November 2007

Reminder: Hogfather airs tonight in U.S.

25 November 2007 (14:52) Comment!

This is a reminder for Discworld fans in the United States: Hogfather is being broadcast on Ion Television as part of RHI Movie Weekend. Watch the award-winning, four-hour film adaptation tonight, at 6 or 7 p.m. Use TitanTV’s guide to find the specific time and television channel in your area. The American TV spot is available on cinemablend.com (scroll down), and don’t forget that the American DVD of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather is available now at Borders

Sean Astin on Colour of Magic

24 November 2007 (18:18) Comment!

In Beck and Smith’s celebrity gossip column published in October, Sean Astin mentioned his work in the Colour of Magic TV production. To quote the column:

The Lord of the Rings actor tells us he just returned from England, where he made the adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic for Sky TV with a cast that includes Tim Curry and Christopher Lee. Astin tells us the plan is to air the magical fantastical production here [the United States] on Fox. Pratchett’s Discworld book series has sold more than 60 million copies throughout the English-speaking world, from the United Kingdom to New Zealand, so far, and is picking up steam in the United States.

“It’s like Lord of the Rings meets Harry Potter meets Monty Python,” says Astin. He plays the character Twoflower, Discworld’s first tourist. “I show up with the big, flowered shirt and my camera, and when I pull the lever on my camera, there’s a one-inch-tall picture imp in there, drawing the pictures real fast.”

The Colour of Magic film follows the massive success of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, which aired December 2006.

National Book Festival webcast online

23 November 2007 (14:08) Comment!

Terry Pratchett’s appearance at the National Book Festival in September has been released online as a webcast on the Library of Congress website. In the half-hour speech and question-answer session, Pratchett talks about his coming books:
• Nation is “the book I’m working on now and don’t propose to tell you anything about,” a large part of which is written already. Interestingly, Pratchett describes the image that inspired the plot of the book: A boy, standing on a rainy beach, looking out to sea.
• I Shall Wear Midnight, the 4th Tiffany Aching book, is in the planning stage. Pratchett tells the audience, tongue-in-cheek, that Tiffany Aching will murder someone in the book.
• He’s interested in writing more children’s books after I Shall Wear Midnight, which will be the last Tiffany Aching children’s book.
He makes some general observations about writing:
• “Adult books give you money, children’s books give you prestige.”
• “The writing is some kind of big stainless steel bulldozer of some sort which just keeps going, and it drags me with it, usually banging my head on stones and things like that. Curiously enough, it’s a lot of fun.”
• “The way to describe a character is not with two pages about that character. The way to describe a character is to give them mannerisms, ways of talking and acting. Because we human beings have a lot in common about the way we judge people, remember people, [and] think about people, I put in the little triggers which will make you think subconsciously, ‘ah, that kind of guy.’ So the back-story tends to happen of its own accord.”
And he comments on the live-action adaptations of Hogfather and The Colour of Magic:
• “I loved the movie of Hogfather. What I really liked about it was the car chase. There wasn’t one…. [Hogfather] was true to the book. It was true to the soul of the book.”
• A scene in The Colour of Magic, where Rincewind and Twoflower escape from Death’s own dimension, pursued by Death on Binky, has been filmed.

Terry Pratchett on filming Hogfather

22 November 2007 (15:13) Comment!

While not strictly news, Sci Fi Wire interviewed Terry Pratchett recently in preparation for the coming Hogfather television broadcast. Says Terry Pratchett of his cameo as the toymaker, “I was obviously terrified [about shooting the cameo] for two reasons: While I often do [public] talks, and I have a lot of fun doing that, it was my first time doing it in front of a movie camera. And the other thing was that Marnix [Van Den Broeke], who plays Death, or who we should say plays the figure of Death—because [the since-deceased] Ian Richardson played the voice of Death—at one point, out of camera shot, while I was looking at him during my scene, was giving me a thumbs up with his skeletal hand. It was beautifully articulated. The hand unfolded and the thumb came up, and I was thinking, ‘A man should not be so closely confronted with the products of his imagination.’” Terry Pratchett also commented on his close involvement with the production. To quote the article:

“Because I was so closely involved I saw bits of it all the time,” Pratchett said. “A DVD [containing dailies] would arrive every week. I was also on set. There was one stage where I was on the set, and I sort of spun around like Maria in The Sound of Music, because, A, they got this, and, B, got this right. It was a very nice feeling, I can assure you. And I had to keep telling myself that they were making it for other people and not just for me.”

The four-hour film will broadcast this weekend on November 25.

Hogfather DVD, book giveaway

18 November 2007 (17:42) Comment!

Screenhead is offering a Hogfather giveaway in celebration of the impending U.S. broadcast. Simply comment (with your email) on this article before November 24 to get a chance to win the Hogfather book and DVD, as well as three other extras.

Update: TVgasm is also offering a Hogfather giveaway, with the same prizes but slightly different requirements. Good luck to all!

Reminder: Hogfather on TV, DVD in U.S.

17 November 2007 (22:18) Comment!

This is a reminder for Discworld fans in the United States: Hogfather is being broadcast on Ion Television as part of RHI Movie Weekend. Watch the award-winning, four-hour film adaptation on November 25, at 6 or 7 p.m. Use TitanTV’s guide to find the specific time and television channel in your area. The American TV spot is available on YouTube. Also, don’t forget that the American DVD of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather is available now at Borders.

Edit: A more complete video of the TV spot is available on cinemablend.com. (Scroll down.)

Pratchett to be among top 5 Christmas purchases on Amazon?

11 November 2007 (15:29) Comment!

Amazon.co.uk’s Christmas season in books is “shaping up really well. It’s already in line to be our best Christmas yet,” said lead account manager for books Amy Worth.  And who else but Terry Pratchett will help them get there?  Amazon.co.uk has predicted that, along with Ian Rankin, Terry Pratchett will be among its top five book gifts this December.

Now available: The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld

10 November 2007 (13:25) Comment!

For $22 on the HarperCollins website, a book full of quotes, called The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, is available for your perusal. To quote the book description:

Now, in The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, various nuggets of Pratchett’s witty commentary and sagacious observations have been compiled by Pratchett expert Stephen Briggs, a man who, they say, knows even more about Discworld than Terry Pratchett.

Within these pages, you’ll find musings on:

• Interior decorating: “It’s a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully the colors are chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical appliance pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors always smell slightly of boiled cabbage—even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity.” (Equal Rites)

• Travel: “Any seasoned traveler soon learns to avoid anything wished on them as a ‘regional speciality,’ because all the term means is that the dish is so unpleasant the people living everywhere else will bite off their own legs rather than eat it. But hosts still press it upon distant guests anyway: ‘Go on, have the dog’s head stuffed with macerated cabbage and pork noses—it’s a regional speciality.’” (The Last Continent)

• Young men: “And then there was the young male walk. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I’m bad, I’m fierce, I’m cool, I’d like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine.” (Monstrous Regiment)

• Class: “‘Old money’ meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds that had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that; a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.” (Making Money)

You can also browse the book online at the HarperCollins website.

Colour of Magic film production site on-line, updated cast list

4 November 2007 (11:57) 1 Comment

The production site of the coming Colour of Magic film is now online, at thebrokendrum.net and www.skyoneonline.co.uk/tcom/news.htm. To quote the site:

Filming of the epic fantasy is already underway at Londons’ famous Pinewood Studios…. THE COLOUR OF MAGIC is set to take fans deeper into Discworld than ever before, the story follows the inept wizard Rincewind (Sir David Jason) and Discworld’s first ever tourist, Twoflower (Sean Astin), on the journey of a lifetime; as the duo battle wizards, elude druid mercenaries and ride mythical dragons. But can Rincewind defeat his scheming nemesis Trymon (Tim Curry) and save Discworld from ultimate destruction?… Production on the multi-million pound adaptation commenced on July 23rd with the show set to build on the grand scale and lavish scope seen on the award winning Hogfather. The Colour of Magics’ universe is also more ambitious in its breadth, with the production team determined to bring an even richer Discworld to Sky One screens, with increased prodcution [sic] values and ground-breaking CGI work.

Sir David Jason, who is also the executive producer of the films had this to say: “Taking up the role of Rincewind marks the achievement of a career-long ambition for me. It was wonderful to be a part of the success of Hogfather and to be at the heart of this second family oriented adaptation, which is set to be every bit as fun and fulfilling.”

On director Vadim Jean’s production blog, he says, “It feels as if I’ve only just got both feet back on the ground (running of course) after ‘Hogfather’ and now I’m on another Discworld adventure, this time trying to keep up with Rincewind who seems to be running away from me a great deal.”

Terry Pratchett is quoted as saying, “So there I was, at the first big read through of the script, with most of the cast assembled around the big oblong table and the laughs started. It really did look as everyone had got it. Not only did my gags get laughs, but the actors were bringing new laughs with them. The picture imp got one of the biggest laughs of the day. Cohen is superb and it’s hard to see how he could be beaten. In fact, I came straight home and wrote some new lines for Death because I would not wish him to think he was being upstaged after his success in Hogfather.”

Here is the cast list so far:

• Rincewind … Sir David Jason OBE
• Twoflower … Sean Astin
• Trymon … Tim Curry
• Cohen the Barbarian … David Bradley
• Bethan … Laura Haddock
• Galder Weatherwax … James Cosmo
• Jiglad Wert-Hoodwinkers … Michael Mears
• Head Librarian … Nicholas Tennant
• Head Librarian & Luggage … Richard da Costa
• Rerpf … Arthur White
• Zlorf … David Schofield
• Broadman … Stephen Marcus
• Liessa … Karen David
• Picture IMP … Geoffrey Hutchins

For more information, including actor bios and production photos, be sure to visit the production site.

Twoflower’s first landing in Color of Magic filmed?

3 November 2007 (15:30) 1 Comment

There is more exciting Color of Magic filming news, reported by the BBC. The article says merely, “The Matthew, the replica of the ship John Cabot sailed from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1496, will visit Gloucester Docks for the first time…. The square-rigged caravel is being used in sequences for a television adaptation of a Terry Pratchett comic fantasy book being filmed in the docks.” Perhaps Twoflower’s famous first landing in Ankh-Morpork is being filmed in the historic Gloucester Docks surrounded by some great architecture.

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter OneFlower, we have a link to some pictures of the filming. We can see what looks like Twoflower in a garish, flowered tourist shirt as well as several pictures of the ship.

Colour of Magic film info, another book to feature Moist?

2 November 2007 (11:18) 2 Comments

Terry Pratchett made a recent appearance at Barnes & Noble in Union Square as part of his Making Money promotional tour. You can see his speech on the Barnes & Noble site as a webcast. Terry Pratchett (wearing one black glove!) explains how he had a stroke but never noticed, how writing has helped him through hard times, and how “plots work much better when you run them backwards.” There are lots of other tidbits which we have here.

The Colour of Magic film:
• Sean Astin plays Twoflower “absolutely wonderfully.”
• The actor who plays the Patrician will not be announced until the release of the film.
• David Bradley is “absolutely magnificent” as Cohen the barbarian.
• The fire at the Broken Drum has been filmed.
Other films:
• Michelle Dockery played Susan “superlatively well” in Hogfather.
• “The Wee Free Men movie might happen.” The script needs work, but the three-and-a-half hour conference with Sam Raimi “means something.”
• “Mort is stirring in the mud.”
Writing:
• I Shall Wear Midnight will be the next, and probably last, Tiffany Aching book.
• Another book featuring Moist von Lipwig, called Raising Taxes, is beginning to form, though Pratchett hasn’t started writing it yet.
• The Folklore of Discworld is in the works.
• Terry Pratchett considers Wintersmith the best book he’s ever written.
• He doesn’t want to write any more time travel stories.
• Revisiting older characters like Rincewind or the witches is “always possible,” but we will probably not see the Silver Horde again.

For more detail and some well-told anecdotes, please watch the webcast; it’s well worth your hour.

Hogfather, Color of Magic to air in U.S.

1 November 2007 (22:05) 3 Comments

As rumored earlier, Hogfather will make its US television debut on Sunday, November 25, during RHI Movie Weekend on Ion Television. Also confirmed by C21 Media is the American 2008 release of The Color of Magic, which is now being filmed.