Technology

First Look at January Jones as Emma Frost on the set of X-MEN: FIRST CLASS!

Published on: 8th September, 2010

Hey gang! Here’s you first look as Mad Men actress January Jones as Emma Frost on the set of X-Men: First Class . The movie is currently shooting at Pinewood Studios in England. The film is being directed by Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaugh , and the story follows the classic Marvel mythology, and charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men. Remember, this movie is going to be a retro film that is set in the 1960′s and will incorporate old school James Bond type technology. This is our first look at one of the costumes from the film, which I think looks great. The movie has a great cast of actors that includes James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Jones, Kevin Bacon, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi, Jason Flemyng, Oliver Platt, Morgan Lily, Zoe Kravitz, and Bill Bilner . Fox will release the film in theaters on June 3rd 2011. What do you think of the photos?

Katamari Creator Takahashi Leaves Namco Bandai

Published on: 8th September, 2010

The director of the original Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy , Keita Takahashi, has parted ways with Namco Bandai Games. His departure was confirmed by Play.tm (via Develop ) with a spokesperson and comes after a series of recent comments from Takahashi expressing a lack of interest in the direction of the games industry, and specifically what was shown at E3. In an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine U.K., he said (via CVG ), “At E3 I saw people putting on speeches but I thought the future seemed a bit dark.” He added that he wasn’t particularly interested in 3D games and said, “I think motion control’s a bit old now, I don’t think those games are the future. It all seemed a bit dull.” More recently, Takahashi was interviewed by The Setup . He knocked Namco Bandai, answering a question about what he does by saying that he makes games “for the so-so company Namco Bandai Games” and described himself as inefficient for having “only made 4 games in 11 years.” He noted that he’s currently working on “a project to redesign an old park in Nottingham, U.K.” Way back in 2005, he told the BBC about how he’d eventually like to create a playground for children and predicted that he wouldn’t be making games anymore within 10 years.

Rare, Molyneux Originally Argued for Buttons with Kinect

Published on: 7th September, 2010

Microsoft’s biggest selling point when it comes to Kinect is that it’s a completely controller-free system — not a single button is necessary to interact with its games. But when Kinect was first being designed inside Microsoft, both Rare and Peter Molyneux weren’t convinced such a system could work. “We were absolutely adamant that we needed a button, something with haptic feedback, that would initiate an action,” said Rare creative director George Andreas to Edge magazine (via CVG ), recalling his first time seeing the Kinect technology. “It took a long time — we threw some prototypes together and then we saw you didn’t need one.” And it wasn’t just Rare that wasn’t convinced about buttons-free controls, as Andreas said Lionhead Studios boss Peter Molyneux didn’t see the buttons-free system working either. “We were very vocal to Kudo [Tsunoda, Kinect lead] at the time, and Peter Molyneux was as well, that you needed something in your hand,” Andreas recalled. But he also says this was ultimately just a case of having to “rein in” their ideas of traditional button-based interfaces, a challenge that remained even after accepting Kinect’s buttons-free system could work. “You end up falling back on the [gamepad] control scheme. It’s a crutch really.”

Modern Day Websites for Evil Movie Corporations

Published on: 5th September, 2010

Hey gang! Who doesn’t love a good evil movie corporation? What would the movie universe be without them, after all, they are what cause the major problems in almost every good sci-fi film. Web-designer Mikko Vartio took the time to research several evil movie corporations and develop modern day representations of what their web-sites would look like if they were real. Here is what he had to say on his blog: I like evil movie corporations, and for a long time I’ve wanted to do a case-study of their corporate imagery. I did some research and found out that these suckers does a fine match with real world evil corporations. The more I looked into it, the more it seemed as though these suckers make a fine match with some real-world evil corporations. I took my Adobe Fireworks, locked myself into bunker and reverse-engineered from scratch these six detailed lookalike-mashups of evil corporations. Check out the evil corporation website designs below and let us know what you think! I’ve also added the artists note for each company and what other real life websites he compares them to. OCP from RoboCop OCP is the nasty corporation from Robocop , but Apple does much better job succeeding in the path of evilness. My vision of OCP site has some same resemblance of Apple’s site, but that is purely a coincidence. Reckall from Total Recall Paul Verhoeven directed Robocop, but he also directed another fine masterpiece called Total Recall . The evil company Rekall is specialized on screwing your brain with false memories, stuff like travelling into Mars. If there is evil travelling corporation, it is definitely RyanAir – the wicked airlines with their their cheap tactics and butt-ugly websites. Weyland-Yutani from Alien Weyland-Yutani should ring the bell from Alien -movies. I’ve been reading some news and looks like Toyota is doing fine job with their evil products and alien-technology. Skynet from Terminator Skynet has been sending robots from the future since good old Terminator -days. Everybody thinks that Google is the new real-life Skynet, but I say that the stealthy search engine Bing from Microsoft is the genuine evil dopedealer.(eg. Skynet-logo with Google-colors is way too easy). Cyberdyne from Terminator When there is Skynet, there is also Cyberdyne. So, is Microsoft the Cyberdyne? Sure looks so. Tyrell from Blade Runner Bladerunner is classic movie, where Han Solo shoots robots. While the evil corporation Tyrell produces too realistic clones, our real world equivalent RealDoll (check mainpage, NSFW) does the same with evil sexdolls.

Mikami: Motion Controls "Won’t Be Mainstream for 10 Years"

Published on: 2nd September, 2010

The PlayStation 3′s Move and Xbox 360′s Kinect are right around the corner, but even when all three major consoles have dedicated motion controls, Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami thinks it’ll still be a decade before such controls really become “mainstream.” Speaking to PSM3 magazine (via CVG ), Mikami — who, in addition to creating the Resident Evil series, also worked on the Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe series — said he’s still not interested in what motion controls currently have to offer. “I don’t think motion controls will be in the gaming mainstream in the next ten years,” Mikami explained. “When the technology gets to the point where you can just flick your eyeballs around and the computer can pick it up, you won’t need a controller anymore. Obviously it’s going to take a while to get there.” Well let’s hope it does take a while, because by then we’ll probably also have retina-scanning sensors all over civilization like in Minority Report . But then depending on your definition of “mainstream,” it’s arguable whether motion controls are there already, considering just how many Wiis Nintendo has sold since it released in 2006.

Bitch Fight: James Cameron vs Piranha 3D

Published on: 1st September, 2010

Avatar director James Cameron told Vanity Fair that he has no love for Piranha Part Two: The Spawning or Piranha 3D . “You’ve got to remember: I worked on Piranha 2 for a few days and got fired off of it; I don’t put it on my official filmography. So there’s no sort of fond connection for me whatsoever. In fact, I would go even farther and say that… I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but that is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from the 70s and 80s, like Friday the 13th 3-D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip. And that’s not what’s happening now with 3-D.” Pretty harsh words from a guy who just made an expensive movie about the Smurfs. Piranha 3D producer Mark Canton replied to Cameron’s douchebaggery in a very lengthy letter. The really good and true part is in bold: As a producer in the entertainment industry, Jim Cameron’s comments on VanityFair.com are very disappointing to me and the team that made Piranha 3D. Mr. Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own. It is amazing that in the movie-making process – which is certainly a team sport – that Cameron consistently celebrates himself out as though he is a team of one. His comments are ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught up in serving his ego and his rhetoric. Jim, are you kidding or what? First of all, let’s start by you accepting the fact that you were the original director of PIRANHA 2 and you were fired. Shame on you for thinking that genre movies and the real maestros like Roger Corman and his collaborators are any less auteur or impactful in the history of cinema than you. Martin Scorcese made Boxcar Bertha at the beginning of his career. And Francis Ford Coppola made Dimentia 13 back in 1963. And those are just a few examples of the talented and successful filmmakers whose roots are in genre films. Who are you to impugn any genre film or its creators? Having been deeply involved, as either an executive or as a producer, on Tim Burton’s original BATMAN and the first MEN IN BLACK, as well as 300, and now IMMORTALS, one of the things that has been consistent about all of the filmmakers involved in these landscape-changing global films is that, in each and every case, all of the directors were humbled by their predecessors, their colleagues and by their awareness of the great history of film that came before them. The enjoyment and the immersion of an audience in a movie theatre, as they had and will have with the above-mentioned films, and as audiences are experiencing with PIRNAHA 3D now, comes from the originality and the vision of the filmmaker, and not just from the creation of the technology. You as much as anyone certainly knows that there are many pieces to the puzzle. Going to the movies still remains, arguably, amongst the best communal experiences that human beings can share. My sense is that Mr. Cameron has never seen PIRANHA 3D…certainly not in a movie theatre with a real audience. Jim, we invite you to take that opportunity and experience the movie in a theatre full of fans – fans for whom this movie was always intended to entertain. Does Mr. Cameron have no idea of the painstaking efforts made by the talented young filmmaker Alex Aja and his team of collaborators? Clearly, and this one is a good bet, he has no clue as to how great and how much of a fun-filled experience the audiences who have seen the film in 3D have enjoyed. Those of us who have tried to stay in touch with the common movie audiences – the ones who really matter, the ones who actually still go to the theatre, put on the glasses, and eat the popcorn – take joy and pride in the fact that movies of all kinds, including PIRANHA 3D, have a place in filmmaking history – past, present and future. 3D unto itself is not a genre Jim, it is a tool that gives audiences an enhanced experience as they experience all kinds of movies. I believe Mr. Cameron did not see PIRANHA 3D either with any real audience or not at all. On opening weekend, I was in a Los Angeles theatre with a number of today’s great film makers including JJ Abrams, who actually had nothing short of the fabulous, fun 3D experience that the movie provides. I am fortunate enough to have worked on, and continue to work on, evolutionary movies in all formats from just simple good story telling, which still matters most of all, to CG movies to tent-pole size 3D movies, and genre 3D movies like PIRANHA 3D. What it comes down to, Jim, is – that like most things in life – size doesn’t really matter. Not everyone has the advantage of having endless amounts of money to play in their sandbox and to take ten years using other people’s money to make and market a film… like you do. Why can’t you just count your blessings? Why do you have to drop Marty Scorsese’s or Tim Burton’s names, both gentlemen who I have personally worked with, and who have enjoyed great joy and success with movies of all genres and sizes well before the advent of modern 3D? Then as now, they were like kids in a candy store recognizing, far beyond your imagination, the possibilities of storytelling and originality. For the record, before you just totally dismiss PIRANHA 3D and all, in your opinion, worthless genre movies that actually undoubtedly gave you the ability to start your career, you should know that PIRANHA 3D had an 82% “fresh” (positive) ratting on Rotten Tomatoes on opening day – a web site that all the studios, filmmakers and the public use as a barometer of what makes a quality film. We know that PIRANHA 3D has not achieved a boxoffice that is on the level of many of Mr. Cameron’s successes. To date, PIRANHA 3D has earned over $30 million around the globe with #1 openings in several countries. And, as the “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes indicates, critics and many, many others have embraced and celebrated PIRANHA 3D for the fun and entertaining – and even smart – movie-going experience that it is. Let’s just keep this in mind Jim… you did not invent 3D. You were fortunate that others inspired you to take it further. The simple truth is that I had nothing but good things to say about AVATAR and my own experience since I actually saw it and didn’t damn someone else’s talent publicly in order to disassociate myself from my origins in the business from which we are all very fortunate. To be honest, I found the 3D in AVATAR to be inconsistent and while ground breaking in many respects, sometimes I thought it overwhelmed the storytelling. Technology aside, I wish AVATAR had been more original in its storytelling. We have to inspire, teach and mentor this next generation of filmmakers. It is garbage to suggest that any film or any filmmaker who cannot afford to work to your standards should be dissuaded from following his or her craft by not making 3D movies or not making movies like DISTRICT 9, for example, which probably cost the amount of AVATAR’s craft services budget, but totally rocked it in the movie theatre and in the marketplace. In that case, it was not a 3D movie. But had it been, it certainly would not have been any less original or impactful. The enormous worldwide success of AVATAR has been good in all respects for you, your financiers, your distributors and the industry, as well as for the movie going public. Jim, there is a difference between Maestro which is a word that garners respect, and Dictator or Critic which are words better left for others who are not in our mutual boat or on our team. You are one of the best, it is reasonable to think that you should dig deeper and behave like it. Young directors should be inspired by you, not publicly castigated by your mean-spirited and flawed analysis. While we are all awed by your talents and your box office successes – and I compliment you on all of them – why don’t you rethink how you address films with which you are not involved? You should be taking the high road that is being travelled by so many of your peers, and pulling with them to ensure that we, as an industry, will have a continuum of talented filmmakers that will deliver a myriad of motion pictures both big and small, with 3D or any other technologies yet to come that will entertain audiences throughout the world. That is the challenge that we face. That is the future that we should deliver.

Ubisoft "Cautious" of New IPs Until Next Generation of Consoles

Published on: 1st September, 2010

We hope you really love Tom Clancy games, because it looks like we’ll be seeing more of them before we see much else new out of Ubisoft for a while. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz , Ubisoft European managing director Alain Corre said Ubisoft is steering clear of introducing new IPs until the next generation of consoles, and instead will focus on improving their established brands. “To launch a new IP you have to invest much, much more marketing to establish it, and if you add up the huge costs of development plus the investment in marketing you cannot be 100 percent sure the target audience you’d expect, which is needed for the comeback on the investment,” Corre explained. “Especially in this part of the cycle of the consoles, we are cautious now to introduce new brands. We’ll concentrate on the ones we have and make sure we bring them to the next level in terms of quality.” Rather, Corre said they feel the best time to introduce brand-new franchises is when a new generation of hardware comes around. “That’s always been the case in the past because it’s a fresh approach,” he said. “The new technology always brings new ideas for gameplay or innovation and you can use this to introduce a new IP that will be attached to the hardware. And the market is usually less crowded in the first 18 months of a new machine, so then you can try something new. Right now there are so many huge IPs already known that it’s very competitive.”

Report: Sony to Introduce iTunes Competitor on PS3, PSP

Published on: 1st September, 2010

Sony may be set to announce a major iTunes competitor tomorrow that will run on its videogame consoles, according to an online report. An article by the Financial Times (warning: registration required) citing “sources in the media industry” says that the service, which covers both music and video and is subscription-based, will be unveiled at tomorrow’s IFA technology show in Berlin.

Exclusive Interview: Director/FX Artist Arthur Cullipher Vs. Brian S.

Published on: 28th August, 2010

I met Arthur Cullipher in Louisville, Kentucky at the Fright Night Film Fest this summer and have made a friend for life. One of the funniest and nicest guys you’d ever want to meet and he is talented too! He and his Clockwerk Pictures team have created one of the darkest and disturbing short films I’ve ever witnessed with ‘ Come ‘, think Lovecraft and R-rated Twilight Zone episode mixed with a little Outer Limits, all on acid and then stuck in a blender, I haven’t been lucky enough to witness more from him but I’m sure that day is coming. Arthur is a part of Clockwerk Pictures and even the Dark Carnival Film Fest . He’s an FX artist, he writes, directs, produces, even makes action figures and can make you laugh in a second! Check out my latest “Versus” with Arthur Cullipher as he’s invited all of us for a trippy wild ride inside his mind! Brian S- First off Arthur let’s talk about your FX and how you got in this. Arthur Cullipher- I was pretty much weened on horror, sci-fi and fantasy films. I was a Star Wars kid, I loved E.T., The Exorcist scared the crap out of me. The Devil was my favorite character in the giant Bible I’d read from as a child. I’ve always loved weird creatures. Always thought there was no better holiday than Halloween. I was always encouraged to make my own things. Since I was 11, I’ve known that I had to make monsters. At the end of 20 and 0, not long after the birth of my son, Tolling, my wife at the time, Shannon, had suggested that I finally go to that Joe Blasco Make-up School I talked so much about and really start taking this seriously. So we moved back to Orlando from Bloomington. I thought I was really going to have to bring my A game to this prestigious academy, so I studied the new materials and practiced things I’d been doing all my life. When I got there, most all of the students had never applied make-up to anyone, but themselves, some not even that. No one had applied so much as a bald cap. So I spent the first ‘semester’ helping the teachers teach. $9000 down the drain. Once we got into the advanced prosthetics and puppetry, then I felt like I was in school. They were great with job placement, got a few high paying gigs, but, ultimately, we hated Florida. So we moved back to Indiana. Not long after, Shannon saw an ad in the paper for someone holding auditions for a movie and said I should see if they needed a make-up artist. I invited my friend, Kirk Chastain to come along and audition. He got the part, I got the job and we worked on, still one of the best movies we’ve been with to date, Scott Schirmer’s ‘House of Hope’. Which is, and this shouldn’t surprise the indie film crowd out there, only recently finished and, finally, ready for the festival circuit… this year! Keep your eyes peeled. We just did the (pretty darned insightful) commentary track for the DVD, some 8 years after the fact. Brian S- Tell me some about Clockwerks and the team involved. I’m afraid that’s a bit more of a complex request than it seems. Bear with me. Clockwerk Pictures was established in 20 and 7 with the production of ‘The Adipocere Child’, but the philosophy that shapes it was formed several years before. Kirk and I were driving by one of our local video stores (R.I.P. Cinemat, we miss you) and saw a sign on the marquee that read ‘Filmmakers’ Meeting’. The meetings were run by Colleen Jankovic and John Landis (no, the other one), a couple looking to make connections and increase local filmmaking. This is also where we first met the amazing Dave Pruett, whom we would later partner with to build Dark Carnival. Together, we became known as The Cinephile Film Arts Organization. We put together a weekly fundraiser, through the grace of Cinemat owner, Steve Volan. We called it Atomic Age Cinema! A midnight horror movie/ spookshow, hosted live by real monsters, with door prizes, trivia and beer. Oh yeah, it’s funny. The proceeds went toward filmmaking grants (trying to be altruistic, these were not solely for horror films) given out locally and a film festival to showcase the movies they helped produce. Until we found that, really, nobody seemed to care. Later, Dave and I decided to go where our heart truly was and just do a horror film festival. The funds from AAC! then helped finance Dark Carnival. After six years and, roughly, 300 shows, Atomic Age lost its venue. Now, Clockwerk Pictures produces AAC-TV! for VHS, DVD and ye olde internet. Mainly just to prove that we have a sense of humor. What we refer to as The DMYAYMDic Principle (the philosophy behind Clockwerk) began with an experimental occult film we did in 20 and 4, partly as a result of attending the Cinephile meetings. Along with our friend MyRK, we made a piece called ‘Not Dead, but Dreaming’, in which a magician undergoes a strange and transformative ordeal, summoning forth a dark deity. Without going into too lengthy of an explanation, through the process of capturing imagery for this film, the odd coincidences began piling up and, slowly, DMYAYMD revealed herself to us. We have come to know her as the Goddess of the Imprint, Empress of Media. She taught us how reality was split with the invention of the camera, into what we call the image and the experience. In this new aeon, with the image aggressively becoming the experience, it would be unwise to turn that power over to corporate structure and commercialism, when the potential is there for so much more. Watching movies or television shows can put one in a dreamlike and receptive state. Most people don’t think of things like product placement as spellcasting, or even hypnotic suggestion. That’s part of why it works. ‘Mainstream Corporate’ media seeks control through a formula of symbolism, logos and jingles, that tie the viewer to a particular product on an emotional level, whether that product is a shampoo, a burger, an ideal, a political candidate or simply the program itself. Clockwerk Pictures also utilize object and tonal placement, along with subliminal, or barely liminal, and obvious symbolism. Our purposes however, are not to tell the audience what to eat or wear, what to listen to or watch or buy. The drive behind The DMYAYMDic Principle is confronting viewers with all the social anxieties of horror to awaken them; to cause them to reflect on the nature of what it is they are actually experiencing. To become active, thoughtful participants. To know it is better to study than simply accept and to question why they hold the beliefs they do. We do this to help advance the range of the human perspective and the independent spirit in this coming age of immersive technology and entertainment, lest we become enslaved to it. Thus, the Seal of DMYAYMD has become the defining symbol of our organization. And, of course, we just love good horror. As a collective, we seek the Great and the Weird for the education they bring. As a bunch of broke-ass filmmakers, we’re just trying to make the movies that we would want to watch. And it’s a great crew. Kirk has played an array of monsters, loves it, is fantastic at it and is one of the best writers and funniest people I have ever known. Marv Blauvelt and Leya Taylor joined us the first year of Dark Carnival. Marv, initially met with Dave Pruett looking for a place to screen a film he’d acted in called ‘BEEF’. Which, to be honest, is still one of the more disturbing things I’ve seen. Dave told him to submit it to our new festival and invited him to become involved. He’s a great actor, a hell of a promoter and an awesome guy. I suppose that’s why his indie horror career is booming. Leya started as an intern for college credit and we changed the course of her life. She has gone on to stock victimhood for AAC!, acted in and was our assistant director on ‘Come’, and together she and I wrote a film/ live theatre hybrid called ‘Bloomington After Midnight’, in which she also starred. James Stroman and David Hancock were first fans, then regulars, then members of the live AAC! shows. David is a talented artist and mechanical engineer for our Clockwerk Creature Company and James assists us in video effects and does many of our promotional graphics. Shane Beasley and I had been acquaintances for a number of years and I had always enjoyed his art, but didn’t really get to know him until the second year of Dark Carnival. Now he is our Jack-of-all-trades. It would take too long to tell you all the many, many things he does. Jason Hignite climbed onto the Dark Carnival caravan in our third year and has been an incredible boon ever since. Acting, producing, directing, promoting… he’s there when we need him. Jason was the brains behind The Vampira Tribute at HorrorHound, the largest gathering of horror movie hosts to date, and has partnered with Marv Blauvelt to create Muscle Wolf Productions. So, as you can see, most of Clockwerk Pictures, Dark Carnival Film Festival and now Muscle Wolf Productions, are fairly interchangeable. We are a tight group and do everything we can to help each other personally and professionally. And we are always on the lookout for qualified individuals who can do amazing jobs without having to be jerkasses about it. Brian S- Could you say hey to Dr. Calamari for me! The ladies love that guy! Arthur Cullipher- Speaking of jerkasses… Well, as he says, I suppose the advantages of a tentacled man are obvious. I wouldn’t know. I don’t really know him that well. We only ever see each other in passing and I don’t think he likes me very much. (For those who don’t know, and he would assure you that there aren’t many, Dr. Calamari is a famous, tentacled charlatan (caveat emptor), one of the faces of Dark Carnival and the first monster host of Atomic Age Cinema! Now, he shares his hosting duties with a raunchy band of booze, blood and drug addled naredowells. In order of appearance: Baron Mardi (a drunken Voodoo priest), Basement Boy (a sensitive serial killer), Reverend Polypus (United Reformed Esoteric Order of Dagon) and Woody (well, he… he grows on you). Brian S- You’ve done FX work for a number of films, can you tell me about any of these and what we all have to look forward to? You know the gore, the blood and guts type stuff. Arthur Cullipher- We worked on three of Scott’s films, House of Hope (incestuous, deformed father memories), Full Moon Sonny (young werewolf) and The Day Joe Left (personal demons manifested). Some blood, but not a lot of gore. Really, the bloodiest thing we’ve worked on so far has been Lewis. Lewis, directed by Anthony G. Sumner, starring Jerry Murdock, Susan Adriensen and (sigh) Deneen Melody, is one of the stories in the upcoming ‘Psycho Street’ anthology, for Muscle Wolf and Rainey Daze Productions. I directed and CCC did the effects for the wrap around story with Tiffany Shepis and Raine Brown. Some nice gore and cool make-ups, but it definitely has more of a Creepshow feel. The butcher shop scene in ‘Lewis’ is gonna blow your mind! Not to mention, the formidable Lewis, himself. Our next Clockwerk project is called ‘Roses’. Written by Terrence Dellinger, ‘Roses’ won the short screenwriting competition at Dark Carnival last year. The prize being that Clockwerk Pictures would produce the film. Since it is in collaboration with Dark Carnival, this will be the first in an ongoing series known as ‘Dark Werk’. It will premiere at Dark Carnival this year. Also, Dark’s Grand Guignol Theatre will present Bloomington After Midight: The Second Hour. Of course, when it’s at the Horror Society Film Fest in Chicago this fall, it’ll be called Chicago After Midnight, and so on with each town that it visits. We have a ‘lycanthology’ coming up with Muscle Wolf in the winter and we finally begin shooting for the long awaited Holstenwall Project; a continuing series of tales set in the town where The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes place. We have a lot of things in the werks for next year, including my own ‘Disconnected’, a surreal, telemarketing horror feature. By 2012, if we don’t all die, production will be in full swing on our stop-motion epic, Buttons and String, about a war between crows and scarecrows. We’ll be producing multiple episodes and webisodes of AAC-TV! throughout and… if that’s not enough… The Clockwerk Creature Company is also available for hire. Brian S- What’s the grossest FX you’ve done so far? Arthur Cullipher- Making Marv masturbate. Brian S- What? Ok Arthur, I have watched your short film ‘Come’ several times now, the first being at Fright Night Film Fest. Tell me about how you came up with the idea and how it all came about. Arthur Cullipher- The film, itself, really started because of Dark Carnival Film Fest and because of HorrorHound Weekend, which was the first horror convention we’d ever been to. Kirk and I realized we didn’t have a submission for our own festival. We had tons of molds for masks and just thought, surely, there’s a monster here somewhere. I had been making some cryptozoological dead things in jars to sell at the convention. They, kind of, surrounded us as we sat in the kitchen and began to think of things we’d seen in movies we’d loved, devices that frightened us. We settled on something passing by the window and a creature in a jar. The whole film is really built around those two concepts. I had a story published in a now, sadly, defunct fiction magazine known as Cthulhu Sex, which focused on blood, sex and tentacles and was the only magazine that ever wanted my stuff. (The stars are right for this sort of thing now, so would-be publishers take note!) The story is called ‘The House on Cutter Lane’ and deals with a young boy, who stumbles on a town secret. Many of the men in town are making visits to the local brothel to see a freak prostitute known as Pussyface (spit twice). She transmits a sort of supernatural disease to the men, who, in turn, infect their wives. This is most certainly not the last we will see of her in the Clockwerks. She is part of a much larger mythology, several stories telling of the rise of a child god, Vrt Lrh, and it’s effect on all we are and all we are becoming. ‘The Adipocere Child’, is also part of that mythos. As we began talking about the story for what, then, didn’t have a title, She wove herself into it. When we felt we had a good concept, it also became apparent that Marv Blauvelt was the man to play the lead. To be honest, no one was crazy about the script I had written. They thought the dialogue was too thick and they didn’t like the title I’d ‘come’ up with. So, I broke up the dialogue a bit, without really changing it and insisted on the title. Although, the film has elements derived from a 1785 Japanese woodcut by Utagawa Toyokuni, I didn’t think this should share its name, i.e. ‘The Hell of Great Heat’ or ‘Cunt Hell of Great Searing Heat’. If we were to make a film by that name, and we may yet, it would be something very different. I knew that if we were ever going to make a film called ‘Come’, this is what we would make. After multiple scheduling nightmares, editing nightmares and interoffice conflict, I think everyone involved is proud to have been a part of it. It premiered at Dark Carnival last year. Of course, no one else has told their parents about it, but my mother is well aware that she raised a whacko so, y’know… she gets a copy. Brian S- Will ‘Come’ be showing at anymore fests or cons this year? Arthur Cullipher- Yes, but we warn you… it has already caused someone to have a seizure. That’s not a joke. You can get ‘Come’ in your eyes and ears at these fine festivals: Killer Film Fest in Foxboro, MA http://www.killerfilmfest.com/home.html Texas Bloodbath in Dallas http://www.texasbloodbath.com/ Horror Society Film Festival in Chicago, which we will definitely be attending http://www.horrorsociety.com/festivals/ HorrorHound Weekend in Cincinatti, also definitely attending http://www.horrorhoundweekend.com But here’s some weird irony for you… THEE, ABSOLUTE, NUMBER ONE WORD that has been used to describe this film is…LOVECRAFTIAN…. and yet, I just received word that we were not accepted to the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR. (Arthur shrugs) Kirk thinks we might be a little too Lovecraftian. Brian S- Where can the fans find and purchase ‘Come’? Arthur Cullipher- We’ll be traveling the convention circuit to some degree, always hocking our wares. Or… www.clockwerkpictures.com (hopefully) or email us at clockwerkpictures@gmail.com and we’ll put ‘Come’ in your hands. Brian S- Would you like to tell the cool horror fans out there anything? Arthur Cullipher- Make good movies. Hollywood is drowning in its own vomit and they want the brains of our children as flotation devices. If you make movies, get an editor that knows the difference between a short idea and a feature idea and believe them when they tell you ‘your feature is a short’. As a festival organizer and film screener, I’m thinking about keeping butts in seats and far too many ‘features’ are padded out shorts in hopes of a distribution deal. Sometimes they get it. That doesn’t make them good. The technology has reached a level of such accessibility that you can make nearly any idea you can think of. Think and cause others to do so. Push the envelope. Give us your money. Vote Calamari. 

Only 2 Percent of Brits Plan on Buying 3D TVs

Published on: 27th August, 2010

The results of a recent study in the UK suggest that only two percent of Britons intend on purchasing a 3D-enabled television in the next year. The report, conducted by YouGov and reported on by the Telegraph , polled 4,199 people in the United Kingdom, and found that only 89 of them were “likely to spend money” on a new 3D set.

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