Making Mrs Carey’s Concert

In 2008, documentary filmmakers Bob Connolly (Rats in the Ranks) and Sophie Raymond approached Sydney’s MLC School to document in film the work of Karen Carey and her Music Department as they led the girls over fifteen months to the, now traditional, Biennial Opera House performance in 2009. Bob Connolly and Sophie Raymond went on to make the stunning Mrs Carey’s Concert – creating a unique dramatisation from unrehearsed moments as girls and teachers prepared for their big night. On Tuesday 7 August, Bob Connolly, Sophie Raymond and Karen Carey addressed The Sydney Institute to discuss how the film was made and the importance of music education.

MAKING MRS CAREY’S CONCERT

SOPHIE RAYMOND

It seems that we’re talking about our passions today. We’ve taken advantage of the situation, so I’m going to talk about the music in the film and the way we used it in the edit, and how we considered it while we were editing the film. Can I have a little show of hands as to who has seen the film? Ah, excellent, a majority. Very good.

I want you to cast your minds back to the opening scene of Mrs Carey’s Concert where you enter on stage to the Opera House. There is a young girl standing on stage waiting for her moment to enter with her solo. This was the moment that brought Bob and I into wanting to do this film. Because we were making this film for the school, as a DVD for the parents. This was their 2007 concert. When we watched that moment – especially down the end of a lens, up close, right there with that girl, her instant transformation grabbed us. She was a nervous young thing and then, suddenly, as she made those first sounds on the violin, she just disappeared into the music. It was instantly compelling, and moving. We knew nothing about this girl – we didn’t know her name, nothing. We just had her at the end of the camera.

Later, we made some enquiries as it had been such an amazing moment. And then Karen Carey told us a little about the girl’s background, and how it had been something of a struggle to get her up on stage. This added an extra layer to the next time we watched it. In lots of ways, that was a key moment that drove many of our decisions in how we edited the film.

Our thinking became immediately – imagine if we filmed the next concert, the whole journey and how they all got to that next concert. That you would see those kids on stage but you would know them and something of their background. But the audience would also get to know something of the music. How much more powerful would those moments of film be.

I’m going to give you a brief case study of just one of the pieces of music that we used throughout the film. We actually followed six pieces of music in Mrs Carey’s Concert and, as part of the process of the shoot, we made it part of our discipline to make sure we were at the rehearsal for every single one of those pieces of music. That was a lot of rehearsals to go to, a lot of setting up of microphones and rushing to other rooms. But that was part of the discipline and we made sure that we were there for everyone.

At the point of the edit, we had an overwhelming amount of material – with a lot of it double camera footage which was not so bad. And because we were shooting music, we probably let the camera run a bit longer than normal. The first thing we did was edit the concert and the days in the opera house. this was the only time that all the characters were in the one place, at the one time, following the one sort of semi-lineal narrative. We started there.  This was a good decision because it showed us all the delivery points of the film.

Our climax was Emily Sun playing the Bruch. And we knew when we started the edit that we wanted the audience to be able to sit through as much of that concerto as possible and be utterly compelled. But we also had several other pieces that we also needed to do that with. So I’m going to take you through the Ravel and show you some of the choices we made. There were a few things that we looked for in each of the scenes and they had to tick at least one of a number of boxes.

One box was that the audience would be familiar with the music. To do this, we made sure that each time the audience heard the piece of music it was the same part of the music – the catchiest section, the main motif or theme. So, by the time a listener got to the concert that ear was familiar with it. We also attached a character to each piece of music. Mrs Carey’s piece of music was the Aida. And you see her managing the Aida throughout and then she goes on to conduct it. With the Ravel, there was an ensemble of characters. The audience meets a few of the characters and then we added layers to that piece of music.

Then there was emotion. Now the emotion could have been the characters’ emotions and what they brought to the piece of music. But it was also what was being asked of the performers. What emotion were they putting into this piece of music? That was a very strong theme that we picked up just through observing the staff at MLC throughout. The scene about what Emily was going to put in the Bruch was a key scene.

The final thing we looked for was technical breakdown, something that gave you some sense of how the performers got their fingers around it. What was in that piece of music physically for them? So I’m going to take you through, and you can see how each of these elements – and sometimes more than one – are in each of these scenes. The Ravel by no means appears in every scene throughout the film, just a few of the key ones. I’ll explain to you some of the choices we made for particular scenes.

The first time the girls meet the music was at music camp. And so we thought, let’s have the audience meet the girls and the music at that same time. That practice performance of the Ravel comes early in the film of the camp where you get the first little inkling of that piece of music. Obviously it’s devilishly hard, and that’s something that came up many times.

The next time the Ravel appears is when Louise Keller, head of strings, is rehearsing it and we meet our first character, one of the ensemble players, Kristie and her viola. The other layer to this scene is the almost conspiratorial relationship that Mrs Carey has with the head of strings. They’re always consulting each other.

Something that Bob talks about with the scenes is that they’ve got to carry more than one load. And so, we looked for scenes that had a few extra elements. And to try to have a scene that shows you what’s happening rather than having someone tell you. People teaching music will provide you with many of these elements. We were able to inject Louise showing the difficulty of the piece, followed up with a scene where Mrs Carey suggests to Christie that she has a special workshop on that piece. Just seeing the piece of music always got a great reaction from the audience.

Ravel being the hard performance also became a sort of bookend for some of the scenes with the naughty girls – almost a little bit of a counterpoint soundtrack for all those naughty moments. The mysterious nature of the music was perfect for this. Such as the scene with Emily about to tell the composer character that she’d been accused of taking drugs. There was a suggestion around the music of the primeval. A nice counterpoint, which was very enjoyable.

By this stage the audience is recognising faces and the way each character is taking on this music as well. Aurora on the double base has everything spelt out on her face. You only hear her say one or two words throughout, but it’s interesting how the audience delighted in her character simply from her facial reactions to all the classes and rehearsals she was in.

We get to meet Aurora and feel for her. But the same scene also reinforces Mrs Carey’s ambition for not only the Ravel, but for the concert and the parameters that she’s setting for excellence. You also get a sense of all the other things that are going on in these girls’ lives. Aurora is not just doing music, but she has a load of other curricula to manage – excursions and so on. That’s another layer in getting to understand these girls. And then we get to the Opera House and meet the third member of the ensemble, Millie, the cellist.

Mrs Carey explains that Millie is in every piece at the Opera House, so her breakdown is pretty much expected at this point in time. By this stage, we’re hoping that our audience has a sense of this music, along with the different characters involved and their emotional journeys. This we did with all six pieces that appear in the concert at the end. By the final moments, we expect to have our audience engaged with all layers and ideas as they watch the concert. And that is what concludes the moments of the Ravel – the Opera House performance on the night.