History 104
If you’ve fast forwarded ahead to this post because of a previous comment I made about having the history lesson finished by now, you’re going to be disappointed. It turns out I lied!
Due to the following things it was not physical possible for me to get fingers to keyboard:
Beer, Chinese takeaway, Babies (not mine), Beer, Motorbikes, Guns, Work, Beer, Aliens, Explosives, and Beer
By way of apologies I would like to issue this short statement
“Beer is beyond reproach, never, ever; let a bad word be said about beer.”
Anyway I’ve wasted enough page space blathering already, so back to the history.
Twists of fate are a funny thing. Sometimes they happen so fast, you’re arse about backwards and shooting off in a totally new direction before you even have a chance to comprehend what’s going on. Other times they’re a slow a graceful arc, steadily but surely turning you towards a new path. Often they’re a little from column A, and a little from column B. A roller coaster with a gentle swooping bend into a killer corkscrew.
So I’m watching TV. No wait that’s a lie, I’m killing time with the TV, channel hopping. Now to be fair this doesn’t take long. I don’t have cable or satellite and I have to change the aerial to get a viewable version of channel 5 and the local TV station. But never-the-less this is what I’m doing when I catch a glimpse of something through the snow on the local TV channel. I squint and try to make it out. I can’t, but my interest is piqued. Slowly I haul my butt off the sofa, drag myself to the other side of the lounge and change the aerial. Instantly the snow vanishes and the show comes into focus, I crawl back to the sofa and with bemused interest watch this little documentary for the next 45 minutes. As soon as it is over I pile into the computer room and fire up ‘Bruce’.
What have I seen on this lazy night that suddenly jolts me into action? The possible answer to all my DV woes, that’s what!
A 45 minute documentary called ‘The Start of Adventures’ that details the history of a local group who make a zero budget sci-fi show for the local TV network. The astounding thing is they’ve been doing this for years. The awesome thing is they film it on Broadcast quality DV! That’s right the camera I’m after and people who know how to use it, and they’re local! Clearly the fates are smiling on me.
Quickly Bruce gets up to speed, I open IE, pull up Google and I’m off. These people are Sci-fi fans and Sci-fi fans live on the net, it shouldn’t take long to find their web page and those all important contact details… An hour later and I’ve found precisely nothing. I fire an email off to John. John is our resident computer Michael Bolton impersonator (feel free to pick your own term for computer genius, but while he does know a lot about computers John bears an even more uncanny resemblance to Michael Bolton) There’s nothing on the net that John can’t find. He’s bound to turn up something.
The next day I have an email waiting for me from John that basically says WTF? So after work I turn up on his door step and explain in greater detail the events of the previous night. With a vague idea what I’m on about John opens the net and the search begins.
Two hours, many search engines and an unbelievable amount of keywords later we’ve still found nothing except an incredibly out of date website for the local TV channel. In a last ditch attempt to salvage something from the search John fires off an email to the local channel asking for the contact details we now so desperately crave. We’re now on that gentle swooping bend!
Time goes by, quite a lot of time. I finish draft 3, I start working on draft 4. Summer comes, fun days are had at the beach and in the park. We’re no closer to actually making a film than we were a year ago. The script has become a solitary struggle which once enthusiastic people occasionally ask me about at the pub. Then out of the blue I get a call from John. Almost a full 6 months after we mailed the local channel for contact details, he’s had a reply. Not from the local channel, but from the guys themselves, from ‘Beacon Productions’. They’ve invited us to filming at the weekend. Here comes the corkscrew!
Due to the following things it was not physical possible for me to get fingers to keyboard:
Beer, Chinese takeaway, Babies (not mine), Beer, Motorbikes, Guns, Work, Beer, Aliens, Explosives, and Beer
By way of apologies I would like to issue this short statement
“Beer is beyond reproach, never, ever; let a bad word be said about beer.”
Anyway I’ve wasted enough page space blathering already, so back to the history.
Twists of fate are a funny thing. Sometimes they happen so fast, you’re arse about backwards and shooting off in a totally new direction before you even have a chance to comprehend what’s going on. Other times they’re a slow a graceful arc, steadily but surely turning you towards a new path. Often they’re a little from column A, and a little from column B. A roller coaster with a gentle swooping bend into a killer corkscrew.
So I’m watching TV. No wait that’s a lie, I’m killing time with the TV, channel hopping. Now to be fair this doesn’t take long. I don’t have cable or satellite and I have to change the aerial to get a viewable version of channel 5 and the local TV station. But never-the-less this is what I’m doing when I catch a glimpse of something through the snow on the local TV channel. I squint and try to make it out. I can’t, but my interest is piqued. Slowly I haul my butt off the sofa, drag myself to the other side of the lounge and change the aerial. Instantly the snow vanishes and the show comes into focus, I crawl back to the sofa and with bemused interest watch this little documentary for the next 45 minutes. As soon as it is over I pile into the computer room and fire up ‘Bruce’.
What have I seen on this lazy night that suddenly jolts me into action? The possible answer to all my DV woes, that’s what!
A 45 minute documentary called ‘The Start of Adventures’ that details the history of a local group who make a zero budget sci-fi show for the local TV network. The astounding thing is they’ve been doing this for years. The awesome thing is they film it on Broadcast quality DV! That’s right the camera I’m after and people who know how to use it, and they’re local! Clearly the fates are smiling on me.
Quickly Bruce gets up to speed, I open IE, pull up Google and I’m off. These people are Sci-fi fans and Sci-fi fans live on the net, it shouldn’t take long to find their web page and those all important contact details… An hour later and I’ve found precisely nothing. I fire an email off to John. John is our resident computer Michael Bolton impersonator (feel free to pick your own term for computer genius, but while he does know a lot about computers John bears an even more uncanny resemblance to Michael Bolton) There’s nothing on the net that John can’t find. He’s bound to turn up something.
The next day I have an email waiting for me from John that basically says WTF? So after work I turn up on his door step and explain in greater detail the events of the previous night. With a vague idea what I’m on about John opens the net and the search begins.
Two hours, many search engines and an unbelievable amount of keywords later we’ve still found nothing except an incredibly out of date website for the local TV channel. In a last ditch attempt to salvage something from the search John fires off an email to the local channel asking for the contact details we now so desperately crave. We’re now on that gentle swooping bend!
Time goes by, quite a lot of time. I finish draft 3, I start working on draft 4. Summer comes, fun days are had at the beach and in the park. We’re no closer to actually making a film than we were a year ago. The script has become a solitary struggle which once enthusiastic people occasionally ask me about at the pub. Then out of the blue I get a call from John. Almost a full 6 months after we mailed the local channel for contact details, he’s had a reply. Not from the local channel, but from the guys themselves, from ‘Beacon Productions’. They’ve invited us to filming at the weekend. Here comes the corkscrew!
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