James Ellroy sits reading Jack Webb’s The Badge in the Clark Gable-Carole Lombard suite of the Alexandria Hotel, downtown L.A., Fall of 1994. I’m there as factotum, Johnny-come-lately interviewer asking the “Demon Dog of American Literature” listed and off-the-cuff questions for a documentary called White Jazz. We filmed a preliminary Q&A the day before at a motel near Hollywood where Ellroy hammed it up and gave his pitch: “Woof, woof! Hear the Demon Dog bark…” While that was all good screen time, I want to now find out who’s the man behind this way-sharp, way-cool, and well-rehearsed front.

We talk books. Ellroy sez how his father Lee—once Rita Hayworth’s manager—gave him a copy of The Badge for his eleventh birthday. In among this illustrated volume of gritty true tales of LA crime and the LAPD was the “brutally, graphically sexually explicit” story of the unsolved murder of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia.  Ellroy said as a kid he got a had a hard-on for this kinda true crime story stuff. But let’s be frank: the Black Dahlia slaying was a way off-the-scale tale of torture, mutilation, and sex that has haunted Ellroy ever since.

But then I thought: wasn’t this a strange kinda book to give a kid? A kid used to the Hardy Boys, I Love Lucy, hot dogs, Westerns and Comic Capers? A kid whose mother, Geneva Hilliker, had been brutalized, strangled with her own stockings, body dumped in El Monte just one year before in 1958—a murder that was and is still unsolved. Didn’t Ellroy think this was a kinda strange book for his Dad the big schlonged Lee to give his kid—who was probably still traumatized by his Mother’s murder? Ellroy stops. He doesn’t get the question. He says he doesn’t understand me. Maybe it’s my sub-seanconnery accent. Maybe it’s my question. Maybe he’s stalling. I ask it again. He still doesn’t get it—doesn’t seem to understand or more accurately want to understand or truly want to answer the question.
 

 
The Badge is part of Ellroy’s myth—one key to understanding who he is. It also allows him to reveal what he wants to be known about himself. It deflects as much as it reveals. It’s the book that pushed his imagination towards writing crime fiction. That and every 25c crime story he could get his hands on. It was the source of his teenage obsession where he merged the murder of his Mother with that of the Black Dahlia—feeding his fantasy of saving Dahlia/Hilliker from a murderous person or persons unknown and setting the world to right. Setting the world to order is why some writers write—it allows them to create a world that is containable and suitable to their needs.
 

Director Nicola Black, camera Jerry Kelly with James Ellroy, LA 1994.
 
The documentary White Jazz was produced and directed by Nicola Black. It came about after Black had filmed Ellroy (in a cold damp Victorian prison cell off the banks of the River Clyde in Scotland) for a previous documentary on the world’s first private detective Allan Pinkerton—a drama-doc which had starred Peter Capaldi. White Jazz was made over one intense week with Ellroy in LA, October ‘94. The documentary followed the Demon Dog around the sites of his childhood, his criminal youth, and sober years as a writer. The film then opened out to follow Ellroy’s personal investigation into his Mother’s unsolved murder. For this he called in the help of an ex-County Sheriff’s Department Detective Bill Stoner. Stoner is a calm, lean, genial man, eyes twinkling, full mustache, whose quiet demeanour belies the horrors he has seen. He helped solve the Cotton Club killing, picking up a victim’s exploded, shattered teeth on a desolate hillside. Stoner takes Ellroy through Hilliker’s morgue file—the black and whites of crime scene, body, ligature marks, bruises, and autopsy report—before visiting her last known locations where seen and the suggesting possible suspects. Ellroy’s collaborative investigation with Stoner became his non-fiction book My Dark Places (1996).

This award-winning documentary is seldom seen online—though pirate copies can switch hands for mucho dinero—and it’s a moving, fascinating and revealing portrait of James Ellroy, in which he takes the viewer on a personal odyssey through his life, his work and his obsessions with the city of Los Angeles—his “smog-bound Fatherland.”

But time moves on, and Ellroy is currently selling his Hollywood Hills residence for $1.39m—if you want to take a peak at his monkish orderly abode check here. He also has a new book out LAPD ‘53, in which he illuminates 85 duotone photographs from the LAPD archive that are “representative of a day in the life of America’s most provocative police agency.”
 

 
Little Britain‘s Matt Lucas voices this darkly hilarious animation Welcome to Glaringly, in which a man visits an old friend in a sinister town with alarming consequences.

Written and directed by Grant Orchard and produced by Nicola Black, from Blackwatch Media, for Channel 4’s Mesh scheme.
 

 
I greatly admire Neil Coslett‘s award-winning animation Killing Time at Home from 2003, it’s a dark little tale that stays with you long after viewing. Originally produced by Nicola Black as part of the Mesh scheme, which Blackwatch Media ran for Channel 4 television in 2000 and 2007, producing 27 new digital animations that were shown on TV and at film festivals. It would be good to see Black kick-start a scheme like this again, and hopefully have Coslett make a follow-up to his superb wee film.
 

 
There are plenty of reasons why so many children are homeless in Ukraine. Some have been abandoned by their families. Others are victims of abuse. Whatever the reasons, each child is different, and has a unique story to tell.

There are no official statistics for the total number of children and young people living or working on the streets of Ukraine, yet various children’s charities and homeless organizations suggest the number is somewhere between 50,000 and 300,000.

Over the past 8 years, Scottish photographer David Gillanders has photographed the lives of these street children - documenting their stories of grim day-to-day existence on the streets of Odessa.

David found the children living underground, seeking warmth from central heating pipes. They were ravaged by malnutrition and addicted to drugs - nasal decongestants, which they crushed down and then injected.

“When I first started to take pictures of children living like that, I knew that I wasn’t going to change the world. But I did think something would happen - that it would improve. It didn’t.”

A photograph of one street child, Yana, won UNICEF Photograph of the Year. It captured the 13-year-old only 5 days before she froze to death on the streets.

Most of the children David has documented are now dead and his photographs are the only evidence of their tragic, short lives.

Based around his photographs,  David has made a powerful and moving short film, The Neglected for Channel 4 television. Produced by Nicola Black of Blackwatch Media, the film reveals the lives of a lost generation of children who live in desolation underneath the streets of Odessa.

UNICEF on Ukraine street children. Hope and Homes for Children in Ukraine

The Neglected will be broadcast on Channel 4, Thursday 22nd March 12 midnight.

Above photograph copyright to David Gillanders.
 

 
The idea behind Banned in the UK was that you can learn more about a country through what it bans rather than by what it permits. Made by the multi-talented producer/director Nicola Black, the series examined the who, what, whys? of bans on front line news coverage during the Falklands War, Derek and Clive, Rave Culture, football hooliganism and sexploitation, plus a host of other surprising no-nos.

This short clip is on the horror films which were either labeled Video Nasties (39 in total), or banned by the British Board of Film Classification (originally Censors until 1984), ranging from The Good: Sam Raimi’s classic The Evil Dead, Abel Ferrara’s Driller Killer,  Tenebrae. The Bad: Night of the Bloody Apes, The Living Dead of Manchester Morgue. And the Bloody Awful: SS Experiment Camp, Snuff. All of these films were considered to be a corrupting and dangerous influence, one which Conservative MP Christopher (not so) Bright claimed would “not only affect young people but I believe they affect dogs as well.”

When The Evil Dead failed to win its opening press screening in London due yo a ban, it relocated to Glasgow, where I was fortunate enough to see it. The film was a blast, and a joy to meet director Sam Raimi and his special effects man Tom Sullivan, who revealed the secrets of filming - the Dead’s hands made from Marigold gloves and glue; their entrails baked beans. Even then, it was more than apparent Raimi was an inspiring and exceptional genius, who had only great things ahead of him.

Here’s the back story of how Video Nasties nearly unhinged Britain’s youth in the 1980s. The horror, the horror…
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Nicola Black: Mesh Digital Animation

‘Mirrorball’: Chris Cunningham, Spike Jonze, Jonathan Glazer, Michel Gondry and co.

 
Mesh was a digital animation scheme that brought together a diverse range of talented, young animators, who created twenty-seven award-winning works between 2000-07. Produced by Nicola Black, in conjunction with Channel 4 and Nesta, Mesh was a neat idea, one that is typical of Black’s imaginative and uniquely original approach to program-making. 

It was also the kind of series that benefited TV, as it allowed anyone to submit an idea, script and storyboard for consideration, out of this a short list was drawn-up, from which 4 animators were chosen to develop and make their films. The scheme also involved seminars and courses, where the animators worked with established film-makers and script-writers to develop their projects.

Amongst the animators were Grant Orchard, whose Welcome to Glaringly was voiced by Little Britain’s Matt Lucas; James Merry who went onto work on Monkey Dust; Darren Price, who animated the true story of a bear who loved vodka; Yasmeen Ismail who made a simple animation about size and shape before going on to form Sweetworld and Rhumbaba: John Butler who created his clever, idiosyncratic consumerist fable; Stephen Cavalier who crafted a homage to 1950s sci-fi; and Neil Coslett, whose Killing Time at Home was used by Placebo as a back projection on their recent tour. All of have gone on to bigger and better things, but Mesh was where it all started. Here is a small selection of some of these animations.
 

 
Five bonus ‘Mesh’ animations after the jump…
 

 
Back in 1999, Channel 4 aired Mirrorball a TV series that showcased the best promo directing talent across the globe. Two series and one animation special were made, featuring the talents of Spike Jonze, Mike Mills, Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer, Jonas Akerlund and Chris Cunningham. Each program was dedicated to one director, with an interview, a selection of their work, and a specially filmed insert (from Gondry drumming to Glazer mucking around with actor Paul Kay - aka Dennis Pennis).  Mirrorball was an instant hit and has gone on to become a cult TV classic since the series was cancelled in 2001.

Inspired by Edinburgh Film Festival’s Mirrorball screenings, the offshoot TV series was a collaboration between the Festival’s David Smith and Blackwatch Media, under producer and director, Nicola Black. As Black explained to Dangerous Minds:

“It was a fantastic opportunity to bring together groundbreaking directors and treat their work seriously, for the first time. We wanted to reveal the process behind these incredible pieces of work, which used cutting edge technology and post production techniques to achieve startling and unforgettable visuals to tell brilliant stories.  You have to remember, this was way before any of these directors had made their names in movies.

Black started out as an intern working with Derek Jarman, before moving on to directing and producing. She set up her company in 1995, making an internationally acclaimed documentary on crime writer James Ellroy’s search for his Mother’s murderer. Since then, Black has made a variety of award-winning shows, animations and “hard-hitting” documentaries, and started the trend in “shock docs” with Designer Vaginas.

“Mirrorball was a great series to make, not only in terms of the breadth of creative work shown, but also by the fact it gave insight into the early works of film-makers like Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek, who went on to make One Hour Photo, Michel Gondry, who made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Jonathan Glazer, who directed the brilliant Sexy Beast.”

There were many great highlights to choose from the Mirrorball series (including Jonze’s superb short film How They Got There, Gondry’s genius work with Massive Attack & Daft Punk, Glazer’s collaborations with Radiohead, Akerlund’s Smack My Bitch Up and Mills promos for Air),  but we’ve gone for a selection from Chris Cunningham’s work, whose promos for Aphex Twin (aka genius Richard David James) are amongst some of the most original and disturbing ever made. Enjoy!
 

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Bonus clips of Mirrorball after the jump…