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Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Todd Alcott - Favorite screenplays: Bambi 9:00 AM
Todd Alcott - Favorite screenplays: Bambi: "Check this out: Bambi is 70 minutes long, has only one clearly-defined act break, and has a protagonist who is not only passive, but who wants nothing definable or concrete. It has no visible antagonist and absolutely, positively, not the slightest rumor of a plot. It breaks every rule regarding what a compelling cinematic narrative is supposed to be.
Who was the perpetrator of this heresy? What weird, artsy, pretentious, avant-garde smartass dared to make a movie with no plot and a passive protagonist? Was it Godard? Bunuel? Brakhage? No, it was Walt Disney, the man whose name is now synonymous with toothless, benign, formulaic 'family entertainment.' Walt Disney. Disney's two features previous to Bambi were the 2 1/2-hour salute to classical music, Fantasia, and the gorgeous 61-minute parable Dumbo. Don't let people tell you that Walt Disney was some kind of reactionary, conservative fuddy-duddy peddling colorful fantasy. At the top of his game, Walt Disney was the most exciting, most experimental, most daring moviemaker alive. Bambi is the peak of his art."
Who was the perpetrator of this heresy? What weird, artsy, pretentious, avant-garde smartass dared to make a movie with no plot and a passive protagonist? Was it Godard? Bunuel? Brakhage? No, it was Walt Disney, the man whose name is now synonymous with toothless, benign, formulaic 'family entertainment.' Walt Disney. Disney's two features previous to Bambi were the 2 1/2-hour salute to classical music, Fantasia, and the gorgeous 61-minute parable Dumbo. Don't let people tell you that Walt Disney was some kind of reactionary, conservative fuddy-duddy peddling colorful fantasy. At the top of his game, Walt Disney was the most exciting, most experimental, most daring moviemaker alive. Bambi is the peak of his art."
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
New Multi-Touch Fujitsu Tablet PCs with Wacom Digitizers! | GottaBeMobile.com 8:41 AM
New Multi-Touch Fujitsu Tablet PCs with Wacom Digitizers! | GottaBeMobile.com: "Straight out of IFA 2009, German site Golem.de shows us two new convertibles from Fujitsu, the T4410 und T4310, both equipped with Wacom’s multi-touch technology. Paraphrasing from their report (with help from Google Translate): the 12″ multi-touch screen allows two simultaneous finger touches via capacitive detection with more to be enabled by future software updates. The pen allows 15 levels of pressure sensitivity (no mention if this is a hard limit or if it can be enhanced by software updates; not enough for art but adequate for handwriting)."
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Dangerous Minds | Keep doing that and you’ll go blind: 3-D television, another perspective 1:12 PM
Dangerous Minds | Keep doing that and you’ll go blind: 3-D television, another perspective: "That’s the problem. When the movie’s over, and you take your glasses off, your brain is still ignoring all those depth perception cues. It’ll come back to normal, eventually. Some people will snap right back. In others, it might take a few hours. This condition, known as ‘binocular dysphoria’, is the price you pay for cheating your brain into believing the illusion of 3D."
The Bride Goes Wild (1948) 1:01 PM
The Bride Goes Wild (1948): "Soon after arriving in New York, Martha learns that McGrath House's 'foremost children's book author,' Greg Rawlings, known to his young readers as 'Uncle Bumps,' has threatened to leave for Canada before completing his latest book."
Monday, February 15, 2010
Amazon.com: HP Pavilion tx2500z 12.1" TOUCH-SCREEN Notebook LAPTOP PC, Latest AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-80 2.1 GHz, 3GB RAM, 250GB HDD/DVD+/-RW DL, Wireless, Bluetooth, Camera, Finger Print READER, Vista Home Premium): Computer & Accessories 2:11 PM
Necronomicon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 12:38 PM
Necronomicon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Now about the “terrible and forbidden books” — I am forced to say that most of them are purely imaginary. There never was any Abdul Alhazred or Necronomicon, for I invented these names myself. Robert Bloch devised the idea of Ludvig Prinn and his De Vermis Mysteriis, while the Book of Eibon is an invention of Clark Ashton Smith's. Robert E. Howard is responsible for Friedrich von Junzt and his Unaussprechlichen Kulten.... As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes — in all truth they don’t amount to much. That is why it’s more fun to invent mythical works like the Necronomicon and Book of Eibon."
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Alarm bells come too late for Sony Pictures | The Media Wonk 9:45 AM
Alarm bells come too late for Sony Pictures | The Media Wonk: "# For 2009-2012, we [previously] forecast overall U.S. home entertainment industry revenues to decline at a -2.1% CAGR. This underscores the mature nature of the industry, plus the importance of share gains for individual players. Over this time frame, aggregate operating profit declines of low single digits are also expected.
# Now one year later, looking at the cold hard facts of 2009, retail spending on sell-through DVDs and Blu-Ray discs dropped by -18% while rental of these products actually increased by 4%. As a result, the sell-through of physical discs declined from 63% of the market to 57%.
# This massive change in behavior continues to have negative implications for studio profitability as every home video executive would rather book the $16 of profit contribution per transaction from selling a disc vs. the $3.50 to $1.40 per disc profit contribution from rental.
# [snip]
# Our analysis also shows that the Blu-Ray format is having a more modest acceptance rate that traditional DVD. In 2009, three years after its introduction, Blu-Ray’s penetration of TV households stood at 4.4%, compared to 13.0% for DVDs in 2000. We also find that Blu-Ray [sic] has seen lower numbers of titles shipped per converted household relative to DVD. We don’t see Blu-Ray stemming the decline of physical sales."
# Now one year later, looking at the cold hard facts of 2009, retail spending on sell-through DVDs and Blu-Ray discs dropped by -18% while rental of these products actually increased by 4%. As a result, the sell-through of physical discs declined from 63% of the market to 57%.
# This massive change in behavior continues to have negative implications for studio profitability as every home video executive would rather book the $16 of profit contribution per transaction from selling a disc vs. the $3.50 to $1.40 per disc profit contribution from rental.
# [snip]
# Our analysis also shows that the Blu-Ray format is having a more modest acceptance rate that traditional DVD. In 2009, three years after its introduction, Blu-Ray’s penetration of TV households stood at 4.4%, compared to 13.0% for DVDs in 2000. We also find that Blu-Ray [sic] has seen lower numbers of titles shipped per converted household relative to DVD. We don’t see Blu-Ray stemming the decline of physical sales."
Monday, February 08, 2010
Sunday, February 07, 2010
www.keithlango.com- Pose to Pose Organized Keyframe Animation Article 6:57 PM
www.keithlango.com- Pose to Pose Organized Keyframe Animation Article: "For every motion, pose, timing and action on every character in your shot, you need to ask every one of the following questions. By going through the list one item at a time and cross checking every motion for the item, you’ll find so many areas of weakness that need attention. The struggle for many beginning animators is that they don’t even know which questions to ask, much less how to answer them. Hopefully this list will help you to begin asking the right kinds of questions. It's helped me a ton. It’s not exhaustive, but it goes a long way to spotting trouble before you save your file for the last time and think you're done. If only finding and implementing the answers was as easy as asking the questions."
Friday, February 05, 2010
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
It's official: animators suck 7:33 AM
Monday, February 01, 2010
The Ultra-Meta Gremlins 2 Novelization « Mondo: The Blog 2:23 PM
The Ultra-Meta Gremlins 2 Novelization « Mondo: The Blog: "There. The novelizer, Mr. David Bischoff, Esq., has been successfully waylaid and is now tied up in the bathroom of his Los Angeles apartment.
Do not attempt to adjust your book.
We have control of the programming.
Please excuse the rudeness. You have previously known me as the “Gremlin that drank the brain fluid” – or, as Bischoff quaintly called me, Mr. Glasses. Believe it or not, in the screenplay, I am referred to as BRAIN GREMLIN.
I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about our philosophy toward life, so that we will not be misunderstood and branded as “monsters.”
Yes, but faithful novel readers, I do not intend to cheat you. In the movie presentation, Gremlins take over the movie theater (ah, what a delicious conceit – excellent, Joe – was that you?) and Hulk Hogan comes to the rescue.
I do believe that Kenneth Tobey of THE THING is somewhere in there.
However, let us deal with more intellectual matters.
In the great paradigm of anti-intellectualism that is the vast American untermenchen, there needs to be a seismic quake of thought, a veritable avalanche of anarchy, to wake you somnambulent beings from your couch-potato torpor.
May I offer you the services of we Gremlins. You may hereafter refer to us as the New Capitalist Democratic Nice Folks.
Already our numbers are spreading out from the heart of America to aid you in this endeavor and although you may be viewing this physically for the first time now (except for those lucky citizens of Kingston Falls who received a foreshadow some years ago) our intellectual forces have been at work for some time, albeit embodied in human form.
According to my contacts with our crypto-CD’s the Church of SubGenius it is generally not know, for instance, that the entirety of network television is programmed by proto-Capitalist Democrats.
However, the past is merely prologue, introduction, forward, with some long footnotes thrown in.
Our time is now!
So, my dear readers (oh, the few, the chosen literate who have been intelligent enough to purchase this volume) prepare for a New Age of the New Capitalist Demo -
Oh dear. Mr. Bischoff seems to have successfully axed his way out of the bathroom.
Methinks I need to fly and return this temporarily liberated keyboard to his suburb, urbane and witty prose -
Back I fly to the Clamp Cent…"
Do not attempt to adjust your book.
We have control of the programming.
Please excuse the rudeness. You have previously known me as the “Gremlin that drank the brain fluid” – or, as Bischoff quaintly called me, Mr. Glasses. Believe it or not, in the screenplay, I am referred to as BRAIN GREMLIN.
I want to take this opportunity to talk to you about our philosophy toward life, so that we will not be misunderstood and branded as “monsters.”
Yes, but faithful novel readers, I do not intend to cheat you. In the movie presentation, Gremlins take over the movie theater (ah, what a delicious conceit – excellent, Joe – was that you?) and Hulk Hogan comes to the rescue.
I do believe that Kenneth Tobey of THE THING is somewhere in there.
However, let us deal with more intellectual matters.
In the great paradigm of anti-intellectualism that is the vast American untermenchen, there needs to be a seismic quake of thought, a veritable avalanche of anarchy, to wake you somnambulent beings from your couch-potato torpor.
May I offer you the services of we Gremlins. You may hereafter refer to us as the New Capitalist Democratic Nice Folks.
Already our numbers are spreading out from the heart of America to aid you in this endeavor and although you may be viewing this physically for the first time now (except for those lucky citizens of Kingston Falls who received a foreshadow some years ago) our intellectual forces have been at work for some time, albeit embodied in human form.
According to my contacts with our crypto-CD’s the Church of SubGenius it is generally not know, for instance, that the entirety of network television is programmed by proto-Capitalist Democrats.
However, the past is merely prologue, introduction, forward, with some long footnotes thrown in.
Our time is now!
So, my dear readers (oh, the few, the chosen literate who have been intelligent enough to purchase this volume) prepare for a New Age of the New Capitalist Demo -
Oh dear. Mr. Bischoff seems to have successfully axed his way out of the bathroom.
Methinks I need to fly and return this temporarily liberated keyboard to his suburb, urbane and witty prose -
Back I fly to the Clamp Cent…"
