Hmm. It's been three months since my last blog post. I really must take more time to keep it updated.

 

What's changed since last I wrote? Well, I've been hard at work doing the supervision and compositing for the second series of O Na! Y Morgans, which is currently being broadcast at 4.25 every Friday on S4C. Following on from the success of the Chrismas Special and its CG turkey, the second series features a new character: the Morgans' pet hamster Danedd. This means that there are less 2D animation sequences in this series and far more CG sequences that increase the workload considerably. I also have to be on set for each day's filming to advise the director, coach the actors and cameramen and take all the photos and measurements I need to get the work done to a suitable standard. (This standard is, of course, very high, to the detriment of my own health.) That said, like Con Passionate and Cymru am Byth before it, this series has been a fantastic learning experience and will stand all of Dinamo in stead for future FX work.

 

On a personal front, I've had my 30th birthday and survived. I also managed to get a little tipsy (not particularly difficult for a teetotaller) but got everyone else completely plastered in the process. My car passed its MOT and I've bought far too many books from Amazon that is really healthy. Exciting. I need a new hobby now that my previous interest is now my work!

 

On the filmmaking front, there have been some interesting developments. Something Real was recently shown on LA Underground, a non-profit cable TV show available on a couple of cable providers in LA (channel 36) and online at http://www.la36.org. I'd sent it to them quite a while ago and had completely forgotten about it until I was sent an email detailing the transmission. Great! I thought. I'm pleasantly surprised it's still getting shown around the world, especially as I haven't done much to push it this past year. Lo and behold, just after the screening, I receive an email from a very kind and enthusiastic person who happened to catch the film and has asked me for a copy to use in her classes as an example of the philosophies. It's strange and surprising how the world works some times!

 

In response to her email, I wrote the paragraph below to try an explain the films and I think it was a valuable exercise to do. The sequels have been sitting around for two years now and I think the time is right to revisit them. They're certainly too wordy, and if I had the opportunity (or the narcissism and masochism) I'd do them all again completely differently, but the ideas are right and still apply. I'm sure the text is more than a little pretentious, but who cares!

 

I'll keep you posted.

 

"The philosophies behind Something Real are mainly related to my own musings about the complexities and simplicities of life and evolution. On a superficial level, they stem from my own interest in the works of Iain M. Banks, a scottish writer who produces both sci-fi books and more contemporary novels. His ideas of utopia and future civilisations caught my imagination as a plausible route for where our species is heading. Since then, I've been able to think about these ideas far more and combine them with further readings, including that of Richard Dawkins who has popularised a lot of ideas about evolution. Although I disagree which Dawkin's method of delivery and attack on religion, I am an atheist and so Something Real and its sequels feature some discussion about organised religion. Further on in the story, I have Reydon's ideas of returning to a simpler form of life spiral out of control, twisted into a philosophy he barely understood himself. My point throughout has been that you can never return to the past when you have knowledge of the future. Since we are the sum of our collective experiences, knowledge keeps pushing us forward and to dwell on the past is to invite recrimination and regret. I believe we're heading towards a time when we'll have the technology to create consciousness and live without hunger, but we might throw it all away for fear of losing our need to survive. However, I think that these ideas can also apply to contemporary situations (as all good sci-fi does) and it's a useful lesson to learn. The sequels were a way for me to answer some of the questions and criticisms of SR and to show that questions about human intelligence, whether we're ready for wealth and utopia, and whether what we create and build will one day turn on us and destroy us, are cyclic and are always in the backs of our minds when we question technology."