Meet the Pillage People*

Back from a brief visit to London, in which absolutely nothing funny happened. Sorry. However I have completed the treatment for the VIking Heist Movie (it's a shortish document including a brief description of theme, characters, setting and a synopsis). The important bit is the opening pitch, what am this:


VIKING HEIST MOVIE

....is an action-filled caper film with all the elements of the best heist movies such as Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, Heat, and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Except that instead of the streets of Sixties Turin, Nineties LA or early twenty-first century Vegas, the action takes place in eleventh century Scandinavia, with an audacious theft from not only the Norse gods themselves, but their ancient adversaries the Frost Giants to boot. Wolfskin cloaks might replace sharp suits, axes take over from dodgy shooters, with a plan relying on a getaway longship, but all the essential ingredients of the classic heists are present and correct.

The reality-world of VIKING HEIST MOVIE (VHM) embodies the best of the Viking spirit: swaggering, restless, mischief-making, brave and possessed of a cheerful lust for life that allows no-one to stand in its way, whether it be rival Viking chiefs, trolls or the gods themselves. This is the dying days of the Vikings, mixed with a large dollop of their own mythology: the world of giants, monsters and big guys called Hrothulf might not be around for much longer, but it’s going to go out with a bang. And probably a ‘crunch’ and a ‘splat’ as well.

God I really want to see this film, it sounds brilliant.


Some interesting animation articles online, which might be worth a perusal. The Onion has an interview with with voice-over gawd Billy West (Fry/Professor in Futurama, Stimpy in Ren and Stimpy), while Wired looks at Dreamworks animation studio, and discovers that pumping out increasingly weaker versions of Shrek is pretty much their gameplan for the next few years. Article here. NB. Well, it should be there, but it seems to go to an ad half the time instead for some reason - put "Dreamworks' and 'animation' in the Wired search box thingy if you're having problems.

I'm house-sitting for my parents for the next couple of weeks, as they're off on holiday to a rather vague location ('ooh, France? Probably?'). Shortly after having had a new patio put in, which is slightly worrying**. It'll be good to have a different space to hang around in for a bit though - I need to work on a new screenplay (current working title 'The Forgotten Trees of Brin'), so a change of location will do some good.

Agent Ginny has ordered me to plan a two-week holiday later this year, during which my laptop has to be left behind in a locked safe and all my biros snapped, although I might be allowed to take a pencil. I haven't had a holiday for about three years (I'm not counting St. Ives as it's in the same county, I had to work for a lot of it and it rained). That said, my job does allow me to fall asleep in the afternoon and blame toast, so I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for me or anything.

But yes, holidays are a weird area, as if you haven't got much work on you feel you should be out there having meetings, and things are busy you want to keep up the momentum.


*Evans came up with that. Well done her.
** I'll be inspecting it for odd lumpy bits later. Anything larger than shrew-sized will be... well, ignored frankly. None of my business.