Bursts of colour on a grey day

Today's blog is very colourful, inspired by Birmingham School Of Art's Degree show (Margaret Street on the doorstep of the delicious Birmingham Food Fair). My pictures don't do justice to some of the work, so here's a couple of snaps of some of the bigger pieces which stood out. The show is on until Friday at the school on Maragret Street (stop by the international food festival on your way out, I did!). I want to mention a few in particular: Sophie Court produced my favourite pieces in the show - the lady in glasses bottom right is one. I also liked Wendy Derrick's pixellated paintings, being greeted by Donation for the Blessing of England by Edgar Askelovic, Natalie O'Keefe's silence series photographs , Lauren Quirke's composite images and Kyriaki Vrasida's tendrilled objects. Some more pics are on my flikr but I recommend heading down in person before the show closes on Sunday 19^th.

Film fun:
The last night was the opening night of the Edinburgh Intl Film Festival. I say this with a tinge of sadness as the last time I missed an EIFF Tony Blair was still Prime Minister but everyone was hoping for the best after he went, The Simpson's Movie was still hotly anticipated and I was convinced that this was the year the BBC realised that the next film 200...presenter should be me! Aaah what an idealistic time 2007 was!

So if you're in Edinburgh, sampling the myriad delights of the festival's films, special strands and late night arguments in the bar about the whether you can look at a pair of scissors again after antichrist over a drink in the Filmhouse, Cameo or any other bar that’ll take you, I doff my hat to you in vicarious solidarity.

Having missed quite a lot of cinema lately I am playing cath up this week with the primary coloured Gnomeo & Juliet. Having missed Samson and Delilah on Film4 I am planning on rewatching it As I wished I could straight after seeing it at the cinema the first time. And finally, I will be going once again to The beautiful Electric Cinema to see Kaboom. spurred on by the dual recommendations of Cornerhouse’s podcast (nice Heathers shoutout Rachel), and David Austen’s wide eyed anticipation.

I am also counting the minutes until I get to see Bridesmaids featuring some of my favourite comic actress Kristen (everything she does) Wiig, Maya (Away We Go- EIFF 2009) Rudolph and Mellissa (no chef will ever be more awesome than Sookie St James in the Gilmore Girls) McCarthy.

Very theatrical dahling:
July in Manchester is a very busy time not only because I shall be working on That Day We Sang at Manchester International Festival (god closes a festival window and opens a freaking ginormous door) but because some of my longtime collaborators colleagues have shows on as part of the Manchester Fringe organisation, Not Part Of. Details of Lucia Cox's show Blackbird and The Myth of Escape, a play starring Andy Palmer are linked.

Organised Chaos Productions latest show Peacefully At Home will be at the Buxton festival after successful dates in Manchester. It’s written by a former winner of the prestigious Bruntwood playwrighting competition Nicola Schofield.

Stuff my other friends have been doing: They’re on the site for a reason - They’re really talented!

Leeanne Stoddart’s book will be coming out in the autumn – keep your eyes peeled for details about her book launch

Donkey Stone Films – revamped their website.

Elliot Binns may still be looking for a writing partner for this intriguing project.

Finally, here is a link to Phil Meachem’s youtube stream featuring trailers for his previous and forthcoming projects.

Thanks for reading folks, I'll hopefully be back soon, in the meantime, please follow me on twitter @shegeekmcr – I’m way more succinct and my pic is currently that great literary character The Bogwoppit.

Street Design Competition

Hi all,

Recieved this email below and thought it might be of interest to some of you

Calling all street artists, writers and vandals! Channel 4’s Street Summer is here! Enter your work with Don’t Panic to win big - http://www.dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/

Channel 4 and Don’t Panic are running a design competition on Don’t Panic Online for all budding designers, graffers and street artists to come up with an original, creative design. The winners of the competition will have their design used as an advertisement for Channel 4’s Street Summer schedule of programming, as well as having their design printed on postcards and the Don’t Panic Poster to be distributed around the UK.

The focus of the competition is to find new talent to help promote Street Summer across the UK in the only way which makes sense; using the competition winners’ designs as massive outdoor advertisements.

The winning entries need to represent one of the five elements of street culture which the Street Summer season is featuring: street dance, urban sports, spoken word, hip hop and street art.

Entrants will represent their region and the winning piece for each region will appear in a major city from their part of the UK.

The 7 competition regions are:

London - http://dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/london

South East - http://dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/southeast

South West - http://dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/southwest

Midlands and East - http://dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/midlands_and_east

Wales - http://dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/wales

North - http://dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/north

Scotland - http://dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/scotland

Prizes for the winner include:

- £300 payment for the use of their artwork.

- The winning design displayed on a premium outdoor space for two weeks (04th August to 18th August).

- The opportunity to work with an established street artist from their region of the UK.

- The winning design featured on the Don’t Panic Poster and on postcards distributed across the UK in Don’t Panic Packs.

- Winners will be featured in a short film about their work.

The competition will run from 13th June to 17th July. Voting will run from 01st July to 17th July.

To enter go to http://www.dontpaniconline.com/street_summer/.

I wish I understood German...

...but I definitely think it fits in with my love of short film and the oscars.

My Very Own Film - Please Support...

Production is moving along with my film, David Vaughan : Black On The Canvas, which I am producing with the guys from Donkey Stone Films.

We have launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.com/vaughanthefilm to help raise the profile of the film & and build up a fund for music rights, trips to meet contributors, funding application fees and so on.

Please click here if you want to see more about the project, receive updates, stills and to donate.

You can of course also support us by following us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks

Es

My cinematic adventure challenge

You know all about the Best Picture Nominees, and I in my mission watched them all. But the Oscars overlook so many films. The Kermodes addresses this from a critical standpoint, but what about those films which will be worth a watch but not critical darlings?

Here’s my pick of what you should watch instead of the overly publicised 10 Best Picture nominees:

127 Hours : Monsters – British director Gareth Edwards wrote, shot, directed and created the visual effects for this film about a journalist, tasked with accompanying his boss’s daughter to safety, sharing a precarious journey with his charge, where death could come at any second and normal life is both tantalisingly close and hopelessly distant.

Black Swan : Soulboy – Any film with Martin Compston is worth a ticket, this one has him dancing to a Northern Soul beat in 1970s Wigan.

The Fighter: Sons of Cuba – A moving documentary set in the legendary Havana Boxing Academy, a boarding school that hand picks 9-year-old boys, and turns them into the best boxers in the world.

Inception : Scott Pilgrim vs The World - Superb visual style cleverly meshing the lust of a dysfunctional teenager within a comic book/video game setting.

The Kids Are Alright : Abel – A young boy takes on paternal responsibilities when his father abandons the family. The kids may not be alright but they try to cope as best they can.

The King's Speech : Jackboots on Whitehall – An alternative British period piece in which Winston Churchill hides out in lawless Scotland, as an all-star cast voices an alternative animated history of WWII.

The Social Network: Catfish – The other Facebook Movie. Cynical and enlightening, this reminds you how little we really know our online “friends”, as a photographer whose ego is massaged gets embroiled with a mystery artist and her family.

Toy Story 3 : A Town Called Panic – A fun, frenetic Belgian animation, about a Cowboy and Indian’s surprise birthday plans for Horse, which backfire as they attempt to make a homemade gift, destroying their house in the process.

True Grit : The Last Rites of Ransom Pride – In 1910, a young woman tries to take the body of her murdered lover back home to Texas for burial ... with all guns blazing. Stylishly tipping its Stetson to the likes of Peckinpah, Leone and Tarantino, and featuring a genius cast.

Winter's Bone: Winter’s Bone – Watch it or watch it again. It was awesome and the least well known of the Best Picture Nominees. Great performances, I reckon Maddie Ross would concede that Ree has True Grit in hunting down her father to save her family whilst negotiating the underbelly of her rural community.

I hope these choices give you food for thought and much entertainment, once you’ve engaged this spirit of cinematic adventure – seek out the Foreign Language, Documentary & Short film nominees as they are probably all better than the majority of the big 10 and probably worked harder for their nominations (except Biutiful which I’m slightly reluctant to see).

Happy viewing!

Oscars 2011 predictions

• Best Picture. Toy Story 3 was the best of these IMHO, but I would be stunned if it won. Next for me was Winter's Bone. I still haven't seen True Grit (I'm watching it on sunday-very close to the wire!) but my 3 horses in this race are Inception (if Titantic can be LA Confidential this is possible), The Kings Speech and The Social Network. I'm going to go for The Kings Speech based on number of nominations although my heart thinks The Social Network may win.

• Actor in a Leading Role. Colin Firth for the win

• Actress in a Leading Role. Natalie Portman - the first of my "and the award for dedication to getting thin". A fantastic performance and a deserved win. Very glad Jennifer Lawrence was nominated.

• Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale - the second of my "commitment to my craft" oscars. Has he ever won one? If not, again a career of fantastic acting finally rewarded.

• Actress in a Supporting Role: Always a toughie, I think Melissa Leo will edge it as the academy has had their eye on her for a while. Although the same could be said of Amy Adams. I always find this category torture to predict. (Well not last year, but usually). Right I'm going for Jacki Weaver because she's the character I'd be most terrified of meeting.

• Directing: I want Aranofsky, I think David Fincher will get it.

• Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network. There can and should be no other winner.

• Writing (Original Screenplay): Whilst Inception was truly orginal, The Kids Are Alright was very well written so that's my bet.

• Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3. As I said, actually my Best Film of the year.

• Art Direction: Alice In Wonderland - although The Kings Speech set was designed by a Brit from the West Midlands so if she wins I'll be happy.

• Cinematography. Roger Deakins has been nominated 9 times without a win. It needs to be done.

• Costume Design. I hate betting against Sandy Powell, who I suspect has won every time she was nominated in the past, but the costumes for Alice In Wonderland were superb and so that's where my money is.

• Documentary (Feature): No clue. I think Restrepo will get it, but both Exit Through The Gift Shop and Inside Job are very popular which would be a more similar choice to last year's The Cove.

• Film Editing: The Social Network was a pretty amazing job.

• Foreign Language Film: I always like these more than the Best Film nominees so it's a bit Sophie's choice for me. I haven't been able to see them all but I didn't really care about Biuitful and whilst I love Susanne Bier (In a Better World) and loved Days of Glory by the director of Outside The Law, I think Incendies might take it.

• Makeup. The Wolfman. No clue, based purely on Rick Baker's form.

• Music (Original Score). Between The Social Network and The Kings Speech in my opinion. The Kings Speech.

• Music (Original Song). Randy Newman for Toy Story 3. That man knows how to torture the heartstrings.

• Sound Editing. Inception - because it will win well in technical categories

• Sound Mixing. The Social Network - I totally stole this one from Roger Ebert - he should know.

• Visual Effects. Inception. Folding Paris alone is an achievement and there were several more which made me watch this film twice.

I've only watched Day and Night so based on an online trailer of the shorts nominees.

• Documentary (short subject): Killing in the name.

• Short Film (Animated): Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary). I wanted to hunt this down to watch it based on the trailer.

• Short Film (Live Action): Na Wewe. This one looked like it had the potential to be a feature based on about 4 seconds of footage.

Job opportunities with Theatre Company, Manchester

Organised Chaos are looking for the following:

Film Maker
Marketing Officer
Events Officer

The closing date for applications is 5 March, 2011. Click here for more information.

Shorts whatever the weather...

I have begun my Oscars vieiwng campaign by looking up the 20 films on the best short film longlist so that I can watch as many as possible – rather than waiting for the shortlists to be announced. After all they aren’t long!

So far I’ve mainly found trailers although I have seen one nominated short already – and you will too if you watched Toy Story 3 in the UK.

If not the link is supplied below for anyone who wants to take a look. I've supllied trailer/clip/film links for anyone who wants to join me in appreciating what look like some excellent films.

Tonight the marvellous London Short Film Festival kicks off until 16th January, so if these whet your appetite you'll find plently to love there.

Live Action Shorts longlist

Ana’s Playground - webiste/trailer
The Confession - Clip
The Crush - trailer
God Of Love - The facebook page - still tracking down the trailer.
Little Children, Big Words (Sma Barn, Stora Ord) : Trailer
Na Wewe - website/trailer
Seeds of the Fall (Slitage) - trailer
The Six Dollar Fifty Man - trailer
Wish 143 - Not yet found
Shoe - Still hunting for a link

Animated Shorts
The Cow Who Wanted to Be A Hamburger - Filmmaker blog, no clip link yet but this is my favourite title so i included a still!
Coyote Falls - Still looking
Day & Night - Actual film!
The Gruffalo - It's been on the bbc, so hunting around iplayer
Let’s Pollute - trailer
The Lost Thing - clip

Madagascar, A Journey Diary (Madagascar, Carnet De Voyage) - The actual film
Sensology - The actual film
The Silence Beneath The Bark - The actual film
Urs - Clip

Resolutionary road!

Popularly considered a time when we set ourselves impossible goals I usually try and make January a time when I focus on one or two specific things I have been meaning to get round to.

One year I made a concerted effort to save money and eat more healthily by making sure I always took a packed lunch to work. It was a great year for pre-prepared soups, healthy noodle dishes and, okay, a lot of baked potatoes – but hey that’s definitely one I’ll pick up again and is much more fun than going to the gym as a way of staying healthy.

But my big 2 resolutions are to considerably reduce my lateness and to watch every film nominated for an Oscar this year. The first one is just purely because I am fed up of myself and I hope will have the knock on effect that if I will just get more done with my life. And the second is that if I am going to set myself a ridiculous goal and balance out the whole healthy eating kick – I feel I need to be grand, ambitious and sedentary! Also that one is done by March which is about as long as my attention span for resolutions is likely to last.

Watch this space for progress, here’s to a leaner, more punctual, more square eyed me.