To Innsbruck!

Just a quick one, as the iPhone wordpress app managed to lose my longer post earlier.

Currently in the Marriott at Gatwick airport, which is a very pleasant hotel – especially compared to Pontins, where I spent my weekend (listen to a podcast on that, here) – before flying to Austria tomorrow for my first skiing holiday in over 10 years.

Excited though a bit scared at the total lack of green runs – fingers crossed it comes back to me fairly quickly.

Will try to blog from abroad, but that will depend on net access.

The Blair family’s creative interpretation of the law

Regardless of your opinion on the Iraq war, it seems to be generally agreed that there was some serious fudging over the evidence that led to war as well as the flip-flop interpretation of the laws indicating whether it was a legal invasion or not. Tony Blair doesn’t see it that way, of course, because he has righteous fury behind him and is absolutely convinced of his infallibility – presumably a character trait he picked up from the Pope since turning Catholic. Astonishingly, rather than showing much in the way of regret for the thousands of Iraqi, British and American lives lost in a dubious war he spent most of his time at this week’s inquiry acting as cheerleader for an Iran invasion.

Still, the legal, factual and ethical realities of the Iraq war are still murky at best, so I won’t go into that any further. A much more clear cut case has now arisen from none other than Cherie Booth – aka Mrs Blair. A man by the name of Shamso Miah was recently found guilty of attacking another man inside and outside a bank, resulting in the victim suffering a fractured jaw. Blair/Booth saw pity on the poor aggressor, though, stating in her judgement:

I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before. You caused a mild fracture to the jaw of a member of the public standing in a queue at Lloyds Bank. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour.

There are numerous issues here, some which are debatable and some which are matters of pure logic. Let’s take the latter first.

• Blair/Booth’s assumption here is that a religious person knows better than to beat someone so hard that their jaw fractures into pieces. That’s why she’s been lenient on this guy. Because he’s religious and knows better. The main issue here isn’t whether her assumption is true or not (it isn’t), but her complete logic breakdown. The fact that Miah acted so aggressively establishes two things: 1. He didn’t realise it was unacceptable behaviour. 2. Therefore, by Blair/Booth’s reasoning, Miah is not a religious man. Ergo, her sentencing makes absolutely no sense.

In other words, regardless of your personal stance on whether religion inherently makes you a good/bad/whatever person, this particular sentence is absurd. For a judge to have such bad judgement and lack of rationality is unnerving to say the least.

And now, to get more opinionated…

• History, both ancient and recent, has quite clearly shown that religion has nothing to do with whether you are a good or bad person. There have been many good religious people and many bad religious people. Terrible things have been done by actual religion organisations. Good things have also been done by religious organisations. The fact that someone is religious or not is incidental to their actual behaviour. Equally, agnostics and atheists have been both ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
• You could, if you were so inclined, claim that those ‘religious’ people that behave badly aren’t in fact religious and are only falsely claiming to be so. Fair enough, but it simply leads to another deduction: that there is no way to tell if somebody is ‘properly’ religious based on what they claim. All that matters are their actions, at which point whether they are religious or not becomes, once again, irrelevant.
• Some religious people actively think that atheists have no morality, or at least inferior morality. It’s an odd assumption. It doesn’t matter whether one defines one’s morality through a religious text or through law or peer review or Optimus Prime, if it results in them being a kind person: all that matters are their actions.
• Although here’s a thought: I have a big problem with people who obey the law (whether god’s, government’s or otherwise) because they’re afraid of being caught. Whether they’re afraid of the law, or God, or Hell, it doesn’t matter. The point is that they’re behaving because they’re scared or don’t want to be punished, not because they actually think it’s the right thing to do. A lot of religions seem to be based around this kind of concept – be a good person or you’ll go to hell. Most of society is based around the same concept, of course, except it’s the rule of law rather than a god.

So what’s my point? It’s two-fold:

1. When it comes to morality, it doesn’t matter whether you’re religous or not. All that matters is how you act upon your morality, regardless of where it comes from.
2. The true test of morality is whether you treat others kindly because you actively, consciously want to, or because you’re afraid of being caught if you do otherwise.

Steel

Jack Steel returned for his series 2 premiere on Friday, for which some of the cast and crew rendezvoused at a pub for the grand playback. Definitely a step up from season1, with a broader storyline and a soundscape that is more epic, more polished and MORE STEEL. Congrats to all involved. The series will begin podcasterising sometime this week, I believe, and will be free to download. More info here: http://jacksteel.itsatrap.co.uk/

Also attended a highly entertaining Australia Day party at Neil and Carla’s last night, full of people dressed up in Oz-related costumes of varying dubiousness. Josh’s eaten-by-a-crocodile was pretty good but Jason’s Ramsay St. road sign affixed to the top of his head probably should have won the prize. Although the rather daring Kylie Minogue impersonator would have won the prize for causing the maximum amount of whiplash due to everybody doing a double-take when she arrived.

Final prep for our skiing holiday is almost complete – we’re all stocked up with warm clothing, waterproof bits and pieces and funky goggles. My coat is particularly awesome, as it has special labelled pockets for different things, including an ‘AUDIO’ pocket, which is pretty cool.

Didn’t get as much work done this weekend as I wanted – the writing has unfortunately taken something of a back seat. I blame Tim Schafer.

Arms Race

I’ve begun work editing Arms Race, the steampunk period peace set during an alternative Crimean War directed by my friend Nigel Clegg. We shot it last summer out in the wilds of Norfolk. So far it’s being kept under wraps, so that we don’t spoil the nifty set, costumes and miniatures we’ve got going on.

I was cinematographer during the shoot, which was quite a challenge given that I don’t really have any formal training. While I think I’m a decent cameraman and can work our HVX-200 nicely, and know how to frame a shot, I’m by no means a lighting man.  This didn’t matter hugely given the micro-budget of the film and the location shoot, which rather limited how much control we had over such things. The weather played silly buggers all day, with the sun popping in and out of clouds every twenty minutes. It makes or some rather mis-matched footage, but hopefully nothing we can’t fix with a spot of grading magic.

Anyway, the edit hath begun: I really liked editing. It’s the most creative and least stressful part of the process, demanding you think laterally to work around potential limitations with the material. It’s also where the film can be reinvented or ballsed up. It’s essentially a counterpart to the scriptwriting process: the story begins with the script and ends with editing. Everything else is technique – vital nonetheless, of course.

What else? Well, Axel Wilkinson, a long-time remote colleague and (I’d like to say) friend of mine from the States is arriving in Norwich tomorrow morning. He should be in the air right now, in fact. He’s always been one of our most supportive customers, testers and community members at FXhome, as evidence by him winning a community-voted award in 2009. Great guy and I’m really looking forward to meeting him and working with him face-to-face for the first time while he’s here on a consultancy basis next week.

Currently pondering projects: my three at the moment are Evinden, Of Rock And Earth and Arms Race. Here’s their current status:

Eviden: First draft complete, currently with Slava and Nadia for some feedback. Regardless of when that feedback arrives, I’ll be moving into the second draft as soon as my other book hits first draft…

Of Rock And Earth: Three quarters towards a first draft. Slow going due to going back to work and being distracted by the likes of Dragon Age and Uncharted 2, but I’m hoping to accelerate progress soon. Which won’t be easy once I hit February and go skiing for a week. Anyway, this is my current main priority – need to get a first draft finished so I can go back to Evinden, as well as try my hand at some short stories.

Arms Race: Edit just begun, opening sequence complete in rough form. Hope to have a VERY rough first draft by the end of next week, ready for some extreme tightening. We can then identify and start work on the VFX shots.

Busy weekend coming up, meanwhile, which is never good for creative projects: Axeman arrives, we’re out for a meal with friends on Saturday, and off to my parents on Sunday. Plus we have to fit in buying skiing equipment at some point.

Right, Nadia’s busy stabbing hurlocks (evil things in Dragon Age, not the fat guy from Lost), so I think I’ll do some novel writing!

2010: the year I write some books

2010 has somehow arrived without anybody really noticing: December itself whipped by, as did Christmas, and the next thing I knew I was at a New Year’s Eve party at which people barely acknowledged the passing of the midnight hour (it was nonetheless a superb party, aside from my awful hangover the following day).

Time, then, to set out some of the year’s goals:

- Finish Evinden. First draft is already compete, as chronicled extensively on this blog. That edition is now with Slava and Nadia for editing. I received my first feedback from Slava at the NYE party and I’m very excited to say it was lovely and positive. Then again, I do believe the lady had been drinking.

- Finish Of Rock And Earth. This is my NaNoWriMo 2009 novel, which is about 10-15k words short of completion. that will also then need a second draft, of course.

- Write short stories. I’ve a couple of short story ideas that have been buzzing around in my head for a while: this year I want to actually get them penned. Probably in-between editing the novels.

- Get published. This is the tricky one. However, I will be pursuing some kind of publishing solution for all of the above, starting with the short stories in some of the scifi fiction magazines.

Those are my major creative goals. Ideally I’d also love to work on more rewarding film projects, but the writing has to take priority. There’s also a new audio drama in the works which I sincerely hope to be involved with on a script level (and perhaps acting?).

On top of that there’s a load of personal goals I won’t go into here (not yet, at least) and work goals in taking my projects at FXhome up a notch or three.

Plus I’ll be turning 30 at some point.

I may even finish Dragon Age. Now that would really be an achievement!

Writings, Christmas, Film4, stuff

An assortment to things to write about this evening while I render out 30+ VFX shots for Guinod, a martial arts opera I’ve been helping a friend finish off. It premieres in a couple of weeks at Norwich’s Cinema City, so I’ll be sure to say how it goes. Bulk of my work on it is done, I just have to render all the bits and pieces – a process that is considerably fiddlier than it should be due to a few quirks in the compositing software I’m using.

Which brings me to a broader question of my involvement with filmmaking: currently it’s taking up more of my time than I would like, in the process reducing the time I have to focus on my writing, be it novel or journalism or simple blogging. Go back a decade and I had the time to fit everything in, such is the life of a single student. Now, though, I have to juggle many more things (which I don’t mind doing at all, because  they’re all good things) and have no real choice but to specialise to a degree. The question is simple: do I want to be a writer, or a filmmaker? They’re not mutually exclusive, of course, but my current resources are finite.

Writing requires one thing: my own skill as a writer. I’ve yet to really have that proved one way or the other but there is at least the potential of it reaching a truly professional level. Filmmaking, on the other hand, is a vast process requiring coordination between many people and disciplines. Even with the best will and effort the results can easily be disappointing when working at an amateur, unfunded level. To progress to where I want to get would require investing in new equipment and new software which I simply can’t justify given that it’s essentially only a hobby – I no longer have any illusions about turning it into a career.

Which isn’t to say I can’t write film material for other people. I’d happily work on scripts for other people, as long as they have a sensible creative process that focuses on quality. Otherwise, though, 2010 is currently looking like the year in which I’ll try to become a professional, published writer. I can’t wait to see if I can pull it off! I’ve got two nearly finished novels almost ready to go, after all.

In other news:

• I was quoted in a Film4.com article, having moaned yet again about the woefulness that is Gamer. Here’s the Film4 article, and here’s my Spiffing Review podcast in which we gave our glowing commentary on the movie.
• Christmas is happening next week. For the first time we’re holding it at our place, which is both terrifying and exciting. We have lots of sparkly, glowy things hanging all over the place.
• Left 4 Dead 2’s scavenge mode is fantastic.
• Played Trackmania for the first time in years on Friday. It’s still genius.
• Finally watched Speed Racer. Might have to give it a special section on the next Spiffing Review. It’s fabulous.
• This article over at the Guardian really pissed me off. It undermines both gaming and the plight of women suffering from violence by using an astoundingly illogical argument which turns bait-and-switch and strawman tactics into a new artform. Looks like quite a few other people were a bit miffed, judging from the 700+ comments. I haven’t had time to read them all, obviously, but many of them seemed to offer far more intelligent and coherent views on the genuinely important and interesting topics. It’s great that Jaqueline Hunt has an organisation like Equality Now, but she’s never going to get anywhere if she focuses on scapegoating an entire artistic/entertainment medium rather than going after the genuine societal problems.

The last 20k

Not found the time to blog either here or over at Potential Gamer for over a month; similarly the Spiffing Review has taken an unfortunate back seat. That’s what NaNoWriMo does to you.

It’s over now, of course, and I’m exceedingly pleased to have made the 50k word count within the time limit. not only is it a satisfying achievement in itself, but it also gives me some hope that I might be able to make some money out of this writing lark. To write a book in a couple of months is a good deal more productive than taking 5 years as with Evinden!

Though I hit the word count, the story itself is yet to be fully told. There’s about 20k still to go. Christmas is inevitably getting in the way, but I hope to have it done soon.

And so it begins…again

NaNoWriMo 2009 has begun. It being the annual, global challenge to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November, from start to finish. To do so means writing about 2000 words per day, which in theory should be entirely doable. On my first day yesterday I hit 1,792 which isn’t bad going – that’s above the recommended target for the first day of 1667.

My story started out as a pulpy, silly, fun riff on Transformers, but has since mutated into an Iron Giant/King Kong story which is actually a lot more engaging than I’d expect.

I do believe you can follow my progress, if you’re so inclined.

Climbing the mountain (with a sled full of meat)

Only my fellow FXhome colleagues will understand that obscure subject line.

It’s my birthday tomorrow! Although I only really remembered this evening, thanks to my parents, Wayne, James and Lucy unexpectedly buying me lovely presents (well, I presume Wayne’s is lovely, I’ve not actually opened it yet. It might be a turd. But I doubt it – it’s too big) and, of course, Nadia’s sterling efforts to birthdayify the living room. I’m actually rather excited now, as we’re also going out for a Thai meal tomorrow evening to celebrate.

There are multiple reasons I’ve barely been able to pause to think about such things. In no particular order, we have:

Guinod. Bennet Maples’ latest short film is a martial arts opera, which is about as crazy as it sounds. I’m doing some VFX work on it for him, which is great fun but inevitably time consuming. I’m progressing far slower than I would like, which hopefully isn’t annoying him too much as he’s doing a great job on Assault on Igneos, my new short film for FXhome which’ll be premiering online in a couple of weeks. With a bit of luck I’ll have all the Guinod stuff done in a couple of weeks.

Evinden. Finishing off the book was an epic achievement, if I may say so myself. During the final stretch I was fairly obsessive – hopefully I’ll be able to write at that kind of pace during NaNoWriMo next month.

NaNoWriMo. Write a 50,000 word novel in a month? Sure! Why not? It’s not like I only just finished a novel which took me six years…prep for the kick-off on Sunday is underway, and very excited I am too. I have a number of ideas I’m batting about, including one that is very silly, very fun, very cheeky.

Work. This is the big’un. Work is mental. We’re currently in crunch time before the big Christmas launch this year, which is approaching fast (Christmas doesn’t start in December for us, alas). We’ve announced PhotoKey 3 already, and there’s loads more to come. Exciting, but utterly knackering. Will say more when I can.

And now, I’m going to play some Left 4 Dead.

The idiot superclass

(WARNING: I’m sufficiently annoyed to have invoked The Charlie Brooker style in this article)

The human race has got this far not by being inherently superior to other animals, or by being of above average intelligence and physical stature. Homo sapiens are, in general, a bit shit. We’re one of the stupidest, most depraved, illogical and violent species on the planet. We haven’t got this far through collective endeavour: the only reason we’re not extinct is due to the extreme efforts of an enlightened few, who strive to work against the general mob of idiocy and self destruction.

This enlightened few, contrary to what certain political and supremacist groups would have you believe, is not specific to a particular sub-group of humanity. I’m not talking about Western civilisation, or indeed Asian or Arab or African civilisation. Quite the contrary: the enlightened few are scattered through history and throughout the globe, peppered through the general population at all levels. Equally, in all areas of human society, regardless of skin colour, gender, education, sexual orientation, class, politics, nationality or anything else, there is a seething morass of utter worthlessness. The massive inertia of this mob continually threatens to drag the entire species down – this is the idiot superclass, which overrides any other division in society. Idiots are all-pervasive.

‘Idiot’ certainly does not necessarily mean uneducated. As the saying goes: Knowledge is understanding that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing to not put it in a fruit salad.

So, it’s been one of those weeks. I’m a bit grouchy.

Kicking off with Nick Griffin’s appearance on BBC Question Time, which was as amusing as it was galling, it’s been one incident of the idiot superclass throwing their weight around after another. Take James Parkes, for example, a 22 year old trainee police officer who is currently fighting for his life after a collective group of the idiot superclass decided to attempt to destroy his head in a violent attack outside a nightclub. A gang of up to 20 people took part in the apparently unprovoked assault. Why? Because Mr Parkes is gay.

A member of the idiot superclass can be easily identified by a strange fixation on irrational prejudices and completely disproportionate responses to them. In this case, an irrational hatred and fear of homosexuals. The idiot superclass can’t just quietly stew in their own filthy ignorance: they have a need to spread it out into the world. In this regard they’re much like a disease, infecting all those around them with fear and hatred – and anybody that is immune runs the risk of being simply destroyed. It’s where zombie fiction comes from, basically. The idiot superclass is a far greater threat than global warming, giant asteroids or nuclear armageddon. Actually, the latter example would be mainly due to the idiot superclass, so scratch that one.

To take a less violent but equally insidious example, let’s take a look at Pauline Howe. She’s a grandmother from Norfolk who also has a problem with gay people. So much so, in fact, that she wrote to Norwich city council to complain about a Gay Pride march in the city. The letter was passed to the police as a possible hate-related issue due to its content, and Granny Pauline was interviewed by officers, with no further action taken. End of story? Did she learn her lesson and rise up to be one of the enlightened few? No, she instead took her story to The Daily Telegraph, because she can’t take a hint.

That’s another key trait of a member of the idiot superclass: they’re almost completely oblivious to their own faults and mistakes, often because they’re too busy attempting to blame somebody, anybody else. It’s inherent to the group, because without it people would only temporarily be a member of the superclass as they gradually absorbed more information throughout their lives. It’s a resistance to this new information that puts them in the superclass to begin with and then keeps them locked into the mentality indefinitely. Reason and evidence is irrelevant when they’re so convinced of their own righteousness.

Annoyingly, and rather tellingly, the full content of the letter she wrote has not, to my knowledge, been re-published, only select snippets – no doubt the less virulent segments, so as to successfully spin the situation against the police, the council and gay people in general. It makes it impossible to have a proper, reasoned debate with the woman – which is, of course, very deliberate, as a reasoned debate would very quickly highlight the tragic flaws in her outlook on life, religion and other people. Even the small snippets published by the Telegraph are fairly abhorrent, though. Check this out:

She described homosexuals as “sodomites” and said “their perverted sexual practices” were responsible for spreading sexually transmitted diseases and “the downfall of every empire”.

That’s right, people. GAYS DESTROYED THE EMPIRE. See what I mean about the idiot superclass always blaming other people, whether it makes sense or not?

Astonishingly, Howe claims that “she was merely expressing her religious convictions and was not homophobic”. She seems to be under the illusion that if you attribute your idiot rantings on religion it somehow exempts you from judgement. She’s not really homophobic, because she’s actually just following her religion. It doesn’t count. Much like the 9/11 terrorists that flew planes into the World Trade Center weren’t really terrorists – they were just expressing their religious convictions. You know, the conviction to be total arseholes.

Religion should not be invoked as a get-out clause that allows you to behave horribly towards others. Leave religion out of it: the problem lies with the individual.

The other great thing about the idiot superclass is that they often completely, utterly miss the point due to an irony deficiency. Also from the Telegraph article:

Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said: “Whether people agree or disagree with Mrs Howe’s views, everyone who cares about freedom should be alarmed at the police action.”

“Everyone who cares about freedom”, eh? You’re absolutely right, Mike! I absolutely do care about freedom and I’m very alarmed at the police action. I’m alarmed that they didn’t take the matter any further, given Howe’s apparent determination to restrict the rights and freedoms of gay people who are peacefully expressing themselves. After all, she did write “It is shameful that this small, but vociferous lobby should be allowed such a display unwarranted by the minimal number of homosexuals.” If you’re talking about freedom, you should look a little closer to home before pointing the finger at the police, Mr Judge.

The only positive thing that comes from the idiot superclass is their inadvertant hilarity. They are, after all, exceedingly funny. However, the amusement factor is inversely proportional to the strength of the opposing enlightened few – the mob is only entertaining while they remain powerless. And that’s why the BNP-on-Question Time debate is so crucial. And why everybody needs to get out and vote at the next elections. Let’s turn the enlightened few into the enlightened many.

It is worth it, despite the odds. As Morgan Freeman says at the end of Seven:

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.” I agree with the second part.