Cameras roll on The Guild Season 5!

Sean Becker poised for "Action" on The Guild Season 5 (from @theguild Twitpic)

It's all happening!
After months of speculation and preparation the well-oiled machine that is The Guild is once more swinging into action. And once more we know we will be seeing things we have never seen before. Of course, no one knows any details about the plot for Season 5 outside the inner circle. Felicia Day is so (rightly) paranoid about spoilers getting out that she has mind-wiping ninjas on hand that preemptively strike anyone about to spill the tiniest detail. Apparently they can even work from a distance using a variety of top secret yet deadly methods.

Felicia herself is not above teasing us with tweets like the one above, but only she is allowed that privilege. So I'm not going to tell you that they are on location on Long Beach, or link to this picture taken from behind the scenes. And I'm certainly not going to tell you that...can you smell almonds....?

RIP Lis Sladen. You will be missed

Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Dr Who. RIP

Sad news today
Twitter has been buzzing with news that Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Dr Who, has died today. Nicola Bryant, who was another Who companion, Peri, tweeted this:

Sarah Jane Smith was the first Who Companion I watched as a kid and I loved her fire and 'realness'. Seeing her return to the Whoverse in recent years has been a joy.

There are various reports out there you can read, and official confirmation on the BBC, but I just wanted to say:

Thank you, Ms Sladen, for being a role model. For your compassion and for caring about the way women are portrayed on TV. For the work you have done and the passion you brought.

Rest In Peace.

NOTE: originally I spelled Elisabeth's name with a 'z' - thanks to @slackmistress and @egspoony I realised my mistake and have corrected.

Season 5 of The Guild: Shooting starts next week!

Erstwhile Director Sean Becker - back on form?
Today on Twitter, Sean Becker, sometime director of The Guild and other webseries comedy gold like 'The Jeff Lewis Comedy 5 Minutes Hour of Happy Endings', broke the news we were all waiting for today. THE GUILD SEASON 5 STARTS SHOOTING NEXT WEEK!

However, the happy news was quickly under threat by the very same Mr Becker, who literally threatened Agent Ruiz and The Guild itself something almost-certainly unpleasant:

Considering Mr Becker's chequered history on and off the set of The Guild, this is a chilling threat indeed. No one who has been to his totally official personal website can be in any doubt that Sean is a troubled man.

Won't somebody think of the children?

Want More Guild Updates? Want to be an Extra in S5?? Try Facebook!

Get all the latest news from The Guild on Facebook

Season 5 of The Guild...
...if you're like me, you can't wait to see it! Pre-production is well under way and the opportunities are coming thick and fast for people wanting to be apart of it - but you have to be quick, and you have to know where to look. Twitter is a great place to start but to get the longer updates you need to be following The Guild on Facebook.

The Guild Facebook page has lots of updates and - details of how YOU can be an extra in Season 5. What are you waiting for? Get over there now!!

Dr Horrible: The Book (or 'How I got published with Joss')

This is all about me...
...so apologies about that. If you're looking for a review about the awesome new Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: The Book, then head over to PinkRaygun.com.

Earlier this year I sold a play. And now my name, and words, are in a book. A book all about Dr Horrible. That also has words in it from Joss Whedon, Felicia Day and a whole host of other people, all of whom are way up there in the list of people who have influenced me over the last few years.

If Dr Horrible hadn't happened I wouldn't have been researching the people involved and might not have stumbled across Season 1 of The Guild. Or started stalking following Felicia Day. Or get mixed up in the crazy, heady world of new media/webseries. I probably would have stopped blogging, and I wouldn't have joined sites like Twitter and Friendfeed. I certainly wouldn't have made a webseries in 2008, and all the things that have flowed from that (like the new webseries we have in production now).

 The Dr Horrible Remote designed by P J Haarsma

I also wouldn't have thought to interview Felicia Day if I hadn't already interviewed award-winning author PJ Haarsma. He created the remote control Dr Horrible uses to steal the Wonderflonium. I knew of PJ because of Kids Need To Read, the charity he set up with Nathan Fillion. He was very generous with his time and his interview ranked in the top 10 posts on Whedonage consistently. That interview caught the eye of Titan books, the publishers of the Dr Horrible book, who then asked if they could republish some of it.

And that's how I came to be in a book with Joss.

Page 23. Tell your friends

P.S. Someone else you will certainly have heard of is also in the book. The One True b!X, photographer, blogger and twitterererer, has photos in the book, too. b!X has lots of Whedon-Geek-Guild-related photos on Flickr. You can also buy some via his website.