Latest PodKast from Kasterborous.com with James!

Another PodKast for Kasterborous.com. Myself, editor Christian Cawley, associated editor Brian Terranova and guest Vworp Vworp! editor Gareth Kavanagh.  

http://www.kasterborous.com/2011/10/podkast-series-6-summary/

In their words not mine:

"The podKast with a “K” goes retrospective this week as we cast our eyes and our minds (not to mention your ears) back across the whole of Series 6, with our special guest, Vworp Vworp! editor Gareth Kavanagh.


In the past we’ve done round table discussions as articles, but this time around we thought it might be better to give our listener the chance to experience the thoughts as they’re shared, rather than in edited form.


We go into detail on a number of interesting points, such as the Tessalecta, the Lodger TARDIS, Steven Moffat’s broken promise of a proper death in The Impossible Astronaut and his choice of writers, as well as mulling once more on Alex Kingston and River Song and judging what can be gained from Series 6 going forwards into 2012.


Now we’re well aware that we might be going into some contentious territory with some of these observations, but with the benefit of Gareth Kavanagh’s presence (a gentleman fortunate enough to run his own pub and host weekly screenings of Series 6) we get a unique insight into what general, non-Whovian viewers might have felt about the 2011 episodes…"

Archive: Interviewing Hayden Black and Laura Silverman!

One from earlier this year - an interview I did with TV Show comedy Goodnight Burbank creator Hayden Black and show's lead actress Laura Silverman for Doctor Who website Kasterborous.com. Goodnight Burbank was at time of the interview airing on Hulu.com though more recently its been picked up for cable. For more information on Goodnight Burbank, visit www.goodnightburbank.com. To hear the podkast, follow the link!

http://www.kasterborous.com/2011/03/goodnight-brubank/

The Kasterborous.com podkast is a weekly event - I tend to appear most weeks! Occasional interviews, but mainly opinion pieces on the TV show, Doctor Who!

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead

Cut to the Chase Meridian : can't say I enjoyed this.

Planet of the Dead is a story that very much relies on the audience falling for the Doctor's one-off companion, Christina (Michelle Ryan). If you didn't fall for this cat-woman homage, there really wasn't much else in the episode to engage you. The other characters (who as usual for RTD, felt authentically British) were relegated to the bus leaving us with Christina and the Doctor - oh and some flies. Hate to sound stuffed with snark, but the flies carried more charm than Christina. Really - they were great!

Cards on the table - I hate sounding like a grumbler, but (and there's always a 'but') can we have a female character that doesn't have to constantly compete with the Doctor for the audience's attention? It seems each companion has to spar with the Doctor to prove they are made of equal awesomez as the 900-year-old Time Lord. When one goes, the next has to come and fill those same shoes. Having the occasional companion look the Doctor in the eye is super - having companions occasionally do this makes that moment stand out more, but it seems each companion or major female guest star has to find a way to do just this. So by the time Christina appears ready to prove how she's not going to be ordered around by a very competent and rather superior being, she's sort of lost the dramatic edge.

I suppose we should blame society and our churlish, sexist social regime that we have to constantly reminds ourselves exists no more by adding aggressive or challenging female role model to buck past trends (which on consideration, isn't exactly a bad thing). It's just in way, this ideology limits the female character types to fulfil the companion role. I mean, men can be charming like Captain Jack, or eccentric like Malcolm (Lee Evans), UNIT's scientific advisor, or just excitable like Adam (Dalek) without having to prove to the Doctor - and through the Doctor, the audience - that they are valid, contemporary role models. In a way, it seems lead female characters are pigeon holed as bolshy and confrontation to prove they are no longer being pigeon holed as weak and submissive. Is there no middle ground?

In fact, I think this episode would have been far better with just the Doctor and the bus load of Ordinary. Yes, the Ordinary were far more likeable, believable and enjoyable to watch than Christina. We had a spectrum of London types and they were all very well played. They rooted the audience in the dilemma very well indeed - unlike Christina's character who was a boob laden pastiche on Bond and Thomas Crown - who just dragged you away from the tension. She was too unbelievable.

What? Unbelievable for a man travelling around time in a police box? Yes, sir - unbelievable. One oddity is something an audience can invest in. We can accept a Doctor, or a James Bond or a Batman. But when they have an equally unbelievable sidekick, who is just as amazing, it starts to become a little farcical.

Strong sidekicks aren't always a 'no' of course - in the right context they can be beneficial to a story in my humble ungodly opinion, but I think the desperation required to sustain the situation in this particular tale required the supporting cast to be believable - and that includes the companion.

I'm sure many people loved this Special - which is great. I'm not here to berate RTD's production (or personal talent) as crikey, they don't half get enough flack from fandom as it is. I just feel I have to be honest and say this didn't fulfil my Doctor Who criteria. But given I'm neither The Family or The Kids - the two key demographics for this story, I'm not the stat type to take priority. I'm just saying as a member of the audience, I found it slow, predictable and, thanks to Ryan's character, slightly cringe worthy. It's a ghastly thing to say when people have worked so hard and I don't mean to smear any of the cast and crew's talent, but it just didn't work for me. Heck, I found Lee Evans Malcolm enjoyable - and he's a gent whose on-screen presence normally drives me to the ceiling (as did his father, Norman Wisdom). I didn't enjoy the lame robbery opening (can we not put Mission: Impossible behind us now?), the barren middle bit (barren for those of us neither lusting or loving Christina and the Doctor's dynamic) or the triumphant ending (that felt smug and superfluous). Though I have to say the portents of things to come were very exciting - matched with a wonderful shot of brooding Tennant.

So a little disappointed. I'm a big fan of the New Who productions, so if you are just reading this blog on a random web-surf, don't mistake me as someone who generally whine about the show (yet persists in watching it so they can whine some more). Loved the last season so perhaps I just don't do Easter Specials! And for the first time, I have to say I really didn't enjoy Gold's soundtrack - dear lord, I've fallen right off the Who bandwagon this time. Someone hoist me back up.

Well. Thirty minutes and its Red Dwarf. Let's see if the night continues this trend. I hope not!

EDIT: Who writer Lawrence Miles has far more to say on this topic and more candidly. Have to say I find myself agreeing with his points and feeling utterly awful for doing so.

Doctor Who Trailer Maker and the art of Fan Video Montages!

Just for the sake of irrelevancy, I've been enjoying the Doctor Who Trailer Maker (UK only). A sort of Flash Imovie variant that allows you to compile preselected clips, sound FX and music together into one 30 second piece.

It's a great little way to pass.. well, a few hours. I've always been big into editing. I did music editing/production at college, produced a single and even heck, I still still cut and remix music tracks on the old laptop. Even in less technical mediums, I enjoy the editing process. I've been working on a script for a Quarry Grove animated proposal as well working with the author supplying additional material to his second book. I love editing - its a fascinating process. In the book I'm writing part of the satisfaction comes from the swap, cuts and changes that comes in the post edit of a chapter.

So this little Doctor Who Trailer Maker has got me spellbound. Sure, I could make my own with far less bugs on Imovie, but that requires the tedious research of clip compiling. No, what I love is editing - choosing from required clips, searching for the most appropriate cuts and splicing in synchronization to a score. The Trailer Maker allows you to do that, albeit with a few glitches.

First off - as you'll see on the following links (UKers only unfortunately), a couple of plays will give you slightly different transition points - this makes it very hard to make a tight edit. When I had finished and saved the trailers, I found that the more smoother playback option (only available once saved and dusted) revealed hiccups that were not present in the suite. One of the trailer maker's good points is it does allow you to - with a little difficulty - manipulate what elements of a given clip you use. Problem is, the suite doesn't make the cuts very clear so on final playback you see a hint of a pre-directed cut within in a clip that was never in your suite playback. The second clip has a couple of instances of this - watch out for the slight glitch in the "Blink" segment.

Another problem that presented itself in the second clip is memory capacity. The trailer maker only has a limited memory size, and with the second clip running fast cuts to the pushes in Gold's score, it counts those mere seconds as full clips. Therefore you find your trailer is so crammed, gremlins start taking control - in particlar, loss of sound! And after a few hours your final clean up gets somewhat marred in your efforts to hear the music that accompanies your clip! Makes it very hard to touch up those transitions!

My other grumble is the lack of non-talking clips, and the different sound quality in clips with sound. The latter problem informs the former; when the sound levels vary, you need to look at nulling the audio on the clips (which Trailer Maker allows you to do), of course this creates a problem in what clips you can have. How so? Well, it's an issue that so many fan video montages fail to understand - if you are running a silent montage to music, DO NOT use clips with people talking. It's sloppy, distracting and immediately looks amateurish. But when a great deal of the available clips have a great a deal of chat - especially the primary Doctor sourced material, it makes it hard to create a decent cut.

But overall, it's a fun piece of Flash software that shouldn't be taken seriously. It would be great to be able to easily adjust and tighten your selective choices, but it really is a resilient program to anal perfection.

So anyway, here's my two attempts. They aren't brilliant - more thanks to the choices at hand and the buggy nature of Trailer Maker - oh, and the fact I'm not a professional, just an over-enthusiastic home video editor with a sheer love of splicing!

Before I finish, here are my 5 pieces of advice to those who enjoy the thrill of making homage montage for their favourite show!

1. Keep your clips short: I see this so much on Youtube, fan videos which just let clips roll on and on and on, letting the production crew behind the clips do the editing work rather than the fan! Don't be lazy and don't let the clips you are montaging do all the cut work.

2. Don't use clips of characters conversing, unless the audio is present. It looks unprofessional, distracting and plain weird.

3. Don't do chronological. Nothing is worse than watching a montage which is an episode from beginning to end - to music. Be creative, look at how the music can work with the clip to invoke its own special relevance!

4. While it's great to link clips to particular lines in songs, don't over-rely on this technique. Music is an evocative medium, sometimes far more than the lyrics themselves, don't allow yourself be dragged down in making a video too focused on complimenting the lyrics - go a step further and see if it can match the mood as well!

5. Try using music other people do not. Popular scores/pop songs that have had serious over-use include Requiem For a Dream, virtually everything by Linkin Park and Green Day, or that famous song by Evanescence. Especially avoid Linkin Park with Final Fantasy - it's been done to death.

Anyway, here are my sloppy, buggy Doctor Who Trailer edits. Try and enjoy!

Trailer One (done a few months back)

Trailer Two (done yesterday!)

REVIEW: Torchwood Season 2: Episode One: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Captain Jack returns, as the Torchwood team reunite to fight a rogue Time Agent. The mysterious Captain John Hart is determined to wreak havoc, and needs to find something hidden on Earth. But with Gwen's life in danger, and cluster bombs scattered across the city, whose side is Jack on?
I can't say I was impressed, nor can I say the premiere was better than any of last year's season.

While James Masters was fun as Captain John and hero Jack Harkness was his enjoyable self, the rest of the characters fell pretty flat. Torchwood's biggest problem is that the main cast suffers from being particularly lacking in charisma levels and terribly unbelievable for any form of serious agency. Especially Gwen, who dripped her way across the screen throughout the episode, now even more indulgent, self centered and as irritating that ever before.

Certainly the episode had a few good gags (Captain John getting randy over a poodle was a fun insert) but the story structure was an absolute mess. It started on an action packed opening that felt more like a terribly poor action packed opening pastiche, and ended on a high speed race against time that failed to convince me that the allotted events occurred in the small time frame. The team had ten minutes before destruction, and in that time they needed to assess the situation, fight over it, be held at gun point, split into two parties; one that races across town to a specific point while the other rushes through a chemistry sequence to create the plot antidote and follow the first party arriving only moments after the first. It felt like the sort of gag you'd see on Family Guy, with this antidote making insert thrust into the middle of this ten minute countdown.

This lack of time structure was particularly awkward and not only present in the final act. The main thrust of the story has Torchwood and Captain John separate out into three teams to find three objects. The outcome of these three teams is shown consecutively in dramatic sequence, yet John manages to pop up at the end of the three scenes, despite being part of team one, with no explanation how he manages such a fast dash around. Just because the drama moves from scene to scene shouldn't mean the characters should. Co-current events should be played as thus, and any ability to appear in all three scenes should rationalised to the viewer, which - as you may have guessed - wasn't in this story.

The shows inability to build coherent drama makes it far more childish than it's older brother, Doctor Who. It's not any personal dislike of the sex or naughty gags that punctuate the programme that makes it seem so babyish, it's the poor story structure and lack of credibility in the show's personality that weakens it. Gwen is a big problem, being both unlikeable and pretty unbelievable. They need to get rid of the Hub as well. It looks like a playset for god's sake, not a base for a government agency in an adult drama.

The old journalistic adage of leaving one's brain behind before engaging in Torchwood is apt. Yes, its fun, yes, it's escapism, but ultimately, it's far less than it should be, and that's the disappointment. It has the potential in terms of ideas, but fails in execution. Until they swap their main character set, I can't see the writing having that much success in creating good drama. If the main characters are unlikable, your changes of engaging the viewer are somewhat less. Bring back Captain John, keep Captain Jack, but the rest of the team, they aren't likable or credible, which when mixed with inconsistent story lines and some silly set pieces, leaves a show which is watchable, but falling far below what it could be.