Jaff Wayne's Musical WAR OF THE WORLDS Tickets - New Zealand

Giant War Machines descend on New Zealand and Australia when tickets for Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds Tour go on sale today!

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of
The Worlds, Live on Stage! is set to land in Auckland's Vector Arena
on Friday 28th September 2007.

The first arena spectacular to be produced in New Zealand. This staged
musical and multimedia production of the classic HG Wells 1898 science
fiction story is a once-in-a-lifetime epic extravaganza, out of this
world entertainment, unlike anything to have hit these shores ever
before.

The production features ground-breaking special effects including a 30
foot Martian Fighting Machine (designed by Mike Trim) firing Heat Rays at the audience, 100 foot wide screens showing cutting-edge CGI-animation and Jeff Wayne conducting the 10-member Black Smoke Band, plus a 40-piece String
Orchestra.

The My Ticketmaster Internet only presale will commence at 2pm on
Friday 6th July 2007 until 2pm Saturday 7th July 2007 or until the
allocation is exhausted.

Public sale: Monday 9th July 2007, 12 noon.

Don't miss out!

Get your ticket today: http://www.ticketmaster.co.nz/promo/dfbp9i

Photo by Jeremy Pardoe for the Birmingham (England) Mail

The Art of UFO

Angelo Finamore's ART OF UFO website has a fine selection of photos and drawings of SHADO equipment, including many of Mike Trim's designs. In addition, Angelo has diagrammed every set, costume, prop, and model he could find in the show - excellent work, exhaustively researched and compiled. The ART OF UFO website is a must see for any UFO fan.

Keeping Up With The Dickens

Sorry, I'm late again getting a new image up and you must be starting to doubt my commitment to this little project. Fear not, I've returned and with a wonderful photo (shot by Mike) of fellow model shop "new hire" Roger Dicken and Stingray! Roger and Mike answered the same newspaper advertisement and were hired to work in the shop on the same day. Click the picture to enlarge it.
The company was just winding down post production on Stingray, but the boys were hired to start pre-production on Thunderbirds. This photo must have been shot fairly soon after Mike and Roger (and James Channing as well) were hired, as one of the Stingray models was obviously still laying about the shop. Another photo from this sequence (with both Mike and Roger holding the model) did make it into The Future was FAB: The Art of Mike Trim and appears on page 20.
Roger went on to be nominated for an Academy award for Best Special Effects in 1970 (along with Jim Danforth) for When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth. They lost to Bedknobs and Broomsticks!
Roger also worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien, for which he created the facehugger and other creepy creature effects.

San Diego Comic Con is fast approaching, and I'll be at the Hermes Press booth signing copies of the book again this year. The convention runs from July 25th through July 30th at the San Diego Convention Center. Here's the convention's website:
http://www.comic-con.org/cci/
Check back here for a booth number; I'll post it as soon as I find out what it is. Hope to see some old friends there and make some new ones. Please do say hello if you're going to be there!