'Show Pieces' - Film / Book / Soundtrack
THE BOX SET
Contents:
- Five short films: 90 minutes of films on DVD in PAL/NTSC format
- The book: storyboard illustrations by Kristian Hammerstad and the original screenplay
- The soundtrack: featuring the original soundtrack to the films
PRICE & SHIPPING
Price includes shipping: standard postal delivery worldwide.
THE PROJECT
Co-creators Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins have teamed with Lex to tell a story through film, a vast work of fiction called The Show. The first part of the story is told through five episodic short films - Show Pieces.
Show Pieces are the first films by Alan Moore written specifically for the screen. The development of the short films led to the creation of a book featuring the full colour storyboards, the original screenplays and tons of additional background material written by Alan Moore about the universe of The Show.
Set in the town of Northampton, UK, Show Pieces is an occult noir thriller starring Siobhan Hewlett, Darrell D'Silva and Andrew Buckley. Alan Moore also appears playing a small but important part in the story.
THE FILMS
The films were shot largely on location in Northampton between November 2011 and January 2014. Watch director Mitch and writer Alan explain the genesis of The Show in this excellent interview with Mind's Eye from March 2013.
Show Piece's five short films work as episodes, most running chronologically, a couple overlapping.
Alan wrote these descriptions of the films:
Act Of Faith: Faith Harrington, a young female reporter on a local newspaper who has an exotic private life, prepares for a stimulating evening at home that doesn’t go according to plan. Watch the trailer.
Upon Reflection: Details Faith Harrington’s first bewildered arrival at the peculiar working men’s club immediately after the event that concludes Act of Faith, all captured in a fixed security mirror above a club’s oddly anachronistic lounge bar.
Jimmy’s End: Louche and hard-drinking womaniser James Mitchum finds himself wandering into one strange bar too many. Watch the trailer.
A Professional Relationship: Explores the peculiar relationship between the club’s two managers.
His Heavy Heart: Picks up the narrative of the hapless James Mitchum from a point following his dreadful realization at the conclusion of Jimmy’s End. In a grotesque parody of Egyptian funerary rites, James is shepherded less than gently into his unenviable afterlife.
THE SOUNDTRACK
The hour long soundtrack features songs from all five films. Alan wrote original lyrics for all the songs in the films. The lyrics were set to music by Adam Drucker and Andrew Broder working as Crook & Flail. They roped in a cast of vocalists including Tunde Adebimpe (TV On The Radio), Alan Sparhawk (Low) and Nona Invie (Dark Dark Dark) to sing the lead parts.
In the films the performers and the songs have their own backstories. They're all jukebox favourites in the Working Men's Club where it's always 1973 and hits like The Millers - 'In The Past Again', Sal Roth - 'Television Heart', Vince Shannon and The Black Notes - 'Queen of Midnight' and 'Dreamland'.