Watch Street Performers Battle It Out

By Stuart Black Last edited 116 months ago

Last Updated 10 April 2015

Watch Street Performers Battle It Out

Passing By from Palle Nodeland on Vimeo.

With the welcome turnaround in the weather this week, we thought we'd share this sunny funny short film about two street performers going head-to-head over a woman who's Passing By. It's a sweet, funny near-silent film that pays homage to London's modern street performers and our greatest silent comic, Charlie Chaplin. It was shot around Leadenhall Market with writer-director Palle Nodeland and his team somehow managing to make the maroon and cream arches look even more gorgeous than they actually are.

Nodeland told Londonist: "Working on this project was a pleasure as I had the chance to film in a truly magical and magnificent London location, Leadenhall Market. Even after watching the film so many times, I still giggle every time I see the subtle eye movements of our human statue played by Tom Bell. He rightly deserves all the work he's getting at the moment."

The music for the film was composed and orchestrated by Dom James, who added: "Just like any great silent movie, Palle's pictures were well detailed and offered up so much in terms of storytelling that the compositional phase was short and sweet. I provided Palle with a piano score and some ideas for a small jazz band orchestration with additional violin and a few other flavours which seemed to really gel with the look of the Leadenhall Market location and the romantic comedy of the story. The music was always going to be a huge part with only one line of dialogue, so we had to get really great players in to make the music. We then pretty much recorded everything at once to get a really authentic jazz café band sound."

You can hear Dom James playing with his Jazz Nursery on 23 April, aboard the replica Golden Hinde ship near the Southbank. We also need to thank our friends at Short Sighted Cinema for introducing us to Palle and Dom.

Want to be featured? If you have a London-themed short film that you’d like us to consider for this series, send an email with the subject “London Shorts” to Stu Black and Ioanna Karavela via our email: [email protected]

To see previous films on London Shorts click here.