I'm back for a bit.
Been working my ‘tits off’ to get into film school and I've
been accepted into the Australian Film, Television, and Radio
School.
Woo Hoo.
I've quit my job and all is prepared for a year of student
poverty.
I'm expecting to have more material for blogging next year.
Happy Christmas everyone.
This weeks DVD
This weeks movie is some more Time-lapse of the weather...
The Triplets of Belleville (Wow!)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman movie which is slow moving but riveting. Reminded me of the French interpretation of dangerous liaisons ‘Les Liaisons dangereuses’ (Where I first ‘fell’ for Jeanne Moreau) and the women in the flick were all Tippi Hedren type stunning.)
Arrested Development first season (Surprisingly good.)
‘Bitter sweet’ is a strange term. I feel that some people don’t appreciate the concept as well as others.
If you are looking for some ‘humanity’ in your DVD collection, I can recommend these flicks (interestingly none are American ;-)
Happy Times (China. A Cinderella type story, but sooooo NOT.)
Bread and Tulips (really sweet Italian movie with Bruno Ganz who was in Wings of Desire.)
Closely Observed Trains (Czech film. Wow, it’s really slow moving like the Ingmar Bergman movie above, but riveting)
Luc Besson collection. Nikita, Atlantis, Subway, Le Dernier Combat (A lot of people reckon this guy is more ‘style over substance’ but I like his stuff.)
Harry potter and the prisoner of Azkaban (Never seen a HP movie before so why not.)
Pret a Porter (The money spent on ‘talent’ must have given the Producer heartburn.)
Excalibur (I thought this was a terribly sexy movie when I was a kid. Guy’s in decked out in full suits of armour hip deep in lakes fighting each other, and shagging princesses. (Jean Luc Picard makes an appearance))
Once upon a time in Mexico (Rob Rodriguez is a bit of a hero of mine.)
Who killed the electric car (Nothing like a good doco.)
The Piano (One of my fav’s of all time.)
Video two in the series...
Libraries tend to have a more interesting collection of titles then the local video shop.
This weeks rentals….
This is a stream of consciousness vid featuring Syn city.
Last week the Pope visited Syn city.
So much racket and inconvenience, just so a few Catholics can have a party.
The choppers were buzzing around till ten o’clock Saturday night.
The noise from the racecourse where the gig was being staged on the other side of the hill from my place, flooded the area for miles around.
Nice little demonstration of power and influence by the Catholics.
A huge area of the city was held captive for a week.
When I walked down to the racecourse on Saturday afternoon, I found roads closed off and fences erected.
Imagine how unlikely it would be, for the Scientologists or Buddhists to get permission and support of the government, if they wanted to stage this sort of an event.
Reminded me of the American ‘Spring Breck’ where hoards of teenagers take over a town, party hard, and then bugger off leaving the locals with the bill.
Friday I was down, so I had some red wine.
People, who say that drinking doesn’t help, are dumb. Much like the people that
say that money can't buy you happiness.
Alca-ma-hol is brilliant for slowing the brain, damping ambition, and helping
one forget for a while.
All of these properties are useful.
Ran out of red and was rooting around in the cupboard for Scotch. All I could
find was some J W black crap. I've run out of the proper Scottish stuff.
Was surprised to find a half bottle of Calvados. Spent ten minutes trying to
remember where it had come from.
Finally decided 'fuck it' and drank a fists worth o fingers while I watched
Lost in Translation DVD, while scoffing English chocolate (dark stuff with zest
and spices I think.)
Great movie, but I don't understand why everyone thinks they had sex. It's
obvious that they didn't.
It's a movie about aloneness. It’s also about how strange Japan
is for Westerners.
Nursed a hangover on Saturday.
Sunday there was a coffee fest in Sydney.
Went down to take some photos with a photo group I’ve joined.
Would have had some coffee but the lines were stupidly long.
I don't queue.
Lost everyone else in the group.
Listened to some music.
There was a belly dancer. Belly dancers are much hotter then pole dancers.
Photos attached.
More Jazz from a while back...
Dig was one of my favourite local groups.
Recently they played at the Darling Harbour Jazz and Blues festival in Sydney.
This is a video of them performing Dreamtime.
I remember this song being a lot more 'pumped' ;-)
The ‘all encompassingly’ christened Australian Film Television and Radio School had their Open day on Saturday.
I went down and had a stickybeak.
This is ‘the’ school for anything audio-visual in Oz.
They recently decamped from the creative wasteland of Sydney’s ‘bible belt,’ and moved the whole shebang down into the middle of Syn city.
This school has government funding so they have the best of everything.
The building was built by a bank at no cost to the tax payer. WEIRD! I wonder how many souls are required to burn in hell to repay that curtesy???
The facilities are bloody amazing! Latest gear, full wardrobe and props departments, offices for student productions to camp in, industry standard Post and CGI.
I had discounted this school as in the past they have only taken students from the industry, who wish to hone or add to their skills.
Next year the school starts something new called a foundation diploma, which covers everything from story development to video games, and is available to anyone who has the chops to be accepted (subject to a portfolio submitting process.)
So now I have two options.
One school I need to prove to the facility that I’m good enough, and the other I can buy my way in.
So why have I been posting strange little YouTube videos for the last couple of years?
I’ve been practising.
I’m planning on ‘chucking’ full time employ, and doing a film coarse next year.
The mid-year intake Open Days are currently being run so last weekend I attended the Sydney Film School Open Day to check out a potential option.
The school fills out a converted old ware house in the middle of the city.
I could see students cutting up strips of film on editing desks as I entered the common area.
The building didn’t seem overbearing or pretentious and I instantly felt comfortable.
Documentary and drama production are taught. The school has the belief that good films are made by good teams
Drama students start with film, and then move them onto digital. The school reckons that learning with (old fashion :-) film builds good discipline.
Doco students are digital all the way through.
It’s a private school, and the only entrance criteria are that students pay the tuition and that their personalities ‘fit’ with the place. That entails and interview with the staff.
Last year a hundred student short films were produced, and in four years forty three films have screened in film festivals round the world.
They believe in a broad training in a variety of disciplines rather then train specialist directors or sound guys.
Strong affiliations with international schools.
I liked the vibe of the place. Vibes are important. It’s your sub-conscious elbowing you in the ribs and wiggling its eyebrows.
I really liked their emphasis on collaboration, and they are actively trying to build a larger film community in Oz. This is important to me as unlike a doctor or a teacher, I don’t NEED to go to school to get in the industry, but I’m looking to find a community to slot into.
If there is one thing I’ve learnt in life, it’s that connections are more important then qualifications or talent.
A video of bugs shot mostly in Australia with macro.
I’ve been collecting these little clips of insects for a while now. Suddenly had enough to string together into a short video with a bit of music to keep the pace up.
Mostly glitch with a bit of Hiphop (all done with Acid.)
Featured are a lady bug, a Weta from New Zealand, two beetles (one green and the other iridescent,) and my finger.
I captured these images using the Ricoh’s RAW format, which conforms to Adobe's DNG format.
Nice! None of this waiting around for Photoshop to have camera specific loaders released, or needing a manufactures conversion program.
Just load the image straight in.
These shots of leaves are all about texture and tone.
As you can see, I’m a Macro fan.
I finally have a grasp of the aperture/shutter relationship function.
The really nice thing bout the Ricoh is how the shutter and Aperture are controlled with the dial and lever controls on the top of the camera.
Upon completing a two day camera class, I walked down to the local park and put my new knowledge to work.
These shots were taken with my Ricoh GX100.
Bit of live video, bit of time-lapse. Lot’s of lightning.
More sensitive viewers will appreciate my editing efforts. While I was cutting up the footage, I discovered that at one point I heard my voice exclaim ‘fuck that was close!’ on the soundtrack, so I cut the sound and overlaid thunder.
These are a couple of photos of a big storm that rolled in over where I live on Tuesday 26th of feb.
Both are panoramas, and the dark one ‘broke’ Photoshop Elements and didn’t blend properly, but I liked the effect and decided to post it anyway.
Video to follow when it finishes uploading.
I never thought that the Iraq/North American war was about finding 'weapons of mass destruction' and this article is an interesting piece on the costs of this war.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au
Some more music for you folks.
Last year I had a clip taken of the Whitlam’s, this year it’s Dan Kelly. Lots of shot’s of Australians sprinkled throughout, and some sky divers.
I have a thing for 'left field' type cameras. I'm surprised that I don't own a Lomo.
Casio EXILIM Pro EX-F1
This is one of these new 'hybrid' cameras which are bridging the ‘stills’ and ‘video’ markets.
This camera also offers some insanely high capture speeds.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0801/08010601casiof1.asp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UprZNWzUq0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4WDMEUoF9M
Sigma DP1
This camera is unique in that it captures light data in a whole new way.
Usually an imaging chip has three red/blue/green capture points which are combined to produce a single colour pixel. This chip ‘reads’ all three colours at a single capture point.
What I like about this camera is that Sigma are packaging a full sized SLR chip in a Compact body.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0801/08013108sigmadp1.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor
Follow up to my posting on Photoshop Elements…
cool-all-my-favourite-photoshop-features
You’ve seen the stills. Now experience the colour, movement, and sounds of the Oz Day Antique Car Show (wish I could bring you the smells too.)
Lot’s of people, and music, and there was a fly past by one of Australia’s three jet fighters (I think that only one can fly at any one time.)
Music clip to follow in a couple of days.
Damn, I’m still dating things 07!
Made an effort to kneel down onto the super heated sidewalk (sunny day) and take some macro shots.
Old dudes would walk past and inform me that ‘whatever’ widget I was paying so much attention too could now be bought in Sydney, or that they had hundreds of that thingamabob and could give me one if I wanted.
I thought it was a bit strange until I realised that I was surrounded by car nuts (which doesn’t quite convey the depth of feeling these guys had for their machinery.)
They thought I was scouting for parts.’
