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Random selection…
While there is some hint that the new British coalition government will follow through on the Lib Dem policy of rescinding the rushed and hated Digital Economy Bill to let it get full and appropriate scrutiny, I would imagine that many new cabinet members are grateful to Ben Bradshaw and Lord Mandelson for pushing through an unpopular piece of legislation as a parting gift and saving them from ha…
I'll never forget watching Truly Madly Deeply as a kid, a film I hold responsible for a crush on cellists (Altman's Shortcuts also playing a part). Anthony Minghella did much more besides making deeply heartfelt and tender films - from chairing the BFI to Grange Hill, Inspector Morse and promoting the family ice cream business on the Isle of Wight. All thoughts to Hannah, Max, Carolyn and the res…
This year has seen something of a resurgence of interest in the political movie with 'Good Night. And Good Luck' and 'Syriana' both doing well both critically and financially. In contrast, the British Film Industry hasn't produced a political film since the late eighties. One man aims to change all that. Tobias Blennerhassett has produced some of the most successful films ever produced in this co…
"The Love Bug features a car that comes to life. Is it powered by the love of Jesus Christ? We aren't offered any evidence that this is the case so we must, unfortunately, assume that it is in fact animated purely by the power of the Lord of Darkness. I still feel an urge to pray whenever I see a Volkswagen Beetle."
Watching4Jesus.com is a website run by the Divine Church of Holy Interventi…
Just before lunch yesterday I read of a report by the WWF that the number of species on the planet has reduced by 31% in the last 35 years. If the planet continues at its current pace of using natural resource, by 2050 two earths would be needed to meet current demand, with an almost inevitable consequential environmental collapse.
Then while munching away on my fried eggs on toast, I read…
“Our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers.&rd…
The first time. I can never forget that. Shunted to the outskirts of
town to watch Robert LePage juggle love and war in his heartstopping
multimedia devised play the Seven Streams of the River Ota,
which would eventually run at 7 hours by the time I last saw it at the
National, years later. Stuart Lee and Richard Herring in pre Jerry
Springer the Opera days chumming with Jenny Eclair…
I stumbled across some of my old writing still online on Netribution from over two decades years ago that was so bad I wanted to cancel myself before anyone else had a chance to. I was scrolling down my old year 2001 design for old raw HTML Netribution pages untouched in 20 years, and still looking much like it did then (other than screens are much bigger so there's a lot of left/right padding)…
I arrived for once a little early, as the last gold balloons were being lifted into place. I decided to walk the block, attempting to hide my game industry noobiness with some assertive power walking. Ah a river. I will gaze across it with a sense of confidence, a metaphorical eye on the future. All is fine.
So as I was scribbling this blog in a cafe in Bristol, the guy opposite told me "I never…
In Britain we like our television scriptwriters to be lovably eccentric -
think the anarchic Paul Abbott, the flamboyant Russell T Davies or the
wonderfully indiscreet Andrew Davies.
In the US, TV dramatists are a more serious breed altogether.
"It felt like it had to be some sort of thriller, like the original The
Day of the Jackal with Edward Fox a…
21 Minute Film School
Have you ever had a desire to make a movie? If so, set 21 minutes of your hectic life aside and read on!
1. The Idea for a film
Ever have a great idea for a movie? Sit down and see if you can decide which character’s eyes we see the story from (the point of view aka P.O.V.) This is likely the main…
A new plugin allows you to embed video from sites like YouTube,
Google, Current.tv or Vimeo into postings. It takes a little while to
get your head around, but it's worth the effort if you want to
programme your own web page.
To embed videos to your content use the following Mambot Strings per video provider. Do not include the space after the first curly bracket - that's incl…
Hollywood
producer Alan Haft, former Vice President of
Breakheart Films, gives the low down on what Tinsel Town
taught him about how to succeed in the business of making movies. In
the early 90's, Haft, with veteran actor James Woods, formed Breakheart Films. While serving as Vice President of Breakheart, Haft was involved with numerous feature films and televis…
Amateur: barely a few letters from Auteur - but what, in our social media world, is the difference? If there was a dividing line of the 51st Krakow Film Festival, it was between the crowed-sourced YouTube world of Life in a Day and the personal journeys of documakers turning their lives and experiences into art. Less a debate between high and low art, as between the home movie and the knowingly…
We were chatting the other night about how the Death
Star, for all its evil genius as a total killing machine, was really badly
designed. I mean from a defensive point of view – a huge open port,
with no gun turrets inside, leading to a big self destruct button. And Darth, despite all his Jedi training, is a pretty lousy pursuer of Luke.
So we wondered if, at the end of Episode 3…
If you want to meet documentary filmmakers from around the globe, Sheffield Documentary Film Festival is the place to be. The 17th year of the event kicked off on Wednesday evening with the UK premier of Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Interviewed yesterday by the chair of the Festival, Steve Hewlett, Ms Rivers replied to the loaded question - ‘why did she make the film?’ – with the pithy, ‘because…
As the season finally closes in on us, for those tired of the same
old re-runs on TV or wanting to avoid the family warzone of the living
room and watch TV on a computer under your bed - or better still are
looking for films to share during the post-dinner
web video show-off - I've pulled together some of our favorites of the
year.
In the first bundle I've focussed on anima…
Music videos
The End of the World
REM's The End of the World As We Know It sung by George W Bush
{youtube}V3CmXGKXOmk{youtube}
Familjen - Det snurrar i min skalle
Swedish Grammy nominated mashup of archive evangelists to Familjen's music.
{youtube}QfU-4Y4_akY{/youtube}
Mashups
The Vadar Sessions
Before Star Wars, James Earl Jones starred…
“Obscurity is a far greater threat to artists and authors than piracy” Tim O'Reilly
Copyright law was originally created to settle a dispute between English and Scottish publishers in the early 18th Century and has grown today into a fundamental aspect of the creative 'business'. Some would argue that the development of copyright law has been driven by the needs of distributors to protect invest…
Dead pan and wry are often traits associated with the national character of Edinburgh International Film Festival’s own natives, the Scots. So it’s intriguing to witness Argentinian and Greek directors – Ana Katz and Filippos Tsitos respectively - tackling family drama or existential inevitability in a dry-as-a-bone manner. Whether Argentinians or Greeks are noted for irony is moot, but consideri…
Hollywood
cult film director and producer, Frank Q Dobbs, has died at 66. Dobbs,
a Texan who loved writing Westerns, became a legend in the Texas film
industry. He died from cancer.
Dobbs
was from Houston, and though he spent a lot of time in Hollywood, he
often preferred to film in his native Texas. An old colleague described
him as a real friend to the Lone Star State. "Frank…
It should have won an Oscar for best animated short,
but its use of copyrighted images prevented that (albeit printed onto paper and folded into origami shapes). When I briefly met
Virgil Widrich, whose Copyshop did stretch to Oscar glory, at the Hull International Short Film Festival, he
thought that Fair Use laws would be enough for this film to get a US
release and Oscar nomination. But…
Part 1 - Three reasons why the Digital Economy Bill will damage British businesses
Part 2 - What can be done? Five steps the UK content industries could take to offset piracy losses
A few weeks ago I chatted with a single dad in his 40s, working in a brewery. He's a biker, Sun-reader and towards the right politically, hating to see his taxes used to fund free school meals or asylum seekers.
Ne…
From IADT Nashville:
What makes a good animated movie? While beautiful art is certainly important, it takes an engaging story and memorable characters to help an animated film truly stand out. Here’s IADT Nashville's list of the 10 best animated films since 2000. What do you think? Did we leave anyone out?
10. Monsters, Inc (2001) No animation studio has more consistently produced great movies…
Brilliant actor Paul Scoffield, star of A Man for All Seasons, the Crucible and Quiz Show, has also passed away.David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an award-winning English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield won both an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award&nbs…