Category: Uncategorized

Roswell, New Mexico

O man, we totally visited Roswell, New Mexico. It was never one of those ‘I MUST GO THERE ONE DAY OR I WILL DIE WITH A SAD FACE’ kinda places, it just happened to be on the way between New York and California, so we popped in. And boy were we glad we did, it’s silly, and a bit serious/mental, and then silly again. Here’s some things:

 

First thing we did was Alien Zone, Areas 51 – a place with about 20 alien scenes that you’re encouraged to climb about and take silly photos.. SOLD.

 

Then we thought we should get the ‘real’ facts and checked out the International UFO Museum and Research Centre just up the road, it was closing for the night so we ran about and took photos instead of actually doing any reading or learning (we’re on holiday, why would we want to do a thing like that?).

 

And the next day we had to go and see what all the adverts we kept seeing around town for the Roswell Space Walk were all about, they boasted a Paisley-Horvak TVG9000 (no, me neither), how can you refuse? Luckily it was silly, quite silly.

 

We organised a tour with some random dude of the ACTUAL HANGER where an alien may or may not have had it’s bit’s cut out by sinister looking military types. We got to the car park next to the hanger and looked for a car with a large inflatable alien tied to roof (as arranged) but our tour was a no show, damn it, the truth is still out there.

 

Here’s many more photos of our time in Roswell:

Mark Cline

Mark Cline is awesome. We visited him a few years ago, when we were filming our (as yet unedited) documentury about roadside attractions, and when we found ourselves driving across the States again we had to call in and see what he’s up to. Mark runs 4 attractions in Virginia: Foam Henge (yes, life size, yes, made of foam), Professor Cline’s Monster Museum (a walk through horror maze with performances thrown in), Dinosaur Kingdom (massive dinosaurs fighting civil war soldiers in the forest) and now Hunt Big Foot with a Red Neck (new this year!). Mark built all of the attractions and, I’ll say it again, he is awesome.

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

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

That’s a Cappuccino!

thatsacappuccino
Last week we had a Hack Day at Poke. We were split into teams of about 6 or 7 and given 24 hours to come up with a ‘working thing with a URL’ that’s something to do with the theme: FOOD. The team I was in came up with That’s a Cappuccino! – A campaign to put an end to people ordering a Cappuccino but receiving a Latte. There’s lots of ways to get a cappuccino wrong, but we narrowed it down to the basic ‘golden ratio’ of what it should be made of:

 

1 part espresso, 1 part steamed milk, 1 part foam.

 

With this in mind we’ve built a map, that anybody can contribute to, that simply labels places as “That’s a cappuccino!” or “That’s not a cappuccino!”. We also wrote an open letter to some major cappuccino venders (including Starbucks, Costa and, naturally, The Wild Bean Cafe) asking them how the ensure their cappuccinos are of the correct stanrd and if they’d like to get involved in the campaign and where. Here’s the letter.

 

Our film unit ran about all over over London interviewing baristas about what they think makes the perfect cappuccino, and they even got to meet Gwilym Davies, the UK and world champion barista who is a jolly nice champ and has officially backed our project:

It turned out to be a pretty massive project for 24 hours but we devided and conquered and… didn’t win in the end (The Holy Sandwich won, well done you lot), but there’s still a chance we can get a prize for the most traffic on our site, as well as improving your next cappuccino – so go check out our site, and get adding to that map.

 

Our team (the Golden Ratio) are: Me!, Chris Meachin, Iain Tait, Chris Reeves (the other one), Aina Ørebech, Kate Ducham and Nicky Gibson.