The first ever Manchester Animation Festival (MAF for short) starts today! It takes place at HOME in Manchester and will last from today (17th Nov) and until the end of Thursday (19th Nov).
There are lots of exciting events - workshops, Q&As, screenings, and panels - on over the three days, so come and check it out! There's a full diary of all the events on the website with tickets still available to purchase for most events online or in person, ranging from £5 to £12.
Tickets and passes for Manchester Animation Festival became on sale today. MAF will be filled with guest speakers, workshops, masterclasses, retrospectives, panel discussions, and feature screenings over the 17th, 18th, and 19th November at HOME Manchester.
Tickets for individual screenings and events range from £6 to £12, day passes are £40, whilst passes for the full festival are £85. Concessions on the ticket prices are available for students, people aged 60+, those with a registered disability, and those who are registered unemployed or claiming Jobseekers Allowance.
A new Doctor Who spin-off by the BBC has been announced. The spin-off will be aimed at teenagers and will be written by young adult fiction author Patrick Ness, pictured below.
The series, titled 'Class', will be set in a school in modern London but be filmed in and around Cardiff like Doctor Who itself. Class will consist of eight 45-minute episodes and will air on BBC Three in 2016.
I'm astounded and thrilled to be entering the Doctor Who universe, which is as vast as time and space itself. There's so much room there for all kinds of amazing stories and to work with [Doctor Who writer] Steven Moffat and [producer] Brian Minchin to find a place to tell one of my own has been an absolute joy. I can't wait for people to meet the heroes of Class, to meet the all-new villains and aliens, to remember that the horrors of the darkest corners of existence are just about on par with having to pass your A-levels.
Previous Doctor Who spin-offs include Torchwood, aimed at adult audiences and The Sarah Jane Adventures, aimed at younger audiences. Doctor Who Confidential and Torchwood Declassified were behind-the-scenes spin-offs that were also broadcast on BBC Three. Class will be the first spin-off aimed at teenage audiences, as well as the first new spin-off of the Moffat-era of Doctor Who.
What are you hoping to see in Class? It's pretty likely that the Doctor himself will turn up at some point, as he did in The Sarah Jane Adventures. I'm hoping to see the premise for Class set up in Doctor Who itself. Being set in a London school, it seems quite possible that the series could feature Coal Hill School, which the Doctor's granddaughter Susan attended and where Clara Oswald teaches. Jenna Coleman departs Doctor Who at the end of the current series - could it be becuase Clara Oswald wants to focus on a teaching career, leading into Class?
Finally, what do you think of the title Class? I'm not totally convinced by it, but I may warm up to it yet. Class doesn't air until 2016 so we may see a title change yet. Discuss it in the comments below and we'll get a conversation started!
A new trailer for Marvel's Jessica Jones dropped yesterday. In the brand new teaser trailer, we catch a glimpse of Krysten Ritter as the titular superhero post-bar brawl.
In the comics, Jessica Jones is a former superhero with super strength, durability, and the ability to fly. It's still unclear exactly how much of the character will translate to screen, but from the way she taps the jukebox, I'm willing to bet she retains her super strength.
The entire series will drop on Netflix on 20th November. In the meantime, you can watch the previous teaser trailer and learn more about the Marvel's Jessica Joneshere and catch up on Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix here.
The first ever Manchester Animation Festival (MAF) is fast approaching and today MAF's full website launched.
Taking place on the 17th, 18th, and 19th of November and hosted at HOME in Manchester, the festival is set to attract an international community of animators and animation enthusiasts. Tickets go on sale on the 2nd of October, so there's plenty of time to prepare if you're interested in attending the event set to feature screenings, workshops, panels and more.
Among today's news was the reveal of the beautiful MAF Awards design sculpted by Mackinnon and Saunders, a Manchester-based animation company that has previously worked on films such as Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox. The design features a steampunk bee, combining the industrial imagery associated with Manchester and Manchester's history with creative industries.
There was also a call for volunteers to help see the festival run smoothly. If you're interested, it's sure to be a fantastic experience so be sure to apply on the website before the 2nd of October.
Well, there it is. The news. Life is Strange Episode 5 'Polarized' will be released on 20th of October. It's not 100% certain though, as Luc states in Square Enix's blog, but the team wanted to celebrate the main character Max's birthday by giving us a date for the anticipated final episode of the game that's received an overwhelmingly positive reception on Steam - and beyond.
The last episode left us with such an exciting cliff-hanger - and the game is no doubt one of the most notable (indie) gaming experience in the last few years - so it's safe to say Hello, Robots! will be there to get it immediately (and yes, a review will be on its way then)!
If you haven't played Life is Strange, here's a short list of why you should buy it immediately:
It's great.
An exciting story with cliff-hangers and surprises.
A fine example of the use of episodic structure in video games; get the game while you still can enjoy anticipating the next episode.
Enjoyable and believable characters.
The stuff you do can literally change everything. Well, maybe not everything, but your choices have a meaning.
The last few years have been revolutionary for indie games and has brighten the gaming spectrum! Let's show them our support.
Did I mention, it's great?
So go and get it. And if you're already in the excited Life is Strange family I only have this to say to you: :O!
The teaser trailer for the second of Marvel's Netflix TV series arrived yesterday, and boy is it exciting! The trailer for Marvel's Jessica Jones doesn't feature any footage from the show itself, but it does manage to nicely set up the theme and the vibe of the series - suspense, noir, thrill, and of course it wouldn't be Marvel without a little action. Check out the trailer below:
The trailer also revealed the release date for Marvel's Jessica Jones: 20th November 2015. Just like with the previous Netflix series Marvel's Daredevil, all episodes will drop onto Netflix at the same time that Friday, allowing fans to binge watch the entire series over the weekend if they wish. It's what I did with Marvel's Daredevil earlier in the year, and it's what I intend to do with Marvel's Jessica Jones too.
Marvel's Jessica Jones will star Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones herself, a former superhero who's hung up her cape and opened her own detective agency, Alias Investigations, which we catch a glimpse of in the trailer. In the comics, Jessica Jones was formerly known as Jewel and had the powers of superhuman strength and durability and could fly, but it remains to be seen how much of that will translate to the screen.
A whole lot of purple appears in the trailer too which could be a reference to the character's hair as the hero Jewel, but is also almost certainly a reference to Zebediah Killgrave, a.k.a. The Purple Man, a dastardly villain with mind control abilities and a history with Jessica Jones. In the Netflix series, he will be known as Kilgrave and he will be played by David Tennant, whose voice you can hear in the teaser trailer if you listen carefully.
Following Marvel's Jessica Jones, there will be a second series of Marvel's Daredevil and the first series of Marvel's Luke Cage and Marvel's Iron Fist, culminating in a team-up in the Marvel's The Defenders miniseries. You can watch the first series of Marvel's Daredevil now on Netflix. Now I'm off to watch that teaser trailer a couple more times.
We've been waiting for information on a new Pokémon for a while now, and yesterday, our prayers were answered in the form of Pokémon GO - a new game for Android and iOS.
The premise of Pokémon GO is that pokémon can be found in real-world locations via a smartphone - and battled and captured for your own team. Additionally, a Bluetooth accessory called Pokémon GO Plus is being developed, designed to connect with your smartphone and alert you to any nearby pokémon or events. I don't know about you, but I think it's time to upgrade my Samsung E1200 . . .
Pokémon GO is released in 2016. Further information can be found on the official Pokémon site, here.
Good news for British Star Wars fans! It was announced today on the official Star Wars UK Facebook page that the newest film in the franchise, 'The Force Awakens' will be hitting UK cinemas on December 17th - that's a whole day earlier than previously reported, and currently a day ahead of the US release date of December 18th (though this will probably change!)
With this new revelation, it is now only 100 days until Star Wars graces our screens once more - and for all of us at Hello, Robots!, it couldn't come sooner.
