We expected around 30 at 1200, and got 20 at half past. The McDonnald's management had, of course, been tipped off and spent minutes glaring out of the top floor window at us as we assembled. For some reason, they immidiately stopped when I filmed them doing it.
The masterplan of protest was to conga through McDs, handing out leaflets and playing drums, then stand outside leafletting and drumming until the nice men in blue moved us on. And my alloted task was to film the whole thing.
Most of the public were receptive in that they actually read the leaflets - sometimes while tucking to their cheeseburgers - instead of throwing them away. A dozen or so stopped to discuss the issues.
As regards hostile public comments, there were two. One was "They need to get out more", said of 20 young people dancing in the street to conga drums. The other was "Lowlife", shouted several times from a man who felt the need to square up for a fight he would obviously lose when he found his eloquence was being filmed.
The police took their sweet time (about 40 minutes) arriving, and when they did there was the traditional combination of buzzcut belligerent threatening to confiscate and arrest, friendly bobby who essentially said "It's find but don't harrangue anyone", and token silent WPC hiding in the background.
We retired to the pub, where I filmed some interviews with participants.
I was pretty nervous before the event, and afterwards the stomatological lepidoptera returned, but during was fine.
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Apparantly I have a voice like Orson Wells at the moment (though with more sniffs). So it's almost a pity I won't have it by the time I do any voiceovers for the edited footage.
I want to get the committments of political filmmaking, ebay selling, and forum organisation out of the way as quickly as possible over the next day or two (or three), and get back to music, after much deferrment.
The portable 8-track has lain almost unused since I shelled out for it what seems like months ago. My main computer has been mainly occupied recording and encoding TV shows - 7 hours sheduled recording today.
Tonight will be spent in the loquacious company of Paul T, working on the instrumental christmas album.
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So where is the link to a downloadable version of the leaflet?
ReplyDeletestomatological lepidoptera - Heh! A good one for Arbeit aviodance, especially with a slightly bemused boss.