Thu Mar 12 '20 Announcement
about 6 years ago
– Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 06:57:50 PM
Hello again! Let us continue.
Ashens and the Polybius Heist is set 6 years after the events of Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild. What happened in those intervening years? Let me explain using newspaper clippings from the time! (These were written for the new film, but most do not appear on screen in the final cut.)
As well we know, Ashens and Geoff Excellence managed to (sort of) heroically secure the GameChild and save the day. But how was this reported in the local newspapers? Well...
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LOCAL IDIOTS FIND DANGEROUS OLD TOYS
10th August 2013
The headquarters of Norfolk-based food producer The Terrifically Good Company was host to bizarre scenes yesterday as the army's hazardous materials experts removed unstable fissionable material from the building.
Norwich residents Stuart Ashen and Geoffrey Excellence apparently blundered on a number of outdated electronic toys that somehow contained dangerous levels of weapons-grade plutonium whilst trespassing on the company's facilities. Librarian Marian Kellywood was also present, along with another unnamed woman who police are holding on suspicion of kidnapping and owning an illegal firearm.
Ashen is mostly known for his YouTube channel where he talks incessantly whilst waving broken toys around, and appears to have no plans to get a real job despite being 36 years old. Excellence is an ex-employee of the Terrifically Good Company where he portrayed Chef Excellence, their mascot for a range of chronically unhealthy children's foods.
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At the end of Quest for the GameChild we discover that Geoff started his own YouTube channel which immediately became phenomenally successful. As this story shows, the success continued:
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LOCAL MASCOT BECOMES YOUTUBE SENSATION OVERNIGHT
November 12th 2013
They say nobody becomes famous overnight, but they didn’t tell ex-advertising mascot Geoffrey Excellence! He’s become the latest YouTube blogging star after his lifestyle discussion videos went ultra-viral on the video sharing website. After working as “Chef Excellence”, the public spokesman for a range of budget ready meals, Geoff has shed his cookery persona and embraced a more dapper look as he dispenses advice and observations. “My mate Stu has a YouTube channel and he never seems to do any work so I thought I’d give it a go,” he told us in an exclusive interview. “I just turned a camcorder on and talked about life and stuff. The next thing I knew I had over twenty billion combined views and had made more money than most small countries produce in a year.”
YouTube themselves seem baffled by his success. They described his channel’s incredibly rapid growth as “an anomaly which has shown a serious flaw in our promotional algorithms.”
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Geoff's wealth is relevant to the Polybius Heist - somebody needs to bankroll the whole thing, of course.
Over the next couple of years follows up his success at liberating the GameChild by tracking down other rare gaming items, as mentioned here:
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"HAUNTED" CARTRIDGE NOW ON DISPLAY IN MUSEUM
20th October 2015
We're used to hearing stories about ghosts and ghouls this time of year, but the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge has an unconventional tale to tell of a cursed video game!
On display until 15 November as part of their Horror Games exhibit, a seemingly normal copy of Minora's Veil for the Chintendo Vii is locked away behind plexiglass supposedly for the safety of the public. It was infamously involved in the disappearance of a marine scientist who went missing in Newcastle's Grapple Arcade, after allegedly being haunted by a malevolent spirit trapped in a saved game file on the cartridge. The game disappeared from a Police evidence locker until it was rediscovered by Norwich-based collector Stuart Ashen in a market in Barcelona, after he recognised its distinctive fox mark.
Computer game historian Ramsey McGowan is less than impressed by the story though. "This is one of the most egregious examples of clickbait nonsense I've ever seen," he said. "People on the internet will believe any rubbish. There's no evidence that the scientist even played the game."
"You've met a terrible fate, haven't you?" he added.
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Around that time Ashens sets up his own collectables agency, tracking down rare items for collectors. A couple of years after he takes on an assistant - a man called Benny who is desperate to leave his miserable job in a comic book shop. Together they make Ashens Collections Services a bigger success, although they begin to err on the wrong side of the law and keep some shady company as they pursue ever rarer collectables in ever more daring capers. Which brings us to:
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RARE VIDEO GAME RAISES £32,000 AT CHARITY AUCTION
4th March 2018
Watts auction house in Soham droppped the hammer on one of the world's rarest computer collectables yesterday, earning a record £32,000 for East Anglian charity Cats Against The Bomb. The game, Colosseum Contests, is only playable on the obscure Grundy NewBrain computer and features a text-based series of sporting events. Long sought after by collectors, only 20 copies of the game were produced in 1983 and none were thought to have survived. The game was discovered by professional collector Stuart Ashen, who presented it to the original programmer Matt Jones. "I never thought I'd see a copy again," Jones told us. "I'm so happy that we've been able to raise so much money for a great cause."
The auction is not without controversy though - Some have raised questions about the games provenance. Whilst nobody is disputing its veracity, several online collectors allege that Ashen effectively stole the game from a defunct museum before it was demolished and the contents sold on. When asked about this matter, Ashen referred us to a man called Benny who told us to "naff off."
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So by the time of the film's events, Ashens has all the contacts and experience ncessary to pull off a proper heist. But is that enough to secure the infamous Polybius? You'll have to see the film to find out...
As a little bonus on the subject of newspapers, here's one that appears as a physical prop in the film. None of the text directly relates to any plot points so fear not, it's spoiler free!
And that is What Ashens Did Next. And soon you'll be able to find out what he did after...
(Good luck spotting all the references and in-jokes in these articles, by the way.)
Cheers,
Stuart.
Thu Mar 12 '20 Announcement
about 6 years ago
– Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 05:54:53 PM
Hello!
I often make a joke at the start of updates about hoping you've "avoided the infernal pox", but that sentiment is genuine at the moment with the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Stay safe and wash your hands folks!
As a couple of people have asked about such things: It's unlikely that the film's production will be affected by the virus in any serious way. We've got to get some of the actors together to re-record some lines of dialogue, but that's the only bit that requires substantial physical travel. The sound design and musical score are well under way and then it's just the sound mix before it's complete. Possibly it could delay theatrical showings or items being sent out, but it depends entirely on the timescale of both the film and the pandemic itself.
Speaking of release dates! I noticed that we had March in the Indiegogo perks list for the DVD's and Blu-rays to be sent out, and I'll be updating that shortly. We're on the home stretch but the film won't be complete this month and we certainly wouldn't be able to get the discs out that quickly even if it was. I'm going to be incredibly risk-averse and put the fulfilment date down as August - there's almost no chance it'll actually take that long even if a billionty million further things go wrong, but I really don't want to have to move it again!
The film's been well over 6 years in the making for us, and we're extremely proud of how it's turning out. And we're genuinely excited to share it with you soon.
Speaking of the passage of time, and specifically six years, it's time for something very movie specific. However explaining it is taking me over the word limit for updates, so I'm going to have to send it as a separate post immediately after this one. It's a look into what happened between the events of Quest for the GameChild and the upcoming Polybius Heist...
Cheers,
Stuart.
Thu Jan 30 '20 Announcement
about 6 years ago
– Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 03:24:04 PM
Hello!
Little in the way of text here as everything's in the video. This video, in fact:
Weird thing: Although it looks like a green screen effect, I really was in front of that wall! This is one of the 537 reasons why I wasn't allowed to set up lights for the movie.
I'll be in touch again in a couple of weeks with something very... movie specific, shall we say.
Cheers,
Stuart.
Thu Nov 21 '19 Announcement
over 6 years ago
– Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 06:58:52 PM
Hello!
I trust you are all well and have not succumbed to the infernal pox.
Time for an update on where we are with film-related matters. We’ve had a lot of stuff going on which I will now break down into handy bite-sized paragraphs.
First up it’s a heads-up - we’re postponing Tatfest to next year around the time the film comes out. As much as we wanted to forge ahead with it as a big festive thing, it became obvious that we'd have to cut out half our cool ideas if attendees haven't seen the film. And we want Tatfest to be an ironic day of celebration and not literal tat itself. (It also now occurs to me that Tatfest 2020 sounds a lot cooler than Tatfest 2019.)
We held the Test Screening of Champions at the end of August - many thanks to those who attended. Your feedback was super useful and informed some last minute tweaking of the edit, helping make the film the best it could be. And everyone enjoyed it and laughed in the right places, which is obviously a very good sign.
The test screening was held under a railway arch. With a disco ball.
Work on the film itself continues. The edit is locked so we’re into the final phase now. Visual effects are nearing completion and we spent a week with long-time collaborator Alex Gascoigne at Technicolor colour grading the film. (Big thanks to both Alex and Technicolor, who have been super excellent throughout.)
Actually, this is a good excuse to show a bit of sneaky footage! Here's a video comparing the output from the Alexa SXT camera with the graded footage.
Tech gubbins: The original output looks so desaturated as it's in LogC video, which maximises the tonal range of the recording. (Also: this video is in 4K so go full screen and crank the res up!)
I am very excited to report that we’ve secured the services of the excellent composer David Stowell who will be providing the film’s orchestral score. He's already started work, which means I can confirm that the soundtrack will not consist entirely of me humming the main theme to Robocop.
All we've got left now is to arrange the sound design and mix, record ADR dialogue, make sure any remaining effects are graded, sort out the title sequence and credits... and we'll pretty much have ourselves a film! Speaking to director Riyad the other day, we both realised that the end is now in sight for a project we've been working on for over 6 years. We are this excited: Much.
And now: Perks update!
Remaining sofa slices and wallpaper will be going out very soon. (I've FINALLY gotten a refund for when they were lost in the post. As far as I can tell they lost most of the second wave of slices and pretty much all of the wallpaper. I'm running out of sofa material. I am not amused.)
IMPORTANT THING: For annoying admin reasons, I will soon have to mark that perks have been sent out. You may get an e-mail saying that your side perk - DVD or Blu-Ray or sofa bit - has shipped. Even though you received it months and months ago. Please file this e-mail in the bin. Thank you.
And finally: Let's have another Q&A now that the release draws closer. Fire your questions over via https://curiouscat.me/ashens (You don't need to sign up or anything) and we shall record the responses via the medium of video and show you soon!
Cheers,
Stuart.
Thu Sep 12 '19 Announcement
over 6 years ago
– Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 06:15:52 PM
Hello!
Here's a jolly update to say that we had a brilliantly successful pick-up day last Friday. We did the standard pick-up day stuff of filming all the little bits you find you need whilst editing, and we also managed to get more shots that will help the flow of the film. A lot of this was related to the mighty heist van - in fact, here's exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of a rehearsal!
Yeah, we're not giving anything away yet.
Things are spinning along nicely. Editing is ongoing, work has begun on the visual effects, and our excellent composer David Stowell is producing an original orchestral score. It's all shaping up nicely. We're producing a new rough cut for the test screening next week and... let's just say that it it ain't that rough.
On the subject of the test screening, it's taking place in London on Sunday 22nd September. We have a few seats spare - if any of you would like to upgrade your pledge to the test screening level ($250) and come along, send me a message through Indiegogo. You'll have the chance to see an early cut, give us feedback to help shape the final film, and there'll be a Q&A too. (Upgrades will be on a strictly first come, first served basis so don't hang about if you're interested!)
I'll be in touch again after the test screening to let you know how it went. Until then, don't play any dodgy looking arcade machines.
Cheers,
Stuart.