So on April 18th, my birthday no less, I got to introduce one of my favourite films ‘An American Werewolf In London’ at the BFI Southbank as part of their Screen Epiphanies series.
This is my intro. With props, back projections and special guests!
Writer and director Edgar Wright discusses An American Werewolf in London, John Landis’s cult comedy-horror, as a film that continues to inspire him. He’s joined by actors Michael Carter and David Schofield, who appear in the film. This introduction formed part of the BFI’s Screen Epiphanies members’ event strand, presented in partnership with American Express.
Thanks to Alan Jones for the mint condition ‘Starburst’ and ‘Beware The Moon’s Paul Davis for helping me track down my guests.
I will be appearing at the EW Capetown Festival on May 1st, screening ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ & ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World’ at the fabulous Egyptian Theatre.
And with breaking news! Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzman and Bryan Lee O’Malley will join me for the Q&A of Scott Pilgrim.
Ticket details and full schedule below!
The Entertainment Weekly CapeTown Film Fest makes its debut April 30 in conjunction with American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Join EW experts like Geoff Boucher and Jeff Jensen for some of your favorite films of the last 30 years followed by Q&As with special guests including John Carpenter, Terry Gilliam, Leonard Nimoy, Kurt Russell, Noah Wyle and others.
- LOCATION: EGYPTIAN THEATRE
6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028 See map- DATES: APRIL 30 THRU MAY 6, 2013
Book Tickets Now! - Get The Schedule!
Head on down to this Friday 19th April’s midnight screening of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.
This Friday, Ramona Flowers herself, Mary Elizabeth Winstead will be in attendance and showing a fantastic new short she produced before the movie. So get down there!
Purchase your tickets now! (Click Here)
I will be appearing at the EW Capetown Festival on May 1st, screening ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ at the fabulous Egyptian Theatre. May screen some other goodies too.
Ticket details and full schedule below!
The Entertainment Weekly CapeTown Film Fest makes its debut April 30 in conjunction with American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Join EW experts like Geoff Boucher and Jeff Jensen for some of your favorite films of the last 30 years followed by Q&As with special guests including John Carpenter, Terry Gilliam, Leonard Nimoy, Kurt Russell, Noah Wyle and others.
- LOCATION: EGYPTIAN THEATRE
6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028 See map- DATES: APRIL 30 THRU MAY 6, 2013
Book Tickets Now! - Get The Schedule!
I wasn’t allowed to take phones or cameras into Windsor Castle yesterday so thank you to the news cameraman at the event who recorded this fleeting meeting between me, Her Majesty and the Duke Of Edinburgh at their celebration of British Film.
That’s me in the glasses, just after Count Dracula and Kane from ‘Alien’.
Yes, I know!
Thanks to Matt Galo for the clip. Now watch George Lucas transform into me. It’s magic.
With the very sad news that the great Scottish writer has only months to live after being diagnosed with inoperable cancer, you could pay no better tribute than to pick up an Iain Banks book today. Or indeed an Iain M Banks book.
Sergeant Turner and Sergeant Turner are big fans of the great man.
All my love to Mr Banks and his family.
Come on in Private Iron and War Bastard, your time is up…
My good friend and robotic wizard Matt Denton has spent the last few years making this metal mother, a real working piece of heavy metal hardware that is science fact.
Check out the Mantis on the reel below (directed by my big brother Oscar). Then why not hire the Mantis at a kids birthday party to scare the shit out of them all?
Mantis - Two Tonne Hexapod Walking Robot
After four years intensive R&D, inspiration, design and build, Micromagic Systems is proud to unveil Mantis — the biggest, all-terrain operational hexapod robot in the world.
This 2.2-litre Turbo Diesel-powered, British-designed and -built walking machine can be piloted or remote WiFi-controlled, stands 2.8 metres high with a five meter working envelope and weighing in at just under two tonnes.
“This is definitely the largest hexapod we have built so far,” says Micromagic founder and Mantis’ chief designer Matt Denton. “This walking machine started as an idea back in 2007, we secured private funding in 2009 to start the project and - after three years of design, build and testing - the robot made a first successful test drive in the summer of 2012 at Bestival UK.”
“It’s been called an instant design classic and an inspiring engineering project for the next generation.”
The Mantis is available now for private hire, custom commissions, events, and sponsorship.
For more info goto http://www.facebook.com/mantisrobot
The good people at the BFI have been asking me to do one of their Screen Epiphanies for a while now. When they offered the night of April 18th, my birthday, how could I resist?
This film was a very formative experience for me, so I’m thrilled to watch it in the brand spanking newly restored version on the best screen in London.
So come join me, it will be a treat!
(NB. It’s currently first come, first served for BFI members, but you should join anyway, it’s the one of best film societies on this planet and worth every penny).
BFI Screen Epiphanies In Partnership With American Express / Edgar Wright introduces An American Werewolf in London.
The writer and director joins us to introduce the film that inspired him.
18 April, 8:30 PM @ NFT1, BFI Southbank
UK-US 1981
Directed by John Landis
With David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne
Running time 97 min
Digital
15This is an exclusive event for BFI Members and special guests.
We welcome writer and director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) to introduce An American Werewolf in London as the film that inspired him.
American tourists David and Jack are backpacking in Yorkshire when they are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists. John Landis’ cult comedy-horror features Oscar-winning make-up and incredible special effects.
To book tickets, please contact the BFI Box Office on 020 7928 3232 (11:30 AM - 8:30 PM).
Tickets for this event can be booked by BFI Members.
bfi.org.uk/membersBecome a BFI Member to be at the front of the queue for the hottest film tickets.
bfi.org.uk/joinA limited number of tickets for these events can be booked by American Express Cardmembers.
bfi.org.uk/amex
UPDATE!
Direct from the lovely BFI!
BFI Members were informed yesterday late afternoon that they could book tickets to your birthday extravaganza on 18 April. We’ve held some tickets on the system for non-members to book (it’s usually a members only series) as we figured your many twitter followers would be a bit miffed to not get a look in.
In order for non-members to book, the need to call the box office on 02079283232 and answer the question ‘who co-wrote Shaun of the Dead with Edgar Wright?’. (A nice easy question)
Link with info to the event is here: http://tinyurl.com/cpk4pu3
Hey there. So I have a music video playing in New York’s Museum Of The Moving Image very soon. The Spectacle: The Music Video exhibition which debuted in Cincinnati in 2012 opens very soon and features my 2003 video for Mint Royale.
I’m not going to make the grand opening, but I hope I get to see this fantastic exhibition very soon. If you go, let me know how it is.
Click here to go straight to their website!
New York, NY, March 14, 2013 — Museum of the Moving Image is pleased to announce the opening of Spectacle: The Music Video on April 3, 2013. This groundbreaking exhibition explores music video as an important and influential art form in contemporary culture and is the most comprehensive museum exhibition on music videos presented to date. Spectacle highlights the form’s place at the forefront of creative technology, its role in pushing the boundaries of innovative production, its important role as an experimental sandbox for filmmakers, and its lasting effects on popular culture globally. The exhibition features more than 300 videos, presented alongside artifacts and interactive experiences, and will be installed in the Museum’s 4,000 sq.-ft. changing exhibitions gallery, amphitheater gallery, and other spaces.
Spectacle: The Music Video, on view through June 16, 2013, is curated by Jonathan Wells and Meg Grey Wells of Flux, a global creative community and collective that programs film and art events around the world, and was organized by the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, where it debuted in March 2012.
Through a mixture of interactive installations, projections, video, objects, and immersive environments, Spectacle takes the visitor behind the scenes of seminal moments in music video history—from the early pioneers and MTV masters who expertly used the medium to define their public identities, like Devo, Beastie Boys, David Bowie, and Madonna, to artists like OK Go and Lady Gaga who follow in their footsteps today. The exhibition, designed by Alexei Tylevich and his team at Logan, an award-winning New York- and Los Angeles-based creative studio and production company, is presented thematically and features original objects and ephemera that have never before been seen outside of the videos themselves.
“Music and the moving image have been linked since the dawn of sound, from Vitaphone shorts and concert documentaries to MTV and the web. Today, when the success of a viral video can make a hit song, the power and cultural significance of the music video are as strong as ever,” said Carl Goodman, the Museum’s Executive Director.
Tomorrow, Friday the 15th of March, marks the fourteenth Red Nose Day, Comic Relief’s fabulous bi annual fundraiser for charities at home and abroad. People all over the country will be doing their part to raise money for those less fortunate.
Back in 1991 I did my bit for the third Red Nose Day by entering a competition on Saturday morning kids show ‘Going Live!’. The competition was to make a short film about one of the causes that Comic Relief support and I made an animated film about the then lack of disabled access in cinemas.
And on the morning of March 16th 1991, I was live at BBC Television Centre. It was very surreal as you can tell by my subdued, overawed manner in the following clip.
Enjoy the 16 year old me! And then find out how to donate for this years event.
Some notes:
- I was wearing my sixth form suit.
- I did not become the ‘world’s best animator’.
- Somewhere in a box is my framed, signed photograph of Lenny Henry.
- Just out of shot - Philip Schofield, Gordon The Gopher, Ben Elton, Hale & Pace, Trevor & Simon and The Mock Turtles.
- I shot the animation in one night, the 17th of January 1991 as the first Gulf War strike was happening. The news of the raid soundtracked the shoot.
- My classmate Fiona Lunnon told me to enter the competition and has forever since claimed all credit for my career. Fiona, you are correct.
- Someone at ‘Comic Relief’ told me I had won by mistake and I had to fake my look of surprise on the live show. It’s not quite a ‘Quiz Show’ scandal, but I think that I did a pretty good actings.
- I used the video camera to shoot no budget epics like ‘A Fistful Of Fingers’, ‘Dead Right’ and my superhero opus ‘Carbolic Soap’.
- I did not get off with Sarah Green.
- Philip Schofield smoked during the cartoons.
- ‘Going Live!’ was shot in Studio TC7, which is soon to be bulldozed as part of the reconstruction of BBC Television Centre. Boo.
Enough about me - DONATE TO COMIC RELIEF NOW!
The fabulous Everyman Screen on the Green (Nr. Angel Tube Station) is showing ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World’ at 11:30pm on Saturday 16th March 2013. Be there!
At this point I’m not sure if Tom Haigh from the ITV archive is a great friend or a mortal enemy, as he has now unearthed three more clips of a teenage me as amateur film-maker on various ITV shows.
I dread to think what obscurities he’ll dig up next. Previously unseen CCTV footage of my first fumbled snog with a girl in the back row of ‘Mannequin’ at the Wells Regal? Or me badly singing ‘Bad Guys’ from a 1987 school production of ‘Bugsy Malone’? We shall see…
As I’ve said before, I started making zero budget films at the tender age of 14. First with a second hand Super 8 camera and then on Video 8. And some of these landed me on the telly.
Behold a clip of me on the pilot for ‘Hot Shots’, a vehicle for the late Jeremy Beadle that was a spin off from ‘You’ve Been Framed’. Viewers could win 500 quid with a comedy sketch or clip. I sent in my 1992 hour long video version of ‘A Fistful Of Fingers’ they edited it into a trailer and dubbed on some uproarious laughter from the audience. Check out my extremely short interview right here.
Edgar Wright on Beadle’s Hot Shots (1994)
Three notes. That is not the 16mm feature version of ‘Fistful’. Secondly I definitely remember doing a full interview with the Beadle. Maybe it was ruthlessly cut out. And secondly, I actually worked as researcher on the first series of the show at the age of 20. It was actually a lot of fun working at LWT as a mere child.
Next up is the full interview of myself and a very tactile Jenny Powell. This also features my good friend and great director Corin Hardy. I cannot explain my eye rolls or facial expressions.
Edgar Wright on Gimme5 (1993) - Extended Clip
Finally here is long clip of the opening of the same episode. It doesn’t really feature me but it is archive gold for fans of early 90’s graphics.
Also, look sharp around the 1.30 mark and you can see young Brian Cox, now science superstar, but then a member of D:Ream. Great end of the clip too.
Gimme5 (Intro)
I think that’s it for the while. Maybe I will dig up my ‘Going Live!’ appearance…if you are good.
‘Scott Pilgrim’ touches down in LA and New York this February with four midnight screenings at the famous Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles and the fabulous Sunshine Theatre in New York City. Be there!
LA / 15th February @ The Landmark Nuart
11272 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90025
NYC / Fri, Sat & Sun, February 15, 16 & 17 at Midnight @ The Landmark Sunshine
143 East Houston Street on the Lower East Side
My oh my. A good fellow by the name of Tom Haigh at the ITV archive sprung a surprise by unearthing five clips of me as teenage amateur film-maker on various shows.
I started making zero budget films on second hand Super 8 camera in 1989. Two years later I won a video camera on ‘Going Live!’ in a contest revolving around ‘Comic Relief’. From there, I started making as many no-budget shorts and featurettes as I could. And some of these landed me on childrens’ TV.
Watch and be wowed by: my hair, my skinny frame, my line in waistcoats and my ever changing voice which goes from well spoken middle class schoolboy to would be bloke from Lan-dahn.
First up, here’s me with the very fragrant Jenny Powell on Tyne Tee’s ‘Gimme Five’. I travelled up to Newcastle with my good friend Martin Curtis to show our short ‘Help!’ which I made at the age of 18. Please note the rainbow lines of VHS crash editing on every single cut and also my outrageously arrogant answer to the question; “So anyone can do it?”.
Myself & Martin are playing much too cool for school. We secretly had the raging hots for Jenny.
Edgar Wright on Gimme5 (1992)
The next year I was asked back to Newcastle and this time they showed clips of my short ‘Infra Red Fred’ which is bit like a proto version of ‘Click’ and apparently a lot like a Benny Hill sketch I must have subconsciously stolen from. They don’t show the whole piece, but it’s worth watching for my weird angry face I pull at the end. What was I thinking?
Edgar Wright on Gimme5 (1993)
This in depth profile with a girly voiced young film maker was as a result of entering into the Co-Op Young People’s Film Festival a few years in a row. My interviewer was a lady called Georgey Spanswick.
This piece includes clips from the video8 version of ‘A Fistful Of Fingers’ which I shot with schoolfriends in the summer of 1992. I do like to complain a lot about how long it takes to make movies.
Edgar Wright on The Film and Video Showcase (1994)
After appearing on ‘Going Live!’ and ‘Gimme Five’, I was asked to be an ‘expert’ on Yorkshire TV’s ‘Brill’. I wanted to talk about amateur film-making but they wanted to focus on home-made special effects and make up. Which as you can see from the show, is not my forte.
Presenter John Eccleston was also a puppeteer for Henson’s and I later worked with him on the ‘French & Saunders’ Titanic special when the Leprechauns from ‘Live & Kicking made’ an appearance.
On this show we could not say ‘vomit’ or ‘spew’, so the odd alternative of ‘huey’ was used instead. Huey.
Edgar Wright on Brill (1994)
This final and very short clip of me was part of a late night report on the zero budget film scene in mid nineties London. By the year 1996 I had moved to the capital and apparently decided that an orange shirt and goatee was a good look. I do not know what is going on with my voice. I may have had a sore throat or been hungover or maybe I was trying to sound more like my more worldly peers.
This contains a clip of the 16mm version of ‘A Fistful Of Fingers’.
Edgar Wright on Hotel Babylon (1996)
Somewhere out there are even more clips. Thanks to Tom again for embarrassing me like this.
I saw Alice and Steve’s short in 2007 and told them it had the makings of a good movie.
Five years later it’s a great film directed by Ben Wheatley.
It’s out today. Go see it!
Sightseers is now on general release in the UK. The third film from award-winning director Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace, Kill List), Sightseers is written by its stars, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram with additional material by Amy Jump.
Distributed by Studiocanal in the UK, the forthcoming comedy is a Big Talk Pictures production in association with Rook Films. It is produced by Nira Park (Big Talk Pictures) and Claire Jones and Andy Starke (Rook Films), and executive produced by Edgar Wright, Matthew Justice, Danny Perkins, Jenny Borgars and Katherine Butler. Big Talk’s development of the film was funded by Film4 and the BFI Film Fund. The film is financed by StudioCanal, Film4 and the BFI Film Fund.
Trailer
You need to download this ASAP.
A whole album of tracks by Tom Caruana and Dr Syntax revolving around ‘Shaun Of The Dead’, ‘Hot Fuzz’, ‘Spaced’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim’.
I am very flattered and excited by this audio explosion. I hope you dig it too.
YEEEAH BOOYYY! British hip hop stalwarts and long-time friends Dr Syntax and Tom Caruana have teamed up to bring you a concept album based around dialogue snippets from the work of legendary TV and film director Edgar Wright (of Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and Spaced fame).
After years of well-received releases, tours and collaborations (including songs with chart sensations Rizzle Kicks and Foreign Beggars), the newly-formed duo made the album after Wright himself got in touch with Caruana and gave him carte blanche to sample his work. The result is 14 tracks of quirky, funk-fuelled dopeness, featuring dazzling cameos from Leaf Dog (Four Owls/High Focus), Rebecca Stephens (formerly of The Pipettes), Don’t Flop! rap battle legend Enlish and newcomer Clev Cleverley. All that, plus the Cornetto from the shop. How’s that for a slice of fried gold?
The film is set for release in the UK on August 14th 2013 and October 25th 2013 in the US in the UK on July 19th 2013 and August 23rd in the US.
Working Title Films and Big Talk Pictures have commenced filming on The World’s End, the third installment of Edgar Wright’s trilogy of comedies, following the successes Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). The new movie is filming in the U.K. As with the first two movies in the trilogy, Universal Pictures International (UPI) will distribute The World’s End internationally and Focus Features will distribute it in North America.
As with the two earlier pictures, Mr. Wright co-wrote the script with Simon Pegg, who will once again star alongside Nick Frost. Joining the team are actors Martin Freeman (Shaun of the Dead, The Hobbit), Paddy Considine (Hot Fuzz, The Bourne Ultimatum), Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes), and Rosamund Pike (Jack Reacher).
The World’s End also marks Mr. Wright’s third movie with Working Title and Big Talk, following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz; The World’s End is produced by Nira Park of Big Talk and Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. The film will be executive-produced by James Biddle, Mr. Wright, Mr. Pegg, Mr. Frost, and Liza Chasin.
Mr. Wright is also reteaming with such creative collaborators as director of photography Bill Pope, production designer Marcus Rowland, hair and make-up designer Jane Walker, editor Paul Machliss, stunt coordinator Bradley Allen, and VFX Double Negative. Guy Speranza is the film’s costume designer.
In The World’s End, 20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hellbent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King (Simon Pegg), a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their hometown and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub – The World’s End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries.
Working Title Films, co-chaired by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner since 1992, is one of the world’s leading film production companies. Founded in 1983, Working Title has made nearly 100 films that have grossed over $5 billion worldwide. Its films have won six Academy Awards, 30 BAFTA Awards, and prizes at the Cannes and Berlin International Film Festivals. Working Title’s 2012/2013 slate also includes Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Anne Hathaway; John Crowley’s Closed Circuit, starring Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall; Hossein Amini’s The Two Faces of January, starring Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, and Oscar Isaac; Dan Mazer’s I Give It a Year, starring Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall; the telefilm Mary and Martha, directed by Phillip Noyce and written by Richard Curtis, starring Hilary Swank and Brenda Blethyn; Ron Howard’s Rush, starring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl; and Joe Wright’s epic love story Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Big Talk’s credits include all of Edgar Wright’s films to date: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Greg Mottola’s Paul, written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost with Kristen Wiig. Most recently Big Talk developed and produced Joe Cornish’s debut feature Attack the Block, which was released to critical acclaim in 2011, winning all four Audience Awards at Sitges, SXSW, the LAFF, and Fantasia International Film Festival. Next up for Big Talk is the black comedy Sightseers, directed by Kill List’s Ben Wheatley. The film had its world premiere at Cannes with a Special Screening in the Directors’ Fortnight section. It will have a Gala Screening at the London Film Festival, and will be released in the U.K. in November. Big Talk is currently in production on Cuban Fury, a dance comedy starring Nick Frost, Chris O’Dowd, and Rashida Jones, directed by James Griffiths; and Jeremy Lovering’s psychological thriller In Fear.
Universal Pictures International and Focus Features are part of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. Comcast Corporation owns a controlling 51% interest in NBCUniversal, with GE holding a 49% stake.
