Sad news for Project 30...

So I really should have seen this coming.

After the official announcement of One Foot From Hell (fittingly on 31st Oct) you would have seen the addition of Bonus Project: Music Video to Project 30.
I was pretty confident when I wrote the blog post, but failed to actually consider how little planning had gone into the video. I started animating on Saturday night (3rd Nov) and continued on Sunday. Only to realise I was rushing way to fast with the animation.

What I really needed to get it right was time, and time was something I did not have. So I faced facts and called it off.

Bonus Project: Music Video - FAILED

However, like a phoenix from the flames, this project will return in a slightly updated form as part of "OPERATION 2013"

So after my busy weekend ahead I will continue with the main project - Once Foot From Hell, and hopefully work a bit on the treatment for the bonkers adventure film set in Victorian England.

Busy busy busy!

Denied...

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...

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...

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???

A little normality here please...

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.

"Soldier" - Bitter Ruin

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.

Busy-ness as usual...

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.

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.

My memory sucks.

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.

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day Three

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.

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

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...

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.

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.