For ages New Street has been an embarrassment to Birmingham, just not giving the sort of welcome that a bustling european city of culture should. Yep, ever since they started putting a new shopping centre on top, where the car park was, it’s been a nightmare. But soon, very soon, at the end of Super September, the second city will finally get the train station it deserves: one that’s overcrowded but has a John Lewis on the top.
To celebrate his arrival here, John Lewis himself has made a movie about his kind of town. It’s a town where everybody is a young professional or something much more upscale and aspirational, like a guy who runs a sandwich shop. It’s a town where everybody wants to sleep in 100% Egyptian cotton.
To thank Mr Lewis we’d like to make him a film too but just like the Evening Mail, all of our people work way outside of the city core — at an industrial estate on the Holford Drive of the imagination — and so we can’t get to New Street to capture the shots we need.
Can you help? This is the script for our film. If you are travelling through New Street today please try to capture a few five second videos of what you see, and we will edit them together tonight (hold your phone in landscape, please).
A film for John Lewis
Black
Fade up titles, using cool “indie movie” style hand-writing font, all caps”
THIS IS A FILM FOR
Fade up second line underneath
THE PEOPLE OF JOHN LEWIS
Wipe left to right into opening shot. Tracking shots of beautifully shot text-book Birmingham scenes (if we can’t get video, we’ll Ken Burns some photos — either ask Verity Milligan or grab some creative commons Elliot Brown ones from Flickr.
Strings swell beneath this (grab the Autumn is Brumming ones if we have them isolated somewhere).
Smash cut visual and sound to:
SCENE, INDOORS: the temporary concourse at New Street, it’s all gone to fucking shit. Natural sound on location, no music or sound fx. 3-5 seconds.
Smash cut to:
SCENE, INDOORS: the fucking escalators are all snarled up. Location sound — it’s just a din of horrible noise. 3-5 seconds.
Smash cut to:
SCENE, UNDERGROUND: a train is delayed, it can’t get into the station due to capacity issues. Loads of people are sitting on bags, leaning on grimy timetables on walls, standing prodding mobiles without signal. Muffled announcements, a baby cries.
Smash cut to:
SCENE, OUTDOORS: we’re by the Moor Street walkway, or by the steps out onto Hill Street. There is a fuck tonne of orange high vis jacketed foot traffic still going in and out of the building site entrance. Titles over picture:
3 DAYS TO GO! WOWBRUM!
Natural sound of absolute chaos. 3-5 seconds.
Cut to black.
Fade in strings. Run this audio, ripped from the John Lewis ad (7:15)
WOMAN:
This is a city where if you have an idea or a dream you can make it happen.
MAN (one of us will need to record this):
As long as it’s about homeware.
Strings end on a held note, then nothing. Fast fade title card, same font as before
BIG SHOP
Fade out then. Fade up title cards from earlier
THIS IS A FILM FOR
Fade up second line underneath
THE PEOPLE OF JOHN LEWIS
Fade out then, fade in
UN FILM DE HOWARD WILKINSON