furtherandfaster

Sunday....

was a scorcher and Miriam got some friends round to use the water slide and inflatable pool  we 'won' last year based on our film we submitted to Iwantoneofthose.com - customer content rules! This is a bit gratuitous on a blog about communications but I have posted it for the sheer exhileration of reminding myself that because I always carry a mobile and digital camera with me - I have no excuse not to capture life as it goes past. I was just trying to capture the energy as they raced down the slide and tried to capture the flag first.  We really need to encourage customers to capture their lives in the same way and to provide ways for them to share these moments with each other and with us.  Shut up Griffiths - its your day off!

Telling stories in film - or using active gifs

I'm going to have to post a proper review of Creating Short films for the Web but for now I just wanted briefly to rave about it. Hillman Curtis is an ex Adobe staffer who has moved from being a designer and developer to being a film maker using flash to make movies for the web. This is his 'how I got started' casestudies plus 'how to' book. And its great.

We were messing about in the garden trying to take a family photo for a child we are sponsoring - the original idea was to take a family picture and drop in the missing photographer but it all got a bit out of hand. Which gave me the idea of making an animated gif of the failed blurry photos. I think it actually works quite well - there are 4 separate stories to watch - 5 if you count the movement of the ball!  And you only need a handful of images to tell it. Film making with stills in a few minutes. Trouble is it doesn't fit the brief because Daniel in Ecuador doesn't have a computer so you can enjoy it instead! I bet the computer you are using now has the software to make animated gifs. Worth a look.  - Is it film making? I lead you to judge.

Blazing saddles and Madeline Kahn

This evening we watched Blazing Saddles. Chock full of laughs - I hadn't seen it for years. One of the highlights is Madeleine Kahn's take off of Dietrich which I attach for your viewing pleasure. Then afterwards while I was browsing youtube I found a wonderful version of an Isaiah Berlin song she did which I have put first for you. I hadn't realised what a great voice she had - she could sing Dietrich off the stage though of course Dietrich wasn't about the singing.  And poignant because Kahn died 10 years ago relatively young.

Arnie and introspection

I drove over to see my brother this evening - partly to save time driving to the south coast for a workshop on Monday but partly because we are supposed to be getting a set together for a festival at the end of June so we really need some practice time. I didn't get there till 9pm and Arnie was on the TV in 6th day - so we watched it instead - a film so bad it was good - I had not realised how carefully most directors ensure that Arnie does stuff and doesn't introspect - in this film he has to think out lout which more than overwhelmed his acting ability. To hilarious effect. Pulling faces doesn't indicate that something is going on inside or that you are experiencing inner tension. And Arnie was pulling faces not acting. We really should have played some music instead!

Lord of the Rings

As a glorfied bedtime story I'm working my way through the full version of Lord of the Rings or should that be double bacon cheese burger? It is such an awesome piece of work - the scale and detail of it are just unrivalled. the films are so much better than my memory of the books. I find the Gollum thread especially powerful. How a character can be so repulsive and yet so plaintive at the same time.

Naked Lunch

David Bausola of Imagination put me onto this. I can't believe I haven't watched it before. Its a very creepy film. David thought I had to watch it given my interest in turning a typewriter into a musical instrument. I get the message David - thanks very much!!

Beowulf in 3D

Saw this in the cinema today. Nice to get back into a bit of dark ages culture which they did rather well. It is obvious that Hollywood executives have decided that we need to be wearing odd pairs of glasses for the next half dozen Hollywood spectacles.  Presumably becuase they can charge us all more for the privilege. The 3d was quite good but not that critical. I was amused that animation allows you to drop a certificate to allow more children in. If this had been real footage it would have been a 15 certificate. I've also just made another connection. Zemeckis the director has done this before. He directed the excellent Who framed Roger Rabbit!

12 angry men

We put this on the DVD tonight- a great piece of drama, theatre and great performances from Henry Fonda, Lee J Cobb and others. Also very useful in getting a discussion going about juries and why incompetent members of the public are a better bet in securing justice than a professional judiciary - a fragile concept at best. I think I paid 3 quid for the DVD the price of a single rental.

Salvador by Oliver Stone

Fired up the video projector this evening and put this on the wall. One of my favourite films - though it is a harrowing one. War movies for me either become very cynical or are variants on a kind of weird buddy road movie. I appreciate Stone's outrage. No one comes out of it well - there's always an alternative point of view - the yanks, the right wing death squads, the peaceniks - the press, and of course James Woods and James Belushi along for the ride. Kind of ironic to be watching this when Pakistan is in a state of emergency but the US and UK aren't going to do anything about it because of security issues in the region. It seems we really haven't learned anything. There's nothing objective about Stone's film but perhaps objectivity can only get you so far. Partisanship can get you further.