Mobile Me
If you’re reading this using BlackBerry, please drop me a line before the litigation between BlackBerry and NTP culminates in a blackout for US consumers.
According to MacFixIt some Mac OS X 10.4.4 Tiger users are experiencing feed update issues in Safari 2.x. I solved the problem by opening Preferences, selecting the RSS pane and ‘hitting’ Remove Now.
Top Cat
Cat Sense touches the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ingenious biological make-up of cats.
Offering free books (or chapters) is an excellent opportunity to reach an audience that may have otherwise never come into contact with a writer. I authored the eBook using Adobe’s InDesign CS, Acrobat 7.0 Pro and Distiller. A publishing triple threat!
Eternity Moment
As I started to explain to Dad who she was, a van passed by featuring an image of Scarlett’s luminous face and pouting lips! Only minutes earlier we’d been drinking coffee in Starbucks! Was it something in the caffeine?
The Gemini Apes
A fascination with media production began when I was bought an Hitachi portable tape recorder (its contemporary is an Apple iPod). I started recording off television, my favourite television shows, and listening to the sounds back without the picture (mentally envisaging a different version). I would narrate stories and record conversations and sounds. It became a form of education via entertainment.
This acute interest in “the theatre of the mind” also encompassed Radio drama! The catalyst was BBC Radio Four’s dramatisation of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (1981).
During the second year of the BA (Hons) Media Production degree I specialised in audio and video. And undertook a 10 minute audio documentary. Director Dirk Maggs kindly agreed to an interview concerning his successful comic book to radio adaptations, which included DC Comics’ ‘Batman: Knightfall’ (1994) and ‘Superman: Doomsday and Beyond’ (1993).
In 1998 Dirk invited me to work on ‘The Gemini Apes’. My role as a studio assistant involved foley and sourcing original and prerecorded material from The Soundhouse’s extensive recording library. This included original content from Skywalker Sound.
Meeting Christopher Lee (he played the character of Drake) during ‘The Gemini Apes’ recording sessions, was truly a defining moment. This was prior to his career renaissance in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Star Wars’ prequels. He is a gentleman and formidably intelligent. Christopher regaled us with myriad anecdotes. One of which concerned Johnny Depp with whom he was shooting Tim Burton’s ‘Sleepy Hollow’ (1998).
From a journalistic perspective. Breaks during the recording sessions were a plumb opportunity to network with writers from Starburst, SFX and Dreamwatch magazines.
A Stroll Down Wisteria Lane
A year ago I waxed lyrically about Desperate Housewives and how it blended the camp of The Stepford Wives with the noir of Twin Peaks. Due to various pressures, I wasn’t able to continue following the blockbusting first season. And am currently enjoying the exploits of Bree, Susan, Lynette and Gabrielle on DVD once again.
The Power of Love
This is my favorite photo from the shoot and the composition is almost perfect. There’s shades of Gillian Anderson in actress Joanna O’Connor’s visage. And Robert Miles’ emotional detachment is palpable!
Where would any self-respecting drama be without a villain?
This is the pivotal scene. Shot at Bournemouth International Airport. Although the Production Manager had only garnered clearance for me to shoot next to the runway, the crew agreed to record as the airplanes took off and landed! If disaster had struck the damages claim could have been meteoric!
Where are they now? I wrote Robert Miles (via his production company Hungry Horse), but received no feedback from him whatsoever! Joanna O’Connor attended the Guildford School of Acting and took the postgrad one year acting course about six months after shooting ‘December Duet’.
After that she went on to do a fair amount of fringe and touring theatre, playing Juliet in ‘Romeo & Juliet’, Hermia in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Severine in ‘New Anatomies’, Lady M in the ‘Scottish play’, toured schools with a version of the ‘Nativity’ and played up at the Edinburgh Fringe in ‘Elektra’s Brother’.
Skits on Channel Four’s Big Breakfast followed.
With her boyfriend, Joanna spent several months touring a show, that was devised around love scenes from classic literature.
Amidst voice-over work. Most recently Joanna has appeared in Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘The Lost Prince’ (Part II). She played Holly, the youngest maid in the Royal Household exiled to Norfolk with Prince Johnny. This original period drama was broadcast over two consecutive weekends on BBC 1 – and recorded throughout the summer months of 2002.
For the technically-inclined amongst you. The production was shot on Beta SP and framed for widescreen; preempting the arrival of 16:9 and HDTV (4:3/16:9) broadcasting.
