I’m not crazy about Blu-ray, so I started to think of alternative ways to deliver the 1080p version of the movie and came across these usb bracelets. When I started to think about what else you could put on it, I realized there was a connection to one of the ideas in the movie: that in 2025 the Cloud was repossessed. I like the idea that people can also use it to store their own locally owned data, as insurance against that day. Or even if nothing happens, for a time when you make the choice to get off the Cloud (or the grid) and find out that something you clicked I Agree to years ago limits that choice.

You can buy it here. More thoughts below.

There’s lots of ideas in the movie. Will the Nigerian Spam Cartel really have a military? Will a decimated Zurich make the slums of Toronto look good? For that matter, do I really believe that China will be the first world and North American become the third? I dunno! I’m not a futurist. I haven’t done a ton of economic research, but then again, it’s rare to find a person writing about zombie apocalypses who have done extensive research on disease vectors: that’s where the suspension of disbelief comes in. My role is to tease out the undercurrents of fear and anxiety that exist in our culture to explore this possible future, to populate it with people rather than graphs, to give slang and specificity to it: partially to stimulate political discussion and partially for entertainment. Science fiction can be an inoculation against the future it’s predicting. Without giving the surveillance state a name, I have no doubt that Big Brother would be watching much more closely. There’s always gonna be a mix of sincerity and satire in my stuff — but I think it’s telling that my most sincere work of science fiction, Everyone In Silico, is still inspiring awesome videos like this ten years after I released it.

The dangers of slowly consolidating power is not a very sexy battle cry. I used leaving HarperCollins as a way to discuss this issue in 2000 and have spent a fair amount of time talking about Rupert Murdoch. Of course he’s a terrible person: but he’s just a particularly egregious example of what happens when we allow unlimited consolidation to occur. These days people will bring up Murdoch to me as if finally, my nemesis has been caught: that it’s my time to pull a Malcolm X and opine that chickens have come home to roost. But to be honest I feel like he’s just so consistently outraged people by not playing nice and laying bare the unfairness of the system that he is, in a weird way, a scapegoat.

Our society has enabled Rupert by rewarding him for his unethical behavior with money and influence — the phone hacking scandal is just the most obviously evil stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy he’s getting a licking. But my point is that we have to think through ways to limit consolidation of power in these internet services, because otherwise we are building a huge machine for unknown people to use. Sure it’s useful now, but a few generations down the line some equally unethical Murdoch-esque person will weasel their way into the machine’s cockpit and start wreaking havoc on the world. It’s kind of irrelevant if that person happens to be Chinese or not.

I was lucky enough to attend the world premiere of our movie, Ghosts With Shit Jobs, with a sold out crowd in London’s Piccadilly Circus last night. More pics after the jump.

Sci-Fi-London was just an amazing fest for it to have its debut. Here we have programmer Louis Savy introducing the movie with his trademark profane charm. Louis is a real advocate for DIY filmmaking and he and his team have been building a diverse and open-minded science fiction movie audience over the past decade.

Here’s me doing my best to answer the smart questions from the host and the audience.

Even the lobby of the theatre was terrific, a great place to have a drink and chat about the movies.

Thanks to everyone who made it happen! Off to Berlin today for the next screening, and looking forward to our Toronto debut at the end of the month. If you’re not in these towns, there’s still ten days to grab an advance copy for $10 and support our continued theatrical tour.

Thanks to Derek for the pics.

BFI Future Film and SCI-FI-LONDON Present… Micro Budget Sci- Fi Filmmaking – May 5th, 12:45
Join us for a Q+A with Directors Jim Munroe (Ghosts with Sh*t Jobs), G B Hajim (Strange Love) and Sloan U’Ren (Dimensions) as we discuss the future of sci-fi on film, and making sci-fi movies on a micro budget. Our panel will also be giving feedback on sci-fi shorts made by young filmmakers that will be screened as part of this event.

Now we get to decide where we go!

If you have any interest in seeing us bring Ghosts With Shit Jobs to your town, please drop a line. We’re looking for people who’re willing to spread the word in their community and in teaming up with like-minded organizations or collectives (or mythical constructs) to make it happen.

Some interesting stats: approximately 25% of the money funded came from Kickstarter inbound links. The platform more than earned its 5% cut.

I recognized about 25% of the names of the donors, and the rest were lovely, generous, strangers to me — but probably many of them were familiar to our large cast and crew.

For those who haven’t pledged yet, you have until May 18th to get a DRM-free copy of the movie direct from us for ten bucks.

My new lo-fi sci-fi feature, Ghosts With Shit Jobs, will be screening in a few cities in May. We’re running a one month Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to screen it in more cities, and if you support us for $10 or more you can get a special advance copy of the entire feature in June. Please check out our video and rewards!

Our world premiere is happening May 7th at 7:45pm in London, England, as a part of the excellent Sci-Fi-London festival. It’s then screening at Moviemento, Germany’s oldest cinema, in Berlin, Germany on May 10th at 10:15pm. Then we’re back home for our Toronto debut at the Royal on May 30th at 7pm (you can buy tickets here!). I’m going to be present at all the screenings, doing my best to represent for our incredible cast and crew.

If you’re not sure if it’s for you check out the trailer (over 125,000 views!) and the first 20 minutes of the movie — we’ve just posted the introduction to Serina, Human Spam.

Check out the introduction of Anton and Toph Karrento, the Silk Gatherers, the latest clip from my lo-fi sci-fi feature Ghosts With Shit Jobs.

This is actually the segment I directed, and although I did it reluctantly (I figure my real skill sets are producing/writing), it was a joy to work with these two super-talented guys. Fantastic at improv, they totally internalized the 2040 world in a way that just floored me. And I felt they nailed the dysfunctional brothers dynamic. After we wrapped I made a text adventure game starring them that you can play here, just so I could spend some more time hanging out in my head with them. Is that weird, bro?

A. The only thing we could do, really… trash the defectives and start pumping out a new batch.

Check out the introduction of Gary and Karen, the Baby Makers, the latest clip from my lo-fi sci-fi feature Ghosts With Shit Jobs.

This month we’re releasing the first 5 minutes of the new lo-fi sci-fi movie, which introduces the digital janitor. In each of the coming three months we will be introducing a new character from our mockumentary. Check it out here.

It’s also a part of the Celtx Seeds program, where we’ve additionally posted a little quick-and-dirty interview with a couple of us. We focused on a tips/how-to approach rather than, y’know, our motivations and artistic aesthetic. Not that that’s irrelevant, but since Celtx is a scriptwriting app we figured most of the people watching would be fellow filmmakers.

In 2040, jobs suck in a whole new way.

Our new lo-fi sci-fi mockumentary, Ghosts With Shit Jobs, is finally finished! Check out the brand new trailer above or at the official site. Click through for my exec producer/writer/co-director notes.

The idea was to build on the amazing response we got from Infest Wisely, a feature that took six months and $700 to make, and make something where the production values weren’t as distracting.

Two-and-a-half years and $4000 later, we’ve got that with Ghosts With Shit Jobs. (Turns out that extra bit of polish, and the time it takes to find the people who know how to apply that polish, is a non-inconsequential thing.)

And already, even though we’re a way from releasing it, we’ve received some excellent support last week from the Celtx Seeds program which gave us $2000 in funding. We’ll be starting to post portions of the feature-length movie episodically with them in October.

To keep tabs on it you’ll want to check out our oddly foreign-yet-familiar social media buttons at the official www.ghostswithshitjobs.com site. Poke around… each flavour has a different take on the movie.