Lone Locust Productions

Tag: Multimedia Me

  • Doctor Who and the Archives of the BBC

    The BBC has posted some fascinating – if a bit difficult to navigate – documents concerning the creation of Doctor Who.

    BBC Archive – The Genesis of Doctor Who – The Creation of a Television Hero

    Particularly fascinating are the two reports by the BBC on the feasibility of Science Fiction on the BBC, written a year or so before Doctor Who first aired.

    Other BBC news: BBC One an BBC Two will be simulcast over the Internet starting November 27th.

    Once again, BBC content will only be available to machines inside the UK.

    Buy a clue people! There are many people, worldwide, like myself, who would gladly pay the license fee (and not even whinge about it) to get live BBC content. The system of international rights and royalties is obsolete in the 21st century. Someone’s got to be the pioneer and start to break down those walls.

  • Christmas Whoish

    For those of us what don’t get to see Children in Need.

  • Doctor Whoish

    I haven’t posted anything Doctor Whoish lately, except the depressing news that David Tennant has knavishly abandoned his efforts to be the longest running Doctor yet.

    However, If I don’t go searching, not much Doctor Who news comes my way, today I ran across this article, (at ComicMix News) which purports to be “what we know” about the upcoming specials – although, from the comments, I see a healthy dose of skepticism, which I’m more than pleased to to echo.

    I’m skeptical, but it’s fun to speculate.

    Read on if you want to hear things that sound like rumors, but might actually be spoilers…

    (more…)

  • Highlights of BBC Coverage

    Last night during, on BBC America, the BBC broadcast all evening what I believe to be the same election coverage that was shown on BBC 1. That was an interesting different perspective, even though most of the commentators in studio were from the US. (Which seems fair since they would be the most knowledgeable on the subject.)

    I was surprised at the rather disorganized nature of the broadcast. Quite often the host David Dimbleby never knew what was on screen, people were regularly cut off in mid-sentence as things popped up. It wasn’t the by-the-numbers production I would have expected from the BBC.

    A couple of highlights: The Gore Vidal Interview in which Gore Vidal appeared to be, simultaneously, unable to hear Dimbleby, stoned, senile and belligerent… but mostly just incoherent.

    And then (actually they occurred in reverse order) John Bolton, George W. Bush’s embarrassing one-time choice for US-UN Ambassador, was a talking head on the program at times. (Bolton was embarrassing because instead of being a “straight shooter” he’s always just an ass, and gives the impression he dislikes the UN and foreigners. – Good thinking when you made that choice, George.)

    Anyway, Bolton was, typically, combative.

    At one point, an in-the-field reporter was interviewing (If I recall correctly) the head of the Colorado Republican Party. He asked him if it was a surprise that a state that typically votes Republican was voting for a Democrat. The party official responded by stating the reporter doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The report asks, something like, “What do you mean, Colorado has voted for a Republican president the last 9 out of 10 times?” The party official proceeded to aggressively argue they elect lots of Democrats, talking about congressmen and governors. The BBC reporter kept trying to bring it back to the presidential election, which is what he was talking about. The party official just kept accusing him of being ignorant of the facts.

    When they returned, Dimbleby turned it over to Bolton, who in his best asshole form said,

    What a pillock.

  • Shameless Plug for Ghost House

    Here it is. Ghost House… a short video we did for Fusion Patrol some years ago. Back then, we were making fun of Taiwanese and Japanese ghost shows, which usually ran a couple hours and consisted of placing two girls in an abandoned house in the dark and waiting for them to get scared of something. Afterwards, they’d find some dust floating in the air, or paradolia in a window or something and declaring it a real haunting.
    Little did we know that these programs would be adapted and polluting American TV screens in the near future.
    Why am I posting it to the site today? I was looking over some new YouTube demographic tools after I posted the earlier video today and, Ghost House is our most popular video, without over 100,000 views – and, if the tools are to be believed, 56,000 of them are from schoolgirls in France (age 13-17.)
    This makes sense of why at one point my YouTube account suddenly became French.
    I still love the comments on Ghost House… a video, clearly labeled as “comedy” and so obviously (obviously!) staged, still has people believing it’s real. (I loved the comment from the guy who said people like us give “serious” ghost hunters a bad name. Ha!

  • I have no excuse for this one…

    …except that I found this video both nostalgic and funny with the new lyrics.

    And this one is not as good, but…

  • Fusion Patrol Returns

    Some 15 years ago we used to have a little thing called “Public Access TV”, now largely defunct.

    For those not familiar with the concept, Public Access was supposed to be a way that local community members could use the medium of television to reach out to their community. In one of the brighter, more lucid moments of government regulation, someone figured out that television vastly shapes and informs the opinions of the public. They also realized that television was a medium that requires large sums of money to participate in.

    The mechanism was that, as a city granted a monopoly contract to a cable TV contractor to come build out the infrastructure, they were were required to maintain a channel that any citizen could air video on, without censorship (within certain generally loose restrictions: No pornography as defined by community standards, no sales, no gambling and no solicitations for money.)

    Further, the cable companies were required to supply equipment and studio space for these programs to be produced.

    This all seems quaint in this age of internet video, dirt-cheap camcorders and home computers with sufficient power to do video editing, but back then, this was a significant investment.

    I always thought it was a grand idea. There was just one flaw. As with so many other grand ideas, the people fail to live up to them. What had been conceived as an outlet for artistic express and community-building became a wallowing ground for crackpots, fringe radicals, churches (big ones trying to skit the no solicitations for money rules and little ones trying to build their flock) and teenagers (and post-adolescent wannabe teenagers) who thought it was cool (and/or funny) to swear on TV.

    After watching enough Public Access, one day I just had enough. I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s perfectly acceptable to gripe about things, but eventually you have to put your money where you mouth is and do something about it. For me, Fusion Patrol was that something.

    One day, while watching a show on Public Access, hoping against futile hope that the program, which was a bunch of teenagers standing around reciting Metallica lyrics (although you couldn’t tell because the sound was inaudible) would actually do something, I snapped. I could stand the crap no more and Fusion Patrol was born.

    Over the course of a several years, a band of intrepid volunteers and I put on a TV show. Honestly, it sucked. Well, OK, it started of technically sucky, but with time and practice and a desire to improve which seemed lacking in the other Public Access producers, the show got better. Technically better, anyway. You either like the content or you don’t. Although, one of the proudest moments in my stint at Fusion Patrol is when one of the popular local morning radio DJ teams saw the show and talked about it on the air. They called us a “…local, Pythonesque comedy troupe.”

    How cool is that?! Compared to Monty Python! And not even in a negative way! (Admittedly, they did, by coincidence, happen to see our most Pythonesque episode and even still we’re not a patch on the Pythons’ collective asses.)

    With the program getting better (again, I stress, technically better) it took more and more time to produce, and as each of us progressed in our lives, we had less and less time to devote to the production. Fusion Patrol died not in fire, but with a whimper of missed deadlines and conflicting priorities.

    Nowadays, I see the YouTube phenomena as the ultimate liberation of television from the hands of the vested corporate interests. Web video has finally created the environment that Public Access dreamed of creating.

    …and yet, when I look at YouTube videos, more often than not, I get that same feeling I had watching those damn teenagers all those years ago.

    I shall produce more Fusion Patrol.

    Of the original crew of ten, two are dead, two are missing without trace, one has not been available and three others have been added, making the “new” Fusion Patrol a team of eight.

    Keep watching this spot. We’re in pre-production meetings now. I’m working on revamping the Fusion Patrol Website soon to accommodate video podcasting and hopefully soon I’ll have more information and details about the production.

  • I Feel Another “Cheat” Coming…. (Spoiler Speculation)

    Donna’s still got a bug? Is this timeline going to be undone, too?

    Wonder what Chris Eccleston has been doing lately?

  • Doctor Who – The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky – Review (Spoilers)

    Sontar Ha! Sontar Ho! Sontar Hum!

    (more…)

  • The Saint – have we been betrayed again?

    I stumbled across this at lesliecharteris.com in the news section. It’s a synopsis of the upcoming new Saint telemovie/series with James Purefoy.


    Simon Templar is part of a secret organization known as ‘Knights of the Templar’. He’s responsible for enforcing the group’s code of ethics against the criminal underground of the world. Those familiar with ‘Knights’ know Simon Templar by one name: The Saint. His current assignment has him in Montenegro, rescuing captive children from being sold on the black market. When the operation is finished, Templar discovers that one of the children is missing. An orphan once himself, he vows to rescue the lost boy, no matter what the cost. Waiting for him in Paris is Patricia Holm, an intelligence specialist and Templar’s lover. She has information that a crooked businessman named Carger is responsible for the children’s abductions; however, the Knights learn that Carger is now into much bigger things. The Saint is ordered to find Carger and steal a treasured relic that, if made public, could ignite a spectacular holy war. When he discovers Carger has also been keeping the missing orphan as his own son, Templar must decide between his own personal convictions and his duties as The Saint.

    Up till now, I’d been eagerly anticipating this new series, now I’m dreading it.
    Goddamn-it! If they can’t keep their meddling fuckin’ fingers off the core concepts of the character, why even bother? Do they presume that they can actually improve upon the original? Or is it that they just wanted to make their own show and, like that horrific Val Kilmer travesty, want to use the name “The Saint” to get some free audience buy-in?

    Oh, I’ll still watch it, but if they can’t get the simple stuff right, why should I expect them to get anything else right, either? For cryin’ out, the whole point of the Saint is that he is a lone wolf idealistic vigilante! Yes, he occasionally had a gang – but they were following him like a pack! He was not part of some worldwide secret organization, and that completely changers the man, the mode and the motivation.
    In short: That’s not the Saint.

    While you’re looking at the news section of lesliecharteris.com, note that in Australia the Simon Dutton Saint series from the 80’s is being released on DVD. Even though this show didn’t do well in the ratings, it was probably the truest to the original spirit of the Saint.
    The Dutton series suffered from some terrible supporting acting and the production quality, despite being a large international production, has that 1980’s “breaking away from the major studios into small production company” feel to it, but the spirit of the show to the original character is spot on. Much more so than the Roger Moore series.

    In fact, in one of the Dutton telemovies, Templar keeps the stolen money – or at least his self-defined “cut”. How else does he maintain his wealthily lifestyle? Answer: He’s Robin Hood! He steals from the crooked and gives to the victims (less his 10%.)
    That’s the Saint.
    And they’ve almost always been afraid of that aspect of the character when adapting him for TV.
    So how come Australia gets the DVDs and we don’t?