Category: Blog

Interesting times if you like music or film.

First of all, some news that has retained it’s power to shock over the past week or so. Lord Mandelson, ignoring the eight months of work that has gone into the report on Digital Britain, has decided that penalties for persistent file-sharers should include shutting off their internet connection.

This move is so wildly flawed that I’m not even sure where to begin. Let’s start with the fact that it was announced soon after Mandelson was wined and dined at a holiday villa in Corfu by David Geffen and Steven Spielberg. No conflict of interest there then. No openings for accusations of government policy being swayed by the interests of big business.

Let’s continue by noting the opposition to the plan from privacy campaigners, ISPs, the artists that this bill is allegedly supposed to protect, and Labour Party MPs. Included in these dissenting voices is Tom Watson, until recently the man in charge of the government’s internet policy.

Let’s further note that these new proposals could fall foul of the law. Simon Davies of Privacy International has said:

“This proposal fundamentally reverses the onus of proof. It establishes systemic accusation. It is fraught with technical impossibility, it invites circumvention and creates a major online conflict between rights holders and users. And these are fundamental rights that are being violated.”

Larry Whitty, chairman of Consumer Focus, further makes the point:

“Cutting people off the internet for allegedly infringing copyright is disproportionate, and to do so without giving consumers the right to challenge the evidence against them undermines fundamental rights to a fair trial.”

Digital Britain contains largely sensible and pragmatic approaches to the problem of file-sharing, and to all intents and purposes has been ridden over roughshod by business interests who see dropping profits, and can only attempt to combat the threat by criminalising their customer base. Despite the fact that a lot of the research they tout to strengthen their case is based on numbers that are not just wrong, but appear to have been made up.

This post on No Rock And Roll Fun counters Mandelson’s arguments and demolishes them point by point. To my mind, what we have here is an opportunistic landgrab that’s been heavily influenced by external interests, ill-thought out, rushed through and potentially illegal. So pretty much par for the course for media and internet legislation from this government, then.

Another piece of flawed legislation pertaining to new media was the 1984 Video Recordings Act, AKA The Video Nasty Act. Famously, it empowered the BBFC to apply certification to home entertainment, and banned a ton of cheap and dirty horrors that are now beginning to return to UK shelves. The Act is old, and really no longer fit for purpose. In recent years it has caused independent film-makers all kinds of problems. You have to pay the BBFC for every minute of content that goes onto a DVD if you want it to be certificated, and therefore legal to sell in the UK. All the extras, any little shorts, even text and audio commentaries. All of this can run into thousands of pounds of unwarranted expense, and act as a fairly major deterrent to getting your film onto disc and legally into the UK market.

Imagine the shock and surprise in the UK indiefilm community then, when it was ruled that the Act was rushed through so quickly that it was never properly enacted. It’s not law. Which means that for a giddy few months, we are free to make and market unrated films without any fear of prosecution, or without the financial burden hanging over us from the BBFC. This bit from The Times tells the story, although the headline is hardly what I’d call unbiased journalism. The Melon Farmers have a bit more of an objective view.

Of course, the danger is that the government now has a chance to strengthen the bill, and clamp down even harder on a market that is one of the most censored and constrain in Europe. There is a chance for fundamental reform, and as per usual it’s up to us to make our voice heard.

There’s a Facebook group. Of course there’s a Facebook group. There’s always a bloody Facebook group. But it’s coming up under the auspices of the Pleased Sheep guys, who know what they’re talking about when it comes to these issues. I have already shown my support. Are you there yet?

Finally, another ray of good news, which could become a fundamental switch in the way we consume media, or at least music. Despite all logic and reason, Apple approved the Spotify iPhone App, and it went live on Monday. This is astonishing news. The App means that with a 3G or Wi-Fi connection, millions of tracks become available instantly. You can create playlists of your favourites that can be accessed offline, when you’re on the tube, for example, and it seems to work pretty flawlessly. No more worries about filling your hard disc. There are terabytes of music at your fingertips.

It costs, of course, and this is where things get interesting. The app won’t work without a £10/month subscription, although the desktop app that’s been doing grand service for me over the past few months has a free, ad-supported version. But this is a brilliant move, and paves the way to a subscription-based service where money starts going back into the industry, to the artists, and piracy becomes less of a problem. Research has shown that consumers are more than willing to pay a fair price for their music, and 33p a day seems pretty darn fair to me.

There are caveats, of course. Classical buffs will find their choices a bit variable, and as I’ve mentioned before, there are questions about royalty payments to artists. But let’s try and be positive. There have been concerns about Spotify’s ability to monetise the service, and that question has been answered by the flood of people signing up for Premium. We may be seeing the birth of the answer to the music industry’s woes. And if that gets them off our back legislatively speaking, then I’ll be happy.

Well, who’da thunk it. Code Grey will be screening at the 29th Cambridge Film Festival, as part of the Best of the Cambridge Super 8 Festival strand. It’s on the 25th of September at 1:30 in the afternoon. Here’s the whole programme.

This is an unexpected pleasure, and obviously very good news. I’m tempted to go down and show a bit of support, not the least because the rest of the programme looks downright intriguing. I’m especially interested to see how the documentary films work out.

Also, a browse through the schedule as a whole shows a lot of good stuff being screened, including the new Shane Meadows, Dominic Murphy’s excellent White Lightnin’, and some FrightFest alumni, including Pontypool and Hierro.

On the subject of Pontypool, the BBC World Service has released an audio version of the film on the iPlayer. This is not quite as weird as it sounds, as the film is set in a radio station, and is about the viral qualities of language. Get your headphones out for this one, people…

AND ABOUT BLOODY TIME.

So, let me see if I’m getting this right. Legislation is being mooted by an unelected plutocrat that would effectively criminalise one Briton in eight. Anti-piracy association FACT are pushing for no-trial prosecutions due to the sheer weight of numbers of people they plan to put through the courts. It would seem that now is the time to either bone up on copyright law, or buy shares in prison construction companies.

The launch of the Pirate Party in the UK couldn’t have been better timed then, really. Their manifesto gladdens my heart, and I’d just like to quickly quote from the front page:

In recent years we have seen an unprecedented onslaught on the rights of the individual. We are treated like criminals when we share entertainment digitally, even though this is just the modern equivalent of lending a book or a DVD to a friend. We look on helpless as our culture and heritage, so important for binding our society together, is eroded and privatised.

Now there is a democratic alternative. We, the people, can take back our rights. We, the people, can overturn the fat cats and the corrupt MPs who hold our nation’s cultural treasures to ransom, ignore our democratic wishes and undermine our civil liberties.

The internet has turned our world into a global village. Ideas can be shared at incredible speed, and at negligible cost. The benefits are plain to see, but as a result, many vested interests are threatened. The old guard works hard to preserve their power and their privilege, so we must work hard for our freedom. The Pirate Party offers an alternative to the last century’s struggles between political left and political right. We are open to anyone and everyone who wants to live in a fair and open society.

I can’t agree more. I’m sick and tired of the thoughtless and bloodyminded manner in which punishment and retribution is being sought from movie and music moguls who can’t see past the blunt end of their revenue streams. Spotify and programs of that ilk are not the full answer (just look at the disturbing evidence that if you’re not on a major label, then your royalty rate plummets) but it’s a start, and significantly better than assuming that your entire client base is stealing from you. The approach the Pirate Party seem to be taking is one that actively seeks out innovation and practical solutions to a game where the rules, scorecard and goalposts are changing at a dizzying rate. Rather that than the one we have at the moment, where legislation is led by outside interests and is frequently rushed through, ill-conceived or plain wrong.

I know which side I’m on.

It would have been tempting to let the dust settle. It would have been easy just to try and get a little distance, to take a breath, to allow for a pause.

No. No, we shall not do that. There is work to be done, and the time to do it is right fucking here and right fucking now. We have a film to fix, and in the name of The God That Walks Between The Sprockets, we shall mend it and send it out into the world. This we promise, my friends. This we swear.

*sigh* OK, vent over. That needed doing. I feel better now. So, a progress report.

The film has been retransferred, and we have taken out the offending shot (the best part of ten seconds by Dom’s calculations) and resync…ered to the available soundtrack. The ending that we’d storyboarded is, of course, missing. We will have to sort out a half day of reshoots – although technically speaking as those shots never made it onto film in the first place I believe the word I’m looking for is pickups. The process has been complicated somewhat by the fact that Kiki has gone blonde. But this is OK. We shall deal in an appropriate, adult and manly fashion, and we shall not burst into tears.

Simon Aitken has a nicely objective view of the events at Straight 8 on his blog, which I urge you all to read.

The work continues. That is all.

A little something on the nature of celebrity, and identity.

“It is normal to give away a little of one’s life in order not to lose it all.”

Albert Camus.

“Table for one, please.”

The maitre d’ looks up from his diary at the two men standing in front of him. They are remarkably similar in appearance. Dressed in black, hair high and stiff with wax, artfully tousled. Very tall. Very pale. Almost translucent.

“For — one, sir?”

The taller of the two crooks his head.

“That’s right. My friend here won’t be staying. He just needs to use the rest room. If that’s ok.”

The maitre d’ blinks, and regards the two men for a moment. It’s a quiet night. If he had any excuse, he would have lied to them, told them they were fully booked, that a table tonight was impossible. Their stillness and composure bother him at a primal level, beyond the rational.

But the room is half-empty tonight, and the receipts for the month are down. He does not have the luxury of lizard-brain instinct when his business is wobbling over a pit.

“Of course, sir. This way.”

The two men note the placement of the table (“a little close to the kitchen, don’t you think?”) then move off to the rest room. The maitre d’ quickly clears one place setting, and watches them as they walk away. They were disturbingly alike, yet each carried themselves in a completely different way. Side by side, they were easy to tell apart. Yet if one were to choose to impersonate the other, who could tell what mischief could be done?

It would end in tears, the maitre d’ thinks. These two gentlemen are involved in games that can only end in tears.

The wash room is empty. The two men take up position, and for a minute there is only the sound of water on porcelain.

“Have you thought what you’re going to do yet?” They stand at attention, facing the tiled wall ahead, not looking at each other as they speak.

“No. I thought something simple. Pasta, maybe. She likes pasta.”

“Mmm. Simple. Good. A couple of bottles of red, though. You know how she drinks when she’s upset.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

The taller man lets a puff of air out through his nose, a huff of something that could have been amusement.

“Have you thought what you’re going to say yet?”

“The usual. It’s not her, it’s me. I can’t be the man that she wants. I thought I might make up an affair.”

“Well, do what you must. Try not to be too cruel. I do still think highly of her.”

The other one looks over now, his grey eyes calm, analytical. “But not highly enough that you’ll do this yourself.”

“No. No, I suppose you’re right.”

They finish and zip up at the same time. The other one quickly washes his hands, then steps to the door. “Well, then. I’ll be off.”

“Good luck.”

The other one looks quizzically at his companion. “The key?”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” He digs in his pocket, tosses over a single Yale, unadorned by any kind of key chain. “Will you be long, do you think?”

“I’ll be done by the time you’re onto coffee. See you soon.”

He nods, and the other one leaves. He moves to the sink, and begins to slowly wash his hands.

Behind him, a cubicle flushes, and a short, dark man in a good suit comes out. He takes a place at the next sink. He glances over. Then again, a comedy double-take. He struggles for a moment with an inner dilemma, and comes to a conclusion.

“Excuse me,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind, this is a bit of an awkward place but — you’re Calum Fry, aren’t you?”

He allows his shoulders to droop for a moment, then straightens, and fixes the stranger with a cool, grey gaze.

“Yes, that’s right. Hello.”

“Oh. Wow. Erm, hello. I’m a fan, well, my wife, she’s a really big fan, and, well, blimey, wait till I tell her who I met in the bogs!”

“It’ll be quite a story.”

The stranger brays out an abrupt laugh. Then something comes to him, and the smile drops away.

“Wait a minute, though. Aren’t you playing tonight? In Hammersmith? That’s a bit of a bus ride from here, Calum.”

“Yes, it is. So it’s just as well I went on ten minutes ago.”

Silence, as the little stranger soaks up the meaning.

“Then that guy you were talking to, sorry, I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t really help it…”

“Is a split, yes. I have two. For busy moments in the schedule.”

“Oh.” A quiet, wondering sound. “I know a lot of the celebs have them now, keep the paps off their back, means they can do loads of parties, but I never thought someone like you…”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Right. Yeah, I think I am. Calum, I hope you don’t mind — is it expensive?”

“Very.”

“Does it hurt?”

And Calum Fry looks at the reflection in the mirror, and has to think before he can reply.

“Hard to tell yet.”

And he flicks his cold, grey gaze onto the smaller man, who flinches back at its coldness. At its inhumanity.

“Right, well, nice to meet you, I won’t take up any more of your time, good luck tonight! With erm, everything.”

And he’s backing away even as he says that, and he’s almost running as he goes through the washroom door.

Calum Fry turns back to the sink. With a soapy finger, he draws a circle on the mirror. Then another, intersecting it shallowly. Then a third, forming a kind of loose inverted triangle. He looks at the tiny rounded section in the middle. The fraction that was untouched, unsullied.

Festival season was coming up, and he was booked so solidly that his management were talking about a fourth split. Another circle, and the bit in the middle gets smaller.

Somewhere under a bridge, Calum gently plucks a guitar and sings a song about a girl he used to know. Somewhere near a park, Calum stirs a pot of simmering farfalle while a girl sips wine and chatters about her day. He waits for the right moment to interrupt her.

In a restaurant, Calum looks at the three dots tattooed onto the web between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, and tries to remember whether that means he is the original or not.

And he finds he can no longer look into the mirror, for the face that he finds there is not one that he properly recognises.

Due to work and social commitments getting in the way, it was this afternoon before I could sit and watch the final episode of Children Of Earth. It has been a weekend without Twitter, and with due care and attention taken to news feeds and newspaper reviews.

As Torchwood began with Gwen Cooper, it is only fitting that we should too. She has made the very point of this season very, very clear indeed.

“There’s one thing I always meant to ask Jack, back in the old days. I wanted to know about that Doctor of his. The man who appears out of nowhere and saves the world. Except sometimes he doesn’t. All those times in history when there was no sign of him, I wanted to know, why not? But I don’t need to ask anymore, I know the answer now. Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet, and turn away in shame.”

Torchwood has always been a monster show, regardless of it’s reputation as a gore-driven shagfest. At it’s worst, it fell victim to the monster-of-the-week syndrome that did for much better shows. Cybergirls, sex vampires and giant bugs are not the building blocks of what I would call an adult SF show. That, thankfully, is no longer the case. The show has shed it’s fan-service baggage and grown up, and it’s done something more.

Children Of Earth redefined the image of a monster. Although the 456 are indeed horrible (even more so for never being seen clearly, something thrashing and tentacled half-glimpsed through toxic fog) the true monsters of the piece were much, much closer to home. The satire of a world government prepared to capitulate so completely to a global threat as to give away it’s children was broad, sure, but in the past couple of months we have started to see just what excesses our elected officials are capable of, and how a perfectly reasonable starting argument can quickly spiral so utterly out of control that the resulting explosion can leave us all with shrapnel wounds.

The timing was almost too perfect. RTD must have been jumping for joy at the synchronicity of it all.

(Unlike poor old Charlie Stross, who has seen his last couple of story ideas rapidly overtaken by real-world events. You can see why people claim that science fiction is dead.)

But there’s something else that Gwen says in that speech, and that’s the crux of the series, and in a way Russell Davies’ whole stint in the Whoniverse.

Let’s talk about Jack Harkness. In many ways, he is as powerful as the guy in the blue box. Ageless. Immortal. Indestructable. Killed on average once an episode during Children Of Earth. It’s not surprising that John Barrowman has his resurrection gasp down so well. He’s had lots of practice.

I see Captain Jack as the true monster of Torchwood. He has lived too long, and seen too much to be the hero that we’re supposed to see. Jack Harkness is no longer human, and is not subject to human morals or impulses. Sure, he can feel love, and respond to it. But he does so in a way that does not make us see anything but his utter self-absorbtion.

Take, for example, the assault on the 456 that let to Ianto’s death (I’m sorry, if that sentence is a spoiler then WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?) was typical Big Torchwood Rescue, with the difference that oops, this time the speeches and posturing didn’t work. And witness the reaction when Jack realises that he’s screwed up and put his boyfriend in the line of fire. The response to the chiding of the 456:

“You said you would fight.”

“I take it back. I take it all back. But not him.”

Not the response of a hero, of a man who moments before had said “an injury to one is an injury to all.”

Or check out the way he will willingly sacrifice his own grandson, with barely a tear. Without a word to his daughter. Without more than a feeble attempt to argue the point, or to see if someone else could be found. There’s regret there, but no genuine sense of grief.

At the end of the show, the man the planet needs more than anyone, the man with the most experience in the extra-terrestrial, disappears. Quite literally, beams aboard an ore freighter somewhere in the Oort Cloud and leaves behind the devastation he admitted was partially his fault. Rather than finding some kind of penance in helping to rebuild a world that is surely teetering on the brink of revolution (you’re telling me that the world-wide abduction of millions of children by their governments could be hushed up? Really?) he makes a CGI exit, leaving everyone to fend for themselves.

Just like his friend, the Doctor.

RTD has frequently alluded to the way the Gallifreyan will appear, play a part, then leave everyone else to clear up after him. Characters as diametrically opposed to each other as The Master and Sarah Jane Smith know and understand that if there is one thing the Doctor does not do – or even understand – it’s commitment.

Jack Harkness would appear to be of the same mind. Perhaps this is one of the things that happens when you become immortal. The ability to distance oneself from horror and despair in time, in space, in emotion.

Certainly, they are both used to leaving a swathe of corpses in their wake. Jack even goes so far as to list the casualties. Watch “Fragments”, the History of Torchwood episode that seems to have been placed in the middle of an climactic end-of-season run purely to make the point that being around the immortal is dangerous, if not fatal. He’s seen a lot of people die in his time. The knowledge that you will outlive everyone you will ever know has to do some funny things to your head.

The message is simple. Don’t trust the non-human. They will fuck with you, and leave you just when you need them the most.

Which leads to the question – where next? There’s been plenty of speculation that this is the end of Torchwood. That’s nonsense. Children Of Earth was the highest rated show of the week, pulling in audiences of 5.5 million without taking into account recordings and iPlayer viewings. That figure will rocket. The BBC will not ignore numbers like that.

And there are plenty of loose ends that could be pulled into some really interesting storytelling. Leave the space opera to the Doctor. I want to see Torchwood deal with a planet that can no longer ignore the fact that it is not alone. I want to see a Cardiff-based Alien Nation. I want to see Torchwood do The Wire.

Because let’s face it. The Hub is gone. What’s containing the Rift now? I want to see people like Gwen and Rhys, Lois and yes, even the eminently slappable Agent Johnson have to deal with a flood of exter-threats pouring out of that crack in the real without the intervention of the all-knowing supersexgod that cannot die. I want the threat to humanity dealt with by humans. I want to see the whole thing blown wide open. Weevils in the streets. No retcons. Screw Torchwood as the worst-kept secret in Cardiff.

I want Torchwood and U.N.I.T to become S.H.I.E.L.D. They’ve already got the helicarrier. They are the last, best hope against a cruel universe that sees us as a juicy resource. Dinner or drugs, fuel or fuck-buddies. Us against them. A world at war, and the frontline on Cardiff Bay.

And I only want Harkness back on the understanding that he is not, repeat not to be trusted. Him, or the other guy. Anyone that changes their appearance that often has got something to hide.

Enjoy please, this lovely little piece from GeorgyGirl on the WFMU blog, which hooks into what I’ve been talking about with regards to why people garden quite nicely.

(in case you’re wondering, Sam and Dave are the names of her two plots of earth.)

Things have happened and there is therefore news.

The fine folk at the Cambridge International Super 8 Festival have added Code Grey to their Best of the Fest touring roster. This has seen a selection of their most popular films screened in places as diverse as Hungary, France, Beijing and Weston Colville. It’s an honour to be a part of this rolling circus of goodies, and we’re deeply chuffed to have been asked. So who knows, perhaps you could soon see Code Grey on a big screen near you!

In the NO NEWS folder, we’re still waiting on a screening date for Time Out on this year’s Straight 8 screenings. All I can tell you currently is what’s been put on the Rushes Soho Shorts programme, which is that it will be screening on either the 27th or 29th at the Curzon Mayfair, or the 28th at the Renoir. All screenings start at 9.15. PROMISE, as soon as I know, there will be a breaking News Alert. I might even spring for a scrolling banner.

Finally, the Sick Puppies will be at Frightfest this year, Clive all weekend, me on the Saturday (Giallo! Pontypool! Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl!). No product to show, alas, just chillin with the horror community, and commiserating with our mate and X&HTeam-mate Simon Aitken, who didn’t make the deadline for this year with his excellent first feature, Blood And Roses. There’s always the Halloween all-nighter, though, right?

Right, I think that’s yer lot for now. How are you doing?

Taking a little time out before things start to kick off for me again next week. So, yes, things have been a little quiet. However, I recommend checking out the site on Sunday for new thrills.

In the meantime, let me entertain you with a little song and dance.

(Via PCL LinkDump.)