Another week, another round up of Dwarf news. Before that though, if you missed it you can read the second part of James’ Series X diary here. Read it? Good. Here’s the news:
- Series X News
We started off this week with the confirmation that the shows are being edited to have one advert break in the centre of the show, rather than two as had been speculated given the 40 minute slot allotted to the show. We’ve heard that the model reshoot is still underway, with Bill Pearson having nearly completed a new ship. It appears that some problems are still being encountered though, going by this tweet from Doug:
Q: Miniature shoot, 7 foot model, not brilliant up close. Red Epics. Do u shoot 4/5k 35mm lenses or 2k 16mm with 16-9 extraction?
The on-going issue of what to do about the incidental music has taken an interesting turn with Howard Goodall enquiring if there is any chance of getting some ‘incidental magic’ in. You can read our piece on it here, but we are intrigued by the fact that Doug is due to call Howard tomorrow. Fingers still crossed then.
For one final piece on the shows themselves, we have this nice new picture from Richard Naylor’s Twitter account of the cast rehearsing on a guest set:
I won’t say what the set is or what episode it is from, but you may notice that it is the same as has appeared in this video with Ed Moore. Here’s a screencap of the set from that video:
Of Course, while the series is being worked on, the DVD release is also being prepared simultaneously. We have heard this week about an incident with Craig and Danny putting on Kryten masks and surprising Doug, (which you can read about here,) which we are told by Richard Naylor is something that we can expect to see on the behind the scenes documentary. We have also heard of another bit of footage filmed during either episode 1 or 6 from Nathan Cubitt :
Currently watching Tom Price conducting the audience sing-a-long and mighty fine it sounds
On that note, Nathan has also tweeted a brief update on where the behind the scenes footage currently stands:
Current scores: properly featured in shots:
14% Richard Naylor
5% Ed Moore
4% Neil – A Cam master
1.4% Ganymede & Titan with a forlorn Seb Patrick nearby
0.4% Andrew Ellard
0.16% Nathan Cubitt
5 eps to go all to play for.
- Series X Tops Cultbox Poll
On a related Series X note, UK television website ‘Cultbox’ held a poll this week asking visitors to their site ‘Which UK cult TV series are you most looking forward to in 2012?’ As the result stands currently, Red Dwarf has trounced competition from shows like Doctor Who to take first place, with over 1400 more votes than its nearest competition of series 5 of Merlin. Now, this was obviously HUGELY helped by both Richard Naylor and the Red Dwarf Facebook/Twitter accounts appealing for people to vote. Still, lets enjoy a moment in the sun. Here’s the results as they stand at the moment:
- Offical Site Update – Cast Projects & Shows
The official site has updated this week with a roundup of what the cast are up to outside of the program. Some of this we have covered in the last week, so here’s a quick roundup of the bits that are new to us and possibly of interest to some of you:
– Craig will be returning to Coronation Street at the end of this month, but you can catch him doing live funk and soul DJing through the spring and early summer.
– Chris will be appearing at the Corsham Sci-Fi Family Fun Day on 28th April, and according to his official site, he is thinking of joining Twitter.
– Hattie will be supporting Rory Bremner at a few shows. The official site lists the first of these as Bremner’s show in Runcorn on the 10th of May, but she will also be supporting him at Glasgow Citizens Theatre on the 27th of March.
- Last Chance On Bobby’s New Book
Just a brief reminder here about Bobby’s new book, ‘News From Gardenia’. The book reached and surpassed the target funding it required on unbound.co.uk, though orders are still being taken. According to Bobby, the book goes to press this week however, so if you want to get a copy of the book with your name printed in the back then you need to get your order in faster than Napalm Death get through a setlist. The launch date is now 19th April, and Bobby details the reason that the printing has been pushed back on his blog, where he says :
The delay is due to problems with the printers, we planned to launch the book on 20thMarch but due to my availability and the fact that the printers ran out of ink or something, it’s had to be delayed. I’m really sorry about this to all the people who’ve supported the book, please be patient, it is happening and it will be a lovely book. The delay also gives us a bit of time to finesse the first edition, it’s going to be very posh. While I’m on the subject of my book I’ll reveal a bit of very good news I had about it a while back. A man who works at a proper old school publisher, Faber, who will be distributing the book really likes it and wants to give it a big promotion at bookshops in May.
The first edition is a hardback, then there’ll be a ‘trade paperback’ version in the bookshops and on Amazon etc. Then later this year there’ll be a standard paperback version. There will also be an audiobook version on audioboo and an e-book version and it will work on Kindles, it will be available on Amazon.co.uk and eventually on Amazon.com.
You can place an order through the Unbound site here, which will also grant you access to extra material in the ‘writers shed’. If you haven’t yet heard about the book, here’s the blurb:
Cities crumbling, zombies attacking, tsunamis engulfing, brutal regimes or killer machines crushing the human race to dust. Dystopia has now become so pervasive it’s almost engulfed the entire science fiction genre.
I felt driven to search for an alternative to the tiresome predictions of everything getting much worse; I wanted to imagine a world where everything has got much better.
A world where we eventually get it right, where we don’t oppress each other, where we don’t burn anything to make anything else, we don’t rip the planet to shreds to maintain our way of life and we don’t need to rely on endless growth to achieve contentment.
News From Gardenia will be a science fiction novel; a man called Gavin Meckler who was born in 1979 arrives 200 years into the future where he discovers a world that is recognisable and yet utterly different. It’s a place where it’s possible to travel from one side of the world to the other in a matter of minutes without burning fuel, but it’s also a place where everyone is a gardener because that’s how they can be sure to eat.
It is at once extraordinary and mundane. It is not finished, it is, as in any period of history, a world which is constantly changing, but the changes are sustainable, gentle and by default put people first.
As Gavin learns about this new world and the society he eventually becomes a part of, he also begins to learn about himself.
Everything in News from Gardenia could happen, there is no technology in Gardenia that hasn’t already seen the light of day. In the current turmoil it could be argued that such optimism could only be suggested by a fool, indeed, such benign developments may not be very likely, but we may need to be reminded that they are entirely possible.
- Fully Charged Launches Wednesday
And finally, in other Bobby news, the second series of ‘Fully Charged’ (a video podcast on alternative technology vehicles,) will launch on Wednesday. This first episode will be available to watch/ download on YouTube and iTunes, where you can also watch the previous series as well. Here’s Bobby announcing the new series in a previous video:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQvr_fIFGHY&w=460&h=264]
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