Luke Sutton's Blog

Overtaken - A short essay on the pace of life

2012-02-02T16:04:00.000Z

Lest I turn into a terribly negative and self-absorbed Tumblr user who tag their posts as 'personal', I will attempt to use the thoughts I have on an emotional matter to write something that people can relate to and come to a positive conclusion from, rather than simply dwell in tears and pity, posting meaningless grayscale .gif images of leaves and sky and tattoos. If you read my blog

Film Review: The Swan Princess

2012-01-28T23:31:00.000Z

Back when I was a small lad, I often enjoyed watching Disney animations. Most children do. I loved The Jungle Book, Hercules and some of the later Pixar features like A Bug's Life and Monsters Inc. For one reason or another I got it into my head that any animated films that weren't Disney were somehow inferior, cheaper or just plain bad. Whilst I enjoyed Anastasia, the Fox-funded, Russian-centric

Stormtrooper Ballet

2012-01-28T09:46:00.000Z

As website manager for Star Trek Elite Force Files on the Filefront Network, I am given an amusing little placeholder instead of adverts. I thought I'd share this peculiar image with you faithful readers. Trying to think of a "not the droids you're looking for" pun, but nothing comes to mind.

Am I grumpy?

2012-01-27T00:51:00.000Z

Occasionally, friends of mine inform me that I'm quite grumpy. Now this is more of a surprise to me than it should be because most of the time and in many aspects of my life, I'm actually very happy. I'm always grateful for what I have, who I have and I'm satisfied by what I've achieved and been part of since birth. However, it is true that I find some things difficult to cope with and I often

The Thirteenth Month of 2011... and Emma Long's New Years Party

2012-01-09T23:21:00.000Z

As I get ever older and more jaded to the frolics of youth, it occurs to me that though everything in life changes, a remarkable amount of it remains the same, year after year. Such as it is with time. A week into 2012, and nothing yet would inform an ignorant hermit that it was more than the thirteenth month of 2011. Well. Maybe the extravagant fireworks. Beth and Emma's dad as a

Bit wet out

2012-01-03T12:00:00.000Z

I woke up this morning and from within the warm, cocoon-like duvet, my semi-concious form heard rather a lot of rain falling outside. And wind. Naturally, having planned a quiet day of writing and working, this didn't bother me, and I switched on the television in my room to Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear, which probably explains a lot about my personality. Then I get a text from my good friend Emma

Star Trek: Revolutions - Part One

2012-01-02T22:17:00.000Z

Here I am, kicking off the new year with yet another plug for my increasingly not-too-bad series of films. Back in the week just before Christmas, I released the long-awaited first part of Star Trek: Revolutions, a further adventure of Star Trek: Unity. Long awaited by fans, I might add. Yes, for the first time in seven years, I've had to seriously contend with users on YouTube and the rest of

The Christmas Sales

2011-12-28T20:59:00.001Z

A giant rubber duck in John Lewis. Every Christmas, usually starting Boxing Day, are the sales. Hoards of shoppers (I'd say women if I wasn't just too damn politically correct) drive into cities at a painfully early time in the morning to snap up outrageously cheap merchandise that explains a lot about the state of the economy at the moment. Some people save up money for the whole year to blow

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T13:50:00.000Z

Hello faithful readers! I hope you've been eating too much, assembling under the Christmas tree in your hoards and enjoying tedieous social gatherings during this festive period. This year, I've been thinking about the concept of Christmas: evolved from a pagan festival into a Christian celebration and now, oddly, into some sort of multi-ethic holiday. Some argue that Christmas shouldn't be

Filming the London Buskers

2011-12-16T20:06:00.018Z

In Westminster with Steph (left) and Amber (middle) on the 3rd. It is a bit of a sad state of affairs that I have not been blogging in almost a month, but the real world has thankfully provided entertainment with constant editing, writing, location filming and the upcoming celebration of Christmas. Oh yes, welcome to December. Besides, I bet nobody missed me. The heavy equipment required a

Children In Need & Star Trek: Airlock 3

2011-11-29T20:04:00.000Z

Children In Need isn't what it was. Though clearly raising more money than ever before, a staggering £26 million, I visited ASDA and Totton College on Friday 18th and the whole event seemed a little low-key and tired to me. It entertains children no end, but more and more I hear adults sighing heavily and complaining that it takes up a whole night of their everso precious television. I also

Birthday 2011

2011-11-26T18:02:00.000Z

The staircase in our new house has become an excellent group photo spot. I don't feel any older at all. This time last week it was my Birthday and I was preparing for a house party after visiting my Nan and a local fete in the morning, feeling surprisingly happy and sweet-natured for once. I suppose I appreciate the little things more now: I love taking comprehensive photographs and video

A Birthday Countdown with my Companions

2011-11-17T22:12:00.001Z

Amber, myself and TAV. Photo taken by Steph, who dislikes pictures of herself. Which is just silly. Lower key than ever, at least from my perspective, the Birthday is upon me again on Saturday 19th November, and I'm turning 21, otherwise known by anyone over fifty as the "perfect age", the peak of physical, mental and youthful existence. Lest I have my Nan mocking me with her ancient "Twenty

The Isolation of the iPod Generation (or "How I unplugged my music and started to enjoy bus journeys")

2011-11-14T22:28:00.000Z

As I get the bus each morning, I'm struck by how many people have tiny little wires leading out from their ears into a small contraption in their pockets, staring blankly ahead of them, oblivious of thoughts outside the pathetically deep melody of music they are inevitably listening to, sometimes turning their heads towards the window, trying to subconsciously recreate the emotional emancipation

Ugly Bags of Mostly Water

2011-11-06T13:11:00.000Z

The one thing I'm not especially keen on about our new home is the fact there is no shower as of yet. We have a bath. A small, cramped and pink bath that the pensioner who that previously lived here made use of. Now I've not had baths day after day for about six years and I've suddenly found it tremendously tedious, because it is all very well jumping in and washing your sweaty body clean, but

Big Brother isn't watching you, it just wants to waste your time

2011-11-01T19:01:00.000Z

Once upon a time I watched Big Brother. I was about eleven years old and up at midnight, sitting in front of the television like a ninja because I couldn't sleep and was fairly curious about this so called 'Babestation'. Needless to say that tits and thongs weren't what they're cracked up to be and I was soon channel hopping through Sky TV stations, looking for something to drown my sleepy

Keep Calm and Eat Cakes: Reflections on producing an interview-based documentary

2011-10-30T22:29:00.000Z

(L-R) Michael, Steph, Amber and a lot of kit worth a lot of money. Back, as I am, at university for my second year, I've been thrown into more projects than John Barrowman on a Saturday night. Amongst designing my own DVD and considering the woeful ethics of reality television, my three friends Amber, Steph, Michael and I, forming a mini-production company of sorts, have embarked on making

The Big Move - Zero Hour

2011-10-27T18:34:00.000+01:00

So anyway, last Friday 21st October 2011 at 12:30pm, my parents and I departed 20 Morpeth Avenue for the final time, leaving behind a building devoid of any contents save an internet wire and some substandard light bulbs. The men from the removal company came in their massive truck half an hour earlier than expected, casually carrying away heavy boxes of books, VHS tapes and hats at 8am, like

The Big Move - Boxes

2011-10-19T15:56:00.000+01:00

Bitch got everything in the divorce. I realize that it is annoyingly melodramatic and ultimately idiotically attention seeking to post such things as "new year, new start" on Facebook, claiming that one particular action on one day, such as dying ones hair will somehow change your whole life for the better. Yet by the end of this week, it really will be a new start for me. When I wake up in the

The Big Move - Packing

2011-10-14T22:32:00.000+01:00

If I was a kid again, I'd be building castles and buses with all these boxes. And some imagination. I will try not to jinx this the process by announcing it, but we've "exchanged" today. The established steps to the property ladder seem so inefficient and convoluted, timing the removals with the legal paperwork and such like, but our house move is finally fully on track, with a week until my

Marchwood stranded: the Bluestar Bus cuts

2011-10-11T19:35:00.000+01:00

The Bluestar bus network as it stands. Multiple services cover central Southampton, whereas Marchwood and the waterside have fewer. As we all know, faithful readers, the internet isn't a very nice place and I don't plan to harp here about the cruel anonymity and opportunities for trolling that it presents. Yet, another thing it presents is the ability to bring issues to a company without

"It won't be as good as the original!" - Exporting Television Formats Across The Pond

2011-10-07T14:11:00.000+01:00

I often notice a lot of resigned sighs and typically British tutting when people discover that a television show is to be exported and remade in the United States. Somehow the idea of a copycat series, inevitably dumbed down for the obese American audience is woeful news, perhaps set to tarnish the original's reputation and good name. Indeed, my good friend Amber displayed such a reaction this

River's Wedding, Silent complications and why Russell T Davies doesn't suck in comparison to Steven Moffat: A Doctor Who review

2011-10-02T13:35:00.000+01:00

In "The Wedding of River Song", the TARDIS crew tackle the Silence. The series six finale of Doctor Who aired last night and I quite liked it. It was fun, sharply written and just silly enough, addressing many of the series' questions and mysteries whilst looking amazing, once again with an epic scale. Compare this to "A Good Man Goes to War", which I enjoyed more because it actually made

TV Review: Battlestar Galactica

2011-09-30T19:12:00.000+01:00

In 2003, former Star Trek writer Ronald D. Moore created a re-imagining of the 70s science fiction show Battlestar Galactica about Twelve Colonies of Humans that were destroyed by their own robotic creations, the Cylons. BSG follows a group of survivors as they make their way through space to find a new home called Earth, protected by the military carrier Galactica as the Cylons pursue them. In

Game Review: Star Trek Away Team

2011-09-29T19:00:00.000+01:00

Star Trek: Away Team is an isometric real-time strategy game set in the fictional universe of Star Trek and focusing on commando-style reconnaissance and combat. It was developed by Reflexive Entertainment and published by Activision in 2001 for the Microsoft Windows platform. This was a game released at the height of Activision's string of Trek titles, coming off the successes of Armada and

Torchwood: Miracle Day

2011-09-23T11:47:00.000+01:00

I’ve often spoken of Doctor Who, a favourite science fiction show of mine. Earlier this year it had a big US launch from its humble British beginnings. You wouldn’t think it if you were a typical US native, but the STARZ channel’s new science fiction series Torchwood is a direct Doctor Who spin-off. And it isn’t all new as the adverts would have you think. When the series began in 2006, it was

The Big Move - Prelude

2011-09-20T19:44:00.000+01:00

Our semi-detached home since I was 2. I'm moving house soon. Having lived in Morpeth Avenue, Totton, Southampton, United Kingdom for almost nineteen years, I've known very little else as home. Maybe my Nan's. Or Mr Pragnell's computer classroom at Applemore. My parents, on the other hand, moved a lot when they were little children back in the day, and mostly due to issues of space (have you

Star Trek: The Warriors of Qo'noS / A Good Day to Die

2011-09-16T00:34:00.000+01:00

As the summer draws to a close, I have found myself ever busy with making films. So much so, in fact, that my video camcorder is currently broken and during a trip to town with Adam Best today, on Thursday, I had to hand it into John Lewis for repairs. Nevertheless, it cut out just at the right time, after filming Lewis Smith's handful of scenes earlier in the week for the upcoming Star Trek:

The One Where They All Go Off To University (leaving me with nervous college friends)

2011-09-09T19:12:00.000+01:00

Lewis and Adam inbetween takes - filming on Monday. This week is all about saying Goodbye. Isn't that sad. I don't go back to university until October, but my friends who have just finished college are all off for their first year at uni soon, and it is surprisingly emotional. Suddenly I won't be seeing Pd all the time. Or Beth. Or Lewis... or the rest. How that will affect me is yet to be seen

Film Review: The Two Towers

2011-09-05T10:06:00.000+01:00

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a 2002 fantasy film directed by Peter Jackson based on the second volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam continue their epic quest (and that is no exaggeration) to destroy the corrupting One Ring whilst the rest of the Fellowship battle evil Orcs. Actually, that is a very general synopsis that could be applied to the entire

Filming Update: On location filming with Harry and Adam

2011-08-29T21:48:00.000+01:00

Adam and I shooting a scene at the top of a valley in the New Forest. In an attempt to cut down on the long winded blogs about my busy, social life, I'm trying smaller diary entries - because this month has been bad for me and blogging. Really bad. Today I had the pleasure of finishing Harry Mabbett's filming for Star Trek: A Good Day to Die. Along with Mike Hamilton, he has been our

Film Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2

2011-08-07T15:15:00.000+01:00