It has often been said that men age and women mature. However women, like wine, tend to mature in one of two ways. They either ripen into something full-flavoured, with lots of body and a myriad of intriguing flavours or they turn onto an unpleasant, acidic vinegar. It's further said that there are no good parts in Hollywood for the older woman. Well, one person would take issue with that. She's…

Dan - man with a Cannes Van Plan, has posted the first Rogue Runner Cannes update to his website. The show - shot over 12 hours and edited in 8 - runs on alternate days on his site and sponsor LoveFilm. Latest episode now online.

"In 1744 a simple experiment was conducted in Sweden to reproduce the underlying cause of the Aurora Borealis in a laboratory, what we would now think of as a room. A small hole in a shade "the size of a large pea" let through a ray of sunlight that then was refracted through a prism. The small patch of light broken into a spectrum of colour…

  It's 3 AM in central London - dark and quiet except for the odd car and the hum of generators huddled round the outside of Westminster Cathedral. But here, inside, light is flooding in through the windows as though it was midday. And in the minds of the 150 or so people here it is midday and this isn't London, it's the Escorial Palace in Spain in the year 1588. King Philip…

Have a slightly madver 2008

2006 was certainly a year of trailer mashups. To quote the Misshaken Pictures' Mashifesto: "As our collective history burrows deeper into the digital coalface we begin to see it recombined, re-imagined, re-invented and e-rased. Heirachies of media code are becoming silly putty in the hands of the majority and the global mirror increases at an unprecedented rate, a miasma of Id…

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…

  How Do I Sell My Film Part 2 - Delivery Format Netribution and film distributors WYSIWYG have joined forces to present on-line WYSIWYG's Filmmaker's Toolkit.... Okay. So you now know who will watch your film. Well, that means you can also estimate how many people you have as potential audience. That gives you an idea of how much money you can spend. It also tells yo…

In 2006 we wrote here about this new idea of crowd-source financing to fund films, which had funded a few short films – a couple of years before IndieGoGo and Kickstarter took off. We'd followed the growth of a new website 'craze' called YouTube, that was making the industry sit up sweaty, followed their first feature filmmakers Arin and Susan and written about alternative exhibition as Secret Ci…

As I left the job interview yesterday, the words by the kindly woman wishing me off left me with no small sense of irony. In short I had bombed. I sometimes wonder about orbits, how we tend to revolve around something or another - perhaps our partner or our family. After a big break up in 2003, I found myself gravitating towards anything that seemed stable enough to spin around. When t…

The Defence Medical Services Department (DMSD), part of the Ministry of Defence has appointed iceni Productions to produce a unique Defence Nursing web video project. The year long project will see the Midlands based video production company iceni, filming Defence Nurses across the UK giving a fresh perspective on the world of Nursing within the Military.  The nursing video, which will be ava…

Muto is a rather neat stop motion graffiti in Buenos Aires and Baden, by the artists collective BluBlu. Thanks Ann, for forwarding, it seems a cross between Rinpa Eshidan and that Mark Ronson video, with a whole life of its own.

 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…

Legendary film-maker Ingmar Bergman has died at the age of 89. Cissi Elwin, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, comments on Ingmar Bergman’s passing. "Probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera" Woody Allen "This is a day of sorrow in the world of film. One of the world’s most prominent f…

  Owen Thomas the producer (and now distributor) of the UK's first DV feature, the acclaimed One Life Stand, directed by May Miles Thomas, offers advice from his foray into DVD distribution on How To Sell Your Film (Not Your Soul)           Six years ago everyone was talking DIY filmmaking - how digital tools would revol…

unicorn chaser

  Sunflower3 - from vimeo's danLinfield

If it is clear that the producer wants the product on as many websites as possible, would market forces really create competition amongst filmsites or encourage them to scramble to pay money upfront in return for the "privilege" to sell the movie?" If you thought the biggest threat facing the international film business was piracy, think again. The creation of a single g…

Caine, Hopkins, Connery, Finney, Attenborough, Guinness, Mills, Gielguid, Olivier. Names that epitomise the very best in British acting talent. But one name towers above them all; Sir Wilberforce Reddington. He made his first screen appearance as Willy Reddington playing Third Cockney Urchin in 'It's a Right Bloomin' Caper Alright' in1937. From then on his face became a familiar fixture on Briti…

  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…

As the film industry makes record box office glorifying 'war porn' in 300, its easy to forget the reality that we as voters have some impact on. Apologies for bringing politics in, but tomorrow in a rushed vote, at least five years sooner than it needs to be taken, the government, supported by the Conservatives, are likely to vote to renew Trident, Britain's nuclear weapon. To quote…

  Your film is almost done. All you need is that scene in the pyramids. Or on a submarine. Or in space. A seat on NASA's next shuttle is out of the budget, though. What's a desperate director to do? Build your own virtual set, of course...     Nick Jushchyshyn will show you how. And at less than $30, chances are it can be done on even the tightest of budgets. He posted the s…