IED does JCB as IOU to TIM, XYZ and ALL L-Hs.

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: i tell 'em what they want to hear. they think i'm up to
          something weird, and up pops the head of fear in me. so now
          when they ring i get IED to let them in.

 >>Stick to discussing KT. If you don't like an article, try the 'n'
 >>key instead of contributing to the general degradation.
 >
 >     Quite so! The message which MS has praised as a flame was intended
 >merely as playful and humorous, not in any way as an attack against
 >IED.  TIM further adds that any competent reader of this list (save
 >perhaps the somewhat defenisve IED himself) should be well aware that
 >TIM respects and enjoys IED's postings despite, or more accurately for,
 >their idiosyncracies.
 >
 >-- Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim

     IED is indeed overly defensive, esp. in this group. Thanks
for the explanation, TIM; IED had not caught on to the note of humor--
he's pretty slow about that angle of the Love-Hounds Experience.
     The reasons for IED's excessively defensive tone are 1.) that
he takes Kate far too seriously for his own good, and 2.) that he has
periodically provoked genuinely hostile reactions from readers in
this group for that very seriousness. IED will try to discipline
himself better to stick to the subject and avoid the personals.
But at least now all the newer Love-Hounds have had a good look at
IED's reaction to unfair and abusive criticism of Kate Bush. They
follow in Dana's footsteps forewarned!
     Now, by way of atonement for his over-emotional behaviour over
the last few days, IED has transcribed the following for all Kate-fans'
enjoyment:

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: The complete KBC _Newsletter_ writings of John Carder Bush

     <This file comprises everything that John Carder Bush
(Kate's elder brother and the eldest of the three Bush children)
has contributed to the Kate Bush Club _Newsletter_. It's a large
file, but as it comes to fewer than 650 lines, IED felt it was
small enough to justify posting in one block. IED apologises in
advance for any inconvenience this may cause some readers.>

                *             *             *

     <From issue number 4. This article was unsigned. IED has
attributed it to Mr. Bush.>

                      _The_Game_of_Utsu_

     We have made up a game for letting off steam and providing
good entertainment for anybody who might be watching it. It involves
three people (although you can play it with just two) and will be
a perfect indoor game for an martial-arts enthusiasts, as it will
tone up reactions remarkably.
     Two people can play the game at a time, with a third acting
as judge. The winner takes on the next player and so on, until
only one person is left. The two players lie down on the floor
head to head, with their left hand gripping the other's left hand.
They are blindfolded (check they can't peep) and have in
their right hands an Utsu stick. This is just a lightly rolled
newspaper. The judge gives a signal for starting, and one player
shouts "Utsu!". Within ten seconds the other must shout
back "Hi!", and the first player then strikes where he
thinks the other one is. Once the person shouting "Hi!"
has made his shout he must keep still. A point is scored if the
head is struck by the newspaper. Three points are normally played
for--the winner being the person with the most points. The trick
is to make the striker strike at where your voice has come from by
twisting away from where you made your shout.
     Each exchange can last for as long as like, but it's a
good idea to limit it. Some players will wait, listening for the
slightest noise before striking. It's not how hard you hit that
is important, but how accurately; and with experienced players the
game can go on for a long time. Don't lie waiting to be hit
with your face turned up--keep your head tucked in, because although
newspapers will not damage you, getting a smart rap across the nose
is no fun. Keep your target small and keep very quiet.
     The game can be very exciting and hilarious, because the
looks of concentration on the players' faces as they listen
for movement to indicate where they should strike puts expressions
on their faces you are not likely to have ever seen before.
     You can take the game to extremes by introducing oriental
vibes all the way through: bowing to the opponent and the judge,
and making a ceremony of putting on the blindfolds and picking
up the sticks, etc.

                *             *             *

     <From issue number 7:>

                              _Album_Images_

     An extraordinary number of different musicians were used on this
album <_Never_For_Ever_> because the songs were so different, not only
in mood but in treatment, that it seemed that, for Kate to get
the results she wanted, she had to do it this way.
The contrasts that existed were very beautiful and often amusing: the
Sceapings, whose knowledge of and ability to play early instruments was
so exciting--they were so in sympathy with the mood of _The_Infant_
_Kiss_--at one end of the scale; and John Walters and Richard Burgess,
who introduced Kate to the heady realms of the most up-to-date
computer synthesisers, at the other end.
     The Hare Krishna Temple coming in to tea; Brian Bath and Alan Murphy
standing on their amplifiers like two sound-surfers to feel the
vibrations better for those heavy-metal licks at the end of _Breathing_;
Kevin Burke bringing the mysterious craft of Irish fiddling into
the electronic hum of Air Studios; Kate down in the darkness
of an enormous studio as she goes over and over her vocals, linked
only by her headphones to the control-room that seems miles away...
Perhaps it's just that sense of isolation that is unique to so
much of modern recording studios. The musician is placed far away
from the control-room and the experience of hearing himself in
the headphones as well as the track which he is trying to add to,
can be extremely confusing at first. He does his bit of work and then
waits patiently for the control-room to tell him either "One
more time, please," or "Fine, come up and hear it."
Down there in that darkness you learn a lot about yourself very
fast and, indeed, you can quickly come to enjoy the intensity of
the experience.
     There were so many people using Kate's studio
as a focus for creative energy, and her openness to ideas and
suggestions meant that some very exciting things happened. It
was quite possible to walk into the studio and find someone
demonstrating how a rifle-bolt clicked as a form of percussion,
or someone practicing on a musical saw. You could walk into
the studio and find it filled with an orchestra working hard
on Max Middleton's arrangements for _Blow_Away_: or you
might walk into the studio and think nothing was happening,
and then find Kate tucked away behind a sound-booth, adding the
most delicate, almost boy-treble harmonies to one of the tracks.
     Of course, there were extremes of experience that produced
unexpected results, such as the engineer who found it impossible
to stay in the room when listening to the end part of _Egypt_,
as it scared him so much. Of course, this is something that one
tends to forget, that the sound quality from the speakers in
a recording studio is so superior to the sounds you hear coming
out of your cassette-player or radio. Most studios test the
quality of the sound by playing it on the large speakers first,
so that they can hear the slightest variation from what they want;
and then the final test is playing it through two small, ordinary
speakers, which gives some indication of the sound quality that
most people will be getting.
     Having a group like Sky working at Abbey Road while Kate was
there was interesting, as they are a group whose level of appreciation
of music can shift from the classical to the popular without any
problem. An interesting competition developed, to see who could
outdo Herbie Flowers in the variety of pullovers worn each day. Roy
Harper was completing his album _The_Unknown_Soldier_ for part
of this time, and there was an interesting cross-flow of
information and ideas with him. Many old friends turned up
during the making of this album, and on one strange occasion
the survivors of the Tour of Life all turned up exactly one year
from the last concert gig, with no previous organisation or
planning--they'd all got it into their heads to come along;
and from early evening 'til late morning they were still arriving.
     Another extraordinary evening was when _Breathing_ first
took its direction and shape, and a couple of record-company
personnel came in to see how things were getting on. At the end
of listening to it, one of them had to walk out, because there were
tears in his eyes, and the other one thought it was the most moving
thing he'd ever heard. And then where do you get the sound of
a bee in early spring, so that it sounds like a bee on a hot
summer's day? And also, the strange experience of watching
the first single off the album struggling up the hit parade while
the last touches of the album were still being added.
      Late-night drives through London, when it seemed that there
would never be a time when there were no cares on the road--at two
o'clock in the morning there were as many cars as there are
at two o'clock in the afternoon. Or there would
be a strange absence of vehicles, and you'd drive round a
corner and there would be a road accident still steaming as it
waited for the ambulances to arrive. Or driving up to Abbey Road
through rush-hour traffic to find the isolation of the recording
studio a great relief and coolness after all that hectic anger
and aggression. Perhaps that was it--the journey of leaving
the quiet of one's home through the noise and pollution of
London to another place away from home where you could relax and
enjoy the company of people interested in music and ideas. Kate
acts as a focus for many people with ideas, and the conversation
in the studio could be as absurd as wondering how many times the
record-holder managed to spin round in his chair without his feet
touching the ground, to the latest on the Quantum theories (these
so excited Roy Harper at two in the morning that he had to rush
off and find a newspaper to read the article!).
     And of course behind all this pleasure and hard work are
the responsibilities and the obligations of involvement with one
of the country's biggest rock-and-roll stars. Unfortunately,
it's something that never goes away, and however much fun
you have and however good the end results are, that one fact will
come round and slap you in the face at any time of the day, and
it has to be dealt with just so the music can be allowed to
communicate with the people it's meant for. It's how
things are at the moment--an unfortunate necessity that, in
order for a person to get his songs to his public, he has to go
through the whole groaning, collapsing machinery of the record business.
But it's never really been any different: there are always
people who will pick clean the egos of the artists and use them
for no other end except making more money. But you live with it,
you understand it, and you try not to be angry.
     After an album has been finished, a terrible flatness sets in. The
obligations to be in the studio at a certain time, to think about
it all the time, to hope that you do something that people will
want--all the feelings still hang round without the need to go in
and do it. And it takes a while to come down from all that, to
find your feet again in the ordinary world, and even--if you're
lucky--to go on holiday. But it's worth it, because that
piece of vinyl will stay around for a long time, and you can always
come back to those moments of inspiration and perfected expression
whenever you want; and, while you have a wind-up gramophone, _wherever_
you want.

                *             *             *

     <The following is from issue number 18:>

                     _Some_of_the_Photographs_

_Hounds_of_Love_

     I thought that photographing Mr. and Mrs. Houdini on the banks
of the Hudson River in a freezing wind had been a difficult
assignment: the shot had required a long, long exposure and the
wind was from the wrong direction, and when it was right, it kept
shaking the tripod. However, the sedate, elegant brief for the
cover of KBV had an element to it that all photographers are told
to avoid working with at all cost: animals. Luckily, the
dogs we wanted to use are friends of ours, so there was a good
chance that they might put up with posing, keeping quiet and leaving
each other alone. But only a chance...
     There had been quite a few ideas for this cover that we
tried out in rough, and then abandoned. The feel of the photo
was in the air around the music that was being finalised: colour
and emotional pace became clear first.
     Elaborate environments, such as forests, mountains, palaces,
etc.--places for the Hounds to run that would suit their style--were
rejected as too busy. The cover had to have a strong, full image
of Kate, as it was the first for three years, and landscapes, however
beautiful, tend to dwarf people. It's fine to use the big
outdoors for bands because you can spread them all over it,
but for a beautiful solo lady it doesn't work. So we decided
on a close-up of Kate and the dogs, and a made-up background.
     There was a feeling for daylight rather than studio, so
we went round and discussed it with the dogs. While Kate was chatting
to them in their back garden, I snapped away. But when we
looked at the processed results, daylight was too cold, there
wasn't enough diffusion of the shades of colour and the
environment. It just didn't feel right. I had been working on
a series of "body poems" in which I was writing my poems
on people and then photographing them, and it seemed like a good
idea, but when we tried it, apart from Kate looking like the tattooed
lady from a circus, there was much too much activity in the small
frame, and the eye just wandered around too much. But the dogs
were wonderul, and did everything they were asked to.
     It was becoming clearer. We had to do it in the
studio, without the writing, and with the lights set in a delicate,
pastel way. So I constructed a rough, made sure all the cables
were well pinned down and anything likely to be knocked over out
of the way, and then phoned up the dogs and asked them over for
another tryout.
     We let them explore for an hour or so, and then Kate settled
down on the floor for an overhead shot.
     An hour later we had managed to persuade them to lie down
next to Kate. Not surprising that they took so long, as they
are not trained dogs, and couldn't understand what all the
fuss was about. I had a minute to hoover up as much as I could
before they were off again, tending to use Kate as a launching
ramp for their leaps and cavorting.
     After they had left, we seriously considered trying feline
friends, but Cats of Love wasn't quite the same at all.
But on looking at the shots we had, there was potential, and
we decided we would persevere. And the best thing seemed to be
to take the studio to the dogs, have another rehearsal and, if
that was a shambles, think again. Also another rehearsal would
mean I could try out more variations in the lighting and the
set. So a week later I took my studio to the dogs and constructed
a scaffolding for the overhead shot; a bed of lilac net and silks
for Kate; and around her, a tent of lilac material to reflect and
diffuse. And when I looked through the lens at the little room,
it looked like an illustration from Dulac's _Arabian_Nights_.
     The Hounds had been taken out for a long run and
then fed, because we thought that if they felt dozy long enough
they would want somewhere to lie down and sleep it off. Kate
did her hair in an approximation of how it would look in the
final shot, and then settled down in the tent. Up came the lights,
and in came the dogs--noses first--and after a few minutes
of looking around, yawned and went to sleep next to her. I had
all the time I wanted to explore the possibilities.
     When the film was processed, it was very exciting to see how
the various elements were coming together, and how close we
were getting to the album cover that existed inside our heads.
There were a lot of small points to iron out, but they presented
no problem, and I looked forward to the big day.
     When it came round, Kate asked Clayton Howard, the make-up
artist, and Anthony Yacomine, the hair artist, to do their magic,
so for three hours of painstaking work they added the colours
and shapes that were necessary for the right atmosphere. I
reconstructed the scaffolding and rebuilt the set, and after
lunch we were ready to go. Kate lay down in the tent, and Howard
and Anthony arranged the final touches of nuance. The materials
were placed in just the right places, and I climbed up into the
scaffolding. When I looked through the lens, it was fairyland
underneath me.
     The dogs, meanwhile, had been waiting in the wings, supposedly
exhausted and dying for somewhere to put their heads down.
Anthony and Clayton withdrew in a cloud of hairspray and eye-glitter,
so that the dogs woulddn't be distracted by strangers, and
the word was given to let them in.
     Within seconds, Kate's delicate arrangements were in
tatters and a paw in the mouth didn't help make-up. One dog
would settle down and start snoring while the other one turned her
back on us all by the door and wouldn't budge. As soon as
she had been persuaded to stop being a prima donna and come
alongside Kate, the other one smelled Anthony and Clayton,
and was off to meet them. We tried for half an hour before we
realised we were wasting our time, so while Kate was being
repaired, I went outside with the Hounds and had a serious
talk with them.
     I could see their point of view, but it didn't help
in getting this expensive, time-consuming session off the ground.
While they hurtled off to chase non-existent cats that I suggested
were lurking at the end of the garden in the hope of tiring them
out even more, I received the signal that Kate was ready to go again.
Apparently seeing reason, the dogs returned, and we signed the deal
with some chocolate digestives: if they behaved themselves and
gave me the photo I wanted, there was a McDonald's with
milk shake and apple pie in it for each of them.
     We went back in, but it was the same thing. Looning and
sulking. Then suddenly they lay down next to Kate, and we were
away. Half an hour later I had enough photos, and could have gone
on to take more, but everyone was becoming too sleepy in the heat
from the lights and the softness of the set, so it seemed pointless.
     Choosing the final photo, deciding how best to present it
on the cover and what sort of typeface to use for titles is
yet another story.


_The_Back_Cover_...

     This was in many ways much simpler to organise, but a lot harder
to take. Because it relates very specifically in image to _The_Ninth_
_Wave_, Kate had to be in water. To be comfortable in the right clothes
--in this case a Victorian nightgown--the water had to be warm. To get
the feeling of night, sea, the proximity of a large ship, etc.,
studio lighting was essential. We found some big tanks used
in the film business, but they weren't right visually--and they
would pose the problem of filling them with a couple of hundred gallons
of warm water and then getting rid of it.
     We eventually located a large but shallow paddling-pool, and
adapted this so as to minimise the quantity of water we would have to
deal with while allowing enough to suggest deep sea and cold night
around Kate. Because of the large amount of electricity being used
in the lights, leaks of water or big splashes could have been
dangerous, and someone was standing by the mains throughout the
session. I threw some pond weed into the now steaming water and
added the flowers to hint at the debris from a shipwreck. The
logistics involved in setting up and blending with Kate's work
in the studio had left no time for rehearsals, so Kate went
straight in and I hovered around, first on a ladder, then on
the ground, looking for the right angle. And it's in these
cases that polaroid is so useful: I was able to take polaroids
and show them to Kate, and in this way we decided that I had
to get in the water too in order to get the best angle.
     It was while I was printing up the best shots that I
noticed that the viewer's perception of the scene changed
dramatically when I altered the natural horizon by printing
the photo slightly out of true. So actually, in the original
negative, she is obviously lying on her back in water, but in
the final print she appears to be standing or floating or running
or flying. Also, this change of perspective made the "sea"
into a very surreal backcloth, so that you wonder is she part of
it, is she in it or what?


_Running_Up_That_Hill_...

     Because of Kate's keen interest in archery, combining
an archer with the images in the song seemed a strong way of
presenting a portrait of Kate. Perhaps the arrow is a message;
perhaps it is Cupid's arrow; perhaps it's going
straight to the point of the relationship; perhaps...but really
it's just a photograph that makes its own statement, and you
can fit anything you like to it.
     The photo was taken in the studio with a background that
I had painted the night before, all thunder and sun and threatening
clouds. The glove Kate is wearing is one used in Kyudo (Japanese
archery), and it is included for its visual contrast with
Kate and for its subtle colours; but the bow is being drawn
longbow style. The arrow is a Ya, used in Kyudo, and was selected
over a European one because of its length and beauty.
     Again, making this photograph was a team effort. The pooling
of ideas and the inclusion of the make-up, hair, costume and
technical people in the final image made my role very much
one part of a whole. By a patient searching of the situation and
an isolating of what seems best, the team produced the result.
And in the front and back of the single bag it was very
easy to find angles that worked.
     The inside artwork was more complicated. After the archer
shots were completed, we headed for an outdoor location, because
we wanted to use a particular doorway that we knew of. It was
two in the morning, and after we had set up lights and the smoke
machine, I wrote the lyrics from the song onto Kate's back--and
realised as I was doing it that the cold night air was going to
cause problems with the skin texture. But as it happened, by staying
in the warm until the last moment, this did not become a problem.
     The final black-and-white photos I tinted by using selenium
toner (which I would not recommend that anyone try unless they
have a very well-aired and -ventilated darkroom, as the fumes from
the toner are poisonous). This gives them a brown-purple cast
that I find very pleasing.

                          J. C. B.

                *             *             *

     <The following article appeared in issue number 19.>

                     _Shooting_the_Shooters_

     When you watch a favourite video, the chances are that you will
be drawn into a close relationship with the small frame of
music and movement; safely and comfortably we accept the images
and enjoy the experience that seems to be directed personally at us.
It is easy to forget that each image is made up of carefully
constructed moments linked together in a painstakingly slow way.
Draw back from the view through the camera, and at least forty
people are involved in the process. The centre of the hub is the
camera itself. Everything around it is focusing towards what the
camera sees, and in many ways it is like a weapon, a
communicating-weapon, with its crew to serve it: someone sighting
it, someone to work out the range, someone checking the weather,
someone to load it, someone to push it around, someone to prepare
the ground that it moves over, someone to assemble it and take it
down, someone to supply it with power, and someone to say when it
should shoot. And someone to be its target.
     Spreading out from this tight unit are
"continuity"--following and noting each take; production
assistants, forever on the telephone; make-up, with powder and brushes
ready to dampen shine; hairdressers, with spray-cans ready to freeze
a capricious curl; wardrobe alert, to shorten a sleeve or pin up
a flap; and so on, through the lighting technicians, video-playback
engineers, carpenters, painters, electricians, canteen staff, props
men, accountants, set designers, record-company reps., the producer,
the director, drivers...
     And amongst all these people is the stills photographer,
who has had absolutely nothing to do with all the preparation and
planning; who just turns up and moves skulkily amongst all the
activity--and in the quietest, most emotional moments of filming
his solitary "click" is heard. It is an uncomfortable,
definite sound, and far more judgemental than the soft,
multi-frames-a-second whirring of the movie camera. Whereas
the cameraman is pushed through the set by watchful and
skilled helpers, the stills photographer has to avoid the hazards
around him while he tries to compose his shot and take it.
A whole different level of disciplines and social behaviour
becomes necessary, and he has to be constantly aware of not
stepping on anyone's toes--physically and psychologically.
     And so it was for _Cloudbusting_. This concentrated
mass of creativity was found first in a set,
where a small laboratory of the "fifties had been accurately
built down to the finest detail of decoration and authenticity,
and then lit with lights simulating a bright, American sunshine.
Sitting in the middle of it all, examinig something with a
microscope, was Donald Sutherland. And next to him was a small
boy--or was it a small girl?--who, when she turned round, I
realised was Kate. The reality of the place was stunning, and
while Kate and the director Julian Doyle were discussing the
next take, I took a closer look around to work out where I could
best settle down out of the way but in a position to cover the
action. Each apparently casually placed piece of paper was of the
right period, as were the pens on the table, the light fittings,
the furniture. Only the open front of the set and the sounds of
hammering said it was an illusion. When I looked through my camera
to check for the best lens to use, I was in the Oregon of my
imagination. <The actual locations in Peter Reich's book
were Arizona and Maine. Kate changed the location, perhaps because
of the similar sounds of "Oregon" and "Orgonon".>
     That day's shooting was intense and cramped. There was
not much room for the camera crew, let alone me, and the lighting
was changed frequently to allow for close-ups and candlelight
sequences. When it was "daylight" on the set, using
a still camera was fairly easy from a technical point of veiw:
I could use a slow film and know that even though the lighting
was not the best for still (shadows can work when someone moves
through them and perhaps not so well when that person stays
still to be studied) I knew the shots would be acceptable.
But when the lights went down, or were working their best at
an angle I couldn't get to, the problems began. Pushing
film by pretending it is faster than it is leads to inaccurate
colour and harsh-edged shadows which, together with a wide-open
lens and a slow shutter-speed, presents a plethora of problems.
And movement can get blurred unless I wait for the pause between
actions; I try to blend my breathing with the performers'.
Activity leading to a tiny moment of stillness is usualy done
on an outbreath and at the end of that breath I take the photo.
     In many ways this was Kate's debut as an actress, and
it was fascinating to watch the "father and son" relationship
being created by her and Donald Sutherland. In the video
the laboratory sequence is not long, but in it many feelings
and fears have to be communicated and the moods are very different.
But easily the most exciting moment on a vey basic level came at
the end of the day when the Agents came in to arrest Dr. Reich
and then smash up the set. I don't think many people appreciated
what this was going to mean, but I had been discussing this with the
Agents a little earlier and had a pretty good idea of what was to
come; after all, they had been there all day waiting to do their bit.
So I put on my widest lens and stood well back. There was a lot of
glass on the set, and every piece of it flew through the air, and
at one point the cameraman was floored by half a phrenologist's
bust to the kneecap. But it had to be done in one take, so
he carried on filming as he went down. Then the table with all its
test tubes, vessels filled with coloured liquids and intricate
twisting glass filtration devices was turned over, and through the
crash and mess the camera and its crew moved unheedingly.
     For the next major location all these people and their
equipment were encamped on the top of Uffington Castle in
Oxfordshire, which is where the summer of 1985 had gone to hide.
After the first day's shooting I had to wear a hat to keep
myself from getting any more sunburned; the weather was perfect
and it didn't seem like England until the sun was going down
in the evening and all around us the fields were burning with
stubble fires and a cold, cold wind came whipping across the hills
with the taste of autumn in it. As in a sequence from a Herzog
film, the Cloudbuster had been driven up to the top and then pushed
onto a ridge with a drop on one side, and just about enough room for the
camera and crew to settle themselves for the angle required.
     Although the weather was fine, the sky, of course, had a lot
of picturesque and unusual clouds moving in it, and the lighting
cameraman would hold his contrast filter up to the heavens and declare
how long there would be before the light would change and everything
would have to be reset; he was often only a few seconds out in his
predictions. The optimum position for me was suspended over the
drop, but I had to compromise and use a long lens that could get
me through the heads blocking Kate. But the shots I found the most
satisfying were those when she was operating the Cloudbuster, with
the sun going down behind her leaving almost just a silhouette;
and that's where the single bag came from.
     Shooting began at six in the morning, and often ended at nine
at night, when the last tiny vestiges of the setting sun were still
there. There were short forays out to neighbouring areas for the
linking parts of the story, and watching the agents in their
black car on the back of a truck that sprayed water over them seemed
to sum up the contrivances and illusion of filmmaking. It was a
very tiring and full shoot, and the pleasure of being out in the
countryside in a beautiful place for three days, involved in
all that unified energy, was exciting as well as rewarding from a
photographic point of view.
     The _Hounds_of_Love_ video was a first for Kate in another way. It was her
first official role as director, and she had the unenviable but so creative
task of being in front of the camera and behind it at the same time. In
this situation video playback is essential when the actual shoot
is being made on film (all the videos from this albumm so far have
been shot on film and not on video), but unfortunately nobody has yet
been able to perfect a system of video playback synchronised with a movie
camera, and the system available is in black-and-white and of very poor
quality. This was a much more concentrated video than _Cloudbusting_
in the sense that, apart from a short location on Wimbledon Common
in the freezing cold at night, the locations were at the same
studio. The first set, of a museum some time during the 1940s,
was a masterpiece of lighting and design. Light poured through
the long, tall windows, like real daylight, from tungsten
monsters that smoked and hummed far above us. When the extras
and the main performers came on the set it was uncanny, as the
clothes and make-up totally transformed everyone: it was a bit
like coming face to face with my parents and their friends when
they were young. Many of the people had been picked for their
similarity to well-known faces of the time--did you spot Hitchcock
and Einstein?--and all were chosen for their visual appearance.
It would have been enough to have had a couple of hours just to
photograph them in the museum setting. Although the set was
quite spacious, the important take involved a circular shot, which
meant that all the set would be covered quite quickly--with nowhere
for me to hide. Fortunately this had been taken into consideration
for the benefit of the smoke and wind man: an alcove in the museum
led off to the back of the set; so I ducked in there too. The sequence
would go as follows: the camera would start moving around Kate; the
wind and smoke man would lean out with his wind machine and then
struggle back into the alcove; the camera would come round, its crew
hanging onto it like merrymakers doing the conga; and I would leap out
and catch the end of the take. Because the lens that they were using
was so wide, there was no other thing to do. It was very hot on this
set, and the contrast was extraordinary when we went outside to queue
for lunch, because it started to snow.
     The second main set was smaller and represented a church
hall party in full swing, again sometime in during the forties.
There were even civil defence instruction letters on the notice board.
The party started at nine in the morning, and went on until eleven
o'clock at night, and each partygoer had to stay fresh
and happy-looking for every shot. Luckily for the camera, all
the food and drinks were just props, and however tempting they
looked they had to be left alone. For me the real highpoint was
when the actual conga began. I had never thought of the _Hounds_of_Love_
track being danced to by a line of drunk merrymakers doing such
a traditionally establishment dance as the conga, but it was so
striking that I am unable to hear the track now without seeing that
line moving through the set over and over again. But however
atmospheric it was for the eye, it was not the easiest place for
stills. Because there were so many people on the set as well as
in the shot, hiding space was limited, and getting photos of
Kate amongst all the action was almost impossible. Again, the
circular camera shots meant that all of the room was being used,
and this time there was truly nowhere to hide.
     But then, when we pull back even further from the ongoing
party and go with the cans of film, the process moves into yet
another field of high energy, where technicians and editors and
video-transfer people take over. The cans of film go in one
direction and I go in the other to pick through my rolls of
film and find out what I have been able to harvest.
     The three videos from the album (so far) have been very
different, and for me it has been, as usual, a fascinating experience.
But most of all, there is the privilege of being able to make
one's own interpretation of someone else's hours of work
and careful planning. In taking stills at Kate's videos I have
enjoyed environments that I would never have been able to create
in my own studio.

                          J. C. B.

                *             *             *

     <Here is the text of John's advertisement for _Cathy_, a book
of his photographs of Kate as a child. It first appeared in issue
number 20 of the _Newsletter_.>

     Kindlight are pleased to announce the first of a planned series
of three books featuring photographs of Kate Bush taken by John Carder
Bush. John has been photographing Kate since she was a child, and his
work in more recent years for her record covers is known worldwide.
_Cathy_, the first book, is now completed. _Cathy_ gives a
fascinating glimpse into the childhood of a young person
who has grown into the remarkable and famous adult. As she
poses for the photographs, often at times snatched after school,
an image builds up of what this little girl's world was like.
These innocent moments are linked with the thoughts and memories of her
photographer-brother as he printed and prepared the pictures for publication.
     _Cathy_ contains neither gossip nor scandal. It is a gentle, very
personal view of childhood, and for those already familiar with Kate as
a modern-day artist, it is a treasure-trove of echoes and evocations.
     Great care and time have been taken in the design and
presentation of this book. The result is a fine art Special Edition
on hand-folded paper with duotone black-and-white photographs,
hardbacked and linen-bound, in its own slipcase.
     _Cathy_ is available only by post from _Kindlight_, P.O. Box 30,
Welling, Kent, DA16 3DL.
     <The book was still available, for a total of 21 Pounds,
as of December 1988.>