Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Meet the Pillage People*

Back from a brief visit to London, in which absolutely nothing funny happened. Sorry. However I have completed the treatment for the VIking Heist Movie (it's a shortish document including a brief description of theme, characters, setting and a synopsis). The important bit is the opening pitch, what am this:


VIKING HEIST MOVIE

....is an action-filled caper film with all the elements of the best heist movies such as Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, Heat, and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Except that instead of the streets of Sixties Turin, Nineties LA or early twenty-first century Vegas, the action takes place in eleventh century Scandinavia, with an audacious theft from not only the Norse gods themselves, but their ancient adversaries the Frost Giants to boot. Wolfskin cloaks might replace sharp suits, axes take over from dodgy shooters, with a plan relying on a getaway longship, but all the essential ingredients of the classic heists are present and correct.

The reality-world of VIKING HEIST MOVIE (VHM) embodies the best of the Viking spirit: swaggering, restless, mischief-making, brave and possessed of a cheerful lust for life that allows no-one to stand in its way, whether it be rival Viking chiefs, trolls or the gods themselves. This is the dying days of the Vikings, mixed with a large dollop of their own mythology: the world of giants, monsters and big guys called Hrothulf might not be around for much longer, but it’s going to go out with a bang. And probably a ‘crunch’ and a ‘splat’ as well.


God I really want to see this film, it sounds brilliant.


Some interesting animation articles online, which might be worth a perusal. The Onion has an interview with with voice-over gawd Billy West (Fry/Professor in Futurama, Stimpy in Ren and Stimpy), while Wired looks at Dreamworks animation studio, and discovers that pumping out increasingly weaker versions of Shrek is pretty much their gameplan for the next few years. Article here. NB. Well, it should be there, but it seems to go to an ad half the time instead for some reason - put "Dreamworks' and 'animation' in the Wired search box thingy if you're having problems.

I'm house-sitting for my parents for the next couple of weeks, as they're off on holiday to a rather vague location ('ooh, France? Probably?'). Shortly after having had a new patio put in, which is slightly worrying**. It'll be good to have a different space to hang around in for a bit though - I need to work on a new screenplay (current working title 'The Forgotten Trees of Brin'), so a change of location will do some good.

Agent Ginny has ordered me to plan a two-week holiday later this year, during which my laptop has to be left behind in a locked safe and all my biros snapped, although I might be allowed to take a pencil. I haven't had a holiday for about three years (I'm not counting St. Ives as it's in the same county, I had to work for a lot of it and it rained). That said, my job does allow me to fall asleep in the afternoon and blame toast, so I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for me or anything.

But yes, holidays are a weird area, as if you haven't got much work on you feel you should be out there having meetings, and things are busy you want to keep up the momentum.


*Evans came up with that. Well done her.
** I'll be inspecting it for odd lumpy bits later. Anything larger than shrew-sized will be... well, ignored frankly. None of my business.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Small point. "The Italian Job" doesn't take place in Rome. It takes place in Turin.

James Henry said...

Small, but excellent - duly amended, as has the original document. Ta.

Anonymous said...

God I'd love to see that film. I hope some of the other many, many suggested puns would feature in the film at some point.

Abaculus said...

May I suggest Norway as a holiday destination - that way you can pretend to be researching the heist movie. Or you could just relocate the vikings to Camber Sands and make the trip a bit cheaper.

Anonymous said...

Go to Antartica. It would make a change.

Laura said...

Why isn't Dougal and The Blue Cat one of your favourite films on your profile??

Sorry for hopping over from someone else's site, but I couldn't resist the name...

James Henry said...

Hop away - I'm ashamed to say I've never seen Dougal and the Blue Cat - although I am aware of it. I sort of plucked the name out of the air, and only thought about it later, which is something of a repeating pattern in my life. Must get round to watching it at some point though.

cello said...

Wow, PP, I am impressed. We put our Proms ticket request in on the first day booking opened but we still didn't get Valkyrie tickets. I'm not a massive Wagner fan, but I believe this is Domingo's Proms debut.

cello said...

Cool. I've only seen Bryn live doing Figaro, which was maahvellous, dahling.

Sorry about not loving Wagner. There's nothing i don't like about it, he's just not my fave. I do sing the Liebestod myself, but not for public consumption. Strauss is good. Well, of course what I really mean is I love Rosenkavalier, 4 last Songs and other songs. Other stuff is OK.

For a bass player your taste is rather confined. Can I not interest you in a spot of Beethoven even?

cello said...

Paul, I'm going to transfer this conversation onto the the Blue Cat Forum or we'll bore the pants off everyone. Hope that's OK.

Laura said...

Do watch Dougal and The Blue Cat, it's devoid of humour but rather sweet and tear-jerking.

PS Cello, Strauss nicked 4 last songs idea off Brahms.