A word from the Doc

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The London Film Festival… in 12 Seconds

The London Film Festival press screenings start on Monday. I got my press pass yesterday and because I’m incredibly busy at the moment (genre-crossing sci fi tv doesn’t just write itself you know) I was looking for a slightly different way of covering the films this year.

After a quick conversation with Christian and Sol I decided to do a series of pithy film reviews on 12 Seconds. I have no idea yet how I’ll boil down some of the best cinema in the world to only 12 seconds, but I’m looking forward to kicking this off. I will of course be doing more traditional text reviews to accompany the best (and maybe worst) of the festival this year, but with 3 films a day starting next week the short video content should soon add up…

I’ll be embedding the vids here of course, but you can always jump into 12 Seconds and record your own mini reviews. Can you sum up The Breakfast Club, Star Wars or Night of the Living Dead in so short a video? I’d love to find out…

Twestival

After hosting some smaller scale Tweetups myself I was very interested to see how last night’s Twestival was going to go. These things can get worryingly complicated, but I’m happy to say that despite an initial bout of confusion (over whether the venue was going to enforce its ridiculous dress code) the whole thing seemed to go off without a hitch.

I’m a little hoarse this morning from having one too many conversations over the ‘music’, but the free beer, wine and grub made up for that. Hell, I even won a raffle prize and did a little jig with a cute girl to Ben’s crowd rousing Twitter song.

As with all social media events though, the emphasis for me was the people - catching up with a few familiar faces and finally meeting some fine Twitter folk for the first time. In that respect the event worked really well and I had a much better time than at the Moo bash a few months back. There was a real sense of moving out of the echo chamber and it was a relief to see and meet so many people that I’ve never crossed paths with before. I had a lot of conversations that I’ll follow up on this week so some interesting stuff should come out of the evening.

I also got the occasional nod about some of the cool stuff I’ve been involved with over the last 12 months - and each time it was my great pleasure to remind everyone that everything from the film screenings to hanging with Han Solo started at events just like this one and through working with people that I’ve met almost exclusively through social media.

Amanda and the Twestival team did some sterling work last night and I’d certainly love to see the Twestival become an annual fixture on the London events calendar.

Speaking of events… I’m off to the Tuttle soon. We’re announcing some big news there this morning, but I’ll be writing about that later…

Turn the Page

Last Wednesday was what felt like the beginning of a new season of Creative Coffee Club. While the Leicester branch closed over the summer, our regular London meet-up has kept ticking over, but with a skeleton crew. I didn’t make them all myself and on a couple of occasions we were down to just two or three attendees, but that hardly mattered as the quality of conversation was always top notch. Everything from artificial intelligence to insider’s views on the film and music industry, more often than not with a social media application or solution.

Two weeks ago we tried something a little different by offering up a theme in advance. Normally a couple of topics naturally surface and we chew them over, but having a little more direction helped to get us under steam a little earlier. I really enjoyed that discussion (despite arriving late) as The Future of Television is something I’m particularly interested in right now. The nice thing about the people who are drawn to both the CCC and SMC are that they are not merely commentators - more than once a laptop is pulled out and we get to see how people are doing their bit to shape the future of something.

This week the numbers swelled back to their pre summer heights (no pun intended) and the proposed topic went out the window as the large group splintered off. I maybe got to speak to half the people present which is a good sign. At the Tuttle on Fridays I speak to a lot less than that - the busier the better in my book. Both the Social Media Cafe and the Creative Coffee Club are the healthiest regular events that I attend. By  healthy I don’t mean that they’re just well attended, notably they also attract new blood so are never in danger of getting stale. Fresh views and opinions also help prevent an echo chamber from forming, while constantly explaining to new faces why it is we gather and what we do there helps to keep these events in focus.

New to the group last week was Mario Cacciottolo from Someone Once Told Me. Make with the clicky on that link today and you’ll see my ugly mug. Don’t panic though, there’s a new photo every day so I’ll soon get shuffled backwards. Mario also snapped off a few more Creative Coffee types including Lloyd and Steve and as Mario is very keen to see the project thrive independently of him, I’m hoping to rope in a few more Tuttlers to take part too. All you need is a camera and a sentence…

Tomorrow sees CCC Leicester waking up so I’m getting an early train to take part in that too. With new Social Media Cafes popping up in the UK and the US it looks like the next few months are going to be a lot of fun. It’d be nice to keep an eye on all these seperate events because despite the division geographically I’m pretty confident that some of the topics, and perhaps members, will overlap.

I’m thinking a lot right now about how we can move the conversations to another level. I love the coffee and the chat, but it’d be nice to see if we can make a few things happen. Be a shame to waste the ideas that flow across the venues as the people that gather in them are way smarter than me. I think we are making small steps in that direction already and I have just one more meeting with Lloyd to confirm that the Tuttle will enter stage 2 on October 10th. Not a massive transition, but something akin to having the stabilisers removed from the social media bicycle.

This is a great time to dip your toes into this particular pool if you haven’t already. Come along to a Creative Coffee or Tuttle meeting - if we’re too far afield from you or the weekday early mornings or a stretch then start your own. On Thursday evening I’ll be at the Twestival (great idea, horrible name) so feel free to bend my ear on some of this or if the music is too loud we can just make frantic hand gestures at each other across the room…

Had no idea what to call this post and then iTunes coughed up Turn The Page by Bob Seger. Great song - Metallica covered it on Garage, Inc but with a lot less saxamaphone.

iPhone

Wandering around town after the Wordia press launch last week with Christian I was encouraged to pick up a an iPhone. Already had some well deserved grief over this one, but Jess came to my rescue (as usual) and co-opted the shiny little bastard as a belated birthday present. Now I can whip it out in public and deflect the “I thought you said the iPhone was a piece of crap?” comments with the my girlfriend bought it for me clause.

Less than a week old, but yeah it’s crappy in all the areas I expected:

battery life is terrible, most of the applications come from the same fuckwit funnel as the crap on Facebook, the camera is so-so and it cries out for a second camera and video capibility, then fails as an iPod replacement too due to the meager 8 or 16GB capacity.

Pushing all that aside and treating it as an extra gadget to throw in my bag it’s a lot of fun. Some of the apps are great, the screen is shockingly bright compared to my Archos and because this is the PAYG version I’m not tied to anyone for 18months. Having 3g means I can find more than enough uses for it to start bitching about the lack of a decent battery at least once a day.

I hear a rumour there’s a 32GB version on the way, which would at least bring it into line with the iPod Touch (we also have one of those in the house now - thin little fucks), but the 16GB one I have should do fine as I’m not really using it as an Archos replacement. I’ll probably hang on to my Viewty for the 120fps recording facility alone so I’m now one of those idiots with two phones.

I’m beta testing the new upgrade to LifeCast too so I will be using it as a blogging tool from time to time. As a pocket version of Twitter it’s exceptional (I use a Twinkle, Twittervision and Twitterific combo). I’ve also downloaded a handful of Japanese comic apps that are utilising the interface in an interesting way.

More on all this once I’ve got used to the thing, dropped it or thrown it against the wall…

I’m doing science fiction and I’m still alive

Damn. Time flies. Thankfully my job is now to manipulate the fuck out of it. Sort of.

I’ve been asked to help put together some sci-fi TV shows from scratch.

American distribution was all settled before I came on board, so now the tricky bit is creating something that hasn’t been done 2001 times before. Early days of course and I’m still working in the froth of social media, but please excuse me if I get distracted both here and on Twitter from time to time and drop in some reference to Metal Mickey having sex with Irene Handl (slight pause while America nips off to Google that).

Not a lot more I can say at this stage. Feels good to be writing in an area that I’ve been complaining about for so long. Let’s see what happens next.

That’s no moon

Just looking at flights to San Francisco for a year end jolly.

Looks like Virgin Atlantic again. Would have taken an X Wing, but not sure they’re welcome under the current administration:

Hush

This is an interesting idea:

No idea how the final film will pan out, but there’s a lot to love in the trailer. It seems to be heading towards Joss Whedon musical territory, which is a nice angle to raise some online geek awareness with, but I’m particularly interested in how (in the trailer at least) the menace moves from traditional shambling monsters to the sadly timeless terror of a woman given a voice.

That’s very fucking clever.

Not much up on the IMDB yet aside from a brief synopsis:

Reminiscent of “Pleasantville”, in this Gothic comedy heroine Abigaile Archibald suddenly develops a speaking voice in a world that is otherwise silent. Delighted, she secretly indulges in the joys of talking and singing — until the townspeople launch a witch hunt to find the source of the mysterious sound.

But the trivia section reveals some crowd sourcing success and that actress, Katie Ritz, is a trooper.

I hope this is good. Anyone know anything else about it?

Via The Manchester Morgue where I get a LOT of cool soundtracks from.

Under The Hood

This is gonna be a lot more fun for those of you who’ve read Watchmen already. I’ll try not to spoil anything for those of you that haven’t…

It’s debatable who kicks the most ass in the book, but Rorschach tends to be a firm fan favourite. Think Batman without the restraint (ie. he’s less of a tool). As a diarist in 1985 and with more than a few chips on his shoulder I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he’s also a proto-blogger. One of my favourite sections of the graphic novel is about the Rorschach under the mask. I always felt in terms of casting he was probably going to give Zack Snyder the biggest headache.

Before the trailer was revealed I avoided most mentions of the movie online because despite knowing the story back to front I wanted to see the movie raw, in the same way I had with Dawn of the Dead and 300. With Dawn I was expecting Snyder to crash and burn spectacularly. I was so wrong on that score that when 300 came around I just shut the fuck up and took a seat.

But I did dip into the Watchmen casting and couldn’t help scan the IMDB for the actor playing Rorschach: Jackie Earle Haley.

Being me I actually got a kick out of trying to remember him in The Bad News Bears and The Love Boat, but it was his first break back in 1972 that sent me to YouTube. Do you remember this?

Here in the UK Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was never given a decent chance, but it left quite an impression on me. When Family Guy first aired and everyone was screaming ‘Simpsons rip off’ I couldn’t get Harry Boyle and his communist hating neighbour out of my head rather than Homer and Marge. But I digress…

The kicker here is that THIS then is Jamie Boyle Rorschach:

Is Zack Snyder this fucking good?

Never take the Tundra lightly…

I’m not sure what it is exactly that I find so appealing about snowbound movies. Maybe it was seeing John Carpenter’s The Thing at an early and impressionable age or just that I like the idea of the elements conspiring against the protagonists as much as the threat outside… but I’m always eager to see something that promises a splash of red on white.

Twitch gave me a little buzz by covering some of the promotional material for upcoming Norwegian Nazi zombie horror comedy, Dead Snow. It also taps into schlock like Zombie Lake and Shock Waves (which I quite like), but it’s mostly the idea of frozen Nazi zombies played for giggles that appeals.

It won’t have to try too hard to be better than 30 Days of Night (which, axe scenes aside, was annoyingly dull) but will have some way to go to compete with the sublime Ravenous.

Speaking of snow…

I have it on good authority that Far North, one of my favourite films at last year’s London Film Festival, is getting a suitably chilly December release here in the UK. While not really a horror movie, it is equally beautiful and disturbing and without a doubt my favourite movie of Sean Bean’s to date. It also falls into that tricky little pigeon hole: movies you’re not allowed to talk about the ending of…

Here’s the trailer:

Bonus: Skip back 5 posts for the best Thing homage I’ve seen and then sing along to the blinding whiteness of the tuuuuuundra.