Now that we’re all wrapped on editing 5:13, we’re starting to gear up for its promotion and release.

We released the poster in the middle of last month, and we’ve just been mentioned over on the Microsoft Tag Blog.

5:13 a thriller movie slated to release in 2010 just implemented Microsoft Tag in their movie poster.

Using Microsoft Tag on printed materials creates the opportunity for indie and corporate movie companies to increase the ROI on their print marketing efforts. With Microsoft Tag print advertising can now serve as a real life portal to the online world. Keep an eye out for Microsoft Tag on other print material in your area and for the release of 5:13.

If you want to read more, or test out the Tag and view our mobile content, head on over to this blog post.

I went to see Angels and Demons last night, up at VUE.

It’s the first film I’ve watched since finishing up on 5:13.  Actually, it’s the first film I’ve watched for a little while longer than that.  Editing on a film can ruin the film watching process for a little while.  You spend so much of your working day analysing each individual scene and picking faults with things that nobody else notices, that it’s difficult to watch any film without doing the same.

Last night was the first time I’ve been able to sit back and enjoy a film without doing that.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go watch it.  It’s brilliant.

It actually feels kind of like 24-meets-the-Da-Vinci code, mostly because the majority of the film is set over a period of just a few hours.  It’s a good, tense, film that keeps pace throughout.  It’s not as intricate as the Da Vinci Code, but it is, I think, the better film.

You can read my brief review here.

Currently listening to Broken Strings by James Morrison from the album Songs For You, Truths For Me - View my music profiles and add me to Last.fm and iLike!

That's it.  Wrapped.

5:13, the horror film I’ve been working on for the last few months, is now wrapped, rendered and currently burning to DVD as I speak, ready to submit to some festivals later this week, including London Fright Fest.

The trailer has also been re-edited too. 

I’ll post more about the work I’ve been doing over on my work blog soon.

We had a “wrap party” on Sunday night to celebrate (although, funnily, we didn’t actually complete the film until Monday night) and it was a chance for us to test the new trailer with a group of friends who, actually, don’t know a lot/anything about the work I’ve been doing (we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise).  Anyway, there was enough screams for us to declare it a success.  We should be able to share that with the world soon enough.

Anyway, the barbecue was good fun, nice to catch up with everybody, and show them what we’ve been up to.

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We’d gone over our schedule by a day (not too bad!), so I dropped Arivind Abraham, writer/director of 5:13, back into London yesterday.  I thought I’d make a day of it, so Gemma and I both went up and played “tourists” for the day and we mentally redecorated out houses in Harrods (although Gemma very nearly broke a crystal pineapple).

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Anyway, break over.  Just preparing the festival DVDs at the moment, then it’s back to some programming work.  Got the weekend off, then it’s time for a push at finishing off the other film, The Joshua Tapes.  Deadline for that is just weeks away.

Laters.

I used to absolutely love The Lightning Seeds when I was younger.  I pretty much grew up on their music.

Anyway, they pretty much disappeared for the past 10 years, but they’re back this week with a new studio album.  It’s not nearly as “poppy” as their previous material, but all the songs on the album are good.  Still well written and catchy.

And the video for their new single, Ghosts, is pretty smart too!

Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to hear them live again in the Summer.

Currently listening to All I Do by Lightning Seeds from the album Four Winds - View my music profiles and add me to Last.fm and iLike!

If there was one film I wasn’t particularly looking forward to, it was a new Star Trek film.  I’ve never been a particular fan of the franchise (although I used to watch Next Generation as a kid, and I’ve seen some of the movies but can’t remember a thing about them), preferring Star Wars over all that “beam me up” stuff, but after catching an early trailer, and finding out that the film was in the hands of JJ Abrams, a man who can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned, I thought if I was going to watch it, I might as well watch it in style, so we drove the three hours to the Imax in London to catch it, last Friday night.

The film was amazing.

I’m not entirely sure how faithful it was to the original series, movies or overall timeline (although the time travel elements could conveniently explain anything away), but I’m not sure that it mattered.  The movie was phenomenal.  It was fast paced, never dragged, and the casting, effects, sound and picture was breathtaking.

As for the lack of William Shatner, I’m glad.  The movie benefitted from “nodding” at the past films and past stories.  Any sort of appearance for Shatner would have thrown the new film back into camp territory and this was, in all honesty, the first time the franchise had managed to avoid it, completely.  The inclusion of Leonard Nimoy was vital to the story and worked well.

Over the last few years, there has been an influx of reboots for dead franchises.  This is quite possibly the best reboot (topping, for me, Batman Begins).

Anyway, a really, really good film.  Can’t fault it, really.

Currently listening to Deeper by Dexter Freebish from the album A Life Of Saturdays - View my music profiles and add me to Last.fm and iLike!

Ok, so it took a little longer than I had hoped, but finally, somebody managed to break it on my behalf.

Yep, Jo managed to break it after Leanne and Rich bought him a Piñata for his birthday.  He took it outside, hung it to the garage and took a swing, knocking the metal bracket off the wall which collided with Snail on a Ball…  Ah well.  It lived far longer than expected.  I thought I would have taken my foot to it a long time ago.

Ugh, it’s been a really busy few months.

Wrapping up on the two films I’ve been working on, 5:13 and The Joshua Tapes.  The post production process is nearly complete now.  In fact, we’re just wrapping up on the sound mix on both of those films, whilst Luke is colour treating up in Glasgow.

It’s been a really great experience, and I’m looking forward to being able to post the trailers, and launch the promotional web sites later in the year, and then get ready for the release.  Most exciting of all, is that I’m going to be heading off to Malaysia early next year for the premiere.  I can’t wait.

In the near(er) future, I’m very excited about getting some time off.  Aside from Christmas, it’s been pretty much non-stop since last September/October.  I went freelance in November, so it’s been a case of using Monday and Friday to earn a living, and then editing all weekends, so it’s going to be nice to get a chance to kick back a bit, catch up with some friends, play some games, watch some movies…. 

We wrap up on the films on the 24th of this month.  Planning a “wrap party” BBQ for that evening. A sort of celebration of freedom… And a chance to show my friends and family the trailers.

It’s been such a great experience, but I’m looking forward to spending my first day off in bed.

Currently listening to It's Always The Same by Tyler Hilton from the album Tyler Hilton - View my music profiles and add me to Last.fm and iLike!

I received a collection of three new David Ford songs yesterday, entitled “Pages Torn From The Electrical Sketchbook Vol #2”.  It’s a CD given away at his Milk and Cookies gig last year.

Anyway, it’s amazing.  There’s a studio version of “To Hell With The World” which is one of my new favourite songs, and is in danger of replacing “Song for the Road” as my favourite song of all time…

Anyway, there’s nothing on the CD encouraging sharing (unlike volume one) so I probably can’t upload the songs for everyone, but if you fancy a listen, it’s featured on his MySpace music player at:

http://www.myspace.com/davidford

There’s also a brand new demo song there, called “Hurricane”…  It’s beautiful.

I love this guy.

And the band’s playing tunes that mean nothing to you,
But you can dance better with the devil you know.
All along I was taught to keep my head above the water, but I might just prefer it below

So when victory comes at too heavy a price, well there’s honour in choosing defeat,
Like the boy who was given the keys to the world and decided to sleep on the street.

We headed up to Durham for the weekend to visit Elle’s parents, Margaret and Ken.  With all the editing and work-filled-weekends, it was good to have a few days to chill out a bit (We get stuck back into 5:13 next weekend).

The trip up took slightly longer than expected…  Satellite navigation is great, assuming that Elle gives you the right postcode…  So, after a slight diversion (via a different house, with the same street name, but in a different, nearby town), we made it in about five and a half hours…

Picked up a new 5-door 308 a few weeks ago, so that made the drive a bit nicer and a bit more comfortable for everyone.  Although I’ve managed to clock up around 2,500 miles already.  It’s a nice car.

We went off to the MetroCentre on Friday, which was absolutely huge, and then into Durham itself.  Saturday, we headed off up to Kendal in the Lake District.

Anyway, photos are below.

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Headed off to Thorpe Park yesterday with Jo, Leanne, Gemma, Arivind, Sam, Hayley, Theo and Maz.

The place was totally packed out, what with it being Easter break.  The new ride, based on the Saw movies was absolutely amazing….  It kicks off with the roller coaster making its way through some of the Saw traps, in the dark, and results in a 100 ft drop at 110 degrees…

It was pretty amazing.  And worth the 2 1/2 hour wait….!  Though it pretty much finished off Arivind…  (It was the banana boat that finally sent him over the edge, but he doesn’t want to talk about it).

We’ll head back during term time, I think.

Anyway, it was a good day.  More photos below…

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Continued the Valentines Day tradition of going to see a scary movie.  I’m not entirely sure what that says about me…

Anyway, it was Friday 13th that we saw this year.

Pretty scary, very jumpy and tense…  The only downside (apart from there wasn’t a lot of back-story for Jason) was that most of the characters were morons and I was virtually rooting for them to get torn apart.  That, and the fact that they were acting like they’d never seen a horror film themselves.  Otherwise, a pretty good reboot to the series (but not as good as the reboots for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween).

Good, though.

Incidentally, if anybody’s on Flixter, add me.

Thought we’d buy Thumper a Valentines Day gift, a new little friend to play with.  He actually might be his little brother, but we’re not entirely sure.

Anyway, meet little Walter!  He’s so tiny and cute!  And Thumper seems to like him (Walter doesn’t seem all that bothered, but he’s only about 4 weeks old, and has been around his siblings).

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…Until this morning.

Back from Center Parcs.  Surprised my mum for her 60th with a family trip away.  My brother came down from Derby too, with his girlfriend.  Had a really good time.  And, it snowed, so spend the last day, outside in the heated pool and rapids, in the snow.

And it was a 100% work-free weekend.  Not one call or problem to iron out or anything.  Woop.

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Went live over the weekend with a web site for friend/colleague Arivind Abraham.  Take a look if you get a chance, there’s some interesting insight into the two film projects I’m currently editing on.

Read about the project

Visit the site

Today, i-board is launching a new “player” for its online educational content, including all the games and activities that I’ve worked on over the past couple of years.  The player is being revealed today at BETT (I’m hoping to get along later in the week).

Take it for a spin at http://player.iboard.co.uk/player/.

Read more about it over on my work blog.

We’ve just gone live with an online store for Stoned Boutique.  You can visit the site here, or read about the work that was involved here on my work blog.

Photos are up from our “Hollywood” New Years party…

It was a good night.  Drank (Matt and his girlfriend had brought some Raki back from Turkey, which is lethal), ate and set off fireworks…   And played some games.  Gemma kicked ass at Lips. As ever.

I don’t particularly make New Years resolutions (in fact, mine for this year is to buy some new shoes…. hardly ambitious…  But easy to fulfil) but hopefully, now things are settled a bit with working freelance, and the films will be out of the way by March, I can catch up with the people that I’ve not seen a lot of this year.  And get some new shoes.  And sneak in some travelling.

Anyway, Happy New Years!

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It snowed last night, but only in Portishead, and only around the marina.

Anyway, got a bit locked out this morning (Elle!) so thought I’d take a drive round…

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Whilst watching a programme recorded at Eastbourne’s Hippodrome Theatre:

“I thought Bristol Hippodrome was the only one!  I didn’t realise Hippodrome was a chain”

And whilst watching a section about a lady who loves chickens:

“Why do all the chickens have girl’s names?”

I hope she never moves out.