When you’re sitting in front of your Xbox/PS3/Wii, do you ever pause and think about the vast amount of mathematics that goes into making a computer produce near-realistic 3D environments? If you’re young, I suspect you take it all for granted. But if, like me, you were there from the very beginning of the home computing era, then you bore witness to all the gradual advancements in graphics that happened over the years, giving rise to what we see today. And in that frame of mind, you might still have a soft spot for something like this:

A few days ago I was delighted to get the winning eBay bid on something that I’ve been interested in since I was about ten years old (no, it’s not a DeLorean, but I’ll probably get around to that one, too, someday). I have distinct memories of longing after this product when it was released in 1982. I recall numerous occasions standing in the local toyshop, gazing at it in wonder as it sat proudly inside a glass-fronted display cabinet, for ever out of reach.

Well, not quite for ever. It will be arriving in a few days. This might be another disappointing whimsical purchase, but I’m so excited about it that I ended up dreaming about it the other night. It’s not often that happens with an eBay purchase. Although, to be fair, in my dream, the thing arrived in the post covered in ugly dents, no doubt a subconscious expression of my irrational paranoia.

But what is it, pray tell? Well, let’s see if you know. Have a look at the photo. This isn’t specifically what I bought, but it’s one aspect of the product (I siphoned the picture with a Google image search). Ring any retro bells?

Once again, it’s time for my book reviews round-up. Head over to Darryl’s Library for eight new ones:

• Brother Odd by Dean Koontz
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
• Domain by James Herbert
• Strontium Dog: Agency Files 01 by John Wagner & Alan Grant
• The Mars Run by Chris Gerrib
• Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson
• Chocky by John Wyndham
• Blood Crazy by Simon Clark

Chris Gerrib has kindly donated his novel The Mars Run to my Book Downloads page, where it’s now available as a free PDF.

Once in a while, here in Northern Ireland, you get a beautiful day that coincides with you being in a beautiful place away from the big towns and cities, and you are reminded of what a lovely country you live in. And if you’re lucky, you’ve brought your camera.

Before heading home from Ballycastle Film Festival on Sunday morning, we took a trip Torr Head and Murlough Bay, just a few miles outside the town. Thought I’d share …

If you’ve been watching our Film Club movies, you may notice a familiar-looking cliff face in the bottom-centre photo. Ballycastle’s just round the bend.

Andrew Harrison and I spent a very enjoyable weekend on the north coast of Ireland at Ballycastle Film Festival. On Saturday morning we hosted a 90-minute presentation on doing special effects with little or no money. Using a lot of audience participation, we demonstrated how to produce see-through ghosts, fake punches, meat cleavers in throats, etc.

Later in the day we held the premiere of our latest Ballycastle Film Club production, Do Not Disturb, which went down a treat with the audience. Various filmmakers arrived throughout the day, giving talks and showing movies. Later in the evening, most of the movies filmed by the club in 2007 were shown, in anticipation of a special award for the Best Film of the Year. Our movie from October, The Siren, won, to the delight of the cast members who showed up. Andrew and I were presented with a fantastic Oscar-style trophy, and all the kids who took part in the movie were presented with a framed certificate.

Here’s hoping Ballycastle Film Club goes from the strengh to strength in the future. It’s great that a little seaside town has this activity for young people.

On 1 March Andrew Harrison and I headed up to the north coast to make our third film with Ballycastle Film Club. In preparation, my mind had drifted to a memorable short story that I read about ten years ago in the pages of small-press fiction zine RQC (short for Really Quite Cosmic). The story was “Student Seance” by James A. Tucker. I decided to write it as a script from the ground up, without re-reading the original. I wrestled a bit, as a Christian, with a subject matter; it’s difficult telling a fantasy story featuring an occult activity that you believe is genuinely dangerous, but I found a balance that I quite liked. Sadly, I’ve no way of notifying James that we’ve made a movie out of his story, or of even asking permission. But it’s a non-profit movie, and I hope he would be delighted by our choice rather than offended. Maybe he’ll discover the movie one of these days if he Googles his name.

At Ballycastle Film Club, I was delighted to see the return of some old faces, as well as some new ones. Do Not Disturb was premiered yesterday evening at Ballycastle Film Festival, and received a hearty round of applause. Hope you enjoy it, too.

Andrew and I are heading for a film festival in Ballycastle this Satuday, to deliver a presentation about our filmmaking exploits - specifically the area of doing special effects with little or no money. We’re in the process of preparing some material. I thought I’d share this semi-successful experiment we tried yesterday …

Abanding your car and choosing to do 100% of your travels by bicycle does wonders for your health, but not the health of your car (see photo). Back in December, when my car had been sitting in the driveway for a few months, I peered inside one day and noticed a few spots of mould growing on the seats and steering wheel. I promptly cleaned them off. During winter, I thought I would do the sensible thing and put my car away from the elements in the garage. I even put a few of those little silica gel packets along the dash to help prevent dampness. And I left it for three months. A few days ago, when I decided to bring the car back out into the sunlight, this is the present Father Time left me. Mould. Lots and lotsa mould.

Amazing what the lack of human companionship will do to a car. Well, when the apocalypse strikes and wipes out 99% of the human population, you won’t find me hotwiring many cars on my travels. Yeuch! Mad Max never had to put up with this.

Anyone want to buy a 1995 Nissan Terrano, real cheap? Actual vehicle featured in the famous Irish horror films Dark Light and Saul’s Pupils? No? … Oh.

In some surprising news, US company Maxim Media Marketing Inc. has asked specifically for our old vampire movie Dark Light. This puts the movie in with a shot at being televised here, there, and everywhere, and maybe even released officially on DVD. I stress that this is not a distribution contract; it’s is a marketing contract - for seven years, no less! Maxim Media will take on the responsibility of trying to sell the movie, and profits (if any) will be divided between them and Midnight Pictures (Andrew Harrison and myself, with Paul Barton, who was co-producer at the time).

Long-time visitors may recall the Mexican deal we had with Saul’s Pupils. Andrew and I always wondered what happened with that. We had an uncommunicative agent at the time. Turns out the company never got off the ground. It’s something of an embarrassment, because we had major publicity on that one, in the Observer newspaper, no less.

So, until the cheque’s in the post, I’m not going to get over-excited about the Dark Light news. I am, however, going to give it my all. And that means putting together an effective trailer to help sell the movie. Here’s my attempt:

Partial credit for this trailer must go to Philip Topping, specifically for the computer-generated titles. These are from Phil’s original teaser. I felt that Phil’s version didn’t show nearly enough clips from the movie, so I had a go at incorporting his work into a longer trailer.

The whole movie (roughly 65 mins) can presently be watched on YouTube. That may not be the case for long, depending on what requirements Maxim Media stipulates. So, if you’re interested in watching the movie, don’t dawdle.

Independent Christian fiction writer Jeffrey Allen Davis has just posted a review of Chion on his blog. Jeff’s review is a bit different from the others, as he made a couple of unique observations:

The book does set up some disturbing images. It shows how a major disaster like this would affect society. We see people killing one another over food. We see a man murdered in front of his small children. We see a child held at gunpoint by a teacher who has decided that “survival of the fittest” means that the teachers should live and the students should starve. Sloan didn’t put these things in for shock value. Indeed, the bloodshed is not detailed very much at all. This is not a boiled-down thriller. We see a sense of realism that shows that even our society’s innocents would be harmed in these events.

With a bittersweet ending, this is a story that you simply mustn’t miss.

[ Read Full Review ]

Sometime over the next few months, Andrew and I will be holding auditions for the various parts in the new film, but there’s one role we have filled already: the character of “Roy.” He’s the man who lives in the house being terrorised by the mysterious parka’d stranger. Local actor Glenn McKee (photo) will play the part.

Well over a year ago, Glenn sent us a DVD of a film he starred in called Morton’s Fort, where he played the part of a traumatised prisoner accused of molesting a child. This film was one of a series, produced as part of a festival called NORMA Shorts. Glenn was awarded Best Actor out of all the actors in all six shorts shown at the festival. It was a great performance, and Andrew and I have wanted to use Glenn ever since we saw it.

Since then, Glenn has played the lead role in another short film, Checkout, where he plays a mentally-challenged supermarket worker in love with one of the checkout girls. Another great performance, revealing Glenn to have quite a bit of versatility. We’re very glad to have him aboard.

I thought I would sit down for an hour with Photoshop and put together something that captures the flavour of the movie we’re about to make. It’s a mash-up of some photos I found using Google’s useful image search facility (you can bet there are no trees like that in Portadown, unless there’s a Portadown, California out there). I found a lot of parka coats in an online catalogue. Although this one lacks the traditional fur-rimmed hood, it was the only one that had an air of menace. Obviously, this mash-up isn’t what we’ll use for the final artwork when it comes time to promote the film, but maybe we’ll use the same idea. The movie title reflects my current favourite, and may change. The tagline is whatever I could think up in the space of a couple of minutes.

Not long ago, I enjoyed watching the first season of the TV series Jericho. It wasn’t fabulous viewing, chiefly because it descended to the realm of post-apocalyptic soap opera, but there was another side to the story that I found fascinating. I don’t think everyone notices this (and I’m not even certain the writers see their show in this light!) so I want to draw attention to it. To me, Jericho is a story about the failure of capitalism.

Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

This is the way we live today. Life is about the pursuit of wealth. I devote enough time to that pursuit as a means of survival: to enable me to keep a roof over my head and to buy those things that make life liveable. I could probably have a high-flying IT career if I put my mind to it, but instead I chose to do a job I enjoy, regardless of the lesser wage. I’ve got some perspective. But not everyone does. Some people devote their entire lives to the accumulation of wealth. And it’s no wonder. It’s essentially what school teaches us to do: get as qualified as possible, so you can get the best job you can, so you can make as much money as you can. When you’re a kid, and you spend six hours a day, five days a week, under the pressure of that mentality, most of us end up buying into it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for education, but education with a little wisdom thrown in would be better.

The reason I like post-apocalyptic fiction so much is because we get to sweep away all the things we hate about present society and start again. Never mind that all the good things get swept away, too. I get a kick out of radical change. In Jericho, the USA is devastated by a nuclear attack. Some towns survive unscathed; Jericho is one such. Initially, the townsfolk get together under the guidance of the mayor. The US government no longer exists. Life is thrown into such disarray that the only course of action that makes sense is neighbour helping neighbour. But what’s really interesting about Jericho is that few of the people buy into it. They’re so infected with capitalistic thinking that not even the end of the world can bring them to their senses. First, there’s the old lady who runs the store. Suddenly, everyone needs what she’s got, so she uses it as an opportunity to drastically raise the prices. Later, a teenage boy inherits the store, and is fierce about retaining personal ownership of it. His girlfriend think he’s so cool because he kicks ass to stay on top of his rights. Likewise, one of the farmers is determined that he still owns all the of the grain in his fields, and any decision to share it will be made by him. When refugees arrive, they are all housed together uncomfortably in one building. It takes the townsfolk so long to allow the refugees to live in the empty homes in town, out of some ridiculous loyalty to the owners who are most likely lying dead in another part of the country. Things really heat up when Jericho has to have dealings with its neighbouring town. A willingness to share resouces and help one another is put aside in favour of an “if I do this for you, what are you going to do for me” attitude. Jericho withholds what the other town desperately needs, and the end result is war.

I found it amusing watching the people of Jericho blindly clinging to the self-centred ethics they were accustomed to and seeing it fail them at every turn. I have to ask myself whether this “message” was deliberately put into the series, or whether the writers were simply writing what they considered to be normal, decent behaviour. I honestly don’t know! Regardless, the message is there.

The thing is, this is probably how the human race would behave in those circumstances. It’s all me, me, me. Life revolving around accumulation and ownership, which is daft when you consider that the only things that are of any use to us are the things we can make use of while we’re alive. You can take nothing with you when you die.

I’m always impressed with how things were done in the 1st century Church:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. (Acts 2:44-46)

There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (Acts 4:34-35)

That’s a far cry to today’s Church, isn’t it? People arrive on Sunday morning, sit down and listen to a sermon, then leave and disconnect themselves completely from the lives of everyone else there until the following Sunday. If someone in the Church suddenly lost their home, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone else offered no more assistance that an apathetic, “Sorry.” Will the Church ever be like it was in the beginning? Probably not. But at least if some of us realise how utterly infected we are by the fallout of capitalist life - greed, in other words - then it’s a step in the right direction.

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. (Proverbs 23:4-5)

Andrew and I have been trying to decide on a title for the forthcoming movie. Our bad guy is someone dressed in a parka with the hood up, hiding his face. He stands on the street at night, completely unmoving, pointing at his intended victim from a distance. First, we tried to come up with a title based on the antagonist’s unnerving stillness and on the creepy way he appears closer night after night. On the table we have …

• Night After Night
• Someone in the Night
• Still Fear
• Six Degrees of Fear
• Level 6
• The Approaching Fear

No good. Concepts like “stillness” and “advancing” simply aren’t potent enough. Then we thought, the film is all about getting increasingly scared night after night. So …

• Dread Level
• Fearometer
• Terminal Fear
• The Ascent of Fear
• The Scale of Fear
• Fear Grade

The bottom two appealed to us most from this batch. Then I got the idea of using the word “dread” to put a new spin on catchphrases containing the word “dead.”

• The Dread of Night
• The Dread Man
• Dread Man Walking
• Dread Rising

Andrew came up with that last one, and I feel it’s the best option so far. Okay, it’s only catchy because there was a videogame called Dead Rising, but maybe that’s all the justification we need. Mind you, with Google putting the whole world in one basket, it’s disappointing to discover all four of those titles already in use for something. I welcome any further suggestions for a title.

By the way, it was Andy who came up with all the silly ones. Well, actually, I take the credit for Fearometer.

A couple of years ago, Andrew Harrison and I drew Midnight Pictures to a close. We’ve done no filmmaking since summer 2005. Well, no serious filmmaking; we’ve made a few mini-movies as part of children’s workshops in conjuction with Ballycastle Film Club. If you thought Don’t Look in the Attic was going to be the sixth and final film from Midnight Pictures, I’m delighted to change your expectations.

It began on Saturday night, with my friend Earl sharing a creepy idea for a short story. Imagine yourself looking out of your bedroom window late at night, seeing a figure standing across the road on the footpath, in the glow of the streetlights. He’s not moving, and he appears to be staring straight at you, although it’s hard to tell with the shadows. The next night, the figure is there again, except this time he’s standing about ten metres closer, again staring. The following night he’s right outside your garden gate. We bounced ideas off each other and made some progress with where this story could lead.

On Sunday evening, Andrew and I got together for our weekly DVD watching session, and I shared the idea with him. I knew he’d like it, because he digs David Lynchian weirdness. We ended up talking for quite a while, attempting to develop the story. And the old magic started to flow. We figured it all out: who this strange character was, what he was up to. We came up with some cool cliche-breakers and an ending that will give children nightmares!

It’s only Tuesday, and I’ve already written the entire script: 3,300 words. I’m guessing it will translate to about 30 minutes. It’s been a long time since I got this enthused about a project, and it feels great. The only thing lacking is a good title. I’ve often said to Andrew that it would be great to have several short films that we could eventually join into a single feature film in the style of Creepshow. Perhaps this will be the first. Rest assured, we won’t be keeping our short feature under wraps for several years while we accrue 90 minutes worth. We’ll be too excited to show it to you.

The next stage is to get the right people on board, both behind and in front of the camera, and to make the necessary arrangements regarding locations and effects, etc. Because of the amount of night-time footage the film requires, it’s not likely we’ll commence filming until around September. But you should consider this blogpost my official statement green-lighting the project. For the past two years, I’ve been concentrating solely on writing fiction. It’s time to put the pen down for a spell and pick up the camera. Midnight Pictures is back!