Why is "Trapeze Film" called Trapeze Film?

For this first High Wire blog post, I thought I would talk about why we (Emily and myself) are called Trapeze. ​

​We both studied composition at Birmingham Conservatoire, having been keen musical performers in our former years. Through our education at the conservatoire we both worked with  film separately. I was initially interested in film scoring and Emily wanted to try something new.

In the final year of her degree, Emily produced a video where she performed Beethoven's fifth symphony by filming herself playing around 40 different instruments. This is an impressive feat considering that she had to learn how to play all the instruments and how to effectively film and edit the project from scratch. The film was featured on several websites and was shown ​​throughout the 2014 Frontiers Festival. 

It received mixed reviews throughout its time on YouTube, with some people really hating it because of the sometimes ropey instrumental playing to absolutely loving it because of the impressive camera work. 

​I on the other hand, had been working with film and theatre throughout university but by third year, I was finding the work thankless and repetitive. I had written music for several student fashion shows, documentaries and film projects and was struck by how similar the music requests were. I was also frustrated that I was unable to match the quality of the output from some composers who were more well equipped.

​We both teamed up as part of my final portfolio project called "Fineal Forts". Although I had not written any media music, I wanted film to be a big part of my portfolio. I approached Emily, wanting to use her new found videography skills to make films to accompany my concert pieces. Within a week, we had filmed a car chase using a model railway, a time lapse and experimented with fire! I submitted my portfolio on a DVD and presented it in a box with a bag of popcorn, a bottle of coke and some chocolate (I can't remember whether the chocolate made the box, I may have eaten that...). Some of these videos can be found below.

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​Our collaborative efforts on the project had been highly praised by our tutors and the marks for the project reflected that. We both realised that this was somthing that we wanted to pursue.

​We started to work on a few small projects under a collective name and after much deliberation we settled on the name "Trapeze Film".

​During our time at uni, we were both part of a Ska Band that I ran called "The Skemptons". It was a bit of fun during our studies to contrast with the sometimes heavy academic analysis of contemporary music. The band was named after Howard Skempton, a friend and tutor at the conservatoire. I don't remember the specifics of how the band started but we performed two of his simple piano songs in an upbeat Ska style as part of a concert of Howard's works at the Forge in London. (That's another story...) These pieces were called "Trapeze" and "Lime Light".      

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The Lyrics to the song "Trapeze" are very simple and had a profound impact on myself and my colleagues. On this basis alone, Emily and myself decided to use the title and words of the song as the name of our videography project and in turn, this blog

"I aspire to the high wire,
the Trapeze.
It makes me weak at the knees,
it swings to and fro before letting go.
It's so easy, to feel queazy"

I can't find any recordings of Howard's song "Trapeze" but the music in the background uses the same pitches as the first line. It is most obvious when you listen to the bell tree (metallic bell sound). We have not used this since we rebranded but it's a little something that someone might find interesting. 

Over the two years Trapeze has been running, the lyrics have become more relevant and important as we aspire to work on bigger projects learning and improving our skills as we go. It can be scary trying new things, working with new people and to tight deadlines but it is incredibly exciting and to think that the final product of a collaboration could potentially touch someone and make an impression.

So that is a brief introduction as to how and why trapeze came about.