man ALIVE Studios

A Very MOVING Occassion!

2009-12-03T16:40:00.002Z

Hey folks! We're not blogging here anymore. If you wanna keep reading, head to our wordpress account!

http://manalivestudios.wordpress.com

It's been emotional...

L.

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The Adventures of Moonface and Torchboy

2009-11-09T16:51:00.002Z

Hello out there!

Today's blog is just a cheeky wee one, as I'm just squeezing it in at the end of the day. This weekend's been crazy busy - we've been filming some fun sketches for the Scottish Social Work peeps, as well as attending the premiere of "Terror 'Neath the Tay" on Saturday night at the Dundee Odeon cinema.

We were invited to the premiere by one of our youtube chums, Kyle Titterton. He got in touch and asked us to make a fake trailer to be screened before his main feature (which was very entertaining, I have to say!). Along with our good chum, Alexander Bethune, we came up with this...

We were concerned it wasn't going to be well-received on the night, but fortunately people were in a silly mood and we got a respectable number of giggles.

The best thing about it all though, was seeing the benefits of building relationships with other local film-makers and people in the "industry". Our friend and mentor, Justyn Rowe, once told us that we should get to know as many other people in the same line of work as us, and not be afraid to help them out. They may be your competition, but they are also a powerful ally and resource!

Anyway, that's all for now!

Have a great evening!

L.

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Surprise, Surprise!

2009-10-28T13:31:00.005Z

Happy Wednesday!

How's it going out there, peeps? Today it's bright and sunny here in Dundee, which is most unusual. But enough with the tedious formalities! Here's part 6 of my notes from the writersroom seminar...

SURPRISE

When you are writing a screenplay, you want to write something that is fresh and original, but there are only a finite number of basic plots that you can work with (I'm going to do a blog on these basic plots later too) so you need to know what's different about your version. What unique perspective are you bringing to the story? What's your original touch? How are you going to surprise the audience?

When you watch a movie, or read a great story, there should be a sense that the ending was totally inevitable, but at the same time unpredictable. What I mean by this, is that, once the dust clears, you should be able to look back and see that it was obvious the story would end like this. Everything should "add up".

A good example of this would be the movie "The Sixth Sense", by M. Night Shyamalan. The story is about a child psychiatrist (Bruce Willis) who is working with a young boy that claims he can see ghosts.

If you haven't watched it, don't read any more as there is about to be a terrible spoiler...

...at the end of the movie, it's revealed that Bruce Willis' character (the main character throughout the film) is actually a ghost. This is a great plot twist in the movie, as, when you look back over the film, you can see that it really was quite obvious, but not (to my mind anyway) predictable. Now, not all stories need to end with such a mind-blowing twist to be a success, but they do need to come to a satisfactory resolution that has been built up over the course of the plot. Many movies start off strong, but lose it at the ending. This is usually because the writer simply hasn't done enough to suggest this kind of conclusion to their story.

An example of a movie that (in my opinion) utterly fails in this principle, is the film, "Vanilla Sky".

Don't be fooled by the great trailer. This movie uses the technique that children are taught never to use in writing class, the "and then I woke up" lazy-ass ending. The writer has created all these confusing yet interesting situations/circumstances and twists in the plot, but then, instead of rewarding the faithful viewer with a great resolution that explains everything, they cop out by saying it was all a dream. Awful stuff.

So, that's all for this section. Many of you may disagree with my thoughts on "The Sixth Sense" and "Vanilla Sky" (as there is potentially some case to be made in suggesting that Vanilla Sky does, in fact, point towards its ending), but hopefully you can see the principle behind what I mean anyway.

L.

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Show Me Emotion, Tra La La La La....

2009-10-27T13:44:00.010Z

Hey!

We're back after a nice long weekend, and, sadly, I'm now a year older. Yup, a lot can happen in a weekend. Today we were going to be out filming a silly fake trailer for a superhero film, but there was too much rain. Hopefully we'll have it done before the end of the week and we can post it for your entertainment.

In the meantime, here's the next part (part 5) from the writersroom seminar the other week...

EMOTION

When you're writing a screenplay, it needs to matter at a human level. What I mean by that is that the characters and their individual stories need to be more important than the "concept" behind the film. This obviously links in with what we were saying about character in the last blog, but refers more to the journey that you take your characters through than the characters themselves.

A good way to do this is by showing the vulnerabilities in your characters - the chinks in their armour. A great example of this is the film "Leon", which is one of my favourite movies of all time...

The main character is a cold-blooded assassin, who cares about no-one and lives a life of solitude, but everything changes when he decides to save the life of his next-door neighbour - a young girl. As the film goes on we get more and more glimpses into the true vulnerability of Leon's character, and the emotional journey he goes through. If you've not seen the movie, I highly recommend it.

Essentially, the best scripts/movies (really, the best stories) should generate a physical response as you read/watch them - whether it be laughing out loud at the jokes, getting goosebumps at the revelations, holding back a tear at the sad bits, looking cautiously around the room at the scary bits, involuntary gripping of the armrests during a tense scene, or, best of all, combinations of all of these things and more. You can't get any of this if the audience don't care about the characters, and there's no point aspiring to anything less than this. If this is not your goal, you're wasting your time, and if it is, then check your scripts back afterwards and be sure you're generating the feeling you want your readers to feel.

Peace for now!

L.

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If You Want To Make It As A Writer, You've Got To Have Character(s)

2009-10-22T11:00:00.008+01:00

Yo! Welcome back! This is part 4 of my notes from the writersroom seminar. Check out the other parts in our last three blogs. :-) Today we're talking about...

CHARACTER

One of my favourite TV shows ever is "The Shield", a police drama about a police station that is right in the middle of LA gangland. The main character, Vic Mackey (a corrupt cop), is an incredibly interesting character. Not at all a likeable person, but SO entertaining to watch. You're always wondering what he's going to do next. Here's a scene to show you what I mean, but be warned, it's pretty gross and the language isn't suitable for kids. Mackey is the bald one...

Whenever you're writing a character, you really need to make them compelling on an emotional level. No amount of fiddling with the other details of your script will help if you don't have compelling characters.

There's no real way of being "taught" how to do this, but you can examine the characters you've written and if you can't connect with them, or they seem dry, or stereotypical, or if they all seem to have the same "voice", then you know you need to work on them some more. They need to be somebody that you want to spend time with, not necessarily somebody that you like, but somebody who makes you want to know what they're going to do next and what's going to happen to them.

Part of this is making sure that you take your characters on an "active journey", and by this, I mean that the character is motivated by desires or needs, and that they face obstacles or come up against dilemmas that get in the way of these desires. How they deal with these situations is how you reveal the nature of your characters and make them identifiable.

Another part of it is making sure you don't play into the trap of using stereotypical characters, but instead create them as individuals. The last thing that Paul Ashton (of the writersroom) said about character that really, really struck me was, "what does your character see when they look at the world?" It seems so simple, but if you can get your head into the character, and think about how they view the world/people around them, you can think about how they see it differently from everybody else. This will make it easier to write for them - they will become more "alive", interesting and individual.

That's all for today, peeps. Catch you tomorrow.

L.

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The Plot That Sucked

2009-10-21T11:59:00.005+01:00

Hello faithful blog readers!

Back again today with part 3 of the notes from the writersroom seminar. Today's should be fairly brief...

COHERENCE

Your script needs to have a strong plot that holds everything together. This should be fairly obvious to anyone who's an aspiring screenwriter, but there are so many people who get it wrong! You can have lots of great ideas, good scenes, etc., but you still need a clear plot that connects these things and also comes to a satisfactory resolution.

One example of a film which (in my opinion) fails to accomplish this, is "The Boat That Rocked" by great writer Richard Curtis. It's full of great little scenes and moments that can be comedic, touching, or even heartbreaking. As a whole, however, it is very unsatisfying. The overall central plot is extremely weak, and there are too many little plots all happening at once, with no real resolution or sense of story.

It's very easy to get carried away when you're "in the zone" and to try to do too much, but you need to beware of being distracted from the focus of your story. You may write a scene that you really like, but, if it's not moving the plot along, does it really need to be there?

Lastly, you need to know the world, tone and genre of your script, then make sure that you are faithful to this throughout. What kind of story is it? This harks back to the stuff about format from part one of these blogs, but again - your audience needs to know what they are watching, and to "get it" very quickly. There's nothing wrong with writing in a specific genre, the trick is learning how to be original and surprising within that world.

Alright. That's all for part 3. Catch you later!

L.

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Stuck "In The Middle."

2009-10-20T11:28:00.004+01:00

Good day to you.

Here's part two of my notes from the writersroom session last week...

GET THE STORY GOING

When you're writing a script, you need to "hit the ground running". When readers are going through a script for the first time, they make a decision based on the first ten pages. This is because television isn't like cinema; if people lose interest they will simply turn over or turn off. Obviously the script has to be just as engaging after these first ten pages, but if you spend too long setting up the story, or introducing characters, people won't bother waiting to see what happens.

I attended another writer's seminar, not that long ago, that was taught by the successful playwright, Colin Teevan. He spoke about the same thing, and called it "the ticking clock". You shouldn't have a story that begins on page seven. It should already have started by page one! You need to find out where your "ticking clock" begins and ends, so that your story doesn't start too late or finish too soon.

The best thing to do is to start off "in the middle" of something, and show your characters in action. You can give backstory and character depth, but do it as the story moves, not before. Also, you should beware of doing too much backstory and exposition (explaining things). The audience is much more intelligent than they are often given credit for, and don't like to have everything spelled out to them.

To show you what I mean, here's a clip of the opening scene from "The Matrix"...

This is a great example of "hitting the ground running." We begin with a phonecall between two unknown people, and are simultaneously aware that another, separate party is running a trace on their call. In this first conversation, one of the characters talks about how they are going to kill someone, and the other talks about the potential importance of this person. Suddenly, they become suspicious of a trace and end the call, and we immediately see that the police have traced the call and are about to bust down a door. An incredible action sequence follows.

There has been no explanation, no backstory, you know nothing about any of the characters. Who are they? What are their intentions? How are they able to do these remarkable things? Why is the woman being hunted? Who were they talking about on the phone? The audience have been hooked right into what's going on. Straight away, you're "in the middle of something."

I hope you found some of that interesting/helpful. There'll be more from my notes on the writersroom seminar tomorrow.

L.

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Form of an Ass

2009-10-16T15:05:00.005+01:00

I got today's blog title from an exclamation made by a writer I follow on Twitter. I thought it was funny and it contains the word "form", which is what I'm talking about today...

So!

Yesterday I promised I'd fill you in on some of the points from the Writersroom roadshow event that stood out to me on Wednesday. The main part of the talk was delivered by Paul Ashton of the BBC Writersroom, and he gave a rundown of ten things that they look for in a script.

Much of this stuff you can also find in other writing courses or in books on writing for tv/film, but it was still good to have it re-iterated and there were a few things Paul explained in a fresh way that I think will really help in some of our up-coming projects.

Today, I'll just write about the first point...

FORM

Television shows always fit into a specific format, for example, half-hour sitcoms, serial dramas (two/three hour-long episodes, like jane austen), one-off sixty-minute documentaries, etc. So when you're sending in a script to the BBC (or any other channel), you have to make sure you know what kind of show it is that you've written, and that the format is appropriate. Don't send in a two-hour long episode of what is clearly half-hour sitcom material.

You also need to look at other shows in the same style as yours. Although you want to tell your own original story, people are used to a specific form when it comes to certain types of programme. If you're doing a crime drama series, you should be watching other programmes of a similar nature, and figuring out how they work - how they tell their story.

When you're writing the script, you need to always be clear about what you mean, what you're trying to say. Script readers don't necessarily have all the background information that you're aware of, or all of the painstaking notes you've taken as you've worked on your story. If you don't make sure all the important info is there, the chances are that they're not going to "get it".

Finally, it's important that you don't "direct". Just get the dialogue and action onto the page. Leave all the camera moves and things up to the director. An example of this could be where you write about how a character gets a shock of realisation. In the script, you simply have to say something like, "We see a look of realisation on Kevin's face." It's up to the director/actor how this is then shown on-screen. The script is the blueprint. The starting point that everything else is built from.

Alrighty. That's all for today, but hopefully there was some interesting stuff in there for ya. Lots of it seems like common sense, but apparently the Writersroom gets inundated with a plethora (I love that word) of scripts that haven't thought about these kinds of things. If you can make sure you bear them in mind, you'll definitely stand out as someone who knows what they're doing.

Adios for now!

L.

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Bee Careful to Follow our Blogs!

2009-10-15T16:19:00.004+01:00

Hey!

So, we're back in the blogging game again today. We have been busy bees of late, which is more than I can say for the poor actual bees who seem to be dying out in some kind of bee apocalypse.

We've decided to re-focus our blog approach. So far, it's just been a case of letting you know what we've been up to, like crewing as the cameramen for this music vid, for example...

...but from now on, we're going to be posting more regularly, and sharing lots of the different things we've been learning on our quest to become great film-makers.

Both Stu and myself are interested in all the different aspects of film-making, so it'll be a bit of a mish-mash of subjects, plus we'll be doing some reviews and other random stuff too, but hopefully that means there'll be at least one thing a week which will keep you interested. :-)

Last night we were at a special seminar in Dundee, put on by the BBC Writersroom. It was a really informative look at improving your writing, as well as an opportunity for them to remind us about their upcoming screenplay competition. If you're a writer, you should check out the Writersroom website and get yourself signed up for their email bulletins!

Tomorrow, I'll be posting a couple of the points from their seminar. Stay tuned!

L.

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Promises, Promises...

2009-07-23T15:59:00.003+01:00

Well, well, well. I promised a blog every day didn't I. Sorry about that, but we've been MAD busy! We're in the middle of a major event in Dundee right now, called "LOVE DUNDEE", and we're doing a lot of music and video stuff for it.

In the meantime though, here's a vid of me smacking myself in the face with a shovel. This is an out-take from the vid we made for this year's Virgin Media Shorts competition. Please click the link below to view it on their official website, and register to rate/comment. It would be seriously appreciated! :-)

Click HERE to see the finished vid.

Also, check out these nasty parkour fails. Horrible stuff...

'Later!

L.

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"As God once said, and I think rightly..."

2009-07-16T14:22:00.004+01:00

That's a genuine Margaret Thatcher quote. Classic. I found it while I was searching for good quotes from famous people about life, religion, belief, etc.

You see, yesterday and today, we've been working on some videos for a big church event that's happening in our city next week, called "Love Dundee". I've been searching for quotes that could be used in one of the vids, while Stu's been pulling together clips from classic, instantly-recognisable movies (like The Matrix, or Pirates of the Caribbean).

Many won't know this already, but our office is actually in the vestry of a church on the Perth Road, Dundee. The church is called Gate Church International and both Stu and I are really involved in the work that goes on there. We're both Christians (Shock! Horror! Please don't run away screaming, atheists and liberals!) and can tell you why, but that's for another blog.

The church use the vestry on Sundays as their room for live internet broadcast of services, and they have some cool computers and software. We made a deal with them, where we get to use the office rent-free, but have to make video announcements for them every week (plus the odd major event like this one coming up).

I'm telling you this, because it's a really cool thing to think about if you're starting out in film-making. What people or organisations do you know, or have links with, that have amazing equipment or studio space you could borrow/use/hire, etc.?

Think creatively! Not just about the content of your films, but how to get them made too! My band just finished a demo, and we managed to get some sweet recording time at Abertay University by offering the free use of our tracks in videos produced by their "Whitespace" team (which means we also got free advertising!!!).

A wise friend in business recently said to me that "money should never be an excuse not to do something", and he was right. If you have a creative goal, don't write it off just because it's too expensive. There's (nearly) always a way.

Peace.

L.

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Robo Boogie

2009-07-14T12:00:00.007+01:00

Hello out there, blog fans (yes, Phil and Pavel, I'm talking to you)!

What a long time it's been since our last blog! Never fear, a new wave of blog euphoria has swept the "man ALIVE" office and we intend to blast you with a barrage of blog-type ammunition every day for the foreseeable future. We're even about to set up a new youtube channel that will provide little easter eggs for you, yes YOU, to check out as you read. Isn't that special?

Today, Stu and I are deliberating over some ideas for our new project with the Scottish Social Work department. The aim is to communicate the Codes of Practice in an entertaining way, and we've finally all agreed that the best way to do this is to bring a very small robot into the mix. If you have any ideas for funny scenarios involving little robots, feel free to send them our way, although we'll nick them and use them, so be warned!

One of the reasons we've taken so long to blog again is that we've been away in Poland, which was INCREDIBLE! If you'd like to hear about why, or you just want some banter, please add us on facebook (stu/liam) or twitter (stu/liam) or both, and send us a wee message.

In the meantime, here's a couple of our most recent sketches to keep you occupied...

Much love!

Liam.

P.S. When you say someone is still "green", you know, like a "rookie", is it because bananas are green when they're not ripe? curious...

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Some Work and No Play Makes... sheesh, I'm bored of typing...

2009-05-18T16:45:00.004+01:00

Brothers and Sisters of Blogdom.

Greetings.

I am writing to you after what was possibly the slowest week in the history of man alive. At least since the "tuna digestive" famine of 2007 (a bleak period indeed).

Our productivity hit an all-time low, we had to film exterior shots for a promo of incredibly dry subject matter in weather of an incredibly wet persuasion, and, speaking of persuasion, I even got a bit confused...

In other news, we watched Star Trek, saw the end of LOST - Series 5, and worked on a new, innovative and, above all, scientific approach to dieting. Oh, and I went undercover at the X-factor auditions in Glasgow. So stay tuned to our blogs, 'cos there should be more on these things later and they'll be worth the wait. I'm SURE of it.

L.

Back to "Work"

2009-04-29T15:27:00.002+01:00

Hello again, faithful readers (yes, both of you)! :-)

We're back from a week off, which mainly involved lots of going for coffees, playing video games, catching up on Prison Break and hitting the pubs. Essentially it was just like any other week in the office.

This week we've been busy setting up meetings and getting ready for our next projects with the Social Work and the NHS, but we still made time to chat about some personal issues....

...and last night we went to see Wolverine for "research purposes". It was enjoyable, but not great. Go see it for yourself and tell us what you think!

L.

Shall Nimoy Return?

2009-04-07T13:41:00.005+01:00

Hey raiders of the lost blogs,

First things first, has anyone seen the trailer for the new Star Trek film. I've never been known to get excited at the thought of a new Star Trek film but I saw the trailer at the cinema the other day. It looks pretty darn good I have to say.

That being said, lets get down to the good stuff. Who wants to see another sketch? Ok ok, here's one that you will only have seen if you've already checked out the manaliveblog channel on youtube.

More sketches on the way people so check us out at least once a week for something cool.

Stu

Chain Gang

2009-04-02T16:46:00.005+01:00

Yo!

So, you may have read Stu's last post where he said we were working on, "yes, this is why i became a film-maker" stuff. Sadly, today he is at home, eating humble pie, weeping, and saying the word "why?" to himself quietly.

Here's the lowdown - Stu and I were invited to join in with a "chain film" project. This involved us receiving a film from another film-maker, watching it, producing our own film based on something from their film, and then passing that on to someone else. We agreed wholeheartedly, especially as the finished work is supposed to be shown at the DCA (Dundee Contemporary Arts) Cinema. However, we forgot about this until Monday, and it had to be finished by... Tuesday!

So, together we watched the other film and studied it, and the best we could come up with was a silly short about a pteradactyl in the woods. We "scripted" it and "organised" to shoot the next day. The rushed finished project is unlikely to rock Hollywood, but hey, it MIGHT gently nudge a small village like Helmsdale or something.

Prepare for the horror that is....

TERRORDACTYL!!!

Was it worth us missing out on two of our weekly sketches to make this? Haha, yes! It was fun.

'Laters.

L.

Friends of Steve Buscemi

2009-04-01T10:01:00.004+01:00

My friends in Blogworld!

So far its been a great week for the man ALIVE boys. We've been out and about doing some of the more mundane film makery stuff as well as the "yes this is why I became a film maker" stuff. Yesterday saw Liam and myself take to the woods to film our newest short film due to be screened at a local art centre ('center' if there's any American followers) later in the year. More on that later, unfortunately its not edited yet so I can't add it to this post, so instead i'll add a couple of our more recent sketches.

BUT BEFORE THAT, Liam and I are really excited to say that thanks to the communicative powers of TWITTER, we've been able to chat to THE REAL Steve Buscemi. A friend of ours Mr Gregor Maltman messaged Steve on twitter suggesting he watch our Award winning Matt, Ben and Buscemi. In short, he watched it, he liked it, and he told his 7000 strong following to check us out. So if you're here because Mr Buscemi sent you, WELCOME.

A special thanks obviously goes out to Gregor and the man ALIVE Award for 'making our week the best ever' goes to the man, the myth, the legend, Steve Buscemi.

Enjoy the sketches!

Cheers!

Stu

Tax Doesn't Have to be Taxing, but it F***ing is!

2009-03-19T12:57:00.003Z

Yes!

Tax is a flaming (that's the starred-out word in the title, obviously) nuisance! This week we finally caught up on a year's worth of "book-keeping", and sent off some forms to the inland revenue, who were trying to fine us £100 (each!) for not filling in yet ANOTHER form they'd never sent us or even told us about! Every form was as pointless as the next one and contained the EXACT same information. One even started with our business name and tax reference number, then proceeded to ask for our business name and tax reference. Twice!

My tax fury was so intense that I had to let Stu take over for a little bit while I went outside to smash a bin lid to pieces with a spanner.

Still, some good news as Matt, Ben and Buscemi will finally be making it to the small screen sometime in the next couple of weeks on Paramount Comedy. We actually cringe watching it now, but it's still exciting!

Below is another of our recent sketches. We've been firing out 3 a week, so keep checking www.youtube.com/manaliveblog to stay up-to-date. Like all sketch stuff, these are pretty hit-or-miss, but let us know what you think! Constructive criticism is always welcome, and even insults can be funny.

Catch you later.

L.

More Quality Sketches

2009-03-11T16:35:00.003Z

Hey there bloggie wogs,

I wanted to make sure all our viewers are getting their fill of man ALIVE quality entertainment so I thought it would be a treat to post another couple of sketches Liam and I have been working on so far this week. Unfortunately due to some terrible goings on in the man ALIVE office we have been unable to finish any sketches at all.

Instead here are a couple of videos that show the terrible events this week in the office. Fortunately the cameras were rolling as the action happened. That's because man ALIVE understand the importance of always being prepared.

O.k enjoy the videos.

Love and peace,

Stu x

New Comedy

2009-03-06T13:18:00.005Z

Hey blog junkies,

been a busy week at man alive, so unfortunately i didn't get to interview a kangaroo BUT I WILL, however not this week. hopefully next week. Just keep tuned in for it.

We decided this week that we are going to make 3 sketches a week and post them on youtube and probably on here as well, so make sure you have a look and tell us what you think. We expect some of them to be a little crazy, but just trying to experiment

Love and Peace, enjoy the sketches! (only got two this week so far but are filming one this avo)

STEWIE!!

Crushing Blow

2009-03-03T12:29:00.004Z

Hey people who read our blogs,

A fairly stinging defeat for the man ALIVE guys today. We entered Empire magazine's "Done in 60 Seconds" competition, (remake a famous film, make it last 60 seconds), which we did quite well in last year (top 10).

Well, results are in and man ALIVE were asked to stay at home again this year, not making it into the top 5, or even the top 13. So thats pretty bad, but pair it with the fact one of the top 5 films was made by another Dundee film maker, and you can probably tell we're feeling a bit down. Of course we're happy for the success of the other Dundee guys and their film Roverfield, and i'll be voting for them to win for sure, flying the Dundee banner and all that.

Check out Cloverfield/Roverfield at: http://www.empireonline.com/awards2009/done-in-60-seconds/

here's ours. Hope you enjoy them.

Stu

Animal Art

2009-02-27T17:32:00.006Z

Hey man ALIVErs,

Stu again here with another sweet blog. If you read yesterday's post then you'll have tried to check out the websites I mentioned because they sound way cool. Unfortunately due to technical issues the websites aren't working. I can only apologise but perhaps this will make up for it.

Watch this!

Peace and love x

Stu

Not As Funny As Limmy?

2009-02-26T16:36:00.005Z

Hi man ALIVE fans, Stu here!

Its been aaaaa(ages)aaa long time since I last blogged, I usually let my employee Liam do all the company communications whilst I attend to more important matters like photoshopping moustaches, monacles and pipes onto the faces of well known animal stars. Feel free to check these out at www.highbrow-animalhumour.com or www.pets-of-sherlockholmes.com

Anyway, its been an incredible day for man ALIVE Studios today. We took an early morning road trip through to Dundee's west-coast big sister, Glasgow and visited some very nice people at The Comedy Unit, (producers of Chewing the Fat and Rab C Nesbit) to talk a bit about our blossoming careers. To put it bluntly, and that is how it was put to us, we've got nothing. Its true, we made one comedy piece that won a competition a year ago, and have somehow been given the opportunity to talk to top industry people about...US!

"You're not the best, but you're not the worst" is a phrase that was used, most graciously and honestly, in our meeting this morning, but despite being no further forward in our attempts to achieve Andy Millmanism (check out extras for the reference), we couldn't be more excited about our future in Comedy.

And this is great for all our viewers too because we've realised just how much more quality entertainment we need to produce in order to break through. So I'm starting by getting everyone geared up for a daily stream of man ALIVE blogging and twittering.

You MUST check us out. Comment us and we'll get back to you and when we get big you can show your friends that you were there in the beginning!

Alright, peace and love

Stu

Happy 2009!

2009-01-15T10:25:00.004Z

Okay, it's a little late, but, considering the frequency at which we've been posting blogs here, it could've been a lot worse!

Hope everyone is keeping well? We've been hard at work (most of the time) and would like to kick things off with our newest video; a promo for this year's "Dare to be Digital" competition.

Hope you enjoyed it! It was great to work with people like Mario and Solid Snake. We even managed to grab an interview with the plumber himself!

He was a little threatening...

Anyways, we'll try to keep you posted on all that's happening here over the next 12 months, and who knows, maybe someone will read it!

L.

www.manalivestudios.co.uk
www.youtube.com/manaliveblog
www.youtube.com/manalivestudios

Sheep vs Man - Get a Good Camera!

2008-11-17T14:19:00.004Z

In the month of August, man ALIVE Studios had a visit from the wise and mighty Justyn Rowe (of MediaJR in Florida). He became our very own Yoda, dispensing production wisdom with every utterance. We learned a great deal from working with Justyn, but one of the first things he spoke to us about was the importance of getting a really good camera.

Most of our work up to that point had been with the Sony HDR-SR1, which is not a bad little piece of hardware, but Justyn showed us some of the work he'd been doing with his own camera and it blew our minds. Take a look at this daft video we did below to see what we mean - it's just us running around in a field being idiots, while Justyn takes some footage without putting any real effort in...

Look how beautiful the image is!

Anyway, Justyn pointed us in the direction of the Sony EX1. More on that later!

L.

www.youtube.com/manaliveblog
www.youtube.com/manalivestudios
www.myspace.com/manalivestudios
www.manalivestudios.co.uk

"We are on a journey..."

2008-09-18T12:05:00.003+01:00

Good day!

Here is our latest adventure. It has everything, from cops with automatic weapons, to secret government filming, to giant bugs lurking in public toilets.

And here's the news story which came next!

Keep your eyes freshly peeled and your ears pushed groundwards.

man ALIVE are comin' at ya. Like cleopatra.

L.

www.manalivestudios.co.uk
www.youtube.com/manalivestudios
www.myspace.com/manalivestudios
www.youtube.com/manaliveblog

"Glad to finally put a face to the name..."

2008-06-30T15:10:00.005+01:00

Good News!

Our vid, "Matt, Ben and Buscemi" has made it into the final shortlist for Paramount Comedy/The Smalls' competition! This means we'll be aired on Paramount Comedy and will be in with a chance of winning the award!

We've also just completed this entry for the Virgin Media Shorts competition. It's called "Mr. Alice", and is a little darker than our usual stuff...

www.manalivestudios.co.uk
www.myspace.com/manalivestudios
www.youtube.com/manalivestudios
www.youtube.com/manaliveblog

Available for parties, social occasions, weekends away and conferences....

2008-06-18T12:05:00.004+01:00

Good day to you.

It's been a while since our last blog, but here's what's happening right now at man ALIVE; we're bored! We've recently finished a couple of big jobs and are at the moment in a dry period of pursuing our next clients. These times are always great for the creative juices though, so we've also been working on competition entries.

Here's our entry to the Paramount Comedy Smalls competition:

If you like it, leave a comment! Or you could leave one on our YOUTUBE CHANNEL or our MYSPACE.

We also completed a promo for our Pocket Shorts project, which you can view on our website's NEWS PAGE.

That's all for now peeps.

L.

"Can I have one?"

2008-04-29T15:00:00.002+01:00

Hello all you thousands of man ALIVE blog readers!

This week I just want to tell you about another competition we've entered. Doritos have announced a competition where you have to complete a new ad for them. If you win you get a load of cash and your ad goes on TV.

We're going to enter a couple, but this was our first attempt;

We need YOUR help to win though! To do your part, please go to www.doritos.co.uk, click on "gallery", search for "not too cheesy", and give us a 5-star rating!

Thanks!

P.S. The idea for the video was a spin-off from these vids we've started doing on youtube;

'Later!

L.

www.manalivestudios.co.uk

www.myspace.com/manalivestudios

www.youtube.com/manalivestudios

www.youtube.com/manaliveblog

Ah'm Gonna Get The Prum-o-shen!

2008-04-02T15:55:00.003+01:00

So!

It's been a while since the last blog, and we've been busy bunnies in the meantime.

Last month we had a host of things going on! Nosferatu made it onto the "Empire" Awards on ITV2, which means a load of peeps, including Matt Damon, Euan MacGregor and new Bond girl Gemma Arterton, got to see Phil wearing what looked like a giant condom on his head!

We also remembered last minute about a competition run by the Scottish Institute of Enterprise. Again you had to make a short film in 60 seconds. The day before it was due we grabbed a camera, which only had 25 mins of battery on it, came up with the following random idea and filmed it (as there were only two of us, we had to take turns playing the corpse!);

It got into the top 5 finalists!

You can see some of the other entries on the SIE website. Some of them are well rough, but my absolute favourite is ADAM CORMIE's entry - ADAM'S WAY TO THE TOP.

Please click here and watch it! Seriously, you'll thank me later.

L.

Check out our official website at www.manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our myspace at www.myspace.com/manalivestudios

Check out our youtube channel at www.youtube.com/manalivestudios

Alec Guinness Turns Up At Some Point....

2008-03-03T16:56:00.002Z

Last week saw us doing all kinds of things from jumping onto the bonnet of a moving car, to talking on the phone with endemol about "Nosferatu"!

A particular highlight though, was when we saw this video on youtube;

The little girl is already a youtube icon and has inspired a great number of spin-off youtube vids. I showed it to my girlfriend, Sophie, who then told me what little she remembered of Star Wars. Not wanting to miss out on the youtube bandwagon I grabbed my phone camera and made this;

It had over 600 hits by lunchtime of the next day!

If you're out there and you read this, leave comments!

L.

www.manalivestudios.co.uk

www.myspace.com/manalivestudios

Long Way Home

2008-02-20T20:11:00.002Z

Last week, "man, ALIVE Studios" went to Glasgow to film some contemporary dance antics.

The filming went fine and we were all set to head home. Little did we know that Glasgow was very like the thunderdome in "MAD MAX 3", but even more sinister;

"Two men enter, no man leaves."

This is the story of those two men...

Long Way Home

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Good times? I'm not so sure...

L.

Leave a comment or email us at blog@manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our myspace for more fun blogs and vids, or go to our official website.

"That's my wife!"

2008-02-20T14:25:00.005Z

I was just looking back over our blogs and realised that I never actually got round to posting our first entry to the "Done in 60 Seconds" competition!

So here it is, a re-make of the 1920s classic, "NOSFERATU".

NOSFERATU

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If you've never seen or heard of "NOSFERATU", then I can't honestly say you've missed out (even though it was groundbreaking at the time and still succeeds in giving people the creeps), but here's a weird video from youtube that contains some clips of the original set to a track by the band "Mogwai".

That's all from me today!

L.

Leave us a comment or email blog@manalivestudios.co.uk.

Alternatively, check out our myspace for more fun blogs and vids, or go to our official website.

The president just asked us to save the world...

2008-02-14T17:44:00.008Z

Well, we had a busy week last week. We had so much going on we didn't even have time to blog, so consider this last week's contribution! As well as putting in a lot of work to update our website, we also managed to finish off our last entry to Empire magazine's "Done in 60 seconds" competition (which closed on Monday).

Below you can see a couple of mobile phone clips taken as we were filming for one of the scenes, followed by the final thing in all it's 60 seconds of glory!

BLOGGING - Suiting Up!

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BLOGGING - Aftermath...

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ARMAGEDDON

We got a message from someone on youtube saying this was the best Ben Affleck impersonation they'd ever seen. Considering I've never seen the film and look nothing like Ben Affleck we found that hilarious!

In other news, I was very saddened this week to hear about the death of Roy Scheider. For anyone who doesn't know who he was, he's best known for his awesome performance as "Chief Brody" in "Jaws". This is one of my favourite films, and one of the main reasons for that is Roy Scheider's portrayal of this character. In memory of Mr. Scheider and this great film, and in keeping with the 60-second theme, I've posted this little vid from youtube. Hope you enjoy it...

L.

Check out our freshly updated official website at www.manalivestudios.co.uk, or go to www.myspace.com/manalivestudios, make yourself a friend and leave some comments!

Wanna know how smart I am?

2008-02-01T18:11:00.001Z

Well folks, it's been a strange week here at "man ALIVE Studios".

Some sad (but also happy) news as James, our EXCELLENT animator, has taken up a full-time job as a concept artist elsewhere and as a result is unable to commit the same time to the business as Stu and myself. Fortunately James has resolved to keep as involved as he can, but the grief of loss has caused us to come out with some weird ideas this week! As an example, have a look at this video we used to promote our profile on myspace:

cup of blogs!

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Took us 15 minutes to make that little gem.

We also continued work on our entries for Empire's "done in 60 seconds" competition, but without our animator we had to do the best we could for the CGI in "KING KONG"!

KING KONG

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Finally, I thought I should throw in this clip of Phil playing the part of Steve Buscemi in "Armageddon", Stu's entry to the competition;

Phil is Steve Buscemi!

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Haha! I love that guy. Er... in a purely platonic way of course...

L.

Check out our myspace for more fun blogs and vids or go to our official website.

Duh-nuh-nuh-nuuuuuh!!

2008-01-24T11:55:00.001Z

That, dear readers, is the victorious 'item acquire' jingle from the incredible Legend of Zelda series. And why would man, alive be needing such victory noises?

Why only because we've won a place on Pocket Short's funding winners for 2008.
Better than a gold rupee any day.

This is obviously exciting and exhilarating news, as it means we can commence production on an episodic, hilarious mini series that will *highly* involve yer mobile phone. So stay tuned for more!

As the man, ALIVE resident artist, one of the things that really excites me is games. Videogames, specifically, and before you stop reading, hear me out: games, when crafted properly, can be as beautiful, powerful and memorable as any book or movie, and moreso, can grip you in a way those former media cannot.

Over the next wee while I'm going to use this opportunity to highlight and explain some of my faves, but for now I'm going to give you a smidgen of screenies from ones I really love.

Thanks for reading and keep checking back (and our main site) for new projects, updates and hijinks aplenty.

Your Precious Blood!

2008-01-21T11:02:00.001Z

Last week was a good 'un for the "man alive" gang!

It was competitions galore as James headed to an interview for this year's "Pocket Shorts" (we got short-listed, woohoo!), we brainstormed three entries for the "done in 60 seconds" competition in Empire magazine, and another for the SIE 60 second shorts competition. We also completed work on a DVD of last year's panto for the Social Work department of Dundee Council, lined up a couple of other things and filmed one of the entries for "done in 60 seconds".

The idea for "done in 60 seconds" is to re-make a well-known film in (you guessed it) 60 seconds. We're gonna do one each. This week we filmed my one, "Nosferatu". Below you can see the magical moment when Phil (man alive's good friend and whipping boy) dons the strangely condom-like bald cap to become Count Orlock.

Phil Becomes Orlock!

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In other news, I re-watched Aliens vs Predator last night! I know it's a terrible film but some part of me just can't help enjoying seeing an Alien and a Predator go head to head! It's awesome! Maybe the new one will be good? Okay, it won't. But I'm gonna go see it anyway!

I've added this video below for the banter. It's a really amazing Batman fan-film. Anyone who knows me knows I'm disturbingly into Batman, so I might've put this on for that reason alone, but you'll see how it ties in by the end. Enjoy!

L.

To contact us email blog@manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our official website at www.manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our myspace at www.myspace.com/manalivestudios

Happy New Year

2008-01-09T10:17:00.001Z

Welcome back to the man, ALIVE team's online blog. James, Liam and myself (Stuart) want to wish you a very happy new year, and we hope that you conquer everything this year has to throw at you!

A few tips for the new year:

Drink tea, it speeds up your metabolism
Whenever you've eaten, chew Wrigley's
Read more
Some birds dance to attract a mate
Learn to dance
Open up a youtube account and subscribe to the manalivestudios
channel.
Watch Lost
Wii Boxing is dangerous
Wii Boxing is fun
oh and one last thing...enjoy our very short seasonal film

Have fun back at work. Hope this brings you some light relief. We look forward to all your replies so get posting on our blog!

Peace and love

man, ALIVE

To contact us email blog@manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our official website at www.manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our myspace at www.myspace.com/manalivestudios

Roasted Chestnuts

2007-12-19T13:58:00.002Z

Hello and Merry Christmas to you!

man, ALIVE wish you a beautiful and blessed Christmas, and want to thank all of our clients, friends and family who have supported us through our first year.

The Youtube link on our page below only displays four vids, but click the youtube link itself to go straight to our channel and watch some hidden gems
*hint: BAD COPS*

Oh and this is just to get you in the jolly Christmas mood:

See you in 2008!

man, ALIVE

To contact us email blog@manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our official website at www.manalivestudios.co.uk

Check out our myspace at www.myspace.com/manalivestudios