Shared Creation Projects

Last week the lone filmmakers initial blog was linked to in Shared Creation @ Tumblr as a point of interest. I’ve looked at more of his work since then and felt in needed a little bit more space.

This is not the first solo attempt to make a film. It is however being very well and entertainingly documented. The video blogs now number 17 and all have thought behind them.

I’d like to congratulate Robert Hindle on his work so far and great ambition. A solo film is a huge undertaking, but documenting it in this way is a gift to all prospective filmmakers.

To enable you to see this great project here is the link to the Lone Filmmakers channel on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/thelonefilmmaker

Watch, understand and be inspired.

We’ve just experienced the Easter weekend, and for a change the Consumed crew were not scouting locations or testing ideas out. We were taking a break - spending times with our families who for once did not get to  comment on the irony of planning a Zombie film over the Easter period.

Then I realised that talking about zombies during a celebration of resurrection was more than just irony, the entire story that we celebrate at Easter has a close parallel to that of a good zombie film. I find that Christ and George A Romero are somewhat related.

It goes a little like this…

Roughly speaking a good Zombie film is like this. The dead rise, the people notice and during the action we learn a little about our society as important comment is made. Of course along the way there is usually a fair bit of horror, terror and assorted (and hopefully), inventive actions.

Now we get to the Passion.  It goes very roughly like this. The dead rise, people notice and comment is made; the result is social change on a global scale.

Now with the Passion only 1 person rises from the dead, only a small number of people notice and the change does take a little longer than in a zombie film. Aha you say it is different, and I say - it is all a matter of scale. A film lives and dies in 2 hours. Christianity took hundreds if not thousands of years to spread its message. Both stories though use the shock of the dead rising to spread their message.  In many ways the Passion and Night of the Living Dead are the same; scarily the same. Is that way so many pro-Christian groups vehemently campaign against horror and our friends the more than slightly peckish undead? It’s no fun knowing that someone else has stolen your formula and is using it with great success.

I’m expecting to receive a surprise visit from the Spanish Inquisition with a comfy chair any time now…

Tags: Consumed, Passion, Jesus, Christ, Zombie, Romero, Easter, Horror, Terror

10 days ago I announced the Eggy Challenge, and now it is time to announce the results, but first a few discoveries I made along the way.

Last year we focused on amateur videos from You Tube. This year there were videos, but I had a look around You Tube and one year on it is dominated by commercial adverts. They look cool , but it is a sign of a times that viral marketing by the man is getting more prevalent on You Tube. Of course one search isn’t a trend - and everyone does love Cadbury Creme egg adverts but I hope the massive results of commercial work don’t make it harder for small producers to find their niches.

Here though are the video results. Despite what I’ve just said all from You Tube. I’ll just post the links here, and let you have surprise when you see what’s behind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsCGWpQSwfQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrCb_fNmSTA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl6ggWqpB1c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uDJK9NxwVg

Now it is time for photographs. No photos were send to me so I visited my favourite stomping ground for pictures - Flickr. What I found here were plenty of very documentary and representational pictures of Cadbury’s Creme eggs, and things didn’t get more interesting until I widened the search somewhat. It would seem that photographers don’t get quite so creative with the Great British pastime of creme egg abuse.

So here are the pictures. Again - I’ve avoided description so you’ll have to click to find out more

http://www.flickr.com/photos/simonkimber/413757286/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/azredheadedbrat/392296378/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/-sel-/128179574/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsuler/449660891/

All that remains for me to do is to say have a wonderful Easter.

Tags: Cadbury, Creme, Egg, Easter, Video, Photograph

Easter is fast approaching. That means the eggs are in shops, and its time to repeat a successful project from last year.

Lets look back - last year I set the challenge of looking for the best “How Do You Eat Yours” videos. Amateur videos enacting the famous Cadburys advertising slogan. You can see the results here

This year I want to extend things somewhat. I’m looking for the best videos, photographs, writing or music featuring easter eggs - especially the famous creme eggs - currently assaulting our screens in their current wave of suicidal adverts.

So lets get Eggy with it.

Lets see the best material out there featuring the famous small chocolate egg.

Once again I’ll announce the results on Good Friday.

In the meantime please send me your suggestions and links via the Shared Creation Contact Page, or by adding a comment to this post.

Technorati Tags: Cadbury, Creme, Egg, film, Photograph, Video, Writing, YouTube

Time to mention a useful and free resource to all artists working in a digital medium. I am referring to the digital artists handbook. You can pick it up from:

http://www.digitalartistshandbook.org/

The objective of the handbook is to be a source of valuable content that bridges the gaps between arts and various platforms and resources. The handbook is built by inviting articles from artists and specialists who are given reign to talk about tools and methods of working.

This makes this not a one publication - but a growing, living and breathing arts project that could turn out to be a great boon to those wishing to work in the realm of digital art

Interestingly it focus on Open Source - in terms of both free software and open content - it wishes to facilitate collaboration and working together by using these structures to make it possible. that means we have to mention it - we share a common goal.

All this makes it a resource worth keeping an eye on. It is a grand project and it is brought to us by Folly whose first rate arts projects have been mentioned in Shared Creation before. Great news to see that they are keeping up with invaluable and useful projects.

A friend of mine via the Shared Creation Facebook group mentioned Bewildering Stories, in fact he added a link to a story of his that you can read here. I hope you enjoy it, and I should mentioned that this author is always up for a creative challenge.

I would go and talk about Cheshire, but reviewing friends work is something I tend to avoid. There’s no separation and its hard to trust a reviewer in that position. I recommend that you read the story yourself.

I can however talk about Bewildering Stories - its host web site. Around for quite a number of years now Bewildering Stories plays host to hundreds of stories. In fact its level of establishment can be bourne out by that fact that it has an ISSN, and that could be a problem if you come to the site cold. Its got a very old look. Retro to the point of unfashionable. However don’t be put off - the site is full of content - and it is the content that makes it worth the long look. The design - well that stems from the time it started. It can be very hard to design an established design that is full of great content and that works. Why break something that works? You don’t. Its a good lesson - in a time when web style can be seen as such a big thing and everyone is on the blog and Web 2.0 bandwagon its nice to see something that is a well edited magazine.

So here’s to good content and long established publications. Something that should never change.

Technorati Tags: Bewildering,Stories,Web,Magazine,Fiction,Science,Imaginative,ISSN