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It Was A Bad Week for… Us at The Raygun , plagued by technical difficulties and assorted problems this week, apologies for the delay…

The nights are drawing in, the weather's on the turn and the big releases are starting to kick in on a regular basis now. This Monday saw eOne's StreetDance 3D come out and The Raygun was on hand to see the company's ambitious launch event at the HMV Forum in London's Kentish Town. Hundreds of teenage fans turned out in force for the event, which brought together assorted dance acts such as Flawless and George Sampson and saw them performing live. Extras from the DVD release were screened and the venue was emblazoned with StreetDance materials. eOne product manager Tom Jarvis said: "StreetDance 3D is a film that has tapped into the street dance culture.  The DVD and Blu-ray launch event on Monday night was a great showcase of the leading established UK acts such as Flawless, Akai and George Sampson as well as bringing to the fore emerging acts such as Peridot and Status. This provided the perfect platform for the release going live and has provided a huge wave of interest across our already established social media platforms." The event also helped StreetDance kick off the week with some lively sales. HMV's Shireen Mahtabuddin said: "Monday night's event was a great success, it was fantastic to see all the talent turn out to support this release. The acts were brilliant and really got the crowd going. The event was a great set up for this week's strong sales." We'll have more up on our website shortly.

Covermounts, remember them? A few years ago they were the scourge of the industry, prompting outctry from retailers (one famously wrote to all distributors, asking them not to partake in the activity), and being somewhat lucrative for those that did get involved with them. Well, the controversy seems to have gone out and, in recent months, most giveaways have tended to involve token collects, and in-store or postal redemptions. Last weekend, however, saw The Observer giving away a bespoke DVD featuring a selection of early films from noted directors, while The Telegraph, Saturday and Sunday editions, featured a brace of Western DVDs. This Saturday will see Airplane given away in The Guardian. It's interesting to note that savvy newspapers are far better at using their editorial pages to plug the imminent giveaways too. The BFI's Sam Dunn said: "With the Beginnings covermount in the Observer last weekend we wanted to create one of the most unique DVD giveaways that there's ever been. Specifically created to compliment the paper's editorial content, about starting out in filmmaking, the disc offered the exclusive opportunity to see a collection of previously unreleased short film debuts by such celebrated directors as Ken Russell, Stephen Frears and Shane Meadows, all of which were funded by the BFI Production Board.  We chose to clearly brand the disc as a BFI DVD because we're proud of the contribution that the BFI made to the history of British cinema during its five decades of film funding."
 
It may be a bit surprising that so few newspapers have offered digital downloads as giveaways (some papers are now doing that for music freebies), but one company this week announced that it was adding digital copies to its key Q4 releases. 2 entertain will be launching some of its autumn titles with a digital copy, now established as a feature film concept, but rarely used on TV and special interest titles. The new Jeremy Clarkson release, The Italian Job, will be triple play, taking in DVD, Blu-ray and Digital Copy Uising Sony DADC's eBridge Digital Copy system). Other releases featuring Digital Copy will include John Bishop Live, the Richard Hammond and James May title Top Gear Apocalypse, Davina Mccall in Body Buff, Zingzillas: World Music Tour, Shaun The Sheep Party Animals, James Corden's League Of Their Own and Sky's Ten Minute Tales. Digital Copy will, of course, allow consumers to transfer digital files to laptops, iPods, iPhones and Blackberrys. 2 entertain md Stuart Snaith said: "We are incredibly excited to be one of the few TV DVD publishers who are pioneering a new technology that will add substantial value to the DVD experience. Our consumers are increasingly looking to watch their favourite TV programmes and movies on a range of platforms both at home and on the move. By adopting Digital Copy we enable consumers to watch their favourite DVDs whenever, wherever and however they wish - in one move."

This week on The Raygun – there's our regular update of the weekend's DVD and Blu-ray coverage, more on our HMV-endorsed My Inspiration feature, some trailers, clips and a look at Manga's Professor Layton. See here for more http://www.theraygun.co.uk/.

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DVD and Blu-ray authoring house and digital specialist Brickbox held what is becoming an annual event on the industry's calendar, a rooftop party, at London's Century Club on Wednesday. And fortuitous timing it proved to be, as the company this week announced that it has been acquired by US company KIT digital inc. Brickbox has its bigger operations based in Prague and Sofia with satellite offices in other cities such as London and has been building its business in the UK. KIT chief executive officer Kaleil Isaza Tuzman said: " This was a choice acquisition for us which we had our eyes on for some time, extending our capabilities and commercial reach in premium content management and services for the major and 'mini-major' Hollywood studios. In many respects, the acquisition of Brickbox Digital Media completes the circle on our decision in early 2009 to move our corporate headquarters to Prague, and underlines our commitment to building a global leader from the heart of Central Europe." Brickbox's ceo Peter Stransky said: "Given Brickbox's longstanding relationships with production studios and content distributors, we think the sales synergies between our companies are powerful. KIT digital truly understands the meaning of end-to-end IP video workflow, and how to serve the complex environment of enterprise video management." Oh, and the party, attended by The Raygun and numerous distributors, taking in High Fliers, BFI, Momentum, Kaleidoscope and others, was a belter too…
   
After an ill-fated attempt to see it at a screening a few weeks back (although we loved the Mexican meal afterwards), we at The Raygun finally got to see Artificial Eye's We Are What We Are, a Mexican film about a family of cannibals. But this is no 80s-style nasty, We Are… is more akin to Let the Right One In (or, as we noted on our Twitter, Let The Right One Enchilada) in its at times sensitive portrayal. Everyone has been looking for the next Let The Right One In-type blend of arthouse and horror, and Artificial Eye might just have found it. The company is certainly getting behind the title for its theatrical release ahead of the home entertainment launch next year. As Artificial Eye's Debbie Rowland said: "We're really excited about We Are What We Are - we are going to have a lot of fun with the marketing. We are planning a national multimedia campaign to ensure the film reaches the masses, including a very cool genre trailer, underground, heavy online and viral campaigns and underground posters. We have support from independent and multiplex circuits, a great response from critics and we've timed the theatrical release to coincide with the Mexican Day of The Dead festival.  Cannibals are definitely the new vampires." And you can see the trailer here:

The Raygun ran a feature on how the geeks took over on our website recently, with particular reference to Anchor Bay's Fanboys. And if you wanted any further proof of how big this sector is, then you need look no further than the London MCM Expo, due to take place at the end of October. Major distributors, taking in Universal, Fox, Manga, MVM and Starz are all lining up ready to show off their wares to assorted sci-fi fans and teenagers dressed up as character from films. The event is growing in stature, this year adding awards such as the Eagle comic book gongs, to its roster and is also running over three days, instead of the traditional two. There's an ever-growing games presence too, as well as a host of star appearances, PAs, signings and panel discussions (we're looking forward to the discussion on the new series of Primeval on the Saturday). As Manga's Jerome Mazandarani said: "I can’t wait to bring Manga back to ExCel for our 10th and biggest London MCM Expo yet. The UK’s largest Comic Con keeps getting bigger and better." See you down the front.