Zombie's from 68 to 2012

The use of the word zombies or Xombi's started a long time before cinema, and even when it crept into cinema it was not the zombies common audiences would recognise. It all began with Hatian Zombies who were slave masters controlled by their slaves with Vudoo. As interesting as these zombie films are and as enticing the comparison between the two types of zombies are there have been a large number of changes to the classic "Romero" zombies who are considered the first of modern zombies in Night of the Living Dead (1968 George A Romero).

"Romero is the Shakespeare of zombie film, and this is his Hamlet" (Peter Dendle The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia 2001) Nobody could put it better and Zombie's started with him in Night Of the Living Dead (1968). Romero was never trying to reinvent the Zombie movie or make a new monster in fact he was mimicking the creatures from Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, in that novel the creatures are warped vampires however Romero dulled down the creatures and took away their main weaknesses and was left with a new creature of his own. The word Zombie is never used in the film and Romero never called them zombies himself but that is what the press decided to name them in their widely mixed reviews of the film. Romero's zombie is frighteningly simple, its out their waiting, if it catches you it will try and kill you, you have to shoot it in the head, if you die you will turn into one of them! Finally zombies want you for one thing, food. There are many themes within Night of the Living Dead and despite what many reviewers said at the time, there is definitely a lot of subtext behind what many called B movie trash. It was one of the most graphic films of the 60's and is in my opinion an early precursor to many 70's horror films that focused on blood and the evil within us all. Contrary to horror in and before the 60's that focused on the alien enemy, the outsider, the foreign, Night focuses on the enemy within, not only does it criticise the nuclear family and racism but it is popularly seen as a critique of the Vietnam war. The ending credits specifically are referencing lynch mobs and the burning of bodies, television footage also mimics that of news footage of Vietnam. There is a lot of evidence for all of Romero's subtexts and it is evident in all of his other zombie films that his work is a critique of society that just uses zombies as a plot device to make people listen and watch.

Romero's zombie can still seen today and has gone through many variations including those that call out brains, those that come from the grave and there have been dozens of proposed reasons for their existence, radiation, poison, Vudoo, magic, curses, the devil, disease ect. The most recent and most important change came to screen in 2002 in the form of the Rage infected masses of 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle 2002). The significance of 28 Days Later is partly to do with its time as it is seen as one of the first of the new wave of zombie media, 2002 was a ripe year, with war in high swing and made in the always government protesting England, the inward looking genre was bound to do well again. Danny Boyle known for Trainspotting and Sunshine is a "gritty" director who aims for realism and bleak imaginations of pretty basic stories. 28 Days Later fits into this bleak category for sure but more importantly the "rage" virus somehow made audiences see the infected as a new more believable zombie, whether this is because of how little is explained about the virus or because of a lack of knowledge about science is beyond me but it worked. The other big change is the running, this was introduced in earlier films but never really took off and was never as scary as it is in 28 Days Later these running zombies are literally infected with a virus that... makes them angry, rather than eating you they want to kill and beat you. Still pretty horrifying and there is still a lot about them that don't make sense but this most recent movie iteration of the zombie has been copied many times now although most films just take the running bit, the question is why?

Personally I think the move to running zombies has to do with the audience, its not the 60's anymore and if you show a modern audience the zombies of NOTLD they don't really care, they are desensitised to that kind of horror, there needed to be a new level. Of course Romero's zombies can still be scary, Romero himself proved that in Diary of the Dead,  Land of the Dead, and Survival of the Dead  but it takes a master to add that kind of fear, thrill and tension. The slow horror film is a dying breed instead (and really since the late 70's) we have slashers and action, thriller horror hybrids. There is no time for intelligent critique and slow drama, it has to be fast, have explosions and be on a massive scale. The remake of Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder 2004) is one good example of this kind of zombie film, it is a clear Hollywood blockbuster of a film, it mixes all the kinds of high octane action you expect from Hollywood but loses the B movie charm and character depth of Romero's films. It is still a brilliant film, and still a successful film but it is a different monster, as is the zombie itself.

It is however the opinion of Romero himself that the reason for the change was video games in an interview with Vanity Fair he said
"it’s just the influence of video games. I don’t think there’s anything deeper to it than that. Filmmakers saw what was happening in video games and started thinking, “Well, we’ve got to keep pace and make our zombies fast too.” I still don’t agree with it. If zombies are dead, how can they move fast? My guys don’t run. They never have and they never will. They’re just lumbering oafs that are easy to dispose of unless you make a mistake. Those are the rules, and I’ll stick with what I’ve got."

An interesting and probably correct theory however it disregards the reason that computer games themselves moved from slow moving to quick zombies. The main game series that illustrates this change is Resident Evil, in the first 3 games had slow moving Romero style zombies, admittedly there were other fast creature out to get you like Lickers and Hunters but the zombies stayed the same until Resident Evil 4 which came out in 2005, years after quick zombies swarmed the silver screen. I think this change is for exactly the same reason as it is in cinema, audiences getting wanting action horror rather than survival horror. That being said there are a lot of fast paced zombie games and arcade games that did appear before 2002, House of the Dead for example. 

Zombies have changed very little since 2002 and continue to be subtly morphed by different franchises. My personal belief is that whilst the sheer number of zombies in a film is often a scary thing, they should be considered dangerous even by themselves and should be scary by themselves. The mass killing of zombies isn't something I am a fan of, to me sing zombies as cannon fodder is quite poor film making, it is more interesting to spend time on character development than zombie head popping effects! For this reason I dislike the most recent Resident Evil film  (2012 Paul Anderson), which deals with multiple random monsters, zombies, hundreds of head shots, poor acting, poorly written characters and illustrates the reason games aren't often literally translated into films. 

I await the return of the true zombie and of George A Romero, it all started with him and in my opinion his are still the best, no matter how far the genre comes, no matter how much zombies change Romero will always be the Godfather of the Zombie!

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/05/george-romero

CBT X Men Legacy 2, All New X Men 2, Uncanny Avengers 2

X Men Legacy 2

X Men Legacy, the title dedicated to David Haller, Legion, the son of the late Charles Xavier hits the mark yet again! Issue 2 is a good continuation from the first, in both tone and quality, despite part of the issue being what I didn't want from the comic, ie. him going psycho, it didn't last long, the majority of the comic is a meeting with an unusual new mutant that can see the butterfly effect. Although I don't really like this ability and the rip off of Layla Millers abilities (see X factor) the character himself seems interesting, the way he talks to David and coaxes his abilities out of him makes it seem like this wont be the last time we see him. Something that would be cool is if that was one of his internal demons manipulating him in the real world, specifically the one lurking in the shadows. Anyway Legacy managed to stay interesting and add new characters and open storylines with a fantastic second issue in a week full off issue 2's this one stood out as fresh.
8/10

All New X Men 2

All new X Men was not as good this week... not as good as I expected, not as good as Legacy and not as good as issue 1. I guess after an insane first issue this one had to be a lot of story telling, all of the "past xmen" needed to be filled in which took up most of the comic. Once Beast went back to the past to get them there was no question they would come, the only real development in the comic is beast going into critical condition and the past x men going to recruit a new mutant. The art was still real nice and the comic was well written although "boy scout scott" is a little annoying seeing the two icemen was pretty funny. It may have been necessary for those less in the know about x men but it seems like the whole issue could have been summed up by one of the past x men saying in the present "Beast filled me in" then beast collapsing and the past x men deciding to go off on their own.... there you go, issue 2 in a sentence. It wasn't awful but there was no action, it was all exposition of things we already know. A filler issue to explain the first issue a little and prepare the audience for what looks like an explosive 3rd issue, for a preview follow this link to Bendis' Tumblr... also I am being a little harsh, it was good but as the comic I was most looking forward to it was a little disappointing.
7/10
(http://brianmichaelbendis.tumblr.com/post/36644437761/all-new-x-men-3-preview-bendis-immonen)

Uncanny Avengers 2

Uncanny Avengers #2 is another comic that didn't live up to the president set by the first issue, the whole issue was pretty much clean up of what was a really quick battle in issue 1. The dialogue between Cap, Wolvie and Thor however was well written and their discussion seemed realistic it was just ended a little simply with an admittedly heart warming but unequivocally cheesy hug for Havok. It would have been more interesting for Havok's leadership to be questioned a little longer. Also I'm sure the heroes get that kind of response all the time, comics would just be crap if all they were was civilians hugging superheroes. As for the Scarlet Witch and Rogue story it was... ok. It took me a while to realise that Scarlet Witch was being so easily manipulated because Red Skull has Xavier's mind, at first I just thought she was a stupid cow... Anyway the new villains following Red Skull around seem interesting although their backstory was placed a little clunkily into the comic. Red Skull's return was pretty easily and nicely explained and I am looking forward to our female heroes to regroup with the Uncanny Averngers and escape Red Skull so the team can actually get on its feet and out of the "assemble" stage. The art in this issue was better than in the last, not sure why I just have less to pick at in a generally wicked issue, maybe its because Havok didn't have his stupid mask on.... Another great thing about this issue's art was that we got to see more of Cassaday's Red Skull who is creepy as fuck, I think its the giant teeth that do it! Overall more set up was laid down and it looks like things are gonna really kick off next week!
7.5/10

More next week!

Thought Bubble 2012

This year I attended the Leeds Comic Con Thought Bubble, its the second time I have been and I was extremely excited and less drunk than last time. I got up nice and early to experience the con in all its glory, and glorious it was! A began with getting my #1 of wolverine and the X Men signed by Jason Aaron, and spent the next few hours wondering round waiting for cues to go down whilst I got various things signed. I would like to thank every comic artist and writer I met for being kind and cool and making the con a wicked experience. A highlight as always was Jamie Mckelvie and Kieron Gillen who wrote some wicked things on my comics and had a quick fun chat. I got to tell a lot of talented people that I enjoyed there work and I'm sure when I review their work in the future I will mention all of my con stories so keep your eyes out for that!

That was pretty much all of the first day, I decided not to go to any of the talks this year in order to soak up the experience and get lots of signings but I have heard they were good. Unfortunately we didn't have tickets or the money for the after party but thats an experience I'm happy to leave until next year.

On the second day I got a few commissions incuding Jamie Madrox by Guillermo Ortega, the sad thing about that being that I;m a massive fan and wish I had taken some things to get signed but didn't know he was there :( however his commission was awesome!

I also got this wicked image by James Eskdale, a really nice indie artist, I bought his and Glen Makin's Sons of Keel, I will be reviewing it soon.

One of my favourite con stories of the year was trying to get my brother Jimmy's Walking Dead signed by the most popular man at the con Charlie Adlard. Because of talks and cues messing him around he failed to get one during the first day. I fortunately was there right at the end of the day when he had practically no cue so I happily got my X Files signed. On the second day I made it my mission to go with him and get that thing signed.... due to alcohol however we got there at 12 so he was fully cued up till his talk at 3. So at 3.30, half an hour before his talk ended we waited at the front of a cue infront of an empty table and waited for out "no sketches" signing. (The reason he had been taking so long was all the sketches he had been doing.) Someone from the cue before the break got a few thumbnails drawn on the front of his comic before us so Jimmy asked real nice and Charlie responded with a quick sketch of the governor, just what he wanted. It was awesome to see him genuinely being a nice guy and a wicked artist much like everyone at the con. To me thats the best thing about con's getting to meet what nerds consider celebrities and actually having a conversation and seeing them as people not just creators of characters.

I will be reviewing some of the indie stuff from the con soon so keep your eyes open for that!
For a more detailed account of the con check out http://myheartliesinfilmandcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ive-never-felt-more-in-my-element-my.html
This is Ari my housemate who come to the con with me!

Dead Man Still Walking: Explaining the Zombie Renaissance (Kyle Bishop)

Dead Man Still Walking: A Critical Investigation Into the Rise and Fall...and Rise of Zombie Cinema by Kyle Bishop is an amazing looking paper on Zombie films and culture today however I have only been able to access one section so far. Dead man walking; Explaining the Zombie Renaissance (Dead Man Still Walking: A Critical Investigation Into the Rise and Fall...and Rise of Zombie Cinema p17-25) this section talks about the links between natural disasters, terrorist attacks and Zombies in a post 9/11 world.

The chapter begins with some context about films in general replicating their times "atomic weapons at the end of World War II ushered in paranoia narratives" for example and Communist threat inspired alien invasion stories" in the 50's. This sets up the key idea that it is the terrorist attack on September 11 2001 in the USA that is the cause of zombie films re emergence. Bishop supposes "genre conventions of zombie cinema fit post 9/11 consciousness well" representing the "inescapable realities of unnatural death" and "a modern apocalypse in which societies infrastructure breaks down" this rings true and makes a lot of sense. Bishop backs his argument up by comparing tv news with zombie films, a stark but often true parallel.

The chapter takes a turn for the historical, briefly summarising Romero's zombie films and how they represent their times and their concurrent box office success and failure. He attributes the low production of zombie films in the 09's to "too much complacency and stability for zombie movies to fit the national mood." He does however also address the move of the zombie story to video games such as Resident Evil and Doom where they were "incubated" until the film world was ready to see the narrative again.

28 Days Later (2002 Danny Boyle) is the film Bishop and many others credit with the reignition of the zombie craze in the UK whilst at the same time in the US Hollywood was creating the film spin off of the resident evil franchise. Both earned massive amounts at the BO and cemented the return of the zombie genre. The amount of Zombie media that is produced now is insane, the list goes on and on through all types of media and Bishop attributes it all to terrorism and natural disasters. Bishop notes that the conventions of zombie films haven't changed but are "more relevant to a modern contemporary audience."

The fear of zombies is theorised about a lot and many different ideas are definitely at play Bishop lists a few of the reasons he thinks people fear zombies: "they are corpses of the known dead", "technically dead rather than the romantic undead", "they cannot be reasoned with" "zombie directly manifests the visual horrors of death" and "every viewer could both fear and relate to the zombie... everyone will die and rot." I like a lot of these theories, there are more for sure but these are definitely some of the reasons we as an audience are so scared and interested in Zombies.

Another interesting theory Bishop poses as a contributor to the popularity of Zombie films is the survivalist fantasies audiences can play out whilst watching post apocalyptic films. True there are many real life Survivalists that take the feeling to the extreme but even more true is that there is a little part of all of us that thinks "thats how I would do it" or "I wouldn't go in there alone, unarmed." Bishop mentions capitalism as falling when zombies arise however there are more focused studies on this I will discuss later. Interestingly he also draws parallel's between zombieism and Euthanasia, inLand of the Dead specifically where infected people can be killed before or after they are turned, like the terminally ill. The last point Bishop makes before starting his main argument is that it is not the zombies that pose the major threats, for example in Dawn of the Dead 78 the bikers destroy the equilibrium. Likewise in 28 days later it is the soldiers that pose the real threat and fear of rape and bodily harm that are "real world potentialities, they are all the more terrifying"

Bishop's main theory displayed in the article is that he believes terrorism and natural disasters are the reason for the Zombie renaissance. His first piece of evidence is that when people see natural disasters or terrorism one of the most common statements is "its like something out of a movie". Another piece of evidence to support his theory is that 28 Days Later takes inspiration from "footage from the "killing fields" of Cambodia during the reign of Pol Pot and the lost family board on an "actual street scene following a devastating earthquake in China." Bishop ends this section with an excerpt from an interview in which a traumatised victim of 9/11 who was more prepared for the horror because of zombie films. He also states the worrying and stark truth that "today (zombie movies) are all the more shocking because of their familiarity.

Overall Bishop shows himself to be a true scholar in zombie theory and study and shows that there are a large number of reasons for the zombie renaissance Whilst bringing up some interesting themes and motifs within Zombie films he shows that Terrorism and Natural disasters are similar to the horrors of zombie films we see on screen and that fact isn't so far from fiction.... at least visually.

CBT (comicbookthursday!) Captain America #1, Indestructible Hulk #1, Iron Man #2, X Factor #247.

Captain America #1

Marvel Now had begun and with it a new series of Captain America by Rick Remender and J.Romitta Jr. This week saw a few new releases and this was one of the less impressive, Romitta's art it not at its best, although I'm not a fan in general I believe a lot of this to be just average for him. As for the story, it fulfills the need for a jumping off point (which is all of what Now is, because the .1's didn't work) but isn't particularly amazing. Cap's internal dialogue is good and the whole thing is well written but the plot itself is lacking in credibility. The only particularly interesting event is Cap saving/ tanking a baby, if he keeps the kid with him and that becomes the arc I would be impressed, it would give Remender a chance to write something out of his comfort a little and give cap a fresh story.

Overall it was pretty average, not an awful start, fingers crossed it gets better.
7/10
Indestructible Hulk #1

The other new series starting this week was Indestructible Hulk, I'm not sure what happened in the last series of Hulk but this series begins with Banner Joining SHIELD. This issue is pretty much just that.... but somehow its pretty awesome! With the ticking clock punctuating the issue, just enough text tells you Banner's intent, and with Maria Hill being convinced to let Banner be the new mind of the MU and hulk be a destructive force for good I can see this series being brilliant! Something that has always bored me about the Hulk is the inward battle between Hulk and Banner, although interesting it is done too much with too many characters so the fact this series seems to be moving away from that is awesome. Yu's art work throughout the book gives it a dark and dirty feeling whilst staying impressive and not looking too muddled. Hopefully he will stay with the book, his art really suits it. As for Waid, I haven't read his DD but this is really easy to read for a fairly wordy first issue, it really flows well and is believable... although "your strength... Its incalculable" was a little cheesy, its just enough for comic book humour and made me smile.
8/10
Iron Man #2

After an interesting, funny and pretty basic #1 the second issue of the current Iron Man series continued with the destruction of stolen Extremis. This time it wasn't businessmen selling the tech, it was a group of Arthurians, all named after the knights of the round table and coveting the Grail ie. extemis. The story itself was a good idea and I feel like Gillen is using this basic first arc to set up an equilibrium before shattering it after the 1st 5 issue arc. The analysis of Tony as a Technologist is also really interesting, how he is an engineer first and foremost, not a pilot. It was also interesting to question beliefs though the devout Arthurians as I know that is something Gillen is planning to play with a lot. In contrast to the first issue this one was pretty wordy but the dynamic battles drawn by Land helped the fluidity of the comic. The panneling thoughout the battle, the design or the Arthurian armour and the stunning Iron Man art make up for the slightly poor way Land draws Tony. Another score for Iron Man, this issue was better than the last, I can't wait for #3!
8.5/10
X Factor 247

Another issue of X Factor focusing on just a few characters in a simple and contained story, this is just a hint of Peter David doing his thing. David is a master at these one off tails which giv you a little insight into the characters and a nice bit of action, humour and self reflection on the comicbook medium. I loved the fact Madrox slept with his gun after seeing himself murdered on his wedding night in a different universe. Although that story let me down a little this call back to it was excellently considered. The whole zombie thing was a little odd but if you have spied the cover to issue 250 you know something similar is coming on a bigger scale. I miss getting intertwining stories but after the Havok of breaking points (get it, havok) its nice to have a few issues off the heavy stuff. The art was consistent, it looked nice but as often with XF I wasn't blown away by any of the images.
7.5/10
On a side note @Thought bubble I got a commission of Madrox done by part time XF inker Ortego, check it out:

My friend got a Layla:

Check more of his stuff out @ http://willortego.deviantart.com/
Also I got #200 of XF signed by cover artist Esad Ribic :D

Decompressed by Kieron Gillen

Decompressed is a podcast series presented by comic book writer Kieron Gillen who interviews many different comic book writers and artists about specific issues in the current comic book world. I have been wanting to talk about this for a while and with a new podcast with Rick Remender on Uncanny Avengers #1 now is a great time to do it.

So what do I think to the podcast, well I am a big fan of Gillen's comics and met him last year at Thought Bubble so was happy to give this a listen and was really enlightened. The first one I listened to was the the Morning Glories podcast with writer Nick Spencer, because we would all like a little explaining where that is concerned, and it was truly enlightening without being a massive spoiler. The series has awesome comedy to it, Gillen has great humour and knows the people he is interviewing, this gives the interviews a relaxed feeling that make them really easy to listen too. The page by page deconstruction of the specific issue help to break the interview down and offer insight into the world of comic book creation and reading into comics. Not only that but the specific page breakdowns are really cool, you get to hear about splash panel planning and what makes a page work or not work, they also show how artists and writers work together in different ways which is really interesting.

The series has been really great, I have in fact started reading some new stuff thanks to the Decompressed podcasts. I enjoy listening to them, they are good quality, fun, interesting and enlightening. If you like to delve behind the world of comics listen to them all! And if some of the reviewed and talked about comics specifically catch your eye then listen to them they are truly brilliant. They continue to be good and I hope they do continue, I will keep listening for sure!
(Also its strange to be reviewing some reviews if that makes sense)
8.5/10

CBT!!! C(omic) B(ook) T(hursday). All New X men 1, X men Legacy 1, Wolverine and the X Men 20. 12/11 /12

All New X Men #1

Bendis has made his move from Avengers to X Men, this issue is set after the 5th issue of AvX consequences and tells the story of the new dynamic between Cyclops' team of X Men and the X Men of Jean Grey's School for Gifted Youngsters. He starts the issue with the new mutation of Beast which appears to be similar to what he was before the last mutation, this makes sense is happened on M-day so the reversion is well planned. Beast is however is not dealing with the change well and thinks he may die, I have been a little annoyed with how bitchy Beast has been over the last few years and this seems like the epitome of this. My hope is that the past version of Beast sorts the present version of him out a bit. But anyway the two new mutants broken out of prison and police holding are awesome, a time manipulator and a healer both of which are recruited by Cyclops who vows to teach the in order to "atone" and "make things right for mutants". His development from the hero before AvX through Consequences to the revolutionary pictured in this issue is brilliant, it feels well motivated and like a natural character progression. His call to arms rings like words a tame magneto or dictator as he has previously been warned of, "If you can here my voice and you  are a mutant... you are not alone. Do not let the humans dictate the course of your life. If you are mutant you are part of an elite species that deserves every freedom. Dont worry, my brother and sister of the atom. We are the x men and we stand together" awesome! The X Men of the JG institute however don't see it that way, every time Cyclops uses force to get mutants they get closer to being arrested themselves. Scott knows this the question is, is he doing it to insight fear? Or maybe he is doing it because he thinks some force is necessary  we will see, but most of those answers are in his past and in the last few years of xmen, I believe it is to put that little bit of fear into those who would attack and kill mutant children as they have before... a mutant deterrent! Sidetracked again! Anyway the x men, including Iceman who seems to be developing into a character with an opinion rather than a comedy tool, decide that bringing the x men of the past to the future will shock Cyclops into seeing what he is doing "wrong". I hope that as this point in xmen history Hank is threatening to join Magneto that when brought to the future he actually agrees with scott, some internal conflict between the past xmen would be really cool. I recently heard Bendis describe Beast as the Spock to Scott's Kirk, in the last few years that hasn't been the case but I love the analogy and would love it to become true although I can't see it happening any time soon... A wicked start to the tale with wicked art by Immonen whose pencils are spot on, the inks by Von Grawbadger make the book feel really sleek and look amazing. Heres to more All New X Men!!

8.5/10

I also got this variant front cover, its pretty wicked, getting it signed at the weekend by Rivera at the weekend :D!!!

X Men Legacy #1

Legacy takes a new turn, after the end of the last series which focused solely on Rogue the new creative team brings a new main character, David Haller ie. Legion. Whilst some interesting stuff with legion was touched upon last year in Age of X this is where Haller is really going to shine and hopefully become a hero ratrher than the villain he has been in the past. The first issue set it up really nicely, with Legion filing his perssonalitites away in a mental prison with the help of a mind guru, some normality is being restored to Legions mind. I dont recognise the character or the place but its a nice idea that there is somewhere in the mountains old and crazy telepaths go. However when Legion feels his father die his powers flip out and he kills some rioting locals in a classic hate and fear us kind of x men way. Now the authorities and the X men are coming for Legion who is still trying to piece himself together. I really like the start to this series and hope that there well be some more regular characters for Legion to intract with soon. I also hope that it doesn't focus too much on his inner psyche, it is interesting but already a little old. Fingers crossed this stays good, the artist is sweet so hopefully he will stay, his rough pencils perfectly reflect the comic and the covers for the next few issues look awesome!

8/10

Wolverine and the X Men #20

Unfortunately Woverine and the X Men continued to be poor, as a series I have regularly not enjoyed I was hoping the Marvel Now re imagination would take effect however Wolverine and the X Men is pretty much the only title not to have mixed things up in the creative team. This issue however is drawn by Sanders instead of the childish drawings of Bradshaw set to return next week. Sanders' art is ok except for his awful interpretation of Beast which fortunately doesn't last long. A new character is introduced, a wereshark, which is... odd but fair enough. It focused a little on Angel's new abilities and how they are burning him out. I am still pretty pissed off about the mind wipe and alteration of his character so this story continued to annoy me but the power development is pretty cool. The best part about this book was the new villains at the end, Mudbug looked stupid and I hate Kade Kilgore but the rest look like interesting new characters or pre existing bad asses. Next week the circus/ Frankenstein arc starts with one of my least favourite artists Nick Bradshaw so I might not pick it up, it sounds a bit ridiculous for my liking...

5.5/10

"Alternate" Outline

Name:                         Robin Booker

Working Title:             Alternate

Film Genre (or plot):   Drama

Length:                        10mins

Target Audience:        16-30

Tag-line:                      What would you do, with your last life?

Premise:                      An implant allows Adam to jump into parallel versions of himself but the new version of himself he jumped into is missing the implant and he is faced with mortality.  

Synopsis:                      First Adam must once again convince his best friend, Tommy that he can time travel, which is not hard as he has done it before. Tommy tells him however that his parents decided not to give him the implant and Adam is faced with mortality for the first time in over 8 lifetimes.

                                    For the rest of the film Adam tries to decide how to live his life, with Tommy to keep him straight he questions whether to follow a life he knows is good, get his perfect girl, stay at home, relive his favourite past life or whether to leave and experience a new different life.

                                    Adam thinks he knows which life he should live for those he loves, the past life sees everyone to a happy future and he begins obsessing over the memories of that life, making sure he is exact in his reproduction of it in front of everyone but Tommy. Starting with his relationship with Sarah, which begins with their perfect week but this time it isn’t perfect for Adam, he struggles to find pleasure in reliving memories. Tommy knows and cares too much for Adam to let him retrace his steps and convinces Adam that he wont be happy and those around him would ultimately suffer. It then falls to Adam to leave so he breaks his connections with his girlfriend Sarah and leaves his home with only the clothes on his back, the money in his pocket and a friend to share his new adventure.

Visual Realisation:      Alternate focuses on romance and companionship, the visuals should reflect this whilst keeping the mise en scene contemporary and interesting. The scenes with Adam and Tommy should be a little dirtier but still bright and fun, leaving the deeper colours and emotions for the scenes with Adam and Sarah.

Statement of intent:    I love Science Fiction and time travel is such a confusing and insane concept but I have never seen it used as a mechanic to make someone immortal. I think the problems a male 20 year old in contemporary Britain would face with the realisation that he will die are poignant, interesting and hauntingly relatable. I want to use the time travel and morality as a mechanism to explore the fear of leaving home, change and everyone’s mortality. I want to use realism and humour to entertain the audience and make them question the themes of the film.

Sat dressing for cpr

We had to do some of the set dressing for our Creative project today, our aim is basically to create a girls bedroom with a mirror in. So we set about turning two blank walls that create a corner of a set into an actual space. After basic wallpapering we began by adding a fireplace making one wall a feature wall for our all important mirror. We also cut a whole behind our mirror for the hand through the mirror shot.

We only had limited resources so the wallpaper wasn't very girly, so Joeley Beckett, our art director, started to cut out bits from other wallpaper to decorate the wall with decoupage flowers. My first job was to black out the back of the fireplace, without any black pain I resorted to using black sheets and staples. This may actually work better as it doesn't reflect any light. I helped with sticking down some decoupage whilst the wallpapering was finished and then began to hang drapes. This again is to make the room feel more like a lived in girls room, it also hides some of the dodgier bits of wallpapering. We made sure we were only dressing the relevant parts of the set, keeping in mind buts of the wall will be covered by the bed and some bits wont be in the film at all. I then worked on the curtains, as we had no curtain rail or curtains I impovised some semi closed curtains with a staple gun and some pink material, the challenging part of this was making the sheet look like curtains, I used blue tack to help me shape them a little before letting Aaron finish off the job by covering them with gold netting per out art directors instructions.



Here is a pic of the set before half done
 

and this is it near completion

 

again nearly finished but with the lights off



I then began to shot list our film, we have a full audio visual description but were told we can only use 3-5 shots so have altered our vision a little. Here is our shot list for next week:

Fingers crossed it goes well!

Doc filming, Day 1

The first day of shooting went quite well, it was a hard day, light conditions were
 pretty poor but we got to work at about 11 and spent the first 30mins getting 
settled. Me and our director, Steve went off with the camera to get working, we 
noted down which shots would work for each section of our poetic. Unfortunately
 our Urbexers were not available until 1500 ish so by then the light conditions had
 gone drastically down hill but we were there so we tried to get everything we could. 
I also had a lot of opportunities to use the dolly which was great fun and looked brilliant.

This clip shows brief bits of the kind of footage we got:

Here are a few of my own personal comments on the work that will effect our next
shoot and inform our future shot lists.
The first (practice shot) is good enough by itself. So get it without people in it
Graffiti would be good to get in the context of the room, not just abstract.
Expose for outside and inside on most shots.
Get peacock lighter
More 1 point perspective.
tracking shots work really well!
Chair reflections in better light.
Bathroom with more light
More of the urbexers doing their recording, it looks really nice.

Although that isnt all of the footage that gives a good idea of what we got,
a lot of it is a little dark unfortunately but we are hoping to film more soon!
I will be thinking of more shots and things over the next few days.

Forward Unto Dawn

Halo 4 Forward Unto Dawn is the Live action prequel story of Thomas Lasky of the UNSC Infinity and his first encounter with the epic hero of the halo franchise Master Chief. Fanboys and girls have loved the live action trailers for H3 ODST and Reach but were let down when a potential Halo film was shelved for district 9 (which is awesome anyway). Now finally the prayers have been answered and the result is the 5 part webseries (also shown in film form) that utilises excellent CGI and awesome young talent to tell the story of one of the very first covenant attacks.

The series is set on Circinius IV at the Corbulo Academy where the Hastadi squad train. In this squad is cadet Lasky, suffering with burns from cryogenic training and disobeying orders Lasky is given the chance to leave the academy due to illness. However that would mean leaving his maybe maybe not lover Cadet Chyler Silva played by Narnia star Anna Popplewell. Along with a few other interesting cast members the cadets are training to fight against insurrectionists that fight against the UNSC little do they know the year... 2525, the year mankind comes into contact with the covenant. Crazed religious extremists the covenant come from planets far beyond and are searching for artefacts that they believe to be left behind by gods (Forerunners). The Covenant attack Circinius IV, the cadets are unprepared and so are the tutors, thousands die in seconds as the space elevator evacuating cadets is shot down. After a tense scene lifted more from horror films than from the action genre the pinned down Hastadi squad are about to fall prey to an energy sword wielding elite when Master Chief, one of the last Spartan II's steps in to save them. One of the most brilliant things about the series is the cadets dont have a clue what the Covenant or the Spartans are therefore any noob viewers get to learn along with the cadets!

More stuff happens in the last few issues and there are a lot of little hinted subplots for fans, books, games and all sorts of spin off media to fixate on but if you want to know more I suggest you watch the damn thing, I promise you will enjoy it thoroughly.

I know practically nothing about Machinima Prime except that this cinematic venture is awesome, their, and 343's, attention to the detail in sticking to the games will keep the fans happy and gave the opportunity for some awesome visuals. The covenant weaponry is some of what amazed me most, the needler, plasma pistol and energy sword all looked perfect and deadly, you really feel like you are with Lasky, a vulnerable cadet unlike the games in which you are near invincible Spartans. Not that there is anything wrong with the Spartans, Chief lives up to his epic reputation head shotting jackals left right and centre with his magnum in a true display of Halo genius. Finally we come to the cadets themselves and principally Thomas Lasky, what a legend! Its brilliant to see him set up as he features in Halo 4 as an NPC in such a way that the title expects you to know why Chief and him are so familiar and if you dont its not hard to discover. Lasky is one of the coolest human characters of the Halo series so far and is for sure one of the less over the top, he is believable, realistic and heroic... no wait Legendary.

One of my very small gripes with the series, apart from it not lasting forever, is the music, I really love the track towards the end but feel like it could have been delicately woven in earlier on to give it more impact at the end. I can't really fault it for much else, it is well paced and balanced episode by episode, well acted, well shot and is true to the Halo legend. It is a true success for Halo, 343, Machinima Prime and all those involved. It is to be released on DVD and I will be buying it. If you have any taste or Halo fandom PLEASE buy it too. Its my hope that with enough support and profit this kind of thing can happen more often, and who wouldnt want that?
9.5/10
AXIOS

Research for Stanley tools urbexing Documentary

I have been looking at our location for the Urbexing documentary. The Stanley Tools building is an excellent location to start with and even though it would be great to get some more locations I have been looking into the location and the layout on some Urbexing sites. There are some amazing photographs around that highlight some beautifully desolate parts of the building that we will definitely search for on our reccie and when shooting.

After looking through photographs on multiple sites I found some interesting motifs and visuals to take advantage of in our poetic and final piece.

Firstly the amount of square imagery is staggering, here are a few photographs to show my point.

The floor panels, wall tiles and roofing are all square or rectangles and often have grid like appearances, I plan to use these squares as a visual motif throughout the Doc to make it visually interesting and use them to frame more important subjects.

As far as interesting things to frame are concerned the building is full of interesting bits of old office materials and things used by the company years ago. These items are awesome to look at but for us the most interesting things to shoot will be the Urbexers interactions with the items. Here are some of the things I mean

 Another inspiring photograph I found was this:

To me this rabbit hole kind of perspective is really cool, it would be great to get a shot of our urbexers coming down this staircase as though the audience watching are following them down the rabbit hole into another world filled with abandonment and decay.

It is also nice to take a look at the outside of the building, this image shows that even on the outside the square imagery is inescapable, it would be silly not to use it.

There are also a lot of images of the city of Sheffield from the roof of the stanley tools building and its easy to see why, it looks amazing

I talked to Steve (our director) about the views from ontop of the building and we decided it would be best to capture it in a time lapse so that we see all the lights in the city come on. Although its a little bit irrelevant to our urbexing theme it is one of the most common pictures on the urbexing sites and is therefore important. 

This final photograph is not of or related to Urbexing however it is an illustration of an idea I have for solving one of our shooting problems. Our contributors  the urbexers, would rather not be fully on camera, we can get around this mainly by using selective focus, shadowing and quick cuts however I had another idea....

To shoot the Urbexers with their cameras in front of their faces, this solves the issue of identity but also adds meaning to the urbexers, it shows that they are seeing things through their cameras eye. They are here to photograph and that is how they see the locations and therefore to us they are photographers  the cameras in 

front of their faces is a nice visual representation of this. 

These are the majority of the ideas I will be talking about in my pitch, I will have a section to myself in which I talk specifically about the imagery and camerawork I'm planning!

Photograph sources:

http://1000fights.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/man-taking-photo-.jpg

http://projectsheffield.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/stanley-tools-sheffield-the-roof/

http://www.urbexforums.com/showthread.php/17053-Stanley-Tools-Sheffield-June-2012

http://talkurbex.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3375

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php/70906-Stanley-Tools-Sheffield-May-2012

Documentary Idea Conception

We had a lot of ideas for our doc based on our personal interests and friends.
We aimed to think of 2 ideas each so that we would have a lot to chose from
and discuss. My contributions were a doc based around comic books and to
do something reflective about documentary.

In the end we chose the Urban Exploring idea with the Gaveyard idea for a
backup. This is because we think they are the most interesting and would
provoke some nice visuals. We think the Urbexing doc will be more unique
 so that is our first choice. Not only that but we already have a location for
the Urbexing as well as contributors! Time to start researching the pastime
 and looking for some photographs of the location.

MK, Han Solo, World War Z, SHIELD, BSG B&C.

Lots of little news stories for you today!
Warner Bros Announces Mortal Kombat RebootPretty cool to hear MK is coming back to the big screen, it will be led by Kevin Tancharoen who made the online series so it seems to be in good hands. With Assassins Creed, Battleship and Metal Gear Solid all getting films of their own its nice to see a classic Film game coming back!

Han Solo "Open" to Star Wars VII

Apparently sources close to Harrison Ford have said that he is open to doing more star wars films as are all three of them (Mark Hammil and Carrie Fischer) so the whole gang might be back... minus George Lucas. I like that they will appear, it will give the story nice coherence however I hope we aren't getting tiny stories about VII for the next 3years.

World War Z

The first preview of World War Z with Brad Pitt is to be shown soon, the preview for the preview makes it look insane, the fastest and most dangerous zombies ever in a film I can only describe as looking like Die Hard with Zombies... YAY... maybe

SHIELD

Tiny bit of news, shooting begins in January... thats it.

Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chrome

Blood and Chrome is coming in three days!!! Oddly it will be aired as a webseries on Machinima Prime. The series will be in 15 minute parts released over I think 4 weeks before being aired as a film on Syfy and released as a DVD. Its an odd way to release a series but at least we get to see it!

The amazing spiderman 2 news

The Amazing Spiderman 2
There are a few new details and rumours for all you Andrew Gaarfield loving Amazing Spiderfans! Firstly Electro has been confirmed as a villain, which is pretty sweet, secondly Jamie Foxx may play him... unusual but ok, finally there will be a new suit which will be shown of in the 3rd Dimension.... 3D. So pretty cool spidey news all round, I cant help but wonder what the new suit will be, will it be a mechanical stealth suit like the recent comics? Or will it just be a redesign, because we all know how fashion conscious this new emospidey is!