MyFootballClub: Mainstream media fails again

I’m one of those people who’ve signed up to MyFootball Club. This hit the news headlines last week after it was announced that Ebbsfleet United were the team that had been taken over by a bunch of web geeks who want to be desktop Abramoviches (having played too much Championship Manager).

At least, that’s what’s being reported. I actually joined the venture in August, and along with many of the 20,000 that had already signed up before last Monday, have been debating the issues surrounding the whole project at length and in depth. It’s incredibly annoying that most of the reports on the TV, Radio and in the papers aren’t even reading the basic FAQ’s on the home page. Even if there were still questions, it’s not too hard to look at some of the blogs out there, or even claim the £35 on expenses and see what’s actually on the forums.

It’s incredibly disappointing, because rather than report what’s happening and what the project is about, they’re trying to derail it. This is a controversial venture, we’re quite aware of that, thanks, but we think it could work and Ebbsfleet are in agreement.  There’s a lot of people who don’t like the way football has been taken away from its roots over the years, and that’s partly where this has come from.  We happen to think it could work and are putting our mouths and money where our belief is.   We’d just like to see both sides of the argument represented- are journalists no longer able to do that?

Here’s a good example of what they’re doing. Yesterday’s Observer has a particular twisted article, found here. “Cyber with Rosy? Fans Aren’t Sure”. Of course fans aren’t sure, you’re making MyFC out to be something it isn’t, just like you created panic at Northern Rock when there was none.

I’ll give you another angle to that same article – Jessica McQueen, of the supporters trust, was hassled by the Observer reporter to find someone who was anti-MyFC for a quote. She refused, and won’t give any more statements until the trust have met on Wednesday.

I never thought I’d hear myself saying it, but I much preferred the Daily Mail’s attitude than the Observer’s. Here’s a nice quote from Manager/Head Coach Liam Daish:

‘Seriously, though, is it better to work for one tyrannical chairman, who acts on a whim, or 20,000 knowledgeable football fanatics?’

The 20,000+ decisions makers is another fundamental part of the concept that the press can’t seem to get their head round, and unable to read about it.

Even more fundamental than this is the fact that seems to be escaping almost everyone, including many of the new members: MyFootballClub have not bought Ebbsfleet United – they’re in due diligence phase of a 51% takeover. Members were certainly not logging on at half time during the Oxford game and making their selections – this is something which has been debated for months, a voting system which has never been seen before.

News used to be about the 6 W’s – Who, What, Where, When,Why and How.  Now it’s all about WOAH! (thanks to Charlie Brooker for that one)

Beowulf: The reason why my favourite books are never going to see the screen

Beowulf one of those pieces of literature like The Aeneid or the Epic of Gilgamesh that, unless you studied classics (which isn’t generally considered a subject outside public schools), just sits on bookshelves to fill the space between Umberto Eco and James Joyce. I know it only from “Tolkien wanted to write an English version of Beowulf”. The Lord of The Rings series and Troy (probably others too) were a wakeup call to movie execs. The success of these meant that new trove of material was available without huge franchise fees like Harry Potter, no hordes of obsessive nitpicking fans like LotR. The story and characters are sufficiently unknown so that they can be manipulated to suit the audience and desired running time.

But I don’t feel that there’s been a huge call for this text to be made into a movie, or that your average moviegoer will see this because it’s a CGI movie. This is an awkward time of the year: half term over, running up to christmas – there is an additional risk of this underperforming at the box office, purely because of timing. Contrast this with the interest in The Golden Compass, which has a much better released date in December.

On a side note, I hate that the term “CGI Movie” is still being used – It’s been 12 years since Toy Story, for goodness sake! I thought with The Incredibles we’d seen the end of animation being seen as second-class or purely for kids. I thought we’d got out of that “ooh look at the pretty pictures” attitude – CGI has been part of the scenery for a long time. In the last year, I’ve had my expectations raised by Superman Returns and Transformers where the effects were used appropriately, a tool for illustrating the story.

I was expecting a movie made entirely using Motion Capture / CGI techniques to have come a long way from Lord of the Rings and Final Fantasy. The image below is a quick & nasty comparison of how far we’ve come in 6 years. Certainly Zemeckis seems to have learnt from the mistakes in Polar Express in terms of making the characters look more emotive. Obviously these are just static images, but it still looks a little wooden. I expected more from 6 years development in CGI hardware and software.

The film looks to have fairly mature violence and sexual content, yet they have somehow squeezed a 12A certificate. King Arthur tried to do this a few years ago and it showed on screen – the Director’s Cut was quickly released on DVD. So already I get the nagging feeling that the story’s been compromised.

I’m not too keen on Ray Winstone in roles where he needs to talk. I loved him in Final Cut and Love, Honour and Obey, but in Henry VIII and Sweeney Todd (both TV dramas), it sometimes felt like he was reading phonetically from a card, much like the main bad guy in El Mariachi. So when the trailer ends with “I – wiw – kiw- yowah – monstah!”, and the CGI character looks more like Sean Bean, I wonder if he wouldn’t have been more convincing.

So with all that, I’m slightly disappointed, even though I wasn’t particularly looking forwards to it. And whilst there’s no loss to me from this film not doing well, I feel that if it doesn’t do well, it’ll be blamed on the story or the CGI.

And that’s a bad thing, because there are dozens of books out there that are screaming to be made into movie, but need CGI because of the scenery or characters. Some are in development hell, like The Sparrow, others like the Saga of the Exiles aren’t well known enough, but would make a fantastic series. I’ve got a list as long as my arm of books that I’d love to see on screen, I’ll share them with you one day.

Postscript:
I’ve finished writing this after the opening weekend, and signs are good.
But I’ll still wait for the DVD.

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