Alien vs. Star Wars

Over at the Message, I have a meandering analysis of the new Star Wars film which tries to connect it to the narrative schism that was created in between Aliens and Alien³ when handing off that franchise between directors.

Successful serials and franchises are small miracles given the complicated competing interests introduced by the business scale of modern blockbusters like the Star Wars saga. Empires are built around their marketing and production, but even writing a sensible core narrative is already hard enough. Weaving stories out of smaller pieces can be incredibly difficult, because in isolation, each piece tends to pull in its own direction, and it’s only through careful and deliberate oversight that they might eventually coalesce into something rational. With that in mind, please sit tight for a moment and pardon this immediate tangent. We’ll get to Star Wars in due course, but in order to contextualize where it’s going, it may actually help to start with Alien.

Apple Employees on Steve Jobs Film

The much-hyped Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher comes out today, and over at Slashdot I have an interview with Daniel Kottke and Bill Fernandez, two of the earliest Apple employees, about the creative liberties taken by the filmmakers.

Vijith Assar: Let’s talk about that pivotal scene at the the West Coast Computer Faire.
Daniel Kottke: It’s really kind of the really big scene in the movie. They spent several days shooting it, but they did an unbelievable job recreating the West Coast Computer Faire. There’s fifty different booths selling stuff relating to computers. Huge room. They did an unbelievable job reproducing it based on photographs that had been taken. It really blew me away. But anyway, that speech that Ashton does: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am Steve Jobs, and I’m going to introduce you to the Apple II, blah blah blah.” That speech that he gives never happened, for sure. [laughs] It was just a booth at a computer show.
Bill Fernandez: There’s a whole other aspect that wasn’t even touched: the personal computing environment. The Commodore PET computer came out, and we were concerned that we might lose to them. And the Radio Shack TRS-80 came out. And from what I gathered, there’s nothing in the movie that sets the context; a lot of people were doing personal computing at the same time. more

Bad Movies

I wrote a feature for the BBC’s culture division about the various groups in New York who enjoy watching bad movies together.

Sharknado is just the latest in a string of terrifically silly releases by The Asylum, a production studio that specialises in low-budget ‘mockbuster’ spoofs tied to major theatrical releases (Transmorphers, Snakes On A Train) and absurdist camp flicks that aren’t readily connected to reality at all (Nazis at the Center of the Earth). Some of their movies have coasted to wild popularity on Netflix with audiences looking for ironic late-night giggles, but in New York, groups, events and screenings have emerged to share the experience of watching and mocking bad films – because misery loves company.

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Chasing Silver Again Because Oops It Got Away

Chasing Silver Sunset 2

OLN still loves Chasing Silver and has scheduled more broadcasts in May and June.

  • Sunday 05/21, 12pm EST
  • Friday 05/26, 8:30am EST
  • Sunday 05/28, 12pm EST
  • Friday 06/02, 8:30am EST
  • Sunday 06/04, 12pm EST
  • Friday 06/09, 11:30pm EST
  • Sunday 06/11, 12pm EST
  • Friday 06/16, 8:30am EST

Finally Caught The Silver

Chasing Silver Hats

At long last, here’s the opening sequence from Chasing Silver.

Chasing More Silver

Chasing Silver Stormy

Chasing Silver got extremely high ratings when it was shown on the Outdoor Life Network in February. As a result, they are going to move it to primetime in March and have also signed on to show it through April and May. Here’s the new schedule:

Primetime

  • Thursday 03/30, 10pm EST
  • Thursday 03/30, 10:30pm EST

Daytime

  • Sunday 04/23, 12pm EST
  • Friday 04/28, 8:30am EST
  • Sunday 04/30, 12pm EST
  • Friday 05/12, 8:30am EST
  • Sunday 05/14, 12pm EST
  • Friday 05/19, 8:30am EST

Chasing Silver on OLN

Chasing Silver Sunset

Chasing Silver, a fishing documentary for which I wrote some music (specifically, the opening theme), will be shown on the Outdoor Life Network in February, split into four installments.

Rocking the Adrenaline Project

vafilm-2005

“Forest Fire,” a film by three local filmmakers for which I wrote some music, just took second place in two of the three categories at the 2005 Virginia Film Festival‘s Adrenaline Project, a blitzkrieg movie-making competition where the films are all scripted, written, and edited over the course of one weekend.

Stimuli clip

I am still waiting for my horde of video clips, but in the meantime, keep yourself amused with Stimuli. This was the very first scoring project I did, an independent film by my good friend Ian.

[Update, 03/01/09: Ian wisely took photos during those sessions, and I’ve taken it upon myself to repost a couple of them here.]

Stimuli Sessions 1 Stimuli Sessions 2