|
|
Banyan News Archive
Banyan's
Christopher Laird Honoured
In June this year (2009) Banyan's Christopher Laird,
CEO of Gayelle the channel was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Caribbean
Tales Film festival in Toronto and the University of the West Indies has
awarded him an Honorary Doctorate (DLit).
Following is an interview with Christopher Laird by Anna Walcott-Hardy:
AWH. How old were
you when you decided to become a film-maker? Who were your mentors?
CL. I guess all youngsters want to make movies but I first
seriously expressed the aim of becoming a filmmaker at 19. Film schools were
just starting up in London, Poland and a few other places but the way to a
career in film still meant getting a job and working your way up in the
industry. My parents were adamant that I get my degree first.
My mentors at that time were not necessarily filmmakers but
the many Caribbean artists especially the writers whom I had the privilege of
knowing in my parent's circle growing up and those whom I met in the Caribbean Artists
Movement in London in the 60s. John La Rose, Andrew Salkey, Edward (now Kamau)
Braithwaite and I remember Wilson Harris being very supportive of my exploring
things visually when he saw an illustrated poem I had constructed at the time.
I knew that I had a strong visual sense and a strong sense of
mission in terms of expressing the Caribbean reality. Film seemed to be the way
but I didn't know how to achieve it. Remember, the time was the late 60s, and
we were all caught up in the revolutionary nationalism of the time. Video was
just beginning and that really was the way I entered filmmaking.
AWH. Do
you have any projects you look back on and think – how were we able to
accomplish this on such a limited budget, little resources and time?
CL. In the early days I guess almost all the projects seemed
like that but as time went on one could not avoid a certain dissatisfaction or
frustration that the work had to be so compromised by the lack of time,
resources etc. It is an empty boast to say I had achieved X with nothing if X
wasn't up to standard. Eventually I chose just those projects which seemed to
promise a balance between resources and the quality of the outcome by accepting
a degree of modesty in its design. Needless to say, when you get down to it,
that promise is seldom if ever kept. You always want better. The growth of
digital technology, however, has helped a great deal to achieve a semblance of
quality with slim resources.
AWH. Do you have a
pet project?
CL. Gayelle was a pet project decades in the making and I
have to count my blessings that I have had a chance in my lifetime to be able
to confront the dream in reality. It is still a pet project yet to be fully
realised.
My other pet project has been to make a film of Sonny Ladoo's
NO PAIN LIKE THIS BODY. I've been working on that for 35 years, ever since I
read the book 1974. Tony Hall, Errol Sitahal and I have a great screenplay but
that is as far as we have got. Meanwhile I have been working on a documentary
on Ladoo and have filmed about half of it. Work on that stopped with the coming of Gayelle the channel.
AWH. Who or what inspires you?
CL. There are so many
names I shy away from naming them for fear of those whom I will necessarily
omit.
I have always been
inspired by the giants of our Caribbean civilisation, James, Walcott, Naipaul,
McBurnie, Chang, those who I was privileged to come to know as people as a
young person growing up. I grew up in a house that was often filled with such
presences inspired by the dream of Federation and I saw a whole generation crash and burn with its demise.
That conviction of our unique and
shared Caribbean genius lived
on with the Caribbean Artists Movement and I like to feel that I act
still in that tradition along with those who continue to share a vision of what
we have to offer the world as a region.
While I would count my
parents and people like John La Rose as significant guides, I would also admit
the influence of those two generous and anarchic iconoclasts Ken Corsbie and
Marc Matthews with whom I have been close over the years. If I have an ounce of
their talent and spirit I would consider myself well endowed indeed. The
recording genius Emory Cook is still someone I would consider a model for all
my work with Banyan and Gayelle.
I have been extremely
fortunate to have been able to work intimately with rewarding creative results
with great talents like Tony Hall and his brother Dennis, Bruce Paddington, Errol
Sitahal and Niala Maharaj and for the past five years I have had the incredible
experience of working side by side with one of the most extraordinary human
beings I know, Errol Fabien. Talk about inspiration!
AWH. For the past 30 years your productions have helped
us to see ourselves, to better understand who we are as a people. With the
challenges Banyan and then Gayelle have faced over the years what do you think
is the future of film in T&T and of local programming in T&T?
CL. The conditions for
Caribbean motion picture production are still difficult, but that is the nature
of the business. Making films is never easy, anywhere. But as Cuban filmmaker
Gloria Rolando says, 'you can't stop artists dreaming', even though for nearly
half a century of television in the Caribbean we have had to dream other
people's dreams.
Nevertheless there are
hopeful signs: The Trinidad & Tobago Film Company is a huge step forward
despite the fact that the government has slashed its already inadequate budget
50% this year; there are film courses at UWI and students are coming out of
them with some promise. There are many young people out there now who fancy
themselves as filmmakers. The technology is doing for film what it did for
audio recording twenty years ago, putting it within the reach of everyone. When
Gayelle started five years ago people came to us with ideas, now they come with
DVDs.
AWH. Do
you think that subsidizing industry would help the progression of film or video
productions and raise the standard and does this come hand-in-hand with
censorship and regulations that may deter creativity?
CL. Subsidies for film
production are absolutely essential if the state is serious about developing
the industry. Our market is so small massive investment over a long period is
needed to kick start the industry and establish momentum. This includes
investment in developing marketing and distribution channels and
infrastructure. The industry will not develop if we don't increase the size of
our market and that takes real investment. It is a matter of faith in the real
resource we have in the region, the creative drive of our people. This is what
has filled the world with Caribbean Carnivals, it could be a world full of
Caribbean media tomorrow. But the record is more than dismal when it comes to
our governments having faith in the worth of our people.
AWH .Where do you see Gayelle the Channel in five
years?
CL. Gayelle the Channel in five more years will have to
still be at the centre of Caribbean media origination one way or the other. It
has already radically changed our expectations of our media. Compare the media
environment when we began to that of today: the explosion of channels, television personalities ,
series, shows and people employed in the industry. Yet we are still the only
free to air station in the region with close to 100% Caribbean content 24 hours
a day.
In the next few years
you can expect a deepening and sharpening of focus as economic realities are
driven home but the shape of the industry in five years will be unrecognisable
compared to today. The glory days of broadcast television are way past and the
new media is poised to turn established forms on their heads. I expect Gayelle
to be in the midst of that. At the very least we will have been the main
inspiration and model.
AWH . You've
always seemed like such a even-tempered, unassuming guy -are you excited about
being honored by UWI by being on stage, in front of the camera for a while?
CL. I have always been a back stage person. I guess I have
appeared unassuming because I know I am no genius and it has taken 300
productions and many years of work and self-analysis of my work to find my
particular talent and become secure in that.
I am not a flashy
filmmaker, if you see my hand while watching a film of mine then I have failed
in some respect. The people in my films are the subject of the films not me.
You know, I see my films like I see my father's buildings. If you walk into a
Colin Laird building, its elegance and his exquisite sense of scale will make
you feel the dignity and infinite possibility of being human I like to feel you get the same feeling
when you watch my best work: the joy and pain, the intelligence and enduring
courage that it takes to live our lives together in this world.
I am not alone in
believing that in this society the fate of the truly innovative and committed
artist is vagrancy of one sort or another, literally and/or figuratively. Our
history makes us so brutal with those who don't accept their station. I have
seen too many of our heroes talking to themselves in the street to not take it
as a caution and know that those who have escaped that fate have done so
because someone SAW them, recognised them, loved them, usually a nurturing
friend or family member and they were wise enough to accept that love as more
important than their dreams.
Recognition and
appreciation too often happens here after death. So that the UWI has seen it
fit to give me this honour is
wonderful. I am deeply appreciative even while I feel the accusing press of the
legions of those still unrecognised and restless warriors who precede me and
with whom I still walk.
AWH. Do you have a favourite director/producer
actor? Too many to name? Then can you list your five favourite
movies/documentaries.
CL. The game of
favourites has always left me feeling even more alienated because I don't
understand the absolutes implied. "What's your favourite colour?"
Surely it depends on the moment, the feeling, the context. I do have many
filmmakers I admire greatly for one reason or another. There are many whose
films I would go out of my way to see but I can't name one or two names of
those I think are perfect. Some are good for one thing others are good in other
ways and I take lessons accordingly. Perfection is a dream and an illusion and
while it may be something for which we strive, if you have any wisdom at all
you will know that it is the accident that often allows one to approach
'perfection'. That said, however, I must pay tribute to the Cuban
filmmaker the late Thomas Gutierrez Alea who has to be one of the world's great filmmakers and
certainly a Caribbean giant.
AWH. What
are some of the projects that you are working on currently?
CL. Gayelle is and has been a totally consuming project
for the past six years almost to exclusion of everything else though I have
managed to make at least one documentary a year. I would love to have the
opportunity to carry my Ladoo projects forward. The other is to be able to
really finish my work on the Banyan archives, over 3,000 tapes of Caribbean
culture over the past 30 years that still require more detailed cataloguing and
digitising to make them more accessible.
After eleven years and three attempts to put our
community television station on the air we've finally made it with two years to run on our licence. Gayelle:The Channel began transmission on
UHF Channel 23 and Cable channel 7 on 16th February 2004.
Gayelle has now been granted a Major Territorial
concession for the next ten years, permitting it to increase its free-to-air
coverage to the whole of Trinidad. It will transmit now also on UHF Channel 27
from Gran Couva in Trinidad's central Range.
If you have broadband you can see it live (for a
subscription fee in some areas) at www.gayelletv.com
Visit the developing Gayelle web site at www.gayelletv.com
2002 -2003
Work
on a documentary on Harold Sonny Ladoo
In September 2002 Banyan's Christopher Laird travelled to Canada to begin work on a documentary on
Trinidadian/Canadian novelist, Harold Ladoo.
He researched and filmed interviews with Ladoo's family and colleagues. A second trip to Canada took place in March 2003 to meet with Canadian
novelist Peter Such who will be in Toronto then. Such was one of Ladoo's
closest friends and was instrumental in opening doors for this young
Trinidadian to carve his space in the Canadian literary world – see
Such's essay The Short Life and Sudden Death of Harold Ladoo. Filming in Trinidad of Harold's primary school
teacher, school friend, sister and sister in law has been done.
What has to be done now is the
most creatively challenging part, selecting extracts from the writing,
scripting and shooting visualisations of those extracts and composing all these
parts into the documentary.
See an article, The Uncompromising Eye, associated with the trip and published in the
Trinidad & Tobago Revue.
Awards - July 2002
NDATT Vanguard
Award for Banyan
The national Drama Association of Trinidad &
Tobago has awarded Banyan their Vanguard Award as part of their annual Cacique
Awards to the Theatre Fraternity. The award was made to Banyan in the name of
its principals, Christopher
Laird. Bruce Paddington and Tony Hall:
For their
innovative, ground-breaking television programming, which introduced a number
of directors, actors and designers to, and through, the medium of totally local
film and video productions. Their brand of ingenuity has served to redefine the
way we see ourselves and our region.
Banyan
in the Guyanese rainforest with the Waiwai
March 2002 saw Christopher Laird of
Banyan working with filmmaker and cultural activist Michel Gilkes filming a
visit Michael organised to the Waiwai village of Masakeňari in Guyana with Guyanese concert pianist and music
professor, Ray Luck, and piano technician Remington Ally to join the Waiwai's in a concert of music and song.
This was part of a
larger project, called The Music of El Dorado, Michael is producing examining the place of the
interior and its indigenous population in Guyanese society.
Two years ago a self
styled British explorer, and eco-tour operator, Colonel Blashford Snell seeking
to satisfy the Waiwai's desire for a keyboard, transported a grand piano (by
air, canoe and dragging on a sled through the forest) to the village and had
the whole gesture filmed by the BBC to produce a film called The Mission which portrayed the intrepid Colonel on his
'jolly jape'. Since then, the piano has lain relatively unused and
deteriorating in a corner of the village church.
Michael hoped that
by the combined efforts of Guyanese piano technician to recondition the piano
and teach villagers simple maintenance and the skills of Ray Luck as player and
educator that the musical talent of the Waiwai's would be augmented by the
piano and in that way the piano would be 'indigenised'.
While Michael works on the larger
project Christopher Laird worked with Michael to construct a 25 minute film
around the rainforest experience, called Concert in the Rainforest the film explores
with very few words, the questions of tradition and the passing on of tradition
as well as documenting the tremendous chemistry resulting from Ray Luck's interaction with the people of Masakeňari Concert in the Rainforest has the distinction
of being Banyan's first film in stereo. Sound
engineer, Robin Foster, ensured the purest
stereo recordings of Ray Luck's piano and the music of the Waiwai warmed by the
faint breath of the gas lanterns during the concert and the magical atmosphere
of the intricately thatched church.
The Children of Masakeňari join in the singing
|
Boscoe Holder |
James Isaiah Boodhoo |
Black Stalin |
Colin Laird |
Front gallery is a programme of recording
the lives and work of major Caribbean cultural figures. This project, in
collaboration with Caribbean
Contemporary Arts is a major archiving
project which will generate material which will not only be housed in the
Caribbean Motion Picture Archive but also with the artists involved, The
National Library and the Interamericas Foundation in New York which is
providing funding for this exercise along with the Ford Foundation. Seventeen
long interviews have already been videotaped in Trinidad. Transcriptions of the interviews are in progress - an extract
of one of the interviews is posted as this month's
archive extract. The project continues with other personalities in other parts of the
Caribbean and resident in the diaspora.
|
Sterling Betancourt |
Anthony Williams |
Carlisle Chang |
Gimistory
_
The Cast of Gimistory
Banyan documented the Gimistory
storytelling festival in the Cayman Islands in November 2000 and 2001. Hosted
by the National Cayman Cultural Foundation,
each night for some ten nights the cast which included tellers from Barbados,
Jamaica, Trinidad_ Tobago, Guyana, Ireland, US and Australia as well as the
Caymans perform in an open yard in a different community in the islands.
Besides documenting the performances, Banyan took the opportunity to talk in
depth with the trailblazers of telling in the Caribbean, Ken Corsbie, Marc
Matthews and Henry Muttoo. A two hour show based on the stories in the festival
is now available and a short documentary on the festival and the art of
storytelling in the region is in progress. Banyan is presently also in the
process of experimenting in the production of a DVD version.
Ken
Corsbie telling his Singing in the
Rain 
Banyan continues to work towards a
document on the Dem
Two/ All Ah We phenomenon of the 70s when Ken and
Marc and others showed us all what was possible with our literature and our
oral traditions.
After some thirty years developing this project Banyan's plans to
produce a feature film based on No
Pain Like This Body a novel by Trinidadian/Canadian author,
the late Harold Sonny Ladoo have stalled for
lack of finance. Development of the project continues as we search for partners
and resources to actualise this project.
We keep at it and it will happen. The script is available online.
Some
other projects still trying to attract distribution/funding whatever to get
them out of the pilot stage and into production
Banyan's Uprising Series
A series of six short dramas focusing on the
choices open to young people living in the Caribbean. At least one film from
each of the language areas of the region directed by different directors and
shot on film. The pilot film, Entry Denied, by Jamaican director,
Chris Browne is now complete. Banyan will be working with the pilot film (shot
on 16mm but edited on BetacamSP) and a short-list of some ten treatments for
other films in the series to raise finance and interest in the production of
the series.
Entry
Denied tells the tale of a young Jamaican from the ghettos of Kingston who,
having been awarded a soccer scholarship for Florida University has his US
Visa denied.
Walk Like a Dragon
Banyan has been working with Pan Trinbago (the Steelband Association
of Trinidad & Tobago) for the past three years developing the script for a
full length feature drama with the history of the steelband as its background.
A video pilot based on a script written by Tony Hall and
directed and produced by Tony Hall and Christopher Laird is now complete along
with a detailed outline screenplay and treatment. The process of raising
finance and obtaining commitments from television stations and distributors
continues.
|
|
|
Banyan's Home page This Month's Archive
Extract |
Banyan
Limited, 3 Adam Smith Square, Woodbrook, Port of
Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, The Caribbean
Voice: (868) 681 0175 Fax: (868)
622 4601 E-mail: banyan@pancaribbean.com