No More Ghostly Games, Trick or Treat.

No More Ghostly Games...

2011-12-28T22:04:00.003Z

So I haven't blogged in a while so this must be a real doozy.

However it is not. I have done a lot of things, attended MovieBars, been to comedy nights, theatre shows and film screenings. I've had fun times and bad times. I've posted about a lot of them here.

However I find that ever since the introduction of the blogspot stats viewer, I've become a little disheartened on my readership. I wish it was up there with the best of them. I wish people would stop me in the street and say "You're right, Congo is actually really good" but alas they do not. Instead I fill these pages with mindless rants and raves, only for horny teenagers to get sidetracked as they look up pictures of Babydoll from Suckerpunch.

So I'm not saying this is my last post. More likely I'll be back on tomorrow with a rant about the endless circle of script notes I get (I seriously think it's time to submit draft 1 again).

I think I will shut the power off for a time though. But rather than let it die here, I'll give it closing statement to send it off into the world.

Thank you to those who have stuck by me, especially as I probably know you in person, and will have probably performed a lot of this information live, in the past.

But the time has come.

No more ghostly games, trick or treat.

For now at least.

Harrison Ford plays Uncharted 3...

2011-10-19T19:00:00.001+01:00

I've just seen this video where Harrison Ford plays Uncharted 3 in a passing of the adventurer torch. I'm supposed to be rendering a video for the Halloween Moviebar but wanted to share the video with you.
Enjoy! There may be slight spoilers within, just a bit of gameplay stuff, nothing too revealing.

I can't tell if this is awesome or embarrassing, but I like the idea of Harrison Ford playing games. Especially Uncharted. It's taken from the Japanese Uncharted site and I guess is marketed as Indiana Jones passing the torch. Not sure it really works this way, but it's nice to here him discuss a game he has absolutely nothing to do with.

Next time I want to see Adam West playing Batman Arkham City. That would be truly awesome!

Page Views...

2011-09-21T14:15:00.002+01:00

So I come to blog, after a while not doing so, and I find myself confronted by a new view. Upon this view, as other blogspot user will know. is the ability to see ones stats.

Now I know other methods and programs exist for this type of review, but I'm lazy. Now I can easily see what a difference I'm making to the world.

Absolutely none.

Well 49 people, of which I'm probably a handful, wanted to see my thoughts on Sucker Punch. Beyond that I seem to average out at 3 page view per post.

The sad thing is I pretty much know who these people are, and would probably benefit more, if I either just rang them up, or sent out a monthly Newsletter of my adventures in not much at all.

I was going to do a proper post about how I may be changing projects again, how I'm busy writing things and generally how Jenny Ringo is awesome, and now on the IMDB.

But instead I'm going to wallow in sadness and stare at my stats to see just how many people view my blog.

I was under the impression that people would want to know "how it all went down!"

Perhaps not.

Editors Note:
I have looked more closely at my stats and discovered that I was only looking for the last week. I now realise that Sucker Punch got 2172 page views. So I stadn corrected, clearly people just want to know how Sucker Punch went down.

I really need to blog...

2011-09-07T13:13:00.000+01:00

So the last couple of months have been a bit mental, some good stuff, some bad.

I should really do an extended blog but I'm at work so can't.

Maybe next time.

Denied...

2011-06-25T13:40:00.002+01:00

Ok, for those who don't know I've had a lot going on recently, creatively speaking.

Along with the E Sting, Jenny Ringo making of, 20 minute animation, and a host of writing plans I really need to start working on, I decided to enter a competition to make Flogging Molly's next video, Revolution.

When I say decided, I dived in basically. I've teased before about it, trying to find help on Facebook, deciding to use a puppet and such, and the final nail in the coffin, finding out that I needed to shoot in HD. But I'll get back to that.

So, there are five weeks until the deadline of 23rd June 2011, I wrack my brain for an idea. I get one. Lots of people singing the song cut together. Simple I thought, but only a handful of takers. So I go back to the drawing board.

Ok A puppet, and one person. But the person works in a shop and has a party. More sets and people required. I roughly storyboard and don't like what I see. Back to the storyboard.

This is all going on as the day job gets slowly and slowly busier, not giving me much time to focus on the video, so stress levels are rising.

Eventually I decide to scrap leaving the house (a decision I often fall back on, and is often the right choice). So the video will be 1 person, 1 puppet 1 location. Sorted. Girlfriend Charlotte stars, Brother Chris did most of the camera work and Brother Tim pressed play on the CD Player/PC (he will be more prominent in the next project.)

So I spend a week making a puppet, ready to film on the Saturday. I didn't quite get there so Sunday (12 June 2011) it is.

We begin.

We start late, around noon, film till about 5 with Brother Chris, me crawling into some seemingly impossible contortionist positions to give the puppet life. All is going well. Until I remember the specifications of the video "ALL VIDEO MUST BE IN 16:9".

Crap.

We shot all day in standard 4:3, as I forgot to change to widescreen. We grab a couple more shots, now in widescreen and call it a day to reasses.

The widescreen I decide I can get around, not in the best way, but I can crop the edges of the 4:3.

So we continue to film over the next couple of evenings. By now I only have just over a week to finish but by the weekend I have everything I need.

It's around this time that I find out it also has to be HD. I have been using a MiniDV camera, nothing special but it usually serves its purpose. I don't do much filming being an animator so never thought of upgrading, plus the funds I do not have.

With this problem facing us, we all decide we can get away with it, add enough of an effect to make it look as if we want it low quality. Which in a way, is the point of the video. 1 person in a house trying to find a job. It's real and down to earth. HD wouldn't add anything to the video, just quality for the sake of it. I persevere and continue on my merry way.

But now the Parents are visiting. I can't and don't want to ignore them to edit, so have to edit around them. This means on Saturday night (18/17 June 2011) I'm up until 3am editing. And I win. Edit complete. It's all working out. Then I do a quick test and it won't render/export. 2 hours later I get the program to export properly and retreat to bed at 5 o'clock in the morning.

5 hours later I'm awake to start again. I need to get it uploaded on the Tuesday so I'm getting panicky. I needed Sunday to do the rendering but instead spend the day working on the little effects shots. By Sunday night it's ready. I start it exporting and wait. But the file's massive. Managing to watch it on th PS3 on the 32inch HD TV, all looks good. Except the effect is too much and doesn't work.

It's getting late. It takes hours to render so I have to leave the PC on overnight. I go to sleep then to work. Monday evening (20 June 2011) I get the video which hasn't worked. I need to render out again. Once again it doesn't quite work and the file size is massive. Stress levels are at max as I have to leave it until Tuesday. The day I needed to upload it.

At this time I have checked the specs and realise it has to be no larger that 300Mb. At the moment I'm clocking in at 700Mb.

Tuesday evening, I get in and go back to basics. Cut out everything that isn't needed for a smooth render/export, simplify the effect, do a bit of online research and email a couple of friends about compression. Deciding to reduce the bit rate I get it down to 287Mb. Excellent.

We watch and it's all good. Excellent.

I upload it and wait for the response...

"Hi Peter,

Do you have a higher quality version of your video you can upload? We're a platform for official music videos and only publish entries we believe have the potential to be used in that capacity. The version you uploaded seems to be fairly low resolution, even when watched in HD.

Thanks"

Crap. I didn't fool anyone.

At this point there was a mad dash to try an make it better quality, around going to see Green Lantern...

(Side Note: I enjoyed the film, however, the four writers really didn't help. There was lot's going on, but then at the same time, lot's of hanging around. Kind of like Thor. I think if they were introducig Oa and the Green Lantern Corps then they should have used them, rather than as a short "this is what's happening, let's train, ok done." It should have been more earth based to give more room to play with the ring and the things it can do. Overall it was just too jumbled. Ryan Reynolds was good, the CG was ok, reminding me of the original Tron. Not sure if this was their goal. I think WB need to stop thinking about money and get the animated movie writers to make a live action leap, or at least consult. As I've said before, they need to employ someone to say "Yep, that doesn't really work")

...but ultimately time was up. I had been denied entry to the competition for not having an HD camera, and ultimately for not having money.

This is the state of the world we live in. I wrote a nice calm reply back stating that it's supposed to look a bit rough as an artistic choice. I also took this chance to had a quick stab at their insane requirements. They want their videos to be HD so they can show them on a variety of formats. Another of their specifications is for the video to be 1920x1080 pixels. For those that don't know, this is the size of a small house. Well ok, not really, but it is roughly the size of a large TV. Yet the website that host the video is on a tiny little window itself. So to be helpful, I did point out that most of these formats were on the internet, iphones and such. Where mostly the video is in a small window.

Anyway, I reasoned that to fit into there MASSIVE specs but reach the TINY files size something had to go, so this could also be the reason.

At this point I wished him on his merry way.

So thats the end of my epic tale of stress. I am happy with the result and think I've made a great video, and think it would have had a chance at winning.

But there's one thing that still frustrates me. All the time and effort that I've used, has ultimately gone into a fan video. A copyright infringement heavy video that can only be seen on the youtube.

If I'd know this was the was it would end, I could have just edited together shots of Buffy and Angel or the Bella/Edward/Jacob love triangle and been done in 20 minutes. But at least it will get seen.

So on that defeatists note I bring to you my rejected entry for Flogging Molly's Revolution:-

Flogging Molly - Revolution

A short afterthought:-
Youtube like to crack down on copyrighted material so I'm not sure how long this will exist on youtube. They've already flagged it up, not sure what their policy is these days.

Finally:-
I'mm pretty sure the puppet (Marshall Bravestarr) will return in something much much better. Mark my words, my puppeteering hands are not dead yet.

...and shit it is...

2011-06-16T01:06:00.000+01:00

That was in reference to my job. It got busy. It got annoying. It got in the way of trying to finish the music video in a week.

Except I'd like to upload it before the deadline so less than a week.

I have less than a week to film three more shots, capture the footage, edit the footage, make sure it all looks 16:9 (forgot about this when we started filming), give it a nice visual look...

...and it will be complete.

Except now I find out it had to be in HD!?!?!?!?!

I think I can get away with it. I think I can magic Standard Definition to High Definition.

There's a puppet for gods sake. Surely you can accept an SD video if it has a puppet.

...I may have bodged.

Everyone loves a puppet...

2011-06-02T10:42:00.000+01:00

So all of a sudden it's June. Which means it's technically summer and my day job is about to become a joyous, wonderful place to work, with rainbows and unicorns. Obviously there are lashings of sarcasm on that last desctiption.
Basically it will be shit.

But enough about that.

I haven't blogged much due to general busy-ness, hence my last blog giving a quick run down of what I have going on at the moment. But now that's all changed.

I say it's all changed, but really I've just added another project. Another music video in which I haev until 23rd June to complete. That's just 21 days from now to complete.

So I imagined a quick idea, put a call out on the facebook and got 3 replies. Not this was kind of a test as I needed at least 7 responses. Granted I didn't go about this the right way, but with only 21 days, who can be bothered with casting call outs wen friedn will do.

So with only a handful of people I went back to the drawing board to see what else I could come up with. What else did I have at my disposal?

I have a puppet!

And as I said before everyone likes a puppet.

Right???

An update of sorts....

2011-05-23T22:46:00.000+01:00

So I'm just checking in. I really should be talking about the short film I'm making, but I wanted to do a massive update on that with pictures and things.

So I could talk about the making of Jenny Ringo, but that's still in it's early stages and not much to say other than I'm editing it.

I could talk about the recent draft of a script I've been working on with Brother Chris. Except I can't actually talk about that.

I could possibly talk about another ESting I'm working on for the annual competition at E4. Not much to say at the moment. Brother Tim will hopefully be involved, and it will feature E4. That's all I dare say for now.

I guess I'd better stop talking about all this and actually get on and do something.

Catch you later when I'm not so busy.

It's all been done...

2011-05-02T13:28:00.000+01:00

So I really should have blogged about this whilst it was all going on. I just couldn't find the time.

But I'm still not ready. See it's the end of my long Easter break, and I don't fancy spending my time blogging when I need to really find a distraction from the fact that I now have to go back to work tomorrow. Unfortunately I can access my emails at home, and thinking I could lessen the blow if I check now rather than starting blind tomorrow. This blew up in my face as I now find I have an extremely stupid amount of emails to contend with on the morrow.

So now I'm depressed. So I'm going to play games instead.

I'll blog properly about the Jenny Ringo making of, about the status of Everyday Joe, and about any writing projects I may be working on.

Bye...

I think it's best if I hide...

2011-04-24T01:22:00.000+01:00

I've finally started editing the behind the scenes footage of Jenny Ringo. It's cool how it's taking me back to the time spent making the film, and all the memories connected with it. Also how hot it was over those few weeks. Granted, it also helps that it's rather warm outside today. Strange for April.

It's good to see how we all worked together and I was wondering if I am missing out on a lot of experiences by making a animated short, on my own, using my friends for voice cast (a conscious production decision).

I was thinking that, until I see the footage when the camera was turned on me. The uncomfortable mumbles I make when answering questions; the long stares at nothing in particular as I avoid the camera eye contact. Nope, it isn't for me. I'm purely a behind the scenes guy.

And so, with the doubts I had about animation cast aside, I continue to set forth on a journey to finish something I started 6 years ago...that is if I can actually get the cast recording done.

So what was this blog actually about?

Sucker Punch...

2011-04-09T12:07:00.012+01:00

I feel I'm going out on a limb here...but I liked Sucker Punch. Only I'm not sure I'm supposed to.

I'll try to keep spoilers at a minimum.

There's been a lot of bad reviews regarding this film and to be honest I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to get from it. I'd seen the trailers and really liked the visual style of genre mash up in the action. Samurai with Machine guns? Can you really go wrong with that?

So I made an effort to get out of Worthing, something that nearly defeated me, and went to see Sucker Punch.

I'll start with hmmm. I started off not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. The opening was cool, minimum dialogue, just depressing visuals with a depressing cover version of Sweet Dreams playing over it. Then the plot begins, with Baby Doll taken to a mental home and is put in line to be lobotomised. This is the drive of the character, to escape before literally losing her mind.

However, in the institute, as part of their therapy, the girls have to act out their problems on stage, in order to work through them. Baby Doll reacts to this by escaping into her own head, thinking that they are dancers locked inside a club unable to escape and having to put on a show each night for the seedy clientele.

Ok so far it's a bit messy, the transition from the institute to the club could have been smoother, but a few jerky movements and we're there. So now we're escaping from a club.

Another reason for the messy transition comes from some of the set design. It seems to jump between the Club and Institute. So for example, one minute Baby Doll is in the dressing room, all lit up, and the next she's running through the dingy corridors of the institute, but still in dance club costumes.

Anyway, along the way she enlists the help of fellow inmates/dancers and together they try to gather the 5 items required to escape. This is when it all goes very video gamey. I've read that Zach Snyder didn't think he was making a video game style but it can't be helped when characters are given mission objectives.

So rather than 90 minutes of sneaking around the club, which would have been a completely different film, Baby Doll has to use the weapon of dance. A dance so completely mesmerising, it can hypnotise those watching, enabling her cohorts to steal the required items.

This is where we get the action, Zach could've just shown a dance, but no dance would've been enough to convince the audience, so when dancing, he has Baby Doll escape further inside her head to some other world where she has to fight samurai with machine guns, zombie Nazis, knights, orcs, dragons and robots.

So to keep you up to speed the action is as follows:

You have fighting Baby Doll...

...inside the head of the dancing Baby Doll...

...inside the head of therapy performance Baby Doll.

So she fights/dances/performs to steal what she needs. Therefore the film is pretty straightforward, in a round about way.

The film is pure escapism, rather than facing the truth, you escape to somewhere more exciting. I've done it before, especially in times of distress. Dentist's chairs come to mind.

As you can see the more I thought about this film the more I found I did enjoy it. I was a little disappointed when I started, but during the film, gave up trying to work out how it was wrong, why it was bad, whether the female leads are anything but eye candy and came to a realisation that the girls on film are locked in a mental institute, so why should this make any sense. You have WWII bombers fighting Dragons for example. I'm not going to try to work this out, just enjoy it as is. This idea of the film being purely insane, is also backed up by the video on the end credits, the main villain of the film (Oscar Isaac - awesome by the way) sings Love is the Drug, cabaret style with the Institute's therapist (Carla Gugino). This film is meant to continually come at you with surprise attacks. Hence the Sucker Punch.

I was going to hide this in a spoiler box, but you may want to hear my other thoughts as to what it could be. I have been thinking that maybe all the girls are just personalities of Baby Doll. For example, she is taken to the mental institute because she accidentally killed her sister. Once there she meets two fellow inmates who are sisters, the older Sweetpea looking out for the younger Rocket. Surely an extension of BabyDoll;s character that she tried to look after her own sister. So now she has become bother older and younger sister.

THIS IS A SPOILER:
This is also present in the ending when Baby Doll is lobotomised, but we see Sweet Pea escape. Although she doesn't escape, She is the only personality to survive in the lobotomised Baby Dolls mind. This is why Scott Glenn, the mysterious advisor in all the action dreams, is present at the end. Sweetpea is still inside Baby Dolls head because she doesn't exist.

Baby Doll is content to live out the remainder of her days, in her own mind, as the protective Sister Sweetpea.

END OF SPOILER

There's an obvious omission from this review. The portrayal of the female leads. This is not a black and white thing to answer. On the one hand you have the strong, fighting women, albeit wearing festishied costumes. One the other hand, when not fighting they are all a bit weepy and seem to accept their roles as objectified dancers.

However, I think, this is far to easy a judgement to make. The girls are the same characters. You can't simply split them up into their different emotions. They are strong to fight back, but also vulnerable. You also have to take into account the subject matter of the film. It's set in a Mental Institution. I think it's pretty safe to say that they aren't the strongest of minds if they're in their in the first place. You can't have a group of Warrior Women in the mental home, otherwise surely you;d have to question why they were they if they were so strong in the first place.

I'm not getting into this on here. I enjoyed the film. I also enjoyed 300 and didn't think it wrong that there were no fat men in pants on their team. As with many other films, the male heroes are usually Adonis types. I should really be on side with Seth Rogan as he is a heavier build and was recently the lead as the Green Hornet, but he's not very good.

So back on track with Sucker punch, a quick mention to the soundtrack which includes some cool covers and is actually awesome. There's a great cover of Search and Destroy by Skunk Anansie played over the dragon sequence.

Overall I think the reviews have been unfair to Zach Snyder. There's a lot of great ideas in Sucker Punch. The fights are exciting, using some insane camera techniques that I have no idea how Snyder kept track of. I think the main problem was the way the film is put together, which I admit, is a little confusing, resulting in a lot of bad reviews. Who knows if the studios had a hand in messing it about.

But who says that every film has to be the greatest film ever made. Sometimes you just want to escape from day to day life. Sometimes you just want to have something else to think about. Sometimes you just want to watch an anime school girl fight a samurai with a machine gun!

Too much?

A short respite...

2011-03-26T13:09:00.022Z

So this post has absolutely nothing to do with film...shortly.

First off I just want to mention that I've just finished a treatment for, what is in essence...Editor's Note - I decided to take out the description for this treatment, should it all be changed at the last minute. Let's just say, it's both familiary and arty at the same time.

On the Everyday Joe front, i got some notes back, some of which I'm now trying to implement into Draft 10.5 or 11. There were other notes that I think I may let slide as I don't want to stray to far from my original intention. Put this down to artist discretion.

So enough about films. I just wanted to highlight a random point of what a good year for games this year will be, or to put it another way, I have an expensive Christmas period this year. Now, I'm sure there are quite a few games coming out that should be mentioned, but its my blog and I just wanted to post a video about this:-

Originally I simply thought Uncharted was just a Tomb Raider rip off with a bloke (Funny how Tomb Raider is an Indiana Jones rip off with a girl) Although I still wanted to play it. I'm a sucker for these adventure games. Upon moving in with my Girlfriend and inheriting a PS3 I know now that they are a hell of a lot more. And I'm afraid to say, may even be better than Lara Croft's exploits. I still have a place in my gaming heart for the original PS1 Tomb Raider, but everyone knows the yearly release dates considerably weakened the series. I'll get back to this in a bit anyway, back to Uncharted.

Uncharted is great. It's fun to play, has great dialogue, and can be annoying as bloody hell; but it always leaves you wanting more. There's great chemistry between the main character Nate Drake, his old friend Sully and the is she/isn't she possible love interest Elena. I should really give more of a back story, but you really need to check them out yourselves if possible. I'm currently finishing up Uncharted 2, but I'll definitely be in the queue for the next installment, unless my girlfriend beats me there.

The next game on my radar so far is kind of obvious:

The original Batman: Arkham Asylum was a really fun game. The first to really put you in the Batman's boots. Once again Batman: Arkham City is written by Paul Dini, and features voice actors from the original Animated Series, as well as newcomers. I love how the story has taken on a darker tone akin to the films of Christopher Nolan. A much more suitable place for Batman that the Day Glo world of Scumacher.

I may be biased because I've bought almost every Batman game made, and enjoyed most of them. I just glad that now they've found a system that really does the Caped Crusader justice.

Finally there's this:

Yep, no video yet of the next Tomb Raider, but I know I'll be there paying the extortionate price for the new game once released. As I was saying, they were getting worse. The Angel of Darkness pretty much destroyed the series. Despite having a few good ideas, Core managed to kill the series with poor delivery. So Crystal Dynamics had a go.

Tomb Raider: Legend was good. Great story, awesome new control system and style. It's a pity then , that after remaking the first Tomb Raider (Anniversary) they managed to drive the series back in to the ground with Underworld. I personally liked this game. However, it didn't really do much than to expand the story from Legend, and every level seemed to be in another cave. Imagination got a little lost here.

So now they've rebooted the series. This time it looks as though we're in prequel territory, and possibly a Bermuda Triangle of sorts. It also looks like she'll get a bit beaten up as well: So there we have it. A brief respite from work to talk about some great looking games. Now I'm off to work on Everyday Joe, or maybe play Uncharted 2. Or possibly one of the other 20 odd games I have piled up that I've yet to start playing. I'd better get busy...

100 posts = 100 things to talk about...

2011-03-17T20:54:00.010Z

So here’s how it was...

I started the blog about just under 3 years ago. On Thursday 14th August 2008 to be exact I’m not particularly sure of the reasons off hand. I was going to mention that according to my original post it was because of this...but I don't seem to have given a reason. I think I started it, as Brother Chris said, so that I can look back on what I was moaning about months ago. That, and people will want to know how it went down.

It’s always been difficult continuing to blog when you can count your readership on your fingers, and see most of them in real life regularly. I have managed to keep it up over time though.

So over the last couple of years I’ve talked about things that annoy me, things that excite me, things I’ve been working on and a lot of complaining. I also gave up at one point, only posting occasional musings.

Fun fact time, whilst this blog has existed I’ve lived in four houses/flats, 3 towns and had 4 jobs, included a period of unemployment.

I’d just finished a making of, completed a shorter making of, made a 2nd E4 ESting and a music video. I’ve seen a number of bands, seen a load of films and mused a lot of random musings.

So that’s basically how it went down...

...and here’s how it is.

So right here in the present I'm still busy. I'm still working, which yes is good because I get money, but it does take up a hell of a lot of time, and is a bit annoying. I've lived in my current house for over 6 months which is looking good. And I'm still playing games. Got my hands on a PS3 now thank to the Girlfriend's gaming madness. Uncharted is amazing by the way.

So with all the above going on I'm still busy with the creativity. I wrote a list recently of all the things I have to work on and there were about 10 items on there, and they're all in different stages. Some are more urgent than other, some are writing based, some making of based. 1 is a whole animated film. Not feature length of course, but long-ish. I am quite confident to announce, over the next year or so I will be working on:-

Lost in 5 Towns: A Tale of an Everyday Joe.

Did I juts break a rule and announce a project... oh crap. I wont divulge too much information, just that it's a film close to my own heart, set in good old Stoke-on-Trent. Now, if you never hear of this again, I will have learned my lesson about announcements on blogs.

Still I've still got the secret writings I've got going with Brother Chris which will hopefully come to fruition in the near future. And on that note, you're all up to speed.

So here’s how it will be...

Some stuff I guess.

Here's to the next 100 posts.

They asked for 1000 Lawman, they got only 1. He was enough...

2011-03-07T10:11:00.004Z

So I need to post simply because I haven't in a while.

Things have been busy since the last time. I say busy, I had a week of so I've really just been lazy. Time off should really mean I get a chance to catch up on all the things I need to write/create that I normally don't have time to do. However in this instance I used the time to play games. I did take in a spot of theatre to see the Dickensian 'The Black Veil'. It's based on a Charles Dickens short thriller. It's not a bad story, slow to get started. It could have done with a few ghosts but enjoyable non the less. It was just a little odd to go on the Wednesday Matinee with the retired community of Worthing.

Now I say I had a week off, but I blatantly lied. I had to work again on Thursday and Friday.

This is what else happened:-

I saw I Am Number Four - A bit muddled, with too much Twilight influence. Not sure the studio knew what they wanted to do with this.

I saw Paul - A slow starter with a few jokes. Not a clever/sharp as Hot Fuzz or Shaun, but better than Superbad but not as good as Adventureland.

I couldn't see Drive Angry 3D - stupid Odeon only had it on for one week. ONE WEEK!! This is crazy. I blame the world...and Yogi Bear 3D...and most of all the stupid Odeon.

Finally, on Saturday, after many double bookings my girlfriend Charlotte and I went to see KT Tunstall at the Brighton Dome. This was a strange experience, mainly due to small coincidental happenings (Mark Wahlberg wasn't there though, I think). I was talking about previous gigs I'd been to and how Rob Zombie had used Devo (who Brother Chris ans I saw a couple of years ago - See here) in his playlist before the gig. At this point Whip It came on. Awesomely weird I thought.

I then mentioned how the first ever gig I went to was to see Ash play in Wolverhampton, over ten years ago. then who should come out on stage as pat of KT's band, but Charlotte Hatherley. Once again. Awesomely weird.

Overall it was a great show. She's a lot better live than on the CD's and the band were really good. There were a few annoying people throughout the evening. We arrived early to get a good spot and started queuing at 6:30pm. Doors were at 7:00pm. This didn't stop everyone behind us sneaking forward to see why the doors hasn't opened yet - because doors were at 7 maybe. Or complaining that THEY were making us wait outside - BECAUSE DOOR WERE AT 7:00.

Once inside we got to the second row back and found ourselves next to Veruca Salt and her first gig experience. This would have been fine if she wasn't hurling abuse at the support - The Pictish Trail. A one man singer/songwriter, who was brave enough to come on alone, only to be heckled by 10 year olds.

People just didn't seem to understand what exactly happened at gigs.

Anyhoo here's a video. I'm at work so not sure how good this is.

As with other gig reviews I need to point out that we were standing on what was essesntially the second row just to the left of centre stage. At about 20 seconds, KT Tunstall was directly infront of us. I think we may be on this video in the darkness of the crowd.

I also managed to nab myself the plectrum shrew threw out to the audience. This time using my Eyes of the Hawk. Having already used Speed of the Puma to get the Alice Cooper money I only need to utilise Ears of the Wolf and Strength of the Bear to confirm my Bravestarr status.

Now I'd better do some work.

Some stuff happened...

2011-02-23T13:56:00.002Z

So yeah, some stuff happened.

Fine, I'll elaborate a little. Yesterday Brother Chris and I had a meeting regarding said script that was co-written and moaned about previously.

I'#m not sure exactly how much can be revealed at this stage in case, in a fit of rage, we destroy all memory of said script, only to be remembered as a fun anecdote in those winter nights of the future.

"Remember when we wrote a script?" Brother Pete excitedly declared. "Yes." replied Brother Chris.

Saying all that it went pretty well. Brother Chris is continuing to redraft form the plethora of notes given and hopefully we can successfully complete Level 2. So enough of that for now.

However, that is not the end of this story. I have also been resurrecting an old script I had originally sent to Screen West Midlands, only to be told that it was "Visually, narratively and stylistically a mess."

So a little disheartened was I until I realised that they knew nothing. Especially as I wasn't making a two people in a room film about the death of the world, juxtapositioned with the lack of Wheatabix left in the box on a Monday morning.

so I'm pulling the script out or retirement and moving ahead. Basically, I had written a short introduction to said project, but until I'm actually ready to go, I think I'll save the announcement until a few blogs later.

But it is coming...

Rob Zombie stole my ears...

2011-02-17T18:55:00.002Z

In a Brother piece to Brother Chris blog, which can be found here, I also felt the need to make you all wish you where with us last night. Rob Zombie was amazing. Seriously, I have proof.

During this next one at about 4:46 Rob Zombie left the stage an was a mere foot away from where we were standing. This was cool. Also at about 9:20 listen out for The Munsters theme. By this time Rob zombie was somewhere round the back.

These videos do make me wonder whether getting so close to front is worth it. The sound is a lot better on these videos than what we heard thanks to the giant speaker we were next to. Also we had a couple of strobe lights in our eyes. And were standing next to a large cannon. We didn't explode though thankfully.

Saying all that though, you can't the replace atmosphere of being close to the stage. I'm sure the next gig I'll have this same discussion, and still end up at the front.

That's the only way I can actually hear the music.

Strange things are afoot at Circle K...

2011-02-11T11:45:00.003Z

It's all a bit odd at the moment. I can't gauge how this year is going. On the one hand we had our first MovieBar which went down surprisingly well. A couple of sound related hiccups but nothing too disastrous.

We also showed Elasto!. Yes Elasto. For those in the know, Elasto is a film I made just out of College with my Dad. I still had the fresh creative urges and needed something to keep them busy. So he provided a music tack he had from 1982 called Elasto. now this is where I like to remain tight lipped. There is an explanation to Elasto. Quite a simple, yet mundane explanation. However, I feel it actually speaks for itself. You can take what you want form it. At the root of it all, it's just plain weird. And Awesome.

Elasto had a good response. There was a short Q&A where I tried to remember how long it took and why I'd made such decisions. Once again, I think I left everyone just as confused as the film did.

Anyway, MovieBar is working and continues next month. The complete rundown of the first night can be seen on the MovieBar blog here

So far so good.

Then came the email conversation. I'm not too good at covering these things. Brother Chris has already post his frustration with the state of play at the moment.

In short, as we previously joked, I loaded in Chris' Save Game and have joined him co-cooperatively on Level 2 of script writing. It would seem I obviously don't have all the necessary experience points as he does and couldn't afford the bionic arm power up, but I continue plugging away the best I can. I just have to learn to block more.

This whole game analogy has gotten a bit messy. What I mean to say anyway, is we had a script, production company was and is interested, but only it seems once we've defeated hoards of enemies. We're talking Level 2 here, not final boss. Things shouldn't be this difficult. I mean if this was the same with every game, how do things like Sharktopus ever get made.

Anyway, you can read the in depth frustration here.

Imaginary games...

2011-02-02T14:21:00.003Z

So I was sitting at my PC, editing the new MovieBar logo, in it's seven part logo. I split this up with checking the Internet for randoms as one does when I happened upon on an XBox 360 game trailer about psychics or whatever. Initially this looked a bit run of the mill, however from memory, the end of the trailer had a really cool twist. I continued to work, then checked the time, suddenly it was half seven and I thought it best to get some dinner.

So away I went, ate some food and returned to the PC to continue the logo. At this time I remembered how cool that game was but couldn't remember the title. Mind Warp or something along those lines. I decided to look for it online. However I didn't seem to be able to find anything about this game.

I then thought back, I couldn't actually remember watching a video online. This trailer just happened to start playing, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it. I don't think it was on TV and I hadn't watched any videos online, that would be preceded by a game trailer.

At this point I started to freak out a little as the only explanation I could come to was pretty far fetched. Whilst editing the logo, I must have blacked out and dreamed about the trailer. this would explain why it didn't exist, and the sudden realisation of the time.

I'm sure I'm probably jumping to conclusions, but until someone can show me that game, and the cover art for confirmation I am convinced of my theory.

Blacking out whilst editing logos. That's not so good is it!

**UPDATE**
And it totally didn't happen. It's good to know my brain isn't about to explode from a hidden tumor, or a scanner.

I found the game. It's called Mind Jack. Check it out. Luckily it still looks alright.

Blacking out at the PC. Seriously, like that would hap ...

Long time no see...

2011-01-28T12:15:00.002Z

...or write.

Ok, I've neglected this blog in recent times. I'll be honest. I'm lazy, and didn't have much to say. Actually I did have things to say, but I was likely to go off on a rant, therefore taking up time that could best be spen on other activities.

So way back in October I was plannign something. At that time I thought this was best represented by quoting Back to the Future, click here to remind yourselves >>>

Ok so that was supposed to be the start of something big. And then it got too big, and I didn't move forward at all and it slowly became simply a blog post with a Back to the Future quote.

However, I'm getting back onto the proverbial horse. I will release bits of information regarding whatever projects I'm working on.

This is also due to the fact that I have, at this time 7 projects on the go in some state or another. 8 projects actually as I'm going to drag another out from the past.

This means that things are going to get more interesting on here, but also equally as vague as I still believe in the idea of not giving too much away.

Just think if I'd announced the project back in October, and still no closer to actually showing anything. Damn. I should have actually said it was just a Back to the future quote. Now if I had a DeLorean I could go back and change what I said. Actually I suppose I could just scroll to the top and remove it.

It's been said now. I suppose I'll just leave it for future generations to see. People will want to see how it went down.

And I suppose that's the point of the blog. In years to come the Future Men and Women will look back at this blog. Wonder what happened in the gaps but ultimately will see how it all went down.

That is if my career mirrors Bill and Ted and at some point I'll have to fight a future robot version of myself and save the world with film.

Be excellent to each other and party on dudes!

Jenny Ringo Needs you...

2010-11-06T14:46:00.010Z

Well it needed me actually. Here's my account of workignonf Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw.

So there I was minding my own business when Brother Chris suddenly announced it, “I’m making a short film and I need you to do some animation.”

With nothing better to do I jumped at the chance...

...Ok so it didn’t really go exactly like this. Well actually, pretty much. This was before the exact details had all been worked out. You see it started as me filming 20 seconds of Animation, tops. Then it stretched to me becoming half of the art department. This naturally led me onto the Prop handler/wrangler and finally settling on general dogsbody, including a bit of Fake Shempery.

But I still jumped at the chance. If Chris could pull it off, this film would be mental, and prove that all short films didn’t need to be about two people arguing in the director’s living room.
Here be my experience on Jenny Ringo and the Monkey’s Paw.

I’ll split this into 3 separate sections due to the different jobs I worked on.

Animation

So my initial task was to use my animation skills to animate (obviously). There were two short sections. Now I don’t want to give too much away with any of this so I’ll be brief. I needed to animate a Monkey, which I can say, as monkeys clearly play a large part in the story. This was just a ten second clip to visualise a monkey doing stuff. (I’m good at hiding the spoilers).

For this I used my tried and tested technique:-storyboard the clip, film it to get timing right, start drawing on paper, frame by frame. I then scanned the pictures and composited the whole thing together on the PC. This sounds simple, and relatively is, but takes time. I think the drawing, scanning and compositing only took about three days max. After an evening of tweaking, the first scene was complete.

The next scene once again needed to visualise some stuff. I had a chance to elaborate a little with this though and managed to come up with a cool little scenario for a famed Russian playwright/Star ship navigator. Somehow this one didn’t take as long. Well, I say that, but when I finished this one it was the early hours of the morning. This scene ended up being about 15 seconds long.

There’s nothing too complicated with these scenes. But hopefully they help to take the film that extra level to show what can be done with low budget independent shorts.

Art Department/Props

None of this is chronological by the way. I didn’t animate until after principal photography had finished. Before that I was given the task of Art Department along with Charlotte my girlfriend, and we dived straight in. There were 4 major areas. The living room, kitchen, hallway and one bedroom.

We basically had to make Brother Chris’ flat not look like his flat but like someone else’s flat. With the living room we needed to make it look as though we hadn’t just added a load of cool looking things on the shelves but that someone actually lived there. This was fun to go round and collect what we already owned and buy a few odd looking objects to fill the spaces. Here are some of my favourites:

The Creepy Doll – Strangely I felt safer with this after I bloodied it up.

The Brain – You always need a brain.

With the Kitchen, we were tasked to mess it up. Not just mess it up, it needed to look like it had never been cleaned. As if no one had ever even thought of cleaning it. As if no one would dare clean it. The trick for this is canned goods. Beans, macaroni and cheese and the slightly worrying meal in a can. I think we chose the all day breakfast as we couldn’t find the one with the omelette in.

Messing up a kitchen is easy. Lay a few unwashed dishes around, leftovers from lunch, add more dishes for effect and cover with beans and so on. Please note this will create an unpleasant smell and a sight you hope never to witness in the real world.

Once the scene was complete we got to tidy the Kitchen up. Lucky Us.

The hallway and bedroom was simply a case of dressing doors or walls with stuff that the characters might have decorated with, whilst subtly revealing a bit of their character in the decoration. Jenny was always going to be spooky, gothy and halloweeny. Gavin was never really explored deeply. Just a slacker type so we opted for an assortment of posters torn from music magazines.

Fake Shemp and Everything Else

I also appear in the film in a couple of Fake Shemp roles. 1 looking terribly like the ghost from Carnival of Souls and another, well let’s just say I got the role because apparently I look smarter in a suit.

Further to all the above, I was generally there for most of the filming. Helping out where I could. Whether this was as a drinks wrangler, monkey wrangler, sound wrangler or safety pin wrangler; I was always happy to help out.

Yes the days were long, and there were a couple of occasions where I had to sit in a room on my own until snacks/drinks were needed; but this is all part of the fun; because at the end of the day, I was part of something truly original.

I just hope the curse never catches up with me when I cut of the monkey’s paw in the first place.

------

You can see more of Pete's awesome animations on his YouTube channel here and keep up to date with what he's working on next at his blog here (which you should follow to encourage him to update it more often!).

This is heavy!

2010-10-06T12:20:00.002+01:00

If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.

I've moved again?

2010-09-30T22:56:00.003+01:00

So I was checking my old posts an realised that my last proper post I was monaing about moving and what not, then realsied I've since moved again. That's just how little imagination I have for this blog.

I really want to get back into it but time is precious.

So why now, well I'm here to sing the praises of Tim Robbins an the Rogues Gallery Band.

There was a great assortment of instrumentalists onthe packed stage, including a saw player. No one seemed to take video form last night but here's a bit of a random one.

You find more form this youtube video here

In a completly different style I saw Barenaked Ladies at the beginning of September

I only ever had one album, alsways meant to get more and I think I shall.

Once again the latter part of the year in Brighton is much more fun than the first.

Jonathan Richman is next.

It's like The Wrestler...

2010-07-20T00:13:00.003+01:00

...except it isn't at all.

I've stopepd blogging. I know. I had a brief burst of energy and work time to blgo in, then work time got taken up with actual work so I stopped once again.

Just as a taster I've been workign on a short film - Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw for Brother Chris.

See here for great detail -> Jenny Ringo

I've been a set wrangler, a prop wrangler, an animation wrangler, a food wrangler, a sound wrangler, a camera wrangler, and acting wrangle and sometimes a people wrangler.

Based on this wide range of task I've been involved in during the making of the film, in a similar blog to Brother Chris, I plan to write my own behind the scenes experiences of the life of a crew man.

For now, I'm to bed.

PS the final Scott Pilgrim book come out this week. I'll blog about the series as a whole at some point too.

Feeder video...

2010-06-10T21:41:00.000+01:00

I wanted to see it. It needs a stage. What better stage than this.

A little normality here please...

2010-04-07T15:07:00.002+01:00

Ok, so nobody said moving flats was simple but I never anticipated on it being this complicated/annoying/hazardous/idiotic/stupidic and most of all toatally stressfull. And I've kind of done the main part.

Anyway I've been trying to get back to normal for a while now without the slightest bit of luck. For a short time it was working, begining with character sheets for a new script I'll be workign of with Brother Chris'. However with his impending wedding and writing hiatus I may go it alone for a while.

Then things got stressful once again and I lost the ability to write (this wasn't really due to the stresses of life more the joys of life when I replaced my TV/Monitor with a larger TV which I temporarily use as a monitor so any prolonged exposure to slowly burns out my already damaged retinas.

Anyway the latest adventure of normality I had was showing the music video I finished before Christmas, Bitter Ruin's Soldier, at Son of Moviebar last night. The crowds seem to be dwindling, which is a pity as the nights are always interesting but the film went down really well. I managed to spit out a few sentences this time around and was excited to find out that someone in the audience knew the story of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, on which the video was based. So finally a small victory it would seem.

Anyway, I'm cutting this short as I need to do some "proper" work. Breaks over guys.

However, before I go, without further ado, the most excellent Scott Pilgrim trailer:-

It really is awesome.

The It's Alive baby is back, but this time there's three of them...

2010-03-26T15:59:00.002Z

Yes this bears littel relation to the actual blog, apart form the fact that for now it looks like new life has been injected into it in the form of a new job with internet connection. No I'm not stealing time with a sneaky update I'm having a quick break from scanning endless files.

Alas there is too much to report on. Nothing particularly interesting films wise more life wise.

So as for now that's all there is. I need to ease my way back in.

Plus this break is going on for quite a while.

Oh yeah, THE FREAKING SCOTT PILGRIM TRAILER IS FINALLY HERE. I CAN HARDLY CONTAIN MY EXCITEMENT AS I'VE NOT HAD THE CHANCE TO VIEW IT. HOWEVER THE PICS LOOK AWESOME. CAN'T WAIT.

How long will this thing last...

2010-01-23T19:52:00.003Z

Here's a review of 2009 which seems ages ago, and this is a little late. Plus as I blogged for most of it there's not much I wanted to say.

2009 - Left old job, visited Manchester, visited Cardiff – evil dead play (Awesome), moved to brighton, wrote Jimmy Fight script, old PC died when editing the making of Dark Furutre, bought New PC, Ten Dead Men DVD released, left another job, made another E4 thing, geeked out at conventions, attended Phantasmagoria – Uwe Boll, Neil Jackson and Michael Armstrong, got a new job, went to see Kevin Smith Q&A, Showed some films at Moviebar, completed Bitter Ruin video "soldier".

Here's some music I witnessed live:
Bird Eats Baby, Supersuckers, Wednesday 13, Devo, Kinky Friedman, John Otway, Alice Cooper.

And some films: My Name is Bruce, Coraline, Star Trek, Drag Me To Hell, 500 Days of Summer, District 9, Inglorious Basterds, Zombieland.

Finally games I played.
Batman Arkham Asylum, Rock Bands, Guitar Hero, Alone in the Dark, Darkness, Kane & Lynch, Fallout 3

Also discoverd Scott Pilgrim, really looking forward to the final volume and the Edgar Wright movie.

That's that done. I may be back...

Review of the year: 2009

2009-12-30T22:54:00.002Z

I'll get around to it sometime early in space year 2010.

Hope you had a good Christmas, and have a Happy New Year in the meantime.

"Soldier" - Bitter Ruin

2009-12-20T12:37:00.017Z

So I completed the music video so details can now be revealed. I suppose the main reason for not giving out much information about a project is to svae you from any embarrasing confrontations if the project fails and the interested public continually ask "Whatever happened to the music video idea, it sounded awesome".

I decided to take this further and just not reveal what I was working on, even when I was pretty much finished. This was mainly due to not having the time to blog about it.

So here we go, the complete making of the music video Soldier by Bitter Ruin.

I first met Bitter Ruin back in June at the BirdEatsBaby album launch party. When performing they asked a very casual audience that they were interested in a video and if anyone had any ideas to let themselves known. I had no ideas, however bought there second EP and emailed them a day later to say I was interested in making a video for one of their songs. They happily agreed and that was that, Soldier was made.

At least I wish it was that simple.

Over the next couple of months I worked on ideas thinking of what would work best, and how I was going to make a video. The last full animation (and by full I mean animated short) I made was back in 2005, In Case of Zombies. Chris gave me the idea of doing something Jan Svankmajer-esque from there I remembered the story of The Brave Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Anderson. Now I don't read much so I just presumed any knowledge I have of stories will be common knowledge, not the case. As with John Otway on Jonny the Pessimist I had to remind a whole load of people about the story of a one legged tin soldier who falls in love with a ballerina and has an adventure to get to here only to end up in a fire with here at the end. (Here's a link if you want to read the full story - The Steadfast Tin Solider)

So I storyboarded the video and met up with the band to explain my ideas. All was going smoothly, I gave them my ideas, and they gave me their thoughts. The premise was that "someone" was building a War style diorama so had set out a variety of tool son the table, sewing things, work tools and paints along with the set "they" were building. This was where the soldier saw the ballerina. However rather than just recreating the story I flipped it around so that it's the ballerina trying to reach the Soldier, influence from the Jean Pierre Jeunet film A Very Long Engagement.

I was set to begin. I wanted a lot of actual First World War footage to play in the background of the soldier set. Therefore my plan was to create a lot of the video on the computer using Combustion to alter camera movements and so on. This was to avoid any lighting issues I would have with an actual green screen.

So at the end of July/early August I began work on the preparation side, building the set, designing the ballerina and guttering any props I needed.

Production kind of began towards the end of August when I took photos of the soldier and the set ready for composition in the computer. At the beginning of September I animated the ballerina. This went surprisingly well. I'd planned on having to pull an all-nighter just to get that thing done but found that id didn't quite tae m that long. Maybe watching A Mighty Wind and Hairspray helped. I don't know, but I finished all animation over a couple of days. Now things began to get complicated. In theory I had the majority of the scenes and could begin editing. Which I did to a degree. The soldier scenes couldn't be completed until I had the chosen war footage. The footage was all sourced online from the Internet Archive from the video, America Goes Over. I left this side of the film a while and worked on the ballerina. Most of this was simple, just a case of speeding up the animation. However there is a scene in the middle that in my head was simple but in practice drove me insane.

There is a shot where the ballerina is dancing go the edge of a table but as she is there a wind blows an assortment o f objects off the table. This was fine until I wanted the objects to fall off the table. It's pretty difficult animating with gravity. So I had a lot of importing and exporting, green screen masks and layers and composited the whole thing together. It was not simple however I was finally happy with the result, which unfortunately is only on screen for a few seconds. Did I waste my time? I don't think so, that's kind of the point of animation. Although you may not notice it the film just wouldn't be the same without the scene.

I met up with the band once again to update them on how things were going. They informed me of an idea that they were planning on having a screening launch night. I thought it was a great idea and agreed on the beginning of November. A couple of days later after working on the video some more, I changed the date to early December.

So production moved along until a fateful day in October when I got a job. This is a good thing, but it slowed done production having my days taken away. But still I plugged away. Until another fateful day in October WHEN MY PC BROKE. This caused me no end of stress and general anger. Especially when I had to take if back to PCWorld and couldn't find out what was going no until two weeks later when I got it back. So once again I began work. Until a further fateful day in October when I got a cold. OK so this wasn't so bad, but it was the first weekend I had on the video for a while and was planning on getting a whole chunk completed, and then I got instantly ill. I did as much as my brain could take and then had to focus on getting better. Now I had just over a month the finish the video.

So I spent the next three weeks filming the last remaining scenes, filmed the band and melted the soldier. This was obviously done last in case I needed reshoots. I managed to get the video completed by the last week of November, in time to have my birthday free, and giving me just over a week for any changes, which was needed.

The final cut was fine however there were concerns over the look of the film. I had opted for a black and white video to match the whole silent film feel of the video but it was later agreed that the original colour cut looked more visually appealing. I'm still fond on f the black and white though and it will probably appear online one day.

So it was complete, the last four months had been spent working on the video and it was time for the launch. In that time another video was being completed for the band to share the evening, and annoyingly it only took Mark Withers about two weeks.

Regarding the night, it was excellent. The audience really seemed to enjoy the whole thing. BirdEatsBaby provided support which put a whole full circle end to the story and the videos were screened to a great reception. The two videos are completely different to one another which is good as I was worried that the night would be spent comparing two pieces of work.

I had to provide a short speech, which I'm becoming a dab hand at, sort of. I said something, can't really remember what but it was relevant so all was good.

And without further ado, here's the complted video.

So that was the saga of Soldier from start to finish. Since completing the video I haven't really done anything. It is Christmas after all. That isn't to say that my brain is empty, I'll be spending the New Year writing another feature with Brother Chris (shhh!) and hopefully at some point get a long awaited live action short off the ground.

We're not worthy...we're not worthy...

2009-12-06T23:01:00.004Z

Will he ever get live that down? Brother Chris and I went to see ALICE COOPER last night and it was awesome. It made things a lot easier that he was playing at the Brighton Centre so no complicated travel was needed to get there which helped the evening go more smoothly. Also there weren't many annoying drunken louts in the audience. This ones that squeeze themselves in to the non-space in front of you with their overflowing pint cup.

The support came in the shape of Man Raze (yeah, we didn't know either) who consisted of Phil Collen of Def Leppard, Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols and Simon Laffy of Girl (Yeah, we didn't know either). They were ok. There's only three of them which isn't that great on a large stage. As support bands go, they kind of served their purpose and played a few songs to kill time before the main attraction.

And then we waited. We weren't sure why there's still a long wait between bands. Surely the sound check will have been completed before the show. With Alice Cooper I realise there's a lot of stage to set up for the show but still I wonder if it's more of a traditional thing. Anyway, we were standing at the front, once again only a few people back. Pretty much the same position when we saw Devo. Here's the opening fro your pleasure, excuse the terrible sound.

We were standing just to the left of the curtain in front of the microphone at he the far end.

He then continued to play a real mix of tracks from the old to the new, even some I wasn't too familiar with such as Killer and Guilty. It was an awesome stage show this time around. I saw him last year I think, maybe the year before supported by Motorhead and Joan Jett, and although there was a (stage) death, there wasn't much of a link between the songs. However this time, with The Theatre of Death, there were some cool set pieces, including numerous deaths and a nurse grinding sparks off her body.

Once again he didn't fail to impress. He also doesn't seem to have aged since the eighties. It's not all about Alice though, his band were excellent. It's a pity I can never remember who they were, research must be done I think.

So once again Alice Cooper survives, hopefully for a few more years. I look forward to seeing what he pulls out of the bag next time.

As a quick note, there's a lot of stuff that gets thrown into the crowd such as canes, necklaces and Alice Cooper dollars, and on his occasion I was qucik enough to grab a dollar bill out of the air. Unfortunately it is only pretend currency, but still a great souvenir.

Movie time once again...

2009-12-04T23:25:00.013Z

I've got billions of things to blog about, well four actually, so let's go back one week, a single day after my birthday and a second adventure geeking out in London at Collectormania.

So here's the obligatory opening picture of R2D2. I decided to attend yet another Sci-Fi convention to celebrate my birthday, this time Collectormania. I say this time as though it's a completely different event, however it clearly isn't. So with girlfriend in tow we took the train to old London town. It's the same old story, there are booths selling stuff, celebrities signing and talks, both free and expensive. The mine drive this time around was to see Anthony Michael Hall, he of Breakfast club fame and more recently seen in The Dark Knight. Unfortunately he cancelled. I also got excited about the possibility of meeting Jess Harnell,the voice-over artist of Wakko of the Animaniacs, who also featured in the film Comic Book: The Movie. Unfortunately he also cancelled. So I was left with two main choices, Steve Blum, the voice of Spike Speigal form Cowboy Bebop and most recently Wolverine in game and cartoon forms. I was also interested in meeting Katherine Isabelle, though not widely known she has popped up as a guest star in a variety of US shows, have a brief scene in Uwe Bolls Rampage and was the leading lady in the awesome Ginger Snaps.

So to cut to the chase, the reason I have a strange expression in this photo is due to the fact that I just had a strange experience discussing the film Rampage. I remarked that that was the last film I saw her in at which point she confessed that she hadn't seen it. I then wasn't sure where to go, I explained that I saw it at Phantasmagoria in case she smelled a pirate. It then got weird as I wasn't sure if she was happy with he film, hadn't been shown due to distribution problems, or if it was just considered a job. So i got my autograph, photo and left.

As this was the second convention this year I wasn't feeling as much excitement as before, there were things to take photos of, and people to see. George Takei was one, Billy Dee Williams, Shannen Doherty (looking miserable) and John Rhys Davis were others. Doug Bradley was in attendance but I didn't want to approach him for two reasons, firstly I'd have to mention Chris and Ten Dead Men and hope that he knew what I was on about, and secondly, I didn't want a repeat of last time and have Halloween quotes spat at me. So I left him alone.

We later attended a talk by Steve Blum. This was cool, not many people turned up so the atmosphere was very casual. Unfortunately this meant he went straight to questions. I managed to think of one, asking which medium he preferred to work in, anime, western animation or video games (he said he enjoys them all so which he's working on that day is his favourite). I did have another question regarding a point made in Comic Book the Movie about how, with all this voice over talent, major studios still feel they have to cast "stars" as the voices in their animated films. There was no way I'd be able to say all that, and the face that the question had become more specialised and fan related, I kept quiet.

And that as more or less it for the convention. Trains were all messed up so I was pretty stressed at we then had to make it to the south bank to experience the Movieum., the most hated word in the English made up language.

This was a strange place. It's straight-forward, being a museum of film props, but I tries to educate in the process on the making of a film, but doesn't succeed. Also a lot of the items in the corridors were just not labelled so I had no idea what some things were. I realise this was Batman, but what is if for, Is it just a decoration piece or did it serve some design purpose. Answer on a postcard please. So there were a lot of cool things in the museum. Costumes from Harry Potter and a lots of James Bond stuff. I got quite excited when I saw the Glaive from Krull.

The coolest part of the museum though was a temporary exhibition/shop of animation cells. They were hidden in a small room, where a lady offered us some sweets and told use to ask if we needed help. Which all seemed fair enough until we realised that all the cells were for sale. I wasn't sure if she expected us to buy anything. There was a lot of Batman stuff in there which was really cool to see. One day I hope to buy something like that as I really like animation cells. At the moment I cannot justify spending that much (£200+). I got a bit worried when flicking through a folder when I came across a sketch of Charlie Brown selling for £3000. There were so many expensive pieces that the public could just look through. So we left to continue the journey.

So we had a great time visiting the nations capital. We would've stayed longer but the heavens opened, pouring down on use. It was a cool, self indulgent, film geek day.

Some more photo's from the Movieum

Boris Karloff narrates my work.

2009-11-24T22:54:00.007Z

Ok, so that title is only part true. Being part of the week long Boris Karlof Blogathon, celebrating Mr Karloff's birthday on 23rd November, I'm given a chance to drag out a film I made during the first year of my animation degree. Before I get into it, please remember to take some time to check out all the contributing blogger's posts, a full list can be found on Frankensteinia's blog. There are some great additions on there honouring a great man.

So back to my animation degree and the year 2002. The task was to complete a short narrative piece, an animatic to be precise (An animatic is basically a filmed storyboard)to teach us how to tell a story with pictures. After thinking long and hard I decided to base mine on the story 'An Appointment in Samara" Not only is it a cool little story but I could also get Boris Karloff to narrate my film. Obviously as this was a project and I made no money from it (copyright notice covered there) I lifted said narration from the Peter Bogdanovich film "Targets" in which Karloff, as Byron Orlok, recites the story.

So I edited down the narration, created the storyboard and presented my work. Unfortunately it was under appreciated as the lecturers felt I was relying too much on the the narration rather than the visuals. In hindsight, they may have been right, but who cares. With Boris Karloff telling the story, you're guaranteed to end up focusing more on him than my rough sketches.

so for your pleasure, and if you can bear through a couple of my early works, you can watch the animatic I created for "An appointment in Samara"

And below is the scene from which the narration was taken, from the Peter Bogdanovich film Targets.

To finish off with here's a clip from The Bride of Frankenstein. It is the end so hopefully you've already seen the film. It's just a really cool moment in film and one of my favourites

On that pleasant note go and check out Brother Chris blog and, the rest of the participants, to share the love for a movie legend at Frankensteinia's blog.

Happy Birthday Mr. Karloff.

Busy-ness as usual...

2009-11-22T14:31:00.002Z

So I’m busy, but only for the time being as the music video work is coming to a close. It’s been a while since I’ve made a complete short film and I’ve had to get used to the amount of work needed, not just in the actual animating but also with the planning, and just now, the actual time needed to render the video out. So far I’ve had to split the video into 6 parts, and each subsequent part into two when the effects were added. This is mainly due to both file size, and programs crashing after too long.

Anyway, when I have a little more time I’ll write up a complete review with pictures and links included as a making of style report.

At the beginning of the month at the Halloween inspired Son of Moviebar, my film In Case of Zombies was screened. It went down really well which was cool to experience, however the Q & A this time around was more me mumbling and not really giving any amount of decent information out such as how the film predated the Zombie boom and other factoids. Instead I umm’d and err’d a bit then sat down. Fortunately the rest of the Q&A’s were just as brie so I don’t think the audience minded much.
Since then I’ve kind of been well busy animation and editing.

Running out o things to talk about I’ll just mention the complete mess that was Channel Fours 3D week. Not so much a week than an evening as the same programs were repeated all week. On Monday I decided to miss The Queen in 3D, not the Helen Mirren film, but some old footage of her coronation converted to 3D (for some reason) So my 3D adventure began with Derren Brown presenting some pointless magic in 3D. It was pointless. The next 3D experience I had was on Friday, due to contradicting screening times I missed Flesh for Frankenstein.

Friday was Friday the 13th Part III. Awesome. This has my second favourite 3D moment (the first being the random man with paddle board in House of Wax) where a man puts his washing out. Great stuff. Having never seen it in 3D before I was not disappointed.
The film is still good. In 2d it manages to keep you entertained, however only in 3 dimensions do the Yoyo, juggling and popcorn scenes really make sense (to a degree).

On Saturday we watched The Greatest 3d Moments. Channel Four returned to their favourite top ten format to reavel ten 3d moments, however all of these were more interesting than the rest of the 3d programs to be shown on Sunday (JLS and Hanna Montana). However, only small clips were shown but not before a massive introduction by an assortment of “comedians” who watched the clips the night before, and then even when the clips stated we were interrupted by another talking head to explain the clip were were trying to watch.

Basically the whole week was a dissappointing mess. It could have been cool if they manged to get hold of as many 3D films as they could, or they should have just planed a single day as most of the programs were repeated this weekend. Also I got very annoyed as it came across that everyone thought it was 80’s kitsch, rather than 50s when it all started. So it was all a bit of a mess and was all kind of a waste of time.

Still, I saw a man putting his washing out. Excellent.

Next week is the Karloff blogathon. I shall return.

Busy busy busy.

2009-10-27T22:51:00.003Z

Too busy ot blog properly. PC broke, then was ill, finally back to editing music video and there's quite a bit to do to get it perfect. Just wanted to mention that I'll be taking part in the Boris Karloff blogathon in November.

Check out details of the Boris Karloff Blogathon here. Or at Brother Chris blog here.

It's KEVIN SMITH!!!!

2009-10-11T13:36:00.006+01:00

So last night I went to see Kevin SMith live at the O2 in London. But I'm jumping the gun a little here, this story is a long and annoying one, however I shall condense it for you.

It is true that I was to see Kevin Smith, but the world being how it is at the moment, and its current dislike for all things me didn't want to make it easy, so it closed the Jubilee line, the only tube that gets you anywhere near the O2/Millennium Dome. So I spent the monring stressing out trying to find out how the hell anyone gets to this giant dome on the outskirts of civilized London. There were no bridges near so I couldn't just get to a close station and walk. I was originally planning on going to a smaller station but we found out that was at least 40 minutes away. It's not the getting there that's the problem though, it's the getting home as trains cease to exist after 1:00am. Anyway after much searching I decided the easiest way was to get a boat. Yes in this day and age the best way across London was a bloody boat. As Brother Chris pointed out it was a bit like King Kong going to some mysterious island and he advised to look out for dinosaurs. Unfortunately there where none.

So I head out to London town, nearly missing the first train I had to run a little, and those who know me know how much I hate to run for trains, or anything. So I pass stage 1. I went to London Bridge which you'd think I'd be familiar with after the E4 awards and the Paparbag filming, however I get a little lost, but eventually leave via the right exit and head to the river, pay the ferry man and get the boat. This would be quite cool if not for the fact that it still has to stop every few yards so there is no old timey magic about it. Then we approach the millennium bodge. Why was this thing even built? It really is just a massive space in the middle of nowhere that's a bugger to get to. Anyway, it was a bit like the Bond film, The World is Not Enough, if he'd paid to get to the millennium dome. So after all this mental planning i find that I'm now two hours early.

So I wander the halls of the O2. Inside there was a random security gate that seemed like an optional choise. I, despite having a bag and being prepard to be searched, chose to ignore the gate and just walked in with no hassle. Strange. Inside it's a bizarre place. There are loads of restarants and a cinema and the main O2 arena. Kevin Smith was in the smaller Indigo2 arena off to one side. After walking as far as I could I reutnred to wait with the rest of the early birds.

And wait I did. Then bouncers appeared and a queue was formed, however as I'd paid a little extra I was sent to an alternate entrance for the King's Row VIP area where I hoped to see some famous folk. In the meantime I had an awkward fandom converstaion with randoms, who will feature later into the story. Eventually the doors opened and I was told to go in, take a left and use the lift. At which point I wondered whether I should wait until more people got in the lift but then decided to go up alone.

So I got in, found my seat and wathced as the place took ages to fill up. Knowing that time was precious when leaving I became concerned when I found out he wouldn't be on until 8pm. The tickets all said 7pm so I got a little panicked but there was nothing I could do. More people came in, people sat next to me. There were no famous folk on my row, although some did look slightly familiar. However on the row behind me was sitting Noel Clarke from Dr Who. He has done other things, and directed films, however I like to take him down a peg or two.

And then the show began. Kevin Smith came out and began.

The night was excellent. Questions were asked, answers where given, both long and short. Stories of Bruce Willis were told, the teachings of Wayne Gretzky, the hatred for Jonathon Ross (with applause from the audience) and interview with a pre op transexual (who I was talking to in the queue before the show)

Towards the end people started to take advantage of the niceness of Kevin, and a lot of hugs/photos where requested which slowed down proceedings, but the night ended well enough with an explanation of how he met Malcolm Ingram, a regular on his SModcast.

Then he left. At which point I legged it to the boat as I had just enough time to make the last boat and trains home. I managed to get them all and arrive safely, however the boat is possible the slowest way to travel when full, made worse by the guy checking or selling tickets to everyone. When you have a train to catch this becomes inconvenient as you just think "Why can't he just let everyone go for free?". But it is London after all. I made all my connections, and got home safely.

On an interesting side note on the train from London Bridge I did overhear a conversation by four formal dressed party goers praising Zack and Miri make a Porno. Which was nice to hear, as it kind of showed how widely Kevin Smith's films are seen, not just by the devoted fans who pay £40 to see the man talk for three hours.

And that's it for the fun for a while.

Have a week.

I gave a Q&A.

2009-10-08T22:03:00.003+01:00

This is just a quick update whilst I finish burning some cds. The other night Jonny the Pessimist was shown at Son of Movie bar and I had to do a Q&A. Me, of all people had to get up and speak publicly. And I did, and it went rather well I think. It didn't actually help that it's been five years since I made the film so I can't remember most of the details but it was cool to see it in front of an audience. There were a few questions asked about how long it took, how John Otway got involved and why the London Halloween films festival (where it was shown) is held in January. I just hope I came across well and not like a blithering idiot as I've got to do it again next month with In case of Zombies. I'm looking forward to this on as although it was shown at the Halloween festival, I couldn't make it down so I've never seen an audience reaction. Hopefully it will go down well.

Until next time.

John Otway...Awesome!

2009-09-24T12:04:00.003+01:00

So last night was the second night of eccentric entertainment that I attended. Yes following form the success of Kinky Friedman I went to see Otway and Barrett. To those to in the know, that's John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett, together once again after, well only about a year, but I didn't have chance to catch their last tour. Before then though they haven't played together since the early eighties, as far as I know.

It was great to see what was, in essence, the original line up and to hear some Otway classics as they were originally performed back in the day before I even existed.

There was no real weirdness about this gig as I had company so nothing to report on that front. However, not wanting to let the night go by smoothly Brother Chris convinced me to go over and say hello. This was mainly due, for those who don't know or can't remember, to the fact that John Otway recorded the voice-over track to my graduate film Jonny The Pessimist. So an awkward conversation was had, made stranger by the fact that my PC blew up in the morning so I started moaning about that. At this point we wished him well and returned to our seats. Anyway, he did remember making the film and from what I could tell did seem to enjoy it which is nice. He mentioned how he'd been forwarding people to it via the John Otway forum and would link to it when his new site is up and running. Which is all great stuff.

So the gig continued, there were a few songs I'd never heard live before which was great. A highlight being The Highwayman, which was a definite influence on Jonny The Pessimist and if I remember correctly, the first Otway song I heard.

So once again another awesome night. Wild Willy Barret was excellent,a great straight man to Otway's eccentricities and a master musician. There were also some excellent and surprising destruction of guitars and a pair of Chekhov's bagpipes that it seemed would go unused until the finale.

So that's it for a few weeks, back to the day to day monotony of life, and the trials and tribulations a sucky, blowed up PC.

Kinky Friedman

2009-09-23T11:42:00.003+01:00

I saw Kinky Friedman last night and a strange experience it was. If you don't know who he is I wouldn't blame you. I only know of him through my Dad who was a fan of his stories collected in The Kinky Friedman Crime Club which all feature Kinky as a "wise-cracking, cigar-smoking, cat-loving reluctant hero-detective and are based in New York" - says Amazon. Anyway, hes been trying to get me to read these for ages and I think it's about time I did. The reason I was so reluctant before was mainly due to the fact that I only read a work during my lunch break and the book was a big 'un, to big to carry in my bag. The other reason I know of him is through the song, "They ain't making Jews like Jesus anymore" which featured on one of Dad's tapes he used to play in the car.

So when I found out he was playing in Brighton, I must say I was interested but reluctant due to my current situation of money, however after Dad pointed out that I paid a hell of a lot more to see Kevin Smith (coming up on 10/10/09) I thought what the hell. And I'm glad I did.

At first it was a little strange as I had gone by myself I had a lot of hanging around to do. There's only so many times you can read the flyers on the table. That an the fact that the place is like a cabaret club it was a little off putting. But I stuck with it. The problem is whenever you find you have time to wait anywhere, and if conversation is running dry (or none at all in last nights case) you start to people watch. you try and figure out who's there because they're fans and who's there for a simple night out. You also start to judge people a lot depending on the way they're acting. Not in an evil way I might add. To give an example there was a group who throughout the night were collecting more people and hugging and laughing and by the end begin quite annoying with their talking, but I gathered they were on some kind of work-based retreat and were there for the sake of it. On another table were an older couple who from what I could tell were obsessives as they lit up when Kinky came out before the show to sign some books and they rushed over in excitement. And then there was me, strange guy on his own staring at flyers and practising origami.

This wasn't as bad as a rock gig where there's always a point when you see someone who's really annoying and then they forever turn up and seem to hang around you. But I digress.

Once the show started all was fine. Kinky sang, with piano accompaniment of Little Jewford (of the original line up Kinky Friendman and hte Texas Jewboys) Then there was a brief Q&A about his political career (he's running for Governor of Texas), an excerpt from his book and a final set of songs with a double encore. And just to state this wasn't a run out the back and wait for a couple of minutes encore, this was a go off the front of the stage and then decide to play a couple more songs encore. I'm not saying it wasn't planned but, I think, depending on audience reaction, he could have refused.

In a strange, coincidental note, for the final song of the night he played the folk song Pretty Boy Floyd originally by Woody Guthrie. This was strange due to the fact that only a week before I bought I CD of American Murder Ballads for that song. Bizarre.

Anyway, it was a great night after the initial weirdness. I then went over, shook the man's hand and left.

Here there be moaning.

2009-09-17T20:11:00.004+01:00

The fifteen E4 estings have been announced and are currently on the website. I hav eto be careful what I say now as not to be simply brushed of as jealous ramblings becuase I didn't get in this time. With that said I will answer the burning question, are any of them actually any good?

No.

Ok there are a couple that look pretty, and couple have nice ideas, however the majority are just far too simple to be interesting. This year I had noticed how many featured similar ideas. There were a lot of video game influenced entries and a coupl made it into the final. However a bad couple, this first, similar to mine, takes a level of a video game but is just bad. At least mine looked like is was a real game. The other shows a series of Nintendo Game & Watch style games but has a really erratic edit style and really looks a mess.

I also want to mention a live action entry with a girl wearing a shredded E4 on her face blowing in the wind for the ten seconds. It made the final. I just don't know what's wrong with the world these days.

If I enter again next year I'll remember that all is needed is some pointless crap moving whilst the e4 logo moves around. Very little is needed beyond that.

So my bias got the best of me by the end, I just hope that my friend wins becaues of what I've seen, at least I know he'll be able to come up with somethign good for the treatment/storyboard section of the competition.

In a random note, just seen this on Youtube. Can't quite work out if its good to see Matthew Broderick or just depressing due to still trading on Ferris Beuller lines.

Side note, even though its old, Obama needs to find a better cameraman/editer.

No mini-crumble for me then.

2009-09-08T23:10:00.004+01:00

I thought I'd best update as not to look like a fool. I'm guessing that I haven't made the final of this years esting competition as a friend has just informed the world, via facebook, that the sting he contributed on has made it. Therefore, as I have received no email I can only fear the worse.

I am happy for the guy but a little disappointed. It would have been nice to finalise once again, especially with my current feeling about the competitiveness, and not to mention CG-ness, of the current animation industry. It will be interesting to see what the quality is like this time. There were a few dud ideas last year, some that even won.

So back to that drawing board I go.

For a final time, this is what the world was missing out on.

Bugger.

My memory sucks.

2009-09-08T15:55:00.003+01:00

So I'm trying to remember how this years Esting competition is going to work. I know from the 800 entries there will be only 15 finalists (whether this changes due to the amount of entries) and then those 15 get sent on a secret mission of sorts. I just can't remember when. I know it was supposed to be sometime in September, 15th I think, but I can't be sure.

Anyway, no point worrying about that when there's more on the cards. Today I finished principal photography on the music video. I say that but there's still a bit to do, but most of it now takes place on the computer, which failed to turn on for the last two days. Seems fine now though. So that's coming along until the next hiccup.

Alongside the music video I'm doing some editing for OpenBook having filmed their London event a couple of weeks ago. I need to edit this into a 2/3 minute trailer for future events.

Having edited making of footage before, I don't feel this will be that challenging, however I've never really filmed events before so I'm not sure what the coverage will be like. I did film a live dvd a few years back but this involved a roaming camera and a base camera. I manned the base camera. Anyway, here's hoping all is well. However I've never used a Mac before nor Final Cut pro, and I had a whole checking my options in life moment this weekend.

This was mainly due to above fact and the following. There's more and more students graduating each year, and each year technology improves. If the universities have the money they'll get the new kit. Compared to me, who not begin the richest person in the world can't afford new and interesting programs let alone a Mac, so continues to use the programs I was trained on, setting me back about five years. If you want to compete, like everything, it seems you need money.

But as I realise, I don't think I ever really wanted to be an animator. I just got the skills is all.

Anyway, so I'm up to date on the music video, I'm doing some extra experience work, I just need to find a job and things will be...not on track. Things will be at a level where I cam earn a little money, enough to live, and then start thinking about quiting my job in order to follow a career in something interesting. That is unless the job I miraculously find is interesting.

Beyond that I pick up the scraps left by Brother Chris to develop my writing.

So we're all up to date. In more pleasant news I saw 500 Days of Summer t'other day and was well impressed. It's a different (and far superior) take on run of the mill romantic comedies. Starring the always excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was wasted in G I Joe, and Zooey Deschanel, who also always gives a good performance, it revolves around Gordon-Levitt character falling in and out of love with Deschanel. With a back and forth storytelling style, and some neat visual styles, it does not fail to impress and gives you a good feeling on the way home. Plus it had a cool soundtrack.

It reminded me a lot of In Search of a Midnight Kiss which I saw a couple of days before. This is a lot closer to Woody Allen's Manhattan, but in Los Angeles. it centres around a lonely guy not wanting to spend New Year's eve alone and sets up and ad looking for anyone to kiss at midnight, hence the title. It's an independent film from Alex Holdridge and is very similar to the films of Richard Linklater. I realise I'm just saying what other films it's like but my blog mind has come to an end. If you like any of the films mentioned then you should check it out.

It's all over with.

2009-08-26T01:17:00.003+01:00

That's it. The end of the E4 Esting competition. Well, not really. Today was the closing date for entries, and a mixed bag they are too. There are some good ones, both idea wise and technically, and some terrible ones, again ideas and technically. This year however the contest isn't just a popularity contest. The 200 odd videos will be judged and whittled down to a minuscule 15, then a second stage to the competition is started where each finalist is tasked to create a treatment or storyboard. These are then judged to reveal the final winner.

This implies that technical achievement is not necessarily needed for your video and a good idea can get you through to stage 2.

Fingers crossed then. I need another task to keep my already overflowing brain busy.

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day Three

2009-08-18T14:12:00.002+01:00

Day Three. The final day of the festival and check out day at Dark Water hotel. I'd survived.

There was a winding down feeling on this day and not so many Q&A's for the films. Also the schedule was catching up with me so I was tired. I'd also only had an ice cream for my dinner the night before.

We checked out of the hotel but Deckard must have got Jens as she was nowhere. Instead was a woman, who I'm sure didn't actually work there, especially as she asked us for a rating of our stay, maybe she knew about the Dark Water stains. Anyway, under pressure we gave a good rating. She didn't make a note of this, maybe she was just interested. Maybe she knew something we didn't. We handed over the key and left the Dark Water room to take its next victim.

Breakfast time once again. No one joined us today so we took the time to fill out the feedback questionnaires. First on the bill was Dogs of Chinatown. This film had some of the same people in from Contour, which was shown at last years festival. The fights were good, but it suffered from the criminal element. It's hard to feel sympathy for criminals. also there was a good visual style at the beginning, which returned at the end, but was lost in the middle. Still, it entertained with fighting.

Following this was The Assessment. A horror film, similar to Severance. It also starred the awesomely named Keith Blaser. Anyway, it was a bit dragged out, with a lot of moaning of what to do in the middle by the characters. There was a good lake death towards the end, but it's nothing special.

The Bodyguard: A New Beginning was up next, a film by Chee Keong Cheung. Filmed in both Hong Kong and London, once again it had good fights, especially a good chase scene through a shopping mall. It does suffer from the sympathetic criminal though. Rival triad bosses going after each others daughters for revenge of some kind. I didn't quite follow the reasoning behind it, but you stopped caring. Action was good though, and the Hong Kong setting gave the film a higher visual dynamic. Chee gave a Q&A after the film with actor/fighter Mark Strange which was interesting, especially the stories surrounding Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

We then said our goodbyes before attending the final film, Underground, again by Chee Keong Cheung. This is basically a tournament film. And that's it. A string of fights, good fights but towards the end you didn't really care. And that's about it. It stars Danny John-Jules as a shady businessman type and Mark Strange as a homeless fighter. It could have done with a more developed storyline between the fighters, but the choreography was good.

And then we ran away in order to get our train home. So we began the long drawn out wait for trains. Sunday travel is never good. But eventually we made out connections and arrived safe and sound, back in reality of day to day life.

In summary it really was an awesome weekend. Great films and cool Q&As. It was disappointing that the attendance wasn't larger. I'm not sure why the turnout wasn't greater, you;d think the guest speakers would have got some attention. I just can't help thinking that Swindon isn't the best place for a film festival. However, I'm glad I attended, as I said at the beginning of this three post adventure I doubt it will be topped in the near future.

Now I really should get back to making music videos and stuff.

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day Two

2009-08-17T18:55:00.003+01:00

Day Two -

After watching a bizarre kids program (in which one character gave another a moustache as a present) whilst we woke and got ready, we set off for breakfast at the festival. We sat and ate when who should come over and join us but Uwe Boll. Awesome.

We talked about films and the state of the world, and the state of films in the world, until it was time for the first screening of the day, Side Effx. This film has problems. It was followed with a Q&A by the director, who was brought on to edit the film into something watchable after the first director was let go. He was aware of the problems with the film, mainly due to the pacing. It was a good try, but did suffer from random corridor wanderings. Good fights though, and wire work.

This was followed by The Disappeared. Described as an urban ghost story it didn't fail to deliver. There were a couple of creepy moments but towards the end it fell into run of the mill story telling, getting a little predictable. Still, I felt it was well shot and acted.

After this was the Star Hyke series preview and cast Q&A. Star Hyke is an independent comedy, drama, sci-fi series with obvious comparisons to Red Dwarf and Hyperdrive. It kind of stands on its own, the CGI is well done and Jeremy Bulloch (of Boba Fett fame) is awesome as the ships doctor, providing most of the laughs. However, we were shown episodes 4 & 5 so it was a little hard to follow having missed half of the series. Brother Chris has seen the whole series and did say that it's best to see the first three in one block in order to grasp the concept. I'd still watch it when it airs on TV though, and think it would probably get better as the series goes on. The Q&A afterwards was cool, with cast keeping things lighthearted, and of course the awesome Jeremy Bulloch.

Then was the "dinner break" a long gap between films in order to get something to eat, so of course we just ended up chatting with friends. It was good to hear some industry speak and see how easy/difficult it is to get films released these days. So no food was had. Whoops.

The penultimate screening of Saturday was The Passage, directed by Mark Heller and written by and starring Neil Jackson, who attended the screening for the following Q&A. This film surprised me. It does have a slow build up as you get to know the characters, but does deliver towards the end. When it was introduced, Neil Jackson explained it was based on true events, so I thought it would just be him wandering around Morocco. Which does happen to a degree, but let's just say, if all of it was true, he wouldn't have been able to introduce the film. Neil then held a Q&A which was awesome, especially as I asked a decent, Creative Screenwriting style question about treatments and such. If you didn't know, Neil has been in a bunch of stuff including the Blade TV series and more recently Push and this was his first produced screenplay. He seemed to love writing and said in a way he used that to get into acting in the first place. Anyway, it was really interesting talk and he's a nice guy.

I then attended the final screening of the day, Mark of the Devil., directed by Michael Armstrong, who also attended for the Q&A. This is a film from 1970, starring Udo Kier and Herbert Lom about witch-finders. As with Witchfinder General, it's not really a horror but I feel always comes across more like an educational video but just a little bit nastier. It was also described as an early example of "torture-porn", a concept taken to extremes with the likes of Hostel and the umpteen thousand Saw sequels. Mark of the Devil is ok. Not a brilliant film but it still made me squirm in places, plus it was good to see something from a different era on the bill. The following Q&A was excellent. Again, Michael Armstrong is a director form a completely different time of filmmaking and due to this questions were few. He was a friendly guy and did have a passion for films, even if he was a little tipsy at the time. He also mentioned the original Haunting as one of the scariest films made, a point I definitely agreed with.

It was time to leave and find Brother Chris, who had left to seek his fortune. I said my goodbyes to friends and to Neil and Michael and left. Meeting up with Chris in a shouty Italian restaurant we left for the hotel. Once there we took pleasure in the Ice Cream vending machine once again, I'd yet to have any dinner so a mint magnum would have to do. Excellent.

-Today I also bought a book called "I Am Batman" which was awesome. I'll give a little excerpt:
My name is Bruce Wayne.
My home is Gotham City.
I live in a big apartment.
I own a boat and a plane.

I have nice clothes.
I have a fast car.
And I have lots of other fancy toys and gadgets.
...

The Joker is a tricky foe.
His jokes are never funny.
Sometimes they hurt people.
...

Fighting crime is not easy.
But my gear and gadgets help make it all possible.
I am not just Bruce Wayne.
I am Batman!

Awesome!

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day One

2009-08-17T17:44:00.006+01:00

These days it's getting pretty hard to beat the awesome-ness of past events. This past weekend is so high up on the scale I doubt it will ever be knocked off the list.

Last weekend Brother Chris and I attended the Phantasmagoria Film Festival held in Swindon. A great showcase of independent genre films from horror to martial arts. For us this was just the beginning.

Day One -

We took a train. So far so good, then found our lodgings in the form of the Travelodge. Then the weirdness began. I'm convinced that the girl checking us in was called Jens. Which just conjures up images of Blade Runner-esqe androids. So we took our key, gave warning to keep away from any Harrison Ford looking types, and made out way up to the room. Brother Chris settled in easy enough. I on the other hand was disturbed by the freaky Dark Water-esqe drip stains on the wall, just above my bed. I did not want to be dragged away in the middle of the night by a long haired Japanese ghost girl.

For the time being I managed to suppress my fear and we left for the festival. Well, sort of. We left on the hunt for dinner, where we passed a pub. At which point we stopped as Uwe Boll was inside with two people. We decided to go in, find something to eat and stare at him. Instead, we went in, Chris recognised one of the people so we went over and joined them. Having a drink with Uwe Boll. Awesome.

We later left for the Arts Centre for the first film of the first day, Gnaw. A good horror film. It was a little predictable at times but the effects and acting were good enough. After a brief Q&A with director Gregory Mandry. We had a time for a quick drink before the last film of the evening. In this time I was introduced to Julian Richards, director of The Last Horror Movie and Darklands as he'd met Brother Chris before. We then went in to see Uwe Boll's film Rampage. It's a brilliant film. Well shot and edited. Uwe Boll comes under a lot of bad press because of his video game movies, which aren't that great but as he pointed out, still sell a hell of a lot more than his regular films, which are always better. Rampage should definitely be checked out though, and Brendan Fletcher is quite convincing as the young guy whose is tipped over the edge to go on the titular rampage.

So a great first day. Now we really needed to get some food, and head back to the Dark Water room. After an encounter with take away food we got excited by the Ice Cream machine in the travelodge, with the the futuristic method in which fridge opened and suckers gripped the ice cream to dispense out of the front of the machine. We were still in Blade Runner territory. Thanks to that machine, and watching the end of The Howling, I could ignore the evil water stains and went to sleep, ready for the next full day of films.

I do not regret the things I have done, but those I did not do.

2009-08-14T10:54:00.004+01:00

So I'm off to Phantasmagoria this weekend. Well, in about an hour to be exact. There's stuff going on there, some films, some guest a bunch of stuff. You can check the website out here. It should be a good weekend.

As I said I'm just killing time before I go. I've not got the time to do any music video work and I've already packed so I'm just killing time.

Speaking of the music video. I made the first set. Sort of. It exists so in theory I can start filming. It is however not yet painted and really needs another few layers of paper to strengthen it up but it looks good.

What else is there...oh yeah the estings competition ends in the next couple of weeks. If you haven't seen my entry this year check it out here. It's not a popularity contest this time around however give it a "Yay" if you like it, there's no harm in that.

And that's about all there is today. And I've got to go.

A whole bunch of junk...

2009-08-12T14:34:00.004+01:00

Just a random update today. Last weekend, as mentioned briefly on Brother Chris' blog we had friends over and took part in an almighty film night. See the poster below.

The night began in the early evening with Clifford. Now this film was a bit pants. The bizarre concept basically didn't hold us interested for the whole film. It is quite bizarre, due to the main fact, as mentioned before, that Clifford is played by Martin Short who at the time of filming was 40 years old. YES THAT'S A 40 YEAR OLD MAN PLAYING A 10 YEAR OLD BOY. This and the fact that it's only available on Region 1 DVD or Xbox Live Marketplace adds the bizarre nature of the film. So what began well, became tiresome.

We followed this with Collision Course. This is the super team-up of former Tonight Show host Jay Leno and Mr Myagi himself, Pat Morita. Why this was thought to be a good idea, at any stage I don't know. It was pretty hard to understand either actor with Pat Morita's few English words, and Jay Leno's squeaky accented voice didn't help matters. However things blew up, towards the end there were some collisions and it all peaked with a deadly serious ending with some Karate from Mr Myagi. So things were building quite well for the real headliner, SHAKMA.

Shakma is not without its faults, but was everything I expected it to be. There was a crazy baboon going mental at doors, and a lot of death. There was way too much walking around empty corridors, and as the building was empty, and they spent a lot of time in stair wells, you couldn't help but wonder why they didn't just leave. Anyway, they didn't so they died. There's a lesson in there somewhere. Basically that's all I have to say. The trailer delivered.

Finally, as a wind down film we watched Skinned Deep. This was strange. On the one hand it was terrible. Acting was bad, film quality was bad and the plot wasn't that great either. On the other hand though it did have a good consistent design to it. The bad guys/creatures were all cool and there was enough to hold our interest. The highlight was definitely Warwick Davis as Plates. A guy who throws plates at people. He even had a random monologue half way through as to why he enjoyed his past-time. Bizarre indeed.

So a pretty successful event was had. Whether we'll be able to hold another film night in the future is debatable, our credibility may have been seriously reduced.

In other happenings, I'm slowly building up to filming the music video. I'm collecting stuff to make the "set" and I need to work on one of the characters a little more to get that Tenniel look. I hope to start filming next week.

Finally as I thought I had nothing to blog about I saw this video for the game WET on Xbox 360 and PS3. I've posted the trailer below. I think it looks pretty cool I like the pseudo Grind house style. I think it could be a fun game to play. That's if I ever get through the long pile of existing game I already have.

WET Game trailer

Wet at IGN.com

Finally completed Half Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2. I can't decide which one I preferred. I liked the extension element of Ep1, where as Ep2 is more like a new game. Once again it ends with a cliff hanger building up the Half Life story and world. I am looking forward to Ep3, if it even exists, which I'm sure it must.

A bunch of stuff.

2009-08-06T12:11:00.002+01:00

I've started to post but realised I don't have much to report. We're slowly approaching the weekend, which brings with it the most ultimate of film nights ever to be witnessed. Brother Chris and I are keeping a veil of mystery over proceedings and have yet to reveal the full list to those attending. That is apart from Shakma.

As the headlining act, Shakma is the keystone in the whole lineup. However the remaining films are headliners in their own right. It's going to be awesome.

In animatia based news work on the music video is progressing well. I'm planning on getting started sometime next week, with only a few things left to develop over the next few days. Once I get started however I know things are going to change when I come across unforeseen problems, but I'm embracing this fact as I don't think anything is set in stone just yet. So yeah, I'm meeting with the band next week and from there it starts.

Saying this, I haven't got much time for any long term room disruption due to the fact that I'm attending the Phantasmagoria film festival in Swindon. You can check the website here. They have a great line up of films and a few special guests, it's looking to be a very interesting weekend.

Finally, I've just updated he Congo Review site once again. It's been a good few months since last time, a few films have been added. I'll try to keep it more regular from now on but I can't promise anything. Check it out here.

Why can't things just work out first time.

2009-07-26T14:33:00.003+01:00

So I storyboarded the music video. It all looked pretty much OK. Then I listened to the song again and realised that what I'd 'boarded may be a little too fast for the song. I think when animating I should be able to sort this out and everything will look cool once again. However, I have also realised that there's not enough story to fit the song, especially if I want certain frames at certain moments in the song.

So I thought I'd made major headway into this video but it looks like there's a lot of re-jigging to go before I can begin animating. There's no doubt this will bring it's own problems due to the fact that I don't have the correct equipment to do this properly. This project could all end up in a big mess. However I could always scrap the Svankmajer idea and go back to a traditional method that I'm more in tune with.

I'm also struggling wiht an assortment of differing file types that Premiere refuses to recognise. A problem when trying to combine the storyboard with video samples.

Anyway, despite what I've just said it is kind of going well and I hope to get this stage complete by the weeks end.

Better than I remembered.

2009-07-23T18:40:00.003+01:00

So I did just watch Big Top Pee Wee, and as stated above it was better then I remembered. It is in no way equal to Pee Wee's Big Adventure, but it still has a few laughs. I think I could never grasp why Pee Wee now owned a farm in a small town where everyone seemed to hate him, whereas before he was in the city where everyone loved him. Even Amazing Larry.

A couple of key points to add. Big Top Pee Wee, I only notice today, stars Benecio del Toro as Duke the Dog faced boy, in his first feature role. One can't help but wonder if Joe Johnston was watching this film when casting for his remake of The Wolfman.

This was also a stand out moment of the film, the best line in the film. When Gina tells Montana that she loves Pee Wee because he is funny he says, "If you wanted funny, you could have gone out with Snowball" She then replies "Snowball's a clown Mace, clown's aren't funny."

So Big Top Pee Wee has gone up a few levels in my book.

I was originally going to blog about some other stuff. Basically the music video project I've been working on. Basically finally got around to storyboarding it today. Not sure how it's going to work though. I've planned a lot of close shots and as I'm planning a Svankmajer visual look I don't think the camera I was going to use will have a decent enough focus level. Also I thought there was a lot going on but maybe not enough for the 3 minute song. Before I present it to the band I'm going to create a rough animatic just so I know it's roughly in the right place. Despite that, I've also got a few green screeny tests to do first, just so I don't promise anything I can't actually do.

I could be watching Big Top Pee Wee.

2009-07-23T17:05:00.001+01:00

In fact I think I will.

London Film and Comic Con

2009-07-18T23:39:00.011+01:00

Today I attended, as if you couldn't guess, the London Film and Comic Con. That's Con as in convention to those not in the know. It's one of many UK based conventions trying to create something on the scale of the San Diego or New York Comi Cons in the USA. They don't quite succeed, but I still enjoy them. Ask if I was having fun whilst I was there and I'd be thinking long and hard, but now I'm safely home I think all the queuing was worth it.

Before I go any further I want to set a few things straight. I'm not a full on geek, in the sense that I know every episode to Stargate. Nor do I dress up to look like a Jedi or other such Sci Fi characters. I dabble. That's all I can say. I enjoy Star Wars as readers of this blog will know, I watched a few episodes of Star Trek, not religiously though. And I've seen episodes of Stargate, but I'm not really a fan (this may disappoint one of my readers. Sorry) Anyway, I do have an inner geek, I know more about comics and films than the average joe, and that's where my interest lies. I still get annoyed when I see charity figures dressed as Batman hanging out with Spiderman. (Side note it was funny today seeing a Star Trek Captain discussing the finer points of phaser handling with a Stormtrooper) So my inner geek needs feeding once in a while, which is why I like this kind of convention. Completely from a fans perspective. There are people there that frankly scare me. Each to his own I've always said, but it is a little strange. But if they leave me alone, I'm not going to bother them.

Anyway, let's continue with point 2. Point 2 is the notion of celebrity. I've discussed many time with Brother Chris, who attended a couple of these events with me in the past. Who decides what will be charged for autographs? It is made clear that if you want something signed you have to pay a fee, which is clearly stated is for the signature not the photograph, which are considered free. (By this reasoning I could get a one of each photo available and just the one signed, but I'm sure if this was tried someone would stop me. Maybe next year) For example, today Mr Scott Bakula was charging £25 for his autograph. Fair enough, I can't afford that but I'll go to his talk, not a free talk though so I queue to get a ticket. Another £20 for this talk. Obviously I make my excuses and left sharpish, keeping hold of my monies. So who set this up. To whom is this cash going to. Not everyone was on my wavelength and forked out the cash, so he must be raking it in. But who decides? Where does it go? All good questions to which I have no answers. So I did pay a couple of £15 for signatures. Which brings me onto point 2B. You pay your money, you get a brief chat (very brief in my case 'cause I'm kind of rubbish at it) and you get a signature. When you think about it, it really means nothing. I could scribble an indecipherable name onto a photo and joe public wouldn't know the difference, or even care. So why is it a good thing? I guess it's an idol/hero thing. I guess if I said more you could say you shared a moment with someone you admired. Or you could just say it's so you can have a brief gloating moment the next time said person appears in something. I don't know for sure but, as I said. I do enjoy it. It brings the famous a little closer, even if it's in a forced transaction based environment. Anyway, I still think I'm a little different to the masses of attendees, a little more grounded, but hey, wouldn't it be cool if I started hanging out with Chris Sarandon.

So here we go. This is just the beginning.

To set the scene, as Brother Chris has a lot of work on at the moment he couldn't spare the time to join me this year. The last time we both went was about two years ago, failing to get Nathan Fillion's autograph and tiring of the day we went for a mercy greet and meet with Alan Tudyk, who had no queue. Then we left. Due to these circumstances, we both agreed that it was a little rubbish and weird and vowed (maybe) never to return. That was until I moved down to Brighton. With the convention now more or less on my doorstep I decided to go. And go I did. Alone.

So I braved London on a Saturday, not the easiest of things, especially with Tube delays, but I successfully arrived at Earls Court and entered Queue 1 to get in. This is where first photos were taken solely for this blog. Here there were Stormtroopers hanging around. I contemplated asking about their state of New Zealand-ness but instead just took the photo. There were also Clone Troopers wandering around. The same musings were thought about but I left them alone, chuckling at the fat Cylons I'd just seen. Not to mention the smallish Jack Sparrow. So I'm inside and I queue for some talks. Having missed the Red Dwarf talk I opted for the Doctor Who (Yeah, I know I don't like Dr Who) as I'd heard that Tom Baker was in attendance (see that's why) I also wished to attend the Danny Trejo talk and the Stargate talk (Again, I know I'm not a fan) which will be explained later on. This is when I literally discovered the price I had to pay to see Scott Bakula talk. No go. I then moved onto the signing alley or whatever they call it, to see who was there, and whether to get any autographs later on. Many faces were seen as illustrated with my assorted photographs.

A lonely Sean Maguire

A bad photo of Chloe Annett. Bonus points - her father directed the film The Beast Must Die as mentioned in Brother Chris' blog here

Interesting fact: the most costumes today were of Paul Foote - a character from The Beast Must Die. Which one was the werewolf though?

It's David Prowse. He was Darth Vader.

It's Bruce Boxleitner. He looks bored.

This is kind of mean. This is a funny picture of Jake Lloyd - he played young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace. He looks the same.

The stars of Heroes - Jimmy Jean Louis (The Hatian) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Suresh)

So I took the ticket of Scott Bakula. Number 969. The place had only been open to the general public for 40 minutes and already his tickets were up to 969. No way was I going to see him today. I got a quick glimpse of him through the queues, and that was all. Knowing it was never meant to be I took the tickets of Michael Ironside, to discover once and for all how many arms he actually had, and a ticket for Jewel Staite, star of the excellent Firefly and Serenity, and more recently Stargate: Atlantis (hence attending the Stargate talk), which I'd probably have seen if Channel 5 hadn't stopped showing it. I'd always been a fan of her character, Kayleigh, in Firefly so was happy to fork out the cash. But I'd gotton pretty high numbered tickets so I had time to kill. A lot of time.

So I wandered the hall, looking at stalls, wondering if the DVDs were legal, but generally just waiting for the first talk. Despite me spending money on autographs, I still didn't have much to spend. I can no longer buy any random thing, so I was just looking to see if any cool stuff existed. Plus the novelty has kind of worn off since the invention of the internet shop.

With still hours to kill I decided to get a present for my friend who had just passed a life changing exam in accounting, and he won't mind me saying that it isn't any more interesting than how I made it sound. As I haven't given it to him yet I'm blanking it out as a spoiler. You can still highlight it to read it, but if you're reading this Mr. Martin, just stop and wait patiently. (Click the tiny picture for a massive reveal. So as he'd passed this exam I decided to get an autograph for him from a Red Dwarfer. So after a curious text of who he like best, The Cat, Kochanski or Female Holly, and receiving confirmation that it was indeed The Cat, I entered Danny John Jules' queue. I was determined to get it super personalised, with some kind of well done, but it was hard enough getting the name across that I settled for that alone. Basically his name is Anthony and because we're all lazy we now just call him Antnee. Explaining this for an autograph is one of the most difficult things I've had to do, ending up with me just saying something along the lines of "Just spell it A. N. T. N. E. E. He'll get it, it's a nick name" Still unsure, Danny wrote it. I then got a photo to prove it's real and so I'd get something out of the transaction.)

Finally it was time for the Dr Who talk. I made my way to the talk area and joined Queue 2. For a while I wasn't quite sure what the queue was for, but it lead me into the strangest talk I've attended. Present were Alexandra Moen (from new Dr Who I guess), Philip Madoc, Bernard Horsfall (I guess) and the legend that is Tom Baker. Tom was awesome, not quite sure if he is a comic genius, or actually senile.

There were jokes and slightly detailed description of which actor he'd like to "bed" when asked in an interview for the radio (Johnny Depp by the way, and he went into some detail to do with pirates.) Very strange, very weird but excellent. An annoying follow up to this talk, a group of fans took the opportunity to ask Tom for a photograph. I was with them, however I ended up taking their photo for them, then in the time it took to return their camera, Tom was off with someone else and we were being moved on. So close.
Straight after this was the Danny Trejo talk. Not as weird as the previous talk but very entertaining. Two highlights. First off, when asked about when the film Machete was going to be made he took out his mobile and rang someone, then asked us to shout "Hurry up and Make Machete" I'm guessing, like so many others, that he called Robert Rodriguez. So in theory I'd just spoken to Robert Rodriguez. Cool. The secodn highlight was an answer to the question "Which of your films do you consider the worst?" He simply answered, "None of them. I'm in them" Awesome. He also wouldn't stop when he was supposed to and continued taking questions. Well, it's Danny Trejo, would you go and stop him. So we over ran into expensive Scott Bakula's talk. So there.

Now I had time to kill, time to collect on some autographing. So I headed for Michael Ironside. Closed it said. No reason stated, just closed. Had he left in an angry storp when someone questioned the number of arms he owned? Who knows? I had to move on.

My next port of call was Jewel Staite, who now had an open queue. Now a quick side note - when I get things signed I always like them to sign things to Pete, this is so it's a little more personal than my full name. However, it always seems to confuse everybody, and they repeat it back as though I've given them the strangest name in history. Anyway, back to Jewel. I was thinking after the bizarre interaction with Danny John Jules I'd be better at the whole experience. Not so. Foiled by the lack of interaction with the single (or dual) armed Ironside I reverted back to my good, polite, quiet self and handed over the photograph. It was still cool, and she was very nice, but I failed to get a photograph. This was mainly due to the fact that I was abiding by the "No posed photograph" sign, rather than the fact that there was no queue behind me. Bugger.

So now I felt that I should see someone else. Then I remembered Chris Sarandon. Still not too sure, I approached his stand behind what I thought was a small queue. I took this opportunity to peruse his photographs while deciding if it was the right decision. Then the queue vanished, and I was left on my own in front of Chris Sarandon. Now I had no chance to create any rapport and awkwardly began the transaction for his signature. During this I noticed a photo from Child's Play, the problem on discovering this was all I could think of saying was, "I forgot you were in Child's Play" which would further the awkwardness. Silent I stayed. But I did get a photo, so a small victory on my part. Now I'm just a little fed up that I didn't get the Jewel photo seeing as I did with every other autograph. Anyway, what's done is done.

All this didn't take as long as expected so I wandered the hall once again before joining the Stargate talk queue. Weirdness ensued when I played a couple of tracks of Guitar Hero World Tour. First off, Rebel Yell by Billy Idol. I was reduced to bass on this track, which isn't that interesting, and I began to slip up when I got a little bored. I decided to move on, but when no one took the guitar of me when offered, I stayed for one more. This was well weird due to the fact that the girl next to me wanted to sing. This is fair enough, and good on her to sing in the middle of the exhibition hall. It's not like anyone more than a couple of metres away would hear, but I don't even sing on the game at home, so I was impressed. Luckily she was good singer on What I've Done by Linkin Park. This time I was on guitar so more fun was had.

I then left but had forfit a good place in the Stargate queue. Also after the small victory of extending the Danny Trejo talk, Scott Bakula overran. Eventually we began to move and in I went. No I began to feel like an outsider. As mentioned before, I wasn't really a fan of Stargate, only there for the star of Firefly. The audience was clearly made up of fanactics who knew every episode title and synopsis, as proved when asking and answering questions. The talk was fun, even for a stranger like myself. Firefly was mentioned so I was happy.

And that was it. With no more talks to keep me there I took one last tour of the hall in case I was going to miss some free stuff or something. This is when I found out that Michael Ironside had now returned. Still, it clearly wasn't meant to be, forever wondering how many arms he has. It was time to leave. And leave I did.

So now I reflect on the day's events. As mentioned at the begining somewhere, the London Film and Comic Con still has a long way to go to rivial San Diego. There's just not enough quality really. It's heart is in the right place, but there's a lot of open space, and various stalls just look thrown together. This year the Cos-Players were out in force and there was a CosPlay contest. There was also a lot of support for the two anime voice over actors which was suprising. With a little work it could be as big as San Diego. Overall I still find these events special. Despite all the weird and strange people there is an overall sense of community. I don't think attending is a bad thing, and shouldn't be seen as so. As I said, I'm not the biggest fan in the world, but the chance to see people I admire is a chance I don't what to pass up on. I just wish you didn't have to pay for the chance. I think the stars attending realise what they are a part of. Although at times people can seem a little crazy and a little strange, they're basically keeping their fanbase alive by appearing at such events showing that they care for their fans. They're giving something back. So what if it's at a price, as they say, nothing in life is free.

As a final note, if you're interest in anything I've just said you should check out two films. The first is a short documentary directed by Bruce Campbell entitled Fanalysis, in which he examines the world of fan conventions and what makes a fan into a fanatic. The other is sort of mockumentary called Comic Book: The Movie directed by Mark Hamill. I say mockumentray but this is only half true. It stars Mark Hamill as Donald Swan, a comic collector making a documentary about the new movie based on his favourtie comic Commander Courage. All fictional, but in it he interviews a variety of personalities who, when taking about the Commander, are clearly taking about some real life experiences they've had within the industry. Alongside this he documents his journey to the San Diego Comic Con. I've tried to explain it too much but it basically explores the whole convention culture.

So in a Jerry Springer's Final Thought moment, I say fandom shouldn't be looked down upon, whatever the level of your involvement. I mean, there are thousands of people who dress up in costumes each week in support of their idols. It's just that their conventions are called football grounds.

E4 Esting - Plat4mer

2009-07-10T14:01:00.003+01:00

Its done. It's on the website and it's still cool, although at a stretched aspect ratio. Had I known, and I probably should, I could have made it 16:9. However it's done now, it cannot be changed.

Take a look at it here.

This year the competition is not based on a popularity contest so you don't have to sign in a vote for it if you don't want to. I would be appreciated, but I understand if not. I'd like the views to be higher though so to quote Batman, "I want you to tell all your friends about me."

Despite my grudges I've still uploaded the thing on youtube as well.

Hope you like it.

I HATE THE CLONE WARS.

2009-07-07T12:02:00.004+01:00

I watched The Clone Wars movie. I corrupted my eyes and brain with what is possibly the crappest Star Wars out there. I started this blog with a massive rant about how I hated the idea of the Clone Wars - you can refresh your memories here - about how I couldn't see why we'd care about Anakin anymore and so on. I sat there absolutely bored out of my skull watching the dying remains of a once great franchise. Was rescuing Jabba's baby son really the only way to go? Did we have to be introduced to a bizarre and camp New Orleans Mr. the Hutt? Did we really need the clones to speak? That was a mistake of the second film, but really now they'll always be New Zealanders, which I can deal with, but not if they change when they become Storm Troopers, which oh yeah they do. Where's the film that explain this loss of accent. Also another clone point, we get that they're clones, so why do they have to walk around without the helmets on, and why would they have different hair and personalities anyway. THEY'RE BLOODY CLONES. Anyway, this film just made me angry. It wasn't Star Wars. There was no writing at the beginning, no "period of civil war", no real music, just a hint. As far as I can tell the Star Wars franchise has officially died, all we get now are pseudo political space dramas. It was so not Star Wars that 20th Century Fox didn't even put it out, but Warner Bros. And what's a Star Wars film without the Fox Fanfare a the beginning. George Lucas should be stopped before he makes more of this crap and drags the quality of the original trilogy into the ground with his crappy, messy prequels.

So anyway, I've just finished my entry for this years E4 Esting competition. I've been struggling with it a bit this time around, due to moving away and having to wipe my old hard-drive I'm struggling to find my backups of programs I had. So with a reduced capacity I find myself having to now compress the video to no more than 20mb. It's only ten seconds so this shouldn't be difficult, however it likes the size of 36.5MB more. The problem I've always had with compression is if you go too far, the quality is seriously reduced. The file can only be uploaded as a specific file type, .avi not included.

Long story short, I've managed to get it into a decent looking mpeg4 file type but is only 8.41MB. This seems too small to retain any kind of quality, but some how looks a lot better than the DVPal Avi. I'm beginning to confuse myself with these file types. I'll just have to wait for Brother Chris to get home to verify that it looks good enough for televisual broadcast.

In regards to the actual sting, I'm still behind the idea, it's pretty much how I imagined it would look, which is good as I basically compiled it as I was going along.

So any other news....I finally got around to watching Wall-E the other day. After the abysmal Ratatouille I was a bit put off with Pixar, and couldn't see how a silent robot would change anything, but it actually works. It's not a perfect film but it is enjoyable.

I also saw Public Enemies, the Dillinger, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale picture. For some reason all I can remember is that it wasn't as good as The Untouchables. It's still watchable and interesting. It just feels, in parts that you're not involved in any of it. It just plays out in front of you as a Dillinger biopic. Still there were good shoot outs and bank robberies. It seemed to be more about how the FBI set itself up as Dillinger just got on with his things. It has a good soundtrack anyway, and a good cast.

Not much else to report on so I guess I'll go. I'll link to the Esting when it's up and running on the E4 website.

Set Ranting to Maximum.

2009-07-01T22:32:00.003+01:00

Ok, I was informed this evening by the star of Giant of Science, a small film I made many moons back, that the friendly people at YouTube had removed the soundtrack.

What??? I said, just like that, with three question marks. I hadn't been made aware of this action.

The last time this happened, I got an email form YouTube saying Universal had flagged Bloody Woods for using music I didn't own. Fair enough I thought. It was true, and I had used the full tracks of 'Ramblin; Man' by Hank Williams and The Residents. I think I may have ranted earlier about this. Anyway I got an email then, and they decided to keep the video up there. Unlike WMG. Yes the Warner Music Group was so offended by the fact that I only used roughly 30 seconds of music from each track that they decided to remove the whole soundtrack. At least that's the only reason I can see why this is beneficial to anybody. So now the film is pointless. Yes I know I didn't pay for the music, yet I never claimed it as my own, nor was I making any money on it. In many ways it was free advertising for the bands (DEVO and The Misfits, whom I both love which is why I used their music). I say bands as I see they took the soundtrack from Frisbees from Mars, another mucking about film.

So here I rant, not only at WMG for being so petty as to destroy art (which is what's happening in a way) but also at the lack of information I was given by YouTube. I wasn't given a chance to remove the video or alter the video. The decision was made for me, without warning.

And for that, YouTube can fuck off.

Ideas re-thought and re-posted.

2009-06-25T14:36:00.002+01:00

Not my ideas that is, that's why I'm leaving the last post intact. The music video create by Dad's friend was taken down and re-posted in a completely new guise, so here it is once again.

Screaming Till The Sun Goes Down (2nd thought mix) from Extra Familiar on Vimeo.

Enjoy once again.

Some good stuff...

2009-06-24T22:33:00.004+01:00

So today I saw a woman carrying a severed head. Ok so it wasn't a real severed head, well, not real as in from a human. This was all resolved after I reapplied my glasses to my face and saw the head for what it was, however it did scare me for those few brief seconds. What has this to do with anything? Absolutely nothing, which is what this post is all about really.

Although not mentioned in full last time, I'm still working on my E4 entry for this years Estings, and I'm about half way through. If all is well it should be good. However I'm going to have to make it longer than the 10 second limit and cut it down afterwards which hopefully won't detract from the final piece.

This is stopping me from looking for a new job, which is an almost inconceivable task in the current climate, however I shall persevere and hopefully come out the victor. (that is if working actually makes you the victor, or some kind of sheep like being. But hey, I need to eat)

This paragraph is used to sing the prises once again of Scott Pilgrim. My obsession is fueled by the daily photo updates on Edgar Wrights blog here. Nothing much has been given away yet. There are a few cool videos featuring the cast, but nothing as to how the film will finally look. There's a long way to go just yet, set for release in 2010 (that's Twenty-Ten by the way) but I must say I'm looking forward to it. The unfortunate thing is I'm currently on volume 3 of the comic ans therefore only have another 2 before I'm out. I think there's to be a sixth and final volume set for release with the film. I'm just gonna have to keep my eyes peeled.

Now I'm going to talk about a great film form my childhood, Young Sherlock Holmes. This has still stood the test of time as far as I'm concerned. We were going to watch it as part of a double bill with the Dolph Lundgren starring Masters of the Universe but time was against us. I'd forgotten most of what Young Sherock was about. I could remember the classic moments like the stained glass knight (which by the way looks as good , if not better , than any modern CGI) and Watson seeing cakes come alive and force themselves into his mouth. Which come to think of it is pretty weird. But what I could not remember was how terrifying the character Elizabeth Hardy's hallucination was. I remembered that there were zombies, ok I was somewhat prepared, but not for her falling into her open grave. not only this, but a laughing, screaming skeletal zombie carves her gravestone whilst her dead uncle begins to bury her. This honestly scared me. I'm sure they must have cut this from any previous version, or I happened to block it from my memory. Young Sherlock Holmes is good stuff, as good as Congo even. Check out this trailer for the film taken from some random American TV station.

Finally I'm going to post a video that Brother Chris is most likely posting at the moment here.
It's a video my Dad's friend made for one of their old songs.

Screaming till the Sun Goes Down from Extra Familiar on Vimeo.

The song featured on the locally produced LP Cry Havoc by the Stoke Musicians collective. A lot of the tracks still sound cool today as I did give it a listen the other day. Altogether "Do the East Berlin. Do it again!"

Anyway I like the video and I'm glad the song has not been forgotten.

In a final link the same people were behind the song Elasto which I have posted here before, and do so again as I think it gets ignored too much. Now I've got to buy even more extortionate train tickets. Until next time...

Just to confirm I was there?

2009-06-19T23:40:00.002+01:00

Ok, so I havn'tmuch to say. If I could be bothered, I could go on about the trials of creating 16-bit graphics in a "helpfully" smoothing era but I wont. Anyway I just thought I should continue the youtube gigs posts. We wnet to see Jarvis Cocker on Tuesday (16th June) and it was fair good it was. I don't really follow him musically. I know he's a nice man fomr TV programs and the like, and we did see him at Leeds festival in 2000 when he was Pulping it up so I had a brief idea of what to expect. His solo stuff is wuite good. It did keep me entertained for the hour and a half set. Not every song was a hit but it was a good night overall. So here it is, a randon youtube video so you can pretend you were there on the night with us. Enjoy!

Is it better to go out in a blaze of glory or in a long drawn out manner?

2009-06-08T21:19:00.004+01:00

So I haven't blogged anything for a while now. There's not really much to report, some life things going on which I'm not mentioning.

As mentioned previously I finished Jimmy Fight, then completed Jimmy CV (which was pretty boring really). Now I get to work on something entirely new. I say new, but really I've got a treatment to write, and old script to re-jig a bit and something music related that I wont elaborate on until it's more official. It's basically a music video but what of and for whom shall remain secret for a while. Jimmy Music will be the code word...words. So I'm pretty covered in that respect, lots to get on with, still at the amateur hobby style level but it's all experience and fun. Therefore it's all good.

In other news we eventually saw Star Trek, which really impressed me. There are a few issues I have with it, nothing major though. And I'm not quite sure what those issues are. When I left the cinema I kinda felt it was all wrapped up pretty quickly I think, as though they'd remembered they needed to save the Captain and defeat the bad guy. But it was cool so good on Mr Abrams.

I also saw Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell. I think I saw the trailer to this a while back, but other than that had no idea what this was apart from Brother Chris going on about how it was supposed to be really good. Which it is. It could have been a lot better but its good to see Sam Raimi do something other than Spiderman. It has to be said that Drag Me To Hell was saved by its ending though. There were scares throughout, not many true atmospheric scares but more Boo! jump scares, and there were a couple of missed opportunities, but the ending really helped. I can't really explain any more without giving anything away, but it's cool.

As a final note, my new obseesion with the Scott Pilgrim comic continues, having finally got a copy of Volume 2, which seems to have become rarer than a golden DoDo. So I can finally continue the read the adventures of a guy to which everyday life is..well...everyday life. All with a humorous and slightly bizarre twist though.

Oh, and I think a blaze of glory would have worked better.

You kill the devil and you go free.

2009-05-28T00:33:00.003+01:00

I had something to blog about the other day, but no time to blog. Now I have a little time and can't remember what it was. There was a catchy title as well.

Anyway, what can I say today. This is all going to be a bit random due to the unpredictableness of my internet connection so I'm just going to write things as they come to me. Just watched Mongol tonight. I was a little disappointed. I can see they were trying to round the character of Genghis Kahn out and show a side not explored, however this was told over a 2 hour running time that did drag a little, especially as he didn't become Genghis until a caption title at the end of the film. I know nothing of Genghis Kahn's life, other than he helped Bill and Ted pass history, but it seems that this film tries to neatly tell some kind of origin story, as if conquering he know world is then acceptable.

Brother Tim visited this weekend which was cool as he's off to Camp America again next weekend. We had what turned into a strange day on Sunday. Visited Brighton Pier, which was nice, then with little else planned took the mini train to the Marina. Having never been there before, and told that it was like Waterworld, I was expecting big things. It then turns out it is like Waterworld, if that film was set next to an Asda on a car park. The day was then salvaged when we came across a bank holiday market with bizarre attractions. One in particular featured a man, with demonic facial hair, presents three dancing girls, dressed in Ice Cream inspired clothing dancing in front of an Ice Cream van, in which they took solace. As I said, bizarre. We then went on to watch a Punch and Judy show. This was cool for reasons I cannot go into yet. I haven't seen a Punch and Judy show since I was a kid, but have recently become interested in the original play, in which Punch kills a lot of people and escapes any kid of punishment. I was quite happy to see he still killed the policeman and the doctor, turned his child into sausages (only to reverse the process) and end up killing the devil, after which he was rewarded and all previous crimes forgotten. I was a bit strange to here a crowd of kids screaming "It's the Devil" but Punch and Judy does bring out the weirdness.

On Monday, Ten Dead Men was release on Region 2 DVD. I'm just going ot pass you over to Brother Chris' blog who has more info on this >>>>>>>

Finally, because I can't remember what my original point was, I've recently become obsessed with Scott Pilgrim. I had no idea what this was and heard that Edgar Wright of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz fame was directing the live action film., but what exactly was this comic. So I bought the first volume of the manga sized, black and white comic book. And it's cool. I'm just going to link to the main website here rather than go into to much detail but it's well worth checking out. The problem is Vol 2 seems to be really scarce but It will be mine, oh yes. It will be mine.

Oh shit, yeah, I finished Jimmy Fight. It needs a second run through before I pass it over to Brother Chris but its all there. In the end I kind of got more into it but now I've freed up some time for my next project, my CV. A process I never look forward to but is required if I hope to continue living.

That's all for now.

3D rabbits scare the crap out of me.

2009-05-19T20:11:00.004+01:00

Brother Chris has gone off to Cannes to schmooz with the best of them, and I find myself still having to write Jimmy Fight. This is my own doing really. I said I'd do it, and it is experience. I am even getting into it its just I'm finding myself writing something that my heart truly isn't into. However, if in a bizarro world future I somehow have to write professionally, this is the kind of thing that would happen. The writers of Wolverine didn't start writing Wolverine in an attempt to make it themselves (at least I guess not). It was a job, handed to them. So, my own personal projects and ideas have gone on the back burner temporarily and I've written away.

So I'm just past half way, and it's pretty ok-ish. It needs a couple more drafts, especially as its a new deal for me and took me a while to get into it so it starts off pretty run of the mill. But it does get better. I hope to get it finished by the end of May then Brother Chris can take a pass at it.

The problem I have in this kind of work is I'm forever thinking up ideas, and when time is limited to one project at a time I get a pretty long back log and things start to drop off. We recently attended the Paper Bag night as part of the Brighton Fringe festival and I've got the urge to get back to animating once again. Now this is a time consumer. This hopefully will happen, I've even got an idea for the short, but at the moment, Jimmy Fight leads the way, then its back to the treatment stage for and idea that's so crazy it just might happen. That is all I'm ever going to say on the subject as if you heard the premise you'd realise at this stage it will never get made. So revisiting animation must wait. Which is also annoying because fuelling my new love was a visit to see Coraline in 3D at the weekend. This was a great experience. I 've always liked the idea of 3d films. I remember seeing It came from Outer space when I was younger (not its original release mind you) and jumping out of my seat when a rabbit leaped off screen. Not out of screen, just exit stage left. These days though, as good as it is, it just seems to go hand in hand with the CG animated films or kids films, and most of those I don't really care about. But Coraline, WOW.

The designs are great, the music is great and the workmanship is beyond great. What I like about seeing this in 3D is the fact that rather than the usual of a man waving a stick in your face, the 3D is more subtle. As with The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3d, is makes you feel as though you're on the worktop watching the models move. I'm not sure how I'll react to the film in 2D, but it is a definite must see.

Coraline - They Might Be Giants

I got a new PC too. That happened since last time. Haven't really had time to test its limits, but I'm sure its better than my previous machine which slowly began to shut down, then locked me out mid formatting, then recovered and became semi-useful. But I forked out the cash and got a brand spanking new machine as the old would definitely not handle anymore animatia or editing.

Until next time.

Q: Are We Not Men?

2009-05-07T20:31:00.003+01:00

To those who don't know the answer, shame on you, but to put you out of your misery, A:WE Are DEVO.

Yes, brother Chris and I saw DEVO last night and it was amazing. I've been a fan of Devo from first hearing them on the Amiga game, Neuromancer based on the William Gibson novel. Now this was a digitized verson of the song Some Things Never Change, but then Dad played us the album Q: Are we not men. A: We are DEVO, and new fans were born.

So here we are say 15 or so years later and finally we get to see them live. Despite the obvious older age the band are in now they still had quite a lot of energy, and could tell they still enjoyed playing the songs. It was a special one off gig where they played the whole of their first album mentioned above. Which no the one hand was a rare and enjoyable experience, however this was at the cost of some other favourites. There was no Whip It, or Beautiful World, or Somethings Never Change, (but I really wasn't expecting that one) but still a really great night.

To give a rough location as to where we were standing we were basically in the second row of people in front of where Mark Mothersbaugh is on the second pompom dance. He was so close I could see the electro-punk excitement in his eyes.

So, in a good de-evolution move, we go to the support band, Robots in Disguise. Now I can't quite work out if I liked them. At first they were a littel annoying, acting as though a) Everyone knew who they were, and B) everyone had paid to see them. Now from what I can gather they have a following. That's all I'm going to say as I do't really follow music these days. Anyway, in listeneing to recordings they seem to be more electronic thatn they were on stage, which is a little disappointing as the music was alright. However, the electronic versions all sound a little flat. Anyway, here's a music video for you to enjoy.

At the moment I've broken my PC so updates of any kind are limited at the moment. Hopefully I'll get it sorted, or a brand new machine to continue on.

Spies everywhere.

2009-05-02T00:35:00.005+01:00

Ok, just a quick post now but I thought I'd best point this out. Its gone on for far too long that there is a villain hidden within the Mr. Men world. I noticed this the other day at work. No for some reason this person has yet to fully establish himself within the Mr. Men as he once did in our world. Maybe this is due to the strict nature of witness protection and all that changing of identities. Ok, I've built this up far too much, but, just for a minute, look at Mr. Fussy...

Take a long hard look. Does he remind you of anyone. Anyone really evil. Anyone who happened to dictate a lot. Anyone who... Ok it's Hitler isn't it. Mr Fussy is really Hitler.

So the Mr. Men had better watch out. Before long he'll be trying to take over the whole Mr. Men world. And who'll stop him. Who knows. We can but wait.

Dancing a dance of safety.

2009-04-24T21:17:00.002+01:00

So its strange for me to post twice in one day but I came across this looking for something similar. The Donnas, a band I've never really bought anything by, but generally enjoy and have seen them live at the Leeds festival many years ago. Anyway, they've covered The Safety Dance originally by Men Without Hats. So here it is. Excuse the crappy video, I didn't make it, but its the music we care about. Enjoy.

I really should get a Donnas album. Anyway, the reason I found this was because I was looking for a different cover version. I came across the cover a few years ago, and have it on a minidisc back home but now have no idea what it is. It was basically a sort of 50's rock and roll version. But no luck.

So to bring things to a close here's the original Safety Dance video. It is one of the best videos ever mainly due to its scary Wickerman similarities.

My New Favourite Band.

2009-04-24T18:17:00.002+01:00

You've probably already seen this on Brother Chris' blog but as they say, a good cast is worth repeating. So here's the video again. The Trouble by Birdeatsbaby.

Birdeatsbaby - The Trouble from Philippa Bloomfield on Vimeo.

I can't really say exactly why this band has suddenly appeared in my musical radar like a massive flashing whale of some kind. Apart from being a really good band, both live and recorded, I think the whole night as a whole played a part. What Chris didn't mention was how weird the night became. We got the the bar at the correct time stated only to be turned away as they weren't open. First impressions were not too good. The place looked like some sort of social club, just an empty room with a small stage, a few sofas and a small bar. Still, we returned later to find the room now contained 2 couples ballroom dancing. Not sure if the place was open yet, we cautiously ventured inside. We were then informed that the gig was downstairs. Yes hidden beneath the dance class like a 30's speakeasy was in fact The Latest Bar. Still not a large place but it has a lot of character to make up for that fact. Things then began to settle down a bit and enjoyment was had. It was a bit weird how we seemed to be the only people there who weren't friends with any of the bands, and the fact that if you needed the toilet you had to go back upstairs and past the dancers.

The other reason that made the night was the creation of an idea for the Virgin Media Shorts competition. I don't want to get into too much detail but we started the night thinking, "Yeah, we should do that" to having a full idea ready to begin development.

So yes, Birdeatsbaby, my new favourite band, will forever be joined with one of many weird nights out, and the creation of what will hopefully be a great little short.

Why has everything broken?

2009-04-20T21:26:00.003+01:00

Ok, I know I haven't updated in ages. I always meant to, but now I find myself needing a distraction from the slow loading speeds of the itvplayer.

To back track I don't really watch a lot of television, but there are a few programmes I enjoy. Being a fan of the old school I used to tape these if they clashed with other activities, but as a last resort I would turn to the online iplayers. These are pretty good if A) you have a decent enough pc connection and B) well mainly just A. Unfortunately ovewr the weekend we lost use of the the television to some unknown reason so I am forced to watch Primeval yet again in ITVPlayer. However, at this moment in time, we've also been experiencing internet problems. Mainly the wirelessness not working as it should. To make matters worse, I attempted to connect my PC with an ethernet cable but my PC (which I should mention is on its last legs, and beginning to feel a lot like that level on Tron 2.0 where you go into the old pc and everything goes dead slow) refuses to recognise it so I'm back to watching 2 minutes then buffering then 2 minutes then buffering then 1 minute then buffering then adverts.

So I'm keeping myself sane by writing this all out in this blog post. This is also only part one of the iplayer adventure as at some point I'm going to have to watch Heroes and Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. I should really be writing Jimmy Fight which at the moment I'm only about 14 pages in but I'm sure I'll get into it soon enough.

On a lighter note I went to see Crank 2: High Voltage last night which was as silly as ever. In a good way that is. If you look too closely at the Crank films there's nothing really behind them but then that's kind of the point. They are video games. The most accurate video game movie out there, without even being based on a video game. Anyway it was better than Transporter 3 which was a disappointment. I'm now only really looking forward to seeing Coraline in 3D.

I would post youtube links but then the Internet would die forever.

At least Jason Flemyng has now turned up in Primeval. and he's always been good.

Ultimate destruction is just a few minutes away...

2009-04-04T20:22:00.003+01:00

I said I'd come up with a better title so there you have it. And it means nothing really, despite the fact that I'm about to destroy my PC.

I've been editing some behind the scenes footage for the Dark Future trailer, and it's been going smooth up until recently as my PC has now decided to initiate Project Complete Lockdown, which is really annoying, especially as the video is so near completion.

Anyway, I'm back into working on films again with the making-of mentioned above and about to start work on a feature script with Chris that either is, or will be known as Jimmy Fight.

So this post is short as I'd better get on.

However I would like to mention that the Congo Review website has been updated after about 10 months or so. I hope to get more done, but for now there's just a few due to time really. There is also another film that has reached the dizzy heights of being Better Than Congo, but I'll let you find that for yourself (which isn't hard if you just check the New Reviews page)

So back to work I go. Here's hoping the PC will hold out just a little longer.

New location, same old troubles...

2009-03-24T21:08:00.003Z

How depressing does that sound. Next time I'll try for a better title.

Anyway, to bring anyone who doesn't know up to speed, I'm now living with Brother Chris. Yes I was naive to think everything would be different. In short, its not. I am closer to the sea though. I just haven't got used to it yet. But I will.

I recently saw My Name Is Bruce. Is very silly, but still good. I am somewhat biased towards Bruce Campbell though, however this was more enjoyable than The Man With The Screaming Brain which suffered quite a lot from its small budget and Bulgarian filming locations.

I'm also biased due to the fact that My Name Is Bruce slipped a Congo reference in, which as you know always gets a thumbs up in my book. So is it better than Congo. No, but I'd say its as good as.

Despite starting a new job, and therefore acquiring the inability to stay awake throughout a whole film, I've seen quite a few over the last couple of weeks. Special mention goes to Let The Right One In, a Swedish vampire film that plays with the concept of vampires a little more than others do. Not much is explained about the origins, and there's no foppishness involved. There's also a cool sequence concerning the whole "invitation in" rule that I don't think I've ever seen dealt with before.

I've also finally started watching Veronica Mars. A TV show that everyone seems to like and recommend, however at the moment it's nothing special but I am only 3 episodes in so hopefully things will look up.

I'm stopping no I have things to read and write other than blogs and really need to get some work done. However, I may just end up playing games. Who knows.

Who Watches The Watchmen...

2009-03-08T01:03:00.002Z

I do. Ok that was kind of a lame start. I'm only really posting as this marks my final post as a resident of Stoke-on-Trent. I shall soon be off on adventures to Brother Chris' abode and hopefully a bright future. However at the moment my head is exploding, and I'm trying to decide whether I'm taking too much stuff with me. Yes eventually I'll probably have my own place and all the space in the world (the contained world of said place that is), but as it goes I have a room. A room previously used as a computer room, with stuff still in it. Now I really am thinking I have too much. We all know there's no way I'll be using everything at once. And I bet some things I never even touch. It's difficult knowing this for certain though, so I like to be prepared. There doesn't seem any more than when I left for University so maybe that's it. I just haven't seen this much stuff piled up in a while.

Anyway, I went to see Watchmen tonight. It hasn't really sunk in yet so I can't decide if I liked it. I know for certain that the first half was cool, but I think it gets a bit dragged out. The problem with it is that the beginning has been reordered a bit, but as soon as you get into the origins of the characters you're just waiting for the next bit of the comic you remember.

So...the new ending. It's ok. Not great, but ok. I don't want to give anything away. I come from reading the comic and was really looking forward to seeing that particular end so it was always going to disappoint. However with the new ending, a guy I went with who has no idea of the comic didn't think it made sense, that the result was not much of a threat. In many ways he's right. They really needed to set it up through out the film, which in turn would change the story. But the base elements were there.

Finally I just want to mention the soundtrack. It's amazing. Zack Snyder couldn't really use much on his last film 300, but the soundtrack for the Dawn of the Dead remake was also amazing. Not the usual choices Hollywood films would make. Plus the Philips Glass track form the trailer is used in the film.

All in all, it is a cool film. I don't agree with other reviews where they've offered up alternative directors. IGN offered Ridley Scott or David Fincher and Mark Kermode suggested Terry Gilliam would have been an improvement. However these directors haven't really made a decent film for a while. Whoever was directing this film it still would've been a hard film to make. You can't please everyone, especially when each reader has there own interpretation, just like the adaptation of a book. I wasn't to keen on the comic elements of Mickey Rourke's Marv from Sin City as I'd always read him as a straight, hard bastard right to the end.

In closing I think Zack Snyder has done a great job. And I look forward to the rest of his career. And his soundtracks.

You Can't Dance on Someones Grave!

2009-03-03T12:01:00.004Z

The remainder of the weekend was occupied with a variety of films of varying quality. We began with black & white version of The Mist. How good is this film? Rhetorical by the way as we all know The Mist is amazing. I'd forgotten how good it, and everyone in it, was. This is only emphasised when viewed in black and white. I captures the atmosphere of the mid-fifties horror/sci-fi films and also makes the creature effects more believable. The end is still one of the best I've seen in a long time, and possibly the only true horrific moment in the whole film.

This was followed by The Gravedancers. This film was chosen based on the delivery of the line, "You can't dance on someones grave!" Unfortunately I can't post it here as it only seems to be part of the trailer on V-Plus. The film stars Dominic Purcell of Prison Break fame, Clare Kramer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame and the always watchable Tcheky Karyo. The film begin as a rum of the mill haunting film. Friends get drunk, dance on graves and get haunted. About half way in though things started to get interesting. The ghost effects were pretty creepy, and by the end things get quite insane. Not to give anything away, but basically a giant head chases a car though the house. It's a pity the film takes so long before it gets interesting. So based on the 'matter of fact' delivery of one line, this film was pretty much a winner.

Unlike Sickle, which only cost a single British pound, but was just poor. It was filmed on digital so it looked bad, and not a lot happened. Shots were repeated, characters reappeared in scenes even though they'd just left, and there was a hell of a lot of walking. I should really be careful here, I don't want to just sound mean as the issue of reviews is hitting close to home since the DVD release of Ten Dead Men. However, Sickle was pretty rubbish. However, on the DVD was a trailer, fortunately not for Sickle, but for Skinned Deep, a 2004 horror film directed by Gabriel Bartalos, the special effect/make-up artist on films such as Leprechaun and Basket Case 2. It also stars Warwick Davis as a guy called Plates, and, you guessed it, he throws plates at people. This film looked mental, and was worth the pound spent on the DVD.

We ended on Earth Alien, starring Eric Roberts and Arnold Vosloo. This was also only a pound, but far better than Sickle. It's about a cop who teams up with an alien to hunt down another alien who is killing humans for their skin. Poacher style. I don't have much more to say on this. It was ok, things exploded, cars were chased, guns were shot. Pretty straight forward really.

In between these viewings we seemed to watch the trailer for Clifford over and over. For some reason this film only seems to be available on Xbox Live and nowhere else. It still looks bizarre and will be tracked down eventually. If only to fit in with a screening of Shakma.

Anyway the weekend came to a close, and onto the trains we went. And what a crappy journey. The train I was on somehow let off the emergency brakes stopping the train only after about an hour of travel. Then we couldn't get the brakes off and just had to wait for a technician. Finally we moved to the next station, all got off and awaited the replacement train, which then had to alter its journey to include all the stops form the original train. I ended up getting in about two late. Which nicely brings my February tour of Britain to a close, and fuels my temporary hate for trains. I know Brother Chris eventually had some problems also on his journey. It just goes to show, no one should travel on a Sunday.

Oh, and you can't dance on someones grave.

I swallowed my soul...

2009-03-03T00:40:00.005Z

I've just returned from an exciting weekend of Theatre and Film with Brother Chris visiting one of his friends from University, Mr Geraint D'arcy. The reason for this visit, The Evil Dead. Well sort off. Geraint was involved in the combined theatre production of The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 by the drama students of University of Glamorgan, and this being my favourite film, was excited to have been invited. You can see the stage design and a couple of other pictures at Geraint's blog here. So anyway, only a day after returning from Brother Chris' I was off on another train journey.

The show, entitled Dead By Dawn to avoid and copyright issues, was preceded by a cautionary notice in the pub before we went across to the theatre. This was not going to be The Evil Dead we all knew and loved, but more like a re-imagining, set in the Welsh Valleys. Hearing this I wasn't quite sure what to expect. So we buy our tickets and wait in line ready to hopefully enjoy Dead By Dawn.

And enjoy I did. Being a part student production not everything was perfect, but then, if you start looking closely, not every part of Evil Dead is perfect. The stage design was simple yet effective, there are only two settings in the film really, inside the cabin and outside the cabin, and the stage and its surroundings were used to great effect. Every major aspect of the films featured in the production, Chainsaw, possessed humans, Henrietta and yes, even the tree rape, handled perfectly as the character is dragged beneath the stage and thrown out the other side, battle damaged. Unfortunately there was no possessed hand ans therefore no arm mounted chainsaw but cuts had to be made somewhere. So excellent stage design, but what about the acting.

The acting was pretty strong across the board. Nothing perfect mind, the fights did seem pretty loose at times, but the characters were believable. Unfortunately the lead playing Ash managed to get the cowardly Evil Dead Ash down, but failed to grasp the coolness of Evil Dead 2 Ash. There were a couple of other problems with certain actors but I rather not start nit picking.

So finally, the effects. No Evil Dead production would be accurate without a shed load of gore, and this production had it. Brains exploded, heads cut off, intestines ripped out. Obviously all done in a stylistic fashion. No one got hurt. One of the highlights was definitely seeing the possessed Henrietta emerge from the cellar, long neck and all. This scene was so manic that it resulted in excited audience applause.

I may have missed stuff out but I can't remember everything. It was a cool show though, a lot better than a couple of professional productions I've attended in the past. It's a pity it only ran for three days, and now it's over with, never to be seen again. I doubt those involved will ever forget it and they all should definitely be proud of what they achieved.

Groovy!

My face was shaved...and I watched films...

2009-02-26T00:31:00.005Z

For those who may be interested, Operation Beard is over. It wasn't really a failure, more that I grew sick of the facial hair. I was going to post photos but how self indulgent would that be. Anyway, I also discover my hair is too fine and light to get a successful growth going. You basically had to be centimetres form my face to really see it. I have this theory though, whenever I seem to forget to shave, the lazier I become. Therefore with the act of shaving I cast off the laziness hair to become revitalised once again, ready to get on with whatever I was avoiding. This was a sub-mission with operation beard. The longer the hair grew, the more to cast off, the more I would get back into things. Which worked for a couple of hours, but then I went back to the confusion.

To explain, I'm moving down with Brother Chris for the foreseeable future and somewhere it was decided that I go down for a week, presumably to settle in, or get the lay of the land. Which is all well and good, but I spent the week not really knowing if I should be looking for work as I was returning home for a couple more weeks. This scheduled return also meant that the room in which I'd be living was still borrowed, so at home I did not feel. I did apply for one job though so not all was wasted.

When not working however I watched a lot of the second series of the Henry Rollins Show. although a little strange at first, seeing Mr Rollins presenting a chat show, the guests he has on and the cut around rants make for an interesting watch. It is a little disconcerting though as he does seem to complain about everything, even blogging, and I do see where he's coming from, however I shall persevere.

When not watching umpteen episodes of this show, I managed to watch a handful of cool films. These ranged from the "arty" Irma Vep, a film about the filming of a remake of a silent french serial called Les Vampires, starring Maggie Chung as herself. It's good because it makes a little fun of stereotypical French Cinema, that the majority of films are made only for the directors and not for general audiences.

I also watched a Japanese film called Kamikaze Girls. I originally thought this was going to be a crazy kung fu style film but was surprised to learn its the simple tale of two girls from clashing cultures becoming friends. It's still crazy, and really cool. Especially the soundtrack by Yoko Kanno, who also created the soundtrack for the excellent Cowboy Bebop anime series. Anyone who hasn't seen these should definitely look them up.

During a film night, and using the hat system (whereby the names of a bunch of films are put into a hat and one taken out at random to be watched) resulted in a quality triple bill featuring Ravenous, the Guy Pierce and Robert Carlyle cannibal fueled film, which I'd forgotten was quite funny, and has an excellent soundtrack; Omega Cop, a post apocalyptic style Citizen Kane meets Ong Bak starring Don Marchini and Adam West; and finishing off with Death Dimension, in which Jim Kelly teaches crime to George Lazenby whislt they take on Harold 'OddJob' Sakata and his snapping turtle. Assisted by none other than Myron Bruce Lee. Quality viewing was had by all.

In term of cinema visiting adventures, we saw Friday the 13th and Push. Unfortunately Friday the 13th was neither a re-imaginging nor a remake, but ended up another sequel in the already bulging Friday the 13th family. A 'Previously on...' style opening continues into a brief body count before the actual film really begins. Jared Padalecki, from Supernatural, was good but the fact that Jason as a franchise has become so large that even he isn't allowed to kill him off.

So with Push, a film closer the Heroes TV series than with telekinetic adventures as advertised. The film is ok, there are a lot of plot holes and one wonders whether using a different 13 year old, rather than the 40 year old 13 year old Dakota Fanning, would have achieved the same result. It was fun though, and was better than Friday the 13th.

I've come to the end now as I'm not quite sure what I'm writing about.

Kamikaze Girls Trailer

Irma Vep Trailer

Operation BEARD...

2009-02-13T00:36:00.003Z

An update of randoms here.

I followed this link from Brother Chris' blog about Neil Gaiman having a rant about someone mistaking the Henry Selick directed film Coraline, as being by Tim Burton. I shall explain, but here's the link - here.

Ok so, maybe not when it first came out, but since I realised my mistake I have been a supporter of Henry Selick. He's the real guy who directed Time Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. And I still fight in his corner. If you read Neil Gaiman's blog, he explains where the mistake was made and so on, but I find it unbelievable that even members of the press can't be bothered to look at the Internet Movie Database. Anyway for anyone who cares to read, Henry Selick also directed James and the Giant Peach, which is ok i guess. I've only seen it once and wasn;t a fan of the live action segments. He also directed Monkeybone, which I think was hated by the critics, but does have its own charm. The design work is cool, and it has an excellent blend of live action and animation. Selick also directed, or actually animated, I'm not sure, the animated fish segments from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. In summary, Henry Selick is a cool guy, and needs to be recognised.

Brother Chris, in a previous post here, ask for suggestions for films where the lead leaves his hometown for a better life somewhere and actually finds it. A quick background to this is because I'm moving down, and due to certain things happening, am not yet sure if the right choice was made. So we were talking about films that cover the subject, such as Orange County and Lonesome Jim, but in both the lead decides to return home having decided that's where he belongs basically. Explanation over. So films were suggested in the comments section, such as The Station Agent, which is cool, then a load I hadn't seen so I wont repeat, but also Star Wars A New Hope, and Superman. I don't agree with these though, and choose to hide here to avoid any backlash. The reasons given were Superman's planet is blown up, so his life improved, as did Luke Skywalker's. However, Luke's family had all been blown to bits, and he hated farming and wanted to leave form the beginning so that's out. Superman, on the other hand, his home blew up so couldn't return if he wanted to. Close but no cigar. Anyway, the best I could come up with was Stardust. Tristan goes in search of star, learns something along the way, and stays for a better life in Stormhold.

I found this cool little game based on the upcoming Watchmen film. Its basically a style of 80#'s coin-op beat em up in the style of Double Dragon and the like, but featuring two members of the Minutemen. Check it out here.

Finally to tie the blog title in, I'm currently involved in Operation Beard. As I have no job anymore, and do not need to look for work due to complications of various visitations I'll be making over the next month, I have decided to take a leaf out of Keanu's book and grow a beard mid-employment. Why not I say. As a side note though, I also need to get a haircut and am contemplating bringing this into Operation Beard. However, the whole process may mutate and become some kind of Project Hermit style monster. I'll keep you posted.

Fortune and glory kid. Fortune and glory.

2009-02-09T20:13:00.002Z

I could go on about Benjamin Button, but I'm not going to, much. I went to see it and was disappointed that it differs majorly from the short story, for no real reason I could see. It's ok, it looks nice, and the first half was good, but its way too long. Plus the focus seemed to shift onto the Cate Blanchett love interest, and how she has to grow old while Benjamin turns into a child. Whereas the short story sticks firmly with how Benjamin just wants to fit in. He leaves his wife when she starts getting old, not out of sympathy, but because he doesn't like her now she's old. He also cant get into college and things, I liked that aspect. The film obviously plays more into the sentimentality of it all. Plus its massively long.

So mediocre at best. However, I watched Cloverfield on DVD last night. This is the first time since I saw it at the cinema, and although it didn't have the same impact on its second viewing, its still a really good film. Characters, story and premise. All thumbs up.

So what am I truly blogging about. Well, I left my job last Friday (6th February for future reference) and now for the first time in roughly 2 years i find myself with too much time on my hands. I'll be eventually moving away, but until then there's no point looking for work, and I've got somewhere to stay, so I find myself killing time and thinking about what I'm doing, whether the right decisions have been made. In theory, the only reason I'm typing this out now is to think out loud. I know I'm not going to know if I've made the right move until a few more months have passed, at which point I hope to be settled anyway.

At the moment it kind of feels like I've run over the edge of a cartoon cliff, but I 've yet to fall, or make it back to the cliff edge. So I patiently await the outcome, driving myself insane with my thoughts.

I just hope the acme parachute hasn't got an anvil inside.

Laibach...what the hell????

2009-02-06T00:11:00.003Z

Ok, so randomly I was introduced to this Slovenian metal band the other day. Not personally of course. They are Laibach, and are one of the influences behind German metal band Rammstein.

Now searching over youtube I've yet to find any of their original songs, just some covers. They've also been going since the early 80's I think (a quick wikipedia check confirmed this) but they're still around today, so there are many incarnations of them. The newer tracks seem to be just like Rammstein, so It's the older stuff I'm more interested in. As you can probably tell, I don't know much about them except they are scary. And have fascist undertones, though they claim this is nonsense.

So for fun I've posted three of the best videos, all covers, and for a comparison a couple of Rammstein tracks. Its a music video bonanza.

Enjoy.

Laibach - Life is Life

Laibach - Across the Universe
Stick with this to the end for extra special scariness.

Laibach - Sympathy for the Devil
One of the better covers of this song.

Rammstein - Rammstein

Rammstein - Links 2 3 4

Big monsters? Yes. Boring miserable characters? NO.

2009-01-27T23:37:00.005Z

Let me just start, for those that don't know the United States DVD release of Ten Dead Men, the film Brother Chris happened to write one day, was today. Yay. Go and buy it, if you can, here.

Now to the point, I'm supposed to be working on something else, but I only really get stuff done at weekends. So I just watched Jack Brooks - Monster Slayer. It's alright, not that great. Far too much time is spent setting up the monster, and the fact that he's a "monster slayer" he doesn't get slaying until about 15 minutes from the end. So yeah, it could have been a lot better, but was kind of what I was expecting.

What bothers me though is that the people behind the film mention that they grew up on '80s horror, the link with this post's title. Yes there were many a horror film in the 80's but Evil Dead this is not. The Thing this is not. It's not the first time this reference has been made. There was a film out last year called Hatchet. It was supposed to start a new franchise so had a new slasher guy in. But it wasn't very good. And had a weird featurette about how it was made because the directer wanted to see Twisted Sister and then he befriended vocalist Dee Snider and they saved each other from cancer or something, and that made him make Hatchet, cause he was inspired by 80's horror films. But again, effects aside, that film was boring and the characters weak.

Now I know lots and lots of films get made, and there were a fair share of bad 80's horror. (The Lamp springs to mind) but why would you want to recreate those. You can have your gory effects, fair enough, but gory effects does not a great movie make. Throw in a fun character, a cool character, any kind of character, just not your token run of the mill, characters.

Jack Brooks fails because, as mentioned, it takes too long to set up. Yes we realise he gets angry, and from then on you work out he can fight monsters to "relax", so why spend an hour getting there. It should go more like: Jack gets angry. Oh Shit, monsters have come. Jack can fight monsters because he's angry. Jack has now become monster slayer, much slaying and wise cracking later Jack wins, film ends.

Instead it was more like: Jack gets angry.......he's a plumber.....an angry plumber......why's he learning science at night school.....chekovs gun......he's angry.....monster brewing.........he's still angry........comedy Englund...........angry......Englund.......angry......Englund.....Monster.....Angry...Fight..End.

And I sped up the Robert Englund comedy for you as well.

Cool seems to be lost on films these days. I finally got some feedback today for a script I wrote. They said the end was cheesy. I always thought it was cool. "I'd like to see that in a film" I thought. If Jack Brooks is what passes as cool today. I think I'll stick to cheesy thanks. It's more fun.

Valkyrie, Valkarar,Valkyrie, Valkara-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

2009-01-24T02:16:00.003Z

Not that is was funny. Ok so I saw Valkyrie. Its not the greatest. At first I wasn't really that bothered, then Brother Chris highlighted the fact that Usual Suspects' Christopher McQuarrie wrote it so I was intrigued. Unfortunately, Brian Singer has lost it a bit I think. Overall it was a bit like watching a history video. Knowing nothing of the attempts on Hitlers life I have nothing to go on as to how much was made up. However, if even a fraction was made up, then they should have taken advantage and gone with it. Example, there's a section where Tom Cruise has to go and get an extra man to help out, obviously I'm paraphrasing and making it sounds slightly less interesting. Anyway, this extra man is attracted in an interesting fashion but it made me think that he could have made it like Magnificent Seven or Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise having to go an recruit these "traitors". And then have Willie carry the bags.

As it ends up, as mentioned, there's no real visual flair. The script is pretty good, and the acting is good in theory (more on that in a bit). But having a look at Christopher Mcquarrie's IMDB page, he hasn't done anything of his own for the last 8 years or so. The last thing he was credited for was Way of the Gun, and I wasn't a fan. Unfairly, I was comparing it to Usual Suspects a lot, not wholly my fault as this has been a major marketing factor.

So back to the acting, the German language is abandoned early on in a nice transition, however, then each actor speaks in with different accent. Tom Cruise is his usual American, the majority of the English cast use slightly posher accents, with the exception of Terence Stamp, who, as ever, seems to just be playing himself once again. Then on the other side you have Thomas Kretschmann with a German accent, and a few others with German accents. With no clear language flowing through the film you feel each character needs their own German to English transitional segment.

Overall, the film could've been better. I think, and I'm not sure if this is credible, it does show how loony Hitler and his followers really were. (A link to Scientology springs to mind). There is a scene with Hitler and his henchmen sitting in a circle like some kind of Evil League of Evil, each with their own special characteristic. Look out for the toys in shops soon. It also loses a lot of clarity when the good Germans start taking over, it all seems pretty easy, especially as they're following a guy with one eye, one hand adn only three finger left on the other. You can't really see how Germany nearly took over Europe. They were all mental.

Well, maybe not.

I'm trying but there doesn't seem to be anything better than Congo lately.

Thought I'd best write something...

2009-01-21T23:45:00.004Z

I haven't given up on this yet, but I am finding it less and less important on my pretty empty schedule of things to do. The reason I guess this is is plainly I 'm not up to much yet. Well, I am, but as Chris and I have previously mentioned I can't really talk about anything "in progress". This mainly boils down to things falling through. If everything I did had a definite outcome then this blog would be full. As it happens, only a small percentage of the stuff that comes out of my brain ever ends up on some kind of paper or written word, and even less ends up as "something".

So other things...other things to talk about. All I can think at this moment is I just watched The Contractor with Wesley Snipes. Not literally with Wesley Snipes, he was just in it. It wasn't bad. It wasn't good either. There's a problem with the middle TV budget films where nothing much happens, then you get a flash of coolness and its gone, well, in a flash. It mostly comprised of Mr Snipes sitting around a run down flat with a street wise school girl helping him out. Actually it wasn't very good, apart from the odd flash. I'm also finding it difficult understanding Lena Headey, who was English in this, being set in London and all. Since she become Sarah Connor Chronicles in America, I'm used to her as an American. A similar thing happened with Christian Bale until he turned his back on every known accent and created his own.

So the channel 5 film continues fuelling the careers of the fading action hero. Especially as there's another random Van Damme film on next week, The Hard Corps, although his drug taking, Stephen Rea co-starring effort, Until Death, was well pants. I don't quite know what I'm expecting from these films as the results all tend to leave me feeling disappointed. Anyway I shall be watching.

To end on a lighter note, I'm look ing forward to Sylverster Stallones The Expendables, starring Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren and Sir Ben Kingsley. Theres no way this is going to be anything other than a 80's style action flick. And after the blood shed seen in Rambo, I'm hoping this film wont disappoint.

Maybe next time I'll have something productive to report. We can but hope.

Dragging up the past...Trailer Style.

2009-01-11T17:12:00.003Z

So I shouldn't really be posting now. I'm in the middle of a Batman Begins/Dark Knight double bill and paused briefly, but a promise I did make to Brother Chris. When we were young, we had a tape collecting a variety of trailers from the videos we rented. I can't remember why, but obviously is the reason I still like watching the trailers at the cinema. On this tape was a strange selection ranging from Ghostbusters II to King of the Kickboxers. I did go a bit mental and bought some of the ex-rental bix boxed VHS years later, only to discover in most cases the trailers were better. One of these films was WhyMe? based on the book by, and written by the late Donald E Westlake. This came up in conversation because of his recent death and Chris asked me to find it, so here we go.

Below you'll find this trailer and a selection of other hits from the trailer tape.

Why Me?

Puppet Master 2

The Time Guardian

The Ambulance

This trailer, on the tape at least, had the best tag line but doesn't seem to feature online. It went like this, "The Ambulance. If you call for help, you're dead!"

Dentists and Nazis...

2009-01-04T18:36:00.004Z

The first film I've seen at the cinema in 2009 was The Spirit - pause for reaction. I have mixed feelings about this film, in many ways I enjoyed it, but in many other ways it falss short. I shall explain.

Frank Miller has recreated, more or less, the look of his previous co-directed effort Sin City, however I'm not so sure this is the look for The Spirit. I haven't read many of the original Spirit comics but from what I have read, including the new run currently ongoing, surely a brighter style would have been more fitting. This ties in nicely with my confused opinion. The Spirit tries to be both a goofy, comic movie; but also a straight noir-ish crime movie. And these kind of don't mesh together. If a little more time was taken over the script I've no doubt The Spirit would become a great movie. Instead it will probably be forgotten. I could see the film working in comic form both in style and structure. The Spirit did tend to talk aloud a lot, or to the audience, or to a stray cat, but never to his sidekick who had obviously never been included in the film.

Its just the real life problems of The Spirit did not mix with the Adam West's Batman campness. Which, as I've said is the only problem. The film either should have been straight cut noir, or 60s camp. Now as I previously mentioned, I haven't read enough of the history, but then again, for this character to appeal to a mainstream audience, you can't rely too heavily on a history the audience today know nothing about.

As far as the cast, all performed their roles well. Gabrial Macht as The Spirit was excellent, Samuel L Jackson was pretty much the same as he always is, just a little more nusto, but well balanced with Scarlett Johansson as straight talking scientist Silken Floss.

I did enjoy a lot in this film. The look was cool, some of the gags were funny and the story is pure comic book. It just needed a little tightening up a little. Now I know this will not be a shared opinion. The characters were a little one dimensional, and it is a little chauvinistic, but that all kind of works on the campness side. I think I've said that too much.

So in review, don't go to see it thinking it's the next Sin City. Don't go in thinking too much about it at all really. Watch it at face value, as entertainment.

2008 no more…

2008-12-30T23:13:00.010Z

So its that time of year again. The wrapping paper has been destroyed, no more turkey left to eat, and only the dregs of the chocolate tin remain (usually the strawberry creams or hard toffees). The year has finally come to a close.

With the usual identity crisis I engage in during this time, I wish to share with you my reflections on the year past. Brother Chris has already done all this, and possibly to a far better degree, however, its always good to get a few opinions. People will want to know how it went down after all.

2008 - An adventure in words!

It’s been a mixed year. On the one hand, there’s been quite a few things that were great, exciting and cool. On the other, there’s been a lot of waiting around for these cool things where I just had to get on with work. Bah!

So to list all the cool things. Way back in February I was chosen as a finalist in the E4 Estings competition and was due to attend the awards ceremony. This was hopefully a taste of things to come. Brother Chris didn’t waste a second on the free bar, nor on the free eats. I was more of an eats person, especially the cool little fruit crumbles that only me and Chris seemed to eat.

The whole night had a surreal element to it which made it all that more memorable, having to wait around for so long, taking an assortment of random photos to use up film and basically the first time at an awards ceremony, however low-key. I didn’t win.

The next big event was the premiere of Ten Dead Men, on which I edited the behind the scenes footage into an hour long documentary, and a series of shorter featurettes. This was a definite highlight of the year. Not only the premiere of Brother Chris first produced screenplay, but also seeing all the stars of the film I’d been watching “behind the scenes” for so long. It was kind of weird seeing these people that I knew, but who did not know me. Along with a surreal experience with Doug Bradley screaming Donald Pleasance’s lines from Halloween two inches from my face, and a close encounter with Lee from Steps. That whole weekend was memorable and I doubt I’ll forget it anytime soon.

Then there was work. And it went on.

Unsure of actual dates, around May/June/July I began work on a script with Chris. Basically writing an outline then sending it to Chris for a tidy up, and any changes he wished to include, then back to me for a first draft, and so on back an forth. This was really great of Chris as he was also balancing the writing of two other scripts at the same time. With the script finished, and all parties happy it has entered the next stage in its life…a mystery I am yet to divulge upon.

Work took over once again. Boo!

In August I started this ‘ere blog, and having a sneaky peak, I wasn’t a happy bunny. I can only remember certain reasons for this and as far as I know these have been eradicated. I say that, I just wanted to use that word. Problems gone basically.

“NEW YORK, NEW YORK a hell of a town!”

September was the time for the New York holiday which was my idea, and funded, at least in part, by me. Don’t take that as a moan, I had the money sitting there, and spend it I did.

Recently I’ve realised how much fun I actually had in New York. I think when I was there I was a little overwhelmed with it all, both in scale and in general holidayness. I hadn’t been on holiday since I was 15 probably. That was eleven years ago, and I think I just didn’t know how to holiday. Anyway, sights were seen, photos taken, food eaten (though not much in my case) and big headed Thor was bought. An excellent time was had by all.

October brought not much to the proceedings. I went to see The Woman in Black at the theatre and I doubt I will experience anything like it again. Bloody scary it was.

Now were pretty much up to date. November held my birthday, and I bought My First Xbox 360. Brother Chris took me to see The Dark Knight on IMAX. This was amazing. Again another memory to keep. After the film we went on a late night tour of the sights, mainly to get back to Victoria Station. A cool weekend was had.

In December I passed my driving test and it was Christmas, which this year I began by watching the majority of My Fair Lady until the rest of the family awoke and present time could begin. Now I can’t get the song "Wouldn't it be Lovely" out of my head.

As you can see the year started off great, then slowly frittered out towards the end. I’m hoping for many opportunities next year, and swear I’ll get more writing done. My head is bulging with ideas after all.

Now the fun stuff.

Game-wise I bought an, Xbox as mentioned, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Throughout 2008 I was catching up on original Xbox games. So for games actually released in 2008, my short memory can only remember that I forked out for the complete Guitar Hero World Tour, a great game, it may not be to everyone’s tastes, and definitely works better with a group, but I enjoy the game solo, always have. I also got Tomb Raider: Underworld. A direct sequel to Legend, and continues in the same universe as Anniversary. Unfortunately, although I still enjoy the franchise the game has lost a little of its originality, and although it sounds silly, I got a little sick of climbing around similar looking ruins.
Lego Indiana Jones was also played but didn’t mark as well as Lego Star Wars. That universe is just too limited. And Indy never fought a giant snake.

Music-wise, I can think of two excellent gigs I attended. First off was Polysics in February. Only the second time I’ve seen them but this did battle for the top stop. Not sure who won actually. Basically, going with a load of mates who had now idea who they’d come to see, and the gig taking place in a tiny, cramped pub,and the fact that I managed to steal the drummers ‘P’ badge, made this gig one of the best ever.

In November, attending the Flogging Molly gig in Manchester proved another highly enjoyable evening. Great company and great music. I can’t be beat.

Film-wise, 2008 was a great year. I won't repeat what Chris has already mentioned as that would be pointless but I agree with what he says about Rambo, Be Kind Rewind, REC and Cloverfield. Always good to mention The Dark Knight as well. In no particular order I want to mention Iron Man and Wanted which I also enjoyed and also Hellboy II was a good ‘un. Now I’ve realised there are far too many to mention. One quick mention, I saw Chocolate on DVD, a film by Prachya Pinkaew and starring JeeJa Yanin. The young star is obviously being groomed to become a female Tony Jaa and with a little more training she'll get there. However this film has been marketed poorly; if you're expecting a full on Muay Thai actioner be prepared for a little story.

I welcomed the return of Indiana Jones. I enjoyed this film, wasn’t too sure of the story but I loved the first half. Indy in the fifties was excellent, I think then it got a bit to CG, and was nicking off Macgyer, what with the giant ants and the knowledge is the treasure. Overall a good adventure picture.

This year Warner Brothers released tow animated movies, Justice League: New Frontier and Batman: Gotham Knight. Both are solid films. Some segments in Gotham Knight are superior to others but overall the film is enjoyable. As is New Frontier. My trouble with this is that I read the Comic this year also, in the massive Absolute Edition, which truly is amazing. Condensing this into a 70 minute film does lose out on the whole but a great job all the same.

Finally, because I’m beginning to lose track of everything, a special mention goes to Joss Whedon who this year unveiled Dr Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog. Created to get around the writers strike, the three-part, 42 minute film was premiered on the Internet in July.

Each part was unveiled over the course of a week and then taken offline. This I think help it as it left your wanting more, but that’s beside the point. I think this was possibly one of the most exciting events only I seemed to have been a part of. I know Chris was interested, but locally, no-one I knew seemed to care, which was disappointing, but I remember I could feel the excitment building. Sneakily checking the website at work to see if the new episode had been posted. But to get back on track, the story was cool, especially the ending. Was not expecting that! And the songs are good, genuinely. The whole experience works really well. I doubt a whole series could work, but the odd one off or feature should definitely be considered.

So whats on the cards for next year, who knows at the moment. I’ll try to get more writing done, as I said, ideas need jotting down, I probably go and see Watchmen, an I’ll definitely buy Ghostbusters: The Game.

I hope 2008 was good for you, and that 2009 will be as good as 2008 was for Chris.

Here’s hoping.

Happy New Year you lucky people.

A Merry Christmas to you all!

2008-12-24T12:01:00.003Z

So I haven't posted much this holiday season. This is mainly to do with the fact that Brother Chris is doing a better job than I ever could with his Christmas Countdown, so check it out here if you haven't been keeping track.

http://whatwritesatmidnight.blogspot.com/search/label/Xmas%20Blog%20Countdown

And now the wait is nearly over. For some reason this year I've been struggling with all the festiveness. Not in a Charlie Brown "What's the meaning of it all" (although that did briefly come up) but mainly the traditional side of things. Do I keep up long standing traditions or break them? Do I spend Christmas with family or friends? I guess what I was trying find out, in my own Christmas Special kind of way, is where I stand in this day and age. It's a big question to ask, and one I know I wont find the answer to in at least a few more years, if ever. All I can say at this point is to do what feels right, that's my weak response. I've never been a great decision maker, but at least at the moment I'm sticking to my guns. I'll try to fit in as much as I can. I tried to visit but it just wasn't possible. I'll try again tonight, time permitting, but I'm finding that any plans I make tend to be broken. All I can do is try.

So I'll probably stay in, watch It's a Wonderful Life, reminisce about the past, then finish off the evening with a couple of Christmas specials, A Charlie Brown Christmas and Christmas with the Joker from Batman the Animated Series. These traditions I'm able to continue.

Have fun however you're spending Christmas, to each his own, but a Merry Christmas to all.

Could I do any better...

2008-12-14T23:45:00.003Z

...yes I think I could.

So what's all this about? Well recently I watched a film at the cinema. Now for some reason I seem to go less and less these days, unless there's a film I'm excited about such as The Indiana Jones' and Dark Knights. Apart from these though I tend to wait for DVD. This is in part to do with the fact that the time between cinema and DVD release is getting shorter and shorter, and part to do with the fact that I have an online rental account with a decreasing wish list that needs filling up from time to time.

Anyway, so I'm sitting in the cinema hoping to enjoy The Transporter 3. I like the Transporter films, and have seen them both around this time at the cinema, so its sort of a mini tradition that I was willing to continue. However on this occasion I left feeling disappointed. Despite it being written by the original writers, Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, and with the action choreographed once again by Corey Yuen, this entry fell short. Without getting into too much detail there just wasn't enough going on. Too much was focused on character, which I wouldn't have minded if A) Frank Martin (Jason Statham) was anything like he was in the prequels. He seemed to have loosened up a lot, and B) if sidekick/love interest Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) wasn't in it. She was basically annoying. If Frank was anything like he used to be he would have smacked her on that hill and taken his keys back.

She was one of the main problems really. She just wasn't very good. That and the lack of a decent story, and a weak ending yet again. Robert Knepper (T-Bag in Prison Break) was cool though but he's going to have to start working harder, after this and Hitman I think he's beginning to pick dud roles.

Friday night I watched Botched on DVD. It stars Stephen Dorfffffff and is basically a mish-mash of genres. Heist goes wrong, people start to die in the basement where they were hiding kind of thing. It's ok, there were a few funny moments, but again nothing special. My short review kind of sums up my feelings towards it. It was basically alright. Nothing seems to be beating Congo since I started this blog.

So back to the beginning. Could I do any better. I apologise for the following paragraph, I will come across as big headed.

I think I could do better. If these films got made surely there's a chance for me out there. And If I do say so myself, not only could I do better, but I have done better. Yes, it depends on who reads the scripts and so on. I understand in the case of Transporter 3 that there is already an audience. But with Botched, I know the script I wrote is better, if not equal. And would appeal to pretty much the same audience.

Now I realise I'm just complaining to deaf ears, and nothing will come of it the longer I keep this up. All I'm really saying is if this is the quality of the films that people are putting money into, even if it's the lowest of the low, then I've got to have my chance at some point. It's just getting it out there which is and always will be the problem. Britain is known for its poor film industry. With directors like Neil Marshall and Paul W S Anderson completely ignored, yet Mr 'I'll never make a Sci Fi movie again even though my first attempt was crap anyway' Danny Boyle is King, along with the rest of the miserables, Mike Leigh and Shane Meadows.

Some will disagree now, especially as I've gone off on a massive tangent, but there's enough talent out there that just isn't appreciated just because they prefer to work in genre films, Horror, Sci-Fi, Action. Instead of Richard Curtis romantic comedies or Mike Leigh sitting round your working class house with a funny voice.

To bring it all to some kind of close The British Film Industry isn't going to become a proper film industry until all these areas are covered. It's not as if there's nobody out there wanting it.

I feel this is blog worthy...

2008-12-11T00:22:00.004Z

So for a while now I've been mentioning the odd 'personal' things going on in my life that I've blamed my procrastination on. Now is the time for the great reveal. Well I say great, I realise now I'm building up something that isn't that exciting to begin with, but has a long back story so I find it interesting.

I finally passed my driving test. Yes that is it. Nothing else, I'm not ill or dying and nothing is dropping off. I just didn't want to keep moaning about the stupid driving test. It also brought me down a lot basically because I've spent the last year learning, unknowingly (when I started at least) setting up an invisible barrier blocking me from proceeding to another level of interesting with my life. To explain...

The story goes, back in last November, after saving up a handful of cash I decided that as nothing of any interest was happening in life, and by that I mean career/film wise, I felt I should use my time more efficiently. So I took upon the challenge of driving, something I presumed I'd have to learn to do at some point, and as I knew the roads at home, what better place to begin. And so it went until 2008. Things then began to change. Firstly, I got into the final of the E4 Estings competition with my puppet video...

Something interesting was finally happening. Secondly, Brother Chris' film Ten Dead Men was finished. This was great news alone, but I was asked to help out with the behind the scenes making of footage so spent the next few months editing this together. So now it looked as though Chris, through no fault of his own, was finding his feet of the lower rungs of the industry. From then other projects developed which I choose not to go into now in case they die a slow death. Basically things were looking up. I was beginning to make plans with life, what I was going to do, where I was going to go and so on. Then I remember I cannot go anywhere due to my driving lessons. "Alright" I thought, "I'll get this sorted then continue on my mission". Little did I know this would take bloody ages. I'm not a crap driver by the way, just made a couple of bad judgment calls with a couple of really harsh instructors and the test is thrown away. No horns were ever beeped, no pedestrians killed, nothing that on a good day I would fail on. The fates have just been against me.

So finally its out of the way, bringing an onslaught of "So when are you getting a car?" questions. To which my reply is a faked "Not sure yet?", when I'm really thinking "I don't really care, I get to sleep in on Saturdays again and get get back to films and stuff." But few people understand this viewpoint. To drive is to buy a car and talk about engine capacity and the price of petrol and so on.

I never learnt to drive with the aim of getting a car. I learnt to drive because I had nothing better to do. Now I have better things to do. The time for hesitation is through. Procrastination period is closed. I have no more excuses getting me down.

Except I still have to go to work.

Bugger.

In a random turn of blogging, here's the trailer for the long unreleased Ghostbusters game due out sometime mid 2009.

Let's just hope its as good as the Spectrum version. Now altogether in your best muffled and digitised speech: "He Slimed Me!"

Copying...

2008-12-02T23:22:00.003Z

I was briefly inspired by Brother Chris' blog and also felt like posting a series of Christmas related fun posts. I too like Christmas and it is indeed ace. But, after witnessing the first two posts over on "What Writes at Midnight" I'd probably spend far too much time scouring the internet to find thing. So I'm just going signpost Brother Chris' blog, for those of you that a) aren't Chris and b) haven't seen it.

http://www.whatwritesatmidnight.blogspot.com/

On a random note, I did find these two videos from the 80's. Weird is the only way I can think to describe them.

This first video leads us onto number two, so here goes...

Pete's poorly kept Christmas Advent blog update Number 1:

Merry Christmas Santa Claus - Max Headroom.

How cool is Matt Frewer! Maybe these videos aren't the best example.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

2008-11-30T00:16:00.003Z

This may sound strange but I have an irrational fear of the sea. I'm not a swimmer, in fact I despise the activity, but this has nothing to do with my fear. I've also been on boats, and have yet to get see sick; again not a cause.

This fear has a little to do with the unknown. I like to think, that as the sea is relatively unexplored, that there are things down there that we have yet to see. Take those evil neon fish for example. How mental are those things. All fangs and lights. Those and the fabled giant squid, which only ever seems to wash up in bits (Does this not imply there's something even bigger...?)

Anyway, my irrational fear mainly comes from video games. And of those, mainly Tomb Raider. Whenever there is an instance where you have to swim a great distance my fear is released. I think it comes down to the fact that you can be attacked from any direction. I remember being scared in the midst of a red sea level on Shadowman 2 I think, and then going to see Saw at the cinema. Back to the point. Tomb Raider is the main culprit though, and more specifically Tomb Raider 2. There's a whole section base at the bottom of the see, getting attacked by sharks and sneaky eel things that dart out at you from the black rocks. Cue pant change.

There havn't been many other instances over the years but I recently begun playing Tomb Raider Underworld on Xbox 360, and again, I had to change my pants. As you may or may not know, the first level takes place, once again, at the bottom of the sea. You've got scuba gear so air isn't a problem. But this time around, the Hi Def graphics don't help to ease my fear. All I'm saying is at one point I literally had to pause the game to catch my breath, and then there's this thing just watching you and you think "Will it get my if I swim past it? It is blind after all". I still don't know the answer to that question, too scared was I to try.

So I guess, to make a point with this post, Tomb Raider is still ace, video games can have an emotional effect on the players, and the sea is scary.

Procrastination over.

It's my Birthday...

2008-11-27T01:45:00.005Z

...and I'll post if I want to. Still alive after 26 years.

Ok, so this is more a reason to see what I was up to on my 26th birthday years down the line. To see how far I've come hopefully, 'cause as it stands, it isn't looking too promising. Yes, I'm going to moan. Huzzah!!!

Anyway, my birthday is shared with a couple of decent famous folk. According to the ever accurate Wikipedia, victim of Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Stride, was born in 1843. Apart from her there's Fisher Stevens, William Fichtner, Kathryn Bigelow, Jimi Hendrix, and Bruce Lee. Not a bad line up really. Makes you think this collected talent must rub off on me at some point.

Apart from that nothing much is going on. I said it was to see what I was up too, but as I'm not up to much it's going to be pretty difficult to say anything. Earlier this year I had an animation in the E4 Estings competition final, then I edited the behind the scenes footage for Ten Dead Men, then I wrote a script with my brother. Then nothing. Since about July there has been nothing of creative interest to be getting on with. Yes there were alterations to be made to the script, but overall, my creative juices seem to be drying up. I'm still plugging away at mystery script number two, but as mentioned creatively its getting difficult. I still have a couple of things on my mind that I don't want to go into that could be hindering me. Either way, I'm sure at some point my mind will find its path.

Which brings me onto The Forbidden Kingdom. Better get something out of this post. This is the Jackie Chan and Jet Li "Together for the first time" vehicle. And its alright. Its pretty much the same as The Warriors of Virtue, except with no Kangaroos, and the kid is older. I did enjoy it though. I think I would have liked it more had I been a little younger but it was still enjoyable. Not as good as Congo me thinks.

Now Sidekicks, what a film that is. Actually still not as good as Congo, but a perfect film to watch when its too late to watch anything properly. It's basically about a kid who dreams about teaming up with his, and everyone's hero Chuck Norris. It's also stars the late, great Mako in. Trailer posted below for your pleasure, another one that shows the whole film. Happy Birthday me.

Just found this on Youtube and thought I'd add it on. Cool AFI video for Miss Murder.

Blogspot = crap

2008-11-26T01:55:00.004Z

Ok so I just wrote loads, then lost it all because blogspot is crap and wouldn't save anything so now I've got to write it all again, but I don't want to because I'm ill and now very pissed off. So here's the quick version.

Bloody woods, a crappy short I made got flagged by Universals Music Group because of music tracks I used. The let me keep it on YouTube but I don't really care 'cause its crap.

This video was on Warren Ellis blog. He says its crap and if you like it you are crap. It is crap, but also really funny.

This video scares me. It is weird.

This trailer looks ace, despite the fact it looks fan made.

Right. I'm off now I've wasted all this time.