2D or not 2... wait, I've done this joke before.

I've just spent yet another fantastic weekend in Derry at the only comics festival in Northern Ireland worth speaking of.

The 2D Festival is relatively unique in UK comics events in that it's largely funded by the Arts Council of Ni rather than by entrance and exhibitor fees. This keeps attendance varied and allows much more in the way of casual footfall - families and kids who would normally balk at paying the (not insignificant) daily ticket fees that most of the UK and Ireland comics festivals demand.

Normally the fest is in the beautiful Verbal Arts Centre, built onto the walls of the city. However, an increase in scope and ambition has forced a change in venue to the more spacious lobby of the Millenium Forum.

I was sceptical about the move to tell the truth, but 10 minutes after we arrived on the Saturday I forgot about any concerns I had when I realised that this afforded the artists and attendees much more breathing room. Previously there were definitely prime locations for tables, but this felt as though everyone got a fair crack at the foot traffic.

Confession time: I've never attended another convention in the UK. I've threatened to travel over to Leeds for Thought Bubble, but finances and time made it prohibitive. Over the years I've met a lot of my favourite comics creators at 2D, and all of them say it's a very special show - they get to interact with fans much more than they do at other conventions and there is a very relaxed attitude.

I've made a number of good friendships at 2D, that have the pleasantly predictable pattern of being dormant until the festival rolls round, but keep me entertained via Twitter and Facebook the rest of the year. I'd name people, but I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone by associating them with me...

There were a number of panels throughout the day and evening - this year I really enjoyed the panel on Social Media, the Transformers retrospective panel (despite me having read nary a book featuring an Autobot nor Decepticon), the interview with Perry Bible Fellowship creator Nick Gurewitch and the Eclectic Micks reunion panel. I also, by dint of fate and a sore throat on @Scott_Evil's behalf ended up hosting an interview with Game of Thrones storyboard artist Will Simpson (although as many know Will needs very little in the way of actual persuasion to regale listeners with interesting and funny stories).

Look, I love this festival. I'm IN love with this festival - it really does feel like a two-way street when I arrive up in Derry and there are people there who great me by name and with a friendly hug, who I literally haven't seen in 1 year. That's incredibly comforting. 

As a highlight of my year, there are very few places I can go and completely submerge myself in people who work in the medium I love so much. It's thrilling.

Anyway, here are a collection of sketches that were done for either myself or Susie over the weekend. Not all of them, just a few picks.

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What Do You Want To Read?

I've some things I want to write about, but if there's a subject you want to see me wrestle with I'd be keen to hear about it.

Half Past Dissection

I'm a big comics fan. You probably know this. I'm also a bit of an amateur film-maker. VERY amateur.

But I'd like to get better.

So I made this short video for Monaghan-based comics creator (and general all-round decent bloke) Stephen Mooney.

Ok, lets leave aside the fact that Half Past Danger looks great, and lets examine the video.

I'm a big fan of self criticism, so here are my problems with it:

  • My camera is a Fuji x100. It's great for off the cuff shooting and is sharp as a pin on still photos, but the video it shoots is only 720p, not the full 1080p of Full HD. I'd love to be able to afford something that can shoot decent HD, but that might have to wait. I'd relish being able to shoot with different lenses and have more control over focal points.
  • I'm actually pretty pleased with the sound, but the recording of it could have been streamlined better. I bought some lapel mics, but the Zoom H4N I borrowed had a buzz on the plug-in mic socket, so I had Stephen hold the recorder just below the frame out of shot. Turned out just fine. Better prepared next time.
  • Lighting - Stephen's studio is really bright, which is great for him, but it made controlling the light tough for a newbie. This lead to the odd shot where the light was blown out behind him.
  • I've no idea if the technique I used to make the black&white to colour transition shots is the right way, but it worked I think.
  • Keeping an interviewee on the relevant points is a tricky balancing act (sorry Stephen!) - I shot about 15 minutes of chat with him, used 4, which I'm guessing is pretty variable from subject to subject.
  • While we're on that - Stephen's eye-line is off. He should be looking just past the camera, not at 60 degrees from the plane of shooting. My fault, not his - I'm shooting it, I need to control the subject more.
  • Music - I chose music that sounded pretty good in the end, but I had to go through quite a few choices before I could get it past YouTube's Third Party Content filter. Important to bear that in mind - it misses very little.
  • Not enough useful coverage shots - I had to do one or two cross-dissolve cuts on Stephen's face, which annoyed me.

There is stuff I'm pleased about too - namely the speed I churned it out at. I had the rough cut done that evening and it was uploaded the following night. Being quick is important for an editor, and allowing yourself to procrastinate really works against you. I love the immediacy of it, and I don't know how I'd feel working on a longer-form piece.

Look, I want to get better. I'm keen to do more stuff like this, so if you've a short-form thing you fancy getting me to shoot let me know. I'm looking for a trickier challenge.

I review Indie Game: The Movie

Indie Game the movie is a film I've been waiting to see for a short while now, ever since I got back into the hobby of playing video games. I came across the trailer while googling how to overcome a particularly tricky puzzle in one of the featured games, Fez. 

This is it here.

Well, I was agog. Not because it was about games specifically, but that it seemed to be talking about something I'd experienced, albeit on a smaller scale - making art, and the worry that accompanies releasing it out into the wild; the fear that your own taste and efforts will be rejected once it's taken away from you and has to stand on its own two feet. 

IG:TM follows the journeys of 4 game creators. We see the pressure that faces Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, the two-man team that created Super Meat Boy in the run up to their release day. We meet Phil Fish, a game developer whose project Fez has taken him 4 years to mould. And lastly there is Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid, as he reflects on how the popularity of his game and how his personal interaction with the public affected him.

The important thing to note here is that the movie isn't really about games at all. It's about creativity and how people who exercise that can struggle to deal with how it's channelled and where it takes them (or doesn't). If you've ever created anything that you've laid bare for the masses to consume you'll instantly recognise the fear and uncertainty that the participants espouse, and because their enterprise is so clearly DIY and personal you end up rooting for all of them. 

Many of the moments are so relatable, that whenever one of the subjects suffers frustration or experiences elation our empathy is all but assured. There were more than a few moments in the film that I felt incredibly moved - "big deal, Ron cries at everything", I hear you say. Maybe so, but I didn't feel as if it was manipulative - the guys in the film are all pretty unassuming. When their backs are against the wall and the tears come, you know it's not forced. 

If you're a fan of games or not, watch the movie.

You can download it from here for $10 in lovely HD.

One final note: the moment in the game where the Super Meat Boy guys are experiencing their game going on sale? Well that's NOW for the directing team of James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot - do the decent thing and buy the movie from them. Let them experience the elation of knowing many, many people want to experience their art. They deserve it.

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I Really Want a Projector

I used to (actually still do) own a Home Cinema projector. It cost me a bloody fortune, but it was great. Unfortunately, it was also Standard Definition, and in these days of HD it just won't cut it.

So, I'm saving for a new one. I need 4 things, I've decided.

Projector: Optoma HD200X - really well reviewed, 1080p projector.

To attach this to the ceiling I'll need a mount. Ebay is full of these things, but I'll need to do a bit of maths before I commit to one. 

I'll also need a screen, funnily enough. I don't want to be messing around with manual screens, trying to get the picture to line up with it each time, so it'll have to be electric. 100 inches diagonal is what I'm looking for. Like this:

To get from the amp to the projector I'll need a long HDMI cable, and to split the HDMI signal between the TV and the Projector I'll need, well, an HDMI splitter. So, these things.

All of this comes to about £725... and of course I'm not working at the minute.

So, when you've finished laughing... the plan is to try and get there by selling stuff I have that I no longer want or need. I did this before and managed to buy a really decent TV, so here goes again.

My listings on Ebay are here - mainly a lot of old video games and other nerdaphanelia. But I'll be listing more stuff soon. I'll probably be listing some Wii/Xbox 360 games and some DVDs very soon too. I may even go insane and start selling some rare signed books...

And look, a ticker to keep track of how well/badly I'm doing at all this! As you can see, I'm not even 10% of the way there yet... but I'm pretty determined. I just have to persuade the wife that it's not a terrible idea.

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Protest of Gay Therapy semina

Earlier I popped down to the Belvoir Park Church of Ireland which is hosting a seminar focused on helping those who are gay change their orientation.

Here's a link to the story on UTV. Oh, and here is the BBC's coverage too. 

Rather than argue whether or not I agree with this, I'll just state that I don't even think it's biologically possible if you look at the masses of scientific evidence that being homosexual isn't a choice, but a genetic state of being that's decided long before you are even aware of your own existence...

But I digress: I mainly went to take some pictures. Behold!

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Belfast Skate Park

Found myself with 20 minutes to spare earlier, so I swung by the new skate park to see what was happening there. Thought I might grab a few photos as there hoardes of skaters and rollerbladers there.

The level of ability there was actually pretty impressive, and the atmosphere was nice and convivial. Bit light on ladies, but that's skating for you. 

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Green Lanter

So the new trailer for Green Lantern is up.

Look, I like how it looks, but part of me thinks that this trailer smacks of some sort of desperation, as if they aren't sure that the movie itself will be easy enough for the masses to follow.

I'm actually inclined to think that Green Lantern as a character/universe is probably a bit

too

 cosmic for most people. Your average super-hero movie has to include a lot of grounding in some sort of reality to give people who are new to it something to work with, but all I've seen of this flick has led me to believe that the vast majority of the story and action happens in space.

None of this bothers me of course, but audiences can be easily turned off by a movie that doesn't give them a lot to relate to.

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Donegall Place

Am I the last person to notice these things on Royal Avenue Donegall Place?

They're pretty imposing, and each one has the name of a different ship which was built in Belfast on it.

Anyone know anything more about them? It would be nice if the posts are parts of ships or something, but I suppose that would be hoping for too much.

UPDATE: Via @theeadversary, here are some of the details regarding the project.

(also, cheers to Daithi for correcting the street-name - don't know what I was thinking.)

Clingo Car Mount

I don't normally bother recommending a product, but I LOVE this thing. If you're looking for a really good car-mount for your phone, check it out.

The green pad is perpetually sticky, and it grips like hell, but at the same time devices peel off it with little effort and zero residue. It works best when your phone doesn't have a slide-off battery cover. My iPhone 4 sticks really well to it, as does the wife's 3GS in a back-cover.

Also, they produce a vent-mount version. Don't buy it. It's fiddly to fit (if it DOES fit) and I couldn't get the one I had to sit with any degree of stability.

You can get the windscreen mount Clingo on the likes of Amazon for around £12-13. Easily worth it.

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Straw Dog

Finally there is a trailer for the remake of 1971's classic siege movie Straw Dogs.

First, however, the original

Isn't that great? Doesn't that just drip menace and foreboding?

And now, the remake:

Eh... There's lots of loud noises!

I can't really talk about what makes Straw Dogs so powerful without spoiling an awful lot of it, but it's safe to say that a lot of what made Peckinpah's film such an incendiary bit of celluloid will be excised.

This is probably because modern audiences aren't too keen on mixing a bit of difficult drama into what is ostensibly a straight-down-the-line genre flick. Rather than explore the interesting elements of David and Amy's relationship, the complicated dynamic between Amy and her past and the ironic heroism of the finale, it'll likely jettison these issues and make a movie that doesn't challenge the viewer.

Ultimately though, this makes better business sense. People don't

like

 to leave the cinema feeling uneasy - they like a catharsis. However, Peckinpah, and others like him, knew that what audiences wanted and what they

needed

 were two different things.

Straw Dogs was an incredibly controversial movie when it was released. It was banned in various cut versions for years, which only added to its reputation.

This

 is why it's being remade - purely so the producers can have 'based on the BANNED original' above the title.

But mark my words - the last thing they want is for this movie to generate anything other than cash. 

On a side note, Straw Dogs is also one of my favourite iconic movie posters:

But I also just found this amazing bit of concept art by a guy called Josh Eckert that successfully conveys the entire tone of the movie. Brilliant stuff, which I had a full-size poster of it!

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Comply or Die - Shanghaied

Comply or Die are Belfast's premier merchants of doomy punk rock. They terrify and energise in equal amounts live, and their recorded output is usually of a couple of different colours. Earlier this year they released a split cassette with fellow doom-sayers The Slomatics, in which they showcased Vermin from their 2nd album DEPTHS which is due in August. 

Well, that may be too much for some of you - but there's another side to Comply or Die, and that's their more rockular tendencies.

Shanghaied is available here for nowt, and it's a slice of bouncy-bounce rock-a-long that won't quit. I've enjoyed this one live for a good while now, and I'm glad it's now been recorded.

So that's Comply or Die - I love them, and so should you.

Stevie Mac Loves Brian Cox

Stevie's done it again. The boy manages to make me smile with so little effort.

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I'm on a plane

Or, at least, I was. I nearly boked, as usual. So I took photos to distract myself.

I quite love the Camera+ app.

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photos of assembly election coverage

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got myself shortlisted for a #NISMA - thoughts?

Vote Now!

So, I done got myself nominated for an award, like. Not really expecting to win since it's essentially a 'get your mates to vote' thing and I've got less 'mates' than some of the other nominees.

BUT!

They want videos from nominees for winning and losing... and I LIKE making videos. So I'll just take it as an opportunity to have fun with that. Bit concerned that the organisers seem to want the videos in DV format though. It's no problem for me, but I suspect it'll be beyond the scope of most of the nominees actually. Shouldn't imagine it will affect their vote ranking in the slightest, but it'll be a shame if the winners in categories haven't got acceptance videos because of an arbitrary technical requirement.

Any video editing program will be able to convert from most of the formats that people have available to them on their phones without much trouble. So what do you say NISMA? Make it a bit easier for everyone to submit their videos?

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vajazzling hurts

I was cajoled by twitter people (who claim to like me) into getting myself waxed and vajazzled for charity. Here's the proof:


You can donate towards my nominated charity, Aware NI, at my JustGiving page here.

And that's all I want to say about it. I think I have PTSD.
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