This fellow has volunteered to make sure the people who use a women's restroom in Texas look and dress the way he and other frightened jackasses want them to look and dress.(more…)

U.S. forces bombed a Doctors Without Borders-run hospital in Afghanistan last year, destroying it and killing and injuring scores of medical personnel and patients. But the air strike didn't amount to a war crime because it was caused by "unintentional human errors, process errors, and equipment failures," and “other factors,” U.S. military authorities said today.(more…)

The Bru Joy Stainless Steel Garlic / Ginger Press is $20 on Amazon. The Bru Joy Enameled Aluminum Bowl Lemon Squeezer is $13. If you add both to your cart and use coupon code GM843I2D at final checkout you can get them both for $20.

Here are the best parts of Peter Sellers' Being There.

We might only think we have free will, says Adam Bear, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at Yale. In this Scientific American article he offers the possibility that our belief that we make decisions is just a byproduct of our predetermined activity. "Perhaps in the very moments that we experience a choice," writes Bear, "our minds are rewriting history, fooling us into thinking that this choice — that was actually completed after its consequences were subconsciously perceived — was a choice that we had made all along."

Joel Johnson describes An Aggressor's Strategy to Slither.io, the snake-meets-lightcycles game that everyone plays on the internet.

Online services that trick you into signing up for an automatically billed subscription and force you to call customer service to cancel are evil. Whenever I sign up for a service, I try to do it through PayPal, which makes it easy to cancel payment.Here's a Bloomberg story about a sneaky lingerie company called Adore Me that "is among a group of buzzy Internet retailers accused of sometimes placing customers into unwanted and hard-to-cancel retail subscriptions."[caption id="attachment_459656" align="alignnone" width="822"] Adore Me's checkout screen defaults to VIP Membership.[/caption]

In a 1971 Playboy interview John Wayne expressed his views on blacks ("irresponsible") and native Americans ("selfish"). These comments came back to haunt Wayne's legacy when California lawmakers nixed Orange County Assemblyman Matthew Harper's proposal to designate May 26, 2016, as "John Wayne Day." The bill was defeated in a 35-20 vote.From the Playboy interview:

Bonnie Block won the grand prize in the 2016 Audubon Society Photography Awards for her magnificent photo above of a Bald Eagle and a Great Blue Heron in Seabeck, Washington. The two predators are known to fight over prey, with the Eagles usually winning.Below, an intense photo that the contest's "youth winner," Carolina Anne Fraser, snapped of Great Frigatebirds in the Galápagos.

Boing Boing is proudly sponsored by Ray, the super remote!Walk into almost any room with a television set, and you’re bound to come across an unseemly pile of remote controls. The more game consoles and streaming media players we collect, the more plastic remotes we accumulate, and after 50 years of TV remote technology, controlling what you want to watch on your television set is more confusing than ever. Not even the traditional universal remotes have helped much. Why? Because most universal remotes are designed to function the same way as the remotes they’re trying to replace!The only way to fix the remote control madness is to erase our notion of what a remote control is and how we interact with them. Start from scratch and reinvent one. Be less about how we control things and more about how we enjoy them. And that’s exactly what Ray Super Remote has done. Unlike any other remote control, the Ray recommends what you want to watch based on what you like to watch. It learns and improves the more you use it, tapping into various video sources like content from your cable provider, movies on Roku and other streaming services, making the TV experience less about searching through guides and more about sitting back and watching old favorites or new discoveries.Founded by CEO David Skokna and created by a team of engineers and designers who come from innovative companies like Apple, MakerBot, Amazon, and Nokia, Ray could easily be mistaken for a smart phone. It’s a beautiful device, with sleek Gorilla Glass on the front and back, and the same machined aluminum siding you’d find on an iPhone. And most remarkable of all, this is a remote control with no buttons on its face! Instead, you control your TV and game consoles with a touchscreen.“The whole process of hitting buttons and navigating all these different remotes is completely obsolete behavior,” says Mark Kizelshteyn, Head of User Experience at Ray, who came on board just after the company was founded in Brooklyn, NY almost three years ago. “It’s not about hitting buttons.”The only buttons you’ll find on Ray are three on its curved aluminum sidebar: one to turn the screen on and off, one for volume control, and one for mute.Kizelshteyn, who has also designed products for HBO GO and TED, says the driving factor in creating Ray was to make sure TV viewers find what they want to watch as quickly as possible. “The process of controlling the television needs to be invisible.”And so it is, in the same way navigating anything on your smart phone is. You don’t think about the process, it’s intuitive. Just like a smart phone, you simply tap, type or swipe. It opens to a welcoming “Hello” screen with apps that personally apply to you. These could include TV, Apple TV, DVR, Cable, Kids, Sports, Xbox or a bunch of others to choose from.So for example, hit the TV app, and from there you can choose from your favorite shows, look at a TV guide, search for something new, record a show, and so much more. The device is constantly learning, so it becomes more custom tailored to your tastes as you use it.As far as getting started, setup time is faster than any other remote control out there, according to Rich Besen, Head of Hardware Design at Ray. “Our setup process is on average less than half the time of our nearest competitor, and this is due to the fact that we have this beautiful touchscreen, which makes it easy.” So easy, in fact, that Ray doesn’t come with a manual or instructions booklet. “We’re so excited to see people setting this up. It’s even easy for people who aren’t tech-savvy. You turn Ray on and it walks you through the setup process.”It is a bit unbelievable that, with smart phones and smart technology already entrenched in the mainstream, it’s taken so long for the smart remote revolution to enter the new millennium. But according to Kizelshteyn, “People who have tried to go after this realize it’s a lot more difficult than they expect. There’s an enormous hardware, software and business development challenge, since it’s nothing like a traditional remote.”Ray’s small team of industry insiders took on a Steve Jobs type of attitude and approach in the way that they strived for perfection. “We didn’t have a precious mentality about anything,” says Kizelshteyn, “We all worked extremely hard, but it wasn’t always right. We needed to be able to say, ‘You know, this doesn’t work. We need to throw this out and start over.’ And we did that time and time again. Sometimes it knocks you down and it hurts, but you have to get up and say, ‘It’s okay, let’s try it again.’” Kizelshteyn says everyone had this same mentality, and it was a really powerful force in the company.Besen, who used to be a member of the Product Design team at Apple, says that, similar to the process at Apple, the Ray team controlled every aspect of the product’s high quality. “The materials were carefully selected from the most premium aluminum, and we made sure to own the design from beginning to end. There was no confusion at Ray about making this the best product possible.”Currently, Ray has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and IR to work with new and old devices, and can control anything that accepts those kinds of wireless signals. By this summer it will also work over the air so that people who have antennas and who don’t have cable will have access to everything cable users have. As a bonus, Ray can also control the temperature and lighting in the room to create the perfect viewing atmosphere.Finally, one of the great things about Ray is that its operating system is constantly updating to accommodate changes in streaming devices, so it never becomes obsolete. “As new technology evolves in the TV world, our hardware is there to support it. It’s futureproof,” says Besen. “We really wanted to bring the remote forward and make something that wasn’t just a remote, but that was a premium product and a welcome addition to the living room.” In other words, they reimagined the remote.Learn more about the Ray Super Remote!

By way of tweets and Facebook posts, SpaceX this week announced plans to send its unmanned “Red Dragon” spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018. Sending this privately-funded craft on a bold, brave, risky trip like this could bring SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk closer to his goal of getting humans to Mars. (more…)

[UPDATE: Deal expired.] The Anker Aluminum Portable Wireless Speaker sells on Amazon for $36, but you can get it for $16 if you use the code WOWDEALA at check-out. It plays music from phones and tablets via Bluetooth and accepts a Micro SD card loaded with audio files, too.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.The Sartorialist

In this video, Adam and Norm from Tested build Iron Giant screws from a kit. "We get to assembling the electronics of the kit, and then Adam and Norm each take different approaches for the painting and finishing."

On the left: a Colby Walkmac, "the first battery-operated Macintosh computer and first portable Mac with a LCD display."(more…)

A federal judge ruled that Amazon is responsible for billing parents unauthorized charges that kids made within apps, the Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday.(more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEoEr-pG6p8"Oh my God, this thing stinks," says Cigar Obsession's Bryan Glynn.The wrapper is decent and the bands real, but it smells like a wet campfire and is constructed like a wet paper towel. Then you get to see what's inside it...

Isn’t it about time to stretch what your Mac can do? I mean, you’ve got plenty of great programs now...but don’t you think you could use some new tools to get your creative, analytical and organizational juices really flowing? It’s spring, so we cleaned up a whole bunch of super-cool apps lying around and packaged ‘em up into a stellar Spring 2016 Mac Bundle of software - and you can get it for any price you want.It works like this...for any price you’re ready to pay, you can get three awesome Mac programs: text editor productivity tool Marked 2, coding helper skEdit 4 and photo editing and archiving program Emulsion.Those programs alone are worth almost $100, but if you pay anything over the average price other shoppers are paying for this bundle, you’ll unlock 10 more stellar apps that’ll have your Mac spinning like a top.Average price purchasers will also receive website builder Flex 6, security watchdog Hands Off!, photo manager AfterShot Pro 2, remote controller Screens 3, 3D modeler Owlet, back-up wizard FoldersSynchronizer 4, productivity coach Pomodoro Time Pro, clipboard simplifier iClip, cross-platform organizer FilePane and streaming music recorder AllMyMusic.That’s another $850 worth of powerful, versatile apps that’ll have your Mac ready to do anything...and you can get it at any price you want to pay right now in the Boing Boing Store.

The authors of a new "sketch simplification" program hope to make neural networks more useful to artists frustrated by the choppy results of existing automated line tools.Apps such as Adobe Creative Suite provide functions to turn pencil drawings into vectors, but the sketches have to be tight and the resulting "inks" often need a lot of cleanup. Though other researchers and developers have applied neural network to the job, Edgar Simo-Serra writes that their model gets more meaningful and human results.

With its high-resolution monochrome display, the early Mac didn't fit easily into the gaming mainstream, where chunkier, colorful graphics were the norm well into the 90s. But as a result it generated a culture of its own, focused around detailed artwork, literary experimentation and powerful tools such as Hypercard. This history is often ignored, but Richard Moss is setting the record straight.His book, The Secret History of Mac Gaming, shares the stories behind the often-whimsical 80s Mac games and glorifies the unique "1-bit" art style that emerged from the technology.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that more than 50% of U.S. voters believe the system that American political parties use to select their candidates for President is "rigged." Over two-thirds of those polled want to see the process changed.(more…)

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, embarking on a new phase of his campaign after it became impossible to beat Donald Trump in the first round of voting at this summer's Republican convention, is to name Carly Fiorina as his running mate.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.The Pharos Gate: Griffin & Sabine's Lost Correspondence

I was at a conference last week and a woman asked if I had a charging cable for her iPhone. I let her borrow my inCharge cable ($12 on Amazon), which uses magnets to securely fold around a keychain. It comes with the keyring. Combine it with this itty-bitty $5 battery pack (use code XMPQBIDX) and you have a very portable charging kit

An "elite FBI forensic unit" admitted that for two decades, nearly every examiner "gave flawed testimony" (aka lied) about hair sample evidence in criminal trials. And geepers, they sure feel bad about all those people who were executed in prison because of it.Washington Post:

Yesterday, Esquire published this satirical column by @ProfJeffJarvis, a Fake Steve-style parody of journalism professor and media visionary Jeff Jarvis. The real Jarvis did what any self-respecting open-culture advocate would: he issued a vague legal threat and got it removed, thereby ensuring that something humorless and obscure was read by a far larger audience than it deserved.If you think a journalism professor could be more thick-skinned and less eager to abuse the norms that protect his trade, you would not be alone. In his response to the imbroglio Jarvis writes that "They are not free — and it most certainly is not responsible journalism — to try to fool the audience about the source of content and to impugn the reputation of a professional along the way."Alas, he is mistaken. Popehat's Ken White writes that satire does not require that it be identified as such.

"Brain scans of insects appear to indicate that they have the capacity to be conscious and show egocentrico, apparently indicating that they have such a thing as subjective experience." That's the finding of study written by Andrew B Barron and Colin Klein, and published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. From the Independent:

https://youtu.be/U_b_cWwOjTAThe cat is probably just so interested in the tape that she doesn't want to leave the evil polygon. Which was the polygon's plan all along, of course.[via]

https://youtu.be/V6DSu3IfRloIn this brief clip from the March 12, 1967 episode of the CBS show The 21st Century, Walter Cronkite shows us a home office from 2001. Aside from the clunkiness of the equipment, this 49 year old video is very prescient."With equipment like this in the home of the future we may not have to go to work – the work would come to us," Says Cronkite. "In the 21st century it may be that no home would be complete without a computerized communications console."Watch the full episode here, which has some far-fetched and whimsical contraptions in it, and a cool Moog soundtrack:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__MGYrcapdk[via]

https://youtu.be/o8pkUTav0mkReason posted a transcript of Nick Gillespie's satellite link interview with national security whistleblower Edward Snowden, still exiled in Russia. Gillespie asked Snowden, "What would be the conditions under which you would voluntarily return to the United States?"

This weekend, April 29th through May 1st, Eugene, Oregon plays host to a giant roller derby tournament, The Big O.For the fifth year running, the Emerald City Roller Derby will bring derby players from around the world to face off in a town best known for being where Animal House was filmed. Three tracks of derby will be running all weekend. In the main event, a global roster of teams will seek to defeat the Rose City Rollers Rollers' world champion team, the Wheels of Justice, while competition in Mens and Junior leagues will also be run.All the bouts will be live streamed via wftda.tv and ESPN will be covering 2 bouts on Sunday!Big O Tournament, April 29th-May 1st

[My friend Peter Sheridan is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for British national newspapers. He has covered revolutions, civil wars, riots, wildfires, and Hollywood celebrity misdeeds for longer than he cares to remember. As part of his job, he must read all the weekly tabloids. For the past couple of years, he's been posting terrific weekly tabloid recaps on Facebook and has graciously given us permission to run them on Boing Boing. Enjoy! - Mark]Earthquakes, floods, fire, nuclear war and the promise that “the world as we know it will end” in the next 100 days is the cheering news from this week’s National Examiner. You’d think this might warrant the front cover, but buried on page 42 is the news that “Torrents of lava will gush across the Western United States,” and “an earthquake off the coast of Hawaii . . . triggers a tsunami that lashes both sides of the Pacific.” This naturally unleashes “flooding and mudslides” that rupture the San Andreas fault and ignite volcanos at Mount St Helens and Yellowstone Park, igniting a “lake of fire” across Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. And that’s just by June. By August expect "a civil uprising” leading to “nuclear holocaust” that “devastates entire countries.” Definitely a good time to stock up on sunscreen, sturdy shoes and an ample supply of burgers.That’s the optimistic forecast from “the country’s most trusted psychic consultants and religious scholars.” Well, that’s good enough for me. I’m cancelling my Hawaiian vacation and perhaps I’ll spend the summer building an underground shelter. Just because it’s in a tabloid, that doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth, does it?Well, there’s “the real truth,” and then there’s “what really happened.”Both are apparently quite different when it comes to the death of pop icon Prince, if this week’s tabloids are to be believed.“Aids Killed Prince!” screams the National Enquirer, offering “the real truth" that the Purple Jehovah’s Witness “tried to beat Aids through prayer” only to spend his “agonizing final days” suffering “seizures, chronic pain & addicted to opiates.”The Enquirer trots out two of its favorite lines: Prince “didn’t have to die,” and “slowly wasted away to a skeletal 80 pounds.”Offering “what really happened,” however, the Globe magazine alleges: “Pigheaded pop superstar Prince killed himself by ignoring doctors’ warnings!”Far from spending his final days in agony, the Globe claims “he stubbornly continued his partying ways just a day after undergoing emergency medical treatment” having fallen ill days before his demise.People magazine quotes unnamed sources claiming that the entertainer had been battling an “ongoing illness” and “undergoing treatments that made his immune system weak” - suggesting that he was relying on medical science and not just prayer.At least Us magazine has it right when it reports: “It is still unclear why the star passed away so suddenly.”Tabloid headlines continue their misleading bait-and-switch as the Globe devotes its cover to a topic that has intrigued its readers for two decades: the murder of former child pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey. “JonBenet Mom’s Confession To Police!” yells the cover, proffering “the real story.” Hang on - where have I heard that before . . ? The cover promises: “What she did, how she did it and why cops hid the evidence!”But if you search the mag for Patsy Ramsey’s “confession” you will be disappointed. In a lengthy interview with investigators in 1998 JonBenet’s mother allegedly admitted that she had been having emotional problems before her daughter’s death, that she had no idea if her daughter had been sexually abused before her murder, and that the handwriting in a note left by the killer looked “familiar.” That may have been mildly interesting in 1998, but today it is hardly a “confession.” And what about “how she did it”? Since Patsy Ramsey admitted doing nothing, we will never know how she achieved such a feat. But that’s what passes as a blockbuster revelation in the tabloids. Why did the police “hide" this “evidence”? Probably because it wasn't evidence of anything, and detectives were determined to conduct their investigation outside the wildly speculative sensationalized world of the tabloids. Speaking of which . . .The Globe claims that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “is a kinky swinger” who liked porn videos and “threesomes” according to an alleged former mistress, that Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston had the “mother of all catfights” while filming their new movie ‘Mother’s Day,’ and brings us a ten-page special tribute for the Queen’s 90th birthday and momentarily forgets its usual obsession that she’s allegedly at death’s door. The Enquirer continues waving the flag for Donald Trump by attacking Ted Cruz’s preacher father Rafael alleging he runs “shady ministries” as a tax dodge, having previously linked him with JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. And after dozens of stories branding renown record producer Phil Spector a murdering monster, the Enquirer this week declares “Phil Spector Innocent,” according to new forensic analysis.Fortunately we have Us magazine’s crack investigative team to tell us that La La Anthony (Who she, Ed?) wore it best, that Mischa Barton carries sunglasses, chewing gum and lollipops swiped from a local bank in her 3.1 Phillip Lim bucket bag (whatever that is), that David Hasselhoff has sold more records than Michael Jackson (in Switzerland), and that the stars are just like us: they try on shoes, they devour burgers and they apply sunscreen. Someone must have tipped off the stars that armageddon is coming.Onwards and downwards . . .

Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff demonstrated that in movies depicting computers in the future, the screens are mostly blue.Some interesting exceptions: 1991's Terminator 2 made red popular, and the Matrix Trilogy made green the in thing for a while. But within a couple of years, we were back to blue. And it's been this way since the 60s.I think that green usually signifies "old" computers, perhaps? The Matrix was clever in that way.Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I'm struck by the thought that the first and third Alien movies (which were British haunted house movies, sort of) used green screens, whereas the second one, Aliens (an American action movie) used blue. Google Images isn't entirely helpful.Guardians of the Galaxy (above) appears, of course, to be both.

You know how people like to go vote, then walk around for the rest of the day/week/forever with an “I Voted” sticker on their lapel? Millions of people like to Snapchat their lives online, and they'd like to snapchat “I Voted” with voting booth selfies. Just one problem. Taking pictures of your ballot is illegal in many states.(more…)

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, has been releasing portions of its research to the public for years. This week's massive 300 terabyte dump of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data is the biggest yet by a long shot -- and it's all out there, open source, free for the exploration.(more…)

Dyson, makers of high-end vacuum cleaners and other gadgets that do clever things with air, is moving into beauty products. The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer promises a premium model's power in a smaller, quieter package, and was built around the company's smallest motor yet.It's priced at $400, too — apparently not unreasonable for salon gear, if an unlikely option for consumers — and will be available in white and fuscia. Here's the ad they've just put out:https://youtu.be/qw6iillnXbkDyson's first beauty product is a hair dryer [Engadget]

Douglas County, Colorado, is to arm its security guards with Bushmaster rifles, reports the Denver Post, at a cost of more than $12,000 to the 67,000-student district.

McDonalds is testing a "cleaner-label" version of its legendary Chicken McNugget, reports Peter Frost, with an eye to replacing the current model nationwide in time for the Summer Games.If you're eating in Portland, Oregon, you may already have eaten the upgraded McNugget, which has 32 ingredients and a "simpler recipe," according to the restaurant chain. It declined to provide the full list while it's in beta, but one presumes it includes chicken.

An internal Volkswagen corporate PowerPoint presentation from 2006 outlined how to trick emissions tests -- and the result of that plan to cheat environmental protections, governments, and the people who bought and drove those cars is now known as “Dieselgate.”(more…)

The Family Acid is my favorite Instagram feed. It's a stream of photographer/author/explorer Roger Steffens's vintage snapshots of his psychedelic dynamic, inspiring, and psychedelic life in the counterculture since the early 1960s. Roger's children Kate and Devon are the editors and curators of their dad's hundreds of thousands of slides and negatives.Kate has just issued these fantastic enamel pins for just $10/each. The "LSD did this to me" design is based on her dad's original pin from 1960s. As Boing Boing patron saint Timothy Leary once said, "You have to go out of your mind to use your head!"Family Acid pins

I use and love Waze every day to make driving in Los Angeles manageable for me. I still use it despite periodic bursts of tech news reports that the app leaves me vulnerable to security attacks and surveillance.(more…)

This AC outlet has two built-in USB charging ports. I have found it to be useful not only for phone charging, but for keeping bluetooth speakers charged, too. Reviewers on Amazon love it. One reviewer said it will charge two iPads at the same time. Amazon has them on sale for $18 right now.

https://youtu.be/Fypi6dAJB8EAyun Halliday of Open Culture wrote about this luscious ink-making video.

Dyson Logos's G+ account is an endlessly scrolling inventory of hand-drawn D&D maps, each one cooler than the last. (more…)

People are stunned to have discovered numerous examples of pareidolia on the red planet. Lizards! Rats! Bigfoot! Pyramids! Frogs! Hovering alien spheres! Tharks!(more…)

For more than a decade, BB pal Eames Demetrios (grandson of Charles and Ray Eames) has developed Kcymaerxthaere, a fantastically strange collection of parallel universe stories physically tied to real world sites that link the alternate reality with our own. The actual installations are at 121 sites in 25 countries so far. "It’s like a novel with every page in a different place," Eames says. Now, he and his collaborators are creating a limited edition book compiling the stories of the physical markers and historic sites of Kcymaerxthaere. Eames has launched an Indiegogo campaign to translate the stories into myriad languages and distribute those translations to libraries and schools in the communities those host Kcymaerxthaere installations!Kcymaerxthaere: The Story So Far (Indiegogo)

The German city of Augsburg embedded traffic lights in the pavement so pedestrians staring at their phones would be more likely to see them. City officials said the project was initiated after a teenager was killed crossing train tracks while allegedly distracted by her phone."(The lighting system) creates a whole new level of attention," said city spokeswoman Stephanie Lermen.(Washington Post)image: Thomas Hosemann/Stadtwerke Augsburg

This week, Kodak and Kickstarter announced a joint venture to support low budget film projects that want to shoot on celluloid (that means real film, as opposed to digital). Of the four films Kodak is supporting, psychological horror movie Darkfall is the most interesting to me.Written, produced, and directed by my long-time buddy magician R. Paul Wilson, Darkfall returns to the classic filmmaking techniques inspired by our fellow conjuror Georges Méliès—that means using magic methods and illusion secrets in place of modern CGI. Inspired by classic horror movies like Cat People, The Haunting and Halloween, Paul hopes to produce a powerful experience using psychology, audio effects, and “in-camera” trickery to terrify the audience.Special effects and cinematic storytelling were pioneered by Méliès, whose life story was the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s film, Hugo. Méliès produced and directed over 500 films in which he invented new effects and techniques to tell fantastic stories, leaving an invaluable legacy for future filmmakers. Wilson is a huge fan and, during a visit to an exhibit of Méliès’s work in Madrid, it occurred to him to use modern conjuring methods in the same way.Paul says, “Filmmaking has evolved at an amazing pace and so has the art of magic, but the two have grown apart, especially with the introduction of digital effects. I began to wonder what Georges Méliès would do with modern magic and the idea grew from there.”The Darkfall story revolves around how perception can be distorted. It’s a supernatural tale with a killer twist inspired by Paul’s time working on television.“I was amazed at how reality television worked around the world,” Paul says. “Our show, The Real Hustle tried incredibly hard to be genuine and would never have worked otherwise, but other shows were blatantly scripted or completely faked. I began to wonder how that might affect the audience, especially when they didn’t seem to care whether a show was real or not. What would happen if something terrible unfolded on live TV? Would people keep watching? How would that make them feel?”This will be Paul’s fourth time as writer, producer and director, and his second scripted feature. His last film Con Men was a micro budget noir thriller set in Scotland featuring the famous Glasgow dialect, a multi-layered scam, and a genuinely surprising climax. Despite the low budget, Paul was able to attract an incredible team of industry professionals behind the camera and a multi-talented cast in front of the lens.Paul says, “No one believes we made the film for so little and audience reactions have been amazing. It’s not the easiest way to make a picture but if we waited for someone to give us the money or for public funding we’d still be talking about it over warm beer and cold tea.” Con Men is currently being considered at film festivals around the world, including the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Moscow, and Toronto Independent Film Festivals. I said to Paul that the Glasgow dialect might affect its chances if it’s think as mud. Paul smirked at me and responded, “We decided to embrace our own accent rather than try to mask it or speak slowly, which always sounds odd to other Scots. It’s actually perfectly clear and not full-on Glaswegian—not even I can understand that, sometimes! Darkfall is also set in Scotland but many of the characters are English or American.”At this point I remember that Orson Welles had to redo the entire audio track of his film version of Macbeth because the accents were too thick, but I don’t mention this to Paul.The story of Darkfall revolves around a live TV séance broadcast by a typical ghost hunting show with presenters, crew, and celebrity guests trapped inside an enormous abandoned asylum. Paul explains, “It’s all just typical TV until something dreadful happens and things become deadly serious. There’s a supernatural element that leads to a shocking revelation and a powerful twist.”Paul and his director of photography, Alan are determined to shoot Darkfall on film.Says Paul, “It’s not just an aesthetic choice but that’s certainly part of it. With film we can create exactly the right atmosphere. For us it’s as much about the detail we don’t see, inspired by films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari using light and set design to compliment story and effects. There’s also something about film and magic being tactile, tangible mediums. The mechanical nature of both complements each other and allows for certain solutions that may no longer work with modern cameras.”Like many independent filmmakers, Paul has turned to Kickstarter to raise the funds for Darkfall and the campaign page features a wealth of information about the film and filmmakers. Most impressive is the creative team already working on the project that includes award winning Scottish cinematographer Alan McLaughlin, Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth make-up effects wizard Mike Elizalde, and Oscar-winning VFX supervisor Bill Taylor (ASC), with music by composer Reyn Ouwehand. Actors already attached include Lisa Hague, Gianni Capaldi, and Rob Zabrecky, star of the chilling movie Decay, himself a highly accomplished magician.The project offers some interesting rewards for backers in addition to the usual DVDs, blu-rays and t-shirts. A magic lesson, on-screen credits, a live séance, a book of behind-the-scenes secrets, an exclusive Georges Méliès risograph by artist Edward Ross, and the opportunity to appear in the film in a clever, organic way. There’s even a chance to invest in a roll of film and received the signed film canister and inner core plus a still from the scenes being shot. The campaign has already attracted a great deal of interest from the magic and film community including Batman Versus Superman cinematographer Larry Fong. Darkfall is a fascinating project worthy of your support if you love magic and film. Visit the Kickstarter page.Here’s Paul’s teaser featuring Rob Zabrecky with Reyn Ouwehand’s ingenious score that’s sure to give you the heebie-jeebies if you watch with earphones in and volume up. It showcases a subtle, disturbing audio illusion known as a “Shepherd Tone” and the last half was shot on film to illustrate what can be done with Kodak 500T and a candle as the only source of light.https://youtu.be/ZtyH-iaw0ls

(more…)