Long time no see...

...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!

I HATE THE CLONE WARS.

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.

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.