Magnulus.com - Because some people just can't shut up

Bryony Makes a Zombie Movie on The Web

Well... Here it is (for those of you in the UK)! ~~It'll more likely than not end up online for the rest of you at some point soon. Will update.~~ That was quick!

So you've OBVIOUSLY read my short and to-the-point chronicling of the whole situation as seen from my eyes, and now you get the situation from the eyes of Hat Trick Productions, aka. The Production Company. Interestingly, some of their observations are very similar to mine, though they've downplayed her disappearance to a single month and put perhaps a tedious amount of focus on the "flamewars", even though they never got far enough to truly be flamewards. Some minor flicker battles were fought, but nothing major.

One shame about focusing so much on the supposed flamewars is that there's less time devoted to the actual work a lot of people did. One thing I think is hilarious about it, though, is that at the end of it, I'm portrayed as a bit of a villain, which I quite enjoyed watching. ^_^ Half-arsed endorsement indeed!

As for the quality of the documentary... I think it's entirely befitting the muppet-show of a project this entire thing has been. The completely silly and sarcastic narration complements the whole situation, though it of course also helps to downplay what was a very emotional time for a lot of people and turns it into a bit of a "look at what the stupid webternet people got up to this year!" kind of program, which is fine. It's not like I'm not used to being portrayed as a nerdy tosser by the media. (I was interviewed for the telly when I was camping out for Lord of the Rings... Interesting lesson in how TV does whatever it can to turn things into a story... like... "LOOKIT THE NERD!" for example.)

So yeah. Some more text for you! Hope you enjoyed!
Look at me! I'm a star! I'm on the telly!!!
(I'm even on IMDB now!)

My World Wide Dead Experience (Story time!)

Let me tell you a little story that started in early June of this year. It's about a minor Youtube "celebrity" who made a video inviting people to make a zombie movie over the internet that would be released on Hallowe'en. A lot of people thought it was a really cool idea and before you could say "They're coming to get you Barbara!", the forums were abuzz with ideas and zombie-movie banter. People were flocking to it, offering their services and spending a lot of time discussing the film. A production company even wanted to make a documentary about the project for the BBC! Oh, what good times!

After almost two months, they called for people to audition for the main roles of the Internet Zombie Movie through the magic of the internet.. Among the people sending in their auditions was yours truly, auditioning for two of the roles; Ethan (the "asshole") and Ben (the sensitive one). After submitting my auditions, I thought it'd be a good idea to get involved with the forums, so I signed up. I quickly got heavily involved with it and participated in a lot of discussions about character building, tone of the film and so on. It was a very friendly and very enthusiastic group of people I met there, and I was having a ball. Bryony (the project's initiator and leader) wasn't around, though, which was a bit strange. The casting was to be announced in the end of july, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Two months went by without word from the project's leader, except from appearing on the BBC episodes pretending like she had been working on the film (work that never actually ended up materialising in any way, shape or form). A lot of forum goers were getting quite anxious about the whole thing, including myself. I was quite vocal in expressing my distaste for the lack of leadership and communication from Bryony, as can briefly be seen in this episode. Don't let the spelling of my nick fool you: It really is me and not my evil twin, Magnalus.

During this time, development grinded to a near halt in the forums. Attempts were made to contact Bryony for some decision-making or just any kind of a sound from her, but she was busy with her vacation in America. After some drama, a group of people got together and decided to be productive about it. It was decided that since no one had even heard from Bryony, the Hallowe'en deadline was obviously not to be honored. Then we (I say we because I was part of the group) decided to really get to work on re-writing the first draft of the film to give it some real shape and some real characters.

Everyone was fired up by this turn of events. Imagine our surprise when Bryony even showed up to check out the first meeting of the writing team! We all had a nice chat on Skype about things that need to be done in order to make the script filmable and Bryony seemed to agree with everything we said! Hooray! Everything was going to work out! But no. After turning off voice chat, Bryony announced that the film was STILL to be finished by Hallowe'en and we had to finish re-writing the script (remember, we hadn't started yet) within two weeks, or else she would use the original draft, which she had now decided was "Fine as it is". It needs to be pointed out at this point that she was referring to a pre-first draft as she hadn't read the actual first draft.

No amount of pleading or argumentation could dissuade her, so the team set about trying to rewrite the film in two weeks. The entire group worked really hard and worked together really well. We had several very productive and civilised meetings, and in the end, we all managed to deliver our various parts of the script to Mitch, who had been appointed "script organiser" and was also tasked with putting the script together from our individual pieces.

Once he had put it together, however, he decided at the last minute that the script wasn't good enough. It was simply much too long and badly paced to his eyes. He set about re-writing several pieces of script, cutting away some of the fat and then adding new fat in other places, cutting jokes, adding his own jokes, etc. None of this was discussed with the rest of the script writers, so imagine our surprise when his "final draft" of the script ended up on the forums. I shouldn't have to tell you that there were a few angry writers that day.

You can't lay much of the blame for this incident on Mitch, because as misguided as he was, his intentions were good. At least that's what I tell myself. If we had had a week more, we would also have had time to discuss the changes he felt he needed to make and we could have come to an agreement. But no. We WERE given a chance to submit yet another draft in contention with Mitch's, but Bryony, the leader with no experience in any kind of film production except for Youtube vlogs, made a decision and stuck with Mitch's draft.

What happened to the auditions? Well, after three months, Bryony gave the forum denizens a list of actors she thought would be good for the film and asked the forum-goers to help her decide on the casting. Among those people was yours truly, up for the part of Ethan because I was "popular on the forums" - as she so delicately put it in Episode 23 of the documentary series. I will not make claims about my own acting abilities, but the general consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of me playing Ethan. However, she decided I wasn't right for the role.

In retrospect, I'm glad I haven't been working on the film, because it would have wreaked havoc on my coursework, which I'm struggling with as it is, but the decision came along with a whole range of decisions from her side that were made with no regard for the opinions of the people involved in this "collaborative project". I was angry for a while, but I soon decided not to let the project bother me any longer. I was happy there was finally a director (Rather than telling the project members who had been asking about the director for a long time, she announced this in the BBC episodes) and the film was finally getting made.

The film wasn't finished on Hallowe'en, obviously. A promo was released, however, with all the footage filmed so far. That's four and a half minutes of actual film by the date the full film was supposed to be finished according to Bryony. I'll admit that I was happy to see that the guy who replaced me, though having the wrong physicality for the role, was the best of the actors in this scene. However, the script has been changed even further and the editing is supremely awkward. No matter. Not my part of the film to think about, really.

I had put the whole thing to rest when a mass e-mail arrived from Bryony regarding the half-hour documentary that is to air this sunday on the BBC. I will not quote the entire e-mail, but the general gist of it was "I'm a star in my own TV-show (with some others) and you have to watch it so I can get on TV some more!" In the entire e-mail, seven words were used to indicate that the film was a collaborative effort and not something she made entirely herself. Conveniently, she put up a video today that was much the same as her e-mail except she doesn't mention anyone but herself in this. If I had not known her better, I would maybe have taken her video as facetious, that she probably was joking, talking about starring in her own show, etc. However, I find it hard to believe.

The combination of the e-mail and the video was too much for me. In a rage, I sent her an e-mail telling her exactly how I felt about the way she has treated everyone involved in the project and her treatment of the project herself. Again, I won't quote all of it, but I did mention that she was behaving a lot like a "pampered, ego-centric prima donna with no shred of respect for any of the people you've depended upon throughout the production of this film." It aggravates me that only those involved in the project really know the real story. Whenever I see a comment like "Wow, you really did a good job, Bryony! You really deserve all this!" I feel a shot of anger going through my body.

I'm not even bitter about my own efforts being diminished. I'm angry that this whole project has become a vehicle of attention for someone who hasn't done anything to deserve it while a whole bunch of really dedicated people are shunted into the shadows and spoken of as a bunch of whining douchebags. Sure, there's a good chance the project would never have gotten off the ground in the first place if it hadn't been Bryony (or someone of her "caliber") initiating it, but there's NO chance the project would have ever come close to fruition if it hadn't been for a all the people who spent hundreds and hundreds of hours working on it while she was busy touring the States and making decisions left and right.

That's my rage spent and my story told. I realised I hadn't said so much as a peep about the Internet Zombie Movie on this site, so I decided to do something about it. I'm sorry this has turned into such a massive wall of text, but it had to be done. I feel I can finally put all of this to rest and wash my hands of the entire situation. Perhaps I can focus on actually working now... (This has not been proof-read yet, because I can't be bothered. I'll do that later.)

Scent of my Woman

I wrote this poem months ago but never actually recorded it. I'm a delicious poet, aren't I?

Moving Still

Recorded back in June, this is a pretentious meditation on the fact that most of our travelling these days consist of standing or sitting still, waiting.

Saucy Fun

Aka: Spouting Garbage

I've been gone from the site for longer than I ever have before, and for that I'm embarrased. I'll try to get back on track.

Spore Creature Creator is Rockin'

I've neglected to put anything about my addiction to the Spore Creature Creator on here so far. Quite why, I have no idea. When it first came out, I played it solidly for a full week, hardly doing anything at all except play, eat and sleep.

Spore, when it comes out, will be a game of epic proportions. You start out with a single-celled creature that you evolve as you go along the game. By the end, via a series of different types of game play, you're controlling a space-faring race of creatures that's able to create life on planets or destroy entire planets, if that's your wish.

The Creature Creator is all about just making creatures for the full game. With the tools available, it's amazing how many different creatures you can make. When you've made them, you can upload them to the Sporepedia where they'll be joined by more than two million other creatures. I've made tons of "original" creatures, but I've also been making creatures that look like characters and animals from real life or various games, like Mannoroth the Destructor from Warcraft 3, pictured in original and Spore form respectively:

I think the likeness is rather good, myself. If you want to see my various creatures, you can go to my profile page and check them out. There are a LOT of them, though. Eighty at the current count, in fact. I'll put some of them up with some stories and stuff later on. For now, have a look at my dancy video right here (made from one of the earlier versions of Mannoroth) and then buy the FULL version of the creature creator so you can get all the different parts to use. Well, you can use the trial as well, but you only get one quarter of the parts.

Get some threads at Threadless.

When I first heard of it, I thought the Threadless site was just another t-shirt seller. However, it's so much more than that. It's a web community of designers and artists who make designs and rate eachother's designs all week until a small selection of the designs are chosen for printing. The reward to the winners is simply stunning at 2000 USD cash plus vouchers and other niceties.

I just ordered my first pink garment from there, namely the hilariously named Gay Pride T-Shirt (Groups of lions are called "prides") and I'm very tempted to start uploading some of my own designs from the Cafepress days when I get back to Scotland.

So check it out.

(Yes, the link is a referral thing, so if you buy a shirt there, I actually get three dollars off on their products myself, which is the exact same amount I got for every t-shirt sold on Cafepress.)

Age of Conan

We bought Age Of Conan (The Norwegian-produced, hotly anticipated MMO based on the Conan world) today and as I'm about to enter the second hour of the installation process, I would like to take this opportunity to quote Henry Rollins in his fantastic spoken-word album A Rollins In The Wry:

My life... is leaving me.

I think it's safe to say that the Age of Conan will pretty much be over by the time all the patches and everything are done installing.

Writers, Talk to Me

Some of you know of my (pretty much consistantly failed) attempts at writing, chief amongst them Bulb Squad Chronicles, which I never continued after the second installment. Well, it occurs to me that I don't know if you people write at all.

I can think of a few of you who MIGHT be writers, but I don't KNOW. So here's the deal. If you're like me and you're working on some project (or several) and you're missing fellow writers to talk to about ideas and to get feedback from, I just started a forum at write.magnulus.com that you can join.

Now, it's a relatively closed thing for the sake of the privacy of the people who write there (Mainly me and two others for now) so only register if you're actually planning on participating either with feedback, your own projects or both. It sounds kinda elitist, but it really is only for privacy reasons.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 -is- Coming!

Some of you may or may not remember that I spoke about Beyond Good And Evil a long time ago and, at that point, talked about how it would be awesome on the Wii. Well, it's been two years, but it's finally actually coming out! Counter-intuitively enough, it's not coming out for the Wii, but I'm fairly certain it'll be awesome-sauce (which is the online lingo for "cool" these days) in any case. Have a look at the trailer just below here:

An online friend (whose name I didn't know was Fabian 'till ten minutes ago even though I've known him for five years or so) pointed me in its direction and was lamenting the colours and general art direction of the trailer. He conceded that it looks absolutely gorgeous, but that he missed the look of the original game, as seen here:

I think that the trailer is quite possibly taking a leaf out of Blizzard's book and using a realistic design for the cinematics but a more saturated, cartoony look for the game itself, like with World of Warcraft or any of the other Blizzard games. Even if they do stick with this realistic style all the way through, I don't mind myself as long as the gameplay, story and animation are as well-done as the original.

In worrying news, the CEO of Ubisoft said that the original was commercially unsuccessful because it was too hard and that they're looking to make it more "accessible". The game was nowhere near too hard when it came out, and I suspect, like I told Fabian, that the game is an easier sell to the CEO if they say that "Oh, it sold because it was too difficult, we'll just make it easier!" rather than "We're still not entirely sure why it didn't sell. Could be marketing, the strange characters, the cartoony style (yeah, right!), the non-genre-specific nature of it, or any combination of all of those, but we're sure people will like it THIS time!!".

Let's hope the game industry works a little like the movie industry and that they were only saying that to get the backing from the CEO. Even if it IS too easy, I'm fairly certain it'll still be enjoyable to play.

The Robotic Luke Arm is Awesome

It's no secret that I love technology that empowers people who don't have the full physical capabilities most of us are used to, be it software that helps people be creative or things that allow people to move like everyone else. The Luke arm is probably one of the most awesome technological advancements I've seen in a long time.

It's a robotic arm that weighs the same as a normal arm and can do many of the same things based off impulses from the nerves left in the stubs of amputated limbs and now even brain waves. I saw this video of it a while ago, where a man who's not had any arms for YEARS is now able to pick up objects with ease and manipulate them effectively. Can you even IMAGINE what that must feel like? Man, sometimes it's so obvious to me why I love technology.

Attack of the Mutant Zomb- I mean, the Raging Children.

My good friend Kerry recently took a test to see how many kids he could take on at once in a fight.

30

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

Yeah, that's right biatch! While you're being pummeled to the ground, I'm swinging a kid by his ancles into another kid... And THEN I'm swarmed.

How about the rest of you? How many would you take? Click the picture to find out!

Towel Day, 2008

Well, DO you?!

Magnus anno 2002

While sorting my documents earlier today (aka. procrastinating when I should have been working on my essay) I found some pictures I snapped of myself with the course's digital stills-camera in the second half of my time in Alta in 2002. To the right here, you can see a soulful-looking (*snort* YEAH, RIGHT!) me displaying my then-new Alexander deLarge tattoo. This must have been quite soon after I returned from Oslo with my group after filming our end-of-year documentary project. Then, of course, you have my first stint as either spokesperson for the liquer brand Sheridan's or Cruella deVille's lost son. Some of you will know I had another one in 2004 or so. Finally, there's the non-intentionally quasi-artistic blurry one.

I played around with that camera a lot in the long hours spent editing or using the webternets at the school. Digital cameras were like MAGIC back then, and could even take pictures that filled the entire computer screen. Insane, I know.

It's weird to see images of myself that are not so far away from the current me. There are little, subtle differences that have applied themselves to my features since then, like my jaw jutting out a little more and more lines (or wrinkles, if you will) appearing around that grin of mine. It's also weird, because they remind me how different I am to the Magnus I was in 2002 on a personal level while simultaneously making me aware of some striking similarities in the then-me and the now-me.

In many ways, it highlights the fact that even though we might change a LOT over the course of our short lives, the core personality doesn't change all that much at all. I think of who I was as a teenager, and I think "What a prat." but I also remember things that I would say or do that I could easily have done today.

I guess the lesson to take away from all this is that Magnus is and always will be Magnus.

.

Face-Song 2

Of course, there is no Face-Song 1. The name comes from Song 2 by Blur, which I've parodied. Duh.

I know, I know. My next video was supposed to be an animated Lord of the Rings Rewritten, but I just couldn't get it done, so I decided to finally do something about this lamentable lack of videos.

Lyrics:
This here slow-motion
Conjures emotions
It isn't pretty
But nothin' is
No!

When I really feel bored
I feel the need to record
I got an essay to work on,
but procrastinate for hours and hours and I make this
Make this video.

I made this video
It's really dumb, yo.
It's not my problem
Now it's your problem

When I really feel bored
I feel the need to record
I got an essay to work on,
but procrastinate for hours and hours and I make this
Make this video.

Will upload MP3 of the song later today.

I am Jon Again

Yet again, Garfield Minus Garfield has alerted me to Jon's Magnus-ness. This is not good, not good at all.

Well, at least I don't think I look distinguished.

The e-Reader Operating System of My Dreams?

Last year, I outlined my concept of what I would see as the perfect e-reader. I still see the hardware concept as largely the way I'd want it to be, but since writing an article on the concept-device Papyrus for Ecogeek, I've been having some more ideas on how things should work, this time mostly on the software side of things.

What you see on the right here is a (clickable) image of the system I deviced a couple of hours ago. Bear in mind as we go along that this is a first-draft deal, not a polished concept.

This would be a system created to fit different resolutions and screen sizes, which means it could be used on a multitude of devices, going from cheapo versions to high-quality machines. Ideally, I think it's crucial for an e-reader to have a high PPI (Pixels Per Inch). Marit mentioned one of the reasons she prefers working with paper documents: When she spreads them out in front of her, she has a much better overview of what's on which papers and so on. On the Apple computers' operating system, OSX, you can do this, but the resolution of most computer screens means that you won't be able to read anything. A laser printer will print your text in 600-1200 DPI (dots per inch, basically the same as PPI, but on paper instead of a screen). When you print your photos at a professional lab, they'll come out in 300 DPI. Your computer screen, for comparison's sake, is most likely between 70 and 100 PPI. The higher the DPI, the finer the detail. The lower, the more "pixelised" something will look.

Now, while a 72 DPI computer screen is fine for reading, it means that once you start zooming out on stuff (like documents) you won't be seeing much, because the detail will be squashed into fewer pixels. Most e-ink readers today operate with 6-inch screens touting an 800x600 resolution, which translates to slightly more than 160 PPI. We're definitely getting somewhere here, and at 160 PPI, you can certainly comfortably read the screen without thinking it looks pixelated. However, it's still too small and too low-resolution to convince most students of Marit's type.

Now, let's say we smack that density up to 300 PPI. I know from experience that at that density, you can still easily discern single-pixel lines, not that you should have to when simply reading documents, of course. So, smack it up to 300 PPI and then make it an A4 paper size (That's one inch taller and slightly thinner than US standard size) and we're talking a PROPER virtual desktop.

For such a high resolution to work, you'd have to have a fully scalable system that will allow you to resize windows without things looking horrendous. What you'd gain is a system in which you could have a main document open and keep the rest of the documents in the background for when you might need them.

The above image is a 100% view of a part of the screen that shows the background, zoomed-out windows. As you can see, text is still clearly visible, though it'd be a whole lot smaller on the device, due to the smaller size of the pixels. The reason this would be desirable is that you could then quickly look at all documents to pick out what you need from them. The three buttons at the bottom of the full mock-up are "virtual keyboard", "magnify" and "spread out".

Virtual keyboard is pretty self-explanatory. It would open a window of a keyboard that you would use to type. The screen would have to be multi-touch (at least four contact points allowed at a time) to make that work quickly and responsibly, of course. The Magnifier would help you get a closer look at zoomed-out documents without actually having to open each of them, just in case you'd need it. The Spread Out option basically zooms out all documents and other windows and lets you view them all at once. Once there, you can either click a single document to open it in full size or you can drag the windows around and resize them so you have full control over where everything is, just like a real desktop. Once you open to focus on one of the documents, you can of course resize it just like you'd do in any other operating system.

The system would be designed using vectors rather than normal images for the windows and buttons, as this would allow the user to choose for him or herself what kind of sizes buttons and windows and text should have for full readability. Obviously, reading websites could become a hassle if they kept their pixel ratios. For example, my website is 700 pixels wide, which wouldn't even be a third of the screen at 300 PPI. In a device like this, you could go into internet settings to for example double-size or even triple-size websites to make them look more comfortable on your screen. You could even have a slider on the side of the browser that lets you resize the zoom level in real-time to fit your liking.

With a system like this, I would definitely get an e-reader for my studies, out-of-home web browsing and newspaper reading. In fact, I suspect that once e-readers come down to a certain price, news papers might start giving free e-readers with long-term digital subscriptions of their papers.

I foresee three devices based on this system, all of them A4 sized: One cheapo 150 PPI machine, one mid-range 300 PPI machine, and one deluxe machine with 300 PPI and colour. Colour is still quite expensive in E-ink devices, and not really all that important, but I would certainly go for the mid-range one.

If you have any ideas on how this could be improved, we can have a lot of fun discussing this in the comments. ^_^

TED Talks Are Good For Your Soul

I've finally finished watching every single TED talk ever released on the web. That's 240 or so talks. TED is a kind of gathering that happens every year in which thinkers and doers get together and talk to and with eachother. They talk about their ideas or their research or their achievements, and it's all very interesting and sometimes lifechanging.

This video right here profoundly touched me at the end to such a degree that when I tried to tell Marit about it, I had to pause several times to prevent myself from crying.

Post-watching;
think about yourself. You probably don't think about the privilege you have in being able to create something whenever you feel like it. If I wanted to, I could pick up a piece of paper right now and crumble it so it looked kinda like a retarded swan. It'd take me five seconds. Can you imagine not being able to create ANYTHING for your entire life? That's what could easily have been the case for Dan Ellsey, but with this music program, he's being allowed to create something with no interference from the outside. He can create something that is uniquely his own, something he was never able to before. The quality of the finished piece doesn't even enter into it.

As someone who lives for creating, just thinking about the video now brings tears to my eyes. What if - tomorrow - I was no longer able to create ever again? Life, for me, would be unbearable. It's time for me to stop being a lazy bitch and actually create while I still can.

Loads Of New Pics on Media Page!

You should mosey on over to the media page, because I've been doing some much-needed updating there today. I've still got some photographs to add, but at least it's something.

If you go there, you can see the latest pictures from university there, the portraits of Tom at the tope. Those images were taken with a medium format camera in a portrait studio. A lot of fun to do. We're doing more next week as well, to see if we can improve on our images.

Yeah, so just jump on over and have a look-see. I'll give another little wave once I've done some more updating.

England's Glory!

Hmmm... Looking at this box of match sticks, it appears that the glory of England is not so English. When trying to USE them, it becomes obvious it's not so glorious, either. Why outsource to SWEDEN when the product is going to be SHIT anyway?