A few behind the scenes The Hobbit Treats

So over the last few weeks, Peter Jackson has been putting up a few treats for us on his youtube page and I thought I just have to share them!! Both looking at some The Hobbit and LOTR Fan videos ....

 

ENJOY

 

 

 

Festival Experiences

So as it is the weekend of the Glastonbury Festival 2013, the biggest festival in the world. I thought it would be good to share my festival experiences and if anyone else likes too, then comment away!

 

I have been to two festivals in my life V Festival and T in the Park

 

 

But I am going to focus on T as it was the most recent (2012) and most memorable. Me and my friends managed to get there early after a long car journey up to Kinrosss in Scotland but still had to que for ages to get in! We had cleverly taken a sledge to carry our heavy tent and beer! And even in the que it had become very muddy at the start of the festival... a sign of things to come?

 

We got into the site and walked a long long way to get to a quieter field and still found it busy! We were running out of space fast! Luckily I went ahead and found a spot right in the middle of a section, away from paths and on top of a slight hill. We put up our tents and camp and were ready to party. A few friends I knew came late after their bus broke down and they had nowhere to camp so we managed to squeeze them into our camp. They would have probably had to camp in the middle of a path otherwise!

 

After a first dry day things were looking good. We saw the likes of Example, Florence and the Machine and a few on the smaller stages which were just as good including Lonsdale Boys Club who I had been fascinated about for ages.

 

The next days had almost continuous torrential rain. Paths began to turn to mud and began to spread into some of the camps. At the last day it was at its peak and I'm pretty sure the festival was close to being closed! Some tents on the edge of all the sections at the paths had completely had the mud and flood water go beneath. They were sodden! In some places there was a lot of standing water and the walk to the stages took an extra half an hour on top of the half hour it normally took because of the thick mud. There was so much water, that there was huge oceans of muddy water that went to the top of the shins and over a very large area. People were drenched and it was probably a bad thing when people got back to their muddy tents.

 

Luckily for us our last minute camp had been the best spot. There was little mud as not many people walked past and it was on top of a hill so no standing water, which was great somewhere dry to get out of the wet muddy clothes.

 

 

The last night I was pretty wasted and Kasabian were playing, it was incredible and I was going crazy, I was covered in mud and having a real good time!

 

 

Overall the weekend was great, we got up early on the leaving day so we would not get stuck in the car park, but there was already cars stuck and broken down. We couldn't get ours started never mind moving but eventually managed too and after a lot of pushing managed to get out before the big rush.

 

 

I bet the people in the Burger King in Edinburgh were laughing at the smelly muddy festival goers coming in!

 

Great time, and even in the rain festivals are just fantastic! Next time I plan for a hot festival abroad, cant deal with that much mud again!

 

Anybody got any other crazy festival stories?

Dream Diary: Zombies

 

So once again what I am watching is influencing my dreams. This time there was no Tigers but something a bit more scarier .... Zombies. It was a very long dream of large scale.

 

It began with an initial attack and a large scale panic. Then we returned home and began to collect items from the house as we were being evacuated! All the neighbours were filling up their cars with junk and there was just things being thrown out, people crying and mass panic! We didn't have time to collect a lot of stuff but got a good stash....

 

... the next thing I remember is trying to get out of the town with thousands of cars blocking the streets, buses wagons and cars just everywhere. We came towards the edge of town but it was too blocked and the authorities were getting worried that another burst of zombies would occur as they had been quite quiet. We had to abandon the car and then I bumped into some friends and we made an emotional goodbye and some came with as I split from my family.

 

We were put on these trains and taken around the city, there was so much work being done, bulldozers, cranes knocking down buildings and building up huge walls to fortify the centre. Roads were just rubble and a large pile of vehicles and metal were put on the side of the large walls. There were police and army around everywhere. People were carrying everything they could....

 

... We got off the train and onto some buses to take us out of the city and there were hundreds of vehicles and buses filled with people being taken along this large motorway raised above the ground. As we drove past the river, we could see all the bridges had been blown up and fallen into the river.

 

We had told the driver that we needed to get off at a certain town to find a friend, he told us we had missed it but that he would drive back a short way to drop us off. Just as we were about too I saw through the back window, that there were loads of police vehicles following and army vehicles with the sound of gunfire and following them zombies!

 

The bus sped off but must of crashed as I was soon running on foot with friends the zombies were on the tail and catching up. We ran to a garage to try and get a car started but with no luck. They were even closer... We ran into this old building with my friends and this old man. We just managed to get through a door and slam it behind as the zombie banged against the door. Me two others and an old man held the door as it went crazy against it. It soon stopped and the old man wanted to open it and check if he had left. I was like noooo way. As I looked away he opened the door, the zombie ran through and ran towards another person. The old man ran out of the door and closed it behind himself and then locked it! I was trapped in a room with a zombie!

 

Then I woke.


Who needs to watch a zombie movie when I can live it!

Sun, Sea, Sangria in Spain

So I have just got back from a little week away to visit the Spanish sun and thought I'd show you some pics:

 

 

I stayed close to the town of Torrevieja, which isn't the nicest place I have ever been too, it doesn't have a lot of visible history and dominated by some tower blocks and it wasn't a very touristy place which I guess isn't a bad thing. But I actually really like the place, it had a good deal of restaurants, a huge marina and pier, a long promenade and numerous beaches! It was more of a tourist destination for the Spanish but there was a lot of British, German and Dutch that lived in the town as it is a big place for holiday villas.

 

 

There were a lot of lovely beaches in the nearby towns aswell, clean and with white sand and clear waters. All had a bar which was great and allowed many San Miguels Sangrias and Cocktails.

 

 

 

 

 I took this picture as the sun was setting one night, its a bit random but I love the colours of orange and blue and the perspective of the palm trees.

 

 

 
 

 
 

 

On one of the days I went to a place called Cartagena, now this place was awesome, it had a whole lot of history, Roman ruins, Ampitheatres, awesome architecture, castles and even today it is used as a naval base.

 

 

I couldn't believe how clean it was, no rubbish and the streets were like marble!  

  

 

I liked this picture it shows the new and old with the Roman Ampitheatre in the distance.

 

 

I love the colours in this picture, the greens and purples beneath the awesome night sky. This was the fair in Torrevieja.

 

 

This, believe it or not is actually the moon. It was on the day when the moon is at its closest meaning it is at its largest and brightest and this was low in the sky and was therefore tinted red.

 



 

On this same night I was shocked to see so many Spanish people on the beach setting up bonfires, I was pretty sure that they weren't allowed to have them but there was so many people and this was at night time. I thought that maybe it was something they did on a Sunday as people were coming down with chairs and table and having full blown meals. As I drove out the centre I noticed that there was even larger bonfires and thousands of people on the main beach so pulled up and went out to check out what was going on. There was thousands of people on this beach all round fires, some of which were the size of buses towering above and sometimes out of control. There were loads of kids and adults drinking, smoking, partying and even djs had brought down their equipment to the beach.

This was to celebrate the summer solstice! Some Spanish people believe that the night terrors come out on this shortest night and to protect themselves they cleanse themselves by leaping through fire and jumping into the sea. Fire Vs Water. Though I don't think people actually leapt through the fire.

It was like a huge Full Moon Beach Party

 

Overall it was good trip, nice to get away, relax and chill out!

Dream Diary: Deadly Pet

 

So I am back off my hols, which ill talk about in anottther blog but whilst its still fresh in my mind I'll let you know about some more epic dreams. So after having no Spanish siesta and a late flight I was in for a deep sleep. I guess watching Life Of Pi on the plane had its influences as the main part of my dream consisted of having a tiger as a pet. The film was absolutely stunning and a clever story as well.

 

 

So yes, it seemed that I had returned home with another pet. Joining my little cocker spaniel Jess, I had a huge, scary yet beautiful and majestic fully grown tiger! It was huge but was the most gorgeous colour and stripy pattern. I seemed to have had full control of this animal and that it was a good friend that posed no threat to me. It was roaming around the house just like a pet, it took up most of the floor when it laid down and seemed to be perfectly fine sharing the house with my dog, and not eating her as a meal.

 

The tiger was very aggressive to anyone other than my family. Including the neighbours but he soon piped down when I gave him a good telling off! I even took the beast on a walk in the countryside everyone was shocked to see me walking with the tiger and kept him calm as everyone ran away screaming. The dream was so real I can still feel the fur, its long whiskers and its massive fangs.

 

At one point of the dream I was shouted out of the house by my parents to come and look at these group of Chinooks flying really low. I managed to get out to see the back of them disappear into the fog. I looked behind and saw both my tiger and dog scampering across the hallway floor to reach the open front door which I soon shut so they couldn't escape. Suddenly as I turned back there were even more helicopters in the sky and then suddenly a huge overhead battle commenced. With explosions and crashing helicopters I quickly snapped out my phone and began recording so I could use the footage in some sort of movie. Random but exciting, again.

 

Memorable Life Moments: A Leap Of Faith

New Zealand 2011, Land of extreme sports! Skiing, paragliding, bungee jumping, rafting and lots more. Whilst travelling to New Zealand in 2011 I made it a promise that I would do something crazy and extreme. I didn't fancy some bungee jump and had already done swimming with wild dolphins but I came across a leaflet of a canyon swing in Queenstown. Therefore when we arrived in Queenstown for those two days, I ensured I was booked on it!

 

Silly me, however thought it was a good idea to go on a huge bar crawl around Queenstown, the night before! I was pretty hungover the next day ready for my canyon swing. I spent the morning attempting a legendary Queenstown FerrBurger, which was huge and a bad idea, adding to me feeling a little puke... the rest saw me worrying about jumping off a massive cliff and pointing out bins on the street in case I was going to puke!

 

But I managed to get to the location and got excited and bit nervous with what I was about to do...

 

So here are some stats:

June 15th 2011

109m high

60m freefall

200m swing!

 

 

So I had to jumps and decided to do the first as a tandem, thinking aww it will be better, get to jump with one of my best pals and thinking it will be little less nerve racking. Well infact the tandem is one of the worst ones! Given a 5 pants rating from the canyon swingers, as you've probably got double the weight and go the furthest!

 

 

 

So it came to the point to jump and we both thought we were actually going to get pushed off and waited for them not realising we were supposed to jump ourselves. But we eventually did, or well my legs just collapsed beneath me and down down we went....

 

 

See us?

 The second jump was a little less nerve racking so I went with something a little more extreme. I was tied to a garden patio chair and had to lean out backwards over the edge!

 

 

 

I would then flip head over heels and down down down into the valley below. I had to push myself off slowly walking backwards but being the lovely staff people they are, they kept stopping me just as I pushed myself over. Eventually the guy just pushed me, and without being ready I was plunging towards the ground.

 

 

 

 

They would then pull you back up in your harness to the platform which was scary in itself!

 

It was really fun and I would definitely do it again!

Another Memorable Life Moment and a Big Leap Of Faith!

 

 

Longest Day - British Summertime Begins

So today is the Summer Solstice, the Longest Day of the year. From now on, the nights are going to draw in!!

 

It is also the official start of British Summertime, and despite some warm and humid temperatures over the last few weeks and a hot, sunny week a few weeks earlier there are little signs of a summer scorcher on the way! So I think the best chance for hot and sunny conditions is abroad at the moment! Which is true, I am relaxing on a sunny Spanish beach as we speak right now!

 

Anyways to get you all excited for the official start for summer, here is a fitting song:

 

 

Vacation!

So from tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm out of the country, heading to Spain!! Only for a week and for a nice relaxing few days in the hot sunny sun sun.

I will be live blogging when I return but I have a few scheduled blogs coming across the week so keep checking back!

 

 

 

Crisis Zero

I came across this website today, seems the situation is worse than we first thought!

Global footage

 

 

 

See more footage at www.crisiszero.com

 

#WorldWarZ

World War Z: Turning Glasgow into Phillidelphia

Its been almost 2 years since filming for scenes of World War Z began on the shores here in the UK, and finally this Thursday 20th of June, we get to see the epic apocalyptic film. Some scenes for the film were taken in Cornwall and parts of Scotland with one of the most important scenes filmed in Glasgow.

 

 

Glasgow's role in the film is a big one, it composes one of the opening scenes of the film, which shows the initial panic of when the infection begins! But for the film Glasgow was transformed into the American City of Philadelphia!

 

Millions of pounds was spent on turning Glasgow's City Centre streets into a double of Philadelphia's City Centre. The location was chosen due to its similar architecture, its grid layout and its wide roads. It was also mentioned that the motorway on ramp in the city looked similar to those in the UK. The choice to completely change Glasgow centre rather than film in Philidelphia comes from the lower cost to film in a city centre.

 

Many Local people were recruited for the film, helping with crew, security and transformation of the city streets but almost 1200 people were used as zombie extras! The impact for the local economy was said to be more than £2 million!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The full transformation of Glasgow was huge! All double yellow lines were painted over and all road paint was edited/removed so it looked like Philadelphia. Traffic Lights, bus stops, bins and signage were all removed and replaced with American Alternatives. Newspaper boxes, bus stops and flags were erected with tiny details of Philadelphia. Philadelphia maps were put up along with street names and American fire hydrants.

 

Also brought in were hundreds of American vehicles, including Fire Trucks, Police and Paramedic Vehicles, Army SUVs, Dustbin Wagons, RVs, pickups, cars, buses and yellow cabs!

They really spent a lot of time and money to change all this and return things back to normal when they had finished.

 

The scenes filmed show hundreds of people running in a mass panic as the outbreak begins. Numerous stunts were filmed during this time including numerous car accidents.

 

 

 

Despite their best attempts, I think there will be a few bloopers in the film that show something British rather than American. I have already spotted a British black and white traffic light amongst the yellow traffic lights in the trailer!

 

The scenes look very exciting, I am looking forward to seeing it :)

See it from this Thursday!

 

 



 

Here is the trailer:

 

CHECK OUT MY WORLD WAR Z "ACCOUNT" - FAN FICTION

New Avicii

This is the soon to be released new single from Avicii and its a whole lot different to some other stuff! With the vocals of Aloe Blacc, Avicii is venturing in to new genres:

 

Welcome: Electronic Country Music

 

 

 

Happy Father's Day

So Today Is Father's Day!

 

So I found this little video on youtube that Lego Star Wars have made for this special occasion....

Enjoy!

 

 

And here is a little more sentimental, moving video:

 

The Last of Us

This game has been described as one of the best games of all time, receiving universal critical acclaim. "Several publications have declared the game a masterpiece, and a significant title of the current console generation." IGN have given it a 10/10 and Forbes have described it as "one of the best games of 2013 and the perfect swan song for the PlayStation 3." Its true Sony is truly kicking ass right now! This game developed by Naughty Dog, is only available on PS3 like other Naughty Dog games such as the epic trilogy of Uncharted games (Which are amazing and some of my faves!)   

The game follows Joel, who is trekking across a post-apocalyptic dystopian future. The scene is set in the US in 2033, he is escorting a young girl named Ellie to a friendly resistance group. They must defend themselves against zombies as well as hostile humans, using firearms, weapons and stealth and the use of the senses is also important. Weapons can also be crafted along with medical items.

 

The game consists of realistic action, emotional depth, visually stunning environments and optional extras. sound design and environments. Its out today (14th.)

 

 

 

Do you love it?

This sort electo pop song named "I Love It" is by an electro house Swedish duo, forming in 2009, named Icona Pop. Its a single from their album also named Icona Pop! Its been unheard of in the UK through 2012 but has been popular across the world. It has been given a release date of the 30th June for the UK, however after the song came popular after its use on and advert for Samsung Galaxy S4 and soon got picked up by the big radio stations. Its likely to be a big hit the summer! But what do you think? Do you love it?

 

 

 

Remember This...? Hard Fi - Hard To Beat

Though this song is still loved by thousands of people and Hard Fi are still around blasting out some awesome tunes, its amazing to think that this song came out 7 years ago! Now I feel verrry old, this song came out whilst I was still at school! It was part of the time when the charts were jam packed with indie rock, with Kaiser Cheifs, Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys, Oasis and The Killers all at their height. It comes from the album Stars Of CCTV which reached number one in the UK Chart and released 5 singles from it all of which reached the Top 40!

 

This single did the best reaching Number 9 in the UK. It sums up that era of Indie Madness, and today their songs are still loved.

 

Enjoyyyy:

 

 

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

Now, if you have had a stressful day, or just want to chill out and relax then this is the perfect album to do so. It's great to drift you off to sleep and send you on a magical journey. The album "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" is the sixth studio album from French electronic band M83 and I would highly recommend it. Though I haven't listened to much of their previous work I am definitely tempted to do so after loving every single song on the album. With a slight 80's influence the album was released in 2011 and contains 22 songs some of which are only a minute or two long. There is a range of different songs on the album many without lyrics, some quiet, sleepy tracks, some happy, bubbly and entertaining songs and some very powerful and epic songs. They provide you with feelings that many albums could never produce.

 

Midnight City was the first song released as a single from the album and did very well in music industry and many will recognise it here in the UK. The song became popular in 2012, especially as it was used prominently during the London 2012 Olympics. Its been used in many films and even as the theme for Made In Chelsea. Here it is:

 

 

The album contains an intro and outro which are both magical and make you float away and travel across mountain ranges and galaxies as you sleep.

 

 

Many of the songs from the album have been used in trailers and advertisements and on BBC songs from the album are currently being used to advertise CBBC and the Wimbledon trailer.

 

The album came with two CDs for its 22 songs and was giving great reviews, **** from Daily Telegraph and 7/10 NME.

 

It is the undeniable sound of one man's triumphant dreams - Reef Younis

 

Here are some more of my favourite tracks, if you need to chill out just give these a few seconds and they'll have you drifting off to other galaxies.

 

Enjoy, and sweet dreams.

 

 

 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - First Look Teaser Trailer!

HOT OFF THE PRESS!!!

 

I have been waiting for this trailer for ages, and it is finally here, the first look of the next instalment of The Hobbit! The Desolation of Smaug is out at the end of the year and this trailer looks epic, filled with spiders, barrels, elves, dwarves oh and not to forget Bilbo and the menacing Dragon Smaug! Also Legolas is back and Evnagaline Lily (Kate from LOST) plays the part of Tauriel a Woodland Elf :)

 

Take a Look now!

 

 

PS4 console revealled along with a cheaper price than Xbox One

Yesterday PS4 and Xbox One revealed further details of their consoles, including their price. The PS4 has undercut the price of Xbox One by £80: Sony announced the PS4 would cost £349 in the UK $399 in the US and 399 euros across Europe. Earlier in the day Microsoft revealed the Xbox would cost £429 in the UK, $499 in the US and 499 euros.

 

Sony also revealed that its games machine would not include any new restrictions on pre-owned games bought from friends or retailers, with no need to authenticate their machines via the internet to allow games to continue being played. However, Microsoft has introduced these limitations along with an internet connection requirement every 24 hours to play games on Xbox One.

 

Finally, Sony revealed the look of the PS4 and here it is:

 

 

 

One by one, we're gonna leave this planet

 

This is a new song from one of the Take That members, and though Mark Owen has been getting a bit of slack from his singing, at least he is singing live and this song is pretty awesome! Its climaxes and falls make the song powerful and the lyrics are strong and can take many different perceptions from it. If there was more publicity around this song and possibly a better vocal this song would do really well! Perhaps if he had his Take That members along side it would be a strong performance, but it is a really good song and Mark Owen isn't a bad singer, this is just a harder song to sing. I am looking forward to hearing some sort of acapella version of this.

 

Cos we're just stars

Tryin to get back to where we are from

One by one we're gonna leave this planet

Harry Potter Studio Tour

Well this weekend has been another exciting one. I went down to London for the weekend to have a look around Kingston-upon-Thames, as my brother is planning on going to university there. It was pretty nice place, right on the Thames and had some nice nearby towns. Though it was so strange to see the urban expansion of the city. We visited "Villages" which had a small centre and village green, but with no surrounding countryside, just housing developments. There is so many of these villages just swamped by housing developments.

 

 

Whilst we were down there, we visited Harry Potter Studio Tour at Warener Bros. I'd seen so many people already visit and it did look fantastic. To actually see the props, sets and outfits from the movies I had seen so many times. Harry Potter was something I grew up with; when I went to Secondary School, Harry went to Hogwarts and though the films were a little spaced apart, the books also fitted in with my life as I was growing up also. It was done quite well and the booking scheme made sure that it wasn't too busy as you were walking around so you could really get a good look at everything. The first set you went into was the Great Hall and it was fantastic to walk into there were all those films and memories had been made. Though the majority of sets had been moved from their original location to fit into the tour it was interesting to see how they are made and used in the films. There was lots to see, from Ministry of Magic, Hagrids Hut, Potions Classroom and Gryffindor Common Room. Also, we got to walk up Diagon Alley and managed to see the massive model used for the exterior shots. It looked huge and yet so real! The model was so grand and it was good to walk around and try and see if you could point out certain points of the castle. There are sections however, that have been modified for certain films, as you can expect. You also got to see further behind the scenes stuff as well as a few outdoor sets.

 

 

 

There was also an opportunity to grab a Butterbeer! It was so different to what I expected, though not alcoholic, I did think that it might be warm, but it was very cold and froffy, it tasted like Vanilla and was actually quite nice!

 

Overall, the experience was great, it was a bit of a shame you couldn't walk onto the actual huge sets but you got a good idea of the scale. There was numerous sections where you could get on a broom and green screen and have a video/picture of yourself on it, or a poster/newspaper with your face on it and undesirable number 1, but these were hefty prices. The shop at the end was amazing, there was so much stuff to buy but it was heavily priced which was a shame. You could buy a chocolate frog or bertie botts every flavoured beans at a price!

 

It was a lovely day though and had a great time, would definitely recommend to everyone has grown up and loved the films!