Ye'd Be Braindead Ti' Miss It

You know what I find rather entertaining? Besides scaring my gentleman friend with my doll and action figure collection by simply pointing them out to him, I enjoy researching how media producers develop through the years, and how their work shapes their careers (tehe I made a rhyme). It's just fascinating to me how someone can change so much in regards to the likes of genre, yet sustain this uniqueness that one has had since the very beginning, making his or her work so much more wonderful to appreciate.

Well. Someone's resourceful.

 Take one Sir Peter Robert Jackson for instance. Most of us are familiar with his 2005 remake of King Kong, and far more notably his film adaptations of J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy,  and the widely anticipated The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But before you begin flocking to cinema screens on the day of the 'Apocalypse', please be sure to add Peter Jackson's 1992 film Braindead to your bucket list so that, as you watch Bilbo Baggins frolicking with dwarfs, searching for enchanted jewellery, you can cast your minds back to PJ's good ol' slapstick horror period and, before you know it, your fingers will be in knots in the hopes to see more gore. Well... either that or you'll be thankful with what you have post-splatter period. You spoil sport.

 Braindead, also known as Dead Alive in North America, is set in 1958 New Zealand where we follow fated Lionel Cosgrove (Tim Balme's first lead role) as he attempts to balance his new-found romantic relationship with the lovely Latina, Paquita Sanchez (Diana Peñalver) and caring for his strict, overbearing mother (the late Elizabeth Moody), Vera. Soon, he is purged into the unfortunate situation of having to restrain Sumatran rat-monkey zombies after his mother receives a nasty bite from the wee zoo critter and goes on a bit of a rampage. Not to mention his Uncle Les blackmailing him into giving up his inheritance. He's really not having a great week, this young man.

At least she has her vengeance, I guess.
With her foot. On his head. Poor, wee buggeh.

 There is a lot to love about this wee gore-fest and that most certainly does not exclude the performing talent of the actors. Tim Balme, co-writer and one of the protagonists for Sy-Fy's The Almighty Johnsons, does a fantabulastic job with physical humour from flailing all over the place, rolling and bouncing off the walls and onto trains to swinging bagged zombie-born toddlers in the park in front of onlooking, middle-aged ladies. Even my grandad laughed his socks off at that scene and did every bone in my body proud by doing so. Hell, according to ol' PJ himself, that was his favourite scene to shoot. The zany characters are full of life (snicker); each and every one of them buzzing with uniqueness, coming off with some of the wackiest lines I've ever heard, such as the 'Kung-Fu priest''s 'I kick arse for the Lord!' portrayed by Kiwi actor Stuart Devenie, all the while demonstrating his impeccable martial arts skills which, uh, don't help him for long, I'll say that much.

Relax, it's only raspberry sauce.

 There was one thing that caught me slightly off guard while watching Braindead, and that was the use of the word 'zombie'. Why? Because it's set in the late fifties. So what of it? Well, the word 'zombie' wasn't even used in George A. Romero's, Night of the Living Dead until its sequel, Dawn of the Dead. On that note, it was the one and only mention of the word in the entire film. What could be noted as well was that the person who exclaimed the word was a biker thug, so perhaps he was familiar with White Zombie, the 'first' ever zombie film made in the '30s, predating anything by Romero, the godfather of the modern zombie. I could go into the origins of the word but let's just leave it to the fact that he's an observational B movie fan.

 I don't get tired of this. As a matter of fact, I haven't watched it in quite some time; 'quite some time' being maybe two months or so, which is preposterous if you ask me. It's certainly brought about some funny moments with the gentleman friend exclaiming things like, 'Anya, what the fuck are you making me watch!?'. What am I making you watch, you ask? A romantic, slapstick horror film by Peter Jackson and his wife, Fran Walsh, that's what. In other words, a bloody masterpiece.

Good, ol' PJ with Baby Selwyn.

Fresh! A-ahhhh-AHHH!

I was rather enjoying what I was doing in my classes; A bit o' vision mixing in the ol' Practical Skills class and a touch of it in Interview Techniques (I got complimented on my vision mixing; it made me pretty happy), having fun with the cameras in Cameras & Lighting, receiving our new brief in Set Design, etc. Things had been going rather well. We were only about five weeks into our course when we were suddenly plucked from our classes and thrown into E3.

 When I think of E3, I imagine video games; video games everywhere, from talk of new consoles to previews of new games due later that year. I honestly cannot wait for the third installment of the Bioshock games, Bioshock: Infinite and the umpteenth reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise. I bet that's what you were thinking as well, reader, wasn't it? Unless, of course, you are familiar with the brand spankin' new Belfast Metropolitan college campus.

 We were there attending an event known as 'Fresh'. The aim of the game was to get about 120 students from about four different courses (this included year 2/3 Biology, year 2 Sports, year 1/2 Tourism and, of course, our own one, HND Media Moving Image), mixing them all up and handing them a brief from official companies who didn't want to do their own work by getting students to do it for them for free by disguising it as a, so called, 'skill building' and 'team building' exercise week to encourage them (the students) to think outside the box, coming up with weird and wonderful ideas and innovations for said companies. Oh, did I mention that the lady for our brief didn't even show up to introduce herself or even, from what I learnt, when the presentations were being made?

 I, to a certain extent, felt a little bit insulted. Our course in particular, we're already supposed to be coming up with creative ideas hence 'Creative Media Production' in our course name. If not, well, most of us will pick it up along the way. We don't need to be off timetable for a week to develop this skill, I feel that we should already have it. You know? Not only that but the 'ideas' that they were getting us to come up with went way against the briefs that we were provided at the start of the week, and ended up sounding completely wacko; like something you'd see in an '80s sci-fi film set in the not-too-distant future of the 2000s-- ohhh, that's how they come up with them... I see, I see.

 Anyway, the week consisted of posting sticky notes full of our ideas all over white boards already full of sticky notes, playing with plasticine, pipe cleaners, juggling balls (I don't even know, guys), and, later on in the week, I also drew a comic related to my brief! The posting of sticky notes lasted an entire three whole days, from 10am to 3:30pm (excluding ice breaker Monday morning, of course), interrupted every now and again by team building exercises (games), such as the, and I quote, 'never before seen' Who Can Build the Tallest Tower Out of Only Paper and Cellotape? except maybe three-five times in primary school, and video presentations that were genuinely interesting to me. Also sticky notes. Lots and lots and lots of sticky notes.

 We were situated in 'zones' with 'zone leaders'. Patronising zone leaders. I don't know how many times it was emphasised to us that we were going to be treated as adults. You know, considering that the students there were between the ages of 18-36 (I am dead serious). You know how people used to baby talk to you when you were younger? How they tried to coax things out of you by, perhaps not intentionally, talking down on you, almost intimidating you? Making their voices as high as possible, breathing down your neck as much as possible to see what you're up, to make sure that you haven't accidentally swallowed or shoved your crayon so far up your nose that it's popping your eye out? Well, that's what it felt like. Trapped within these 'zones', being watched by hawks in case we try to escape to, I dunno, for like five or ten minutes to the toilet or something.

 Though I digress; it could have been much worse. It felt like it was picking up later on in the week at least but, honestly, the whole coming up with ideas definitely should not have lasted as long as it did, therefore the entire shenanigan could very well have been over and done with by Wednesday, not Friday. Mind you, I've had no benefit from it whatsoever. Well, except for maybe wasting sticky notes on boards with any writing idea that I may get instead of just scribbling up a mind map. If you could even call that a benefit, I don't know. I guess I could make a game out of it. Hopefully the six weeks up there next year will be better. I hope.