17 days and no posts, tut tut tut. This was due to being very busy recently (which 9 on the list partially explains) and not for a lack of subject matter, in fact there’s been a tidal wave of subjects I could have written about that I felt overwhelmed at the prospect of catching up. So here is a rodeo round up of 9 things that I could have written about but didn’t since June 1st…

1) iPod Touch 3.0 update. I have an iPod touch so the update is not as thrill a minute for me as the iPhone owners. But it was £5.99 well spent on the ability to copy and paste.

2) Kev and Alice An interesting experiment in which games design student Robin Burkinshaw is documenting the lives of two homeless characters (Kev and his daughter Alice) he created and has let loose within Sims 3  (found c/o Billt)

3) Digital Britain Well who doesn’t know by now that the full report was published this week to a generally ‘its not soo bad’ reaction.

4) American Prince Tommy Pallotta’s (producer of rotorscoperific A Scanner Darkly and Waking life) sequel to Martin Scorsese’s American Boy, American Prince has been distributed for free across tinterweb torrents.

5) Eden I don’t think I’ve ever been as surprised by news of an upcoming video game as I am with Eden; a first person PC follow up to events in Lars von Trier’s controversial Antichrist – not one for the DS then.

6) Milo All technological wows of Milo and Natal aside- does anyone else have the nagging feeling that Milo is the harbinger of doom who will eventually bring about the death of the human race?

7) Channel 4 Back Catalogue From July Channel 4 is going to be putting all of their back catalogue on the 4oD catch up service for free.

8 ) #iranelection I’m guessing that 99.9% of people reading this post will be on twitter so I don’t need to elaborate on the impact twitter and the Iran election have had on each other, especially in light of the fact that the Twitter rescheduled maintenance to ensure the service stayed up on Monday.

9) New Job and last but not least, I have a new job as an Innovation and New Markets Executive for Screen West Midlands which I’m thrilled about. Meaning I will departing Soda Pictures and London (eep) at the beginning of July to return to my Brummie roots.

Yes its technically now old news, but when the dates where announced this blog didn’t fully exist so you’ll have to excuse the less than >breaking news< of this post. As in past years Power to the Pixel 2009 will co-incide with the London Film Festival and will run this year from the 14th-16th of October (although events on the 16th I think are part of a ‘invite only’ experts think tank.

Now in its 3rd year is great to see the forums scope evolving…

2007 – Digital distribution Forum for Independents
2008 – Digital Distribution and Film Innovation Forum
2009 – ‘Cross Media Film Forum’

..and I’m excited to see it incorporating more cross media discussion after some inspiring talks last year by Christy Dena and Alex Johnson.

Although the full line up is not yet announced they have announced a new addition of the Pixel Pitch…

PTTP is proud to follow-up with this year’s newly-named Pixel Pitch.  Throughout the day of 15 October, 10 leading teams will have the opportunity to pitch their cross-media film projects to a select group of financiers, commissioners, tech companies, online portals, media companies in front of an open audience. One project will be awarded a sponsored cash prize. The call for applications will be announced in the coming months, so stay tuned.

I know its a long way away, but I’m looking forward to heading along again this year (and seeing if in light of Twitter’s PR explosion if the twitter contingent come out in stronger numbers- remember #PTTP!) For more info and to be kept up to date with further announcements, or to view videos of last years talks then head over to the PTTP site.

However praise be as sanity may be slowly prevailing as in last weeks Guardian box office round up by Charles Gant came some incredibly sensible comments regarding the pre release leak of Wolverine online…

“Based on the comicbook spin-off’s performance at the UK box office, it seems the online piracy of Wolverine has had little effect. The official opening weekend figure is £6.66m, including Wednesday and Thursday previews of £1.87m. Add in the bank holiday Monday takings of £1.9m, and the prequel has grossed £8.56m in six days – far and away the biggest release of 2009 so far.”

Yes that’s right, a film with a high profile online leak still managed to have the highest opening weekend of the year so far (one that even Star Trek failed to beat by a reasonable margin). I’m yet to know whether the leak online was, as some have suggested, a marketing tactic by Fox and would be fascinated to know if this leak might have actually helped the box office.

Although I don’t think that this news is going to open the flood gates on alternative distribution for blockbuster release titles just yet, at least it does give me an alternative response to ’shut up’ next time someone fires at me the line…

“Our film has been pirated online a billion times, therefore we have lost out on a billion sales”