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  The website is being upgraded this morning so I'm unable to bring you the normal assortment of links and articles. So today's newsletter is a little different.

   

  No business like Snow Business  
  
  Film Takes Place, is the slogan of the Sundance Film Festival, formed by Mr Sundance himself, Robert Redford. Apparently he bought the 2 acre bit of land in the snow filled mountains of Salt Lake City for $500 and it has evolved into one of the most important festivals on the show business calendar.
  
  This year it has taken centre stage as the writers strike has knocked Hollywood's publicists out of their standard way of doing business and they are having to think on their feet with new ways of getting their message out.  Paris Hilton is even going to Sundance would you believe !
  
  The Hollywood set are not normally welcome in Sundance. This is an independent film festival for showcasing and nurturing new talent, not providing a platform for the old guard.  Last year they handed out badges (or buttons as Americans would say), which had FOCUS ON FILM on it, such is their concern over the Hollywood machine taking over the culture of the event and dominating the headlines. Many of the stars of the films don't show up for this reason. On my recent enquiries I've found that Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, Ewan McGregor are not attending despite having film premieres. Others like Robert De Niro, William Hurt, Jack Black, Ben Kingsley, Michael Keaton arrive today and leave tomorrow. It seems show business doesn't like snow business.  
  
  Here's an article on the wheeling and dealing that goes on:-
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080118/ap_en_mo/film_sundance      
  
  
  Digital Criminals
  
  I'm in-between contracts having finished an 18 month assignment at a major bank yesterday. As well as my theatre and film activities over the last year, I've been managing several multi-million pound projects to upgrade identity theft software, encrypt tens of thousands of laptops and increase the protection on thousands of core servers. 
  
  Identity theft is the 21st century's biggest criminal activity. Bigger than you imagine and certainly a lot bigger than officials from banks and government are telling us on the news. They don't want to create an alarmist situation. Without being alarmist, it's nothing short of cyber warfare. In my view, it's already too late and there's not much that we as ordinary citizens can do about it. You'll read in the press today that even the Ministry of Defense have had a laptop stolen with 600,000 records of new recruits. My CV is winging it's way to them as we speak.
  
  This is not a mistake, or a slip up, or chance theft, this is targetted and organised crime who are in pubs frequented by business people with their laptop bags lying around at their feet, or worse, left in a car. It's not helped either with social networks sharing your personal details with anyone who writes an application. It's the quickest and easiest way to gather vast databases of information about who we work for, where we live and when we were born. There are rich pickings when you have a membership of 80 million people around the globe.  
  
  In November I was asked to appear on Sky News on this subject. I had asked Facebook executives, in a London developers conference, what they were doing about security of their members personal details. I was expecting a sensible answer but a muffled and mumbled response came back which was dismissive to say the least. Some Sky reporters came over and before I knew it I was being interviewed on live TV about my comments.
  
  Unfortunately, with non-disclosure agreements and being in breach of terms and conditions on Facebook, I couldn't share much without it impacting me personally. In December, Facebook removed my profile from their site when I commented on the issue when an application was launched which allows people to put their digital signature online. Now, how daft can you get ! Within two hours I was removed and received several generic and carefully worded emails from admin staff.  I chose not to say much about it until now and to be honest I am still apprehensive about the repercussions.  
  
  Here's a link to some interesting articles from the bigger boys, who can write more openly about these things than I can:-  
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
  
  http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1301398,00.html?f=rss        

  London International Musical Theatre
  On a lighter note, I've been asked by an elite creative team which includes Sir Trevor Nunn, David Ian, John Barrowman and Arlene Philips, to help with getting musicals on our TV screens. The festival is based on the successful New York equivalent which has been running for five years and this year is the first to attempt it in a London format. It takes place over three weeks in various West End venues with shows from over thirty theatre companies worldwide. I'm delighted to have been asked to support this and connect up the production team with the right people at the various broadcasters that I've been in contact with. If you can help make this happen and know commissioning editors who would appreciate great entertainment like this, let me know.  
  
   
  
  Making It In Hollywood  
  
  "Accent-tacular ! A stunning achievement in the field of sound-editing"   - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone  
  
  Social networking has some great uses. A Myspace friend forwarded a trailer of Making It In Hollywood to Peter Travers. I didn't know who he was until I google'd him and found that he was the chief film critic at Rolling Stone magazine. He came back with an amusing remark in reference to my Scots accent. Americans don't hear Scottish accents much, in fact apart from Taggart, there's not much on UK national TV either. So it was nice to get some warm feedback like that.
  
  One of the directors I interviewed at the Oscars, was also a writer and in his latest book, he wrote of the time we spent and also commented on my accent. "His voice carried the music of the Scot's, all bagpipes and flutes, with the undertone of kettle drums. It's a lovely noise I remember from many visits there".  All I said was "haud thon camra fur me will ye". After I finish the film I'm thinking of a one man tour of America reading out the telephone directory.
  

  Have a great weekend visiting theatre, watching film, listening to gigs and laughing at some standup. If you want to receive the regular blogs from Sundance over the next week be sure to send an email to alerts@ukfilm.tv
  
  There's no business like snow business !

  January 19th, 2008 at 6:33 am

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