May 16, 2011

Fansite Spotlight: DK Empire



One of the fandoms I'm currently immersing myself in is that of the (sensational!) British actor Dominic Keating. And there's just something so satisfying about finding an extensive and fun fansite devoted to what you're getting into :D In this case that'd be DK Empire, a fantastic fansite put together by the highly-creative Linsey McArthur.

I'd only previously seen DK as the incomparable Lt. Malcolm Reed in Star Trek: Enterprise, back in the 2000's, and his brief but totally memorable role as Ian Finch-Chumley in the 'Jungle 2 Jungle' movie, so it's been quite a treat to peruse all the screencaps and heaps of info over at DK Empire (from commercials to stage work to Indie shorts).

I look forward to seeing where next DK's career leads him, and it's great to have a place to revel in his previous projects :)

A current pic of Mr. Keating, from the NOH8 campaign.

UPDATE: DK Empire is no more, so the Official Site is the place to go.

May 13, 2011

War of the Worlds: score & promos

Okay, here are a few War of the Worlds goodies.
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First up are some tracks from the soundtrack. It's easy to 'overlook' score while you're watching cos your attention is being devoted to the action onscreen. I heard it said once by a movie composer that he preferred when people came out of a theater going "There was score?" cos he felt this meant he'd done his job and integrated the music so well that it went by as part of the whole experience and not as a standout feature. I see his point and kinda agree, but I think I prefer to have music reach out and grab me while I'm watching something :D I really enjoyed hearing these tracks separately cos it gave me a chance to pay the music some closer attention and get a fuller appreciation of it. It's clear that a big part of the alien atmosphere and suspenseful eerieness of WotW comes from it's fantastic background music.

A clean version (meaning it doesn't have the sound FX or Harrison's narration over the top) of the opening titles music to Season One:




And a nice longer version (used for the subliminal track in the "Choirs of Angels" ep) of the Billy Carlos ending theme from Season One:




Big thanks to BigPapiChulo for these and the others he has at his Youtube channel, including Quinn's theme and Katara's theme, both of which are quite nice.

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Next up is a hybrid of the opening titles and ending theme (both from Season One - do you see a theme here?) that I put together for curiosity's sake a while ago. The ending music has always been a lot more hummable to me, and that's the one that would stick in my head and I'd recall later, so I wanted to see what it could've been like had that been the Theme Song. I find it neat that other fans have been enjoying the 'What if?' too.



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And lastly, vids of (almost all) the series promos for both seasons. I remember seeing some of these back in 1988 and waiting SO excitedly for the next week's episode - oh, the memories... *sigh* It was one of the first TV shows I followed with fervor, so the promos were a big deal to watch and thrill over, knowing we were getting a nifty new ep coming up.








Interesting how the promo to "Vengeance is Mine" doesn't mention the main plot at all!

And I know it's a bit mean of me to always be championing Season One over Season Two, but I couldn't help but notice how the S1 promos often end with some clever wording based on that week's plot, but a bunch of the S2 ones end with just "On the next all new exciting episode of..." - alomost like they're trying to convince you "You will find it exciting". Maybe it was just some Morthren subliminal tactics going on :P

(Thanks to Boltax for bringing these promos to my attention :) )