Horror movie memory lane...

During my formative years I became the massive horror fan that I am today, and as I've written about before, this period of my life struck right in my early-teens just when the British Board of Film Classification was undergoing a change of leadership and policy direction - the year was 1999 and all of a sudden a whole host of previously cut and/or banned horror movies were being unleashed onto the British public for the first time in years (in some cases decades). I came to see many of the big name classics of the genre via our local video rental store, or through fudgy dubbed copies on VHS from friends who had in-turn dubbed them from the same video rental store.

During this time - February 1999 to be exact - I devoured with wide-eyed fervour Channel 4's "Censored" weekend, when I got to see Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters here in the UK) and Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant for the very first time. The former was at the time still cut (by 23 seconds - 4 seconds from the eye gouging, and 19 seconds from the devouring of the same victim's body by a gathering of flesh-hungry zombies) and the latter was in a strange situation ... it was passed uncut theatrically, but on home video suffered from trims to one scene of drug taking.

Anyway, I happened to stumble upon some of the introductions for that Censored weekend by UK film critic Mark Kermode (my personal film critic of choice) on YouTube - check them out below (that theme music has been firmly and fondly lodged in my head for 13 years now).







Around about this time there was also a Film Four "Extreme Cinema" channel, so here's a couple of bonus introductions from there...

Braindead (aka Dead Alive) and A Clockwork Orange.

Memories of Falling Ash (2008)...

This short was made for the 2008 Frieze Film “Road Movie” YouTube project. They were looking for YouTubers to submit their own 3 minute long films, taking inspiration from Cormac McCarthy’s excellent book “The Road”.


From the submitted shorts, those behind the project selected a number (of which I was one) and proceeded to use the wealth of footage to put together four 3 minute shorts, which made up the aforementioned “Road Movie”. It was a really fun and creative project to get involved in, and it was a real joy to put together some really strong images in high contrast black & white (which suited the tone of the book perfectly, in my eyes).


The four segments were shown in October 2008 on Channel 4’s “3 Minute Wonder” showcase programme.

View the full length version of "Memories of Falling Ash" here:



Finally, you can view the Frieze Film 2008 YouTube channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FriezeFilm2008

Frieze Film 2008 - YouTube links...

These are the original edits (the ones shown on Channel 4 were a smidge different, with certain gory images replaced) of the Road Movie project, viewables on YouTube.

Part One:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LW4cbIw3IW8

Part Two:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Qf4ci7QH8

Part Three:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tLe4lglgTGA

Part Four:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tTbcnolKJB8

Enjoy.

...

And yes, there's not been much blogging this month, not sure why ... guess I'm not feeling the blog-juice this month. Anyway, I'm in the midst of writer's block/frustration - trying to get my zombie epic script started ... I finished my X-Files marathon the other day, or about a week ago now actually, and am currently going through Mulder & Scully withdrawal, ha!

Oh yeah, I'm gonna get around to updating my showreel, so expect to see that sometime soon.

3 Minute Wonder - further details!

http://www.friezefoundation.org/film

Go to the above link and watch Parts 2 and 4 - where I have footage used.

Obviously everybody only gets brief bits used, as there was 2 hours of chosen footage edited down into four 3 minute shorts, but this means I've had stuff shown on Channel 4 prime time television, and of course I'm credited on the end credits - according to my YouTube channel name of course - which is ZombieWagon.

There's one of my shots (seemingly flipped vertically and horizontally) in the opening titles of each of the four films - again, high contrast black and white footage of the white road markings ... on a road, obviously.

Anyway, in Part 2 my footage is the two high contrast black and white shots driving along a road with a dull sky overhead, at 0:21 and 2:17. (I do actually think Part 2 is the best of the four, and not just because I've got the bulk of my exposure in there, but because I do think it's the best one generally speaking).

In Part 4 I have a brief shot used at 1:35 (grey image with 'ash' falling through the frame - it's originally snow of course).

So aye, on the grand scheme of things and comparitively speaking I have had a good amount of footage used - and of course my original, uncut film can be seen both on the Frieze Film 2008 YouTube page, as well as my own YouTube channel (as linked to in the links section on the right hand side of my blog).

As for air times - well, as I've got a shot used in the opening credits, that gets shown before all of the films, but as for the specific parts I'm further used in:

Part 2 - Tuesday 14th October 2008, Channel 4 at 7:55pm (or an hour later on C4+1)
Part 4 - Thursday 16th October 2008, Channel 4 at 7:55pm (or an hour later on C4+1)

And as previously noted at the top of this blog post, you can see all the films on the Frieze Film 2008 website.

3 Minute Wonder...

As previously mentioned, I took part in the Frieze Film 2008 "Road Movie" project (with my short "Memories of Falling Ash", as seen on my YouTube page). Part of the project was for the organisers to pick some of the submitted shorts to be used for four 3 Minute Wonder shorts on Channel 4 at 7:55pm - October 13th through 16th (Mon, Tue, Wed, and Thur).

Of the 140 videos 'attached' to the FF2008 YouTube page, 38 were picked by the project director - of which, I am one.

So fingers crossed they'll use some of my footage in one or more of this week's 3 Minute Wonder slots on Channel 4 at 7:55pm (or indeed Channel 4 +1 at 8:55pm), they obviously liked it enough to pick it, so hopefully that's a good omen and then I can say I've had stuff shown on Channel 4's well-known shorts showcase in prime time television territory, which would be pretty cool.

As for the project itself, as previously stated it's based on/inspired by the 2006 Cormac MacCarthy novel The Road, which I recently bought and am now reading - pretty good actually, I look forward to seeing the film adaptation with Viggo Mortensen.

Frieze Film 2008 - "Memories of Falling Ash"...

So I'm perusing around the internet, as you do, last night and came across this thing about Frize Film doing a thing about short, experimental films related to The Road, a book by Cormac McCarthy.

http://www.friezefoundation.org/film

I find this out on September 13th, and the deadline to get your films uploaded to YouTube is September 15th. I ponder over night what I could do for it, and revisit the site today - the 14th - and decide to have a go. So I went away, looked through a bunch of my previously shot, but as-yet unused footage, and put together a short experimental piece, in high contrast black & white.

I used music previously provided to me by Brian Wright (I've used his music previously on a few of my shorts) and just dived right in and put it together quite quickly as I was quite enjoying the immediacy of it all - especially getting to use footage I'd shot ages ago for projects that either went nowhere, or shots that were simply never used on other projects, or simply footage that was shot to just have - just in case they were needed, such as now.

So, with the project being about a post-apocalyptic road journey, I decided to follow the 'ashen landscape' route (which is one element of the visuals mentioned in the book - so I've read about anyway, I haven't read the book - but now certainly plan to do so, as it sounds right up my street).

I took footage of driving along a road, which was fortunately mostly empty (so I cut out any passing vehicles) on a rainy, dull day and combined it with footage I'd shot a good couple of years ago now of when we last had snow - which, in high contrast black and white, looks like falling ash upon an ashen landscape.

The notion of the film, is that we're seeing the perspective of a passenger who is journeying through a barren landscape, but keeps having flashes of memories (that appear almost like photographs) of the ashen landscape - these memories denoted by quick fades between the road and the memories, to signify the person blinking in and out of reality.

So indeed - that's what it's about, and I'm currently uploading it to YouTube - so check it out there within the new few hours (it's September 14th at 6pm as I'm writing this).

I've certainly rarely put something together so quickly, and rarely had as much fun and sense of freedom as I have done with this little experimental short.

*Additional*

Just thought I'd mention the tractor with trailer at one point, in case anybody thinks "er, post-apocalypse with a tractor, you wot?" - well, for one, it's not an apocalypse where everyone has died, and for two it's a reference to an idea in the videogame STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, in which they have "death trucks" that bring dead men out from the centre of the zone - so the tractor and trailer in my little experimental short, that's supposed to be a sort of death truck if you will - that's the idea behind that shot, so just in case you were wondering, there you go.

Oh memory lane...

I've recently discovered 12 episodes of "Round the Bend" on YouTube, gawd bless it, and have been watching my way through those gradually...well, I've done 3 so far. Anyway, oh the memories that came flooding back, some quality kids TV with a real anarchic bite - moreso than I remember - plus it's quite politically incorrect and has a lot of toilet humour, which is just what you want as a kid ... then that bitch Mary-fucking-Whitehouse came along and spoiled everyone's fun and it got shafted off the air, thanks a lot.

Still - "False Teeth from Beyond the Stars" - how could you not love this show?!

Oh well, "A Bridge Too Far" has been polished off, very good indeed, next up I'm going to go on a "Rambo" bender with all three films...

...

Otherwise, I've been in a bit of a creative dip these last couple of weeks, the muse has escaped me. After ploughing through to the end of the first act in my feature script, I took a break and started thinking of another script idea - for a short I'd wanna film - it's called "Signing Off", and I started writing it, but again, the muse fucked off home. So I forced myself to plan some of it out, and I'm going to make a concerted effort in the next few days to sit down and right the damn thing, it's only a short piece, so I just want to get it written and "in the bank" so-to-speak.

Then I can go back to the feature script, after which I've got another feature to write, as well as an alternate version/sequel/follow up to "Signing Off"...in fact, the short idea I'm writing is actually a prequel/alternate version of the original idea in fact. The original idea being of quite a large scale (I was thinking of it in terms of animation too), but the version I'm trying to get written at the moment would be live action.

Let's just hope I can get that bloody muse to get off her arse and lodge back in my brain...oh delicious...

Now though - new My Name Is Earl and Danny's Underground Slacker blogcast.