Four Cool Things - Fantastica

Welcome to your newest guide to the coolest things from the coolest people we know. Watch this space on the last friday of each month for a concise list of interesting and inspiring ‘things’ from our current universe.

Thomas – Watch me write this article

A lot of creation comes down to learning the mechanics. Not so much writing, where the act is invisible. But here is a tool that allows a writer to watch their own process, or the process of a master. It allows for an intriguing insight into how a singular piece of work can come into existence – that is, through the repeated destruction and mutation of its multiple selves. I just love the connection of writing and technology and what it could do for learning.

Chris – If I die on Mars

The Mars One program is intended to be the first manned mission to the red planet. If it succeeds, it’ll be a one-way ticket on a ride to set up an off-world colony. It sounds like science fiction, and it sounds pretty cool. But this short documentary, ‘If I Die on Mars’ really makes the situation more human and much more real. Worth a watch.

Mark – Scripnotes

Hosted by screenwriters John August (Go, Big Fish, Titan A.E.) and Craig Mazin (Identity Thief, Hangover II & III), this podcast is a fast-paced insight into the film and television industry from a writer’s point of view. It’s all entertaining, but it’s their insights into many of the mechanics of storytelling – structure, plot, character, dialogue, conflict, etc – that make Scriptnotes the one podcast I must listen to every single week.

Lucy – Sleepy Hollow

For lovers of modern recycling of fairy tales, a story out of Kazakhstan may be the point of inspiration for a gritty soviet-era retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Briar Roza spends her days in the forest with her three mysterious aunts, and by chance meets a party leader in the forest, on his way from closing the local uranium mine. As radon leaks through the soil, the entire village falls into a deep sleep, whereupon the princess can only be woken…days later with slight memory loss and a migraine. 152 people, a quarter of the town of Kalachi, have all fallen ill to a mysterious sleeping sickness since 2013. Read more at the Smithsonian or The Guardian.

See you in April for more updates from other worlds!