Michael Geist brings us a tale about some backroom dealings that just might threaten current Canadian soveriegn copyright law.
What’s especially angering is that much of these “deals” are made in the dark without the light of public awareness.
Thanks Michael for shining some of the light on it.
Now we need to let people know!
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4525/135/
Category: Media (Page 44 of 45)
The amazing Drew Little took some time to create this phenomenal little animation short from “Lighter”, the Dead Line episode starring Ken MacAlpine, Alex MacDonald and Jack Ward. We love the style, and hope to see many more from this great animator! THANKS SO MUCH!!!
50 years ago this week, Rod Serling a former paratrooper, boxer, and three time Emmy Award winning writer from the experimental live drama series Playhouse 90 had attempted to escape controversy as a social/political critic in creating a “fantasy” series. His now famous interview with Mike Wallace in which he claims he’s no longer interested in deeper subjects was of course a classic boxer’s feint.
Serling redefined television. Along with other contemporary Teleplay writers like Reginald Rose and Gore Vidal they saw the small box as an opportunity to tell important stories- to entertain and to move people to the great plights of the modern age.
Serling began his career in radio but his five years in the Twilight Zone became one of the most influential in popular culture.
Fifty years later the shows are still relevant, the themes are still gripping, and Serling deserves all the credit. Thanks Rod.
Coming from Colonial Radio Theatre another adventure masterpiece- Zorro and the Pirate Raiders!
Colonial Radio consistently presents us lovers of audio drama with powerful stories. I remember when I was a child, my Grandparents had a Disney picture book of the story of Zorro. I would read it again and again when I visited, and hear the whip cracks and the whistle of the Fox’s sword as he tore his initial “Z” where ever he went.
Now, at long last, you can hear it too… with the adaptation by the award winning Jerry Robbins, you know this version of Zorro will get right into the action and be a story that will simply thunder off your earbuds.
But don’t take my word for it… have a listen to the promo yourself- here!
A milestone in audio production often goes unheralded, but here’s one that we can all cheer about. Recently, in a conversation Jerry Robbins mentioned to me that with their latest releases of Moonfleet and Perry Mason, Colonial Radio Theatre has put out 300 shows for purchase in its fourteen years of existence. That’s an amazing production rate by any standard.
So cheers to you Jerry Robbins, Mark Vanderberg, and all the great folks in Colonial Radio. May the next 300 be as fantastic as the first!
To say that I love “Barrymore” produced by Colonial Radio Theatre, written by William Luce and starring Jerry Robbins, is like saying kids appreciate Halloween. There’s just not enough adjectives in the English language to describe this theatrical experience. One gets the feeling that you’re not listening to an audio drama, but you’re experiencing a night out to a Broadway Stage.
The production is crisp, and captures enough sound to support Robbin’s portrayal of John Barrymore. A portrayal which expertly sifts through the many moods and madnesses of the late master.
If, like me, you’re building your audio library this is a must buy. And even if, you’re not considering making a large collection, this is the show you’ll want to hear time and time again- and remember when Hollywood and the American Stage held court with Kings.
Damn you Stevie Farnaby and Bill Hollweg!
I’m making my lunch and tonight’s dinner for my boys and I and I’ve got my laptop set out on the kitchen counter- everyone should listen to Audio Drama while working in the kitchen- and I’m listening to Broken Sea’s latest adaptation Escape from New York.
The 1981 Kurt Russell vehicle was loads of B-flick action fun when I was a kid, and I’m feeling this surge of excitement and nostalgia as the original motion picture soundtrack comes up.
The rough retort of cocked weapons, the steady thrum of helicopters stroking through the air, you can almost taste the industrial paste of grease, gunpowder, and blood. Escape from New York has all the things I loved about 80’s sci-fi films like Bladerunner and Mad Max, great distopic backdrops, hardboiled heroes, and a lot of wanton destruction.
So what’s my problem? Why am I cursing Farnaby and Hollweg?
Because just a few years ago, non-commercial audio drama often came across as clearly amateur and something hard core hobbyists would just engage in.
Vocal levels and acting are usually uneven, and production moved consistently on a sliding scale.
But it seems almost single-handedly Hollweg and in the case of Escape- Farnaby are raising the bar for audio production.
Joyously Stevie (and he is joyous trust me) relates the copious number of tracks he’s used to produce the power-packed sound that Escape from New York produces.
Now don’t get me wrong, other producers are bringing out equally stellar results in their productions, and if I begin naming them I will undoubtably forget a few, but I’ve noticed both Farnaby and Hollweg take special masochtic glee in the universe of sound they provide.
And the results? WOW, WOW, and triple WOW.
Escape from New York is something I’m going to listen again with headphones, and again, and again. I’m already salivating at the prospect of Episode 2.
The acting, and the scripts (also penned by Hollweg) are all up to Broken Sea’s usual quality with veteran’s like Mark Kalita, Bruce Busby, Robin Carlisle, Natasha Lathrop with Jester Timm Gillick channeling Kurt Russell’s “Snake Plisken”, but its the lovingly rendered production that makes the lazy audio editor in me curse Farnaby for raising the bar!
So approximately 24 years ago, I had a vision. I haven’t had too many of them, but this one seemed pretty clear. Computers were in their infancy but I could see as they struggled to create digital images that one truth would come to pass.
Some day, in the none too distant future they would make brand new movies, taking the images of old favourite actors and by scanning them, make them move and behave visually in new ways. So we’d see Steve McQueen in a “new” movie, Marilyn Monroe sing and laugh up a storm in a new musical comedy reuniting her with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. They’d all be young, vital, and their facial and body movements would be unerringly “real”. The computers would have scanned their movements in the dozens of films they were in, and sophisticated software would have the “Monroe Character” and the “Lemmon Character” ready to take their marks in a cybernetic stage.
I could see that for the first releases of these movies, “sound alike” voice actors would lip-sync with the pictures but eventually even a program would be designed that would analyse their speech patterns and allow someone to put in any lines you want.
This new kind of film making would eventually be cheaper than making films the old fashioned way, and people would always want to see their favourite stars in the prime of their youth whether they were Clark Gable or Johnny Depp. This would put struggling actors out of work permanently for everything but “art” films or “independents”, and I envisioned a kind of return to vaudeville for those who still were bitten by the acting bug.
Hey… I never said it was a good vision. It’s at best a mixed bag.
Twenty plus years later, and the visuals are still getting closer. We’ve been able to make Fred Astaire dance with a vacuum pretty easily, and place modern actors with tribbles, but we’re not quite there yet.
Audio has been even trickier. Check out Talking Gadget Theater: Blade Runner with Kindle 2 and i-Pod Shuffle. Folks are amazed at how much better computer voices have become at reading lines.
I, for one, am very glad we have a thriving, and talented audio drama community to keep the machines at bay… for now at least.
The uber-talented Leonard Nimoy celebrated his birthday March 26th, and with the upcoming Star Trek movie, it’s important to look back at this giant of a man. Mr. Nimoy can do it all- Act, Write, Direct, and shoot amazing photos. I’ve hadone of his books of poetry for years.
As intellectually curious as his alter ego on Star Trek, Leonard points to his love of radio as an young boy. Shows like The Shadow, The Lone Ranger and I Love a Mystery fed his imagination according to this Celebrity Profile.
Getting your start through Radio drama? Sounds logical to us!
Happy Birthday Mr. Nimoy!
Big Finish Audio has been a steady force for Gallifreyan good through the years. When Doctor Who was “between Doctors” (off the air), Big Finish was still producing show after show with the voices of Doctors past.
In this interview wish Jason Haigh Ellery has a great interview in The Den of Geek on Britains iconic sci-fi hero.