Long live my happy head

It’s a frequently repeated sentiment that directors shouldn’t edit their own films and for good reason. There are some exceptions to the rule, David Osit, for example, filled the director/ editor roles on, ‘Thank You For Playing’, ‘The Mayor’ & ‘The Vow’, David is both seasoned at what he does and possesses a rare ability to be objective with his own material, I do not have these attributes. The reason people echo this statement is because it’s hard to see the wood for the trees, you’re not looking at the material for what it is, you’re looking at it and reliving everything that came before the shot. It’s really hard to let scenes go after the effort it took to capture them, but audiences don’t see this, and good editors know that. I had already put months into the edit for 'Long Live My Happy Head' but it was clear something wasn’t crystallizing in the structure, and although I thought I’d been brutal and killed plenty of darlings, it wasn’t enough to see the story differently to how I experienced it in linear reality. It wasn’t progressing us to where we needed to be or making the most out of the material. We realised that to make the best film possible, we needed to bring in an experienced editor to help us with the sculpting process. The next thing was to find one.

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I love the simplicity of how this worked out. I picked my favourite film from IDFA 2020, the fascinating and wonderfully made documentary ‘Garage People’ (Dir. Natalija Yefimkina), a film that explores the lives of everyday people in the Russian Arctic who find refuge and solace in their garages. It actually had four editors credited, but the first email I sent out was to Barbara Toennieshen: In our first call she asked me how I knew she was the main contributing editor for the film and the truth is, I didn’t, it was pure coincidence. You notice a lot of curious coincidences in doc filmmaking. 

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Having already seen ‘Garage People’, Barbara sent me her other project “The Wall of Shadows” (Dir. Eliza Kubarska), it was refreshing to see a climbing film that didn’t focus on the endeavours of affluent westerners ‘conquering’ the elements, instead it focused on the societal dilemmas of Sherpas and the precarious job they do to survive, often resulting in conflicts between earning money, their responsibilities to their families and commitment to their faith. The film was a combination of Nepalese and Russian dialect, neither of which Barbara spoke, but that is testimony to her talent as an editor... It also gave me confidence she wouldn’t have any issues with the Scottish dialect or thick accents in our film either. She’s at the top of her game with work awarded at the Berlinale, IDFA, Sundance and Hot Docs.

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Barbara turned out to be a perfect fit for ‘Long Live My Happy Head’. I asked her about how it was working with Austen and myself as directors and what it was like sharing an edit with me.

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Will:  Why did you decide to edit our movie?‍

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Barbara: Well, when you sent me the trailer I was from the very first minute drawn in by Gordon, someone whose life is threatened by cancer - and so positive…, positive and inventive in his way of dealing with it. I liked Gordon. I liked his laughter and I was deeply touched. “Wow! This can be a meaningful movie. I want to do it.” I could connect to the subject quite well because I myself have had cancer, not a life-threatening one, not at all... and I also lost good friends, through cancer. So I have experienced all kinds of people's behaviour dealing with it. Gordons attempt is life affirming. It made me curious to learn more about him.

‍Secondly I liked and trusted you. The approach you had and also your honesty and sincerity....  I had a big respect for the way you and Austen did it.

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Will: Thanks for that. So what you're saying is mine and Austen's ethical ideas about the film is what you liked. But there was also the fact that this was our first feature film and there was a lot that we didn't know. We had created a huge bank of footage and we didn't know what to do with it. Basically, we didn't know what the story was or how to approach the challenge of this enormous library of stuff? How do you find the story in that?

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Barbara: Well, it wasn't more enormous than a lot of other documentary movies.

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Will: That's good.

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Barbara: And since you already had ideas about it and worked so long with it, there was already something there. But it was stressful because there was this extremely tight time frame. And it was quite clear "I have no chance, I will fail if we don't push the time a bit further..." I was so happy that you finally arranged that additional three weeks.

‍Will: It's very important for us. That last bit.

Barbara: Yep, it made a big difference.

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Will: It was a really enjoyable process. I think because me and Austen were alone with it for such a long time, eventually we reached the point where we brought other people in like yourself, the animators and Alexandra (the Composer), and then suddenly it became a lot better.

Another question is, how do you deal with co-directors? Because it's different from a single director. Sometimes we have a three-way conversation where we don't all agree. How was this process?

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Barbara: I did not have any issue about working with the two of you. I also liked it because you have very different… What's the name? Strengths, but not strengths, but very different... Help me.

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Will: Yeah, different attributes.

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Barbara: Austen is good at talking, at motivating and visualising things and having goals and thinking big, all those things. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think you are more watching and gathering things, taking things in and taking your time. You are not as fast in having an opinion or something like that. I would also say you're more sensitive in a certain kind of way. Austen is also sensitive, but in a different way. You're the calmer one.

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Will: In terms of story, what did you find most challenging?

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Barbara: The beginning. The exposition. Especially Shawn, to get Shawn into the picture in the right way. Also this COVID time with all the material we had there...

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Will: There was nothing easy about this movie. [Laughs.] The animations were quite hard as well, to figure out where they were going to go.

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Barbara: Yeah. Also the end, you know, I mean because you had so much material, where you went on and on and on... You did not stop filming. I would really say it was challenging from the beginning to the end.

I think you learned a lot, I mean throughout the movie I could realise that you learned a lot. That in the end you were way calmer and more focused.

Will: I think the hardest thing for me was the lack of medical appointments that we could get access to because of COVID. The one key scene where Gordon gets good news, we had nothing in terms of material. We had a Zoom call with Gordon where we got the audio of them telling us, but we had to really struggle with that bit.

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Barbara: Yeah. It was a very important turning point and it had to be emotional. Yeah, that's right. Maybe this was the hardest part.

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Will: Yeah. But also the maturity you brought to the edit. When me and Austen edited that scene, we had that big kiss between Gordon and Shawn that went on forever. Austen had been isolating for a whole week to be able to film their reunion and then he got this kiss, which is the real kiss after they've been apart for maybe five or six months and we're just like, “of course that has to be the part.” But then you took it out and just had this little hug and we were like, “Why?” But it's that kind of maturity with the edit where I think your experience really came in. Because I think if you linger on them kissing too long, you kind of lose the real feeling of it and then you start to feel like a voyeur.

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Barbara: Yeah.

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Will: Was there anything you really enjoyed in the edit? What gave you the most energy or what were your best days on the job?

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Barbara: My best days on the job. Oh, God, you ask me things... Drinking with you in the end! [Laughs.] Our last night on Zoom.

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Will: My favourite bit was when you came to Edinburgh and then when we stayed with Pippa and my parents and then we went swimming.

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Barbara:  I really enjoyed hanging out with all of you. I think we would have had a good time together without COVID and sharing a room and working together. I think it would have been very funny also.

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Will: I appreciate that. For us, it was very defining... Well, I don't know. There's going to be life before this film and then life after it. Two different versions of ourselves, me and Austen have definitely changed.

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Barbara: Yeah. But that's also part of it.

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Will: Yeah, I really appreciate that you got more out of it than just another editing job. That's great.

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Barbara: Yeah, it's a lot more. Actually, this movie, together with some others I did, this kind of movie and also working people like you is why I love this profession.

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Will: Thank you. I will have to write “Barbara said this with a big smile on her face”.

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Barbara: Thank you Will and all the best for you and Austen.

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Initial Approach

Animation was never a concept we discussed in terms of whether we should include it or not. It was always a given that if we were making a film about Gordon with any authenticity, animating his comic book had to be done. There were however countless and sometimes draining discussions about how the animation should work as a storytelling tool for the documentary.

The biggest leg up we had was the fact that Gordon has already created a stunning piece of work in his comic “Bittersweet” and the panels from this book formed 6 out of the 8 animations we created. We decided the animated space would be a realm of deep internal reflection for Gordon and should be used that way to punctuate the observational narrative of the film. Gordon had already put in the time to really consider the words in the panels that express feelings that for most of us are incomprehensible. They hold a lot of emotional weight, so for us as Directors it was a matter of where to put them.

Animation Team 

We approached Ross Hogg and Iain Gardner to be our animation team, they both responded with an energy that settled our anxieties and fuelled our spirit. Ross had direct experience working with animation and documentary hybrids before from his flamboyant and professional collaborations in the past with Duncan Cowles, perhaps a creative duo after the hearts of myself and Austen? It was a steep learning curve  trying to figure out what animation we needed when we didn’t even have a rough cut yet, animators do not work that way! There is no luxury to ‘just try this out quick’, everything you do has to be a certainty otherwise you are wasting your own money and everyone's time. Iain had an amazing pragmatism that was instrumental in getting us to understand the process in an achievable way. However, he unfortunately had to drop out right before we began animatics due to his Wojtek the Bear project which he’d been developing for a near decade finally had it’s green light for Co-Production with Poland. What initially came as a blow was quickly rectified by Iain’s own recommendation for his replacement, and we can’t wait to see his film. It was Owen Rixon & Anthony Lee who came on board with their company The 2D workshop.

We structured the work so that Ross Hogg would be the animation Director, deciding on the animatics, composition and duration and Owen would take on the actual animation line work. We made sure Gordon was consulted on the work and it was immensely exciting, showing him parts from the works in progress as it came together. We had to fix the animation durations into the rough cut which was a scary prospect because once it was getting animated you were essentially committed to it. The main challenge was us not realizing the level of detail that has to be relayed to the animator for them to produce the desired scene - What are Gordon’s eyebrows doing? How fast does he walk? How does he breathe? None of which we had considered until viewing the first animatic drafts. Early on to help Owen we sent him an edit cut together of all of Gordon’s mannerisms from footage we had captured for him to build an idea for Gordon’s physique. We eventually realized that rather than writing endless notes that are up for subjective interpretation, the quickest and more detailed way to translate a movement and composition was for me and Austen to film ourselves acting out the motion in the office, so you get the correct duration, framing and nuance of the scene. 

"It was a real pleasure to be involved in making the animated sequences for ‘Live Long My Happy Head’. Having the opportunity to delve into the creative challenge of translating Gordon’s comic panels to the cinema screen was a very rewarding experience. We were always very conscious of staying as true as possible to the source material and doing justice to Gordon’s work, and it was great to see Owen Rixon bring ‘comic Gordon’ to life in such a believable and sensitive way." - Ross Hogg, Animation Art Director

Animating Tumour Rick

Animating Rick took a lot of testing to get right, and a supernatural being we have no reference as to how it moves or what it sounds like. Gordon’s description was that he was ‘craggy’ and ‘scratchy’. We didn’t want Rick to be so smooth that it gave him a smooth sense of speed but equally we didn’t want it so immobile that the animation became rudimentary. Our ideal was to have a very complex rocky texture to Rick’s form that was always morphing but that was simply far too complicated for time and budget, instead Rick was created with a constant hover, he’s never totally static one place but floats through the air and is able to get right up into Gordon’s face whenever he wants to taunt him. The ‘craggy’ effect was excellently created in the SFX design by Pete Smith, a kind of polystyrene screech and pebbles clashing.

"I wanted the sound design to convey Rick's movements in a way that gives a real sense of the materials we see in the animation. With Gordon's instructions in mind, I recorded rocks scraping against each other and pebbles falling and shifting and then manipulated the recordings with various plugins in pro tools to try and inject a sense of movement that matched what I was seeing in the images" - Pete Smith, Sound Designer

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Voice acting 

The voice of Rick also went through some debate, Gordon had imagined it as a mix between the Big Man from Chewing the Fat and The Shredder for TMNT. We settled on Gordon doing the voice of Rick rather than an actor as it felt more authentic, the idea of Rick is Gordon’s creation. We experimented with Sound Designer, manipulating Gordon’s voice to sound like these references but the results we’re not suitable in the end, Gordon put the accent on himself during the recording sessions, it was way later in the process during the final dubbing mix at Savalas when working with Kahl Henderson that we duplicated Rick’s voice and lowered the duplication by quite an extreme pitch that gave his a real demonic depth. The recording sessions weren’t what you would imagine with a studio booth, this was at the height of the 2nd lockdown in Scotland so we couldn’t be in the same room or book any studio time. The solution was to sanitize an audio shield and mic, pass it through into Gordon’s flat while Austen and myself sat outside his window in Austen’s VW T3 at the end of a long XLR cable. We would direct Gordon via WhatsApp and mute ourselves when G was delivering his lines. I would monitor the MixPre6 from the van while Austen took notes on each take, Gordon took to it with ease and his narration injected such life and passion to the animations, it literally felt like his book had come to life.

I have to add here because I can’t help myself… my proudest moment of near pointless detail, we did actually have a celebrity voice actor. The big pink bear that grunts when receiving loo roll from Gordon is genuinely Chris Bear from the band Grizzly Bear. I'll remain coy about how this came to be but it definitely makes me happy knowing that

Texturing 

Gordon’s comic’s are riso-printed by Edinburgh based CIC company, Out of the Blueprint. Riso printing is a Japanese method that can create a large number of high quality prints cost-effectively by reducing it to 2 or 3 colour cartridges. ‘BitterSweet’ is printed using Black and Pink. OOTB were extraordinarily supportive and accommodating, printing us all possible combinations between 25% - 100% pink and black combinations on the exact same paper used in Gordon’s published book. These prints were scanned at a high quality dpi and used by Ross Hogg for the texturing of the scenes, the different percentages can be used to create depth and shading in the scene. We found we had to colour the whole scene rather than the specific parts of the image which is what Gordon does in his book as it translates better to the cinematic experience. 

Original Animation

There are two animations that don’t originate from Gordon’s work; the opening title shot and the MRI Soundsystem. For the opening shot we gave creative control over to Gordon, his favourite film of all time is The Big Lebowski so the idea was to parody the psychedelic bowling scene. As much as we loved this idea it caused huge problems for the film, mainly because you can’t use another film to set the tone and introduce your own. Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres tried her best to create a Kenny Rogers inspired score from “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” but it really threw the mood off right at the beginning and confused the audience which is not a good thing for the opening of a feature film. In the end, Alex created a beautiful score that was complimentary to the rest of the film and all that remains is an easter egg where Gordon is wearing ‘The Dudes’ toolbelt. A subtle nod to the idea. I guess there’s a word of warning here about giving up complete control on your own creative projects, it's definitely a hotbed for creativity when experimenting and collaborating but you have to weigh it up against budget realitiesand make a call for what's best for the film.

The second original animation was Gordon’s experience in an MRI machine transforming into him floating through space enjoying a techno rave. This created so many challenges for us, firstly is that it was a step further for creative interpretation of Gordon’s work that we hadn’t done before, we had to very clearly communicate the idea and why we thought it necessary to get his approval. Secondly as it was original, there is no source material for the animators to work from so we had to put a lot more effort into the communication which we didn’t always successfully get across which meant a lot of versioning and amendment time was spent on it. Where most shots can be considered to be from a tripod perspective as comic panels don’t move, this required a complicated three dimensional track and pan movement and parallax background. It was the most difficult one to create but watch the film and I’m sure you’ll understand why we did it. It's a very humorous, abstract expression that turns a frightening experience into one of joy. 

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Long Live My Happy Head wouldn’t be half the film it is without it’s incredible soundtrack. It underpins both the light and dark sides of the story, and perfectly captures the bittersweet tone that carries throughout. The original score was composed by Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres, and performed and produced by a team of talented musicians, sound engineers and orchestration professionals. 

The story of how it came to be takes us all the way back to Gordon’s first experiences of having an MRI scan when his tumour was diagnosed in 2012, and the inspiration he took from the unique sounds they make. In overly simplified terms, MRI machines work by using incredibly powerful magnets to create a strong electromagnetic field. Then radio frequencies - not unlike an FM radio signal - are fired through the body, and through the wonders of science, we get really detailed images of the inside of the human body! This process also makes a lot of noise. Different variations of scans produce different patterns of sound, and Gordon likened these rhythmic bangs, clangs and bleeps to the sounds of the hardcore technow of his youth. It was the inspiration for one of his first pieces of Graphic Medicine - this flyer for a fictional club night called MRI Soundsystem. 

For a long time, Will and I knew we wanted to somehow use the sounds of the MRI in the music of the film, but we didn’t know exactly how it would work. It was time to find someone with a musical mind who could bring fresh ideas to the table - we needed a composer! Conscious of the gender balance of the project, we decided to look for a female composer and Will began scouring the incredible directory of the Alliance For Women Film Composers - the first directory of women film composers of its kind. The AWFC is a community of composers and colleagues that exists to promote and support the work of women film composers through advocacy, education and by providing a platform for it to be shared and discovered. It was here that he came across Alexandra and was first struck by the artwork for her debut album 2 Years Stranger which features the surreal and unmistakable ghoulish shape of her dad’s radiotherapy mask. Gordon had shown us his own radiotherapy mask from when he was first treated in London; an unusual souvenir and a reminder of a difficult time. We listened to the album and fell in love with the ethereal blend of piano and synth. The album is Alexandra’s musical reaction to her dad falling ill with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and the resulting time they spent going in and out of hospital. Songs like Waiting and Coma felt like they really captured the feeling we wanted for the film, and in particular Coma (for Strings) which saw Alexandra collaborating with the UK’s first free-form string orchestra for people from marginalised genders, Her Ensemble, the strings bringing a really powerful cinematic quality to the music. 

“The starting point was a conversation with Will and Austen about my previous album and Gordon’s creative venture into creating an MRI Sound System installation,” says Alexandra. “I was really keen to combine the human and illustrated elements of the story using the music and so when we were able to get recordings of the MRI Machine, that became a starting point for the score.”

It’s harder than you might think to get a good sound recording of an MRI machine, simply because you can’t get a microphone with any magnetic components anywhere near it. We managed to overcome this hurdle thanks to the incredibly helpful team in the Imaging Centre of Excellence at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

Alexandra used the MRI recordings in a number of different ways, borrowing from the characteristics of the various patterns of sound, and directly sampling them and adding her own palette of effects. “I used granular filters and created harmonics to give a slower oscillating sound which had more emotional depth. I also put the machine sounds through a Roland MX-1 to create some of the rhythmic textures” she says, “which I then gave to violinist Ellie Consta to mimic with bowing techniques.” 

“It was really fun to experiment with different ways of creating sound,” says Ellie. “We used lots of extended techniques in order to replicate the sounds of the MRI scanner, such as using the wood of the bow to create tapping noises and using the bow hair on the bridge to create sound effects.”

During the first lockdown in 2020, Ellie formed Her Ensemble to make a positive impact on the gender gap in the classical music industry. The catalyst came when she learned that just 3.6% of the classical music pieces performed worldwide in 2019 were written by women. In 2020 that rose to 5% - the highest percentage recorded to date. Alexandra and Her Ensemble have an ongoing collaborative relationship, writing, playing and performing together regularly as well as collaborating on film scores, such as Long Live My Happy Head. 

Lockdown not only provided the space for Her Ensemble to form, but it had a knock-on effect on the narrative of the film too. It became impossible for us to film with Gordon in the hospital, and our focus shifted to what was happening to him and Shawn. This also affected Alexandra’s direction with the music. As she explains, “the more removed Gordon’s story was from the hospital, we removed him from this mechanical sound world of the MRI and turned to a more string and piano-based sonic space featuring players from Her Ensemble, giving a more organic feel.” This change in the character of the sound blankets the audience under emotional weight of what’s happening to Gordon and Shawn during this challenging times, but it also creates space for contrast, allowing for moments of lightness as we see when Gordon’s friends come together on zoom to celebrate his 40th birthday to dance the night away. It’s a piece of music that puzzled us for a while, and thanks to the wonderful talents of composer Freddie Prest, the moment manages to create this fleeting sense of joy perfectly. 

One technique Alexandra used to achieve this change in tone was in her approach to recording the strings, “I chose to record the score in a church space with wood and stone acoustics to give a really natural reverb and a switch between the more produced electronica.the key blend between these soundworlds being a series of synths and drum machines.” The church was St Matthias in Stoke-Newington, London - a wonderful space with wooden floors and towering stone arches - but recording in such a space has its challenges, especially with only one day to record the strings for the entire score. Alexandra assembled a team of women, all of whom are connected in some way through the AWFC. Sarah Playford, an excellent composer in her own right, did the orchestration, Kezia Tomcett was the copyist - ensuring all the players were playing from the parts that Alex intended, Katie Earl was the assistant engineer to Fiona Cruickshank, who was the sound engineer on the day and mixed the final tracks. Strings were performed by four members of Her Ensemble - Ellie on solo violin, Coco Inman also on violin, Christine Anderson on Viola and Deni Teo on Cello. So much of the film to that point had been made during the coronavirus pandemic; we’d been pitching online and attending film festivals virtually, even editing the film remotely with Barbara Toennieshen based in Berlin. Will and I felt it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up, so we headed down lo London to watch the score being recorded. It was an incredible experience, and quite emotional at times. Watching the faultless efficiency and skill of the team was one thing, but the acoustics of the space were absolutely beautiful and perfectly accentuated the delicacy and emotion that Ellie, Coco, Christine and Deni were channeling through their instruments. What an experience! 

Working with Alexandra and the exceptional team she put together has been a truly rewarding experience. The score for Long Live My Happy Head has had so much care and attention put into it at every stage, by everyone involved. It’s a very gratifying feeling to have, sitting in the cinema and hearing just how detailed and nuanced every aspect of the music in the film is, and we’re extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such an amazing group of people.  

Music Credits

Composer

Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres

Orchestration by

Sarah Playford

Score Recorded and Mixed by

Fiona Cruickshank

Assistant Engineer

Katie Earl

Score Coordinator

Ed Marquis

Copyist

Kezia Tomsett

Strings Performed by Her Ensemble

Solo Violinist - Ellie Consta
Violin - Coco Inman
Viola - Christine Anderson

Recorded at St Matthias Church, Stoke Newington