Boxing Day 2009: Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Creepy: Never Say Not To Panda

Genius: Chris Cunningham's video for Gil Scott-Heron

A lifetime or two ago, a special effects whizkid called Chris Halls came to work for me as an artist on the Judge Dredd Megazine. He got a lot of static for being a Bisley clone, but it was obvious Chris had talent. Happily he's found an appreciative outlet outside the insular world of comics, using the name Chris Cunningham.

After he left the Meg Chris spent six months working for Kubrick on AI, before deciding to plough his own furrow as an inspirational film director. He's probably best known for music videos such as Frozen for Madonna, All Is Full of Love for Bjork and some truly disturbing work for Aphex Twin. Outstanding.

Above you can see his latest effort, a hypnotic video for Gil Scott-Heron's track New York Is Killing Me. If they'd made The Wire in New York instead of Baltimore, I'm guessing it would have had the same vibe as this video. Utterly compelling.

UPDATE: As you can see above, YouTube has blocked this video for reasons of copyright infringement. Shame. Hopefully it will pop up somewhere else soon. In the meantime, I heartily recommend you go [legally!] download the Gil Scott-Heron song anyway - it's cracking.

NEW UPDATE: Found another website still hosting the video that enabled embedding. Not sure how long it will stay up, so enjoy while it lasts if you can. Video plays faster than it loads, so to avoid frustration press play to trigger loading and then hit pause for a few minutes. [Think of the delay as an old school return to the low-fi days of pre-broadband when anything took forever to load.]

Bottoms Up for Benedict: Pontiff in Porno Picture Shocker

This photo from the pope's recent visit to Edinburgh is all kinds of wonderful. For a start, there's the Bottoms Up Pole Dancing Revue Bar and adjacent sauna parlour in the background [the Pope's route took him past an area of Edinburgh so stuffed with strip pubs and sex workers, locals call it the Pubic Triangle].

Then there's the popemobile's tinted glass make it seem the pontiff is actually a kind of underwater exhibit from a freakshow. Does he have gills, you wonder? Thirdly there's the man throwing what looks like a Nazi salute at his holiness. So - sex, freaks and Nazis, all in one pic. Can't say fairer than that, can you.

Picture came courtesy of the always entertaining blog McShandy's, who was tipped off about the photo by crime writer Ian Rankin. [Old Town Top Rankin, in this case.] Cheers, gents!

Cool fan titles for "The Walking Dead" TV series

THE WALKING DEAD "Opening Titles" from Daniel Kanemoto on Vimeo.

If you like Mutton Birds or Don McGlashan...

...you'll probably like The Bellbirds. It's a new Kiwi band with Don McGlashan [ex-Mutton Birds, Blam Blam Blam, and Front Lawn songsmith] just one of four very talented members. The Bellbirds haven't officially released anything yet, but below you can see them making a live studio recording on Kiwi FM a few months back.



You can hear a longer in-studio session by The Bellbirds on Radio New Zealand by going here. You can also listen to the four members discuss how they get together and their wildly varying backgrounds here. Enjoy the music. Onwards!

Genius: timelapse video by Mike Flores

Timelapse Montage from Mike Flores on Vimeo.

See more by Mike Flores here.

Book 'em, Solo: Star Wars in a Hawaii 5-0 stylee

Genius: "...and hear the lamentation of their women."

That Frank Miller & Judge Dredd cover incident

The Judge Dredd Megazine celebrates its 20th anniversary tomorrow [the first issue went on sale September 15th, 1990]. Editor Matt Smith has produced a cracking birthday edition to mark the occasion. Lots of people have been visiting Vicious Imagery for the tale of Frank Miller's aborted 10th anniversary Meg cover - so here's the skinny:

"Hmph. He saw you coming!"

The Judge Dredd Megazine celebrated its tenth anniversary in the year 2000. To mark the occasion, then editor Andy Diggle saved up his editorial pennies and commissioned US comics legend Frank Miller to do the birthday issue cover. Andy had moved on to editing 2000 AD when Miller's pic arrived and I was freelance editor of the Meg.

By chance, Judge Dredd co-creator John Wagner happened to be in the office when the artwork arrived. I opened the package up in John's presence - you can see his typically terse response above. After some back and forth via email, Miller withdrew permission for us to publish his work - but nor did we have to pay him.

Some time later Miller put his original art up for auction, with all proceeds going to an extremely worthy cause, the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund. It sold for at least a thousand US dollars, so some good emerged from the whole episode. The original pops up eBay occasionally. Here it is, make of this what you will...

Going off-grid; new Doctors commission; games gig

Right, I'm signing off from Vicious Imagery for the next two months due to pressure of work. I've just been commissioned to write my third episode of Doctors for BBC1, for broadcast in March next year. The new teaching year has begun at the Creative Writing MA course I help teach at Edinburgh Napier University. Plus there's this:

Indie developers Red Redemption are excited to announce that David Bishop, award-winning screen writer, Dr Who author and former editor of cult UK comics 2000AD and Judge Dredd Magazine, is writing the script for upcoming PC/Mac strategy title Fate of the World.

Fate of the World is a global strategy game that puts the whole world in the player's hands. Players will have to decide how the world will respond to rising temperatures, heaving populations, dwindling resources, crumbling ecosystems and brave opportunities.

"I'm thrilled to be writing the script for this innovative game," says David Bishop. "It's not often you get to work on a project that's got such a powerful message embedded in its narrative fabric, yet also offers you the chance to destroy the world in dozens of different ways!"

"A game with so many narrative outcomes as Fate of the World presents a real challenge for writers. David is such an intelligent, witty and versatile writer and we couldn't have imagined a better fit," said Ian Roberts, Creative Director of Red Redemption.

My non-disclosure agreement means I can't say anything else about the project [so don't ask - sorry!]. All of these things mean I have to put Vicious Imagery to one side for at least two months. See you later in the year, hopefully. Onwards!

Want feedback from a producer, a writer & a script editor?

Sign up for REWRITE: An Insider's Guide To Working With Script Editors And Producers and that's exactly what you'll get. For a month after this seminar on October 2nd you'll have the chance to submit a pitch doc for one of your projects. The feedback will help you get this selling document ready for sending out to the industry.

So what happens on the day? Expect a fun, friendly and info-packed day for writers of all levels who are interested in exploring a career as a screenwriter or script editor. This unique seminar is a rare chance to hear from six speakers with a wealth of UK and international film and broadcast experience. They are:

Philip Shelley: Script Editor and Producer. Philip has worked with most of the UK's leading writers and producers. He is one of the UK's most respected script consultants and trainers.

Arabella Page-Croft: Producer, Black Camel Pictures. Arabella has successfully produced two features both with international sales and distribution and is currently prepping to shoot her third.

Turan Ali: Producer, Bona Broadcasting. Turan has a huge range of experience as a producer of both TV and radio that covers the world of international drama and documentary.

Rob Fraser: Writer. Rob has an extensive CV of credits and has worked with all the UK's broadcasters. He has written for Holby City, Taggart, Monarch Of The Glen and many, many others.

Louise Ironside: Writer. Louise works across TV, radio and stage and is currently writing for BBC Scotland's River City and The Traverse Theatre Edinburgh.

Peter Hynes: Writer and Script Editor. One of the UK's most prolific and successful writers of live action and animated children's television with currently over one hundred and eighty TV programmes scripted and transmitted worldwide.

Adrian Mead: Writer and Director. Adrian has written or directed a wide range of film and TV projects including, Waking The Dead, The Eustace Brothers, Blue Dove and feature film Night People, winner of the Cineworld BAFTA audience award.

REWRITE: An Insider's Guide To Working With Script Editors And Producers is on Saturday October 2nd between 10am and 5pm at St Columba's-by-the-Castle, 14 Johnston Terrace, Edinburgh, EH1 2PW. The seminar costs £85, including a light lunch. For details, go here.

I should point out I'm not getting a penny for endorsing this event. I've been to several screenwriting seminars organised by Adrian Mead and they're worth every penny. What you see is what you get - so book now!

Bishop Family Snapshots #2

Bishop Family Snapshots

NSFW: The Bloody Apprentice by CassetteBoy

guilt is a rope that wears thin [my first album cover]

No, I haven't formed a band called Brzozowo-Antonie. Nor I have retreated to a cabin in woods beset by a permanent fog to record a moody mumblecore album. Pictured above is my take on a Facebook meme where you combine random searches on Wikipedia and Flickr to create a mock-up of your mythical band's first album cover.

These are the instructions: Click here to be transported to a random Wikipedia article. The first random article you get is the name of your band. Next, click here to visit a random quotations page. Use the last quote on the page as the title for your album. [If the quote's too long, just use the last four or five words.]

Now click here and you'll be taken to a Flickr page will full of interesting photos uploaded in the last seven days. The third picture - no matter what it is - is your album cover art. Use iPhoto or Photoshop or similar to edit the picture as required. Then put all the elements together in Pages or inDesign or another desktop design piece of software.

Feel like sharing the results? Post your first album cover to Facebook or your blog [with this instructional text in the "caption"] and tag the friends you want to join in. Took about eight minutes to pull mine together, from start to finish. I tag Lucy Vee, Andrew Tibbs, and Helen Caldwell.

This is Genius: Better Book Titles

I love this. A scamp called Dan Wilbur has a site called Better Book Titles where he posts renamed front covers for well known tomes that more accurately encapsulate what's within the volume. "Now you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!" he suggests [though some might quibble with The Da Vinci Code as great or literary.] These are three of my favourites - see the rest here.

How I became a TV drama writer

Lots of bloggers have been telling the story of their inspiration for becoming screenwriters. Don't think anybody's tagged me with this meme, but it's been nagging away at my subconscious so I'm gonna take a stab at it anyway. Partly because I hate being left out of the fun, mostly because I don't know the answer.

I've been making a living from words one way or another since I left school. Did a six-month pressure cooker diploma in journalism, then straight to my first full-time job. Much as I enjoyed that [which was often], I despaired of reporting on what other people did. I wanted to be creating my own stories.

I emigrated from New Zealand to the UK and wandered into comics editing. My first creative mentor, Steve MacManus, encouraged me to pursue writing if I had ambitions. Steve had done some writing during his early days in comics, and he confessed to regret that editing had undertaken it. So I did some comics writing.

Most of it was pretty lame. Any good bits were down to the artists involved - my efforts ranged from merely mediocre to downright shite. [The Straitjacket Fits wasn't bad, thanks to wonderful Roger Langridge art. The Soul Sisters was a comedy strip without any jokes, even if Shaky Kane give it a sheen of strangeness.]

In 1993 I got the chance to write my first novel, a licensed Judge Dredd book. No years of writing and rewriting, I went straight from zero to a publishing contract. The novel was all over the shop, but Virgin Books were desperate and commissioned me to bash out another. Gradually, book by book, I got better.

Fast forward to the year 2000. Having gone freelance as a writer, I was making decent money from all manner of different work. By this point I knew plenty of people who were working screenwriters, mostly for TV. I'd been on Robert McKee's story structure, and bought some How To books - even read a few of them.

Somewhere along the way, I decided I wanted to be a screenwriter. [I blame Doctor Who for rewiring my imagination at an early age.] I knew someone who was writing for the Channel Five soap Family Affairs, a place where scribes with no TV experience could get a foot in the door. Thanks to who I knew, I too got a trial.

There was one minor problem: I'd never seen Family Affairs. Channel 5 wasn't available where I lived in Scotland. I did get someone to tape a few eps so I could see what the show was like, but otherwise I was woefully under-prepared. Just for larks, here's a scene from my Family Affairs trial script:

[NIKKI AND LUKE ARE MAKING BREAKFAST. LUKE STOPS AND SMILES AT NIKKI, WHO NOTICES]

1. NIKKI: [CURIOUS] Why are you so happy this morning?

2. LUKE: You being here with me - having breakfast together like we’re a couple - it doesn’t seem real.

3. NIKKI: Maybe it isn’t.

4. LUKE: [HAPPY] Well, if this is a dream, I hope we never wake up.

Bleurgh! There's a lot more, just as bad, but I'll spare you the necessity of tearing out your own eyeballs. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get a gig writing for Family Affairs, on account of being utterly fucking clueless. I went back to writing comics and computer games and tie-in tomes, making good money.

Fast forward to 2002 when I got talking to a writer on the BBC daytime drama series Doctors. He encouraged me to have a go, but suggested I watch the show for a few months first [sage advice]. I did, then wrote my own version of a Doctors script and submitted it to the writer's script editor.

The results were a bit better than my Family Affairs fiasco, but I hadn't clocked the fact no British TV drama wants to read sample script for their show. Despite this, the script editor took pity and [eventually] read my effort. It was a straight rejection. Their advice: get some experience somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Fast forward to 2005. Doctor Who returns to TV in a blaze of triumph. My outrageous dream of one day writing Doctor Who for TV was one of the reasons I'd emigrated to the UK, but the BBC had cancelled the show almost the same day as I arrived in the country. Now the show was back. Time to get my arse in gear.

By this point I'd had nearly 20 novels published [including several Doctor Who tie-ins], a dozen audio dramas released [including various Doctor Who derivations] and a vast amount of comics for various countries. All of that had given me confidence in my ability to tell a story. What I needed was craft skills.

So I got myself on a two-day radio drama lab. That helped me get on the first MA in screenwriting at Screen Academy Scotland. I also did nine months of mentoring with Adrian Mead, plus courses and workshops in storylining, continuing drama writing, script editing, more radio drama - you name it, I did it.

After two years' solid retraining I had a BBC Radio 4 play to my credit, a prize-winning short film script and a couple of halfway decent TV drama pilots. It was time to have another go at fulfilling my dream of writing TV drama. I went back to Doctors and explained all the things I achieved since 2002.

That - and my writing samples - earned me a proper script trial. It went well, earning me the right submit story of the day pitches via my script editor. But it was another eighteen months before I secured my first commission, which was broadcast on BBC1 in February this year. Nothing ever happens quickly.

Looking back over all of these steps, there's not one transcendental moment that made me realise I was a screenwriter. It's been a long, gradual journey with lots of diversions and missteps along the way. The ten years I spent editing comics felt like wasted effort at the time, yet taught me a lot.

I guess the shape of any writer's career only becomes evident in retrospect. You can make choices and decisions, turn down certain jobs and actively pursue others - but there's no guarantee things will turn out how you hope or expect. Right now, I'm in the middle of the journey. Let's us where it takes us. Onwards!

Garbo, The Pixies, Cyrin: class through a glass [darkly]