random rants - banjax blog

Whacky Anagrams

This:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

is apparently an anagram of:

Immaculate and pregnant? Horror! She's deluded about her abdominal mass. Whose fetus? From where? Your Jewish boyfriend's flesh got you in the family way, not Mr Ghost! That HRT tale of hers don't fool us.

Davy Jones Wee Car

When I was growing up in Lisburn in the 1960's & 70's I would always look out for Davy Jones' wee car. My father has managed to track down a photograph of Davy AND his car! This takes me back...

Pavement Art

Just stumbled across an amazing gallery of pavement art. I had never heard of this artform, but it looks wonderful.

Nollywood

Forget Hollywood. Forget Bollywood. Welcome Nollywood! The Nigerian film industry rocks.

Bollywood Distribution on Kazaa

It seems that my earlier suggestion for P2P distribution is already coming to pass! The people who brought you Kazaa P2P file sharing are planning to distribute a Bollywood film through their network. CNet has the story and another similar one.

File-swapping company Sharman Networks on Thursday said it will digitally distribute a feature film from Bollywood, using its peer-to-peer application, Kazaa.

The Hindi-language film, "Supari," will be offered to Kazaa users for $2.99, under the terms of the agreement the Australian company has signed with P2P products distributor Altnet and Indian filmmaker Aum Creates Unlimited.

Songs from the movie will available for 90 cents each, while trailers and production footage can be downloaded for free. The filmmaker will get paid each time the movie file is shared and purchased via Kazaa.

Another interesting technology is Peercast.

Private Investors in Film & TV

There seem to be all sorts of interesting alternative financing strategies for independent film and TV around at the moment. For instance Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds fame has been quietly raising money in the UK through a large Enterprise Investment Scheme. The company handling the financing is Margetts in Birmingham. To quote them:

Following on from one of the largest, fastest and most successful EIS fundings ever, there now exists a second and final opportunity to invest into Gerry Anderson Productions plc. Having already raised over £8 million, the Board of Directors are looking to raise a further £7.9 million. The minimum investment is now £11,000.

Client Benefits:

- 20% initial income tax relief on investments up to £150,000 pa
- Defer an unlimited capital gain
- Tax free growth after three years
- IHT free on death after two years
- 50% of net worldwide profits
(the above subject to qualifying rules, minimum investment is £11,000)

Motley Fool UK has an article about this EIS opportunity.

If you want to read the prospectus for Captain Scarlet click here. (There are also prospectus for Film Fund One plc and Grosvenor Films "Messages" feature film).

In the US, Civilian Capital are trail-blazing with the first of what may be many Film IPO's, a public offering of shares in the film of the book by Lisa Reardon, Dead Billy starring Ethan Hawke.

Catch news about Civilian Capital here.

Auntie

BBC goes Open Source.