The awkward kiss (the film)

Here is a film I made for AFTRS called the awkward kiss. I adapted the screenplay from the short story I wrote in an earlier post. . . . enjoy.


The Awkward Kiss from Tom Rohr on Vimeo.

Shooting Rohr

Below is a film I made.

Shooting Rohr from Tom Rohr on Vimeo.

Fat Boy Slim is always fucking in heaven

A couple of months ago now, I had the pleasure of working up at this festival called Rock Ness. It's an incredible setting on a field leading down to Loch Ness there were about 25000 people there to see the likes of CSS, Fat Boy Slim, DJ Yoda, 2ManyDJ's, Soulwax, Editors and so on and so forth. 

During this festival I was lucky enough to be working for Canon doing a promotion there. The great thing about doing this was that we were given production wrist bands which meant we could go anywhere other than actually on the stage. When you do mix backstage at a festival of this size you ultimately end up meeting some pretty cool people. A person I did interact with on a work level over the weekend was the head of press for the event. I'm guessing this chick was mid-30's still looked very good for her suspected age and had a huge amount of confidence. The funny thing about this chick was what a massive name-dropper she was and what a massive groupie she appeared to be. I'm sure she had done this role at different festivals for quite a few years which made me think about the amount she would have seen and done with world-beating names. She really should write a book uncovering it all.

As the first day was coming to an end we met up with this captivating press lady who took us side of stage for Fat Boy Slim who was headlining the first night. As I was speaking to our friend she was quite obviously off her head on something (bless her). 

Anyway, being side of stage for a headlining act at a relatively large festival was something I'd obviously never done before. This is one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. To watch a very relaxed, bare-footed Norman Cook control the crowd the way he did was absolutely amazing. He is a master of controlling and entertaining an audience and they responded accordingly. He had the hearts and souls of 25000 people completely in his control, and from that experience I learned that it is way more of a show for him that it ever is for anyone of the 25000 people watching.

The interesting thing about being side of stage for his set is that i was barely focusing on him or his set at all. I was completely entranced and focused on the crowd the whole time. This was such a rush and what a lucky fella to be able to do this week in week out. Bastard!

Words and Photography: Tom Rohr

The awkward Kiss

"Hi"

Yes . . . OK.  She's looking at you and not looking over her shoulder as to where her friends maybe, in the one- off thought that I maybe a sleazy person who could potentially spike her drink just to take advantage of her.

"So are you having a good night?" 

"Yeah me too, It's a great night."

(slightly awkward silence)

Quickly say something. Fuck, fuck. It's getting awkward.

"So do you work?" 

Fuck, you're a genius. Keep it flowing.

"Oh, you study, cool. What do you study exactly?"

"Arts, oh yeah, art is cool. I like art. The classic degree for slackers, haha"

I'm so witty. Sometimes I just don’t know where it comes from. 

Hang on. No. That was just a polite sympathy laugh and there goes the head over the shoulder, desperately seeking eye contact from one of her friends. Shit. I'm losing her. 

"What music do you like?"

"The Arcade Fire, they're awesome. I like them a lot to"

Fuck, she's my dream girl. Don't get too carried away. Pull it in. Refrain!!

"Do you want to sit down and have a chat?"

"How about we grab that couch while we can?"

 

Now, how do I sit? In the 50 year old crossed leg kind of way or the more manly ankle on the knee. I don't want her to think I'm gay. I best go the ankle on the knee. Hang on, that’s impractical, the couch is too tight. I'll go the 50 year old gay style. She's an arts student, she'll dig it. But then other guys in the room may think she's only hanging around me because I'm gay, then they'll come in and stir my porridge. That’s not good. Just sit, no cross legs. It's impartial, unoffensive and definately not gay.

 

One hour later:

 

"Hahaha, yeah that David Bowie what will he get up to next"

Ok, things are going really well, do I just go for the number and call her at a later date? No. Be a man, kiss her. How do I do this? She's looking at me and looking away. Fuck, that’s so cute. She wants to be kissed. Do it. How? Ok get close and just go for it. No, that’s too much, too sleazy, be cool and make her kiss you . . . Brilliant.  

Why should it be up to me anyway? No, I can’t, if i leave it to her it won't happen. Aaaahhh!

"So you got friends here"

I'm not even listening to her anymore. All I can think about is kissing her. Do it now. She's midway through a sentence, no, oh fuck it. 

I half lean in, she follows late, as she starts to lean in, I pull away thinking she's not following the lead, but she was. So I then quickly go back in. probably, no definitely, way to quick. Fuck why did I do that? She's still going. Yes. Yes. Here it comes.

I am the man. I am the king, an absolute god of passion. I had her all along. I knew it, and here I am reaping the sweet rewards.

VBS

We all know that there have been so many good things to come out of Quebec. Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen, Chromeo, some of the worlds best snowboarders and so on and so forth. However probably the thing that is continually growing into an unstoppable beast would have to be Vice magazine.

We all know Vice for their unrelentingly hilarious social and cultural commentary. However, vice's broadcasting service found here, is without doubt one of my favourite websites. As far as I'm aware it is run by academy award nominated director Spike Jonze. He directed being John Malkovich and adaptation. He's also done alot of commercials and music videos and funnily enough was one of the co-creators of jackass and is also one of the co-owners of girl skateboards. Thats a fairly impressive CV to say the least. However, the team he has developed to create the viewing they have, is second to none. Every documentary I have watched, I have been glued to.

Here is the first of 5 episodes of VBS's doc on the lead singer of a Norwegian death metal group called Gorgoroth. This shit is captivating alright, and this guy is straight out scary. enjoy . . . 

Homeless People

I haven't done an entry for ages. I'm sorry. It's just no-one really random has been inspiring me. Anyways I now have some people to write about. Basically 2 weeks ago I was doing a promotion for the release of a new game on sony psp. We were showing off this amazing piece of 3d artwork done by a guy called Kurt Venner at different London train stations. below is a snap i took with my phone.

The thing that was cool about this promotion was the attention it drew from such a mass of different demographics, whether it was artistic people, gamers, violent people and/or hippies. Over the week I had some interesting discussions with people about the picture. None more memorable than one particular homeless man at Waterloo. Initially he said to me he hated the piece and told me he was going to walk all over it and that I should fuck off back to the southern hemisphere. Doing my job I persuaded him not too and just kept him chatting to try and avoid a scene. As we got chatting he started getting really deep and telling me what a bad father he had been over the years and told me all about his failed marriage to an Australian Woman who lived just outside of Geelong. It was really quite emotional, and then in a split second he would go psycho again and tell me how he was going to go into the public bathroom and after he was finished no-one would want to ever go in there afterwards. I think it was pretty much a practical demonstration of schizophrenia. The whole thing was slightly disturbing but still interesting.

On another day I noticed an extremely dirty homeless lady with no shoes on and literally dirt all over her legs, only one tooth, checking out the piece. I went up to her and asked her what she thought of the piece, expecting some sort of a crazy answer and/or maniac response. Instead she had an extremely posh accent and raised some very intellectual points as to why she liked it and things she didn't like about it, then politely said thank-you and walked away. It bemused me.

Homeless people are so interesting and i really enjoyed my interactions with these two. As long as there not knifing you and/or asking for money. Bless their filthy cotton socks I say. I'll leave you with an emotional montage of homeless people I found on youtube. Bit of a shit way to finish I know. Some of the photography is nice though.

Social Standards

The cool thing about a city the size of London is that it's so big that you are likely to never run into a random person you may meet on a random night out ever again. This basically means that peoples social expectations when combined with the English's love of binge drinking are dramatically lowered in comparison to most other cities I've lived in.

On the weekend my friends and I managed to run into a couple of girls who had incredibly good jobs in very competitive industries. This being said, Monday to Friday I'm sure they uphold mass amounts of professionalism in dealing with some of the worlds biggest clients within the music and fashion world. Getting along well with these girls we all headed back to our house to continue the Party. As the night went on, one of these girls passed out sitting up and it took 3 of us to move her to the couch. Then about an hour after, her friend decided to dessert her passed out friend and took off without her, to our dismay. Especially considering we barely knew either of these people. The next morning, my housemate came in and saw her flat on her face on the floor, still asleep, just before he took off for the day. This was the last any of us saw of her. However, she did manage to leave her mark on our couch by urinating all over it. Good to see the old tradition of marking your territory is still alive in this day and age. I love the idea of her doing work with a marketing manager at Louis Vuitton on Monday and them asking "how was your weekend". . . 

I love the contrast of English gracefulness. Parts of the population pride themselves on it, another part is at the exact opposite end of the scale and then the majority are in the middle. I try to keep everything anonymous as to not find myself in courts of law. This situation was just way too funny not to write about.