Watchmen and V for Vendetta writer Alan Moore the local history buff

Watchmen and V for Vendetta writer Alan Moore turns out to be a local history buff, and appears in the fantastic short documentary "X Marks the Spot", made by young people in Northampton, where he lives, about the history of their town.

I used to be the short film programmer for a big film festival, so I've watched thousands of short films, and X Marks the Spot is one of the two best "community" films* I've ever seen (and believe me, I've seen a few). I'd happily have programmed it alongside proper shorts made by grown up filmmakers without expecting it be be granted any special favours at all.

As Alan Moore himself says: "I loved it. It is the most exciting thing to come out of the Boroughs since the Great Fire."

I came across X Marks the Spot through Lee Hutchinson of Northampton Museums, who got the film going in the first place, and Lee and I have since been working on a very happy project called Mobile X, to see if we could push the DIY feel of X Marks the Spot further.

We've been trying to find a structure for using the fact that all teenagers carry video cameras around with them all the time as a way to get them to have a look at museum collections.

More on that soon, but I really put my heart into Mobile X, despite there being no money, just because I felt the pressure not to let down the X Marks the Spot legacy!

And speaking as a participation nerd, if you are interested in structures that open up and welcome participation, just marvel at the genius of the "x marks the spot" device, which came from the teenagers themselves - you could use that device absolutely anywhere.

On top of everything else, the lead presenter, one of the youths, is a natural, miles better than any of the day-glo idiots you see on kids TV. I think he's working in a warehouse now, which I guess is what happens to your talents when you're from Northampton not Hampstead.

* the other best community film I've ever seen was a spoof horror film made by a group of disabled teenagers from Middlesborough who cast themselves as zombies in wheel chairs, trying to infect the straight walking world and turn everyone into cripples. Piss funny and in the worst possible taste at every turn. It went in the festival programme with no added explanation, and the audience did it justice, though you could sense them wondering at first "Are we really allowed to laugh at this?"

This is Part 1 of X Marks the Spot. Alan Moore (those are his feet on the X) is on at about 3.40 and very good he is too, but do the film justice and watch it all, you know Alan would be disappointed if you don't: