Jon Dear
@accordingtojond
Writer on archive TV and film. Currently working on a book about the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas. Produced The Quatermass Experiment (2023) and Children of The Stone Tape (2024). Podcasts on Nigel Kneale and Giallo.
Broken the back of the toughest chapter I’ve done for No Digging. It might yet be okay.
In the rather funky environs of the Club Room at Picturehouse Finsbury Park to see @deborahuk.bsky.social introduce Soviet fairy tale Vasilisa the Beautiful. Here lie the origins of so much 80s fantasy cinema! Looking forward to getting Deborah's book.
Blue Spines and Omega's Hands - Jon Dear Discovers Target Book Covers What their changing nature says about the times they were made. What didn't make it? Why do some 'mistakes' get criticised when others don't? What role of the different logos. Why nostalgia is a plan of diminishing returns.
My absolute favourite Hammer. So happy to work on it, as you can see from the behind the scenes photo.
Of course it’s also good to know that Terror of the Autons might not have the worst use of chromakey in 1971.
Given my mutuals, it isn't possible that "no one remembers..." but this doesn't seem to get talked about as much as others.
Just finished the first series of Last of the Summer Wine. Three men wander a landscape taking about death and smoking. Six years before Tarkovsky’s Stalker.
We had Hockney prints up in the corridors in school. I often stared at The Chair feeling emotions I couldn’t quite fathom.