Author: flipper01

Northlandz

 

A few week’s ago we visited Northlandz the World’s largest model railway, in New Jersey – we tried and failed to visit it a few years ago on our first trip across the states (tip: It’s closed on Tuesdays).

 

So we knew it was going to be big, but honestly, we didn’t expect it to be anywhere near as big as this, it is genuinely awesome. I wowed out loud at least 3 times. After about 15 minutes wandering through it, taking many photos, I noticed a sign saying “you’re only 2% through Northlandz” and they weren’t joking. Bruce Williams Zaccagnino started building it in 1972 in the basement of his house and finished it in 1996. It’s got 8 miles of track, 4,000 buildings, half a million trees and of course over 100 trains. It uses enough timber in it’s supporting structure to build 42 large houses, that people could later purchase at real states sites like https://www.williampitt.com/search/real-estate-sales/greenwich-ct/.

 

Dad built us a train set in the loft when we were kids – Dad needs to up his game.

 

www.northlandz.com

A history of Fangoria

 

Wow, our video for Fangoria 2010 got kinda popular. Mainly due to it appearing on Boing Boing but it also got picked up by a few other blogs such as The Escapist (ace write up on that one, cheers guys), Dvorak and Nerdcore. So with all this interest we thought we’d put together a page of all the stuff we’ve made from all the Fangoria shows we’ve done for the last 7 years, including lots of behind the scenes shots – and here it is:

 

http://www.deathtotheflippers.com/fangoria/

 

Thanks to everyone who liked our video, we really appreciate all your comments.

Fangoria 2010 – Machine

A steam-punk styled adventure through time in the Fangorium. With 18 months of building and preparation it was by far our most ambitious show to date. When you pick a theme like steam-punk you can’t do half measures. This has enjoyed some massive Internet fame when Cory Doctorow called it “jaw-dropping awesomesauceular” on Boing Boing, which was of course totally awesome.

As an added bonus this year we’ve made a behind the scenes video, we’ve called The Engineers’ View. It’s a complicated beast to watch, but I guess that’s kind of the point… good luck.

Here’s the invite video:

 

…and some photos (more here):

 

…or check out all the behind the scenes production photos – here’s a few now:

Movie Mates

We just launched Movie Mates, a new weekly comedy show helping you work out which mate to take along on Orange Wednesdays. I won’t try to explain the whole thing, I’ll let Phil and Jacob do that in this first episode, they do a much better job than me. Here’s their take on Inception:

 

… and The A-Team:

This is the fruit of nearly 9 month of concepting, casting, planning, writing, testing, building and a fair amount of pissing about making silly videos about films. It’s all turned out pretty nicely.

Secret Cinema – Blade Runner


All kinds of awesome from Secret Cinema as usual. This time our shuttle bus taking us to the space port for our flight to the Off World Colonies was pulled over by some Blade Runner dude and diverted to a holding area as a Replicant uprising had caused all flights to be cancelled. We ended up in a  dystopian Los Angeles, circa 2019, complete with snake merchants, eye makers, noodle bars, strip clubs and everything you need to make a pretty damn believable slice of the Blade Runner world.

 

Jason took a Voight-Kampff test, turns out he’s human, who’d have thought? I was rather pleased with my home brew lighty up umbrella. A good time was had by all – except for that stripper replicant who got shot to bits as we filed into the cinema, down-town LA in 2019 is a rough area.

 

Here’s some pics we took, or just pour yourself some whiskey and watch the slide show below.

 

All the Time In The World at Pokexhibition

Our short film ‘All the Time in the World’ is finally (just about) finished, and we gave it’s world premier at the Pokexhibiton on Wednesday. The Exhibition is full of stuff by people who work at Poke who might not normally get to display this kind of thing. There’s work from developers, managers, directors, designers and strategists – and whadayaknow? It seems we’re all creative little makers. A real mixed bag of work as well; painting, film, embroidery, steam powered remote control tank, a wig, pop promo, animation, a tweeting typewriter… all sorts. The work will be up on display for another couple of weeks, if you’re anywhere near Poke (trendy Shoreditch) pop in for a cup of tea and a look round.

A few photos of some of the work

Pokexhibtion on the Poke blog