It’s been a busy week-and-a-bit, my first working fully freelance, and one which found me filming new content for ReelScotland, interviewing a hero, writing about another and gaining yet another in the environs of the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF).
Last Saturday I headed to Glasgow’s Collectormania event at the Braehead Arena, a chance to top up on geekiness (my levels are actually never too low) and see what’s happening in the world of movies, comics and TV. I also wanted to interview the producers of a new Scottish science fiction movie, Night is Day, which I’d been reading about.
While the harsh light of the arena wasn’t exactly flattering and lack of tripod meant it was a tad shaky, I think it’s turned out OK, and the full article is up on ReelScotland:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8leW8BZzYEQ]
On Sunday I finally managed to catch-up with the musical genius that is Neil Brand, one of the world’s foremost silent movie accompanists, who was in Edinburgh for the weekend having played at the Cameo cinema on Thursday evening, when I was out of town. I’d already published a short interview with Neil on ReelScotland, conducted by email, but this was a chance to meet him in the flesh.
Tuesday found me back in the offices of Civic, where I spend one day a week as a Digital Editor, this week mainly working on analysing clients’ websites and seeing what changes might be needed content or navigation-wise.
Wednesday was meant to be a flying visit to the EIBF, with an event at 2pm called Story Machines: Movies, part of a mini-festival hosted by writer, Charlie Fletcher. This brought together scriptwriter/novelists William Nicholson and Don Boyd in a fascinating discussion on the pitfalls of writing for cinema and the joys of writing your own books. Both do seem to love cinema, but the fact that over 50% of all work fails to make the cinema screen was disheartening to them. It was a lively, insightful and thought-provoking event, perhaps the best I’ve seen at the EIBF.
I ended up staying for another talk, Story Machines: Games, featuring three fascinating panelists in the shape of Steven Poole, Naomi Alderman and Trevor Byrne, which looked at the potential and successes/failures of the gaming world in embracing storytelling. I’m keen to get back into the world of gaming after a number of years away from it, and this was a decent primer.
The final part of the day was spent at Story Machines: The Last Chapter, which brought William Nicholson back to the stage alongside comics legend, Alan Moore.
Theories of psychology and religion were sent forth into the rapt audience by Moore, Nicholson occasionally interjecting as Charlie Fletcher sat between the pair. By the end of the panel I was filled with enthusiasm for the creative process, Moore’s insistence that anyone who has an idea or ambition should just get on with making it a reality hitting home with many of us.
After writing a post for ReelScotland celebrating the career of Sir Sean Connery on his birthday, (he was 80 that day), I sent off my column to the Edinburgh Evening News which asked why Edinburgh doesn’t see the need to mark the occasion when other cities go out of their way to erect statues to their favourite sons or daughters. I’ve also recorded an audioboo on the same subject:
Finally (I warned you it was a busy week) I was invited back onto BBC Radio Scotland’s Movie Café on Thursday to discuss the return of Avatar to cinemas and the release of Edinburgh-set The Illusionist. It was a short-but-sweet chat and good fun, and you can hear the programme on iPlayer for the next few days:
In amongst all that there were a few meetings, a bit of planning for the coming weeks, and a visit to the always worthwhile Edinburgh Coffee Morning. There are a few interesting projects brewing around the subject of content creation which I hope to be able to write about soon.
