Graham Edwards's Blog, page 25

Doctor Who – Behind the Scenes on the Cinefex Blog

You can always rely on Doctor Who to serve up ambitious special effects. So far this season, the long-running BBC TV show has featured clockwork robots, running space battles, a telepathic alien and a 200-foot T-Rex rampaging through Victorian London.

I recently went behind the scenes on Doctor Who for the Cinefex blog, to talk with Rob Mayor of Millennium FX, who provide the creature and makeup effects, and Will Cohen and Murray Barber of Milk VFX, creators of the show’s visual effects.

Here’s...

Ghostwriter Diaries – What’s in a Theme?

I’vejust submittedthe first part of the second novelof the fantasy trilogy I’m ghostwriting. The book has three parts, so I’mabout six chapters short of the halfway mark for the project as whole. Hurrah!

Something unexpected has crept into this second book. Something I’m always wary of. It’s something that every writer encounters from time to time, a seductive beast capable of wrapping its many tentacles aroundyour finely crafted prose and either elevating it to dizzying heights … or squeezing...

Secrets of the Boxtrolls

Have you seen The Boxtrolls yet?

If you’re wondering how they made it (are those puppets or is it all CG?) check out the latest article on the Cinefex blog, in which I talk to the visual effects teamfromLAIKA animation studio and learn about the magic behind the movie.

Here’s a brief extract:

In the LAIKA lexicon, hybrid filmmaking means taking a stop-motion film and expanding it visually beyond the confines of the animation stage.

“As a genre, stop-motion is typically confined to smaller environ...

Dragoncharm Ebook – Cover Conundrum

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Maybe that’s why book covers – even ebook covers – provoke so much debate. It’s certainly why one of the big decisionsabout republishing my 1995 novel Dragoncharm is causing me such a headache.

The decision is, of course, what do I put on the cover?

The original UK paperback – the cover of which you can see pasted into the smartphone image opposite – was designed by the Voyager team at HarperCollins, and illustrated by Geoff Taylor. For various reason...

Dragoncharm Ebook – To Revise Or Not To Revise?

The Dragoncharm ebook is one step closer to reality. The scruffy OCR scan has now been cleaned and matched to the original hard copy. The resulting electronic manuscript – the first I’ve ever had for the novel, which was written longhand – still needs a final proofread before I take it into production, but essentially this is it. Which leads me to an interesting question: IS this it?

Here’s the thing. Dragoncharm was my first novel. That means it’s a little … how can I put this? … rough around...

Ghostwriter Diaries – The Next Odyssey

Can you guess what just landed in my inbox? Yes, it’s the final outline for my next ghostwriting assignment: Book Two of the fantasy trilogy I’ve been contracted to write. My start date is … well, just as soon as I can clear my desk. My deadline for final submission is March 2015. My task is therefore clear: write a novel in seven months. I’ve done it before. What could possibly go wrong?

I chronicled the creationof Book One in myGhostwriter Diariesseries of blog articles, but I have no plans...

Rusalka

Rusalkais a reimagining of the traditional Russian myth of the water nymph–or mermaid–of the same name. Depending which version of the legend you consult, Rusalka herself is variously an undead spirit, a lost soul, or a seductress bent on revenge. When you’ve read thisshortstory, you’ll know which aspect of her characterappealed to me most.

Rusalka falls into my“nearly sold” collectionof short stories. Actually, that’s not strictly true. I did sell it, but, for reasons I won’t go into here, wi...

Birotech – “Ear Wax Picker”

The earliest models of humanoid robot were so desperately primitive that they were unable to pick out their own ear wax. Hence this retrofitted device, which did the jobfor them.

When I started drawing this latest piece of Birotech, I imagined it was some kind of futuristic hyperdrive. Then,halfway through, I tweeteda questions askingpeople to suggest what itreally was. The first response – from Damien G Walter – was “self guided ear wax picker”.

Having berated Damien for making me draw an ear...

Revisiting Cinefex (Almost) Illustrated

In their original form,my Revisiting Cinefex articles – on the first 40 issuesof the classic visual effects magazine – were just plain text, with no images except for the cover of the issue under discussion. Once I’d concluded my retrospective odyssey, I broke thearticlesinto headed sections (one for each movie) and setmyself the task of drawinga little icon to illustrateeach.

Although I made a good start, other jobskept getting in the way. In the endI took the easy option and dropped inmovie...

First Draft VS Final – A Comparison

At what point does homage become pastiche?

That’s the question I came up against when I wrote my neolithic murder mystery Talus and the Frozen King. While the novel is unashamedly inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic stories about Victorian detective Sherlock Holmes, I was determined that my tale of ancient crime and punishment should never descend into parody.

However, alarm bells rang loud when early editorial feedback (though largely positive) included the dreaded phrase “occasionall...