I don’t normally just repost an entire blog entry from elsewhere, but this one is special. I’ve been avoiding all the Batfreak jism sticking to the Internets this week and I’m still only luke-warm to the idea of seeing The Dark Knight at all, even this didn’t rise much of a smile. Then Sean’s post popped up in my RSS reader:
Every superhero movie ever - including Hellboy 2, Iron Man, Superman 2, and the fantastic-looking Watchmen film coming soon to a theater near you - can suck Heath Ledgers dead cock. Screw giving the man an oscar, that would be way too nice a thing to give this performance. I want parents groups speaking out against it. I want copycats.
Seriously, it’s like A Clockwork Orange, but with less rape and more rocket propelled grenades.
I’m seeing it again.
Should probably go book some IMAX tickets… They did film this scene, right?
This website follows Bryony as she attempts to make the world’s first UGC zombie movie.
What’s a UGC movie?
UGC stands for User Generated Content. That means it’s a film that’s made entirely by contributions from the online community…
So what’s the BBC’s involvement?
The Zombie movie is entirely up to Bryony – we’re just following her as she makes it…
The Beeb are actually doing a bit more than that. By choosing to follow the project and committing to having a documentary by the end of it the BBC are in many ways legitimatising what Paperlillies is up to. At least in the eyes of BBC viewers who think YouTube is nothing but a place to watch old episodes of Doctor Who or ‘that video with the monkey’ (take your pick).
It’s an interesting step for a channel like BBC 3 and I think the correct one. Just recently I watched Adam Buxton’s MeeBOX and while I’ve always enjoyed his work and he’s obviously very in tune with the Internet this came across as a tad dated and way too obvious. Disturbingly he also suddenly looks a lot like Documentally.
The other show that promised to play in the world I live and work in was Delta Forever:
This was a pilot for a proposed show about an online community whose lives revolve around a very Harry Potterish series of novels. Some things the pilot got absolutely right (the Scottish character defending the original title of the first novel over the bastardised American version rang some serious bells for this Dark Materials fanboy), but the most obvious failure was the idea that these kids needed a visual cue to help them stand out as Internet nerds. The cast had to suffer a tedious amount of OTT makeup. Horrible to watch, which was a shame for the few good performances that got buried. But there was something there that to me at least warranted further viewing and I’d be interested to watch the concept develop if it gets picked up for a series.
That may of course have more to do with the pilot revolving around an advance geek screening of a film that the fans will either love or loathe. Something I have a certain familiarity with…
The zombie project though is an entirely fresher idea. First and foremost this is a project developed by an already popular online community member and something that was set in motion before the Beeb swung a beam on it. I think an organisation as big and respected as the BBC getting involved at this stage of an online madcap idea is very important and the payoff for everyone involved is accumulative.
There is of course the danger that if handled improperly the YouTubers will come off as a little irregular, but to survive on YouTube you need to be pretty thick-skinned so I’m not too worried with that angle. It should be win-win for the Beeb as this kind of thing makes them look web savvy at a time when they need a leg-up in that area. The worry is that they’ll cut corners on this in the way they have with the iPlayer (great concept, horrible realisation - note the two show links above now have nowhere to go which will now instead send you straight for a torrent).
What they could have on their hands is something as vital as say the upcoming We Are Wizards or at the very least an interesting companion piece to it. It also comes at a time when Joss Whedon is putting a fork in this space too.
Oddly enough this seems to be the summer for home-made zombie projects. I’ve been made aware of a small pile of them currently in production with budgets ranging from the very modest to the very respectable. This however is by far the most interesting. The plot for once is the least of my concerns as I’m far more interested in how a community comes together to pull this kind of project off.
It’s the kind of thing that was talked about a lot in the early days of Seesmic but it came to nothing. While some of my more succesful recent projects have been built in a similar way by finding the right people with the right skills in my own social media backyard (which handily stretches across the globe), but nothing quite on this scale.
Getting the right people together to land an interview with Stephen Spielberg is one thing. Beating him at his own game is quite another…
Toby Moore’s Cool Curve presentation is now online:
This is the presentation he gave both at the Tuttle and Reboot from an original concept worked out with David Terrar and David Tebbutt. The video is a cleaned-up version of this talk, but now filmed (properly) by Laura Kidd, further tweaked and distributed just about everywhere by Phil Cambell.
The content of the presentation has been refined through lots of feedback, but this is the first chance to put it in front of as wide an audience as possible.
I’ve been hanging out with the Cool Curve for a couple of months now, testing it on people, catching reactions to it and generally building up a picture of what it covers and where it still needs a little TLC. I’m very interested to track the feedback on this so if you can free up 20 minutes and a coffee please give it a whirl and let me know what you think.
At 19+ minutes it obviously needs editing down and I also think there’s a couple of natural pauses in the flow that will allow us to split the presentation up. The latter part regarding Chris Brogan’s “conversations are rivers” and how that should be developed feels like it’s going to grow into something that works as a stand alone piece. I’d love to see The Cool Curve refined a little more and given to the guys at Common Craft to play with.
That said, I’m a big fan of Toby’s drawing over powerpoint style and this makes a great jumping off point for conversation.
When I first started talking to DT and Sleepydog about the Cool Curve I was immediately struck by how my own creative (and not so creative) endeavours fitted within the structure. That’s something I want to discuss further as I’m not usually comfortable being pigeon-holed between two axis, but this is such a resilient little idea that it’s hard to dismiss, even for a contrary SOB like myself.
More to come once the video has been digested a little further… (it’s also up on Google Video and Vimeo)
Sir Ken Robinson was recently given the Benjamin Franklin award by the RSA. They’ve put his acceptance speech online and although it’s a lengthy chunk of time at just under an hour it’s easily the best thing I’ve watched this week. You can watch the full video here.
He takes the opportunity to follow up his stunning talk at TED and again manages to entertain while breaking down barriers and boggling the mind as he goes.
As I mentioned in a couple of places yesterday I’m organising a City of Men screening with Dan. We have around 25 seats and it’ll be next Thursday in Soho. 6pm for a 6.30 start. Probably free drinks for those that get there early and we’ll certainly be retiring to a pub afterwards.
I haven’t seen the film myself yet, but it’s based on the TV series of the same name which was a follow up to City of God. Here’s the Wikipedia synopsis:
Best friends Acerola and Laranjinha live in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and have been raised without their fathers. They are turning eighteen as a war between rival drug gangs begins around them. Each discovers things about his missing father that will compromise their solid friendship.
If you fancy it then drop me an email: mikesizemore @ gmail . com.
I’ll also have more details tomorrow if you swing by the The Tuttle Club.
Oh and we’re hoping this will be the first of many. Been a while since I did the Sarah Marshall and Juno screenings so want to make these semi regular if possible…
I’m researching a lot of varied stuff, but rather than just dump stuff without explanation (which is what I used to do a lot) I’ll try and make some of this interesting for you poor bastards stuck on that side of the screen.
Today I’ve been listening to a lot of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, dipped into All In A Night’s Work, read up on the female participants of the Rat Pack and found this photo of Dino with a young Mia Farrow and the tragic Sharon Tate:
Fuck.
I also did a little digging into the history of the USO and then shoehorned in the steampunk robotic version of Toshiro Mifune from Samurai 7 and that very expensive diving helmet that was in Wired a month or so ago.
I’m working on a comic project that jumps titles from Slingers to Ratpackers depending what mood I’m in. If you’re a 2000AD fan think the satire of Robo-Hunter with Rogue Trooper as a backdrop.
This is with a little luck (and a lot of time and effort) the proof of concept that will kick start something bigger. I’m working on this with some very cool people and I’ve turned down a few gigs to make time for it so I’m hoping things will fall into place relatively quickly.
Famous last words.
Mentioning it at such an early stage is just a way of putting that first pin in the board and also a way to explain why I’m dumping stuff like this here:
But there will be a lot of the usual crap too.
Tomorrow, for example, I’ll have the details of a bloggers/twitter screening of City of Men I’m organising.
And I’ll probably talk about Oliver Reed a bit too. Business as usual.
