Zen Films

Fangoria article

Oh yeah! We made today's Fangoria! Click here.

SpinExpress

I've just started using SpinExpress and it's great! It's a peer-to-peer secure file-sharing tool for distributed collabration :) Basically if you have large files to share, group members can do so by sucking the file right off your computer rather than have you upload the file first. Now that's a big time saving.

Checkitawt... SpinExpress

New Trailer

So here it is... the new trailer :) I created this before going on holiday but left myself to cool off and then watch it fresh on my return. I think this pretty much conveys the mood and style of the movie.

Goodbye corner shop

The pet shop where I buy my fish food is to close :( The owner is retiring and I feel like I've lost a friend even though I only see him once every quarter. Goodbye Mutley... sob.

Rosemary's Baby

I was delighted to be asked by Jay Slater to write 1800 words for his new book on cult films on why I love Rosemary's Baby. I finished the piece by saying that compared to today's horror films Rosemary's Baby looks like the Mona Lisa next to a Banksy - all masterpieces but made for different times. Then I wondered if Banksy had a website - which is fantastic - and I found two pieces that regular readers will know had to be my favourites :)

Automation & Machinima

Many cool things arrived in my sights this week but here's just a couple worth mentioning.

First, check out MovieStorm - a machinima-based filmmaking engine. I learned about it from the DP Buzz podcast and hurried over to their site to check it out. I not sure I completely believe that this is a good tool for pre-visualisation but I do think it's possible to make some pretty cool movies. I've downloaded the beta software and getting to grips with it is pretty easy - especially if you've used something like FrameForge, which I do use for storyboarding. I'm a bit snowed under at the moment to play with it like I'd like but stay tuned later in the year. I have a short film script that I think might work well with it....

Secondly, checkout these very funny clips from FoneJacker.tv I know it's not machinima but somehow the automation seems related :)

Curb the Police DNA database

I'm on my soapbox again :) I read in the news this week that the police would like extend its powers to take DNA from anyone that they catch transgressing any petty law - even if they're not charged with a crime. It's part of the Government's plan to first put us all on the database and then start profiling to identify "criminal types" before a crime is committed. Sounds like Minority Report, right? I believe it's a huge infringement of our liberty and right to privacy.

Please sign the e-petition at the Government website: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/DNAjustice/ and checkout the details of why the DNA database needs to be kept in check - and what you can do about it - at GeneWatch.