Gold Coast artist Eddie Ray continues to innovate and inspire with his latest film and music project, 'Silence of the Jams'.
During Covid, multi-discliplinary artist Eddie Ray got the filming bug, and ended up producing an apocalyptic road trip short film entitled 'The Road Worrier'. So fun was the process, and warm the reception, that the seed was sown for a larger and more ambitious project. Enter 'Silence of the Jams', a full length feature, presented with a live band.
Launched at this at last years Horizon Festival on the Sunshine Coast, 'Silence of the Jams' is a self-proclaimed 'comedy motorcycle cowboy post-apocalptic musical... sort of thing...' and is heading to Bleach* Festival in August.
According to audience feedback, it's already a winner. See below for a snippet.
We caught up with Eddie ahead of the show.
Short films are one thing but a feature is a whole other story? How did you manage it?
Aimee and I were at a loose end during Covid, and ended up working for 6 months on a big budget Hollywood series, and thought "We could make one of these!" We basically used it as a creative exercise in challenging ourselves and to make something that hadn't been done before - with one camera, one actor, and an entirely original soundtrack. Something that could be done during lockdown conditions, with just the two of us. In a time when it felt like the world would never return to normal, it was kind of an escape for us, and a way of finding our own fun.
I love the live music component. It’s like a throwback to the old silent films with the piano. What made you want to create this experience?
After creating 'The Road worrier' Web series, I thought "Wouldn't it be nice to feature music more heavily in the next one - seeing as how the whole thing is about a musician who has lost all of their gigs?" So the idea was that, even though the gigs were cancelled - these songs still live inside, and are wanting to get out. And what better way to present this film, than with a live band?
So in the end, the happy ending is that the gigs are back and we can do this once again. It's a celebration of that. The one main difference between a traditional silent film with an accompanying score is that the two are quite separate from one another, the music provides the score for the subtitles to be read over - whereas in this the songs are completely in sync with the action on screen providing the music for the character to sing along to - like the opposite of lip syncing.
Did the lyrics / score inspire the story or the story inspire the lyrics / score? Or a little of both?
It was definitely both - but mostly it was a process of watching the scene, and trying to write a song to match the energy of that scene. 'back on the horse' was a song about finding his motorbike again, and returning to the music scene. So the song builds with the scene and makes the journey. This was a fun challenge, and I think the energy of the scene comes out through the song. The most challenging song was trying to write a sad song, for a particular moment. Something I am not very good at, and deliberately try to avoid mostly.
At least two people mentioned Yahoo Serious in their feedback about the film. Are you a Yahoo fan?
Aaaah, YES! That's a great compliment for me, because 'Young Einstein' was pretty much my favourite movie as a kid - it had everything; rock'n'roll, great music, amazing Australian landscapes, comedy, and was completely different to anything else around at the time. I still think the opening title 'A serious Film" is the funniest thing ever.
What kind of thing do you want audiences to feel when they come to the show?
I want people to feel the simple joy of being disconnected from the internet for an hour, to sit in a room full of strangers, and share a laugh. To share a moment of fun, to enjoy that moment, and to forget about the world for a minute. These moments in life are rare, and precious, and important.
Got any funny / crazy / memorable stories from the production you’d like to share?
We did a lot of guerilla filming, just heading into the bush with a camera and sometimes a very loud motorbike, and hoping for the best. We did a lot of filming around the time of the floods last year, and there's a scene where our neighbours car was washed into the trees, and we decided to quickly go get a shot, before it got rescued. They don't know about that. Also, a lot of the places we filmed were washed away so we were unable to go back there.
One place we tried to return to for another shot of the same location had turned into a lake. We also got our drone stuck 20m high up in a tree, 5km into the national park we had no option but to hike out of there, and come up with a plan. It was one big adventure really of not knowing what the end result would be, not knowing what the storyline was, and not knowing if we were breaking any laws.
Is there anything else you’d like people to know?
This is a comedy, it's very silly, and it's family friendly (except for one swear word). I feel like the experience of Covid and lockdowns was a very strange and unique shared experience that we've not quite talked about as a society, and this serves as a very different snapshot of what that time was like for a musician who went bush and lost his mind. Set in beautiful 'Young Einstein'-like landscapes with silly jokes and 14 original tracks played by a band of incredibly talented musicians.
'Silence of the Jams' comes to the Boradbeach Cultural Precinct for Bleach* Festival from 10 to 12 August. Tix here.