Idea IS the format

My time at PPC - 6 years and counting - has tossed up a few projects I've managed to get pretty excited about. I wasn't much of a Wes Anderson fan when I first heard of THE LIFE AQUATIC, but by the time we were done creating PIRATE PANIC! and I'd had a chance to feast on the movie's beautiful audio-visual aesthetics he'd become one of my instant heroes of cinema.

PIRATE PANIC! was very much the inspiration behind the considerably more successful CHAINSAW MANIAC! This was definitely a better fit for the audience in question, a beautiful nostalgia piece paying hommage (i.e. ripping off) Nintendo's single-game consoles of yesteryear, supporting the main RESIDENT EVIL 4 microsite (dubbed an 'iTrailer' by yours truly, on account of its ground-breaking focus on video-rich interaction).

As an aside, Resident Evil 4 is the first computer game I've played to a finish since completing The Legend of Zelda on the first-generation 8-bit Nintendo. Resi 4 coincided with the arrival of my daughter Lola, as a result of which many of her formative first nights were spent asleep in my lap, blissfully oblivious to the bloody path I was carving through the rich and deadly landscape of a truly great game.

When I first became aware that SIN CITY was in production, and that it would be distributed by (what was then) Buena Vista International, I was resolutely determined to ensure that we worked on it. Off the back of the RESIDENT EVIL 4 iTrailer we were commissioned to develop a SIN CITY equivalent. It's hard to be objective about how well it turned out, but it was undoubtedly one of my favourite projects to be involved with, and meeting Frank Miller himself at the UK premiere after-party was the icing on the cake.

With SIN CITY under my belt I probably ought to have taken the view that I'd been there and done that with Frank Miller. I didn't. Earlier this year we pitched very aggressively to create a presence for the movie 300, directed by the inspiring Zach Snyder, within the 3D online community Second Life. This included a virtual press conference and movie expo, the inner workings of which need to be read to be believed. This was the single most demanding and rewarding project of my working life. A Second Life junket for Transformers followed. My inner ten-year old would never forgive me if I didn't rate that as another highpoint of my career.

All of which might seem like a rather self-indulgent trip down memory lane, if it wasn't for the fact that the next 48 hours is going dictate my chances of working on another project with a very special place in my heart. I can't spill the beans quite yet, but this is a must-have from where I'm sitting. I'll keep you posted.

Labels: ponderings