1. Plot points & comedy spoilt by trailers and adverts
   The channel has seriously pushed the fact that THEY were celebrating the 21st birthday of Red Dwarf. This included a HUGE amount of trailers promoting this fact for weeks, which showed and spoiled many of the key plot and comedy points when you watched the show. There was no surprise to the episodes, because you kind of knew what was going to happen before the show even started.
2. Extra Long commercial breaks during the show
   Even through Dave continually repeats the classic old-school episodes throughout the year, which are broken up to include their standard advert breaks, with the new shows, they have over sold the one commerical slot within the show. I timed it last night (Saturday Showing), and I got to 5 mins before I gave up. (A normal advert break in the UK is about 3 mins)
3. Elements missing?
   Due to point 2 above, it seemed that there were shots / scenes missing from the broadcast. The show seemed to jump. It also seemed to stop harshly before the break and for the end credits. Perhaps the unnatural feel at the end of the two episodes (Friday & Saturday) is because they simply cut the full length story in to three equal parts that wouldn’t naturally happen.
4. 3 Parts to the Episode
   As most Dwarfers know, Series 8 had many ‘part’ episodes (Back in the Red pt1, pt2 & pt 3 spring to mind), however, what would have worked better within the medium would have either been one feature-length episode all at once, or three self-contained episodes which would return to the classic style of Red Dwarf.
5. Over-use of web-based advertising
   Even through I am creating a documentary about New Media, and how traditional media is transforming in to this new arena - I honestly believe Dave went a little too far. Don’t get me wrong, they should be given many points for using their website and web-based video to promote the show, but I honestly believe that they produced too many videos that helped ruin the storyline, and like point 1, it made sure that there was very little on the surprise front while watching the actual show.

Overall, the shows have been entertaining, and I have been laughing all the way through. However, it just seems that the staff at Dave just got WAY over excited, and without a clear and secretive marketing campaign - they have made many feel short-changed with the return.

Saying that, I honestly believe Red Dwarf: Back to Earth has been very entertaining, and look forward to viewing the final instalment this evening - even to the point where I have already pre-ordered the 2 disc DVD from Amazon!

The Lesson: I have learnt that even through I am getting rather excited with what is happening at the moment behind-the-scenes with the Pixelated documentary, I should try to keep an air of hush-hush about everything to allow the audience enjoy the surprises as they go on the journey of watching the final film.

I’m a proud geek. And because of this, I watch a lot of Virgin 1 channel. Unfortunately, Virgin 1 does have an BIG issue: It does have a weak signal, which means that during my viewing of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Voyager, the picture breaks. I call this ‘Digital Static’, where several frames of the video get ’stuck’ in blocks over the latest picture. The sound also gets very rough and breaks.

I like the idea that the film doesn’t actually have a logo as such, but instead uses the digital static as a theme or transition throughout the piece. Another example of this style was used for the title sequence of Big Brother series 7 in the UK (see below).

What has amazed me is that so many people are expressing their interest in participating - which for me is a little shocking. Because from my point-of-view, this is ‘just’ a student production, and yet these rather important and busy people are more than happy to donate their time to help produce this project.

At the moment, I am feeling rather honoured. Thank you guys & girls.
(As and when we have arranged times and dates of when the interviews are going to take place, I will tell you who is involved… I think you will be as surprised as I am!)

The concent that will be produced is not supposed to be prefect, but instead the videos are supposed to be quick and easy to produce with very little editing. This will help to ensure we can focus on our main priority which is of course creating Pixelated. However, I have always enjoyed these type of DVD extras which explains the Who, How, Where and Whys of each production - which is the main reason this blog exists.

The podcast is not going to have a weekly release date / time, but instead will be released as and when there are cool things to talk about. The cast itself will also be uploaded to YouTube.com too - just incase you don’t like subscribing to podcasts via iTunes.

I am hoping that I will be able to produce the first video after the Easter Bank Holiday Weekend, when I should have some feedback from the people I have contacted to be involved with the project.

An interesting concept used on both films is that there is are no introduction credits. Instead Christopher Nolan used the Batman logo in an interesting way as the intro: Begins the logo is created by hundreds of bats rushing across the screen (see right). In The Dark Knight, the logo is produced with blue flames licking at the screen. Both films end with the title of the film (below).

This got me thinking. I have never been a fan with lengthy introduction titles and credits like James Bond for example - even through with Mr Bond, it is more of a tradition. But, this amazingly simple, yet powerful concept that Mr Nolan uses with these two films provide interesting ‘bookends’ to the products as a whole.

If I ‘borrow’ this concept for my own documentary, it might prove an issue when I currently do not have a logo that could be used as the introduction.

What impressed me about the interview, was that Rezner mentioned that through his official website, he allows users to download samples from all his music, and have the ability to remix the sounds and lyrics to create new sounds - and share these creations via the site. Out of interest, I decided to visit the site to see how the system worked, and found myself listening to hours of remixes. However, one track in particular: “Zero Sum (Instrumental)” - which was uploaded by Trent himself - stood out from the crowd.

The interesting ‘interrupted’ digital sound, which echo the visuals I have been imagining that I wish to include within the documentary. Now, my only problem is that I am desperately trying to find something similar that reflects the sounds within the song, but isn’t copyrighted… which is turning in to a difficult task - especially as Zero Sum is now stuck in my mind…

I have decided that I won’t list the organisations and individuals I have contacted on here just yet - but they do span across all medias, from all walks of life, and from many different countries.

However, as and (hopefully) when I have been able to organise a time and date for each interview, I will announce the individuals here.

It was also very interesting to review the type of content I absorb both online and off, and even note how much influence these individuals have over my own views. These are not just huge multimillion pound businesses, but actually a large majority of them are created by individuals who are creating their media from their spare bedrooms, or garages.

As I over analyse these kinds of things, it was interesting to review that these ‘spare bedroom’ productions reflect an amazingly high production values through their media, and wonder why they are not taken more seriously – perhaps this could be a subject to be discussed within the documentary?!

Anyways, back to task at hand – I am going to spend the rest of the day to create a cracking email, which I will be able to personalise for each contact, that will hopefully appeal to the individuals it will be sent too.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago I was diagnosed with Mumps, which meant that for half the time we had been issued to create our film, I was bed bound with fevers. Thankfully, now I am close to completing my course of recovery, with a week or so left before a full recovery, but I still had no idea of what to base my documentary on. It wasn’t until I opened up my iTunes to update myself with the latest podcasts I subscribe to; the obvious suddenly dawned on me – to create a documentary about the possible futures of new media.

Called ‘Pixelated’, the plan is to create a balanced discussion within the film from both traditional, official and ‘back-bedroom’ Medias, to see how each group envisions the progression of technology; and how they can see this expand and/or hinder their markets. I am also interested in exploring how each group thinks about how these new medias should be regulated (if any), and why. From the Traditional Medias stand point; I would also like to develop an understanding about how these institutions are changing themselves to continue to be relevant to their target markets.

So my task is to try and contact individuals from these markets and companies to see if I can get access to interview them… and you can follow along here on the official ‘Pixelated’ blog.