After a short release in selected digital theatres back in June, "Est" the film version of the 2004 TV show "Est" is now out on DVD.
The documentary-feature "The Complete Map of the Universe", the documentary about the whole project will be out in spring 2011.
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The Edge Book has been selected by Barnes and Noble:
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august.2010
With a Mouse (to your mouth)
This feature film was supposed to be my first film in 1997 but has never been released. It is now scheduled for 2012.
"With a Mouse to your mouth" is the story of two friends who spend a week, day/night crossing London inside a black cab and reading a science fiction book. In the story their imagination is so powerful that they are able to become the characters from the book and re-create new and better realities around them in 3D and in blue (In real 3D. Need 3D glasses).
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august.2010
Est FACTS...
1. It is a TV show. The contestants must be locked into a room, in the dark for a period of one month. Every day they are psychoanalyzed or audited.
2. Initially intended to be broadcast on the Sky network in the UK in 2002, but seeing the pilot show the producers panicked as it was deemed too controversial.
3. Series one, two and three became instead a webcast. It generated over 600 000 downloads as part of the Y2KTV set (Before Youtube existed!).
4. By 2005 nearly all the episodes and clips ended up on Youtube. We had requested all the clips to be deleted but some remained.
5. Some of the clips that we didn't include in the TV show, the infamous footage when the contestants had a shower, went to the washroom ended up on X rated sites.
6. The initial reception in the UK was lukewarm to say the least due to Britain’s extremely 'conservative' and controlled film and media market. This is not the sixties, seventies or early eighties but the Y2K years.
"It's like breaking through an iron curtain". Fortunately, an "iron curtain" never lasts. It's a question of time" and then a new wave of filmmakers can finally break through it.
7. "Est" was first conceived in my 1995 novel "Map of the Universe". Inside the novel there was a chapter called: "In and Out of Planet Earth" and "Writing on the wall". The films are not really related and my ex-agents suggested five years ago to compile a film called "The Complete Map of the Universe" with footage of the three films. I always thought the whole project was a bit confusing. "The Complete Map of the Universe" is a documentary on the films, not a feature film as such.
8. "Est" is now a film (the film of the TV show) with actors, not real life contestants. The TV series is 720 hours long and perhaps some of the scenes are too horrendous to be shown so I'm not sure what is going to happen with this.
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august.2010
In and Out of Planet Earth
In this film, there are three scenes that have mortified the censors; three scenes that I'm extremely proud about.
The first one is the so called "explicit sex scene". I thought about including the "Making of it" in the DVD but many said that it might spoil the storyline.
The storyline makes a reference to the reproduction of the animal world underwater and the main character Paul X dealing here with his emotions recalled a scene with his girlfriend -a pure analogy-. The scene has been created in pure "cinematic" style. The actors wore a tight costume of a "fleshy" color, some effects over the footage and some "grunting" in voice-overs and an added line in Tarantino's style (F.Y.B. or F.U.B.) and the whole process has been blown out of proportion.
It was merely a "cinematic/theatrical" piece; nothing real there. I'm aware that this scene along with the one in "Speed of Light" and "Est" may not lift my reputation but out of 14 films, there are just a few scenes that "some people" uploaded on "some websites" and reached many millions of hits -apparently- (as I refused to check it out).
In Hindsight: brilliant! It means that my abilities as a filmmaker to re-create the realities of life have worked.
The second part was in the scene: "The Life of a Jellyfish". There is a jellyfish floating over the main character Paul X with a few "grunted" voices. Here again far less shocking than a documentary on the Discovery Channel.
Third and final "shocking" part was yet another analogy between some underwater creatures -like the octopus- that has the ability to suck its fingers. Enter the "Thumb sucking" scene. The character Paul X describes his girlfriend fondness of the practice -and mine until a few years ago and I say this unashamedly-. Paul X quiet rightly describes this practice "like smoking a cigarette or taking drugs. Which one do you prefer?" It is a hilarious scene (with some female grunting in the background) for people with a sense of humour of course.
Nothing explicit and nothing that deserved the 'R' or '18' certificates. It's just a story like any other story.
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july.2010
Virtual Alien
Virtual Alien is a documentary-feature about yours truly out earlier this year. It features bloopers, screeners, trailers, archives footage and rough cuts.
The content has been heavily censored by my producers.
In this interview I'm garbling on for nearly an hour (78 minutes in total) about my humble debut in the business from an early age to the year 2010. All of it presented in 'sophisticated' yet slightly pretentious BW or WB.
I rarely ever give TV interviews so 'something' needed to be done urgently.
I started working on this presentation in 2007, but got lost in all of my work.
It is heavily censored in parts as my producers removed all mentions to politic or religion. It doesn't leave much (these days). Apparently an un-censored version might be released in the future.
As a result of this editing some end cuts were quiet abrupt and very funny in parts. But it does state so on the label: "rough cuts". What can one expects?
It is a trip down memory lane. I delve a bit into my relationship with my actors and why I tend to give some more freedom. I explain why I find it very hard to work with the same actors or team and why I had often fallen out so many times with so many people in the past. It needed to be said and I said it.
DVD available at Amazon
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june.2010
The Original Edge Magazine.
The Edge is a project that was never meant to happen. It started and continued by accident. It went on for a long time even though every year we said it would be the last (and I really wanted it to be the last). Some things are just uncontrollable.
For the first time a compilation with a summary of this magazine that I created and run from 1987 - 1999 has been assembled together. I owed it to a lot of people to release this book. Now that I have done this, I can finally move on.
130 pages in color, paperback and Ebook format. PRICE: $22.40
Ebook-Kindle
Paperback
SONY Reader
Available on the Apple Tablet Bookstore along with the first two volumes of The Y2K Files. You need a Tablet to access the Bookstore link.
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june.2010
The Y2K File. Volume 2.
The second volume of that decade of diary entries is OUT NOW. 250 pages in color.
Ebook-Kindle PRICE: $64.00
Paperback PRICE: $64.00
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june.2010
Burning from the Inside
I have been asked time and time again: how did I manage to interview 120-plus members of a Nigerian tribe in the extremely volatile oil region?
Patience is the mother of all virtues. That's the short answer.
Never let yourself be intimidated by anyone included the big oil companies! I’ve initially included 'them' in my project. I did set out to interview some of the chairmen and biggest shareholders. At the beginning everything went smoothly then all of a sudden they became very agitated, obnoxious and threatening. They messed me about. The more they pushed me around and the more I carried on. I became unstoppable and they tried to stop me many times!
The project was rejected by everyone. The BBC panicked. Some executives complained stating that the BBC cannot show a documentary in black and white, some other executives were simply panic stricken; the project was too political. The Film Council in Britain was far more concerned to spend their budget on improving their own offices so we didn't even present any request for help.
In hindsight I'm extremely proud of this film. The feature only includes a summary of the 500 hours plus of interviews condensed within about 70 minutes.
I have met some extremely courageous and great people. I met the current president of Nigeria who took power recently in a peaceful coup.
I can see quiet clearly the damage the likes of BP did to their country and in light of what they did with the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and how they are trying to cover the damage by choosing their own team to assess the damage.
I know it's hard to dig oil, I've tried and we are all using energy. This doesn't mean that a gang of idiots must be allowed to ruin the planet!
The project started in 1999 and was completed in 2004.
The subject matter cannot be more different than my other projects. That is a bit of a problem for a lot of people, not least in the media world. The ability to move on to new directions and horizons seems to frighten many. Stagnation is never an option.
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