Archive for July, 2007

Empire (September 2007) has an interesting article "My Week in TV Hell" has an interesting article about films on terrestrial television in the UK. I thought it was a fluff piece at first: Dorian Lynskey watches every film shown on the five terrestrial analogue services in the UK for a week. However once you get past the humorous bits there are a number of interesting points about the changes to the films shown on those channels.

Foreign films are now shown on BBC4 rather than a terrestrial channel. Seasons of works by a director, actor, writer or based around some other theme are gone or so short as to no longer really be a season. Films made before 1940 and cult classics have gone too. All of them have gone to digital ghettos. They don’t even get a slot in the insomniac slot because that’s now filled with money printing phone in quizzes and twenty-four hour news channels.

Only two of the films shown that week make it into the top 30 for the channel they were on. The biggest movies are pulling in smaller audiences than popular quiz shows but the prices charged by the studios haven’t fallen to reflect this. "Movies on terrestrial television don’t perform the way they used to." says one Vanessa Brookman, Five’s controller of acquisitions. With a wait of two to three years from release before they get to show them is it any surprise film premiers don’t get an audience? Brookman also says that the unless prices reflect value they will purchase fewer films.

Looking at it from the opposite point of view John Rogers’ blog pointed me at an article on Slate about where film companies make their money from television rights. Now it looks like the connection between television companies and film companies is stitched up pretty tight. There may be no incentive for a media company with film and television divisions to change the pricing structures because for they are mostly shuffling the money around from one part of the company to another.

So why does this bother me?

Films are part of our cultural landscape. I know they influence my writing just as much as books or television drama does. Most of those films I first saw on terrestrial television, often by accident: "The League of Gentlemen", "Hell is a City", "Du rififi chez les hommes", "The Killers" and "The Killer". I could carry on but the list would be too long. I could keep going. I’ve gone on to buy many of them on DVD which must be good for the film company. Many of these films aren’t the kind of films that will be touted around as part of the British Summer of Films or get a mention on the BBC’s British Film Forever. Instead they will be pushed into a digital television ghetto for film buffs who will buy the DVD or gather dust till they are forgotten.

Which brings me neatly round to where this little rant started in my head…

Tonight the British Summer of Films is celebrating "Goldfinger" by showing it at cinemas. However this seems to involve showing it once at each participating cinema. Sometimes (as at FACT in Liverpool) the shows are as early as 6pm. 6pm on a Tuesday. I hope they got good numbers through the door but I doubt it somehow and that will be used to justify not showing it at a time more people might have made. If they are really serious about a summer of British film maybe the films chosen should be getting a wider release? If they don’t think "Goldfinger" will get audiences what will?

I’ve not written a great piece of English literature let alone simply writing a great book. I doubt I ever will. However I’d hate to think someone else might but won’t get the chance because this part of our heritage will be lost to them. We have access to our finest works of art in galleries, to our historic buildings, to great museums and to libraries of books. Shouldn’t we have access to these films too in an accessible way?

Well after two more drafts over the weekend The Electron Jockey just found it’s way off into the ether where it’s destiny awaits it…

Thanks to Sarah and Kim for their edits on The Electron Jockey last night. I think I’ve found a way to fix one of the problems they spotted without blowing the ending.

Finished writing a short story I’ve been working on called “The Electron Jockey” tonight. I’m going to edit it tomorrow and sub it before the end of the month if I still like it tomorrow…

1. You’ve Got To Laugh – Nik Kershaw. Arrived this week from Short House Records and in my CD player a lot since then. Includes a warning that it may include traces of irony. Traces? Some might say that alone is ironic. The tunes could be mistaken for pop. The lyrics are a little more complex than that.
2. The West Wing (Season 1). If there is one show I find my way back to over and over it’s the West Wing.
3. Bat Out of Hell 2 – Meat Loaf. Because Objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are.
4. The Very Best of Incantation. I’m not a big listener to pan pipe music but Incantation are far too good to pigeonhole and ignore.
5. Mr Benn. It was research for something I was writing, honest.
6. The Way It Is – Bruce Hornsby and the Range. Have you noticed I like my lyrics complicated yet?
7. Set Me Free – Marion Raven. Nik’s knocked Marion out of my CD player but she’ll be back soon I’m sure.
8. Battle Star Galactica (Season 2). The only reason I’m not on The West Wing’s second season. Really enjoying this despite still thinking they should have kept the original shows theme.
9. A Cock and Bull Story. Not sure what to make of this. It was either brilliant or utter rubbish. I think I’ll lean towards the first of the two.
10. Local Hero Music by Mark Knopfler.
11. The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War – Thaddeus Holt. A heavy weight and slightly very dull history book but between the bickering over who commanded what when it does actually include some interesting history.
12. Sharpe’s Escape by Bernard Cornwell. I’ve barely started this yet because The Deceivers is taking a lot longer to read than I expected.
13. Carrotblanca – Bugs Bunny and Friends do Casablanca. Somehow it works. Don’t ask me how. It would be quicker to just watch it for yourself and see.

So what are you listening to / reading / watching at the moment?

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Internet… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship impworks. Its ongoing mission: to explore new open source, to seek out new social networks and new code, to boldly go where well tonigh where pretty much eveyone has been before.

Yes tonight I’ve been messing around with WordPress as a possible tool for a few web sites I’ve been asked about for friends. Despite a few negative comments I’d heard from some quarters I think it might just be the tool for the job because it’s not overloaded with every feature that I’m not looking for, the interface seems pretty straight forward and it has the all important element of ongoing development.

I’ve just put the new version of my impworks sites home page live. My main aim with the new design was to neaten up the layout and to use the white space in a different way so I can simultaneously squeeze more into the space used and yet have a tidier look. I’ll start using this design out for other pages in the next few weeks.

At the same time as putting the new home page live I’ve also started using a custom written script to help manage the images on the site so I don’t have to produce multiple watermarked copies of each one myself. The script took a bit of fiddling to get working but I’m quite pleased with the end result and I think the new watermark looks a lot cleaner than the one I was using before. Hopefully it will enhance the impworks gallery pages.

E-on have updated Vue 6′s python in release 291551 so that it now produces little preview images of objects exported to their Vob file format using the default preview camera position and settings. Which sounds a bit dull but it does mean that users of my Mass Convert script will now get preview pictures of each object when browsing to load the objects later.

Went to see the exhibition of Josh Kirby’s work at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool today. I knew of his covers for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and some of his other cover art. There is a lot more to see here than just those. There are some of his film posters including excellent pieces for The Life of Brian (not used because it included too many bits cut from the final film) and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. One section covers his jigsaw designs another his horror novel covers. Of course there is a large section devoted to his most iconic work for the Discworld books. In fact there were so many of them in the end I felt a little overwhelmed. Of particular interest was the cover for Maskerade, I always thought the cover looked a bit odd and now I know why: most of the picture wasn’t used. The painting has a lot more going on in it than the cover showed including far more of the cast of characters. The perspective makes more sense when you can see the various layers of people in the theatre as you look down from somewhere up near the chandelier.

If your interested the exhibition runs till the 30th September 2007. You can find out more at the Walker Art Galleries Out of this World: the art of Josh Kirby web site.