Comin' round to meet you...

Having recently read the excellent book version of Long Way Round, by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, and having then re-watched the show itself on DVD (for at least the fifth time admittedly) I felt I just had to pimp up a blog about it.

Long Way Round is a truly inspiring adventure, as well as a piece of filmmaking in itself. I've often said of late how I'm full-blown filmmaker-jealous of 2nd Unit DP Jimmy Simak, who rode with the support crew and helped film the whole thing, particularly the prep stage (which was before the main DP Claudio von Planta was hired).

It must have been a truly fantastic journey, getting away from everything you know and just surviving on a basic level - like McGregor said on the Road of Bones - it was just about getting their vehicles to Magadan, and that was it. Why the Jimmy jealousy? Well, at the moment that's where I'm at as a filmmaker - acting as a cameraman - and I have shot in what you'd call 2nd Unit capacity before...also it's an envy grounded in practicality - I don't ride motorbikes, unlike Claudio von Planta.

It might sound strange to some of you lot, but whatever, I was really inspired by Long Way Round. It showed you a whole variety of cultures in an easy-to-digest way, from the perspective of two chaps on my own cultural level (i.e. a British westerners). It also really continued to put life in perspective, I find myself thinking "well it could be a hell of a lot worse than this, I could be some abandoned child living under the streets of Ulaanbatarr", or if a bit of filming is getting you down on a long day you think "well I'm not riding through a boggy valley in Mongolia and falling over all the time, so it's totally fine".

That kind of thing, that's how Long Way Round has inspired me, it's also planted a seed in me somewhat - which brings me back around to the 'Jimmy jealousy' - to be able to be a part of a filmmaking team and just getting out there to see the world with a camera in my hand, tagging along in a merry band of adventurers. One day maybe, eh?

Anyway, I figured I'd blog up some thoughts regarding the fantastic Long Way Round (check it out if you haven't already). Next up, to read Race to Dakar and then inevitably re-watch the companion show on DVD again, another inspiring and charming tale of man versus the world.

Show-Reel 2008 has landed!

So I finally got off my arse to make a new show-reel, which actually takes quite a while when sifting through 4 years worth of filmmaking and then having to pick which ones to include - and then having to pick the right clips, then processing them, then editing the whole thing...damn.

Anyway, it's done and it's online:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KlcoRg7Uy1w

I'm a big fan of M83, I certainly look forward to the new album, and must check out this sort of ambient album or however you'd describe it, Digital Shades Volume 1 I think it's called. Anyway - it's great stuff, says I.

And finally, huzah, my Transformers DVD arrived from the bloody brilliant Total Film (for a letter I had published in the ... er ... December 2007 issue I think, the one that went on sale at the end of November anyway). Still waiting on 3:10 To Yuma from them, but really the wait is down to the individual distributors of the film - but anyway, I was chuffed to see it was the 2-Disc edition, whereas I was only expecting the 1-Disc - bonus round time today, eh?

And the assassination of Jesse James continues...

Well, it's been a little while since I saw The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and it's still sticking with me. The mournful score is still floating around my head at night when it's all quiet, the jaw-dropping cinematography still painted on the inside of my eyelids ... well, not literally because that'd be silly, but you know what I mean.

Point is - what a great piece of filmmaking! :)

Otherwise, I'm currently chipping away at a brand new show-reel, it's taking a while as you've gotta pick a song (from a list of 4,000 in my case) that matches the vibe of most of the footage at the very least...then you've got to pick which films you're made that you want to include clips from...then you have to actually edit the clips you want out of the files, or even capture the clips all over again...then you have to process all the footage, cropping it all to 1.85:1 and playing around with Magic Bullet where appropriate or suitable for experimentation...then you've got to render all that stuff...then it's gotta be transferred into some other editing software (where I do all the basic editing actions nice and swiftly) and then you've gotta edit the damn thing!

Well, I'm currently about a minute into the show-reel edit ... but before that, I had to fiddle with the chosen music track because the MP3 wasn't recognised properly, so I had to go and Cool Edit that sum'bitch into a file that worked fully.

*sigh*

Bloody nora ... still, to get the inspiration flowing, I'm re-watching Long Way Round after having recently finished reading the book, what a bloody good show it is too!

The Assassination of Shite by the Hero Andrew Dominik...

Okay, okay, such a pun-tastically cheesy title shouldn't really grace musings concerning The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, but you know how it is in blog-land.

But I characteristically digress.

Having struggled through development adversity, at long last the definitive film regarding who could arguably be considered the first celebrity - the notorious Jesse James - is upon us. It opens with the James gang's apparent last big score, a sequence that seems to evoke the cinematic grandeur of the frontier-breaking iron horse, which steamed towards the very first cinema goers. There is an air of majesty in the build up, illuminated amidst the clutter of trees by a beacon-like head lamp.

From the outset you sense that this film is going to go where too few Hollywood productions dare to venture. To tread into an uncertain world of meticulously crafted, morally complex protagonists. This collection of iconic individuals say as much silent and with a stare, than they do when their carefully chosen words are laid gently upon the table.

Indeed, the strength of the often stoic performances are greatest during the eponymous betrayal. Much like the entirety of the film, this scene is slow burn. It creeps forth with Nick Cave's moving and thoughtful score as Brad Pitt (the eponymous anti-hero), Casey Affleck (the eponymous coward) and Sam Rockwell (the coward's elder brother) deliver beautifully understated, yet no less powerful performances.

Perhaps surprisingly, but it is not Pitt, but Affleck who plays the strongest role. At first a very nervous, twitchy, even shy admirer of the James gang's iconic leader, he grows into a more confident - yet still somewhat socially awkward - spurned celebrity follower. It is the journey of Robert Ford which is ultimately the most tragic, mirroring with greater intensity the plight of Jesse James himself, who is a man we eventually come to understand as a loving, church-going patriarch, but whom remains a cold-blooded thief and killer.

Dominik directs with care a considered, restrained epic. It is a film filled with astoundingly beautiful vistas, captured with suitably thoughtful photography, which goes so far as to touche your soul. The Assassination of Jesse James, like the risk-taking epics of the New Hollywood era, sticks with you. It lurks in your mind long after the final, haunting freeze frame fades to black. Indeed, far more The Deer Hunter than Heaven's Gate.

An absolutely astounding piece of filmmaking, brought forth from deep down within the hearts of those involved, this has cinematic classic written all over it.

Quite simply, 10 out of 10.

A thunderous cacophony of grim inevitability...

An odd, doom-laden title indeed - but never fear, it's merely a descriptive line from my latest script I'm writing to get it 'banked' for the future.

The script is called "The End", it's a short which would be best suited to 2-D animation. Put really simply, it's about the final moments of the last man on earth in a world gone living dead.

After writing the feature length student comedy "Generation Procrastination", it's a nice change of gear and kinda takes me back to my 6th Form days when I would write many zombie short stories, what with this one being less about dialogue (which was what GenPro was mostly about), and more about actions and descriptions and visual things, so it's actually been quite fun to chip away at it over the last few days.

The first pass is done, now all I need to do is go through it and clean it up a bit and then I'll leave it be and whack it in the DeadShed script bank, oh yes.

Next up after that, methinks I'll do out a treatment for a zombie spoof idea I have.