Un:Bound Video Editions

Newcon on this Sunday's event, with an update on the anthology.

2012-03-09T02:01:00.001-08:00

Dear Discerning Reader

Picture the scene: an isolated country pub; it's a bitter (which is only fitting, this being a pub) and blustery night. Five weary travellers (okay, authors, but work with me here) huddle before a crackling fire. Slowly, falteringly, one of them starts to tell a story -- a chilling tale of dark spirits and tragedy. As the first narrator's (wholly original and never heard before) story reaches its dire conclusion, so another of the band begins to relate their own ghostly tale...

Thus they entertain each other (and an attentive audience that has mysteriously gathered for the occasion) well into the night, pushing back the darkness while populating its margins with malicious spirits and malevolent shades...

On Sunday 11th March 2012,

Amanda Hemingway
Paul Kane
Marie O'Regan
Mark West
Ian Whates

will gather at The Staff of Life pub in Mowsley, near Market Harborough in Leicestershire, to tell original ghost stories before a live audience, in an event jointly organised by NewCon Press and Un:bound.

http://www.staffoflifeinn.co.uk/

If you are looking for something a little different to do of a Sunday, it would be a pleasure to see you at what promises to be a very special and unique event.

http://l.wbx.me/l/?instId=b099d59f-cf76-4023-88e6-fd23b9325e28&token=8578ff373aefd4ecf841d10267eeec6c0718bad800000135cd2640de&u=http%3A%2F%2Funboundve.blogspot.com%2F2012%2F01%2Fubve3-hauntings-with-newcon-press.html

The readings are being filmed and will appear as part of a podcast programme (to include dramatic elements and other surprises) courtesy of Un:bound, while the stories read on the night will form the heart of an anthology of all original ghost story stories from NewCon Press: Hauntings. The anthology will appear as an e-book initially, but will subsequently be released as a signed limited edition hardback and paperback, launched at this year's Fantasycon in the Autumn.

Submissions are still coming in for the anthology and I'm working my way through those received at present, but I can confirm that I've already accepted stories from Tanith Lee, Sarah Singleton, and Liz Williams. Many others will follow. Cover art for the dead-tree version of the book is being created by Ben Baldwin, who produced the stunning cover for the imminent Dark Currentsanthology.

Right, that's it for now. It would be wonderful to see you on Sunday!

Best,

Ian.

Hauntings! Coming Soon

2012-02-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

11th March 2012 at the Staff of Life Mowsley.

Ghost Stories written specially for the event and read by the authors.

£3 per head for snacks by dropping it through my door with names if you know where I live or via Paypal to ' vincent.hkeen@btinternet.com

Stories from

IAN WHATES

PAUL KANE

MARIE O REGAN

MARK E WEST

AMANDA HEMINGWAY

'Hauntings' will be released as an ebook from Newcon Press with additional stories but hear them live first!

UBVE#3 HAUNTINGS with Newcon Press

2012-01-10T05:14:00.000-08:00

Ghosts to haunt Leicestershire pub

Everyone loves a good chilling tale. Now a remote Leicestershire village pub is set to host an evening of ghost story readings and spooky goings on in March.

The genre-based multi-media blog Un:Bound Video Editions is teaming up with celebrated genre publisher Newcon Press to put on the evening, where a selection of well-known and up-and-coming writers will read brand-new stories to a live crowd.

Un:Bound will also be filming for the next Video Edition during the evening. Newcon Press will then publish both an e anthology and later in the year a handsome limited edition hardcover anthology combining all of the evening’s stories with a few extra ones – all never-before-published.

Want to get involved?

The readings will be on Sunday 11 March 2012 starting at 5.30pm at the Staff of Life pub in Mowsley village, near Market Harborough in Leicestershire.

Tickets for the evening cost £3. This price includes several live ghost story readings by leading authors in a fantastic setting, plus light snacks provided by the pub.

For more details on how to get to the event and updates on which authors will read as they are confirmed visit please visit the ‘Coming Next’ page at www.unboundve. com or just email us at: unbound@unboundblogzine.com for more information on the event and how to book tickets.

Get ready for the big chill!

Zombie Winners

2012-01-07T03:41:00.000-08:00

ok folks,
for contest 1 - open to all but had to leave a comment randomiser selected no. 3, so congratulations Joan (I removed production team comments from the series)

for contest 2 - everyone on the mailing list automatically entered randomiser selected no. 5 congratulations Graham.

thanks for getting involved folks and we hope you will enjoy UBVE#3 hauntings in the spring

UBVE #2 Zombies

2011-12-22T09:32:00.000-08:00

What you have all been waiting for, the ultimate Christmas gift from us at UBVE to you, our beloved viewers.
Huge thanks for your patience and to everyone involved and especially Vince who worked all night to make sure this went out in time for festive flesh eating.

Check below the video for two awesome giveaways.

Ok Giveaway 1 OPEN TO ALL
all you have to do to be in with a chance to win a T shirt, a copy of iconic zombie novel Autumn, a hand signed by David Moody and some other stuff, includimg the original and somewhat diverted from script, is leave means to reach you in the comments of this post before Noon 5th January 2012 (GMT). This is international since after zombies postage holds no fear for us at Un:Bound Video Editions.

Giveaway 2 OPEN TO MAILING LIST MEMBERS ONLY
To get on our mailing list and be entered simply email unbound@unboundblogzine.com with the title 'zombiemail' before noon Jan 5th 2012 (GMT)
Existing mailing list members will be automatically included and need do nothing.
Your details will only be used to contact you about future episodes of UBVE and competitions on this site and will not be passed on to anyone.

as you can see this is also a t shirts, books and stuff.

And a special thanks to Dave & Steve and everyone at Day of the Un:Dead who supplied the prizes.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL OF US

UBVE Post-Production Notes

2011-11-27T05:51:00.001-08:00

As things have been a little quiet since the last trailer, I thought I'd write this post to explain some of what happens between the filming of an episode of Un:Bound Video Editions and it finally going live.

The first step is to log all the footage we've shot. This speeds up the post-production process, the bread and butter of which is the editing. Now, UBVE is an unusual mix of scripted material and reportage. The scripted bits are relatively easy - it's just a case of stringing together the best takes. Editing the interviews is an altogether more laborious job. Invariably there's more footage that we can fit into the show. On UBVE #1 there was roughly 6 hours of interviews to squeeze into about 20 minutes of screen-time. A first pass weeds out the less interesting material, the second pass starts cutting out good stuff and a third pass tries to fit what's left into a logical order without losing the context under which answers were originally given.

Once a sequence has been edited, music and sound effects can be added. It took a long time to audition and select all the royalty-free music used on the pilot episode, but I've done pretty much the whole score for Zombies myself, which has helped speed things up.

But then I always find ways to slow things down again.Alongside the editing, the biggest job on UBVE #1 was all the special effects. This was such a big job because while I'd done some basic special effects before (adding lightning and explosions to footage, that kind of thing), I hadn't done anything really complicated and I hadn't used After Effects. Thus I did prolonged battle with a fearsome and remorseless learning curve in order to replace a badly green-screened wall at Pan MacMillan's office in London with a window view of magic zapping away the top half of the BT Tower.

Pic. 1: This is a shot from the original footage.

Pic. 2: This is after I digitally replaced half the room. The green screen wasn't too helpful because the hand-held camera and lack of reference points meant I had to position that metallic window frame manually for each frame (the frame, its reflection and the cityscape are all static photos - the sky is from some time lapse footage of a lightning storm off a Spanish beach). You can just see green fringing around Chloe's hand, where the colour keying couldn't get a tight enough match.

Video 1: You don't get much of a look at it in the finished episode, but this is the straight video of the skyline and BT tower unobscured by camera moves.

There aren't nearly as many special effects in UBVE #2: Zombies and those there are I've been able to produce much more quickly thanks to my experience on the pilot episode. Unfortunately, circumstance and my own hapless naivety have conspired against me. There's a fairly complex sequence required for the show that we don't have yet. So I decided to try animating it. I've dabbled in the past and the likes of After Effects run off the same principles, so in theory I could do it.This was my first test to see if I could come up with something workable - the graphics all done in Photoshop, the animation in After Effects:

Then yesterday I tried doing something more ambitious in Flash and duly banged my head against some harsh practicalities. It turns out Flash has only passing similarities to other Adobe products and possesses some notable quirks in the way it does things. I tore out quite a bit of hair trying to figure out how to draw things effectively, organise them in timeline layers and then effectively animate them. This morning, after watching some more tutorials, I think I now understand how the nested timelines work and how to make use of motion tweens and shape tweens. Thus I finally managed to produce this new version of the test sequence earlier this afternoon:

Of course, that's only the start of this sequence, which runs through a number of scenes and needs synching up with dialogue before effects and music are added.

Still, once that's done, the episode should be pretty much done and UBVE #3 shouldn't involve me learning any complicated new tools.

Though I haven't written the script for it yet, so...

2011-11-13T15:05:00.001-08:00

This edition may warrant a PG certificate or above...

UBVE #2: Zombies - Full Trailer

2011-11-02T01:33:00.000-07:00

Coming later this month...

Click here to go straight to the Hi-Def version.

UBVE#3 in planning with Newcon Press

2011-10-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

Ok since Ian has revealed it int he latest Newcon newsletter I am now able to tell you all that UBVE is collaborating on #3 The Haunting with Newcon Press.

We will be filming live ghost story tellings in an isolated country pub by an open fire, to an audience. In addition to the event section there will be the round table interview set in a short film, similar to the forthcoming 'Zombies' edition. All filmed on the night.

The stories told to our live audience will be made available as separate videos online and in addition included in an anthology produced by fabulous genre publisher Newcon Press. It's a huge honour to be working with Newcon on this and i'm blown away by the fantastic line up of authors who have agreed to be part of it.

The filming will take place in March, the anthology will be produced as an ebook with a limited hard cover run later in the year. I am very excited and hope many of you will join us on the night as both an audience and as the cast of our scripted scenes.

More from Zombies shortly along with it's release and much more on The Haunting over the next few months.

There are many exciting things afoot for the Un:Bound team this year, but this may be my personal favourite.
Happy Halloween.
Adele

Zombies - Caption Competition

2011-10-15T00:47:00.000-07:00

Pulling stills out of the footage this one amused Vincent, so we are running a caption competition, open internationally until Friday 21st Oct 6pm GMT.
Just leave your caption in the comments and the judges' favourite will receive a copy of 'Viking Dead' by Toby Venables, published by Adaddon.

A couple of winners!

2011-10-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of awards for awesomeness on Saturday.

First our guests of honour, Jasper, Dave and Wayne have awarded Hayley Orgill with Zombie of the Day for her heroic eye injury, which was not at all comfortable but looked amazing and she delivered awesome zombieness.

Second our non zombie of the day was Michael Wilson of Read Horror. He not only delivered his lines with enthusiasm but suggested a useful and atmospheric tweak which we adopted for the interview scene.

Congratulations both.

Personally I think Jenny Jackson deserves a medal for her make up work too. In fact, I may just have to do something about that.

Zombies, the trailer!

2011-10-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

Zombies in post.

2011-10-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was fantastic. I am constantly blown away by how generous people can be with their time and energy. We had David Moody, Wayne Simmons, Jasper Bark, assorted family members, lovely bloggers and fans and a lady and her kids who just came in to pick up some stuff with her husbands who was running the marathon today. I hope it was another good day for them. The Phoenix let us mess around causing a certain amount of disruption and lurking in their basement, as well as having a member of staff eaten by zombies, on top of all that, the amazing Jenny Jackson travelled all the way from Lowestoft to give us our hideous zombies. Thanks to everyone including the rest of the team who will be working hard on the tie in shots and cut aways as well as post production for the next few weeks. I wonder if this is how parents feel when the kids bring home straight A's and something edible from home ec?

The photos I took are already on the main unbound flickr stream, I will be creating a special album of the day on flickr and facebook of all the photos from the day as they come in. If anyone has any let me know and i'll invite you to drop them on box.net.

It was fantastic fun, all centred around a fascinating round table with the authors where there was a certain amount of geeking out on zombie movies, in the dark, with torchlight, some gore and brain eating, lots of running away and pushing through or holding off zombie hoards and not everyone survived. The base script by Vincent did a great job and some of the add libbing and suggestions for minor changes worked in brilliantly.

The first teaser will come out in the next days and then the final film is expected toward the end of November.

When the film goes live we will be offering a couple of give aways, one will be totally open, the other will just be for mailing list members. To join the mailing list email unbound@unboundblogzine (dot) com and put 'ubve mailing list' in the title.

Just to whet your appetite, these are the prize packs

This is a 'haters' t shirt, two signed books, a hypodermic pen, a max brooks notebook and some postcards, bookmarks and a badge.

and this one will only be available

mailing list members, signed book,
i love zombies/terror4fun t shirt,
a hand signed by David Moody,
a max brooks notebook, hypo pen
and again the postcards etc, but also, our
original annotated script.

ZOMBIES!!!

2011-09-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

The Undead are Coming!!!

David Moody, Wayne Simmons and Jasper Bark will be signing books and filming UBVE #2 with us in Leicester. We are looking for volunteers to be a zombie hoard, victims and survivors (obviously people who just want their books signed are also very welcome, Waterstones will be attending).

Spread the word, a zombie hoard can never be too big.

There will be gore and screaming and causing mayhem in the basement of the Phoenix as well as out door shenanigans, oh and books.

New Review

2011-01-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

Dave Brendon's SFF Blog posted a lovely review of Video Editions.

We have apparently made him horribly jealous, caused him to giggle at our Tor's magic tricks, and he confessed later on twitter that some of the out takes made him shoot snot from his nose. Our work is done.

Check out Dave's thoughts and the rest of his excellent site!

Out takes!

2010-12-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

Although the final show is clearly beautiful and professional and makes everyone look very clever and got together, not every take was perfect. So for those of you who like to see your publishing professionals corpsing or repeating the words 'rectal peptic ulceration' or sworn at by someone whose knowledge of history is dubious, we have put up in the side bar a short out takes reel for your amusement.

Congratulations to Catherine Mann for correctly spotting the three hagelrats in ep 1. The contest is now closed.

It's Alive!!

2010-12-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

... If a little later than hoped.
At the very top of the site you can see the Un:Bound Episode 1 playlist. It's in four sections all linked. Please make sure you watch all four or you will miss half the fun! We hope you enjoy it.

And remember look out for the 'hagelrats' and note the timecodes to enter our contest and please feel free to embed this in your own site and tell everyone you meet about it.

Launch Contest!

2010-12-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

To celebrate the launch of the show we are holding a contest. This one is open to everyone since it's not a straight forward giveaway.

To be in with a chance of winning the prize you have to watch the show (goes live at 8pm GMT today) and find three Hagelrats.

This is a Hagelrat.

We need the timecodes for all three rats to be in with a chance.

The rats flash up quite quickly and are concealed within scenes, it's a bit of a challenge.

To Enter: email unbound@unboundblogzine(dot)com and title your email 'UBVE Launch'

Because it's a challenge we have an awesome prize pack for you all. A PanMacmillan Book Geek Bag, a sampler book, the first issue of Shock Horror Mag, some postcards and bookmarks and a copy of R.J.Frith's ' The Nemesis List.

A winner will be drawn by the randomizer from all the correct entries.

There will be an additional draw for mailing list entries with a copy of Stephen Donaldson's 'Against all things Ending' up for grabs.

Don't forget to let us know whether or not you want to be added to the mailing list and be included automatically in future giveaways

Contest closes on the 17th December 2010

It's Nearly Here!

2010-12-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

It’s nearly here! The very first episode of Un:Bound Video Editions launches tomorrow evening at 8pm GMT. Until Then, here is the intro sequence for your pleasure.

And now a public service announcement from us at UBVE.

This is very much a pilot and has been a huge learning experience for us. With your support and encouragement (and once we have recovered and forgotten the sleepless nights and the endless editing), the things we learned here will effect how we create the next episode and how we set the house style for submissions.

Your feedback is important. Without knowing what works/doesn’t work for you, as a viewer we can’t make sure you get more of what you want in future. We all want more of what we want, so get your comments in to us on the same email as the mailing list (below).

Your support is important. Spread the word, embed the show in your own site, pimp it ruthlessly! It is not easy to produce UBVE and we need the viewing figures to justify its continued existence, also, we feed off your love and you don’t want us all to starve surely? Cthulhu will know!

Your input is important. Over the next few months we will be establishing the house style and setting out guidelines for contributions. Un:Bound has always had a pretty open door policy for reviewers and guests alike and we want UBVE to be the same. If you want to film at conventions, do video interviews, create segments either for the main show or as additional content, then we will be able to let you know what we need from you for it to be included on the site. The UBVE team would like to see this become the hub for genre fiction video worldwide, feeding into and from the wider blogosphere and drawing in potential viewers and fans who may be less inclined to search for articles and reviews online.

We want to give you free stuff so sign up for the mailing list. We won’t be sending out lots of mass emails, but from time to time will want to let you know there is new content up or a contest. Most contests will be exclusive to the mailing list and members of the mailing list will be entered automatically. Occasionally contests will require more action on your part and those, like the launch contest, will be opened up to the wider world. In these cases there will be two prizes, the main one, open to all and selected by randomizer from all entries, and a second smaller one where the winner will be selected from entrants on the mailing list. Yes it’s preferential treatment, but that’s because it helps us to know who is visiting and since the posting schedule will take some time to settle it’s important for us to be able to let people know when something happens!

Finally our long winded oscar style thank you’s, but it’s important! So thanks first of all to Alt.Fiction (Writing East Midlands) & Quad, Tor, Alasdair Stuart, Lee Harris and all the authors and Tor/PanMac staff who worked with us to make this happen. It was hugely brave of them to take the plunge before we had anything we could show them and before even we were sure what we were trying to achieve. We are hugely appreciative of their time, patience, enthusiasm and the ideas they brought with them.

Thanks to everyone who has already been helping us spread the word. You can find the sites we know have posted about UBVE in the left sidebar, if we have missed you, email or tweet @hagelrat to get that fixed!

Credits for additional footage, music etc are included at the end of the show.

Contact us!
Simply email unbound@unboundblogzine.com and title your email ‘UBVE mailing list’ for addition on the mailing list or ‘UBVE feedback’ to have your comments noted. For anything else just include ‘UBVE’ in your title so we know it’s not for the review site.

You can follow the team on twitter to keep up with our day to day nonsense and other lives at Adele @hagelrat , Vincent @fiskerton , Kat @kathheubeck , Lee @LeeAHarris , Alasdair @AlasdairStuart

UBVE Press Release 2

2010-11-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

They told me I was crazy and i'd need a team as crazy as me to pull it off. Fortunately I knew exactly where to get them. Admittedly my crack team of presenter Kat Heubeck, director and video editor Vincent Holland-Keen, news anchor Alasdair Stuart and grizzled editor Lee Harris are not the team I would put together for a lucrative casino hit. Pulling together a show like Un:Bound VE though? I couldn't ask for a better squad of genre fiction grifters.

Don't believe me? I talked to Catherine Rogers of Writing East Midlands about the heist, I mean the show, and here's what she said:

“This, it seems to me, is a natural move for George, sorry Adele as he, sorry, she has been taking over the genre world with her extraordinary team.

Sorry Adele as what , George Clooney, Oceans whatever c'mon? Un:Bound being compared to Oceans numbers - no way. I'm thinking more along the lines of Neo, red pills, Morpheus etc.

So red pills aside / taken etc ... Writing East Midlands' mission statement says something about nurturing new writers in the region ... yes so that includes new writing talent and this by all accounts is just that .... on vidcast. Yay! Check it out.

That was 'red' right?”

Yes, Catherine, yes. No chunky knit wear or unnecessary dance routines here, just a cool, suave look at the latest in genre fiction. And Cthulhu. He was very insistent I mention him.

Fellow Evil Genius ™ Alex Davis had a slightly different take on things, which also makes a worrying amount of sense:

'It sounds more like the A-Team to me than Ocean's Eleven... This truly is the crack commando unit of the genre - in fact the recording equipment was constructed from four elastic bands, three toilet roll tubes and a broken down ZX Spectrum. So if you have a problem, and you need help, and you can find them, maybe you can hire... the Unbound Video Editions team.'

Danny Ocean's team of elegant con men and the world's least violent lethal commando unit. That's heady company to be keeping. So when does the con begin? I mean the show air? And where? Simple it's going to go live on 6th December 2011 at 8:00pm (GMT) at the site http://www.unboundve.com . Except, much like that bit with Brad Pitt walking through the casino talking on the phone? We're not quite done. The following weeks will see additional footage of the interviews go live as we continue to plunder the vaults of genre fiction for all things bright, shiny and awesome.

So why not join us? Just remember, don't take the blue pill, don't take your eyes off the vault door and always, always, bet on Unbound.
_________________________
UBVE will be running a giveaway as part of the launch week so please look out for further details and prizes.

Fluffy the Magic Pony in Rehab!

2010-11-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

Many of you will be familiar with Fluffy magic pony, who has made a name for herself during her numerous appearences on twitter (usually to torment Mark Charan Newton) and has actually featured in a graphic novel by Paul Cornell.

Un:bound Video Editions has the full story on Fluffy (also known as Tina) and her recent admission into a well known treatment facility for 'stress' from Tor's Julie A Crisp.

Check out the latest video to the right to hear all about Fluffy.

Un:Bound VE Contest

2010-11-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

Update: the draw has been done by randomizer.org and no. 12 won so congratulations Simon.
---------------------------

Welcome to Un:Bound Video Editions, an exciting new project from the Un:Bound team.

With thanks to our hosts for Ep 1, Tor Publishing, we have a copy of Alden Bell's novel 'The Reapers are the Angels' in hardback to give away along with a 'Book Geek' PanMacmillan canvas bag and some swag courtesy of the Other Worlds event.

This is a UBVE mailing list exclusive giveaway and to be included you need to email unbound@unboundblogzine.com and title your mail 'UBVE mailing list'. You will be added to the mailing list so you won't miss any important announcements or video releases and you will be entered into the contest automatically.

The giveaway is open worldwide and the winner will be selected by randomizer on the 20th November.

This winter, internet TV will finally be Un:Bound

2010-10-31T10:18:00.001-07:00

This winter, internet TV will finally be Un:Bound

Un:Bound Video Editions began with a question 'Why has no one ever done a vidcast about genre fiction?'. It's a simple question and the answer to it proved to be as simple for Un:Bound editor Adele Wearing; because she hadn't put together the team to produce one yet.

That's now changed. Like George Clooney in one of the good Ocean's movies, Adele has assembled a team of specialists to bring the best in genre fiction news and reviews to the internet. They include film maker and technical genius Vincent Holland-Keen, two-fisted editor and Angry Robot wrangler Lee Harris, sleepless genre podcaster Alasdair Stuart and, on his insistence, the dread lord of Ry'leh himself, Cthulhu. With a team like this, the casinos of Las Vegas are quaking in their cuban-heeled boots. Or would be if the plan was to rob Andy Garcia and not to produce the best, most comprehensive, fun genre fiction TV show on the net.

A fast moving glimpse into the world of genre fiction, Episode 1 features coverage of the Other Worlds Event hosted by Writing East Midlands, Alt. Fiction and Tor, a tour of Tor Towers, Publishing Tips with Lee, news with Alasdair and a message from Cthulhu.

Whether you're a life long, experienced con goer, newcomer or want to find out more, the Unbound Video Edition (UBVE to its friends) is for you. And, in fact your friends, so check out the teaser trailers at the Un:Bound Video Editions site and join our mailing list to make sure you don't miss upcoming episodes, specials and exclusive mailing list contests.

Because if you do, Cthulhu will know.

Un:Bound Video Editions – http://unboundve.com
Mailing list – email unbound@unboundblogzine.com and title your mail UBVE mailing list.

News:

Raise Monkey Punk - http://raisemonkeypunk.com/

Tim Pratt - http://www.timpratt.org/

Machine of Death - http://machineofdeath.net/a/

Dinosaur Comics - http://www.qwantz.com/index.php

Cthulhu - http://www.cthulhu.org/

Dark Fiction Magazine - http://www.darkfictionmagazine.co.uk/

Gary McMahon - http://www.garymcmahon.com/

Sarah Pinborough - http://sarahpinborough.com/

Conrad Williams - http://www.conradwilliams.net/