OMI: Jasper Fforde Friday, 30 January 2009

The utterly genius novelist Jasper Fforde is the guest writer for The Lost Book’s microstory competition. We’re challenging you to help him write The Lost Book – the book that has been stolen. It’s the journal of a 2004 expedition to Arthur Conan Doyle’s lost world.

Jasper has written two intriguing articles about explorer Sally Challenger’s expedition to Southern Venezuela. His cast of characters seem to have had an eventful time, but it’s now up to the rest of us to carry on the story and write the expedition’s journals. To join in, head over to the microstory competition page.

Jasper Fforde is loved by readers everywhere for his bestselling Thursday Next and Nursery Crime books. The Thursday Next series is a ‘book phenomenon’ which started in 2001 with the publication of The Eyre Affair. The fifth in the series, First Among Sequels, came out in 2007. There have been two books in the Nursery Crime series so far – the second, The Fourth Bear, was published in 2006. Fortunately, we don’t have long to wait for his next book, Shades of Grey, which is due out in summer 2009.

Jasper’s answered our One Minute interview questions, plus a couple of others of his own choosing, so read on…! (more…)

OMI: Helen Jackson Thursday, 29 January 2009

Helen is one half of Binary Fable, the animation company behind The Lost Book. Helen originally dreamed up the concept of a booky animation last summer, and is delighted that the idea’s taken off. It’s basically her ideal project.

This is Helen captured in a rare moment away from the computer. She’s doing some cut-out animation. These Aileen and Watson character cut-out models, plus a step-by-step animation workshop, will be available to download from tomorrow in the Get Involved! section of the website. (Plus you’ll be able to watch the film Helen’s making here.) Creating short cut-out films is quick, easy and fun, so give it a go.

Here’s Helen’s One Minute Interview if you want to learn more about what makes her tick… (more…)

OMI: Jackie Arnott-Raymond Wednesday, 28 January 2009

Jackie is part of the design team at Front Page Design who created the branding for The Lost Book. We adore our wee luggage tag logo, so kudos to Jackie and the rest of the Front Page team (in particular Simon Cunningham, Mark Hutton, Jo Levy and Alan Pyke who have worked on The Lost Book).

Jackie is an account director and copywriter at Front Page, where she’s worked on major accounts like Silverstone Circuit, Travel 2 and the award-winning Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line accounts. She’s been with Front Page since 2000; before that, she spent 12 years working in the UK Travel Industry.

We caught up with Jackie last week and got her answers to our One Minute Interview… (more…)

OMI: Alexander Jackson Laing Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Alexander is one of four MSc Sound Design students on our recording team. He and colleagues Augoustinos Tsiros, Gavin Fort and Simon Herron recorded and edited the music for episode 1 yesterday (and it’s sounding great!).

Here’s composer Alexis to the left, Alex operating the mouse, Simon taking notes, and Augoustinos and Gav in the background.

As well as doing the MSc, Alex says he’s working on some other arty music/visual/nerdy electronic projects (including one with a fire performing troupe). Want to know more? Read on for the One Minute Interview… (more…)

OMI: Stephen Gilmour Monday, 26 January 2009

Stephen‘s working hard right now to finish the soundtrack for Episode 1. He’ll have the final mix ready for us tomorrow.

Stephen’s a freelance sound designer. He makes soundtracks for animations and new media productions – where every footstep has to be painstakingly created. He’s done stuff for major brands such as Irn-Bru and Tennents as well as animation companies like Binary Fable, Trikk 17 and Igloo Films. He’s also worked with location sound for films such as ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’.

Read on to see how Stephen responded to our One Minute Interview… (more…)

OMI: Alexis Bennett Monday, 19 January 2009

Now that Alexis, our composer for episode 1, has finished work (well, until the recording session on Monday) we decided to sit him down and ask him a few searching questions.

Alexis is a composer, viola player, ceilidh musician, teacher and academic. His music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Channel 4 and Turner Classic Movies and at film festivals worldwide, including Cannes, London and Edinburgh. In addition to playing with his ceilidh band and string quartet, he has just formed a group called The Early Music Experiment, a collective of baroque musicians who also like messing around with laptops.

Here’s Alexis’s response to our One Minute Interview… (more…)