had with Robert Downey Jnr in Sherlock Holmes A Game Of Shadows. Apparently I'm not losing by as much as I'd assumed.

Damnit, I think he's just won our battle of minds. In my defense, I was distracted by his tie. It's exquisite, and vaguely hypnotic.

Rory Fleck-Byrne's imdb entry is fairly quiet, including a mysterious gap of nothing from 2005's "Stealaway" to 2014's "Vampire Academy". So make up your own theories, while I assume that it's because it's taken 9 years for his agent to get him typecast as "guy who points". He's got a definite authority about him. I'd definitely look where he's indicating.

Director John Pogue is probably better known as a writer - he wrote The Skulls (and its two sequels), US Marshalls which I liked, and the screenplay for the 2002 remake of 'Rollerball' which currently has.... uh.... a rating of 2.9 out of ten on imdb. And I.... kind of think that's a bit generous. Ghost Ship, which has a 5.4, isn't exactly twice as good, either mathematically or conceptually.

"So it's number ten in race 4, number six in race 8 and number eight in races 10 and 11. Thanks, bro"

Is thinking of about six ways of using that pen as a weapon to gain entry to the building. Then remembers that he's JARED HARRIS and THAT'S they'll let him into the building.

So... that's another one. Next up, assuming I can get there in time for the crush that'll no doubt accompany it, is The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Until next time, it's another one for The Archive of Movie Premieres 

Until next time!

Oh, and if you ever want to know when I post one of these journals, feel free to follow me on twitter @berndt2_photo or on facebook at premieresdotco.