Alan Moore documentary on AlterTube

The Mindscape of Alan Moore, a documentary about the creator of such comix masterpieces as Watchmen and V For Vendetta, is now viewable at AlterTube.
Link to video, Link to Alan Moore titles on Amazon (via Cabinet of Wonders)

Previously on BB:
• Alan Moore is a magick man Link
• Free download: Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Issue #21 Link
• More on Alan Moore Link

• [anangbhai]

  I do think Alan is a bit too much like Rorschach. I can just imagine Jackie Earle Healey in a raspy, grating voice yelling “Never Compromise”
  I would say he should “sell out” just to keep his name in the stars and the rest of the time he can do what he wants and he would have the freedom and the money. I do like that he took money from the studios and gave it to the artists. Not sayin’ he has to be Alan Smithee but he should just rake in the money and do more things with it.
  Not sayin he should do something stupid either like Watchmen babies or some such shit like that.

• [OM]

  …Moore *used* to be cool and respectable. But after looking at both sides of his issues with the Big Two comic book companies, I’m convinced that he’s just playing butthurt artist in order to get the attention and have his fans buy his indy work out of sympathy. He’s still got talent, but he honestly needs to pull the stick out of his ass and think of his fans for once. God/Yahweh/Roddenberry knows that Marvel needs him to come straighten out what The Big Fat Q has screwed up with Civil War and Brand New Divorce, and at the rate DC is going with Didio killing off everyone, he’ll probably have to spend some time there as well, even if it’s just to revive Swamp Thing.

• [Charisse]

  Thanks for all the interest in this film.

  The quality on here is obviously very bad as it’s a direct bootleg from the DVD and not seen as intended on Dolby 5.1 sound with a sharp picture.

  We produced it independently and shot on film, so all of these costs we’re hoping to recoup through your support. If you would like to see this film with all the extras please visit http://www.shadowsnake.com

  We respect the free spirit of the internet, but intellectual property is also a concept that should be respected as it is the basis of most modern commerce and without selling DVDs, it simply means that we as film makers spent years producing this film, borrowing and begging money of third parties without the fair chance to recoup it back.

  Radiohead gave people the option to get the album for free or pay, but they can tour and still make a living. Most artist, especially filmmakers can’t.

  Best regards,

  Charisse Vyzelman
  Associate Producer
  Shadowsnake Films

• [Jack Fear]

  Yes. He’ll have to. For the fans. Because it’s more “cool and respectable” to “think of the fans” and service corporate trademarks than it is to, I dunno, write the stuff that you want to write. Which people only buy “out of sympathy.”

  Good God, Om; What have you become?

• [jccalhoun]

  “From Hell”, “Promethea”, and “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” are way more interesting than anything Moore did for the “Big 2″. IMHO

  Promethea and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were published by DC. (Future League comics won’t be but 1,2 and the Black Dossier were published by DC)

• [palerider]

  In case you’re wondering why the film is gone and our network was down for 24 hours:

  Michael,
  First of all, let me thank you for sending email everywhere but our contact address. Secondly, let me thank you for initiating a DNS takedown of our entire network.
  Now, to the business. As soon as we discovered that you had complained about the movie, which we did not post, but a anonymous user did, we removed it. That was yesterday, after having our entire network taken down.
  We always remove material if anyone requests it.
  Now to your compensation point: We make no money. None. We actually run into a deficit each month, which we have been covering out of pocket each month to keep our site up.
  Sorry, no money to be had here. You did however, cost us a bit by doing things the way you did. So, if you were out to cause us to lose some more money, you achieved your goal.
  If you could think enough to send an email to Cafepress, you could have found our contact addresses and asked us to take it down and we would have,

  -Alterati

  ……………………………………………………………….
  —–Original Message—–
  From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
  Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 2:54 PM
  To: Trademark
  Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail]
  Subject: URGENT MATTER: Copyright infringement

  To: CafePress.com
  Attn: Candice Carr
  Intellectual Property Rights Agent
  950 Tower Lane
  Suite 600
  Foster City, CA 94404

  Dear Mrs Carr,

  I’m writing to you about an urgent matter of serious gravity. We
  independently produced a film called The Mindscape of Alan Moore as a
  production company and are still slowly recouping the finances for our
  investors with the sales of the DVD.

  This feature film was produced in the UK and all of the material is
  therefore copyrighted. Despite all of this, a user under the name
  “mescalito” has placed the complete film on your website:

  http://www.altertube.tv/view_video.php?viewkey=31b55aa50c06529eaa21

  When we viewed it the number of views was 3692, at the time of writing
  it is 4729, an estimate of a few hundred every few minutes.

  I hereby kindly request the removal of this film as the copyright
  belongs to Shadowsnake Ltd, registered at Companies House, England.

  Any revenues generated with this content should be compensated to our
  company.

  We understand the free spirit of the internet, but intellectual property
  is also a concept that should be respected as it is the basis of most
  modern commerce and we therefore would like further explanation how
  users can simply place content on your site without proving their
  rightful ownership or license.

  This letter is written WITHOUT PREJUDICE and merely states our
  preliminary view on this. We will be looking into further legal action
  if necessary.

  Looking forward to your reply.

  Yours Sincerely.

  Drs. M.D. van Ewijk
  Legal Consultant / Production Executive
  Shadowsnake Films
  London – Amsterdam

  ——————————————————————————————-

• [MrRich]

  DRBRUNVAND’s comments about independent filming making, while nicely worded, make no sense. You ‘think’ that one doesn’t need to be on stage to borrow the money for such a production. Erh, what? The truth is simple; by watching a pirated copy of the film on any format you are condoning piracy and condoning the massive loss of money on the part of the independent film maker. Also, ‘the free spirit of the internet’ (aka piracy) isn’t a commodity, it simply does not recoup the costs of the production, therefore it can’t be taken into account for the company’s next production. Just say, ‘I love film piracy, yum-yum, so sod you!’ and be done with it.
  There’s nothing any film maker can do to stop his or her film being pirated, it’s just a fact of life these days. All filmmakers can do is lessen the blow by making the film available on any digital format for as little as possible as soon as possible.
  Also, ironically, Halloween Jack’s comment ‘the artist doesn’t live to serve’ sums up this point nicely.

• [OM]

  …Someone who’s simply gotten tired of spoiled, whining uber-artists and creative gawdz, who now that they’ve hit it big act as if the entire industry revolves around them *and* whatever turds they feel like dropping at that particular moment. It’s like Baseball, Jack. I remember when it was all about playing the game; now it’s all about the money.

• [Halloween Jack]

  Om, I’m going to say this just once (at least to you):

  Artists do not live to serve you.

  So you think that people are fans of Tom Strong and Promethea and Top 10 “out of sympathy”? Whatever, fanboy. If DC and Marvel had treated Moore with a fraction of the respect that real publishing houses treat their more respected and successful creators (Watchmen has been in print for over twenty years), he’d still work for them. Pull the stick out of your own ass, maybe, and stop forking over your money to outfits that are run by the likes of DiDio and Quesada just because they’ve got the license to Batman and the X-Men, why dontcha?

• [DrBrunvand]

  I’m glad that you had the will and the spirit to realize such a fundamental documentation on a so inspiring personality as Alan Moore. I appreciated the room given to his beliefs instead of a first person bioptic as comic artist option.
  I think that you don’t need to be on a stage to borrow the money spent doing it. The appreciation of “the free spirit of internet” is probably something that could be spent as an honest basis of negotiation discussing an economic agreement for your next production. I hope to see your next work enhanced by the popularity of this one.

• [simplehuman]

  Halloween Jack: Amen

  Om: I really hope you’re kidding or just playing troll, but having peeked in some of the capes and boots forums over the years I kind of doubt it.

  Just about the money? Is that why Alan Moore is handing over the money he gets from Watchmen and V for Vendetta to the artists he worked with?

  http://cinemablend.com/new/Alan-Moore-Doesn-t-Care-About-Watchmen-Movie-7376.html

  I know that doesn’t fit into your vision of the “whining uber-artists”, but the world very rarely conforms to our assumptions friendo.

• [William Joseph Dunn]

  “From Hell”, “Promethea”, and “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” are way more interesting than anything Moore did for the “Big 2″. IMHO

• [palerider]

  The fallout from this video posting is discussed on our latest podcast:
  Gspot #26: Hellhounds and Lapdogs
  http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=1768

  Link to emails with our rebuttals
  http://www.alterati.com/blog//?page_id=1767

• [searconflex]

  Always a treat to hear what Mr. Moore has to say… thanks for the link. But is this really a “documentary”? Seems like another “tribute” type thing where Alan gets to let us know what’s up with reality. Which is fine, it’s just that it would be really great to see more of what the guy is really like and not just what his beliefs are. Get him nice and comfortable, y’know, follow him around for a week. Let’s see all the weird stuff he’s got, let’s check out his basement, let’s see him go bloody grocery shopping!!!

• [Bionicrat2]

  THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY’s Gerard Way did an interview with AICN where he referred to Alan Moore as a “gateway drug.” So funny and so true. I haven’t found another writer that better demonstrates or more clearly demonstrates “Ah, so this is what comics can be.”

• [Not a Doktor]

  I was watching some underware pervert documentary awhile back and when they started interviewing Mr. Moore I thought “I didn’t know hobos read comics” until the name title came up

  0_0′

• [Halloween Jack]

  Alan Moore is hella cool. Neil Gaiman posted some pictures of his wedding to Melinda Gebbie on his blog, and Moore wore an electric-blue bowler.