We do not often see the sceenplay of a movie we like. Maybe it’s fortunate because they are hardly exhilarating except when they come from Alfred Hitchcock (the man was a maniac of detailed preparation) or when they describe all about animation movies.
The Wall, the Alan Parker movie created with the eponymous music album from Pink Floyd stays a monument of moving images. But, now, you can look at the pages of Roger Waters and Gerald Scarfe, the original screenplay (in PDF).
Trevor Cawood is a movie director that has been noticed in a number of short movies in the world of advertising. Personally, I noticed ads for Citroën and for GMC. But you must remember him for his participation to the special effects of The Matrix Reloaded (Matrix 2) or The Matrix Revolutions (Matrix 3). But in 2007, he directed this short movie that I found some time ago.
Synopsis
A mere business worker seems to be choosen by an impressive creature of cement (a golem, maybe). Permanently stalked and followed, he has to learn to live with it.
Most people are amazed by the power of the marine predators that are most sharks. While it is often difficult to cacth them in the act, there are a few occasions where it is possible to see impressive animals. Recently I found some that I wanted to share with you.
One of the greatest minds and authors of the 20th Century just died. Arthur C. Clarke was very well known for some of his highly acclaimed books (think about 2001: A Space Odyssey and the collaboration with Stanley Kubrik on the movie with the same name). Some of them were only known to Science Fiction fans (Rendez-vous with Rama, The Fountains of Paradise, for example).
But Sir Arthur C. Clarke was also the author of significant steps for science like the observation that geostationary satellites would be the practical solution to many telecommunication issues. I can vividly remember my reading of Interplanetary Flight; an introduction to astronautics, where in 1950 he stated very clearly concepts like the multi-stage rocket or the geostationary satellite and why they should be prefered to other technical solutions.
The old man (born on 16 December 1917) was living in Sri Lanka where he appreciated the leisure of all-year-long scuba diving.
Science Fiction can no longer be the same after he left us.
Arthur C. Clarke died at the age of 90 from respiratory complications linked to the post-polio syndrome that forced him into a wheelchair for his last years.
If the hero starts dancing, suddenly, everybody around knows the steps and dance with them.
Any car hit by a bullet immediately explodes in a cloud of flames, a mere rivulet of oil turns into a fire ball.
An ugly girl only has to remove her glasses and untie her hair to transform herself into an iridescent beauty queen.
If you look languorously into the eyes of a woman, music always starts to play (even if there is no stereo in the room). Ain’t it handy?
In car pursuits, you only have to zip through crossroads for all others to halt in tire shrieks. No need to check the traffic lights…
In car pursuits, you just need to speed up to fly over wide gaping spaces (gravity seems nullified provided that you can push the pedal hard enough!)
The first truncheon hit systematically sends the bad guy either to sleep or flying through the room like a ball on a pool table.
The hero will only yield to baddies after dozens of hits by a large group of hulking champion weight-lifters.
All computers are fifteen years ahead of current technology and blinkingly beautiful (no dull grey boxes, but nice blinking lights or impressive 3D graphics interface).
Baddies are always easy to recognize in a crowd. They are ugly, dirty and grimacing (if not with a scar on the face). Why doesn’t the police use this kind of clue in movies while the same kind of profiling is used routinely in our streets?
When the hero enters an unknown derelict space ship, he has no difficulty finding and operating the door lock, the ship’s controls and the hyper-space radio.
When we see a distant explosion on screen, the sound is never late (is speed of sound as fast as speed of light in movies?).
Radio-activity makes objects glow in the dark (it’s useful since we wouldn’t see it - Many scientists including Pierre and Marie Curie would have wanted to know that they just had to switch off the light in their laboratories!)
In the void of empty space, sounds are deafening: Shrieking spaceship rockets can be heard from the other end of the galaxy despite the total lack of atmosphere to transmit it.
A detective cannot solve a case before he has been suspended for insubordination
Even when the road is straight, if you drive a car, you must continuously swing the wheel right and left
The wounds of the hero will not make him even wince, except when a gorgeous woman is trying to clean them
As everybody is starting to understand that Blu-Ray won the Hirez battle for the next generation DVD format, the other contender is seeing its products dumped en masse on eBay. If you (still) want to buy a HD-DVD player, it’s your lucky day. Go to eBay auction outfit and you’ll find dozens of players for unbelievable prices.
The only catch (and the main reason): Nobody in their right mind would want to get stuck with HD-DVD technology while its father (Toshiba) is expected to be ready to announce its demise.
If like me your a photographer who wouldn’t dare making a video, you still can think about doing a decent time-lapse sequence out of your photographs. However, this cannot happen just by taking images and loading them into a software.
When you think that you’ve mastered the technique, you can think again and look at the following example created by Lucas Oleniuk, photographer of the Toronto Star. Taking 20,000 of his still photographs, he built a 20-days sequence re-hashing the issue of global warming for us.
The stars of show business and other stars are chased all around the world by paparazzis. Sometimes even catch them in X-ray photos. Here are the evidences:
I recently stumbled upon several good ideas for the photographer (and cinematographer) with a limited budget. They seem quite simple and interesting to apply.
Ring Flash for a penny
For macro-photography and proxi-photography, a flash is often needed. But it is difficult to obtain a nice light not simply coming from the side (and casting ugly shadows). This is why exist those ring flashes that are usually so expensive.
Today, Strobist provides a neat little idea to make nearly free ring flash out of a common cobra flash. Just use a circle (more precisely, an ellipse) of cardboard or white metal to reflect the light of a more common flash light (see the image below). In seconds, you’ll get most of the advantages of a ring flash without changing your equipment.
The flash light comes from the side and is reflected toward the scene while the hole in the middle allow the lens to peer naturally into the scene.
Poor man’s steadycam
You may know that a steady-cam is a simple rig that allows to stabilize a video camera for use while walking or running. It is so essentially simple that Johnny Lee made one out of three metal pipes and a weight. It is much nicer than the expensive pro ones and you can easily copy the design if you do not want to pay for the 39$ he asks for it.
Older issues
If you have been attentive, you can remember that there were similar other ideas popping up in these pages before.
You knew that Hollywood had to hire somebody to create those computer interfaces that look completely futuristic, that look so good and that look credible. Actually, Mark Coleran in one of these designers Hollywood pays (handsomely) for creating man-machine interfaces (for movies like Island, Mr & Mrs Smith, etc.)
Recently, we can see, things went much further than the all-seeing, all-knowing eye of HAL in 2001, a space odyssey.
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Recently, we can see, things went much further than the all-seeing, all-knowing eye of HAL in 2001, a space odyssey.
