We made this video to announce the new integration between Skype and Facebook. We used a much more realistic feel for this one, and told the story from footage shot actually in the Skype the client…. Well, it looks like it’s sure in the Skype client right? We actually shot most of the scenes across Skype, so the actors can perform with their fellow characters, which helped us get much more believable conversations.
Machine in Scareworld Magazine
Hurrah! Scareworld Magazine (“Europe’s Premier Publication Covering the Scare Attractions and Entertainment Industry” don’t ya know) has done a double page spread all about our show, Machine. Jolly good.
Wesified
For years I’ve been noticing frames from some of my favourite films look like could have come from a Wes Anderson film. Whack on a more Wes Anderson style title in the correct font (he always uses Futura in various guises, normally bold in yellow or white) and the idea tells itself. I’ve made a few up now and put them here: WESIFIED.com.
The first film I ever noticed this on was Ghostbusters, and I’ve been wanting to do something with it for years. I’ve made up a fair bunch of films now and plan to keep adding to the blog whenever I spot a another frame that looks the part.
Flickometer
The Flickometer is a tool we made for Orange BAFTA that shows you at a glance what the internet (ie: Twitter) is saying about anything related to this year’s BAFTA nominated films, and how much buzz is surrounding each one, in real time. You can filter the results by just films, actors, directors, or star your own favourite topics and compare their results. You can even look at results from the past to see how the buzz has changed.
Machine Production Photos
Just dusted off the photos we took behind the scenes of Machine. We’ve gone to town on the descriptions this time so if you really want to know how we did what we did, head over to the Flickr set, make yourself a cuppa and get reading. You’ll find a few abandoned prototype ideas in there as well, and some actual blood.
Machine Photos
We’ve finally dismantled the set for Fangoria, The Machine now <sad face>, but we did take lot’s of photos of it all before it got trashed <less sad face>. We now have a nice empty garage except for a large steampunk time machine sat in the corner. We’re open to offers, it has some very minor dinosaur related damage, and a few thousand years on the clock.
Save Our NHS
A drastic reform bill concerning the NHS was being pushed through parliament that a lot of the UK felt very strongly against. So we decided to put our heads together and come up with some way in which we could help stop this bill going through. The idea conceived by the smartest member of our group (well done Chris) was to create a different kind of on-line petition. Rather than simply collect thousands of signatures and hand them in to 10 Downing St, we wanted to empower people to get their own MP’s to speak on their behalf in parliament. If you write a letter to your MP, they have to act.
The idea was simple, sign up to the petition and we send every MP of every constituent individual petitions signed by their own constituents. The idea was a run away success with over 40,000 signatures covering every constituency of the UK. We introduced a little bit of a competitive edge by publicly ranking all the constituencies. We had people campaigning the site for us when they saw their area was in the top 10 rank. A little healthy competition never hurt anybody.
SaveOurNHS.org
Appetite for Distraction – The Book
Hurray! We made a book of some (well, quite a lot) of our photos from our road trips across the states. It’s a bit of a precursor to the documentary film we’re still editing so we’ve given it the same name.
If you like it, you can go see the whole thing on Blurb’s site, and if you *really* like it, you can buy it from them as well.
Skype Group Video Calling
Skype wanted to launch group video calling with a lot of fanfare. So we made this short video with loads of examples of how people might use the technology. A very hectic shoot over 3 days with about 17 sets to be built and struck as we went along. Hectic, but fun!
Roswell, New Mexico
O man, we totally visited Roswell, New Mexico. It was never one of those ‘I MUST GO THERE ONE DAY OR I WILL DIE WITH A SAD FACE’ kinda places, it just happened to be on the way between New York and California, so we popped in. And boy were we glad we did, it’s silly, and a bit serious/mental, and then silly again. Here’s some things:
First thing we did was Alien Zone, Areas 51 – a place with about 20 alien scenes that you’re encouraged to climb about and take silly photos.. SOLD.
Then we thought we should get the ‘real’ facts and checked out the International UFO Museum and Research Centre just up the road, it was closing for the night so we ran about and took photos instead of actually doing any reading or learning (we’re on holiday, why would we want to do a thing like that?).
And the next day we had to go and see what all the adverts we kept seeing around town for the Roswell Space Walk were all about, they boasted a Paisley-Horvak TVG9000 (no, me neither), how can you refuse? Luckily it was silly, quite silly.
We organised a tour with some random dude of the ACTUAL HANGER where an alien may or may not have had it’s bit’s cut out by sinister looking military types. We got to the car park next to the hanger and looked for a car with a large inflatable alien tied to roof (as arranged) but our tour was a no show, damn it, the truth is still out there.
Here’s many more photos of our time in Roswell: