Zombies Occupy Disused Shopping Mall

Consumers are always up for new and unique experiences that provide them with an adrenalin rush and a wow factor to remember. Well, Wish.co.uk is offering a Zombie Shopping Mall experience where people have the opportunity to fight against zombies in a disused shopping mall located at Reading, 25 minutes from London CBD.

For £119 per person, participants can fight real life human zombies (actors of course) around the abandoned mall for up to 3 hours. Willing participants are briefed and provided with weapons to defend themselves against the roaming zombies. 

The Zombie Shopping Mall experience commenced in March 2012 and is currently available on select dates through to 28th July 2012. 

As the Reading shopping Mall is disused, it's unknown how long the Zombie Shopping Mall experience will continue. 

Perfect example of a niche concept drawing the crowd based on an unique experience with a limited period offering, Skirmish paintball business operators from around the globe, what are you waiting for!

Levi’s Film Workshop

Professional workshops, top of the line equipment, edit rooms, promoted public screenings of your work. All open to the public, free of charge. Levi’s opens a Film Workshop to arm the public with resources often inaccessible for the average creative individual. A temporary venue as part of the series that held the Levi’s Photo Workshop, the Levi’s Film Workshop plays host to collaboration and creative production celebrating the craft of filmmaking. Housed inside LA’s Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Levi’s is helping to demystify the filmmaking experience in Hollywood itself. Up for rent, top of the line cameras such as the Red One, sound equipment from RØDE, grip and light gear from Quixote, and tripods and accessories from Manfrotto. The in-house editing suite is also yours to piece together what you used the equipment for, which leads to the screening room, for a screening of your final product. Championing a series of styles and techniques, from super 8 to 3D, home movies to avant garde and amateur to professional. The Levi’s Film Workshop has also put together some collaborations with artists like Shepard Fairey and Lady Pink in a series of Art in the Streets Trucker Jackets. Democratising the art making process, we look forward to seeing the Levi’s workshop series continue to evolve. Watch some of the films made so far here.

YouTube Scrubs Up

If you didn’t already know, Google has played Father to YouTube for a while now. And in all things Google they’re developing what they own through eyes of some interesting innovation.

Google has recently sunk some grants into small production houses, who are mainly concerned with the small guns. Not Hollywood, not big budget, but the average-joe production house set-up specifically for the make-up tipster or comedic jokester next door. These studios are taking the YouTube superstars and giving them a green screen, some makeup, cash, costume and all the air-brushing of a post-production swipe.

The reasons? One would imagine that growth is the way. The public is now very familiar with those endless kittens and grainy garage monologues, and then there is GoogleTV that one needs to think about.

Not to mention, with the likes of Hulu and Netflix doing their good load of streaming film and TV.

( Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times )

The New York Times poses a case study, where YouTube user KassemG was taken by one such of these aquisitions, given money to pay his monthly rent, a wardrobe full of props, and some co-stars (YouTube startlets in their own right, LisaNova and ShayCarl). KassemG’s viewership shot from 50,000 to 1.3 million in a year, his bedroom comedy show turned pro…like.

YouTube churns revenue from these small-scale productions through advertising on their spots. They in turn share the ad revenue with the studios and talent and coach them on copyright laws.

A new insight into what is becoming of our video viewing experience, and a new direction of production nurturing what would have otherwise been garage-based talent. Stay tuned.

Socialising the Film Industry

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform changing the way creative projects come to life. Artists, Film-makers, Product Designers and more are launching their projects independently thanks to the financial support platform that Kickstarter provides. At Kickstarter, you start a project, set a project funding goal, allocate reward tiers and seed word of it to your community. Your community and beyond can donate increments and recieve the rewards set depending on how much they donate. Creatives bypass usual funding models of investment and loans, enabling their community to involve themselves in their projects and ‘kickstarting’ endeavours independently. So far thousands of projects have gone on to successfully print graphic novels, launch iPod accessories and more. Over 350,000 people have pledged over $30 million dollars to projects on Kickstarter since its launch in spring 2009. And now, Sundance meets Kickstarter. Teaming up, the Sundance Film Institute hopes to power their alumni’s projects through the social funding platform that is Kickstarter. An effort to connect their artists with their audience and emerge on a new pathway of digital industry and distribution. Sundance Directors, Screenwriters, Theatre Artists and Film Composers will gain support from Kickstarter to curate pledge drives to bring the film industry to a publicly-funded space. The old world film industry evolving it’s financial roots. The new online media landscape presenting large opportunities for audiences and artists to connect in exciting ways.