bootlab e.v.
gerichtstr 65
13347 berlin/germany
bootlab at bootlab dot org
mission -->
events -->
projects -->
members -->
2008 -->
2007 -->
2006 -->
2005 -->
2004 -->
2003 -->
2002 -->
2001 -->
2000 -->
>>43characters >> -->
"north avenue club" -->
gemeinsam utube gucken (test event) -->
nerd-prostitution -->
speaking books -->
the oil of the 21st century -->
screenings -->
open source tools in design education -->
radio bar -->
radiobar -->
amerikanische botschaft -->
in absentia -->
pirate cinema -->
reboot.fm -->
bar im radio -->
attachment -->
copy cultures -->
bootlab raum 3 -->
kino raum 3 -->
real -->
last tuesday -->
This project has been funded with support
from the European Commision.
The White Room
The Motion Picture by Bill Drummond, Jimmy Cauty and Bill Butt
Copyright 1990 KLF Communications
45 minutes
682766874 bytes
The FAQ: www.piratecinema.org/the_klf/the_faq.txt
The Script: www.piratecinema.org/the_klf/the_white_room.txt
Not the Script: www.piratecinema.org/the_klf/this_is_not_the_white_room.txt
The Soundtrack: www.piratecinema.org/the_klf/the_white_room.zip
The Manual: www.piratecinema.org/the_klf/the_manual.txt
Sonntag, 14. August 2005, 21:00 Uhr
Pirate Cinema Berlin
Ziegelstrasse 20
S Oranienburger Strasse, U Oranienburger Tor
free entry, cheap drinks, bring a few blank CDs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The KLF (a.k.a. The Kopyright Liberation Front a.k.a. The Justified Ancients of
Mu Mu a.k.a. The Timelords a.k.a. The K Foundation a.k.a. The Forever Ancients
Liberation Loophole) sind natürlich sowas wie die Mutter aller Pirate Cinemas -
und insofern ist es eigentlich merkwürdig, dass wir ihnen noch nie einen eigenen
Abend gewidmet haben. Seit ein paar Stunden ist nun aber The White Room - was
der mit Abstand seltenste Film sein dürfte, den wir je gezeigt haben: angeblich
ist er bisher erst ein einziges Mal in der Öffentlichkeit gelaufen, und zwar
hauptsächlich vor Schafen - der wochenlang bei 99.5% hing, fertig runtergeladen,
so dass unserem lange überfälligen KLF-Special nichts mehr im Wege steht.
The White Room - besondere Beachtung verdient das Script, von dem allerdings so
gut wie nichts im Film vorkommt - ist nicht das einzige cinematographische Werk,
das The KLF hinterlassen haben, und so werden wir vor und nach dem Hauptfilm, je
nach Downloadgeschwindigkeit in den kommenden Tagen, neben den Musikvideos (What
Time Is Love, America What Time Is Love, 3am Eternal, Last Train To Trancentral,
Doctorin' The Tardis, Kylie Said To Jason usw.) noch ein paar andere Files (z.B.
Chill Out.mpg, StadiumHouseVHSrip.avi und this_is_not_what_the_klf_is_about.mpg)
abspielen. Schliesslich gibt es auch noch einen TV-Spot, den wir aus den Stills,
die glücklicherweise überliefert sind, zu rekonstruieren versuchen werden.
Und weil uns gerade fast die Augen rausgefallen sind, als wir gelesen haben
(www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/0,1518,369253,00.html), dass Sin City - der Film,
den wir am 10. April gezeigt haben und der am 26. Mai in Deutschland in die
Kinos kommen sollte, der dann aber wegen des gleichzeitigen Starts von Star Wars
auf den 11. August verschoben wurde (!) - jetzt immer noch nicht anläuft, und
zwar diesmal, weil das bereits bevorstehende DVD-Weihnachtsgeschäft einen
Kinostart angeblich nicht mehr rentabel macht (!!), zeigen wir im Anschluss, zur
Feier dessen, was man im Englischen "the movie industry is shooting itself in
the foot" nennt, zum definitiv letzten Mal Sin City - mit weniger Frames pro
Sekunde als im Original (was auch immer in diesem Fall "Original" heisst...),
dafür aber, statt mit Tonspur, mit noch besserem KLF-Soundtrack als bisher.
Was folgt, stammt aus dem ausgezeichneten (oben verlinkten) KLF FAQ von 1997,
dessen Komplettlektüre wir in Vorbereitung auf das Screening sehr empfehlen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.003: What is the White Room motion picture? Has it ever been shown?
Is it finished?
Its a 50 minute ambient road movie with footage of Drummond and Cauty
setting off from Trancentral on a quest to find the White Room, driving
through London and Spain, to a soundtrack of pop-trance. It has been shown
in public only once. The full story is rather interesting:
As mentioned in 1.023, the KLF received weird mail from Illuminatus! fans
after calling themselves the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. Much of the mail
was from obvious cranks and crackpots, but then in mid 1988, they received a
very weird letter: a legal contract. The contract was with an organisation
or individual calling themselves "Eternity". The wording of this contract
was that of standard music business legal speak, but the terms discussed and
the rights required and granted were of a far stranger kind. Whether The
Contract was a very clever and intricate prank by a legal minded JAMS fan
was of little concern to Drummond and Cauty. For them it was as good a
marker as anything as to what direction their free style career should take
next.
Their solicitor (David Franks, played by himself in the film) advised that
they should not put their names to legally binding agreements without first
understanding all of the implications of doing so. He advised them not to
sign the Contract. The KLF of course ignored him and signed the contract.
In the first term of The Contract they, Drummond and Cauty, were required to
make an artistic representation of themselves on a journey to a place called
THE WHITE ROOM. The medium they chose to make this representation was up to
them. Where or what THE WHITE ROOM was, was never clearly
defined. Interpretation was left to their own creativity. The remuneration
they are to receive on completion of this work of art was supposed to be
access to THE "real" WHITE ROOM. Your guess is as good as
anybody's. Initially Drummond and Cauty planned to stage a art exhibition
where the journey and arrival at THE WHITE ROOM would be represented on
canvas and exhibited; but driving down the Marylebone Road on a wet
September afternoon in 1988 in their infamous U.S. Cop car, Cauty suggested,
instead of doing the art exhibition they should make a film. The making of a
"Road Movie" had always figured in their vague plans for the future. With
money coming in from all over the place for their Timelords record maybe now
was the time. Or at least they thought so.
They contacted their friend and associate, the film director, Bill Butt and
made plans. Six weeks later they were filming in the Sierra Nevada region of
Spain, with a top class international crew (who had just finished working on
an Indiana Jones film). But things started to go wrong immediately. The
weather, guaranteed to be blue skies of epic proportions until well after
Christmas, was low and drizzly. Some business deals crashed, losing the
money that was earmarked to complete the film. When they viewed all of the
uncut rushes that had been shot, they knew that they had just thrown away
the best part of 250,000 ukpounds: Most of the footage was out-of-focus, or
badly filmed. Of course if you talk to anybody who tries to make a film they
will tell you of the catalogue of disasters that came between them and their
reported triumphant premier. Drummond and Cauty had no experience of
this. They just felt that the Gods were against them and got seriously
depressed. They had meetings with their accountants to assess what the
damage would be if they were to cut their losses and pull out then. Bill
Butt persuaded them to see it through.
By February 1989 when they had enough funds together for them to shoot the
interior scenes and the London location shots, David Franks had become
steadily more intrigued by all the implications of the various clauses of
The Contract. Although The Contract was between The JAMS and Eternity,
Eternity gave no address, Eternity left no room for negotiation. [Note in
'Justified and Ancient': "At 3am Eternity rang, said she knew What Time Is
Love?"]. David Franks believed he had found a get out clause. Something that
Drummond and Cauty would later call the LIBERATION LOOPHOLE. It was decided
by Bill Butt and the other two that the signing of the contract and Franks'
discovery of the LIBERATION LOOPHOLE should be dramatically reconstructed,
filmed and respectively used at the beginning and the end of the film.
The rest of the film was then shot, Drummond and Cauty recorded the
soundtrack. Bill Butt and editor Rob Wright edited the film. It was only 52
minutes' long but it was BIG SCREEN and looked good. They planned either a
proper cinema release or a club tour, with the KLF playing the soundtrack
live for the second half of 1989. The White Room soundtrack LP was to be
preceded by the release of 'Kylie Said To Jason', the video for which
included scenes from the film. Additionally many of the scenes were included
in a short promo for the film, with a soundtrack of Madrugana Eterna (club
mix), which was shown on TV. Drummond and Cauty are shown leaving
Trancentral, and driving through London, then driving through mainly desert
country. Some memorable scenes include the JAMs-mobile covered in white
dustwash, with the windscreen wipers clearing a space, Drummond combing his
hair before sauntering down the road as if he was a traffic cop, and the
dead eagle scene: Drummond had come across a beautiful but decomposing eagle
at the side of the road, which nobody else would go near, as it
stank. Drummond insisted on being filmed with it as he strode down a one
track rail line, the significance of this at the time could not be
argued. Finally the wheels of the JAMs-mobile stop in a snow drift, and the
KLF climb upwards through the snow towards a huge radar dish, wherein they
find the White Room.
'Kylie' was planned to be a big pop hit to promote the LP. It wasn't. The
release of the LP was pulled. The What Time Is Love Story LP became JAMS LP
4 instead. A video for the pure trance What Time Is Love is sometimes shown
on MTV. It consists of unedited footage from Sierra Nevada. Two shots of
sheep in a field bookended a 3 minute shot of the JAMs-mobile gradually
driving a couple of miles towards the camera across a barren plain. It's
extremely tedious, and getting MTV to show this can be viewed as a prank,
despite the fact they often do!. A slightly different version is also
available on an compilation tape of Indie promos, but it is VERY rare.
A combination of worries about the dramatic qualities of the film, and lack
of commercial success caused huge doubts in Drummond and Cauty's
minds. However the rapidly emerging rave and club success of their pure
trance songs took their minds off the doubts. They played their premier live
performance at the London Club HEAVEN on Monday the 31st of July. Later that
evening they met a young down and out, claiming to be called Mickey
McElwee. For the price of a meal he told them the most shit scary story the
both of them had ever heard. Later they related the story to Bill Butt. It
was agreed that it could make the basis of a plot for the film.
The finished film "should" contain both an Inner and Outer film. The Inner
film is the original one shot in late 1988 and early 1989. The Outer film
contains the dramatically reconstructed events that according to Mickey
McElwee, took place, unbeknown to Drummond and Cauty while The Inner film
was being shot. There will also be, what we will call, a Third Strand which
will consist of scenes plotting the tensions and predicaments that Drummond,
Cauty and Butt experienced while attempting to make The Inner film. All
three plots will intertwine with each other telling the one simple
story. The story of Men out of their Depth. In The Inner film Drummond and
Cauty play their alter egos KINGBOY D and ROCKMAN ROCK. In the outer film
they play themselves. Bill Butt reckoned it would cost a further $1,000,000
to finish the film. They showed the Inner film to German investors and some
sheep in Munich, (its one and only showing!), to try and persuade them to
finance the film's completion. It appears they never raised the cash as the
script was too weird. But when their pop career took off and they did make
some money, it seems as though they dropped their plans to finish the film.
A complete script is available in the ftp archive, containing the Outer,
Inner and Third strands, as well as sets/locations/stage directions and lots
of other really interesting info. URLs for it are either:
1. ftp.xmission.com /pub/lists/klf/whiteroom.scr
2. ftp://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/pub/ttl/KLF/Misc/whitroom-film.txt
and HTML, follow the link from
3. http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~ttl/KLF/Misc
An advert appeared in the NME in 1994, claiming to be copies of the whole
film, but investigation has revealed this only to be the inner film. Thus
several bootlegged copies of the inner film are around, and available from
generous list members. The quality of all known copies is pretty good,
considering they're 4th or 5th generation. Sound and visuals are quite clear
and noise and interference don't detract from the film's content too
much. There is no dialogue in this Inner Film, only the music. It is
possible to hear much of the original White Room soundtrack, for example the
original "Build a Fire" and "Go to Sleep". It is not known what happened to
the original film.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/\
/ \
/ () \
/ >< \
/________\
www.piratecinema.org
www.2+0+0+5+0+8+1+4+2+1+0+0=23.com
<-- back