SCI-FI-LONDON: OKTOBERFEST 2009 Festival

Every October SCI-FI-LONDON hold OKTOBERFEST, a Sci Fi based extravaganza. Arguably the most fun and varied Sci-Fi festival in the world. This year you’ll be able to catch special events, screenings and their popular All-nighter events.

This year they have some really cool stuff happening including “a co-production we are doing with the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Yup, the home of GMT and all things astronomical, we have created SCI-FI-UNIVERSE, a planetarium show from an SF perspective. Also, at the Observatory we will have some talks and a writing workshop. And to celebrate the release of the DVD and Blu-ray, we will do an invite only screening of the new STAR TREK. Click here for details of how to register for this screening and how to buy tickets for this unique night at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. Buy a planetarium ticket and you can attend on of the talks or workshop for free – places are very limited and on a first-come-first served basis, so get there early.”

This years line up:
Friday 23rd October, 2009
Events held at the Royal Observatory Greenwich

6.30pm: Sci-Fi-Universe
8.15pm: Star Trek (2009)

Saturday 24th October, 2009
Events held at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus

9:00pm: SCI-FI-STAND-UP
Midnight: Anime All-nighter
11:00pm: Aliens and Predators All-nighter
11:30pm: MST3K All-nighter

Classic screening: Norman Jewison's Rollerball

In the not-too-distant future, wars will no longer exist…

Wha-hey! It’s all happening this month. There have been loads of classic screenings from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Once upon a time in the west and 3 of my all time favourite films; The Warriors, The Thing and now Rollerball. Action overload!

One of the best dystopian sci-fi movies to come out of the 70s, Rollerball focuses on an ultra-violent sport used to keep an overpopulated planet under control and probes its links to politics, the media and big conglomerates. When a star player refuses to obey the owners of his team, the stage is set for a Gladiator-like confrontation between a rebellious individual and the corporate power that seeks to crush him.

Where
The Prince Charles Cinema
7 Leicester Place, WC2
Just north off Leicester Sq & up from Häagen-Dazs

When
8pm, Wednesday 7 October, 2009

Classic Screening: The Prisoner (All Nighter)

No Man Is Just A Number.

Become a part of world history! To mark the Blu-Ray release of The Prisoner the first 125 Network customers who pre-order the Blu-Ray edition from the Network web site will receive a pair of tickets to “The Prisoner All Nighter”, an all night extravaganza taking place at the Prince Charles Cinema in Central London on Saturday 26th September 2009 starting at 8.30pm, where every episode of The Prisoner will be screened in High Definition for the first time anywhere in the world. Will you still feel like a free man after being subjected to 17 TV hours in the village plus special guests who appeared in the show?

To obtain tickets you simply need to purchase a copy of The Prisoner the Complete Series (RRP £59.99) fromwww.networkdvd.co.uk.

• Tickets to this event for the pre-order DVD will be issued on a first come first serve basis.
• As well as these special tickets each attendee will also receive a 1967 reproduction ITC brochure exclusive to this event.

The Prisoner All Nighter will be opened by Prisoner Loudspeaker Announcer Fenella Fielding and closed by an additional special guest. Attendees will also be entered into a prize draw t win some unique Prisoner merchandise.
Please note the Prince Charles Cineme are NOT taking any bookings for this, to obtain a ticket you MUST go via www.networkdvd.co.uk

Where
The Prince Charles Cinema
7 Leicester Place, WC2
Just north off Leicester Sq & up from Häagen-Dazs

When
8:30pm, Saturday 26 September, 2009

Friday Film Location: 28 Days Later, London UK

The Days Are Numbered

28 Days Later
Stars: Cillian Murphy – Jim, Naomie Harris – Selena, Brendan Gleeson – Frank, Christopher Eccleston – Major Henry West

It has been twenty-eight days since Jim, a young bicycle courier, was knocked off his bike and injured in a car accident. When he wakes up from his coma, the world has changed. Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.

A critical and commercial success, 28 Days Later is widely recognized for images of a deserted London. It spawned the 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, and a possible third film.

28 Days Later features scenes set in normally bustling parts of London such as Westminster Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Horse Guards Parade and Oxford Street. In order to depict these locations as desolate, police would close the roads at 4am and filming would begin immediately. It would last for one hour, and at that time the police would reopen the roads.
As well as having to deal with traffic, the producers also had to ask clubbers to find alternative routes home. In terms of the traffic, the producers correctly predicted that asking drivers to either wait for up to an hour or find another way might cause some considerable consternation. As such, they employed several extremely attractive young women (one of whom was Danny Boyle’s daughter) to make the necessary requests. This plan had the desired results, as the drivers responded quite amicably to the young girls.

For the London scene where Jim walks by the overturned double-decker bus, the film crew placed the bus on its side and removed it when the shot was finished, all within 20 minutes.

Where:
Westminster Bridge, Westminster and South Bank, London SE1 and SW1

View Larger Map
Trivia:
It’s not explained in the film but the infected are attracted to the tone in human voices.
The decision to film on DV (using Canon XL1 cameras) was both an aesthetic and a logistic choice.
– Danny Boyle felt that the harshness of the DV imagery suited the post-apocalyptic urban landscape and the grittiness of the film in general.
– All the scenes of the Infected in a particular style – using a type of slow motion feature on the Canon XL1 DV cameras with which the film was shot. Shooting at that speed on a film camera gives basic slow motion, but doing so on a DV camera produces the kind of staccato effect seen in scenes involving the Infected.
– “The police and the local authorities were quite happy to assist us because we could set up scenes so quickly. We could literally be ready to shoot with a six-camera set-up within minutes – something we would not realistically have been able to do if shooting under the restrictions of 35mm which takes a good deal more time to set up a single shot.”

Westminster Bridge can also be seen in; Doctor Who (1964 & 2005), Monty Python’s Flying Circus, 102 Dalmatians, Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix

Hitchcon'09 – Celebrating 30 Years of The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Get yourself a ticket for the biggest party the unfashionable end of the galaxy has ever seen and join best-selling author Eoin Colfer – creator of criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl – and actor Simon Jones, the original Arthur Dent, in a celebration of 30 years of the late, great Douglas Adams’ classic British comedy. This’ll be your first chance to see, hear and buy the sixth instalment, And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer.

With other out-of-this-world entertainment throughout the day – including special free screenings of the Hitchhiker’s series in The Clore Ballroom – this is one event no self-respecting lover of classic British comedy will want to miss.

One of the best dystopian sci-fi movies to come out of the 70s, Rollerball focuses on an ultra-violent sport used to keep an overpopulated planet under control and probes its links to politics, the media and big conglomerates. When a star player refuses to obey the owners of his team, the stage is set for a Gladiator-like confrontation between a rebellious individual and the corporate power that seeks to crush him.

Events include:
Photo Call
Start the day at a photocall of the largest number of Hitchhiker’s fans ever.

Session 1: The Douglas Adams Chat Show
A full panel of Hitchhiker’s experts and friends of Douglas Adams discusses the great man and his work.

Booksigning: Mega-signing of the fantastic new edition of the first five Hitchhiker’s novels.

Sessions 2 & 3 (And Another Thing… & Hitchhikers Live On Stage!)
The sixth book in the series, special guests and a live gig – Sessions 2 & 3 of our day-long celebration of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Booksigning: Eoin Colfer
Buy the new sixth book in the series a day before everyone else and get it signed by Eoin Colfer.

Where
The Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX

When
Sunday 11 October, 2009

Duncan Jones's next film Mute & the fate of Sam Bell

By know you know that Director Duncan Jones’s next film will not be an adaptation of “Escape from the Deep” as anticipated.

It sounds like “Escape from the Deep” the true story of a WW2 submarine crew that go to hell and back will be tackled after another forage into the Sci Fi with “Mute”. More information about the Alex Kershaw book “Escape from the Deep” can be
found here http://www.escapefromthedeep.com/.

Mute
The Mute concept art released via Jone’s Liberty Films website looks pretty damn spiffy and tantalising enough to keep Sci Fi fans wanting more. The artwork is very reminiscent of Syd Mead’s conceptual art for Blade Runner. Interesting to note that the signage in the street scene says Fremde which is German for strange, but could also mean foreign or Alien. Jones has said that Mute is not about Aliens as such. I’m guessing that this scene is some high class clientele leaving a bar/club that caters for strange tastes. This is possibly the club that the lead’s girlfriend works at before disappearing. Then again it could just be a street scene.

Duncan Jones talking about Mute and Sam Bell’s future from Craig Grobler on Vimeo.

Mute is basically the other side of the coin from Moon. Moon is about isolation, loneliness, living on your own and having to find a way to deal with that.

Mute is based in a future Berlin, so it’s a big city film, a thriller in a city that so full and so unfriendly in a way. It’s going to be a very different kind of film – but a good companion piece.

Mute is a much busier, nosier kind of film. It’s a thriller based in a future Berlin…. If Moon is inspired by films like Outland and Silent Running, then Mute, is inspired by Blade Runner.

For twitter updates on everything Duncan Jones’s including Mute follow: @manmademovies

You can follow Duncan Jones here: @manmademoon

You can follow Moon Producer Stuart Fenegan (One of Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch) here: @LibertyStu (Warning! Does not update much – yet)

The most media rich news can be found on the Liberty Films blog here: http://blog.manmademovies.co.uk/

Follow the Moon Facebook Group here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/manmademovies/151750620947

Classic screening: John Carpenter's The Thing

In a windswept Antarctic research facility, a group of American scientists are terrorised by a shape-shifting extra-terrestrial.

After a helicopter from a neighbouring Norwegian camp is destroyed pursuing a dog and the crazed pilot shot, MacReady (Kurt Russell) and a small team set off to investigate. A grisly discovery awaits them: the camp is populated by mutilated corpses and there’s evidence of a long-frozen UFO. Back at the base the stray dog wreaks havoc, undergoing a grotesque transformation and killing the other hounds before being burnt to death. An autopsy on one of the bodies from the Norwegian camp reveals that a chameleon-like alien that can take the form of whatever it kills is at large – and any one of the team could be its host. In an astonishing finale, bodies are ripped apart and limbs are lopped off as paranoia breeds hysteria and the crew are picked off one by one…

Where
Cineworld Cinema (TBC)

When
15 September, 2009

Screening of MOON and Q&A with director Duncan Jones this Friday in London

On Friday 11th September The Prince Charles Cinema (Leicester Sq) have a VERY Special Q&A with Duncan Jones, Director of Moon!

Moon is playing upstairs all week on their brand new screen, however grab this chance to talk to the man who made this spectacular film.

MOON
Sam Bell has a three year contract to work for Lunar Industries. For the contract’s entire duration, he is the sole employee based at their lunar station. His primary job responsibility is to harvest and periodically rocket back to Earth supplies of helium-3, the current clean and abundant fuel used on Earth. There is no direct communication link available between the lunar station and Earth, so his only direct real-time interaction is with GERTY, the intelligent computer whose function is to attend to his day to day needs. With such little human contact and all of it indirect, he feels that three years is far too long to be so isolated; he knows he is beginning to hallucinate as the end of his three years approaches…

Director: Duncan Jones
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey (voice), Matt Berry, Robin Chalk

Where
The Prince Charles Cinema
7 Leicester Place, WC2
Just north off Leicester Sq & up from Häagen-Dazs

When
21:00 Fri 11th Sep Moon plus Q&A
Tickets onsale 5pm Today (Tuesday 8 September)

Classic screening: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Restoring the Midnight Movie to Chelsea, Curzon’s popular strand of late-night attractions hosts a special screening of cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with full audience participation. Join Janet and Brad as they enter the musical world of alien transvestites and Time Warps in one of the must-do events in life! Dressing up is essential and don’t forget to bring the essentials: rice, newspapers, water pistols, torches, rubber gloves, confetti, toilet paper, toast, party hat, bells and cards. Plus, all ticket holders receive a complimentary Jameson cocktail.

Where:
Curzon Cinema Chelsea
206 Kings Road
London
SW3 5XP

When:
Friday 18 September,10:30pm

Robot Chicken Premiere this Friday & webcast Q&A with Seth Green

!!JUST ANNOUNCED!! Robot Chicken Premiere and Q&A Seth Green via Webcast

It’s time, once more, to get ANIMATED!

Teaming up with popular cable channel Adult Swim, and the London International Animation Festival, Curzon Soho bring you a night of titillating, shocking and absurd animations on the big screen. Check out the premiere of Robot Chicken Season 2. Brain child of Seth Green, the skits play around with cult film, cult TV and celebrity personalities. We also present a special selection of freaky animations as a taster for the LIAF which starts on 31st Aug at Renoir Cinema.

Before the film we will be hosting a Q&A via webcast with Seth Green. Come prepared with your questions whether it be anything Robot Chicken, Buffy or Scott Evil!