Rob – Page 102 – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Scott Pilgrim Vs The Movies

It had stunning reviews, gob-smacking word of mouth, an ad campaign that was arguably more expensive than the film. So why, then, did Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World open low and drop further in it’s first two weekends at the box-office? Why did I, a long-time fan, walk out at the end of it feeling a little hollow, a little underwhelmed?

The answer lies in my immediate first response after seeing the movie. I wanted to go home and read the books again. I wanted to remind myself of the things that the film had chopped out, or compressed, or glossed over. Once again, I realised, Hollywood had done what it always does to comics. The adaptation process had pulled the spine out of the story.

Scott Pilgrim is a six-book series that tells the story of the lovelorn hipster of the title, and his struggles to win the girl who has been skating through his dreams. It’s a wry, funny and frantic tale that sucks in video game, manga and anime references and squelches them together in a lo-fi zine-centric aesthetic. It’s cartoony, it’s typesetting is (perhaps deliberately) wonky, it’s all black and white. The fact that it’s packaged in the small-footprint form of most of the manga we see in this country only helps to strengthen these references.

It doesn’t rush things, either. The books are by their very nature episodic, as comics should be, and time passes in a natural, relaxed way. The group that Scott is a part of hang out, go to gigs and parties, and fumble their way through life. Everyone makes mistakes. They fall in and out of relationships. A major character comes out. We’re privy to six months in the life of Scott, Wallace, Steven, Kim, Young Neil, Stacy and Julie, and you end up involved in all their troubles and joys.

All of this subtlety is lost in the film. It becomes a one-note Battle-Of-The-Bands with added Streetfighter gloss. The sense that we’re seeing things through Scott’s eyes and that he’s not the most reliable narrator is wiped away in favour of a clean clear line of character progression. He often has to be reminded about how horrible he has been to the women in his life, or about how events simply didn’t pan out in the way he remembers them. This isn’t to say that he doesn’t learn and grow in the course of the story. But there’s more to it than grabbing a power-up and suddenly not just Getting A Life. He gets hurt and has to grow up.

Then there are the fights. They’re the engine of the tale. They keep things moving. But in the film, they become kind of the whole point, and they take up more and more of the running time. This is never the case in the books. The fights are a necessary part of the story, but they never overwhelm the comedy, pathos and drama that goes on around them. Unfortunately the film structures the whole film around the fights, to the detriment of a lot of really cool character-based humour.

A note on the characters. Over on MovieBrit, WDW has described the women in the film as “angels or stalkers”, which I think is a little unfair. It negates Stacey’s role as advisor, Kim Pine’s place as the coolest kid in the room AND lynchpin of Sex Bob-omb, and Envy and Roxy, equally wounded by our hero and heroine. Again, there’s lots more going on around Scott and his precious little life than we’ve been permitted to see in the film.

I think I knew going into the film how I would feel afterwards. It’s a fun movie, with a lot to recommend, and I’d hate to think that I’m talking you out of going to see the film, Readership. Because you should. It works in it’s own right, and some of the visual invention that Edgar Wright layers onto the screen works really well. I’d love to see more panel and subtitle commentary appearing in films.

But to my mind Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a Cliff Notes version of a much richer and more complex story, and I hope that it’ll encourage the curious to pick up the books. You owe it to yourselves to get the full story.

Big News about Habeas Corpus

Readership, I have been keeping things from you. This is obviously a betrayal of the trust we have built up over the years, and I can only apologise. But I had very good reason. And the time has finally come when I can talk a little about what’s been happening with a project that’s about to take up quite a bit of my time and attention.

Today, I want to talk about Habeas Corpus, the anthology horror I’m making with a lot of my friends and fellow travellers. We’ve all been working hard on the film. My previous announcement that the scripts were just about locked was a bit … well, previous really. Leading Man Clive has come into his own here, making sure that we’re delivering nothing but our best work. The final draft of livedeadgirls is one of my best. Very different to how I originally thought of it, but that’s a good thing. Less angsty. More … horrible.

Obviously, we want to let people know what we’re up to. With that in mind, Team Corpus came up with a super special surprise that we showed at Frightfest, one of the premiere horror festivals on the planet, in London’s glamourous Leicester Square. It’s a 90 second thing, a little standalone teaser that was shot over a long weekend at the end of July. It stars one of our directors, Paul Davis, and in a bit of a casting coup, scream queen and face of British horror Emily Booth. This is a really big deal for us, and it’s great that as horror fans we got to launch our biggest project in front of an audience that’s as committed and passionate about the scene as we are.

You wanna see it, right? Well, here you go.

The reception so far has been really positive, and we’re hoping that Frightfest weekend will give us the kick the project needs to get it properly rolling. For the meantime, you can read more about the project on Dread Central, and here’s a rather nice review of the teaser from Brendon Connolly at Bleeding Cool.

And please, join the Facebook group. Your support will help us to make something that we can all show with pride.

I’ll tell you more about the events of the weekend as it wears on. For now, keep the faith, Readership.

I’m a mobile writer, which means I don’t have a dedicated place where I go to work. I always smile at the photography series in the Indie that shows off writer’s spaces. The places they have made for themselves where they can create a masterpiece in comfort. There’s a lot of book-lined studies in there. It’s all very cosy.

If I were ever to have that honour, I’d have to show the photographer onto the 06:56 to London Paddington and get him to take a snap of a window seat. Lord knows, I’d love a place like Roald Dahl’s shed, or Neil Gaiman’s library, but that just don’t suit the way I do things. Maybe I should try a stint of writing in the summerhouse.

Writing on a train is the best way I know of getting some no-distraction work done. I can’t connect to the internet. I deliberately use a small, light netbook that doesn’t have too many fancies, but does have a good keyboard I can happily abuse. There’s power on the train, and access to coffee, which is really all I need to at least get a handle on the writing task of the day. I’m an early bird when it comes to this particular task, which means I can get a half-hours work done at the day’s creative peak.

A mobile writer needs a sturdy bag. It’s the office, essentially. It should be able to withstand all the rigours of a daily commute, while being light and small enough to be easily portable. When I began my rambling life, I carried my 13″ Blackbook in a solid, heavy Redline bookbag that was built to withstand a low-yield nuclear strike, but very nearly twisted my spine out of true whenever I picked it up. That was a lesson learned. Only carry what you really need, not everything you think you might.

If you’re interested in the sort of thing I lug around, allow me to point you at TLC’s new photo blog. She’s taken shots of our two bags, which are strangely accurate portraits, and interesting insights into our inner workings.

Pen To Paper

I have a thing for stationery. Being both a cartoonist and a writer, this shouldn’t be a surprise, but sometimes I amaze myself. I am the sort of person that will wander round Staples or WH Smiths with a slightly glazed look on my face, fingering the markers. There are several art shops within five minutes walk of work that are under a self-imposed embargo. I’d blow my pay packet, and creep out the staff if I went in as often as I wanted.

My obsession with stationery comes from it’s potential. Every pen I buy, every pencil set has the possibility locked inside to become a piece of art, or a story, or a comic. It’s just a case of finding the right pen, the correct pencil, the absolutely perfect block of paper. Once I have that, everything will be perfect, and I can make my masterpiece.

Problem is, I don’t draw half as often as I used to. I’m out of practice, and it shows every time I put pencil to paper. “Bloody stupid pencil” thinks I. “Not letting me draw properly. It keeps going blunt. I need one of those cool Japanese self-sharpening ones.” And so the cycle begins all over again.

I know, I know. The bad craftsman always blames his blahdiblahdiblah. The implement isn’t the problem. I am. While I am endlessly patient and productive when it comes to my writing (for which I can probably thank NanoWrimo, a discipline that actually gave me the habit. Seriously, I’m twitchy and irritable if I don’t write something every day, even if it’s only Twitteration) drawing is a different matter. If it’s not perfect out of the gate, then I lose interest fast. Drawing is much tougher than writing. It’s slower and much more work intensive, and requires a different work ethic.

ellerby — One of the most accurate renditions of the "joys of cartooning ever. Clicky for the full strip.

Put it like this. I’m writing this post on a rattling train bouncing through the Home Counties, and it’s no problem. If I were to try drawing something in the same setting, I’d end up with a page full of jolty scribble. I can’t slot drawing into my daily life in the way I have with my writing. In a connected note, cartoonist Marc Ellerby has just wound up his excellent autobio strip Ellerbisms, partially because it became too tough. It was taking up too much of his time. I can sympathise, and can only bow to his efforts. I wish I could hammer out quality work on an almost daily basis in the way he does. I understand the effort that goes into seemingly effortless cartooning, and that’s partially why I’ve almost given up.

However, never say never again, as I believe Sean Connery once said just before he gave up completely. I still carry notebook, pencil and pens with me, and still scribble when the urge lands on me. And I still indulge in the occasional purchase. Bizarrely, if I’m having a bad day nothing cheers me up more than getting a pack of pens and a notebook. It soothes me in ways I can’t really explain. I love manga-style brush pens, and very nearly squeed myself at the announcement of the Sharpie Liquid Pencil. Imma get me somma them sweet thangs.

And yes, ok, I did spend a very enjoyable couple of hours browsing around the subject of tactical pens yesterday. These are great. They’re designed for the Special Forces wannabe that demands MOAR from his writing implement. It needs to write in all conditions, upside down, underwater, and double as an offensive weapon. Which is why they’re all made of aircraft grade aluminium and have spikes on the end for jabbing into nerve clusters. Or eyes. My personal favourite? The Uzi Tactical Pen. Yes, the Israeli spray-gun makers now make a pen. Look at the crenellations on that bugger. Some of the commenters call it a “DNA collector” with a dry humour you don’t often see on these kind of sites. Grind that into the back of someone’s hand and watch them not thank you for it. Owie.

More on this coming up from an unexpected direction, Readership. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to look for a notebook that’ll double as a life raft.

***UPDATED*** after TLC pointed out that I was extolling the virtues of being motionless rather than office supplies. What a doofus.

What We Did On Our Holidays: Coasting

I finally got around to cutting together the last of the films I shot while on hols in June. It’s the record of a day’s run around the North Norfolk coast. If you imagine East Anglia looking like an ear, we did the top curve. The weather was wildly changeable, but when the sun came out it was quietly lovely. Wells at low tide is always fun, as grounded boats are scattered across the estuary. And the seafood is great.

About Time Out

Finally, at last, and about bleedin’ time. Excuses & Half Truths is delighted to present a film by Rob Wickings and Dominic Wade, shot in one day as part of the Straight 8 screenings of 2009.

The story of the shoot is here. The story of the screening and it’s aftermath is here.

Obviously the film has been tweaked and titles added, but at heart the story remains the one we shot back in March last year. A tale of modern life, and how escape from it can be all too easily permanent.

We couldn’t have done it without our most excellent crew. Without Whom awards go to Lewis Shelbourne as general camera assist, and Hayley Jannesen as AD (and it’s Hayley’s voice you hear at the end).

But it’s Kiki Kendrick who makes the piece. Her performance is extraordinary. And she forced Dom and I to up our game, think things through and generally sort ourselves out. We’re better directors because of her. Kiki, we don’t have the thanks. Her show “Next!” is tearing up the Edinburgh Fringe – if you’re there, then go, and be ready for a cracking piece of theatre.

Ladies and gentlemen. TIME OUT.

Collaboracooking

It’s funny how you get inspired sometimes. We’ve grown some herb fennel this year, which has grown to about a Rob in a single season (1 Rob = a smidge under six foot). TLC decided the time had come to prune it. “Hang on to some of that,” I said. “I’ll do something with it.”

Which of course meant I had to do something with it. There was a pack of fish chunks in the freezer (sold as a fish pie mix) which would go admirably. So, the rough sketch of dinner started scribbling into being.

At dinnertime, then, I started with one of our (small, red) onions, and three cloves from a decent head of our garlic, a stick of celery, some past-their-best baby corns and at TLCs insistence, one of the house chillies, green and sparkling fresh. All finely chopped. That was fried off in a ping-pong ball sized lump of butter and a little olive oil.

When that panful was fragrant and sizzly, I chucked in whatever white wine was left in my glass at the time (guesstimate: just under half a glass), and a couple of tablespoons of creme fraiche. Once that was bubbling, the fish went in. The mix had white fish, salmon and smoked haddock in it, but anything seafoody would do. Prawns and scallops would be nice. About 300g is enough for 2. At the same time, I lobbed in a couple of good handfuls of chopped fennel, and about the same of parsley, as it’s been going nuts in a pot all summer and I have to keep using it.

I clapped a lid over the lot, and let it burble for five minutes or so until the fish was cooked, while I warmed up some soft ribbon noodles and yelled at TLC to get some knives and forks out.

Noodles on plates, followed by heaped ladlefuls of the fish stew. Lime wedges on the side to squeeze over at the table.

It was as you’d expect. Creamy, spicy, fishy, unctuous, hot, sweet, sour and utterly delicious. Most of the base flavours came out of the garden. I couldn’t be happier with this one. It tasted French Indo-Chinese, with the chilli creaminess playing with the delicacy of the herbs.

And it was all TLC’s idea.

Festivale

Earl’s Court is home this week to The Great British Beer Festival, making it the one time in the year that it’s actually acceptable to drink round there. Beer festivals are enormous fun, and if you play it right you can get nicely sozzed while still keeping hold of the niceties of social behaviour. Here are the tips that I and my partners in ale, the Beeranauts, have come up with over the years.

1) Food. As important as a beer glass. There’s a mass of food stalls in the central area, and you can even get a salad if you’re some kind of girly wuss. I would recommend a decent cooked breakfast before you even start. There are plenty of cafes and pubs that open early to serve food on the Earl’s Court Road. Don’t enter the Exhibition Hall without a well and truly lined stomach.

2) Get your bearings. The programme is vital to planning out your day. It tells you plenty about all the beer on offer, the itinerary of bands on the music stage, and where you can find the award-winners. If you’re a bit of a ticker like me, this is essential. Also, if you’re a civilised type, now’s the time to find a table and set camp for the day. We tend not to, which leads to tired legs after a few hours. Some people brought fold-out picnic chairs this year, which seems like a smart idea.

3) Freebies. Keep your eyes open. The Bombardier stand was giving away free t-shirts, and beer mats and other goodies are always up for grabs. Plenty of good merchandising at curiously affordable prices here as well. Don’t just be thinking all your money for the day is going on beer.

4) The half-in-a-pint-glass trick. This has served us well. The first thing you do once you’re in the hall is to buy a glass, £3 deposit, a nice souvenir for the day. It comes in pint, half and third sizes. The Beeranauts always buy pint glasses, and order halves. This way, you can fit in more brews through the day. More importantly, the volunteers behind the pumps always err on the generous side on servings. You always get a bit more than a half, which can add up to almost a full pint over the course of a day.

5) Keep an eye on your glass. If you don’t, some thieving tyke will have it away. That means you have to spend out another £3 if you want to keep going. This happened to me at the end of the day, which I would like to think is the action of some higher power telling me that I needed to stop drinking, and that I didn’t need another commerative pint glass. Shame though. I was enjoying that cider.

6) People-watch. All human life is here, and it’s all getting nicely tweaked on the finest ales known to man. With a camera, or even a notebook and pen, the artist has character material to last for years. The Beeranaut’s personal favourite was the guy in the greasy leather stetson, body warmer and sand-camo combat strides, with no shirt and a wild spill of white hair. King Of The Show. Also, don’t assume this is a man-only thing. Plenty of girls at the show, and they seemed to be on the dark ales too.

7) Move outside your comfort zone. You will never get another opportunity to try different and interesting beers from all over the globe, so try a glass of something you would’t normally. Lager drinkers, try a stout. Bitter boys, get a perry down you. If you think all American beer is watery froth, there’s a stall full of craft brewers ready to prove you wrong with some of the strongest ales of the show. My tastes have changed radically over the past year or so, and that’s down to trying and enjoying new stuff at beerfests in Battersea, Reading and Earl’s Court.

8. Do the day shift. The halls get intolerably crowded in the evenings, so if you can, do a day shift and leave early. I tend to find six hours does it for me anyway, so we’re normally done and heading home by 6ish. Can’t say that I’m really good for anything when I get back, but at least I’m normally in one piece, and happy after a fun, woozy day out.

My recommendations? Well, the Beeranauts did a tour of each other’s home counties, which led to some interesting choices. The treat for us was probably Wood’s Shropshire Lass, which was recommended as a good alternative to the 2010 Champion Ale, Castle Rock Harvest Pale Ale. But I also loved Tunnel’s Late OTT from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, and the dark and complex Felstar Crix Forest from the heart of Essex. I don’t think we had a duff beer all day.

I tweeted everything I drank, so you can see the full list by checking out the hashtag #gbbfun.

Me and Rev Sherlock in our Beer Pride t-shirts

How A Phone Changed My Life

***UPDATED***

to include link to Clive Thompson’s article in Wired on the death of the phone call.

This morning I downloaded the new Arcade Fire album, that I had pre ordered over the weekend (initial review – the sound of the autumn, you need this in your life), then checked my Twitter feed before heading off to the station. On the train, I began to write the post you’re now reading. I have a couple of photos of the cats that I took, cropped, post-processed and will drop onto Flickr at some point this morning.

I did all this on one device. You know the one I’m talking about. The one that was in all the papers a month ago. The one that was irreparably broken and was to be recalled at a cost of billions.

That didn’t happen, although my device is now snug and secure in a free case the manufacturers were good enough to offer to anyone that was having problems with phone reception.

That was not my experience. It has not been the experience of hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. This phone is rock solid. Although I can’t talk on behalf of the worldwide user base for this device, I want to go on record, and state that it is the best phone I’ve ever owned. It grabs and holds onto signal without a problem, and 3G reception is a dream. The only point at which it drops a call is on the train, in the signal-free zone somewhere in Southall which kills a conversation with every phone.

But I didn’t really buy the device to be a phone. Along with the general trend of mobile users, I would much rather text than phone anyway, and the software keyboard on this phone is a joy. I’m up to about 30 wpm on it, both thumbs a blur on the surface.

I bought this device primarily as a street computer, and in that aspect it succeeds admirably. It’s an excellent music and video player, a more than adequate word processor, and an amazing camera. With a couple of application downloads it becomes a powerful image capture hub that does significantly more than the camera I dropped £200 on a few years ago. If I felt the urge, I could even edit video on it. In fact, people already have.

This sounds like a gush from someone blinking in the full glare of the Reality Distortion Field. Yes, I know there are plenty of devices out there that do all this and more, that are not proprietary and locked to one platform. Yes, fine, it was expensive. Yes, fine, I queued for almost six hours to get my mitts on one.

You know what? Don’t care. Completely worth it. If I need to check my email, look up something on Wikipedia, while away a dull ten minutes with a game, then this is the device I reach for. My Blackbook is currently on loan to a greater cause (more on that later) and with this and my little Linux netbook, I’ve hardly missed it. It gets used every day. It will get used every day. It’s the most 21st century thing I own. Until the next one.

Please, feel free to hit me up in the comments and tell me why your phone is better than mine. I’d love to know what I’ve been doing wrong!

The Missing Bit

The announcement yesterday from Jeremy Hunt that the UK Film Council is to be abolished came as one heck of a shock. After a couple of appalled, sweary outbursts on Facebook and Twitter, I had a nose at the Wikipedia entry and had a bit of a think about what it is and what it does.

Film-makers like Michael Booth don’t seem too bothered. In fact, he and many others are looking on it as good news. Another X&HTeam-mate, Nick Scott, has also pointed out that his major source of funding isn’t the Film Council. It’s Full Tilt Poker. Both these gentlemen have found innovative ways to get their films funded and out to their audiences that don’t include an agency they viewed as bloated, corrupt, and in Michael’s case a shill for US interests.

It’s true that for the kind of film makers that I count as friends, the end of the Film Council can be met with a cautious cheer. Accusations of cronyism and snobbery have been rife since the council was formed ten years ago. You’re fine as long as you want to make a certain kind of film, with a certain approach. Let’s look at the kind of films that have benefitted from Film Council funding over the past decade.

Continue reading The Missing Bit

Author: Rob