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3 items from 2012

27 May 2012 5:35 AM, PDT | Shadowlocked | See recent Shadowlocked news »

The art of the glass shot or matte painting is one which originated very much in the early ‘teens’ of the silent era. Pioneer film maker, director, cameraman and visual effects inventor Norman Dawn is generally acknowledged as the father of the painted matte composite, with other visionary film makers such as Ferdinand Pinney Earle, Walter Hall and Walter Percy Day being heralded as making vast contributions to the trick process in the early 1920’s.

Boiled down, the matte process is one whereby a limited film set may be extended to whatever, or wherever the director’s imagination dictates with the employment of a matte artist. In it’s most pure form, the artist would set up a large plate of clear glass in front of the motion picture camera upon which he would carefully paint in new scenery an ornate period ceiling, snow capped mountains, a Gothic castle or even an alien world. »

4 April 2012 6:00 AM, PDT | Shadowlocked | See recent Shadowlocked news »

Hold on. There's something missing. Normally, at this time of year there's some TV programme that's supposed to be heading back to the small screen. Oh, that's right – Doctor Who.

Alas, for Who fans, the wait's a bit longer, with rumours of six episodes surfacing in Autumn or Winter. But hey, never mind, you can console yourself with the much-touted weapon in the BBC's ratings armoury called The Voice. In which Lord Thomas of Jones and co attempt to find the country's best singing voice, a quest that hasn't been heard of since last December when Little Mix squealed and sobbed the water out of their bodies in The X Factor. But hold on, apparently there's a twist – in The Voice, the judges sit in these great big Star Trek swivel chairs so that they can't see the singer, and only whizz round if they like what they hear. Clever, »

20 March 2012 2:39 AM, PDT | Den of Geek | See recent Den of Geek news »

John Carter hasn’t exactly soared at the box office, but as Duncan explains, it’s still a wonderful family fantasy in the tradition of Star Wars…

As the end credits rolled for John Carter, I glanced around to see the reactions on the other audience members’ faces and spotted a mesmerised young boy, sat next to his dad, his huge 3D glasses still dutifully on his face. I turned to my wife and said, “Well there’s going to be a whole generation of kids that grow up thinking John Carter of Mars [unlike the advertising, I’m not willing to let the second bit of the title go] is the greatest movie ever.” And indeed, I hope they do.

Like so many of us, I grew up on Star Wars - it was and still is the greatest and most important franchise of all time, for me, with The Empire Strikes Back still firmly my favourite film, despite strong competition over the years from the likes of Indiana Jones, »

3 items from 2012