Old news. I'm not sure how widely this circulated around the 'net; if you're not in the video field you might not have heard these. It's a series of fake radio commercials dedicated to "honoring" certain types within the industry; essentially bosses who get in our way for assorted reasons. Turns out they were originally done by a marketing department for discovery channel.
The story of the Rough Cut Lady
And here is an interesting exhibit I'd like to go see.
(A 'rough cut' is what you call an early draft of a video piece; lots of things are finished yet. Sometimes it's a little tough to imagine what the finished version might look like, but for professionals who deal with it e v e r y s i n g l e d a y it really shouldn't be a problem. And yet...)
Monday, March 13, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Nightstand roundup
What's been occupying me lately...
records: got snowed under with promos from a friend of mine, but the one that hit the ipod first and stuck is The Celluloid Years, a pretty wide ranging collection of tracks from an early hip hop label. It's got Futura 2000 doing a track with The Clash (maybe not the smartest thing they ever did), several good mixes of Wild Style by Time Zone, and some African/French flavored stuff by Manu Dibango that I really like. Also, I'm still listening to the latest Boards of Canada record, The Campfire Headphase, but the one that caught me off guard is Blockhead's record from late last year, Downtown Science. It's instrumental hip-hop of a sort I didn't realize you could really even make anymore due to licensing restrictions. Artful, complicated, hummable and delicate, while never letting you forget that it's hip hop record. Of course you may start to wonder what that really means. Anyway, apparently the genius is from downtown NYC. I liked the first record, but the new one is a huge step forward. I've also been totally grooving on Konono No.1 - Congotronics.
Books:
It's funny how you sometimes aren't ready for a book, but if you come back to it later, it all makes sense. In my quest to keep my personal library under control I read and re-read my books over and over again (New York apartments & all that; even now in Jersey City there just aren't that many bookshelves).
One book I tried to read a few years ago was Umberto Eco's In Search of the Perfect Language, which I found pretty dry. But I kept the damn thing, and returned to it a few weeks ago. It turns out that reading Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver trilogy was a pretty excellent introduction to the central idea of this book of Eco's. Several of the scientists Stephenson fictionalizes spent significant amounts of their lives working on this idea of a perfect, pre-Babel type language, which would have a perfect 1:1 correspondence with the real world. Many of them felt that if you could figure out the language, then merely constructing new sentences in that tongue would generate new truths, philosophical and otherwise. Eco devotes chapters (which each feel very much like a self-contained lecture) to Kaballism, Dante, Wilkins, Leibniz, Dalgarno and the evolution Esperanto. This was totally fascinating stuff to me.
I also just found my way through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which was extremely fun. It's always nice to read things that are understated and a bit snarky, and this book fits the bill. As many others have noted, it's sort of a bizarre mix between a slightly Tolkienesque world and a Jane Austen novel, and while that could certainly be a recipe for an astonishingly boring and really long book, it isn't. It's a completely fascinating alternate world that Susanna Clarke has constructed, with a gigantic adventure story at it's heart. I suppose there are all sorts of things to draw out of the book, but I think one of the most fascinating things to me was the use of the idea that a country has particular place in history that's special. In this alternate history, England is a place where magic had been quite common, and it seems that it wasn't in other places. There's never really any specific explanation as to why this might be, but it makes for a very interesting read.
And another thing: Last Night a DJ Saved My Life. Fabulous. Read it before, I'll end up reading it again. If you have any record you consider even slightly "dance music", reading this book will explain a million things to you about why those records are the way they are. Starting with fundamentals - the evolving role of the dj during radio's early days, and following the development of the dj's role from various US cities to England , the Carribean and back to the States, it's a superfun collection of stories, some from names you know already, and many from names you don't know. It's the best kind of history; uncovering details about things we take for granted.
Early report on my latest acquisition is that Droidworks is pretty good, though perhaps obsessively thorough. It's the story of how George Lucas changed modern cinema. It's not any obvious thing, either...the book methodically plots the courses Lucas and his buddy Francis Coppola took to get in to the 'industry',and what they then did to set themselves free of it. This one seems to be written as a college textbook maybe; it's footnoted like crazy. I like it a lot because it's the story of people making a series of practical decisions to achieve their vision.
records: got snowed under with promos from a friend of mine, but the one that hit the ipod first and stuck is The Celluloid Years, a pretty wide ranging collection of tracks from an early hip hop label. It's got Futura 2000 doing a track with The Clash (maybe not the smartest thing they ever did), several good mixes of Wild Style by Time Zone, and some African/French flavored stuff by Manu Dibango that I really like. Also, I'm still listening to the latest Boards of Canada record, The Campfire Headphase, but the one that caught me off guard is Blockhead's record from late last year, Downtown Science. It's instrumental hip-hop of a sort I didn't realize you could really even make anymore due to licensing restrictions. Artful, complicated, hummable and delicate, while never letting you forget that it's hip hop record. Of course you may start to wonder what that really means. Anyway, apparently the genius is from downtown NYC. I liked the first record, but the new one is a huge step forward. I've also been totally grooving on Konono No.1 - Congotronics.
Books:
It's funny how you sometimes aren't ready for a book, but if you come back to it later, it all makes sense. In my quest to keep my personal library under control I read and re-read my books over and over again (New York apartments & all that; even now in Jersey City there just aren't that many bookshelves).
One book I tried to read a few years ago was Umberto Eco's In Search of the Perfect Language, which I found pretty dry. But I kept the damn thing, and returned to it a few weeks ago. It turns out that reading Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver trilogy was a pretty excellent introduction to the central idea of this book of Eco's. Several of the scientists Stephenson fictionalizes spent significant amounts of their lives working on this idea of a perfect, pre-Babel type language, which would have a perfect 1:1 correspondence with the real world. Many of them felt that if you could figure out the language, then merely constructing new sentences in that tongue would generate new truths, philosophical and otherwise. Eco devotes chapters (which each feel very much like a self-contained lecture) to Kaballism, Dante, Wilkins, Leibniz, Dalgarno and the evolution Esperanto. This was totally fascinating stuff to me.
I also just found my way through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which was extremely fun. It's always nice to read things that are understated and a bit snarky, and this book fits the bill. As many others have noted, it's sort of a bizarre mix between a slightly Tolkienesque world and a Jane Austen novel, and while that could certainly be a recipe for an astonishingly boring and really long book, it isn't. It's a completely fascinating alternate world that Susanna Clarke has constructed, with a gigantic adventure story at it's heart. I suppose there are all sorts of things to draw out of the book, but I think one of the most fascinating things to me was the use of the idea that a country has particular place in history that's special. In this alternate history, England is a place where magic had been quite common, and it seems that it wasn't in other places. There's never really any specific explanation as to why this might be, but it makes for a very interesting read.
And another thing: Last Night a DJ Saved My Life. Fabulous. Read it before, I'll end up reading it again. If you have any record you consider even slightly "dance music", reading this book will explain a million things to you about why those records are the way they are. Starting with fundamentals - the evolving role of the dj during radio's early days, and following the development of the dj's role from various US cities to England , the Carribean and back to the States, it's a superfun collection of stories, some from names you know already, and many from names you don't know. It's the best kind of history; uncovering details about things we take for granted.
Early report on my latest acquisition is that Droidworks is pretty good, though perhaps obsessively thorough. It's the story of how George Lucas changed modern cinema. It's not any obvious thing, either...the book methodically plots the courses Lucas and his buddy Francis Coppola took to get in to the 'industry',and what they then did to set themselves free of it. This one seems to be written as a college textbook maybe; it's footnoted like crazy. I like it a lot because it's the story of people making a series of practical decisions to achieve their vision.
Tags:
Friday, February 24, 2006
Does this cancel out the China thing?
Google is digitizing the national archives.
Download it straight to your video ipod. I really wonder how fast this will go. Amazing stuff for doc producers. Makes wandering the stacks accessible to us all...
Download it straight to your video ipod. I really wonder how fast this will go. Amazing stuff for doc producers. Makes wandering the stacks accessible to us all...
Monday, February 20, 2006
Learn your history, it's weird!
Interview with a guy who worked on ENIAC.
Eniac was the first electronic computer, more or less. It was intended to work out trajectory tables for bombs and mortars during WWII, but as with some many computer-oriented projects, the schedule slipped. They ended up using it to do some solid work on the h-bomb though.
From wikipedia:
A difference engine is a historical, mechanical special-purpose computer designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Since logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, such a machine is more general than it appears at first.
Charles Babbage designed the difference engine in 1834. He never even finished building one. In 1985 the British Science Museum started building one and completed it in 1991. It's said by many that he intended to use it make a killing at the horse-races.
Some guy built a freaking difference engine out of LEGO.
Eniac was the first electronic computer, more or less. It was intended to work out trajectory tables for bombs and mortars during WWII, but as with some many computer-oriented projects, the schedule slipped. They ended up using it to do some solid work on the h-bomb though.
From wikipedia:
A difference engine is a historical, mechanical special-purpose computer designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Since logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, such a machine is more general than it appears at first.
Charles Babbage designed the difference engine in 1834. He never even finished building one. In 1985 the British Science Museum started building one and completed it in 1991. It's said by many that he intended to use it make a killing at the horse-races.
Some guy built a freaking difference engine out of LEGO.
Tags:
Friday, February 17, 2006
Newsflash: I was shooting at things.
In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to let everyone know that last night I spent approximately 1 hour shooting things in HALO. I'm sorry it took me this long to let you know; that's my fault and my fault alone.
I've often thought that as much fun as the 1st person shooter games can be - and I do think they are fun - they often reduce to a highly dressed up version of the moving tin ducks you can shoot with a bb gun out at coney island, or in a thousand carnivals around the country. I played the same section of Halo over and over yesterday; it's a slighly tricky section, but I love the parts where you get to fly around in the alien spacecraft while it's snowing; it's really beautiful. Anyway, I'm playing this same section over and over while I fail to get all the shots right, and it was very fun and after an hour I thought to myself, "time well spent, but time to stop". Things exploded, I got a lot of time in the air, and honed that itchy trigger finger as millions do playing similar games every day, and for all the press about violence in video games, apparently in general violent crime is down.
Can somebody teach Dick Cheney how to get his computer on the interweb so he could just play Halo like the rest of us?
Tags:
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
tristam shandy - random thoughts
Very funny, and in an oblique way extremely faithful. It amuses me to see how we've become used to odd storytelling structures so that it's not even really an issue. (and of course, the book being adapted is proof of how long people have been confounding audiences with bass-ackward yarns).
For me, a nice surprise: some michael nyman music, early in the film. Thanks to modern technology, one cue recycled from Draughtman's Contract sounds about a million times better than it did in the earlier film.
The crowd at the Angelika was definitely a bit more mature than is usual for a friday night crowd...and as the lights came up, a gentleman sitting behind me proclaimed it 'one of the worst damn movies I've ever seen. Not one damn funny scene in the whole film.' - I 'd love to know what he was expecting. I guess he thought the book was better. (or maybe aforemention moebius-strip diegesis is more trouble than I thought!)
There is some fine artistic philosophizing wrapped up in all the low-rent humor, which for me helped sell the whole thing. Neat discussion of the value of battles and conflict in a story structure.
Two stars!
(via cellphone - apologies for the telegram style terseness. Full stop.)
Tags:
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Jack Bauer vs. really bad guy from Serenity.
I never watched Firefly when it was on tv, but was a Buffy fan, and I was fairly impressed with the movie. The critic in me realizes that it didn't quite add up to a lasting piece of work, and the fan and creative voices tell me it was a hell of an effort. Lots of things I liked, a few big problems. I watched it a second time with my folks on DVD, and had more or less the same reaction; a few of the cheesier decisions were more apparent the second time through. But I noticed something that made me feel a little uncomfortable - and that makes me think slightly better of the whole thing.
When I think about the movie, "the operative" character seems almost like a good guy, and not a bad guy. I don't think this means I'm a fascist, though it's obviously something to consider. But the man who fights dirty to maintain the order of the society, who follows orders without asking why, even when it seems clearly against the stated goals...he just seemed like a dude with a really hard job, who was severely competent, and relentless in his application to his duty. Where Serenity is brilliant is how that fight between Mal (the captain) and the operative, gets blurred. Honestly, when watching, it's pretty clear, because we root for the team of scrappy heroes. But the operative is pretty appealing - his idea of order may get shot down, but he survives. He has something he believes in, a structure, and he's willing to risk his life for that. He's honest about it; not a religious nut who doesn't see the holes in his schema.
Anyway, most of us are probably more like Mal, and inasmuch as the film seems to be a story about order versus disorder, I appreciate very much the benefits of disorder in art, in life, and in social structure. It's the random twitch in the DNA replication that makes the world the fascinating place it is. ("I'm a leaf on the wind...") But I think we all probably have some desire to be the other guy, with rule to follow and a clear plan we don't second guess.
So. 24 is on again, and I'm watching and I'm loving it. I start thinking in a silly way about how many folks Jack kills during the show, and it looks like this so far (conservatively):
07:00-08:00 1 directly - the assassin
08:00-09:00 Possibly one FBI agent.
09:00-10:00 (jack is busy with paperwork and expense reports)
10:00-11:00 3 terrorists (one by vest, 2 by shooting)
11:00-12:00 1 assassin (again!)
Making it a total of at least 5 people before 1pm.
(note: i still need to go back and check the hours and the count to make this more accurate)
Which means that Jack is the scruffy version of the fascist enforcer. He'll do anything to get his man, no matter how far over the line of propriety it takes him, because he believes in the idea of the society he works for. It's not entirely articulated in the show; we know he respected the presumably democratic & african-american president palmer and doesn't respect the current nixon look-alike, but he serves respectfully. Since there is always a clear-and-present-danger, Jack's excesses seem understandable if not commendable. But of course, he's basically insane, and this rule-following, unyielding submission to an ideal ends up destroying every human relationship he has.
Which only leads me to think that maybe the actual subject of 24 is the family. It's always been a big issue on the show, and we're getting a variety of angles into that subject this time around.
When I think about the movie, "the operative" character seems almost like a good guy, and not a bad guy. I don't think this means I'm a fascist, though it's obviously something to consider. But the man who fights dirty to maintain the order of the society, who follows orders without asking why, even when it seems clearly against the stated goals...he just seemed like a dude with a really hard job, who was severely competent, and relentless in his application to his duty. Where Serenity is brilliant is how that fight between Mal (the captain) and the operative, gets blurred. Honestly, when watching, it's pretty clear, because we root for the team of scrappy heroes. But the operative is pretty appealing - his idea of order may get shot down, but he survives. He has something he believes in, a structure, and he's willing to risk his life for that. He's honest about it; not a religious nut who doesn't see the holes in his schema.
Anyway, most of us are probably more like Mal, and inasmuch as the film seems to be a story about order versus disorder, I appreciate very much the benefits of disorder in art, in life, and in social structure. It's the random twitch in the DNA replication that makes the world the fascinating place it is. ("I'm a leaf on the wind...") But I think we all probably have some desire to be the other guy, with rule to follow and a clear plan we don't second guess.
So. 24 is on again, and I'm watching and I'm loving it. I start thinking in a silly way about how many folks Jack kills during the show, and it looks like this so far (conservatively):
07:00-08:00 1 directly - the assassin
08:00-09:00 Possibly one FBI agent.
09:00-10:00 (jack is busy with paperwork and expense reports)
10:00-11:00 3 terrorists (one by vest, 2 by shooting)
11:00-12:00 1 assassin (again!)
Making it a total of at least 5 people before 1pm.
(note: i still need to go back and check the hours and the count to make this more accurate)
Which means that Jack is the scruffy version of the fascist enforcer. He'll do anything to get his man, no matter how far over the line of propriety it takes him, because he believes in the idea of the society he works for. It's not entirely articulated in the show; we know he respected the presumably democratic & african-american president palmer and doesn't respect the current nixon look-alike, but he serves respectfully. Since there is always a clear-and-present-danger, Jack's excesses seem understandable if not commendable. But of course, he's basically insane, and this rule-following, unyielding submission to an ideal ends up destroying every human relationship he has.
Which only leads me to think that maybe the actual subject of 24 is the family. It's always been a big issue on the show, and we're getting a variety of angles into that subject this time around.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Murch thinks 3 is a magic number. (well, 2 1/2 anyway)
Walter Murch is more or less the only rock star editor. He's written books (In the Blink of An Eye), essays and lectures somewhat frequently. You'll remember him as the editor of Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, The English Patient, Cold Mountain, Jarhead, etc. I often wonder if he's really the smartest editor out there - not meaning that he isn't smart as hell, cause he is - but I wonder if other editors think as much about what we do as he does. I know some very considered, thoughtful editors, and I know some who work a bit more...instinctively. Thinking about Walter Murch always makes me curious about how deep you really *should* go on a given project.
I just stumbled on this essay from him about complexity in sound design. Good stuff as always.
I just stumbled on this essay from him about complexity in sound design. Good stuff as always.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Why we fight.
Managed to snag a ticket to this basically excellent doc last night. You can say it's about why we're in Iraq; a lot of the film is, but it really does try and get to the heart of the matter, as the title suggests. When it's on, the film is as beautiful and compelling as any doc I've seen. When it wanders, it's still pretty good, but fallible.
It opens with a genuinely amazing speech by Eisenhower, as he is about to end his presidency, in which he essentially warns against the perversion of democracy that a standing army and the attendant industries will wreak. This coming from a five star general who'd served in WWII. I wish they'd run the entire speech at the start of the film. Instead, we get excerpts, and then a standard talking-heads and footage piece. It sits halfway between a normal PBS story structure with several characters interwoven and something where the talking heads advance a thesis from start to finish..
What really got me was how *close* to being astonishing it was. As I said, many sections of it are beautiful -– it has a nice soundtrack that bridges a lot sections together into bigger pieces - then it would get bogged down a little with bites that were maybe not exactly off-topic, but maybe weren't bold enough. Much of the dialog is preaching to the choir, and so what frustrates me is to see the other elements get lost within the rote '“our politicians don'’t care'” soundbites. The good stuff by my reckoning includes: a great story of a NYC cop, a Vet himself, who lost a son in 9/11; a young guy signing up for the army;an army colonel (I think) who was in the Pentagon when it was struck and felt that she had to leave the armed service because of policy differences; and a woman scientist who works on bunker-buster bombs who turns out to have fled Saigon days before the fall, and who has deeply patriotic feeling for the US.
My gut tells me that if they'’d kept this a little more trim, a little more poetic, and maybe kept the run-time to 1:15 instead of 1:38, they'd have a film that was breathless, and left the audience stunned at the end, rather than feeling like they'’d seen a really great documentary. There were quite a few sections during the film that are that good, and so major hats off to the team.
I know docs aren'’t the same as news stories, and it'’s not a rule that you have to give equal time to opposing viewpoints, but I did feel like there might have been a useful way to contextualize the argument a bit better with regard to the conservative side of the fence. Not just hearing things to debunk them, but to broaden the scope.
I hope this film is a huge success; I'’ll be very curious to see what the numbers are when it opens outside of new york/la.
It opens with a genuinely amazing speech by Eisenhower, as he is about to end his presidency, in which he essentially warns against the perversion of democracy that a standing army and the attendant industries will wreak. This coming from a five star general who'd served in WWII. I wish they'd run the entire speech at the start of the film. Instead, we get excerpts, and then a standard talking-heads and footage piece. It sits halfway between a normal PBS story structure with several characters interwoven and something where the talking heads advance a thesis from start to finish..
What really got me was how *close* to being astonishing it was. As I said, many sections of it are beautiful -– it has a nice soundtrack that bridges a lot sections together into bigger pieces - then it would get bogged down a little with bites that were maybe not exactly off-topic, but maybe weren't bold enough. Much of the dialog is preaching to the choir, and so what frustrates me is to see the other elements get lost within the rote '“our politicians don'’t care'” soundbites. The good stuff by my reckoning includes: a great story of a NYC cop, a Vet himself, who lost a son in 9/11; a young guy signing up for the army;an army colonel (I think) who was in the Pentagon when it was struck and felt that she had to leave the armed service because of policy differences; and a woman scientist who works on bunker-buster bombs who turns out to have fled Saigon days before the fall, and who has deeply patriotic feeling for the US.
My gut tells me that if they'’d kept this a little more trim, a little more poetic, and maybe kept the run-time to 1:15 instead of 1:38, they'd have a film that was breathless, and left the audience stunned at the end, rather than feeling like they'’d seen a really great documentary. There were quite a few sections during the film that are that good, and so major hats off to the team.
I know docs aren'’t the same as news stories, and it'’s not a rule that you have to give equal time to opposing viewpoints, but I did feel like there might have been a useful way to contextualize the argument a bit better with regard to the conservative side of the fence. Not just hearing things to debunk them, but to broaden the scope.
I hope this film is a huge success; I'’ll be very curious to see what the numbers are when it opens outside of new york/la.
Monday, January 09, 2006
There were lots of animals in PAPILLION
Papillion was this prison-break movie released in 1973, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman; it takes place sometime in the 1930s. There is a bizarre amount of wildlife on screen:
1. Little crabs when arriving in French Guiana.
2. Lizards on roof.
3. Alligator when on work detail.
4. Butterflies on work detail.
5. Snake on work detail.
6. Roach in solitary.
7. Bat in solitary.
8. Large crab in solitary.
9. Millipede in solitary.
10. Dog on leper island.
11. Turtles on boat.
12. Sharks on final island.
13. Pigs and goats on final island.
14. Grasshopper on final island.
There are probably more, but that's all I can remember. It's an interesting idea, to use animals as shorthand for different situations or conditions. Not something that would work in every film, but it worked here just fine.
1. Little crabs when arriving in French Guiana.
2. Lizards on roof.
3. Alligator when on work detail.
4. Butterflies on work detail.
5. Snake on work detail.
6. Roach in solitary.
7. Bat in solitary.
8. Large crab in solitary.
9. Millipede in solitary.
10. Dog on leper island.
11. Turtles on boat.
12. Sharks on final island.
13. Pigs and goats on final island.
14. Grasshopper on final island.
There are probably more, but that's all I can remember. It's an interesting idea, to use animals as shorthand for different situations or conditions. Not something that would work in every film, but it worked here just fine.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
rocking the ebay for some retro gaming.
I spent the large sum of $3.99 + 3$ for shipping to get a copy of one of my favorite games ever: Mechwarrior 2 for Mac. Released 1996. Requires at LEAST System 7.5. It runs in OS 9 no problem at all (though not Classic) once you download a patch (which actually was to let it run in OS 8!), and is super super fun. I remember it had a pretty good soundtrack; kind of reminding me of the first Autechre record (Incunabula), which is one of my favorites.
Today it might be called a realtime strategy game; it requires fast reflexes but is not a twitch game like some of the first person shooters are. It's really more about planning and tactics, if not actual strategy. Unlike some of the FPS games out there, you rarely are significantly more weaponed up than your opponents; in fact at most times you can blow yourself up with about two wrong clicks or keypresses by firing weapons too close together: heat buildup = boom.
The part I didn't remember was how thorough the environment was - not the level of details in the models, which is frankly lower than I remembered - but the details of the storyline. It really is a campaign; each mission has screens and screens of background to read, and a lengthy description of the aftermath of the battle you've just completed, or not completed as things may have turned out. There is a 'reading room' where you can just peruse the history of your clan. And you can play the whole game from either of two sides, with entirely different history and missions. It's a whole world.
The game is an adaptation of something vague D&D-ish called BattleTech universe, so much of the 'lore' is lifted from that, but it's an interesting comparison to make with something like Halo. Halo's backstory is clearly grafted on by a team entirely separate from the team building the game engine itself; not a problem necessarily, but in practice the backstory is just a few pages in the instruction manual that gets left in the box. If you want to know a little more about Master Chief, may I kindly direct you to the lovely snow falling on the battlefield as that hover-buggy swings by for another sortie on your position? It's cool, right? What was that about you were asking about Master Chief? Right, never mind.
It's not the reams of copy that made MechWarrior II such an immersive experience; part of was the sheer complexity of the tasks you're asked to complete, and part of it comes from the details you CAN'T skip over, like the endless scenes of code procedure on the bomber in Doctor Strangelove. But I think the biggest part of it is the overwhelming sense that you are participating in a larger story. Not just blasting, but a real story. When you finish a mission, you feel like a hero, not a mass murderer or a kid shooting cardboard cowboys with a BB gun at a stand out at Coney Island. It was clearly a talented bunch of folks who put the game together.
Today it might be called a realtime strategy game; it requires fast reflexes but is not a twitch game like some of the first person shooters are. It's really more about planning and tactics, if not actual strategy. Unlike some of the FPS games out there, you rarely are significantly more weaponed up than your opponents; in fact at most times you can blow yourself up with about two wrong clicks or keypresses by firing weapons too close together: heat buildup = boom.
The part I didn't remember was how thorough the environment was - not the level of details in the models, which is frankly lower than I remembered - but the details of the storyline. It really is a campaign; each mission has screens and screens of background to read, and a lengthy description of the aftermath of the battle you've just completed, or not completed as things may have turned out. There is a 'reading room' where you can just peruse the history of your clan. And you can play the whole game from either of two sides, with entirely different history and missions. It's a whole world.
The game is an adaptation of something vague D&D-ish called BattleTech universe, so much of the 'lore' is lifted from that, but it's an interesting comparison to make with something like Halo. Halo's backstory is clearly grafted on by a team entirely separate from the team building the game engine itself; not a problem necessarily, but in practice the backstory is just a few pages in the instruction manual that gets left in the box. If you want to know a little more about Master Chief, may I kindly direct you to the lovely snow falling on the battlefield as that hover-buggy swings by for another sortie on your position? It's cool, right? What was that about you were asking about Master Chief? Right, never mind.
It's not the reams of copy that made MechWarrior II such an immersive experience; part of was the sheer complexity of the tasks you're asked to complete, and part of it comes from the details you CAN'T skip over, like the endless scenes of code procedure on the bomber in Doctor Strangelove. But I think the biggest part of it is the overwhelming sense that you are participating in a larger story. Not just blasting, but a real story. When you finish a mission, you feel like a hero, not a mass murderer or a kid shooting cardboard cowboys with a BB gun at a stand out at Coney Island. It was clearly a talented bunch of folks who put the game together.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
-so- underrated.
The Thomas Dolby best of caught my eye, flipping through the ipod on the way home today. The dude was completely misunderstood in his time; he's a crazy good storyteller who happened to be using new tools that freaked everyone out. If I had to pick something to remember him for, it would be the lyrics rather than his crazy synth action, though that is generally very creative as well. I ain't saying he didn't drop some real mal-mots from time to time, but there are some gems in there for sure. I think my favorite line from one of his songs is from "Urges": "I look at you and I feel half human". I don't know why, but I love that. The efficient set-ups of "airwaves" and "screen kiss" are things to admire as well.
Also, as someone who has been in recording studios both low and very hi-fi while songs were being recorded, I would like to point out that "She Blinded Me With Science" sounds absolutely crazy to me now, but for very different reasons than when I was like 13 and it was released originally. I just can't imagine someone actually systematically setting out to create that track. Wow.
Also, as someone who has been in recording studios both low and very hi-fi while songs were being recorded, I would like to point out that "She Blinded Me With Science" sounds absolutely crazy to me now, but for very different reasons than when I was like 13 and it was released originally. I just can't imagine someone actually systematically setting out to create that track. Wow.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Capote
I finally got around to seeing "Capote" last night. Very good film.
It was a fairly astonishing performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman, first off. There are almost no scenes in the film he's not in, and he definitely carries the weight of the movie without a problem. Really good work. I also always like the woman who played Harper Lee, Catherine Keener. Anyway.
What knocked me off my feet about Capote was the sheer range of issues it brought forth, without being preachy or overly arty. The most obvious thing the film does is create a portrait of Capote himself. This is done in a painterly fashion, with a natural feeling but very calculated selection of details and incidents, showing how Capote treated people close to him, strangers, and those who thought they were in one group but actually were in the other, which is a larger number than realized it.The only scene in the whole film that set off my "SUBTLETY VIOLATION" alarms is toward the end of the film, when an unknown audience member makes his way backstage to share his opinion of Capote's reading. I don't feel like I learned anything about Capote I didn't already get from this particular scene, but in the horse-trading that goes on to make a film, it may have been kept to insure some other more quiet moment was left alone. Overall, the point-counterpoint shown in his relations with others was in fact a genuinely nuanced bit of storytelling, and very human, and humane.
The film (for those who've not already seen it) drops into Capote's life during the four years in which he researched his big book, "In Cold Blood", a kind of non-fiction novel. This has a lot of resonance for me as someone who's worked on a decent number of social issue documentary films. So to wrap up a little here, there's a bit of meditation on the subject-observer relationship in art, on whether it's proper to affect the lifes of those portrayed, some small observations about the nature of justice in America, concerns of profesional jealousy, issues of balance regarding the lives of a man versus the good of Man, and also a few good tips on outfits and mixed drinks. 10 thumbs up. Go see it.
(Incidentally, before he wrote In Cold Blood, Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffanys, which is one of my favorite movies and a book that was even better - a bit sharper and less broad.)
It was a fairly astonishing performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman, first off. There are almost no scenes in the film he's not in, and he definitely carries the weight of the movie without a problem. Really good work. I also always like the woman who played Harper Lee, Catherine Keener. Anyway.
What knocked me off my feet about Capote was the sheer range of issues it brought forth, without being preachy or overly arty. The most obvious thing the film does is create a portrait of Capote himself. This is done in a painterly fashion, with a natural feeling but very calculated selection of details and incidents, showing how Capote treated people close to him, strangers, and those who thought they were in one group but actually were in the other, which is a larger number than realized it.The only scene in the whole film that set off my "SUBTLETY VIOLATION" alarms is toward the end of the film, when an unknown audience member makes his way backstage to share his opinion of Capote's reading. I don't feel like I learned anything about Capote I didn't already get from this particular scene, but in the horse-trading that goes on to make a film, it may have been kept to insure some other more quiet moment was left alone. Overall, the point-counterpoint shown in his relations with others was in fact a genuinely nuanced bit of storytelling, and very human, and humane.
The film (for those who've not already seen it) drops into Capote's life during the four years in which he researched his big book, "In Cold Blood", a kind of non-fiction novel. This has a lot of resonance for me as someone who's worked on a decent number of social issue documentary films. So to wrap up a little here, there's a bit of meditation on the subject-observer relationship in art, on whether it's proper to affect the lifes of those portrayed, some small observations about the nature of justice in America, concerns of profesional jealousy, issues of balance regarding the lives of a man versus the good of Man, and also a few good tips on outfits and mixed drinks. 10 thumbs up. Go see it.
(Incidentally, before he wrote In Cold Blood, Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffanys, which is one of my favorite movies and a book that was even better - a bit sharper and less broad.)
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Friday, December 09, 2005
Chroncles of Narnia, Episode IV: A New Hope
In preparation for the holiday movie viewing, I started re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia. I didn't know this as a kid, but the books were written out of order- that is, Lion/Witch/Etc was written first, and then after that Clive Staples Lewis wrote the creation myth for Narnia, The Magician's Nephew - incidentally the creation myth for the actual Wardrobe in question as well.
Finishing that first book reminded me (sadly) of several moments watching Star Wars after having seen Revenge of the Sith - lines that were throw-away before suddenly had at least a little more resonance. Anyway, I got quite a kick out of the situation both Lucas and Lewis were in; the unexpected success of their pet project ended up putting a lot more focus on the work than they had anticipated, and there were some things they didn't do right the first time. So you write a bunch more stuff to explain away the things that bugged you about the successful piece. Lewis published The Lion, The Witch...in 1950;Prince Caspian in 1951 (episode 3), Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 1952 (episode 4), The Silver Chair in 1953 (episode 6), The Horse and His Boy in '54 (episode 2), The Magician's Nephew in '55 (prelude), and The Last Battle in '56. It makes Lucas' 29 year cycle seem pretty slack.
Re-reading this stuff also explains why right wing Christians tend to go nuts about Harry Potter....before that, the fantasy world had a pretty dominant, Christian myth to feed the youngsters. It's kind of nuts actually - there's original sin in Narnia by page 79 - Aslan, the Lion: "You see, friends" he said, "that before the clean, new world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered into it; waked and brought hither by this son of Adam".
In spite of those overtones, it's very funny in many places, and definitely holds a few chuckles for the grownups. At one point in the Magician's Nephew, the speaking animals decide to call the old man/Magician "Brandy" as that's the only word he keeps repeating...
The film of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens today; I thought I had a couple more weeks. Luckily these books are written for like, fourth graders, so they go by pretty quick. I'm fairly sure my outlook wasn't unduly influenced by swallowing 800 pages of Christian Fantasy writing whole as a child, and I'm looking forward to the film, 'cause I like spectacle movies and this promises such in spades.
Finishing that first book reminded me (sadly) of several moments watching Star Wars after having seen Revenge of the Sith - lines that were throw-away before suddenly had at least a little more resonance. Anyway, I got quite a kick out of the situation both Lucas and Lewis were in; the unexpected success of their pet project ended up putting a lot more focus on the work than they had anticipated, and there were some things they didn't do right the first time. So you write a bunch more stuff to explain away the things that bugged you about the successful piece. Lewis published The Lion, The Witch...in 1950;Prince Caspian in 1951 (episode 3), Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 1952 (episode 4), The Silver Chair in 1953 (episode 6), The Horse and His Boy in '54 (episode 2), The Magician's Nephew in '55 (prelude), and The Last Battle in '56. It makes Lucas' 29 year cycle seem pretty slack.
Re-reading this stuff also explains why right wing Christians tend to go nuts about Harry Potter....before that, the fantasy world had a pretty dominant, Christian myth to feed the youngsters. It's kind of nuts actually - there's original sin in Narnia by page 79 - Aslan, the Lion: "You see, friends" he said, "that before the clean, new world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered into it; waked and brought hither by this son of Adam".
In spite of those overtones, it's very funny in many places, and definitely holds a few chuckles for the grownups. At one point in the Magician's Nephew, the speaking animals decide to call the old man/Magician "Brandy" as that's the only word he keeps repeating...
The film of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens today; I thought I had a couple more weeks. Luckily these books are written for like, fourth graders, so they go by pretty quick. I'm fairly sure my outlook wasn't unduly influenced by swallowing 800 pages of Christian Fantasy writing whole as a child, and I'm looking forward to the film, 'cause I like spectacle movies and this promises such in spades.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Documentary - Boys of Baraka
The other day I went to see an interesting film at the Film Forum. I'm pretty sure I didn't actually learn anything I didn't already know from Boys of Baraka, but maybe I didn't entirely understand what I knew. If you get the chance, I'd recommend taking a look at this film. Boys of Baraka is about a few African-American boys who attend middle and high schools in Baltimore, MD, and are selected to attend a sort of 2 year-long retreat/boarding school in Africa. Hilarity and heartbreak ensue.
The footage makes the conditions in Baltimore public schools a lot more visceral than just hearing someone tell you that things there are bad, and demonstrates a great deal of hope as well. There is no shortage of memorable, light moments along the way, and the movie is filled with engaging characters. It's also shot pretty well. Probably just on DV, but by folks that knew what they were doing
In documentary films, often times there's a tricky section at the beginning, where the characters are introduced...and introduced...and introduced...(see: Spellbound). Boys of Baraka manages to avoid this by just getting started with the story after we meet the first character or two, and then introducing new ones as they come in to the story, rather than all at once.
But I think rather than any particular brilliance of editing or filming - though both are very good - the direction is really what hit home to me about this doc. It sucks you in quickly, isn't gimmicky, and tells an important story without being preachy. Though we are seeing a bit of a renaissance of general interest documentary right now, much of the work still consists of putting sunlight where there isn't any; so managing to both illuminate and not make the viewer feel as though they're in school is the challenge.
(If by some random chance, someone reading this doesn't know me personally, I spent a great deal of time editing the orientation film for a museum in Baltimore, the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American History, so I learned quite a bit about African American history in Maryland. Boys of Baraka still managed to be surprising on some details.)
The footage makes the conditions in Baltimore public schools a lot more visceral than just hearing someone tell you that things there are bad, and demonstrates a great deal of hope as well. There is no shortage of memorable, light moments along the way, and the movie is filled with engaging characters. It's also shot pretty well. Probably just on DV, but by folks that knew what they were doing
In documentary films, often times there's a tricky section at the beginning, where the characters are introduced...and introduced...and introduced...(see: Spellbound). Boys of Baraka manages to avoid this by just getting started with the story after we meet the first character or two, and then introducing new ones as they come in to the story, rather than all at once.
But I think rather than any particular brilliance of editing or filming - though both are very good - the direction is really what hit home to me about this doc. It sucks you in quickly, isn't gimmicky, and tells an important story without being preachy. Though we are seeing a bit of a renaissance of general interest documentary right now, much of the work still consists of putting sunlight where there isn't any; so managing to both illuminate and not make the viewer feel as though they're in school is the challenge.
(If by some random chance, someone reading this doesn't know me personally, I spent a great deal of time editing the orientation film for a museum in Baltimore, the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American History, so I learned quite a bit about African American history in Maryland. Boys of Baraka still managed to be surprising on some details.)
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Times is changing.
This morning, Apple announced that they've made a deal with NBC to put quite a bit of content online through the Itunes store. It's amazing to see the media landscape actually changing right in front of your eyes. When Apple started selling videos, there were only a half-dozen shows from ABC and some Pixar shorts, but the cash has apparently been good enough that other networks are following.
I have small concerns about the technical quality of the files, but, as with MP3s, the compromises are good enough that a substantial new amount of flexibility comes from the smaller files. I can say that dealing with non-technical/non video-industry people, they seem to find the image quality not only acceptable, but pretty good. More on that later, most likely.
If we ever get to the point where IndieFlix will put your movie on ITunes like CDBaby does now, it will be a very interesting day. You might actually make the money back on a documentary without having to be in theaters.
I have small concerns about the technical quality of the files, but, as with MP3s, the compromises are good enough that a substantial new amount of flexibility comes from the smaller files. I can say that dealing with non-technical/non video-industry people, they seem to find the image quality not only acceptable, but pretty good. More on that later, most likely.
If we ever get to the point where IndieFlix will put your movie on ITunes like CDBaby does now, it will be a very interesting day. You might actually make the money back on a documentary without having to be in theaters.
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