Dead Presidents...
Not something that I’m going to do very often – but I popped a link to Lik Sang (quality supplier for all your videogame needs) on the blog page. Want to get something for your console or PC? Click on the link on the right hand side. And yes I do get money if you do – so help out a poor struggling writer will ya!!
Nic.
Hours before the end of the year...
...and along comes an ablum that might knock the excellent 'Fannypack - So Stylistic' off the number one spot of my albums of the year. I'll got to give it another listen but - Ryo the Skywalker & Friends - How To Hunt In The Bush - might just do it.
Nic.
The Beautiful South...
I’m back at Medulla Corp south – and I’m full of cold. I wonder if the DSL users of ‘Dunwich’ noticed a speed up in their Internet access while I was gone :)
Ended up having to buy a new DVD Burner while at Medulla Corp North. DO NOT GET ONE OF THEM LG DVD BURNERS. I think it lasted about 6 months before getting a 70% failed burn rate out of it. Picked up a Pioneer and not only is it twice as fast, but it was about half the price of the LG (when I bought it).
I’m going to search the post-Christmas sales for videogame bargains. I’d love to find a cheap ZOE2. Found one with £10 off – but since I’m not working at the moment I’m holding out for a better discount. I’ll probably hit Blockbuster later and see what they have in the bargain bucket.
Or maybe I’ll just go back to bed cos I feel like death warmed up...
Nic.
Hit the North...
I’m at Medulla Corp North. Would have been the quickest journey every except for two things. One – took a slightly different route and came across a sign for the ‘anal museum’. I had to take a look. To my dismay it ended up being the ‘Canal Museum’ and someone had rubbed out the C. Two – caught all the Christmas shoppers around 4PM. The last 20 miles dragged.
Still most of the journey allowed three figure speeds so I can’t complain.
Medulla Corp North now has a small wireless network. No broadband – so I’m on a dial up. It’s actually quicker than I remember it being. Maybe BT Broadband is getting slower???
Ta Ta for now,
Nic.
Closed for the hoildays...
As you may have guessed, things are slowing down here at Medulla Corp as the holidays loom. I’m heading to Medulla Corp North tomorrow, for a week – and even though the lab is coming with me, I wouldn’t expect any major discoveries.
So to anybody who reads this, Happy Christmas and New Year. Here’s hoping 2004 will bring new and exciting ventures to all...
Nic.
Splish splash I was having a bath...
The CVG news site has a preview of Argonaut's Jet Ski racer - 'Carve'. I did a little work on it - doing the script for the in-game voices. Check out the preview
HERE.
Finished my polish/re-write of 'Consolidate to Devastate'. I also prepped a 'companion' document that has some of the visual reference I collected while writing the script. Big problem with writing Sci-Fi scripts is getting across 'the design of things'. You can't fill pages with description so I'm going to start producing these companion docs where needs be.
I think I can finally put the C2D script to sleep. Over Christmas I'll continue planning the new script 'Everybody's Special' and start work on it in the New Year.
Nic.
How's this for a title...
I see the lift of the screener ban is started to ripple through. Lost in Translation and 21 Grams ‘released’ today. Two films I’ve been waiting to see. If they happen to fall onto my HD from above, so be it.
Think I’ve pretty much finished with the Quadrilogy box set. Wonderful stuff, but it made me realise that I just don’t like ‘Aliens’. It’s not a bad film. In isolation it’d be a great film, but in the context of the series it just doesn’t fit. All the other films have a timeless look to them. ‘Aliens’ is SO 80’s that they may has well have set it in Miami and dressed them in Armani. Maybe if I watch it again in a week or so (out of context). I’ll probably enjoy it more.
Picked up a new keyboard today (qwerty – not chromatic). I hated my last keyboard, and like every good procrastinating writer I was blaming it for my lack of writing. This new one is – better, but not great. I think I just like cheap keyboards. That being said, while I was trying them out in the shop I did find the £199 blue tooth Logitec t be the best. May be if Orchid sells I’ll buy one. Can’t exactly justify it at the moment. Still – this one is cordless so I can pick it up and throw it across the room without restraints.
Work continues on the new draft of C2D. Stripped out about 5 pages so far and have worked in a couple of new sequences that make the events of the last 60 pages make more sense. Hope to have it finished real soon. I’ve updated the link to the first act on the site.
Nic.
The fog that befell Dunwich...
Very ‘Lovecraftian’ weather we’re having. Aided by the fact that some how a bird seems to be stuck in the walls of my house...
It’s one of those days I guess.
Nic.
4th times a charm...
I couldn’t help myself – I watched Alien Res (with commentary). Things I like and dislike about this movie can be summed up in two word phrases. Here we go.
Kim Flowers
Probably my favourite visual effect in the whole movie. She's great. Why hasn’t she done more movies? I kind of loose interest after she ‘gets it’.
New Born
Fucking awful. What a mistake!!
Atom Zone
Tee Hee. I remember when the tech guys are Argonaut were putting this together. I think we’d just started work on the game for Fox so they got Argonaut to put this together. It was playable and word from the set was that people really enjoyed it. Surprised it never surfaced anywhere.
Nic.
3 times the amout of extras...
Spent the afternoon with Alien 3. The special edition wasn’t too much of a surprise since I read the book before seeing the movie at the cinema. I was wondering where all the cut stuff had gone to back then. Didn’t really like the new edit I have to say. Re-watched the original cut with the commentaries and worked my way through the hours of stuff on the supplemental disk. Very cool stuff.
My feelings for the movie haven’t changed since I first saw it back in 1993. I liked it back then, and I still like it today. Fincher’s raw talent was as obvious to me back then as it is now.
I’ll take a look at Resurrection tomorrow. It’s my least favourite of the movies.
Seems to be a trend with my DVD collection – having multiple copies of the same movie. I guess I’m not too bothered this time round because the original ‘Legacy’ box set was a gift from Fox. I like free box sets...
Nic.
Marvin...
Haven’t blogged for a few days. Couple of reasons. My girlfriend (Queen of the Air Miles) was back from Milan for the weekend, before flying off to Hong Kong for three weeks. Also – not a lot to say really.
I’ve started the polish draft of ‘Consolidate to Devastate’ and I’ve found an interesting way to get around my dyslexia. Wouldn’t say it’s 100% - but it’s a lot better than me just looking at the text and it blurring into a mess.
Basically – I get the computer to read the script out loud, paragraph by paragraph, and I go in and fix all the stuff that doesn’t sound right. I’m looking into finding something more ‘human sounding’ than the default Microsoft voices (AT&T’s Natural Voices seem the best) – but it’s fine for the time being.
Alien Quadrilogy (or whatever) turned up today. Like most people – first thing I did was start watching the new edit of Alien 3. I’m also looking forward to seeing the original theatrical release of Aliens again because I’m not a fan of the directors cut. Too long – and I prefer the mystery of not knowing what happened on LV426.
BTW - Started scanning all those reviews and stuff. I gave up. There's just too much of it!!!
Nic.
Gold dust...
I've been digging. Not deep digging - just actually tidying my office, and I've come across some gold. I found a storage box PACKED full of reviews and clippings from all the games I've ever worked on, even my old Amiga demos. I'll probably spend tomorrow scanning a lot of this in and dropping it on the site. But best of all - I found a 'Croc' ski hat, so I'm set for the winter!!! It'll go with my Croc jacket, t-shirt, and cap... natch
I think it'll be therapeutic, collecting all this stuff and putting it up on the site. The closing of one chapter, while I embrace the next...
Nic.
Interesting...
I read (most) of my script ‘Consolidate to Devastate’ last night (couldn’t sleep). Man – it’s dense. It’s really dense. Dense as in ‘lots of stuff’, not ‘stupid’. There are bits of it I love, and bits that could be better. I think I need to take another pass at it and ‘add some air’ and some general ‘flare’.
What was I on? There are SO MANY set pieces in this script that it almost chokes the reader. I think some of the cooler moments are swamped by the overall weight of the piece!! Problem is with adding ‘air’ is that it’s already 120 pages long. I could probably cut out a sequence or two – so it might be all right.
The good news is it zips along. But it’s probably just a little too fast!
I’ll run a pass on it after I’ve finished ‘Everybody’s Special’. Get it ready for some serious sending out next year.
Nic.
What's in a name...
Finally – work has re-started on the ‘Everybody’s Special’ script. I’m back in the planning stages but already I've made myself more comfortable with how it all unfolds. Also come up with a nice new name for the lead character that is kind of a clue to the story at the same time. Aren’t I clever....
The plan is to spend this month deep in planning. Then write the screenplay in January. It’ll mean I’m a month over on my self-imposed deadline – but I can live with that if the script is good.
Nic.
The world of tomorrow...
This is a fantastic read, BT’s predictions for the future of technology. I’m particularly taken with the very last prediction since this is something I’ve been harping on about for a few years.
“Immortality chip – people move into cyberspace”.
Damn right. Games like ‘Everquest’ (not that I play it) will be the prototype for an electronic society. By the time I hit 100 I want to be a brain in a jar, jacked into a virtual world of my own creation.
Nic.
Game News
PC Kid (AKA Bonk) returns to the PS2. Not sure how many people will know these games. The series originally come out on the PC Engine (the greatest console ever made), but also appeared on the SNES (and Amiga I seem to remember) as BC Kid or Bonk.
Why am I telling you all this? Well my old friend Aoki Kobuta was the lead character designer on the series. I was lucky enough to work with him on ‘Croc 1’ where he was sent over to offer some assistance. I love his art. The guy could draw Croc better than anyone with only a couple of lines. I regret more of his work didn’t end up on the game.
I’m going to have a look around the house and see if I can find any of his sketches. I’ll pop them in the games design section if I do.
Nic.
*UPDATED*: Some of Aoki's sketches can now be found in the
games design section.
SMOKES ARE GOOD FOR YOU!!!
I fact if I wasn't so drunk - I'd go out and buy some now... (natch)
I noticed the wonderful TV show ‘Action’ was showing at 4AM on Channel 4 at the weekend. How great was this show! Wonderful stuff.
I must have missed the first few episodes (even though I’ve recently found out that the best shows are on a 4 in the morning). Sky+ is a god send. Tag it, series link it. Nice.
Here’s a couple of my fav lines from the weekends episodes:
“I never voted to subsidies the growing of tobacco while turning my back on food programs for starving kids. I never vetoed a gun control bill. All my guns are fake senator! I’ve never rushed into the defence of Kuwaiti oil fields while ignoring genocide on Africa because big oil companies that line your fat pockets aren’t concerned with black Africa. Those are all productions of your company senator.”
“They want chase scenes, and car crashes. They want firm breasts, and tight-ass Latino men. They want their cowboys strong and silent. They want their cops to bend the rules to get the job done. They want the boy to get the girl. They want the alien to be killed (unless he’s cute). They want the good guy to win, they want the bad guy to die, hopefully in the biggest explosion the budget will allow. But most importantly senator, they want to walk into a theatre and for ninety minutes forget the fucking mess that you have left of this nation.”
Amen!
I other news. Instead of putting the phone down on telesales, I’ve decided it’s best to play with them for a while, before annihilation.
Nic.
Azumi Extras...
As I suspected – the Azumi extras are in Japanese with no subs (kinda like my 'Returner' disc). The good news is my Japanese is about as good as my French. The bad news is my French isn’t very good.
Two things I did get out of the second disc are 1: Aya Ueto did all her own stunts (and got hurt in the process). 2: Videogame legend Hideo Kojima is an extra in the epic last battle. Kind of explains a little how Kitamura came to do the cut scenes for MGS: Twin Snakes.
Anyways – if you speak (or simply understand) Japanese, there’s a lot to get your teeth into on the second disk. About and hour twenty of interviews and a forty minute making of, plus TV spots and some design sheets.
So if you’re interested in picking up a copy of ‘Azumi’ you could probably do worse than ask my friend Mark to get you a copy. He’s back in Japan as of today and his website is
markinjapan.com. He primarily deals with import games – but I’m sure if you asked him nicely...
I think I’ll be asking him to send over a copy of kitamura’s ‘Alive’. Didn’t realise but that has just come out on DVD in Japan. I think I have the first issue of the manga somewhere and that was pretty cool.
Nic.
"Where do the stars go during the day"...
Azumi finally turned up today, and since a lot of people seem to find themselves here looking for information on the movie – I figured I should tell you my thoughts.
I’ll even drop a convenient, search engine friendly string of words right here:
Azumi Ryuhei Kitamura Aya Ueto Versus.
Right from the get go you should know a few things. I am not a Japanese Samurai movie buff. I haven’t seen that many movies from the genre and I wouldn’t call myself a fan. That being said I picked up Azumi for two reasons – it was directed my ‘Ryuhei Kitamura’ (and I loved ‘Versus’), and it had a cute girl with a sword in it. Those two reasons alone are enough to make me forget just how much I paid for this movie (cost of the disk + post + import tax + fucking post office fees!!).
So enough about that – is the movie any good. Well - yes, and no.
Let me explain. This is a long movie. Two hours eighteen before the credits roll. I’m really not into long movies. I like em’ to be about ninety minutes, get in, get out, entertain me. Azumi could have been such a movie.
You see, this movie works brilliantly when the lead character (Azumi, played by Aya Ueto) is on screen. She is wonderful and gives a truly captivating. When she’s on screen the movie is very, very, very, very good. Unfortunately there are some long stretches where she is not on screen, and the movie really dips.
Now – this could be just me. I’m very much from the ‘Luc Besson’ school of filmmaking. I believe he once said something like ‘give a girl a gun and you’ve got a movie’. I tend to agree as anyone who has read my screenplays will notice. Give a girl a sword and I’m equally happy.
Had some of the sequences when Aya Ueto’s not on screen been cut down – this movie would have really worked. I’m not sure if Japanese filmmakers ‘test’ their movies (also Japanese audiences are by no means the same as Western) – but if they had, I’m sure this would have been a criticism.
Anyway – enough of that, because there is more to talk about.
This movie is incredibly well directed. It’s beautiful. Some of the fight sequences are so stunning that I ended up rewinding to watch them again. Fourty-two minutes in you’ll find possibly the must beautifully choreographed sequence I have ever seen. I literally shouted out, “oh my god!”
Ryuhei Kitamura is one of the finest visual directors working today. Versus is a really dumb movie, but it’s shot so well that you can forgive any shortcomings. Azumi is the same. For all my moaning about screen time and length, I did really enjoy the movie.
As visual effects get cheaper, it great to see what directors with vision can do on a limited budget. I’m sure Azumi’s budget was high for a Japanese movie – but probably nothing compared to a Western movie. Yet it felt so polished, so inventive, so fresh that it really shows up just what frauds the Whack-chow-skis (and that obnoxious VFX guy they use) are.
Versus reminded me of Evil Dead – primarily because of its inventive camera work. If Versus was Evil Dead, Azumi is Spiderman. Kitamura has been given the budget to let his imagination run free. I’d just love to see what he could do with a serious amount of money and possibly better source material. This is going to sound really pompous after that last sentence, but I’d love to see what he could make of ‘Orchid’ and ‘Consolidate to Devastate’. I can’t think of any other director who could capture the essence of those stories better than Kitamura.
So should you see Azumi? Yes – you should. Should you spend as much money as I did to see Azumi? Probably not. No doubt it’ll get a UK release in about a years time (like ‘Versus’ did, and ‘Returner’ is about to). As for US – no idea. But in LA you can probably rent it from that video shop next the Nuart (can’t remember the name off the top of my head – been a while since I was there.)
I’ll take a look at the bonus disk later today and report back on that.
Nic.
