Jet Bike Steve - From Twitter idea to actual film concept

Witnessing the birth of an idea in real time is quite a unique feeling of excitement (and a time-waster if you're working). The often misunderstood social media that is Twitter catapulted what might have been just a whimsical daydream movie idea by Britcom legend, Simon Pegg into a web and media frenzy (ok, frenzied action by fans perhaps). Earlier today, he announced the project's green light of 'Jet Bike Steve and The Bikini Thief' on Lauren Leverne's BBC 6 Music radio show.

The Tweet from @Simonpegg started it all off was "I'm gonna write a film about jet bikes. I like them, they go fast on the sea. I play the main character, Jet Bike Steve. That's all so far." at 3:22pm on 23rd March 2010. The Twitter banter escalated between Nick Frost, Edgar Wright and about 252,986 followers (as on 26th March).

The basic concept of 'Jet Bike Steve' is Steve, a (good) pirate who travels around on a Knightrider like Geordie accented, talking jet bike which is called the Barack-uda raiding fuel from luxury yachts. Other details mentioned are: A killer whale called Andy Monteith which can be summoned by whistle; Under #JBS's eyepatch is a highly polished steel ball bearing which he uses for GLINT ATTACK!!!

Its suddenly spawned its own Facebook fan page, Wikipedia entry, some fan artwork including movie poster (pictured above and created by Philip Kennedy), an annual, an action figure, t-shirts you can actually buy(?), a fake Twitter account, an official Twitter account, an official website, an unofficial website and a YouTube movie trailer (see below).

Some famous names have been mentioned that will get 'on-board':

• On screen partner in crime, Nick Frost as Thor the Viking who was found frozen
• Edgar Wright to direct (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and new film, Scott Pilgrim)
• David Arnold to do the theme tune with Shirley Bassey
• Eric Roberts as Dick Spash, Steve's arch-enemy

Personally, although I can see the obvious attraction of setting the story in the Caribbean (or St Tropez as per the movie trailer), I honestly think there would be more charm and comedy in setting it around Poole Harbour. Maybe Steve is the modern day smuggler and the film could be a 21st century Moonfleet or maybe not as its sounds a bit dull plus all the fantasy stuff wouldn't mix either.

Related articles by Zemanta

• "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" Trailer Hits the Web [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
• Simon Pegg Brings Spaced To Burke and Hare (cinemablend.com)
• Watch This: A Peek at the Doomed 'Spaced' Remake (cinematical.com)

One Man Lord of the Rings at Brighton Theatre Royal

We'd bought tickets way back in September last year on probably the very day it was announced yet we were still the second row. Are people psychic or something? Still we had an excellent view and if Charles Ross had eaten garlic we would have smelt it.

The support comedian did a good job diverting the audience's attention for 30 minutes and had some very bizarre views on life. The main attraction didn't disappoint either with all three books/films played out. The first film was perfectly executed with accents and mannerisms picked up. Between the first and un at second, Chrales Ross whilst drinking water to recover asked the audience how many had seen the movies or had read the books. Amazingly, some had seen neither!

The 'gay' comradeship between the two Hobbits was picked up in the performance as well as some gentle poking of fun at Legolas. Probably the best moment for me was the Pippin singing whilst Denethor ate tomatoes scene re-enacted so well - a hilarious piss take.

After the performance, Charles Ross explained how the show came about, how Ian Mckellen saw the show and loved it, how much money he had to spend on lawyers to allow him to perform it and a nice compliment that Brighton was one of his favourite places in the UK. Plus he would return to repeat his One Man Star Wars show.

Related articles by Zemanta

• One Man Lord of the Rings at Theatre Royal Brighton (gingerdjrob.com)

Vitalic at Coalition, Brighton

In case you've never heard of Vitalic, think somewhere between Justice, Daft Punk and Etienne de Crecy with a pure electronic sound. We were a little late on the bandwagon with Vitalic's latest album, Flashmob really exciting us.

Coalition on Brighton's beachfront was a good venue though the early performance time of 9:15pm to 10:30pm was moaned about by a few who didn't have to work the next day.

Pascal Arbez, the guy behind Vitalic came on to the stage with his ready setup of laptop, sequencer and other technical gadgets. His set started off quite ordinary with only a couple of monster tunes to spice things up. The diversity of sounds was preferred by a section of the crowd, where as the pure dance-heads like myself and Kerry were used to the techno rhytmns. The second half had a lot more of the throbbing, hands-in-the-air classics like Flashmob to really rock the place. There were a couple of places where he made a mistake like miscounting the right point for the next track. Towards the end he put on perhaps his best tune heard previously at the 2ManyDJs gig in Brixton, La Rock 01. Expecting to be entranced with a full-on workout he suddenly dropped Chemical Brothers' Galvanize which almost stopped the crowd dancing and certainly got a lot of confused looks from everyone. The set returned back to La Rock then after a mini-encore put on a rock-guitar based track that still got us jumping and larking about for fun. Great gig, just WTF was the Galvanize bit.

Haven't got round to uploading the video I took of the gig but here's a taster of his tunage below:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Vitalic / The Bloody Beetroots "Second Lives" (hangout.altsounds.com)
• Vitalic Video and US Tour Dates (hangout.altsounds.com)

Sean Lock does Bexhill

No idea why Sean Lock didn't play Brighton but it was good to visit somewhere different even if it was Bexhill. His latest tour, Lockipedia was playing at the De La Warr Pavilion which looked very impressive. A pre-show dinner was ordered from Cafe Belge which had the smell of an old people's home and the food was average though was probably down to the lack of staff coping with the Sean Lock punters. I couldn't argue with its 'best burger in town' as I hadn't had any other burger in Bexhill but knew I'll never order a burger in Bexhill for the rest of my life. Apart from the food, it was the beer that made up for the visit. The beer cocktail that I instantly fell in love with as soon as I tasted it was the Tropical consisting of Floris Mango and Mongozo Coconut beer. It was a pina colada in a pint and even Kerry couldn't help herself trying to steal it. Luckily our quick ordering before a previous big group allowed us to escape in time for the 8pm start.

Unlike his previous excellent tour performance which can be found on YouTube with the first two episodes below it was quite a random joke fest with never dwelling on a subject for longer than two jokes. His observations was still excellent but I would have preferred more quality, bigger laughs than the continued giggle throughout. The Chortle.co.uk site gives a very accurate review and mentions his battleships game which was a little hit and miss with the audience - no pun intended. He nearly did call out my seat number missing me by two places. Each time a seat number was announced the audience member would have to call out a letter of the alphabet then a subject for him to joke about. I was hoping someone would say S for Swan to repeat his impression found in video two below.

Part 1 (of 9)

Part 2 (of 9) My personal favourite, Sean talking about swans



The rest of the performance starts here on YouTube.

Playstation 3's Move - a bit like a Wii

Google me to see where I am!

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr

The lack of real blog entries lately has been down to being either really busy on things that aren't that exciting or small things that only deserve a Twitter shout. I blame it on the Winter Olympics and decorating.

First off, something I forgot to mention that a friend who works for Brighton council said that my photo (right) had made their 'media briefing'. Not quite sure what this means but being a secret council informer/spy excites me slightly. 

Kev, Karol, Sarah and James all celebrated their birthday at the end of February/start of March. After some pre-drinks at K and K's we bundled round to the Disco Dungeon and started the proper party. Since updating to Windows 7 and Virtual DJ 6 I'd hoped for a stress-free set. The only thing that went wrong was the time codes where the sound quality using the virtual vinyl was a watery-muffled sound. As soon as I switched to just using the laptop all was good and had another blinding set with loads of whoops from the girls. The only problem again is that I didn't record the set though perhaps this would jinx my DJ mojo.

Otherwise we've been decorating, losing the biggest pub quiz roll-over cash prize and watching some over-due DVD films like The Hangover and Something, Something, Something, Darkside (the Family Guy take on the Empire Strikes Back). Both very funny. I've been feeling crap as well with the longest stint of invisible cold (overcome by laziness and moaned all the time). Today is the first time I've actually felt normal for over a week.

We celebrated our anniversary Wednesday night. An interesting Chinese restaurant called Good Friends on Preston Street, Brighton. Web reviews were good and turned out to be accurate. Although the ambience was a little bright, the food and service was excellent. Nice touch with the menus. You got a proper authentic cuisine menu and one for tourists. The authentic one had dishes based on duck webs, fish lips, intestines, frog legs and pigs trotters (though spelt as troiters). None of that was ordered but slightly regretted one of the starters as the smell and burp taste was rank cabbage.

Finally, Google Streetview got fully launched covering the whole of the UK and not just London). Ever since seeing the Google camera car driving down our street last April I'd been expecting to see ourselves in the photo. It wasn't hard to remember when this happened as we were driving back from the vets after putting our furry friend, Sasha down before our Peru holiday.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google streetview employees need to get paid a little better I think. (the-web-tech.blogspot.com)
• Google Streetview to cover every UK road (telegraph.co.uk)
• Google Streetview Catches Alleged Tree Killers on Camera (treehugger.com)

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. Kerry and I got married in Reading on this day in 2001 and believe it or not it's just a little before digital photography really took off (for me at least) so no digital photos. Will have to scan a few at some point.

Thought I'd revisit the places that made this day so memorable via the web:

• Reading Register Office (photo to the right - back in 2001 it was covered in scaffolding and no garden)
• Penta Hotel Reading (known back then as the Renaissance Hotel) for our brunch/lunch reception
• Eurostar to Paris

As far as memories go for our honeymoon, I can't remember the hotel or any names of restaurants we visited but we did all the normal tourist places including: Eiffel Tower (Kerry's vertigo got the better of her); Notre Dame; Pompidou Centre; Arc de Triomphe (very windy and wet); Louvre; Sacre-Coeur (artist portraits still rolled up in their tubes)

Sad news on this day
On this day today, Corey Haim died of a drug overdose. He was the same age as me at 38! This YouTube clip is possibly his most classic scene of him from The Lost Boys.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Actor Corey Haim dies (cnn.com)
• Things to Do in Paris, France (chris.pirillo.com)

New Tron Legacy film trailer

Hot off the Twitter sources is the new trailer for Tron Legacy. This time you get see a lot more acting, characters and a bit of back-story. Bring it on!

Related articles by Zemanta

• UPDATE: Official Tron Legacy Trailer Hits In HD [Trailers] (gizmodo.com)
• The First TRON LEGACY trailer is now here! (aintitcool.com)
• The Tron Legacy Trailer In Sexy High Definition Now Online [Movies] (kotaku.com)

Logorama - Oscar winner of Best Animated Short Film

The mainstream media has been full of Oscar news but there was an award that slipped the headlines which  deserved a little more exposure. Logorama won the Best Animated Short film beating Wallace and Gromit's A Matter of Loaf and Deaf. 
Part 1

Part 2

Related articles by Zemanta

• 1 reviews of A Matter of Loaf and Death (rateitall.com)
• Watch the Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts, All in One Place (cinematical.com)
• The Oscar Shorts: What's Good, What's Bad, and What Will Win (nymag.com)
• Oscars 2010: nominations revealed (telegraph.co.uk)