Here’s a wonderful vintage 25 minute interview with Walter B. Gibson from TV Ontario’s famous Saturday Night At The Movies. The interviewer is Elwy Yost:
[via philsp.com]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Category: News
3D Horror Fi
Audio dramatist Marty Ross recommends we check out a new audio drama producer called 3D Horror Fi. Sez Marty:
I’m a professional writer of audio drama, specializing in the genres of SF and horror. Much of this has been for BBC Radio (the serials GHOST ZONE and CATCH MY BREATH, the anthology series THE DARKER SIDE OF THE BORDER.) Most recently, I’ve had a couple of Doctor Who audio books produced by Big Finish, NIGHT’S BLACK AGENTS and Lurkers At Sunlight’s Edge (which is basically Doctor Who meets H.P. Lovecraft!). But what I’m really seeking to plug here is my play BLOOD & STONE, which has recently been produced by 3DHorrorFi, a new web-based company specializing in horror and SF audio, using seriously state of the art technology. My play for them is gothic horror: you may be acquainted with the true story of Elizabeth Báthory, the Hungarian ‘bloody countess’ who bathed in the blood of innumerable servant girls to preserve her own beauty and was then punished by being locked away in a tower of her own castle. Well, my play imagines what would have happened if she had escaped, after convincing a seemingly naive servant girl of her innocence. I think it’s really good and this company deserves all the encouragement they can get – they’re just starting out, but with a little help, they could become major producers in the horror/SF field. If you check their website, www.3Dhorrorfi.com you could investigate what they offer: their other plays (not written by me) are good too, including the best adaptation of The Cask of Amontillado I’ve ever heard.
Thanks Marty! Yep, that sounds like some stuff we are interested in!
Posted by Jesse Willis
MIT: J. Michael Straczynski: The Julius Schwartz Lecture
Here’s a two hour lecture given by J. Michael Straczynski at MIT back in 2009. Sorry, there’s no audio only edition.
This year’s Julius Schwartz Lecture speaker was transmedia creator J. Michael Straczynski, who has most recently entered the motion picture arena, writing the period drama Changeling for Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie, adapting such books as Lensman for Ron Howard, World War Z for Brad Pitt’s company, and They Marched Into Sunlight for Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass, as well as reviving Forbidden Planet for Warner Bros. and selling two new original movies, The Flickering Light and Proving Ground to Universal and Tom Cruise’s United Artists, respectively. He has also begun work on Last Words, a pilot for a new TV series for the TNT network.
Previously known best for his role as the creator of the cult science fiction series Babylon 5 and its various spin-off films and series. Straczynski wrote 92 out of the 110 Babylon 5 episodes, notably including an unbroken 59-episode run through all of the third and fourth seasons, and all but one episode of the fifth season.
His early television writing career spans from work on He-Man, She-Ra, and The Real Ghostbusters through to The New Twilight Zone and Murder She Wrote. He followed up Babylon 5 with the science fiction series Jeremiah.
Straczysnki also enjoys continued success as a comic book writer, working on established superhero franchises, such as The Amazing Spider-Man, Supreme Power and Thor, as well as his own original series, such as Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, The Twelve, and The Book Of Lost Souls. He is also a journalist, publishing over 500 articles in such periodicals as the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Writer’s Digest Magazine, and TIME Inc.
He was one of the first television producers to actively engage his fan community online and has consistently explored the interface between digital media and other storytelling platforms.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Montage Radio Theatre does Science Fiction
From Bradley Thunderbird Phoenix (“the black Rod Serling”) comes:
Here are some story samples:
Republi-CON – paranoia & prejudice |MP3|
VOICE ACTOR: Anthony Pomes
Harlan Speaks! – satire on fantasy writer Harlan Ellison |MP3|
VOICE ACTORS: Anthony Pomes and Brad Phoenix
The DeathSHIP Cometh! – do humans survive? |MP3|
VOICE ACTORS: Kate Smith and Don Pruden Jr.
Do Blind People Dream in Color? – science fiction story |MP3|
VOICE ACTOR: Bradley Thunderbird Phoenix
The Day Music Lived – an Earth ambassador meets an alien |MP3|
VOICE ACTOR: Debbie Starker
Also, Radio Drama Revival has an interview with Bradley Thunderbird Phoenix |MP3|
Posted by Jesse Willis
Everything Is A Remix
Here’s a really terrific project that illustrates, in a very succinct way, the history of creativity. It’s thesis is that there is a fundamental through-line which connects all human creation and that is to copy, modify and mix (or remix) the creations of the past to make something new.
Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
One example, not cited in the series so far, is this thread of remixing:
Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) -> David Butler’s Just Imagine (1930) -> C.M. Kornbluth’s The Marching Morons (1951) -> Mack Reynolds’ Looking Backward From The Year 2000 (1974) -> Robert A. Heinlein’s For Us, The Living (written in 1938, published 2003) -> Mike Judge’s Idiocracy (2006)
In fact, we recently posted an audiobook reading of C.M. Kornbluth’s The Marching Morons, which took inspiration from the 1930 film Just Imagine. Robert A. Heinlein’s first novel (which went unpublished until 2003) was also a response to this movie. But Just Imagine itself likely took its inspiration from Edward Bellamy’s immensely popular 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward 2000-1887. Science Fiction writer, Mack Reynolds, wrote a couple sequels to Looking Backward but he wasn’t alone – in fact more than a dozen sequels, responses and inspired works followed. The history of Science Fiction is a flowing and knotted tapestry of scientific discovery, theory, ideology, adventure, and drama that cannot be summed up with any simplistic bag with the names like “inspiration” or “genius.”
Posted by Jesse Willis
2010 Mark Time and Ogle Award winners and honorable mentions
The 14th annual Mark Time Awards and Ogle Awards, presented at Convergence 2011, June 30th, in Bloomington, MN, are from “a wider range of countries than ever before.” Both awards are juried. The Mark Time Award is for distinguished achievement in Science Fiction audio theater production. The Ogle Award is presented for Fantasy and Horror audio theater production. The awards presentation will take place at Convergence 2011, June 30th, 2011 in Bloomington, MN. Six of the eight producers are scheduled to be in attendance as well as three of the five judges.
Mark Time Award:
GOLD
The Truth: Moon Graffiti
Written & Produced by Jonathan Mitchell
New York, NY
SILVER
The Cleansed, Pilot Episode
FinalRune Productions
Written & Produced by Fred Greenhalgh
Alfred, ME
HONORABLE MENTIONS
1918
Aural Stage
Written by Richard Lovejoy
Producers, Matthew Boudreau, Samantha Mason
Buffalo, NY
Brad Lansky And The Anti-Starc
Protophonic
Written by J.D. Venne
Producer, Dieter Zimmermann
Cape Town, South Africa
Ogle Award:
GOLD
Whoever Wishes
Tekdiff
Written & Produced by Cayenne Chris Conroy
Minneapolis, MN
SILVER
We’re Alive, Chapter 17, “There Might Be Others”
Zombiepodcast
Written by Kc Wayland
Producers, Kc Wayland, Shane Salk
Orange, CA
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Soul Survivor
Sonic Society
Written & Produced by Jack. J. Ward
Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada
The Witch Hunter Chronicles
Audio-epics
Written and Produced by Domien de Groot
Deurne, Belgium
Posted by Jesse Willis