Cherwell: Can you tell the readers a little bit about who you are and what you do?

My name is Mark Norfolk and I’m a filmmaker living in London. I also write drama for the stage, radio and screen. I initially studied drama and was an actor for a few years. However I was out of work, resting, as most actors are so I got a part time job at a local newspaper as a junior journalist. And thus began a writing career…writing about old ladies’ cats stuck in trees and errant tortoises. I did once get a scoop though. It was an exclusive photograph of Sarah Ferguson before she married Prince Andrew. That was also the time that I learnt ‘Lesson No. 1: Ambition can be a killer’. Especially in the cutthroat world of the media. Survival first.

So I was sent to see if I could get a photograph of ‘Fergie’. After waiting two hours I managed to grab the shot. I called the staff photographer and told him I got the shot and he came to get it. I handed him the undeveloped film (it was all film in those days) and he said he would develop it immediately as the editor was holding the front page. It was all very exciting, my first front page. However, when the newspaper came out that evening somehow I found my by-line shared between myself and the staff photographer, who at the time I was taking the photograph was at least ten miles away. Incidentally, he was soon off from this little local newspaper to the grand offices of the London Evening Standard.

Cherwell: Could you briefly explain the plot of your new film, ‘Ham and the Piper’, and perhaps explain how the project came about?

‘Ham & The Piper’ is a love story about an elderly man who discovers his wife is dying. In his moment of grief he finds himself battling with his own conscience about the frailties of long term marriage. Although he loves his wife dearly, as far as he’s concerned he has given up much of his life investing in the marriage and losing her now would mean he has nothing more to live for. His psychosis is such that he begins to question the role society has played in forcing him to abandon his youthful dreams and ambitions in order to get married. So he decides to take revenge against the society whom he blames for his weakness.

The project came about in very strange circumstances. I was writing a script for a futuristic political fantasy feature film which I’m very excited about. But then one day everything changed. For the last four years I have been a writer in residence in a prison. During my time there I found it to be full of interesting characters – and I’m not just talking about the prisoners. One day after I’d finished teaching a class of inmates I got talking to a student who told me he was now going back to the war. He certainly wasn’t a soldier (unless he was a street soldier) so I asked him what he meant and he went on to explain that when the cell door bangs shut behind you, it’s just you and your mind in a battle for the next twelve hours or so. This set me off thinking about the human mind and how well it sits within itself and how it copes under stress.

Cherwell: How did you get into film directing?

As a young actor I was always particularly interested in how shows and projects were put together. I saw that the director had a vision which he or she tried to achieve. I found that this was a brave and yet scary position to be in. If it works, everybody loves you. But if it doesn’t work, for whatever reason, the director cops the blame. No one talks about the lack of money or the limited choice in casting or the dodgy venue – it’s the director’s fault. That aside, I was fascinated by the creation of ‘the show’, not that I ever thought I would be directing films – I couldn’t even get work as an actor. Back in those days, black actors were only hired if the part called for a black person. So you’d get an audition and find yourself lined up alongside the cream of the black acting community. Can you imagine going up for a one liner in a TV soap and you find yourself next in line after Denzel Washington? Well, that was it then. I’m not sure how much things have changed, though I’m positive it has in many ways.

Anyway, one day my journalism skills saw me get offered an afternoon’s work at a Sports News Agency when a reporter missed his flight back from vacation. To cut a long story short, one afternoon for £30 turned into 6 years as a freelance sports reporter. I eventually left the company to go back to acting (once an actor always an actor), taking a massive wage reduction too, but the writing continued. I had been attending a few video production courses mostly for access to the equipment. And here’s where I learnt ‘Lesson No.2: Beware of the green-eyed monster’.

Not long after completing a course at Super 8 Film I went to work on a BBC documentary series as a production assistant. I had started off on travel expenses only but by the end of the shoot I was an Assistant Producer and was then headhunted to work as a Researcher on a ‘Dispatches’ documentary. The documentary led to me writing my first screenplay and being short listed and nominated for a couple of screenplay awards. It was at one of these awards events at BAFTA that I learnt my next lesson when a Scottish writer who used to write for Billy Connolly asked me ‘Are you serious about this business?’ Well, of course I am. ‘Do you want me to pat you on the back and tell you how good you are? Or do you want me to tell you the truth?’ I candidly asked for the truth and his reply was, ‘Your screenplay was easily the best one there (out of 12 others in the final) but it won’t win. It’ll never get made. That’s just the way it is.’ He then bought me a drink and told me ‘Your first big screenplay is a ‘show script’. It’ll get you through the door. Use it to get other commissions.’ With that he went off on his merry way. Of course, true to form, my screenplay didn’t win, didn’t even come in the money places (1st, 2nd or 3rd). I slunk into a corner to drown my sorrows in the pint the Scottish writer had bought me. ‘Lesson No. 3:Life isn’t fair. Neither is the movie business’. I stuffed my face on canapés and got thoroughly pissed on free wine. Within three months I was at film school in Cardiff studying Independent and avant-garde film.

Cherwell: What films and film directors have been the biggest influences on you? Do you have any current favourites?

I suppose one is influenced by a number of things, not just films and filmmakers but stories, art and politics. I began watching foreign films, when growing up Russian, Czech, French, Japanese, Indian. What I noticed for the most part, particularly amongst the European films was their adherence to the art of film rather than pure narrative. Then when I entered film school I discovered that one of my fellow students also lectured in Czech cinema and collected early Eastern European film. We talked long and hard about film and debated the whys and wherefores of narrative structure… the discontinuous non-narrative feature film.

The movies that always remained emblazoned across my brain locker were the epics, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, ‘Doctor Zhivago’, ‘Once Upon a Time in The West’ and edgy suggestive films such as ‘Black Narcissus’ and ‘Peeping Tom’. My favourite director though is David Lean. He is often seen as over-elaborate but was a genuine director with a vision. He would attempt to film classic books and as far as I’m concerned he’s been the greatest ever British director. The man was an artist and was able to get as close to popular imagination as anyone with films such as ‘Great Expectations’, ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Madeleine’, ‘Ryan’s Daughter’, ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ – I could go on. I also like Guy Ritchie who gets a very bad press but is actually a much better director than he gets credit for.

Cherwell: Do you or would you ever direct someone else’s script?

Of course. As an arthouse filmmaker, producers tend to be afraid of you. They think you don’t or won’t understand mainstream sensibilities so they are reluctant to approach you with projects. A few years ago I was up for a couple of movie projects, one in particular I got really close. There were three producers, two British and one German. The Germans were putting up most of the finance. They’d all seen a short film I’d made and called me in. I had a few meetings but I noticed that the German producer wouldn’t speak to me at all, just stared and barely nodded his head. Here’s ‘Lesson No. 4: Trust your instincts’.

It turned out said German producer had a German director up his sleeve so I was off the picture. I went to see the movie when it came out. I have to say it was brilliantly done, a very good film – though I would’ve done it better (I would say that). No really, in terms of directing actors’ performance I will blow my own trumpet.

Cherwell: Do you think that independent films are in general more interesting than mainstream Hollywood fare?

One would expect an Indie filmmaker to say, ‘Hell, yeah.’ But in all truth that’s not the case. Most films are made independently and most of them are quite frankly awful – I think there were over four hundred films made in the UK last year, and we can thank our cotton socks that we never got to see them. The Hollywood fare, or what we consider to be Hollywood fare, is generally exceedingly well done. The studios make films that cinema-goers are going to pay to see; that means stars, explosions, car chases, CGI, gloss, extraordinary production value. The CGI effects in ‘Transformers’ were out of this world, the sound quality was second to none, the look of the film on the big screen just tells you you are at an event. Hollywood is a brilliant model of people power. Yes, I said people power because the studios adapt to what the people want to see and thus they will spend millions of dollars delivering it so they can make even more money.

Cherwell: Has the internet helped you to gain a larger audience than you might otherwise have?

If you asked me this six months ago I would have said no. However in the last few weeks I’ve had people contact me from different parts of the world asking me for news of my next project or wanting to screen something of mine – weird. In all honesty though, I believe the internet in practice is not all it’s cracked up to be in the entertainment stakes. It’s great for buying your weekly shopping or some badly made electronic goods or paying bills, but when it comes to media it’s all about the sound bite. There are people who watch films on the computer screen, but they aren’t seeing what the filmmaker intended. They’re seeing a squashed down apparition of the work. If you watch a download for instance (so you can tell your mates you saw that latest blockbuster) then go and watch it in the cinema you will find that you are watching an entirely different film. The experience is different, the little things in the corner of your 17″ laptop screen are actually props that the production designer searched all over the county of Waco to ideally place in order to enhance the visual aesthetic of the mise en scene. The internet can be reduced to ‘Change’, Obama’s election slogan. Two years later, nothing’s changed but the ‘internet believer’ generation bought it.

Cherwell: Is British independent filmmaking in good shape right now? Will the closure of the UK Film Council make things noticeably more difficult?

British independent filmmaking, for all its ills, has been doing okay. With the industry as it is currently, filmmakers such as myself can go out and try to seed projects and get them produced. It’s still hard but when you have an industry you can ride alongside it and feed off the crumbs. However this was all thrown into jeopardy when the so-called coalition unilaterally decided to kill the UK Film Council. It’s a bad decision. Okay, the entity might have needed trimming and decentralising but to announce abolishing it as a direct policy is tantamount to a coup d’etat. Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for the UKFC. They have never been a friend to me. I have been working in the film business for the best part of the whole time they have been in existence and being one of only a handful of black film directors, I’ve never had a meeting.

What I see happening in the future is a new body being set up. But in the meantime, while the politicians are pissing about, the Goose that lay the golden egg will die. It will take ten years for the golden egg to hatch before we get to the stage where we are now. The UKFC’s demise is a poor decision less based on financial matters than political ones. That said, I recognise that they have done a phenomenal job here in the UK and abroad; let’s not forget that their tentacles reach across the globe.

Cherwell: What have you got planned next?

Next up for me is a psychological thriller set in Norway. I am currently writing the script and meeting with Norwegian co-producers. At the same time I’m still developing my futuristic political fantasy thriller.

I had been curious about hearing Bombay Bicycle Club’s second album, ‘Flaws’. Last year’s debut had been satisfying enough but rather top-heavy, propelled by the success of promising singles ‘Evening/Morning’, ‘Dust on the Ground’ and ‘Always Like This’. BBC’s presence on the British Indie scene has been under scrutiny ever since the band won the poisoned chalice of Channel 4’s ‘Road to V’ competition four years ago; with the inevitable media hype surrounding such an achievement, it was often forgotten that BBC had two more years of school left before they could concentrate full-time on their music.

‘Flaws’ is a charming album, showcasing not only BBC’s developing talent for songwriting, but providing an insight into their more folksy influences; marketed as an interim acoustic album, but not at the expense of quality. Jack Steadman’s gently lilting voice sounds just as at home on opening track ‘Rinse Me Down’ as on any electrified number from ‘I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose’. ‘Many Ways’ is self-deprecating bluegrass with Steadman the vulnerable, indecisive youth on whom the burden of an undisclosed, unsavoury choice weighs heavy. ‘Dust on the Ground’ is dusted down from ‘I Had the Blues’ and given a more mellifluous mix, before golden track ‘Ivy & Gold’ twinkles light-heartedly by – though lyrically rather pedestrian, a sultry summer sing-along nonetheless.

The unhurried and beautiful guitar-picking on ‘Leaving Blues’ is a perfect opportunity to hear Steadman’s trademark vibrato. It is followed by a cover of the opening track to John Martyn’s 1968 debut, ‘Fairytale Lullaby’, whose saccharine tone (riding a rainbow, sugar fish, catching a star) is soon undercut by the falling cadence of ‘Word by Word’ and the descent back into brooding self-contempt on ‘Jewel’: ‘Our love was just one of your old discarded jewels / You think of its price and oh you feel a fool’. Indeed, the mood of the second half of the album seems to mimic teenage depression and despair, as Steadman rounds on a loved one in ‘My God’. The tone is accusatory, the guitar insistent and cloistering; most disdainful of all are the vocals, retreating into inward reflection, Steadman muttering ‘My God’ to himself as the track fades out.

The album ends on strangely unmemorable title track ‘Flaws’ and a Joanna Newsom cover, ‘Swansea’, which though experimental is slightly half-arsed, choosing only the first two verses and neglecting Newsom’s ever more surreal lyrics of rows of bungalows distending ‘like endless toads’. Despite that, BBC’s second full-length is still a quietly alluring piece, showing in parts the enticing turn of phrase and compositional magnetism that had Laura Marling nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize. Maybe now would be a more appropriate time to show Bombay Bicycle Club some of the hype that was so superfluous four years ago.

Regular clubbers and concertgoers will be familiar with the ringing and temporary deafness that follows a particularly loud night. But while subjecting ourselves to the occasional Metallica gig isn’t likely to cause lasting damage, many of us put our ears at risk on a daily basis.

An explosion in the sales of digital music players over the past few years has left a set of headphones dangling out of almost every pocket. The privacy afforded by these miniature speakers, combined with the portability and massive memory capacity of today’s MP3 players, offers us the ability to listen to what we want, when we want. Gone are the days of bulky shoulder-mounted boomboxes. Instead, we can walk down the street cocooned in a bubble of cheesy 80s pop, sheltered from the judgment of passers-by.

Unfortunately, all bubbles eventually burst, and the ascent of the humble headphone has not come without the inevitable health risks. The World Health Organisation advises headphone users not to listen at a volume of over 85 decibels (dB) – as loud as a two-stroke chainsaw being operated at a distance of ten metres – for more than an hour, and warns that those who do run the risk of damaging their hearing.

Unsurprisingly, the public don’t appear to be following this advice; statistics from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People suggest that a whopping two thirds of users listen to music above this level. But it isn’t merely out of a predilection for the sound of chainsaws that listeners subject their ears to such volumes. The earphones shipped with today’s music players are typically cheap and poorly designed, with little or no noise-cancelling capacity. As a result, users have to crank up the volume in order to drown out ambient noise. Specialist in-ear monitors and headphones that physically cover the ear can reduce this noise, but they tend to be prohibitively expensive.

The ability to strap ten thousand songs to your upper arm has also made the MP3 player an appealing accessory for the fitness-focused. Not only can it provide motivation through repeated plays of “Eye of the Tiger”, but it is also an effective remedy for the incommunicable boredom that sets in after the first hundred yards of a fifteen-mile run. It’s often tempting to turn up the music when exercising, but this in fact when your ears are at their most vulnerable. Blood is diverted from the ears to the limbs and other parts of the body, leaving the cells in the inner ear unprotected and more susceptible to damage from loud noises.

Wearing headphones while you’re out and about also poses an indirect health risk. Having sealed yourself off from the world, you’re less aware of your surrounding environment, and even wrapping yourself in a blanket of Johnny Cash’s dulcet tones won’t protect you from traffic or potential assailants. In June this year an Australian cyclist escaped with minor injuries after being hit by a tram, and in 2008 a Canadian student was killed when a helicopter crashed on top of him as he walked to the post box. Both had been listening to music through headphones and failed to notice the approaching vehicles.

It’s fair to say that headphones have given listeners a remarkable freedom. But unless we start changing our listening habits, we might not be able to enjoy that freedom for much longer. And in the meantime, keep an eye out for helicopters.

For further information on the dangers posed by headphones, consult the following pages:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/beauty-hygiene/how-to-care-for-your-ears1.htm

http://www.helium.com/items/82464-the-risks-of-running-with-headphones

Tucked between the great god Glastonbury and the mock-hippy island sanctuary of Bestival on this year’s British festival circuit, WOMAD’s world music experience – featuring “no clue who anyone is on this lineup” – is easy to overlook. But mainstream pop festivals and their big name listings are overrated. Where’s the fun in having to endure a set of Rascal’s overly commercialised recent output, when all you really want to hear is some Boy In Da Corner gold dust from 2003? It often seems that we festival-goers are just there for the name and not the music.

But WOMAD doesn’t try to quench your thirst for chart toppers or Mercury Prize winners – and that’s precisely its forte. Stroll around the “World of Wellbeing”, pass by the woodland BBC Radio 3 Stage, investigate the small marquees in the main arena; soon you don’t care about who’s playing, but what they’re playing. All you have to do is listen… and appreciate.

The fact that a few weeks ago not a single guitar based band featured in the UK Top 10 – a first in chart history – just goes to show the extent of the digitised music invasion. Recording (and maybe even playing) “live” is now faux pas Ga Ga. In this musical climate of digitally manufactured melodies that are squeezed through beat-mapping software and neatly packaged into mere three-minute soundbites, it comes as a relief to hear something a little rawer and unconstrained.

Thankfully, WOMAD delivers on this promise with acts such as Orchestre National de Barbès, from Paris. Cheerfully mixing ska, chanson, and north African music with a treatment of La Marseillaise, the Orchestre asserts its vision of a multicultural France. Also “representing” are the female duo Nouvelle Vague, who provide alternative cabaret adaptations of punk-rock classics, including a amusing acoustic rendition of “God Save The Queen”.

There were, however, some grand failures on the “original” music front. The Bays’ collaboration with Heritage Orchestra, John Metcalfe and Simon Hale was an attempt to fuse a classical orchestra with a band while both improvised. The gig featured two composers writing music, which was then projected on an array of music-stand-computer-screen devices by the attending orchestra. It was like a situation from Wall Street, but with the bankers bearing violins. I can’t fault the orchestra’s performance – all members seemed to be on full steam. But the accompanying band, The Bays, drowned everything out with roaring drum and bass dance rhythms, devoid of any creativity. A nice idea, but this musical stock market quickly descended into a state of liquidation.

But with every failure there was a surprise gem round the corner. The highlight of this year’s festival was far and away the Congolese group Staff Benda Bilili, a band formed by musicians who have suffered from polio. With one on crutches, and four rocking up on wheelchairs, they delivered one of the most inspiring performances of the festival. They later teamed up with a group of street kids, one of whom had fashioned his own instrument out an old milk-powder can and a strand of electrical wire. This blend of Congolese rumba, funk and R&B paired energy with sensitivity.

The size of the names on the bill is also matched by the size of the site itself. The fact that the main stage is only the modest West Holts Stage from Glasto’ gives some perspective on this. Neither does WOMAD have much to offer those late-night basshunter bandits who feast on sub woofers and paralytic light shows. Most of the tents pack up shop by midnight with only the odd hypnotic drumming workshop pounding on into the early hours. An early night every night? Yes. But at least you’re lulled to sleep by the sounds of a Mongolian throat-singing finale.