Coming Soon

I've neglected the Sci-Fi Gene blog a little this year. Real life has taken over a bit. The past 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic have felt like living through a sci-fi movie - and a really cheap one, with over-the-top melodramatic portrayals of world leaders and a badly researched and predictable script.

However, now is as good as any time to return to the fray. The Sci-Fi Gene is preparing for a new wave of sci-fi productions - on the horizon are new seasons of Doctor Who, Lost In Space, Discovery and The Expanse. Right now I'm enjoying the second series of French drama Missions, about a private space race between two tech billionaires (I don't know where they get their crazy ideas!)

I've also been surprised and amazed by Lower Decks which is possibly my favourite Star Trek series now. The first series was good fun, but I'm currently halfway through the second series which is outstanding. In the sci-fi adjacent area I've enjoyed BBC submarine drama Vigil, as well as the second series of military witch drama Fort Salem, and this weekend I saw an obscure arthouse flick about some retired secret agent who likes cars. Probably won't do all that well but it's important to support these little indie productions - and well done to the producers for persuading Billie Eilish to do the soundtrack.

And then there's this.

I'm really looking forward to this highly original space opera from The Asylum when it opens in a couple of weeks. I just hope no-one spoils it by releasing some knock-off remake with a similar setting and title at the same time.

2016

The Sci-Fi Gene looks forward to an interesting 2016 - but I'm not quite ready to let you know why, except to say there will be more news very soon about both Reply To All and Broken Bird, and I have some promising new projects lined up for the coming year.

The Sci-Fi Gene Music Video Playlist

I present The Sci-Fi Gene music video playlist: a carefully curated museum of music videos that have caught my attention, inspired or amused me, plus a few of my own productions thrown in for good measure. The list will be updated from time to time whenever I come across new music videos that make the grade.

"Steampunk Girl" Festival Screenings

Programmes and tickets for both St. Albans Film Festival and London Independent Film Festival are now available on their websites. "Steampunk Girl" will appear at both festivals in their music video events: first at London Independent on Sunday 19th April, then at St. Albans on Saturday 2nd May. I'll post more about these great festivals soon, in the meantime please check out the websites and programmes as both festivals have some great features planned.

2015

2015 has arrived and this year The Sci-Fi Gene has only one, modest New Year's resolution: to achieve total world domination. I promise to be a benevolent dictator and to treat all my subjects equally, although favouring loyal blog followers would not be out of the question.

First progress report:

Domination of the world via Ingress: in my first few days of playing I took control of a small Essex town, activating mind control units between the seven XM portals. I continue to hold this zone thanks to the intervention of some higher-level players and I will be expanding and fortifying it in the New Year. I also took control of a historic water pump elsewhere in Essex and a selection of landmarks in London, including (briefly) Nelson's Column. These portals quickly came under attack by enemy forces and are no longer under my control - for now.

Domination of the music and film industry: work continues on my music video for Ariel Undine's Broken Bird. This project is taking shape and I hope to have a finished or near-finished version ready in the next few weeks. Work also continues on Reply To All, and I am considering a number of new film projects for 2015.

Domination of the blogosphere: The mission continues with sci-fi reviews and reflections, filmmaking and animation, and limericks, or possibly no limericks. 2015 should be an interesting year for sci-fi as Jedi Knights everywhere come to grips with their new crossguard lightsabres - expect a lot of self-inflicted wrist injuries.

Happy New Year!

Steampunk Girl (John Anealio) - Lyric Video

Download This Song For Free: www.johnanealio.com

"Steampunk Girl"
from Laser Zombie Robot Love by John Anealio
(C) John Anealio 2012

Features the Steampunk Girl artwork by Len Peralta

Animation (C) Joshua Westbury 2014
With thanks to the Blender Foundation

Mechanical Maps

It seems I am not alone in my wish to pay tribute to the Game of Thrones animated map: there are plenty more tributes and parodies out there on the Internet. Here are a few I particularly liked: Firstly "The Simpsons" take which you may have seen - a match made in heaven.

Huge amount of skill in this extendable castle illusion.


Purdue University staying fairly close to the original Game of Thrones sequence.

I love this! a very professional job with a social media theme for HootSuite.

And amazingly, a blatant rip-off of the Game of Thrones map - in a classic computer game from 1994.

London Mechanism

My animated tribute to a certain fantasy TV series...

Produced in Blender 2.68, scored in MuseScore.

Work in progress: Viking Mural

The Sci-Fi Gene has been quiet these past few weeks but the beat goes on... work continues on Reply To All and other projects.

Viking mural - a background detail that will shortly appear in an animation...

...and part of the score for the same animation, composed in MuseScore.

Thoughtful Paws

I have been writing The Sci-Fi Gene blog for almost four and a half years. I don't always mark blogiversaries or make serious New Year's resolutions but just occasionally it's worth putting on hold the fame, excessive wealth, groupies and rock'n'roll lifestyle of the modern-day blogger and taking some time to reflect.

2012 was a good year for me as a filmmaker and this has carried on into 2013. Serendipity (possibly my favourite out of all the groupies) played her usual role and many projects I've taken on have grown from some kind of chance encounter. I've had my first festival screening with "2007" at London Independent 2012, and now my second with "We Can Get You Some Really Cheap Gear" at St. Albans 2013. Serendipity was at work again - "Cheap Gear" came about after I accidentally broke the house rules at Kino London, which is worse than Crossing the Streams, almost as bad as talking about Fight Club, but in this case has turned out OK.

It's also been good to return to "Soupremacy" and bring it to some screenings - I think it's OK to say I'm really happy with this animation, and even more happy to see the composer's music out there. More news on this film shortly.

2012 has also been a bad year in some ways. One reason I started the blog was to keep my creative projects on track and place myself under pressure to complete them. That's only been half successful - for all the films that have gone right, there are still two short films from the past few years that I've shot but never completed the edit, and a third project that is still only half done. I've entered my fourth 48 hour competition but despite drawing together a team of incredible people I still failed at the final hurdle and the mess I eventually submitted was a long way from being a film.

So I have to learn that there are things I can do well and things I can't - and use this self-knowledge when planning future teams and projects. It sounds obvious but when you start out as a filmmaker there's a misleading feeling that you can just pitch in and do anything yourself if needed - but actually my best films have come about from collaborations where everyone plays to their strengths.

Meanwhile those unfinished projects are a dilemma - return to them in the distant future, delete them and move on, or focus on completing them now? It's not just about me. Everyone involved in shooting these projects has contributed in so many ways - time, hard work, creativity and skill at the very least. If I don't complete them there's a feeling that I'll be letting down the other participants.

So on into 2013 and there are some plans afoot. I recently completed an animation project for a film crew - but until I know the fate of that film I can't tell you any more. I'm also hoping to make two conceptual music videos this year and I have some other music-related plans as well. As far as the unfinished projects go, I don't think I'll be able to sort them all out so I'll have to choose which ones I'd like to return to - but on a more positive note, I've learnt a lot in the intervening time, and the software I'm using has also grown in strength, so goals which might have seemed impossible in the past are now starting to feel merely stupendously difficult. I will of course be ready for Serendipity if she chooses to help out again.

The best thing about the past year has been getting to so many enjoyable short film events and festivals, and seeing so many different kinds of film. It feels good that my own successes and failures haven't in the slightest dented my love for film.

We Can Get You Some Really Cheap Gear [Trailer]

Trailer for my animated short film "We Can Get You Some Really Cheap Gear." I've taken the full version offline (temporarily) so this will have to be your Lego fix for the moment. More news about this film soon...

Showreel 2012

Models, scenes, effects, clips taken from the past 4 years, with modelling and animation in Cinema 4D and Blender. There are exciting plans for 2013...

"2007" Update Part IV: Push The Button And Let Me Know

Performance video was filmed on bluescreen from two angles - foreground and reflection. Lift interior modelled and composited in Blender. Red lights with a simulated backlight.Neon.

Sunlight.

[All images produced in Blender 2.5]

"2007" Update Part III: The Only Way Is Up

Modelling the exterior of an elevator for the "2007" music videoMore detail, starting to add textures A first attempt at setting up the lights

[All images produced in Blender 2.54]

Bohemian Rhapsody [Banned Book Review: Brave New World]

I've already mentioned Lovy Boheme and her Banned Book Vlog Project - a quest to read and review a wide range of banned and censored books. Here's the film we made together during her recent visit to London: a vlog review of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."

Most of this film was shot on location at Fulwell Cross Library, one of the extraordinary buildings designed by architect Frederick Gibberd and constructed in the 60s. As Lovy says in her blog, the library staff opened up the building after hours and could not have been more helpful, even advising on the correct pronunciation of "Aldous."

Where the brass bands play and feet start to pound...

Shot on miniDV, edited and post-produced in Blender 2.5. With thanks to Lewis and Mike, the staff at Redbridge Libraries and Redbridge County Council, the Blender and Freesound communities, and a big shout out to everyone at blogcatalog. Happy Banned Books Week!

OBSERVE, DOCTOR: A NEW ELEPHANT PARADIGM

THE PROGENITOR HAS FULFILLED OUR NEW DESTINY. BEHOLD! THE RESTORATION OF THE ELEPHANTS! THE RESURRECTION OF THE MASTER RACE!

FISH ELEPHANT

MASTER OF DISGUISE ELEPHANT
JAGUAR ELEPHANT
JACKSON POLLOCK ELEPHANT
AND THE SUPREME WINTER TREE ELEPHANT

ALL HAIL THE NEW ELEPHANTS!

ALL HAIL THE NEW ELEPHANTS!

Photos: Sci-Fi Gene

Elephants: Elephant Parade

Caturday Night Fever

Update: The Bast: Secrets Of Cat Training movie website http://www.bastthemovie.com/ is currently down for maintenance. Dogs may or may not be to blame. On the plus side - and this is very cool! - Bast now has an IMDb entry.

I also wrote a piece about working with Paddington for the Real Bloggers United group blog and this will appear later in June. Post production continues - the schedule slipped heavily due to some Real Life stuff but there will now be a finished film in July.

With thanks to clockworkkitten for the title pun. Cats rule!

[edit: main website now back on the air]

Half A Million intro [remake]

We made a film for Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge 2010. The results were shockingly poor - looking back the decision to shoot everything on bluescreen & model all the locations in Blender within the 48 hours was a bit ambitious and should have rung a few alarm bells, and although the live shoot went smoothly post-production was completely rushed. The film will eventually be uploaded at Sci-Fi London & I'll link to it when it appears.

This is not that film.

Here I've completely re-made the first few shots using the original bluescreen footage - took a few nights but the clip you are now watching is closer to how the film appeared in my head.

With thanks to the wonderful cast and crew.

The Day Before The Day After Tomorrow

The 48 Hour Film Challenge is now over - I handed in a finished film for Team Sky's Edge at about a quarter to one this morning, just in time for the deadline.

We finished the production stage in good time - following the Last Zombie model we did the whole shoot on Saturday afternoon and had tidied up, gone out for a meal and got ourselves home all before midnight. The initial plan was to use a friend's urban jungle as a location but unfortunately at quite short notice this wasn't possible so I came up with an utterly foolhardy alternative - shoot the whole thing on bluescreen and leave myself to post-produce everything Sky Captain style for the rest of the weekend, so it's been a race against the clock, particularly with the render time required for every scene. I "finished" at 11.30 this morning and just made the 1 p.m. drop off, and I don't think I want to see ANYTHING blue for some time. Anything arty went out of the window - we went with what our title and prop suggested so ended up making a heist movie which also required one cast member to play an entire army of security guards on her own - which she did brilliantly.

Although I'm temporarily off blue I'll post some more about the bluescreen stuff because I do think it's got some potential & would like to do more of this in future. For this film in some scenes it works well, but if we hadn't been in a competition I would have wanted to re-shoot some scenes.

The Purrfect Storm

The Eyecat Training Collar has some serious competition - well, it made me laugh. Thanks bro.

In other news, Sci-Fi London is coming in April. I'm getting a team together again for the 48 Hour Film Challenge, but right now I'm still working on post-production for Bast in every minute I can squeeze in.

Demo of post-production work on Bast. I'm working in Blender 2.49. The steps:

Artefact reduction: Quad blurring the Cr and Cb channels in the compositor leaving the Y channel unblurred. You can't see this step at all if you're watching at 360p as YouTube tends to add in some lovely artefacts of its own. If you're watching at 480p look at the candle during this step.

Colour consistency: lift gamma gain balancing in the VSE so all the shots in a scene look similar. Blender 2.5 will include colour balancing nodes in the compositor as well, seriously speeding up the process.

Lighting: adding or reducing highlights - meshes with gradient textures in the 3D scene, multiplied in the compositor.

Gradients and overall colour look: adding local colour uses same approach as lighting step. Overall colour look is a colour curves node that is applied equally to all the shots in the same scene. Here I've just bowed the red and green channels slightly to add warmth.