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Let’s make an Oscar-winning movie…
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1–2 minutes·
2 comments on Let’s make an Oscar-winning movie……or not. There’s an interesting article on the New York Times about the recent blossoming of internet comedy, partly thanks to the Writer’s Guild of America strike (will it continue after it ends, I wonder?). In it, there’s an interesting quote: “I love it when people say, ‘I want to make a viral video,’ because…
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Motherf…
If you’re making a movie that’s ‘family-friendly’ with a PG rating, then you can forget about having any real swearing in the dialogue. This is generally not hard to do, but certain dramatic or funny moments (e.g. imminent death, huge tidal wave, just finished beating up bad guys) can call for dialogue that, if it…
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UK people ‘hate BBC’
When I saw a headline on BBC News entitled UK Asians ‘do not feel British’ I was pretty shocked – did a majority of UK Asians really not feel British? If so, this was cause for alarm. On reading the article though, things were much calmer: Over a third of British Asians do not feel…
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The Death of Publishers
Update: Virginie Clayssen has done a wonderful French translation of this post on her weblog teXtes. Adrian Buys an eBook Reader A couple of weeks ago, I idly visited mobileread.com and discovered something incredible – Tiger Direct in the US were selling Sony eReaders for $100, a discount of $250. Thanks to the rampaging power…
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New Conversations
At GDC this year, I remember hearing some writers talk about the sorry state of story and dialogue in action/adventure games. One of the promising games that they looked forward to, though, was Mass Effect – apparently it would have a brand new conversation system. Over the months, details emerged. In effect, the game would…
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On the other side of silence
A little while ago I manage to acquire the last four years worth of In Our Time, a Radio 4 panel discussion that covers every subject under the sun in a very engaging and thoughtful manner. I’ve been working my way through the archives, usually alternating between topics that sound interesting (e.g. Agincourt, Tea) and…
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Epistolary
It turns out that I’ve been using the term ‘epistolatory’ when what I really mean is ‘epistolary’. Think of all the precious seconds I’ve lost, typing out those two extra words. Think of those lost Google hits. Epistolary literature refers to fiction where the story is told in the form of letters written by the…
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Religion in His Dark Materials
Philip Pullman, along with a couple of other people from New Line, gave an interesting talk at the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday about the process of adaption The Golden Compass for the cinema. There was a bit of a thrill of seeing some effects shots for the first time, although it turned out to be…
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Cars off the road
M&S unveils carbon-neutral target (BBC News): M&S said the carbon savings it aimed to achieve under its plan would be like taking 100,000 cars off the road each year. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of environmental plans being measured in the number of cars taken off the road. I did a search on Google…
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The Ruby in the Smoke
Lately I’ve been seeing many people cursing the name of AA Gill (a TV critic for the Times), declaring that if they see his name, they skip to the next page. Given that I don’t watch any British television, I haven’t had much cause to join in on the cursing until now. I quite enjoyed…