There have been 63 different films nominated so get over there and vote for your favourite. You’ve got til the 30th of September to cast your vote.

Right now the top 10 looks like this:

1. Blade Runner
2. Quadrophenia
3. The Godfather
4. Stalker
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Lawrence of Arabia
7. The Third Man
8. A Matter of Life and Death
9. Singin’ in the Rain
10. Metropolis

If you think that, say, Lawrence of Arabia should be part of the top 5 to be screened instead of Pulp Fiction, then get voting (yea, yea, technically you can only vote once, but if you really care there’s the old wipe the cache and cookies trick!). The whole current order of the films can be seen here.

Come on, kids, help me out and vote!

If you want to keep track of what I’m doing, check back here over the next few days.

Video from the Premiere:

Video from the Forbidden Planet signing:

Now, this video gives an idea of what kind of fun was had by all at the X-Files Sneak Peak at the LAFF. It was made by the lovely Mya. Music: Walking in Memphis by Cher. (More below the fold)

Find more videos like this on Big Light

The sound is a bit low on this, but put some headphones on to hear… David Duchovny… talking to me from stage… *sigh* Video by Kate.

Find more videos like this on Big Light

Last week, I received a copyright infringement notice from Google because I have the X-Files teaser trailer on my YouTube account. I am working for Fox, to promote a Fox film and I got served with a copyright infringement notice.

OK, so Fox’s legal department didn’t know I’m working for Fox, therefore I was treated like ‘any old schmo’. They reported me to Google, Google told me they were removing the trailer. Unlike ‘any old schmo’ I was able to get in touch with Fox and was put on a whitelist to protect my account. Fine.

The X-Files trailer in my account has had over 160,000 views. It’s the most popular one on YouTube. A quick guesstimate, however, is that there have been 300,000 views of both the X-Files teaser and the new theatrical trailer on all of the YouTube accounts hosting them. That’s coming up to half a million views of the X-Files trailers. All of them on ‘unofficial’ YouTube accounts.

The demographics available on the teaser trailer in my account:

68% of viewers are male
32% female
23% are 35-45 years old
19% are under 18
18% are 25-35
17% are 18-25
16% are 45-55
7% are over 55

45% of the views have come directly from within YouTube
55% have come from either embedded players or external links

I’m going to assume that the statistics for the trailer are the same on everyone else’s channel. First, that means that the trailer is reaching *exactly* the gender and age demographics that the film industry goes after for a sci-fi, action, thriller. It also means that over half of the views are coming from OUTSIDE YouTube- on blogs and websites which have embedded the trailer. By allowing huge numbers of people to host the trailer on their own YouTube channels, and allowing the trailer to be embedded, it is reaching far more people than from inside YouTube. Also, people viewing it within YouTube are *looking* for it, the people viewing it from outside YouTube are more than likely not searching for it, instead are watching it at one of their regular sites.

So, what might the rationale be for Fox’s legal department to attempt to remove the trailer from YouTube?

1. Maybe they think that Fox should have its own ‘official channel’ and all views should be through that. Well, they *do* have an official channel except, they only put the X-Files theatrical trailer up 3 days ago *and* they labeled it wrong:

Consequently, they’ve got a low rating and a comments page filled with things like:
“this is the x files u noob”
“WTF THIS ISNT THE HAPPENING RETARD”
“whos the stupid fuck who posted this,such fucking ignornace that i want to kill myself”
“It’s the X-files 2 trailer, not the Happening… Be more professional, you are representing your studio on You Tube.”

And so on.

It’s got 25,000 views, but I suspect 100% of the viewers were expecting to see a trailer for The Happening, not the X-Files. Hence the negativity in the comments. What’s most interesting to me is that it’s been three days, yet they’ve not fixed it.

2. Maybe they think that they are losing money by allowing users to host the trailer on their YouTube accounts. Fair enough, they want to earn some money, they are a business after all. Well…

Number one, they need to sort out their official channels first (see above).
Number two, they need to accept that official channels get fewer views (They do, trust me. People would rather embed a video hosted by ‘any old schmo’ than the film studio. Why? That’s an essay in itself.).
Number three, restricting people from using your stuff in YouTube isn’t going to stop them from putting it online anyway.

If a person has an X-Files trailer on their YouTube account and has AdSense, the likelihood of them earning any real money is minuscule. Very few people earn decent money from AdSense. But let’s say like Break A Leg (thanks for the info, Colin!) someone gets 2 million views of the X-Files trailer on their YouTube account and earns $1600. That’s enough money to keep an X-Files fan college student in beer for a while at least.

That works out to be $.80 per 1,000 views. Let’s say that only 1% of the people who watch the trailer end up going to see the film. The film industry earns about $6 per person going to the cinema. That works out to be $60 per 1,000 trailer views on YouTube that Fox earns from ticket sales. So, is Fox more interested in earning $0.80 from AdSense or $60.00 from ticket sales?

Surely, they should be spending time and money thinking of ways to encourage *more* views of the trailer and encourage *more* people to go to the cinema rather than spending that money on the wages of their employees who trawl around YouTube and issuing copyright infringement notices day in and day out removing their own promotional material, making people angry and not earning them any friends.

When TV audience figures are down which affects the number of people viewing TV ads, when the cost of marketing films is going up (because they WASTE huge amount of money imo), does it honestly make sense to try and prevent the number of people seeing the trailers advertising your films? That is what’s going on here. They can try and spin it to say that it’s ‘copyright infringement’, but in reality it’s just shooting themselves in the foot.

Of course, I’m not the only one who has received copyright infringement notices – loads of X-Philes have and not only on YouTube. Some have had their YouTube accounts closed because they had committed the terrible crime of making ‘fan videos’ of the X-Files (clips from the programme cut to music). One of them had over 300,000 views. 300,000. That’s a lot of people interested in a Mulder and Scully shippers video… And now, it’s gone… along with all of those thousands upon thousands of people who would have stumbled upon that video and thought, ‘The X-Files, I loved that show! I wonder what’s going on with the X-Files now…?’

Whereas I think it’s perfectly acceptable for studios to remove full films and programmes from the web (though I honestly don’t think they are losing any money to people who would be satisfied watching a small, pixelated version of a tv show divided up into 10 minute chunks on YouTube, I mean, that viewer isn’t going to be buying a DVD anyway… but… I’ll give that one to them cos of bit torrents), but to go after people for copyright infringement of PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL is stupid. Equally, going after people for fan-made music videos is stupid as it’s “PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL” of another kind.

The X-Files is a brand. Fox needs that ‘brand’ to be spread as far and as wide as possible within the next month. Attempting to restrict that because of ill-thought-out financial reasons will hurt their ticket sales.

Come on Fox, sort out your legal department and quick.

*EDIT* Fox’s official YouTube channel has now re-labeled the trailer as the X-Files.

This is being released as a ‘primer’ for the new film. You don’t need to watch these in order to understand the film, but if you want to remind yourself of the X-Files or if you never watched it in the first place, this DVD has an excellent selection of episodes which will give you a good taster of what the X-Files is all about.

The episodes are as follows:

Disc One:

• “Pilot” (from Season 1)
• “Beyond the Sea” (from Season 1)
• “The Host” (from Season 2)
• “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” (from Season 3)

Disc Two:

• “Memento Mori” (from Season 4)
• “Post-Modern Prometheus” (from Season 5)
• “Bad Blood” (from Season 5)
• “Milagro” (from Season 6)
• Bonus features: 2008 theatrical trailer; Wondercon talent panel session

As I was typing those out, I was going to do a little review about each episode and kept thinking, “Oh, I love this one!” “This one is sooooo great!” “This is my favourite.” “No, this is my favourite!” “THIS one!” “This one’s excellent…” So, I’ve just put a plain old list. :) The episodes they’ve chosen for this DVD really are the best of the X-Files without even really delving into the mytharc.

I’m going to start an X-Files Episode Chat thing where everyone watches the same episode on the same day and gets together online to talk about it and meet other people over the following few days. The aim is to try and get the RIDICULOUSLY HUGE number of X-Files fans out from their fan sites and into the world (so everyone can see just how many there are!). I’m going to work out a schedule for it – I want to start it soon, but the damned DVD doesn’t come out until the 14th of July! :(

But what I’m MOST interested in is getting non-English speaking fans on board to run episode chats in their own language. There are HUGE numbers of fans in Germany, Russia, Italy, France, Spain, South America, Asia… X-Files fans are EVERYWHERE! So, if you’re a non-English speaking fan and you want to do this, please email me (look on the righthand side of this blog page for my address or if you’re reading this on BigLight or in Facebook, PM me.) and let me know!

(*ahem* For the latest leaked X-Files photos have a look at XFN)

I’ve been accused of perpetuating a hoax, called a fake, unprofessional, a lying sack of shit (nice), all because I did a nerdy little video of myself opening the script for the first time which they don’t think is real. I’ve done a video response, replied in the comments, written about it here, but to no avail, there are still people who react in an overly hostile way to something they don’t want to believe.

Last Thursday, I had a phonecall with Frank Spotnitz to talk about various things- the trailer, the Revelations DVD, the soundtrack, the premiere and the LA Film Festival. During the call he confirmed that I did, indeed, read the X-Files script. I’m waiting for him to approve the edit of the whole call, until then, here’s a clip of that..

Visit YouTube to view the full screen version.

Click through for larger versions of the images.

I was hoping that I’d maybe get to organise a bloggers’ screening or something… Imagine my joy and excitement when they asked me to do a bunch of ‘online stuff’ for the film for the next few months! The first thing I needed to do, however, was read the script…

Yes, I am wearing a Boba Fett sweatshirt.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be in London this weekend otherwise I’d be there. I’d love to see ‘Sunshine’ in the cinema again. The last time I saw it on a big screen was at an IMAX After Dark screening.

I finished working on Sunshine when the DVD came out in the UK last September. I then had a bit of a physical collapse and needed to restructure everything again in order to not end up a complete wreck. So last autumn, I spent 6 weeks in bed. When I tell people this, they think I must have been depressed. Not at all. I was happy, but genuinely physically exhausted. When you do 7 days a week, 16 hour days for two years, you end up needing 6 weeks in bed. My colleague Stephanie at Fox in LA told me that would happen, so it’s not like I wasn’t expecting it. She said they’d suck my brain dry and leave me with very little left. And that they did.

Since then, I’ve been forcing myself to finish work at a normal time, taking myself offline, watching films or reading books, having weekends. I’m pretty much back to full strength now.

I’ve just found something that I wrote during the ‘Sunshine’ daze. I have no idea if it was for the blog or a messageboard post or what. Reading it back might give you some idea of the huge weight of the concepts I was living with during that time. No wonder I collapsed. :)

You are going to die.

Let’s just get that over and done with right now. You are going to die, your parents are going to die, your children are going to die, in fact, in just over 100 years, every single person alive today will be dead.

The lucky ones will, however, live on in the things they’ve created. Perhaps they wrote books, made films, wrote songs, started businesses, had children, donated their time, money, possessions to the needy. Through those creations, an element of that person will live on past their physical death. They can only live on in this way, however, if there are other people alive to make use of their creations.

One day, everyone will be gone. All human life will cease to exist. There will be no one left to read the books, listen to the music, watch the films created which attempt to explain, or even simply acknowledge, our existence.

Then what?

That two-word question is at the heart of ‘Sunshine’. In 2004, Alex Garland, read an article in Scientific American magazine about the ultimate fate of mankind which provided the initial inspiration for the film. The article talked about the death of the Sun as well as the death of the Universe.

According the current scientific knowledge the Sun is approximately halfway through its lifecycle. It is 5 billion years old and has another 5 billion years left to live. It will start its death throes by swelling up into a Red Giant the size of the Earth’s orbit. As the Sun will have lost a considerable amount of mass, the orbits of both Mars and the Earth may move far enough away in order to avoid complete annihilation, though the Earth’s water will be boiled away and its atmosphere lost. Life on Earth will cease to exist long before the Sun is completely dead.

After the Red Giant phase, the Sun will throw off its outer layers and become a White Dwarf star. It will then cool and eventually fade over billions of years.

Of course, if mankind hasn’t destroyed itself before then we should be sufficiently advanced to have started expanding out into not only our Solar System, but to the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy. If we’re lucky, we will have settled around much younger and healthier stars well before our Sun reaches old age.

Of course, those young, healthy stars will eventually age and die. We would then move to new stars. And when they start to die, we could move to new stars. This can’t, however, go on forever. Eventually the Universe itself will meet its end.

Up until a few years ago, scientists weren’t sure how exactly the Universe would play itself out. If there is enough mass, gravity will cause the Universe to collapse into a Big Crunch – the opposite of the Big Bang – when the gravitational attraction of matter in the Universe would slow, and ultimately reverse, its expansion.

A collapsing Universe permits a hypothetical scenario called The Omega Point. According to this theory, as the Universe ends in the Big Crunch the computational rate of the Universe will increase and accelerate exponentially faster than Time will run out. The Universe itself will be a ‘computer’ capable of running simulations which, internally, will seem to last ‘forever’ – despite the fact that the Universe itself has a finite end. Much like the Multivac computer in Isaac Asimov’s brilliant short story ‘The Last Question’, the Universe within the Omegy Point Theory could choose to ‘start again’. Let there be light.

If there isn’t enough mass in the Universe, however, it will simply continue to expand until space was so rarefied, all energy so dispersed throughout space, that no information could be exchanged or stored. Despite the fact the temperature of the whole Universe would be very close to absolute zero, this scenario is called Heat Death. At some point in the far, far future, both new stars and new galaxies will cease to be created. The ones that exist will live out the end of their lives, cooling and dimming for billions of years. In the end, the only light in the Universe will come from red and brown dwarf stars perhaps surrounded by the last remnants of intelligent civilisation hovering with a Dyson sphere – a mega-construction built around a star in order to capture its total energy output. Eventually, those stars, too, would die out. And then… nothing.

The Omega Point is a quasi-scientific, some would say pseudo-scientific or even theologic, theory dressed up with the terminology of physics. Basically, ‘The Resurrection’ of the Quantum rather than the Christ. As of this writing, all evidence suggests the Universe won’t end in a Big Crunch. We are destined to fizzle out.

Nothing will survive.

I was Pinbacker.