Saturday, 7 March 2009
Is this the real Shakespeare at last?
Picture painted during his lifetime
A PORTRAIT owned for nearly 300 years by a family will tomorrow be claimed as the only known picture of William Shakespeare painted during his lifetime.
No other image, executed at first hand, is thought to exist of Britain’s greatest writer.
The claim will be supported by the world’s foremost expert on Shakespeare, Stanley Wells, emeritus professor of Shakespeare studies at Birmingham University and general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare series for 30 years.
More here
Remembering Salvador Dalí
On the 20th anniversary of the great surrealist's death we look back over a career entwined with some of the greatest artists, film-makers, thinkers and writers of the 20th century, from Disney to Buñuel to Olivier to Lorca
More here
The Science Behind Watchmen
James Kakalios was a consultant on Watchmen (film), and here, he walks us through the physics of Dr. Manhattan. Summarized, he's "not strictly correct from a physics point of view, but very cool nonetheless."
Giant server seized in raid on file-sharing site
STOCKHOLM - Police have made a major crackdown on illegal file-sharing by seizing a giant computer server during an apartment raid in a Stockholm suburb, an official said Saturday.
Henrik Ponten, a spokesman at the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau, said the server contained about 65 terabytes of files, corresponding to around 16,000 full-length movies.
"The size of the works are gigantic," he said, noting it was one of the biggest pirate server confiscations ever in Sweden.
Police raided the apartment in Brandbergen, in southern Stockholm, in the beginning of February after the anti-piracy bureau filed a report about it, he said.
Ponten said one suspect had been questioned by police, but was released shortly afterward since the confiscation was the main objective of the raid.
"Basically he admitted he was in charge of it (the server)," he said.
According to Ponten the server is part of an international pirate network called "The Scene," providing users of Internet file-sharing sites such as Sweden's The Pirate Bay with extensive access to copyright protected material.
Friday, 6 March 2009
Project Paperclip: Dark side of the Moon
Sixty years ago the US hired Nazi scientists to lead pioneering projects, such as the race to conquer space. These men provided the US with cutting-edge technology which still leads the way today, but at a cost.
The end of World War II saw an intense scramble for Nazi Germany's many technological secrets. The Allies vied to plunder as much equipment and expertise as possible from the rubble of the Thousand Year Reich for themselves, while preventing others from doing the same.
The range of Germany's technical achievement astounded Allied scientific intelligence experts accompanying the invading forces in 1945.
Supersonic rockets, nerve gas, jet aircraft, guided missiles, stealth technology and hardened armour were just some of the groundbreaking technologies developed in Nazi laboratories, workshops and factories, even as Germany was losing the war.
And it was the US and the Soviet Union which, in the first days of the Cold War, found themselves in a race against time to uncover Hitler's scientific secrets.
In May 1945, Stalin's legions secured the atomic research labs at the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the suburbs of Berlin, giving their master the kernel of what would become the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal.
US forces removed V-2 missiles from the vast Nordhausen complex, built under the Harz Mountains in central Germany, just before the Soviets took over the factory, in what would become their area of occupation. And the team which had built the V-2, led by Wernher von Braun, also fell into American hands.
Crimes
Shortly afterwards Major-General Hugh Knerr, deputy commander of the US Air Force in Europe, wrote: "Occupation of German scientific and industrial establishments has revealed the fact that we have been alarmingly backward in many fields of research.
"If we do not take the opportunity to seize the apparatus and the brains that developed it and put the combination back to work promptly, we will remain several years behind while we attempt to cover a field already exploited."
Thus began Project Paperclip, the US operation which saw von Braun and more than 700 others spirited out of Germany from under the noses of the US's allies. Its aim was simple: "To exploit German scientists for American research and to deny these intellectual resources to the Soviet Union."
Events moved rapidly. President Truman authorised Paperclip in August 1945 and, on 18 November, the first Germans reached America.
There was, though, one major problem. Truman had expressly ordered that anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism militarism" would be excluded.
Under this criterion even von Braun himself, the man who masterminded the Moon shots, would have been ineligible to serve the US. A member of numerous Nazi organisations, he also held rank in the SS. His initial intelligence file described him as "a security risk".
And von Braun's associates included:
- Arthur Rudolph, chief operations director at Nordhausen, where 20,000 slave labourers died producing V-2 missiles. Led the team which built the Saturn V rocket. Described as "100 per cent Nazi, dangerous type".
- Kurt Debus, rocket launch specialist, another SS officer. His report stated: "He should be interned as a menace to the security of the Allied Forces."
- Hubertus Strughold, later called "the father of space medicine", designed Nasa's on-board life-support systems. Some of his subordinates conducted human "experiments" at Dachau and Auschwitz, where inmates were frozen and put into low-pressure chambers, often dying in the process.
All of these men were cleared to work for the US, their alleged crimes covered up and their backgrounds bleached by a military which saw winning the Cold War, and not upholding justice, as its first priority.
And the paperclip which secured their new details in their personnel files gave the whole operation its name. Sixty years on, the legacy of Paperclip remains as vital as ever.
With its radar-absorbing carbon impregnated plywood skin and swept-back single wing, the 1944 Horten Ho 229 was arguably the first stealth aircraft.
The US military made one available to Northrop Aviation, the company which would produce the $2bn B-2 Stealth bomber - to all intents and purposes a modern clone of the Horten - a generation later.
Cruise missiles are still based on the design of the V-1 missile and the scramjets powering Nasa's state-of-the-art X-43 hypersonic aircraft owe much to German jet pioneers.
Added to this, the large number of still-secret Paperclip documents has led many people, including Nick Cook, Aerospace Consultant at Jane's Defence Weekly, to speculate that the US may have developed even more advanced Nazi technology, including anti-gravity devices, a potential source of vast amounts of free energy.
Cook says that such technology "could be so destructive that it would endanger world peace and the US decided to keep it secret for a long time".
But, while celebrating the undoubted success of Project Paperclip, many will prefer to remember the thousands who died to send mankind into space.
Source: BBCDark City
Dark City is a haunting, surreal, and stunning cinematic achievement from Alex Proyas: an amalgam of German expressionism, science fiction and film noir. John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens at midnight in a bathtub, paranoid and amnesiac, with a primitive instrument on the floor, a bloody knife on the table, and a woman's corpse behind the bed. He receives a telephone call from Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), who warns him to leave immediately, as pallid, gaunt Strangers close in on him. Clues to his identity eventually lead him to his estranged wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly), who explains the reason behind their fractured relationship. Earlier, she attempts to file a missing persons report on her husband and is redirected to Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) who suspects Murdoch of being a serial killer. Note the similar "scripted" explanation she provides to Bumstead and Murdoch, as if methodically reciting a logical consequence to Murdoch's inexplicable behavior. Recalling fragmented memories of his childhood home, he attempts to return to the elusive Shell Beach, in search of his past, and uncovers the nature of the Strangers' experiments.
Color of Pomegranates
Steeped in religious iconography, The Color of Pomegranates is a deeply spiritual testament to director Sergei Parajanovs fascination with Armenian folk art and culture. It is also a controversial work, which, coupled with another of his films, Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors, led to his arrest and imprisonment in a Soviet Gulag for four years. The Soviets insisted he was guilty of selling gold and icons illegally and committing homosexual acts. In reality, his only crime was offending the tenets of socialist realism, both in his daring surrealistic form and in his choice of subject matter. While many of the popular films of this era in Soviet cinema were largely propaganda designed to serve the ideological interests of the regime, Parajanov chose to focus on the ethnography and spirituality of the Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia.
The Limits of Control
The new movie from filmmaker Jim Jarmusch ("Broken Flowers," "Down by Law") is set in the striking and varied landscapes of contemporary Spain (both urban and otherwise). The location shoot there united the writer/director with acclaimed cinematographer Christopher Doyle ("In the Mood for Love," "Paranoid Park"). Isaach De Bankole stars in the lead role for Mr. Jarmusch; this marks the duo's fourth collaboration over nearly two decades, following "Night on Earth," "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai," and "Coffee and Cigarettes." The film also features several other actors with whom Mr. Jarmusch has previously worked, including Alex Descas, John Hurt, Youki Kudoh, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton; and actors new to his films, including Hiam Abbass, Gael García Bernal, Paz De La Huerta, Jean-François Stevenín, and Luis Tosar.
The Limits of Control is the story of a mysterious loner (played by Mr. De Bankole), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. His journey, paradoxically both intently focused and dreamlike, takes him not only across Spain but also through his own consciousness.
Maddin To Honour NFB With New Film
By Gayle Macdonald
March 5, 2009
Toronto -- Guy Maddin, who announced plans yesterday to start filming a short feature to honour the National Film Board of Canada turning 70, says he hopes it will be "kind of dreamy and moving ... and if it's accidentally funny I'll also claim full responsibility for that intent."
Reached yesterday, the Winnipeg director explained the concept for his upcoming short, entitled Night Mayor, a cinematic riff on the significance of a public film producer.
"I'm kind of modelling it after Paul Tomkowicz's little, nine-minute profile of a little nobody, busy sweeping the street car tracks in Winnipeg in 1953. I love the simple, naturalist poetry of that work, and I'm going to try to make this profile of a person stand in for the NFB itself."
Maddin, whose past features include The Saddest Music in the World and My Winnipeg, starts shooting Night Mayor early next week, and hopes to hand it to the NFB by the end of the month.
When first approached by the NFB to work on the mini-homage, Maddin admits he "resisted it at first." But then he immersed himself in the NFB archives (looking for historical footage to use in My Winnipeg) and got hooked on the 50-year-old cinematic material.
"I was astounded to find that the films were so beautifully made. And I was both thrilled and saddened to find these were some of the best Canadian films I'd seen. There I had been chastising our national inability to self-mythologize, and these filmmakers have long been quietly doing exactly that."
Source: globeandmail.com
The Godfather Family Album
An offer you can't refuse
Never-before-seen photos of Coppola's masterpiece
Photographer Steve Schapiro was present at the creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece, and The Godfather Family Album, a lavish coffee-table book published last year by Taschen, contains more than 400 of Schapiro’s behind-the-scenes images from the Godfather trilogy. His photos will also be the subject of an exhibition at Hamiltons Gallery, in London, from February 25 to March 28.
Vanity Fair Recreates Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock created some of the most arresting images in film history. For this year’s Hollywood Portfolio, the heart of our 14th annual Hollywood Issue, 21 of the finest actors working today have joined with four regular Vanity Fair photographers to re-create 11 of Hitchcock’s most iconic scenes.
Dial M for Murder, 1954
Charlize Theron. Photograph by Norman Jean Roy.
The scene in which Charles Alexander Swann (Dawson) attempts to strangle Margot Mary Wendice (Kelly), only to be himself stabbed with a pair of scissors, caused Hitchcock great anxiety. Although the entire film was shot in just 36 days, this single scene required a full week of rehearsals and multiple takes to get the choreography and timing right.
The original still: Anthony Dawson and Grace Kelly. ©Warner Brothers.
Public Enemies
In the action-thriller Public Enemies, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Academy Award® winner Marion Cotillard in the incredible and true story of legendary Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger (Depp)the charismatic bank robber whose lightning raids made him the number one target of J. Edgar Hoovers fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Bale), and a folk hero to much of the downtrodden public. No one could stop Dillinger. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyonefrom his girlfriend Billie Frechette (Cotillard) to an American public who had no sympathy for the banks that had plunged the country into the Depression.
But while the adventures of Dillinger's ganglater including the sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham)thrilled many, Hoover (Billy Crudup) hit on the idea of exploiting the outlaw's capture as a way to elevate his Bureau of Investigation into the national police force that became the FBI. He made Dillinger America's first Public Enemy Number One. Hoover sent in Purvis, the dashing "Clark Gable of the FBI". However, Dillinger and his gang outwitted and outgunned Purvis' men in wild chases and shootouts. Only after importing a crew of Western ex-lawmen (newly baptized as agents) who were real gunfighters and orchestrating epic betrayals from the infamous "Lady in Red" to the Chicago crime boss Frank Nittiwere Purvis and the FBI able to close in on Dillinger.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Crumb
France isn't - you know - perfect, or anything, but - it's just - oh, slightly less evil than the United States.
Annette Hanshaw
Annette Hanshaw (October 18, 1901 – March 13, 1985) was one of the first great female jazz singers. In the late 1920s she ranked alongside Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith and the Boswell Sisters.
Her singing style was relaxed and suited the new jazz-influenced pop music of the late 1920s. Although she had a low opinion of her own singing, she continues to have fans because of how she combined the voice of an ingenue with the spirit of a flapper.
Hanshaw made her one and only appearance on film in the 1933 Paramount short Captain Henry's Radio Show, "a picturization" of the popular Thursday evening radio program Maxwell House Show Boat, in which she starred from 1932 to 1934.
Hanshaw was known as "The Personality Girl," and her trademark was saying "That's all" in a childish voice at the end of many of her records.
Having grown tired of show business, in the late 1930s Hanshaw retired and settled into married life with her husband, Pathé Records executive Herman "Wally" Rose. Later in life, in a would-be comeback, she recorded two demo records, but they were never released.
Between September 1926 and February 1934, she recorded prolifically. From 1926–28 she recorded for Pathe (her sides were released on both the Pathe and Perfect labels). Starting in June 1928, she recorded for Columbia; most of these were issued on their dime store labels Harmony, Diva, Clarion and Velvet Tone. A handful were also released on their regular price Columbia and OKeh. Although most were released under her own name, she was renamed Gay Ellis (for sentimental numbers) and Dot Dare or Patsy Young (for her Helen Kane impersonations). Starting in August 1932, she began recording for the ARC with her recordings issued on their Melotone, Perfect, Conqueror, Oriole and Romeo. Her final session, February 3, 1934 was placed on ARC's Vocalion label.
Collections of Hanshaw's recording were released on Audio CD in 1999 by Sensation Records. Another revival of interest occurred in 2008 with the indie animated feature Sita Sings the Blues, which retold the Indian epic poem the Ramayana from Sita's perspective by setting scenes from it to performances by Hanshaw.
annettehanshaw.com
'Sita Sings the Blues' now online
Joy! Sita Sings the Blues is streaming, free, online!
The indie animated sensation blends '20s jazz music from Annette Hanshaw, the writer/director/animator Nina Paley's autobiographical story of divorce, and the complicated saga of Sita and Rama from the Ramayana. It's a brisk 82 minutes, covering everything from a monkeyman army to getting dumped by e-mail, and the inventively stylish animation manages to be both evocative and lovely.
Sita Sings the Blues has been a festival darling, but the licensing fees for Hanshaw's music have been prohibitively expensive, essentially ruining the film's chance of distribution. But copyright law is a many-headed beast, so public television stations can air the film without violating it -- which is how Sita is going to find its widest audience, starting with New York–area airings next month.
Hymn to Beauty
Hymn to Beauty is a solo exhibition of new artwork by UK artist HUSH at Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art in West Hollywood. Hush’s work has been described as a sensory assault of shape, color, and character. Inspired by the portrayal of the female form in art, the artist builds up and tears down layers of paint and images as he works, ‘letting the canvas and marks take their own path’. The result is an enigmatic synthesis of anime, pop-infused imagery, graffiti, and graphic design that exposes the conflict between power and decay, innocence and sexuality, and the fusion of Eastern and Western culture.
Source: lostateminor
Captain Scott's Antarctic expedition: Rarely-seen pictures to go on display
Images from the fragile original glass plates have been taken and digitised so people can see them online.
Professional photographer Herbert Ponting took the pictures while on Scott's Terra Nova mission to explore Antarctica.
It ended in disaster when Scott and his men died in March 1912 returning from the South Pole.
The seemingly candid portraits shed light on the everyday tasks that expedition members were required to perform, such as mending a dog harness, cooking, working in the laboratory and examining a catch of fish.
In reality the images, which have been largely locked away for almost a century, were carefully posed.
Heather Lane, librarian and keeper of the archives at the Scott Polar Reasearch Institute (SPRI), said Ponting often had to get expedition members to hold a pose for minutes at a time because he did not have the benefit of a flash.
"The pictures are very much staged," said Mrs Lane.
"It was a standing joke that they often had to keep still for a long time for him. The crew actually invented a verb for it – 'to Pont'."
The pictures are among 1,700 taken by Ponting held by the SPRI in Cambridge.
He took them using a camera which exposed a seven-inch-by-five glass plate, which gave a resolution equivalent to a 54 megapixel camera.
They have been kept in cool, dark conditions for decades to slow their inevitable decay.
Mrs Lane said: "In some the enamel is starting to lift but on the whole they are in extremely good condition."
The Ponting collection is part of a 100,000-strong picture archive held by the SPRI, covering expeditions from 1845 to 1982.
The institute has just been given £420,000 of Government money to put the first 20,000 online, to safeguard the images from deterioration and enable wider access. The project, called Freeze Frame goes live on March 4.
Explaining why it was important to put them online now, Mrs Lane said: "It is getting more difficult to reproduce prints from the negatives as the technology disappears.
"The Scott photos are the most incredible records of that ill-fated expedition. We are the national memorial to Scott and his companions.
"It is incredibly important the public can share that heritage."
The project was paid for by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), a Government-funded body set up to improve the use of information technology in higher education. To date Freeze Frame has taken two years and cost £420,000.
Polar explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes said: "These photos are a huge part of our polar heritage."
Source: Telegraph
Propaganda: Your Job in Germany
Directed by It's A Wonderful Life's Frank Capra and written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, produced by the United States Information & Education Division of the Army Services Forces in 1946, this authentic film proposes, "War with Germany ends in victory, victory leads to peace ... Sometimes ... Sometimes not."
Five things you didn't know about Dr. Seuss
Theodore Seuss Geisel, the most famous children's book writer/illustrator of all time, was born 104 years ago today (02 03 09) in Springfield, Massachusetts.
5: Dr. Seuss rhymes with another epic figure in children's literature: Mother Goose. Coincidence? No.
4: When presenting the dialogue for the magicians in Bartholomew and the Oobleck, Seuss employed the use of trochees (or chorues) which presents text in an alternating pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables ("Shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff". The techique was also used by Shakespeare with his cauldron stirring witches in Macbeth (Toil! Toil!), by Poe in his poem The Raven and often in nursery rhymes.
3: After his career as a children's author/illustrator began, Geisel worked as an editorial cartoonist in New York during World War 2, which illustrated his rabid anti-fascism views. You can view a collection of his political cartoons here. They were also collected in a book called Dr.Seuess Goes to War, with an introduction by Art Spiegleman. Suess also wrote several WW2-era propaganda films.
2. Theodore Geisel wrote children's books under a trio of pen names: Dr. Seuss, which was reserved for the books he both wrote and illustrated; as Theo LeSeig, for books that he wrote without illustrating; and as Rosetta Stone, for one book he penned called Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo!
1: Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat was born as a response to an article which was published in Life Magazine in 1954,. The piece criticized American school primers as intensly boring, unchallenging to readers and responsible for causing harm to children's literacy. The article called for more primers to up the excitement by energizing the language and including drawings like those of "imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, Theodor S. Geisel." Using the piece as a call to action, Geisel and his publisher came up with a list of 400 "exciting" words, which Seuss than narrowed down for the book, and included 13 more of his own. The final product is 1626 words in length and uses a total vocabulary of 236 words.
The end of paper?
The screen above is an actual image photographed on plastic logic's prototype e-paper.
Someday you may be reading your newspaper on an e-paper device - a thin piece of plastic the size of a legal pad that can be taken to the beach or on the train. That day may be a lot closer than you think.
More here
Telectroscope
The telectroscope was the first prototype television system. The term was also used in the 19th century to describe imaginary systems of distant seeing. Most recently, the term has been used for the name of a piece of installation art with a visual high speed broadband link between London and New York City constructed by Paul St George in May 2008.
FreakAngels
FREAKANGELS is a free, weekly, ongoing comic written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Paul Duffield.
FreakAngels
Kievski Freski (Kiev Frescos) By Sergei Paradjanov
Size: 106mb
Source: TVrip (RaiTre) by Trep, via fitz
Paradjanov assembled this “film collage” from the rushes and tests that remained unscathed after the Soviet authorities halted the production of Kiev Frescos and ordered the negative to be destroyed.
When the Soviet authorities were imposing on a multi-national country the artificial conception of a “homogeneous Soviet people”, Paradjanov was defending those nations’ very diversity and uniqueness. Through films and documentaries (both by Paradjanov and others), this programme attempts to trace Paradjanov’s creative journeys through Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia.
Soon after the Soviet authorities stopped the shooting of Kiev Frescos (Kievski Freski) in 1966, Sergei Paradjanov left Dovchenko film studios in Kiev for Armenfilm in Yerevan. There he started work on a feature length homage to Sayat Nova, the pseudonym of the Haroutine Sayadian (Tblissi, 1712 - 1795), an Armenian poet and bard, who wrote in Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani.
More here
WATCHMEN
Warner Bros has released a new 10-minute interactive trailer for Watchmen on 6MinutesToMidnight.com. You visit the site, enter your name and try to decipher the ink blots on Rorschach’s mask to unlock exclusive content and enter the world of Watchmen.
WATCHMEN MOVIE
Official Watchmen Photos' photostream
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Monster Road (2004)
"Isn't it remarkable? This little planet we're on . . . Is this the headquarters for something?"
Artificial Owl
- Provide the exact location, today pictures, and a summarize story.
- Present places and things that still exist, are still visible.
- Focus on modern era abandoned creations.
- Link to the Authors of the published material.
Artificial Owl
Chernobyl: The streets of Prypiat
Prypiat (Ukrainian: При́п'ять, Pryp”jat’; Russian: При́пять, Pripjat’; or Pripyat) is an abandoned city in the Zone of alienation in northern Ukraine, Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. It was home to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers. The city was abandoned in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster. Its population had been around 50,000 prior to the accident.
Chernobyl: The streets of Prypiat
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, by the United States. Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States, with a yield of 15 Megatons. That yield, far exceeding the expected yield of 4 to 6 megatons, combined with other factors to produce the worst radiological accident ever caused by the United States.
Castle Bravo
The remains of Ferdinand Marcos concrete giant bust
The bust of the late Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos lies badly defaced Monday, Dec. 30, 2002 at Mt. Pugo, La Union province in northern Philippines, a day after it was ripped in a powerful explosion shortly after midnight Sunday.
Ferdinand Marcos concrete giant bust
The Hand of the Desert
Near to Antofagasta in the Atacama desert a giant hand scuplture of fiberglass is the fine work of the Chilean artist Mario Irrizábal. It is known in Chile as 'La Mano del Desierto' - 'The Hand of the Desert', it is a landmark beside the Panamerican highway which runs north to south through the Atacama desert.
The giant hand of the Atacama desert
The Kuleshov Effect
The Kuleshov Effect
Specifics of the Kuleshov Effect
Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of Tsarist matinee idol Ivan Mozzhukhin was alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl, an old woman's coffin). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Mozzhukhin's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the plate of soup, the girl, or the coffin, showing an expression of hunger, desire or grief respectively. Actually the footage of Mozzhukhin was the same shot repeated over and over again. Vsevolod Pudovkin (who later claimed to have been the co-creator of the experiment) described in 1929 how the audience "raved about the acting.... the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead woman, and admired the light, happy smile with which he surveyed the girl at play. But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same."
Kuleshov used the experiment to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing. The implication is that viewers brought their own emotional reactions to this sequence of images, and then moreover attributed those reactions to the actor, investing his impassive face with their own feelings.
More here
Flame & Citron
Copenhagen 1944. While the Danish population hopes for a swift end to the war, freedom fighters Bent Faurschou-Hviid (23), a.k.a. Flame and Jørgen Haagen Schmith (33), a.k.a. Citron, secretly put their lives at stake fighting for the resistance group.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Foley Artistry
The Foley technique are named for Jack Foley, a sound editor at Universal Studios
Foley artists match live sound effects with the action of the picture. The sound effects are laid "manually" and not cut in with film. |
The good Foley artist must "became" the actor with whom they are synching effects or the sounds will lack the necessary realism to be convincing.
Most successful Foley artists are audiles; they can look at an object and imagine what type of sound it can be made to produce.
The foley crew will include the artist or "walker," who makes the sound, and a technician or two to record and mix it.
A foley stage often appear to be storage areas for the studio's unwanted junk. Metal laundry tubes are filled to the brim with metal trays, tin pie plates, empty soda cans, hubcaps, bedpans, knives, forks and broken staple guns. These crash tubes are used for anything from comedy crashes to adding presence (brightness and naturalness) to something as serious as a car crash.
Embedded in the floor is the heart of any Foley stage - the walking surfaces (for the production of all types of footsteps)
Visit Foley Artistry - Articles about Foley
"Gamma Girl" also known as a "Kid of Speed"
I travel a lot and one of my favorite destinations leads North from Kiev, towards so called Chernobyl "dead zone", which is 130kms from my home. Why my favorite? Because one can take long rides there on empty roads.
The people there all left and nature is blooming. There are beautiful woods and lakes.
In places where roads have not been travelled by trucks or army vehicles, they are in the same condition they were 20 years ago - except for an occasional blade of grass that discovered a crack to spring through. Time does not ruin roads, so they may stay this way until they can be opened to normal traffic again........ a few centuries from now.
kiddofspeed
Y
DPRGRM, PILOTLITE, MYTHOS MEDIA & FOOLISHPEOPLE PRESENT
Y
In a post-apocalyptic world, Y is a documentary-style reality show where the grand prize is the future of our species on planet Earth.
Mythos Media and FoolishPeople will join with DPRGRM/Pilotlite to create ‘Y’, a feature film that starts shooting in Los Angeles July 2009.
LOS ANGELES, CA 02/27/09 – DPRGRM/Plotlite announced a project today that forges a new path in independent cinema by bringing together real world experience and film in a unique way. ‘Y’ brings an audience inside the creation of a modern myth. The audience will become actual cast members, and be immersed in the story in real time. The film crew will also be part of the story as well as part of the cast, therefore creating a total immersive experience that bridges the traditional proscenium of audience/performer.
The ambitious staging and shooting technique is enhanced by the premise that in the future, government facilities, such the as one depicted in this film, will have to turn to unorthodox means of funding, such as contracting the facility out as the subject of a reality based TV show. The actual crew will be made up of news, reality and documentary style cinematographers and the production will be filmed entirely in the Cinma vrit style.
Written by John Harrigan and James Curcio, and directed by Joseph Matheny, Y is a unique production fusing characters from Curcios second published novel, Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning and Harrigans screenplay GraveLand, currently in pre production.
DPRGRM will finance and distribute the film, working alongside online media corporation Pilotlite, a joint venture between Joseph Matheny and Michael Mailer Films.
Joseph Matheny, founder of DPRGRM and Pilotlite co-founder says: We will be employing cutting edge production, post production and distribution techniques that have been gestating for several years while the technology caught up to the vision. We chose this project and this team specifically because the project lends itself to the medium and the people can keep up.
James Curcio, Creative Director of Mythos Media, says: Mythos Media was founded specifically to work on projects like this, and modern myths have been my life passion. I am eager to dive in and create this world, both as production designer and producer of the soundtrack. However, even more, I am eager to collaborate with all of the creatives that are already lining up to become a part of this truly one-of-a-kind project.
John Harrigan, Artistic Director of FoolishPeople comments: Members of FP and I are extremely excited to be working on a project with such a talented and unique team. ‘Y’ will redefine what is possible in film production and I’m looking forward to taking on the role of Performance Director.
About Y:
Civilization has fallen. In the rubble, we at the Y Corporation have developed the ultimate solution to save society: the Y Show.
We encourage all good citizens to sign up for the Show. You will be housed within a wonderful Haze Treatment Facility and undergo unique psychological treatment, which will clear away the illness of individuality. This reprogramming will be broadcast to the eyes and ears of Citizens in our New World, populated with previous contestants and patients. This is a reality show unlike any other!
There is a secret that haunts Haze01, the original treatment facility. Two patients, locked deep within its walls, contain archetypes that reject all reprogramming. They channel portents and omens of another future, a world where myth and divinity remake reality, manifesting a planet fit for Gods.
In this season of the Y show, the doctors of the facility make their final attempt to process these two patients, before they break free and unleash total anarchy. Tune in.
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Notes to editors:
About DPRGRM/Pilotlite: DPRGRM was founded by auteur Joseph Matheny to meet the new age of media convergence head-on with cutting edge media projects like Y and Pilotlite, which Matheny co-founded with Michael Mailer of Michael Mailer Films. For more information visit: jmatheny.wordpress.com
About Mythos Media: Mythos Media was founded by James Curcio, Peter Emerson Williams, Michael Szul and Tovarich Pizor in 2006 to produce modern myths. In the past, these have taken the form of comics, novels, and albums. For more information, please visit: HYPERLINK “http://www.mythosmedia.net/”www.mythosmedia.net
About FoolishPeople: FoolishPeople was founded by John Harrigan in 1989, taking its name from one of the major arcana of the tarot, card 0: The Fool. FoolishPeople create weaponized art, ritual theatre, collaborative events, books & film to raise a numinous experience within the witness. FP engineer immersive, open source experiences that become a catalyst for positive change. For more information, please visit: HYPERLINK “http://www.foolishpeople.org/”www.foolishpeople.org
Press Contact:
Joseph Matheny
DPRGRM
jmatheny@dprgrm.com
310.928.6959
AAAS: 'One hundred billion trillion' planets where alien life could flourish
The change in thinking has come about because of the new belief there are an abundant number of habitable planets like Earth. Alan Boss, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, said there could be as many Earths as there are stars in the universe - one hundred billion trillion.
Because of this, he believes it is "inevitable" that life must have flourished elsewhere over the billions of years the universe has existed. "If you have a habitable world and let it evolve for a few billion years then inevitably some sort of life will form on it," said Dr Boss.
"It is sort of running an experiment in your refrigerator - turn it off and something will grow in there. It would be impossible to stop life growing on these habitable planets."
Richard Alleyne Telegraph
MANGA SHAKESPEARE
- The Independent 'Best Graphic Novels of 2008' feature (December 2008)
"Manga is the most popular form of graphic novels among the young, with a generation of British youth weaned on watching animation from Japan and reading manga."
- The Bookseller (November 2008)
Manga Shakespeare is a series of graphic novel adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays. A fusion of classic Shakespeare with manga visuals, these are cutting-edge adaptations that will intrigue and grip readers.
Drawing inspiration from trend-setting Japan and using Shakespeare's original texts, this series brings to life the great Bard's words for students, Shakespeare enthusiasts and manga fans.
Manga is a dynamic, emotional and cinematic medium easily absorbed by the eye. Its attractive art and simple storytelling methods enthuse readers to approach Shakespeare's work in the way he intended – as entertainment.
Source: selfmadehero
AP Statement on Shepard Fairey Lawsuit
The Associated Press is disappointed by the surprise filing by Shepard Fairey and his company, and by Mr. Fairey's failure to recognize the rights of photographers in their works. AP was in the middle of settlement discussions with Mr. Fairey's attorney last week in order to resolve this amicably, and made it clear that a settlement would benefit the AP Emergency Relief Fund, a charitable fund that supports AP journalists around the world who suffer personal loss from natural disasters and conflicts.
At Mr. Fairey's attorney's request, we agreed AP would not pursue legal action while in these discussions. Despite an agreement to continue these discussions on Friday, Mr. Fairey's attorney avoided contact, nor did he respond to an invitation to make contact over the weekend. Instead, he chose to file on Monday morning, without any notice to AP.
AP believes it is crucial to protect photographers, who are creators and artists. Their work should not be misappropriated by others. The photograph used in the poster is an AP photo, and its use required permission from AP.
Paul Colford
Director of Media Relations
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AP's story
02/09/2009
Calif. artist sues AP over image of Obama
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02/04/2009
Statement:
AP Statement on Shepard Fairey Poster
The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission. AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to Mr. Fairey's attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution.
Paul Colford
Director of Media Relations
A poster of President Barack Obama, right, by artist Shepard Fairey is shown for comparison with this April 27, 2006 file photo of then-Sen. Barack Obama by Associated Press photographer Mannie Garcia at the National Press Club in Washington. Fairey has acknowledged, the poster is based on the AP photograph. (AP Photo/Mannie Garcia/ Shepard Fairey)
AP's story:
02/04/2009
AP alleges copyright infringement of Obama image
By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere during last year's presidential campaign: a pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.
Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, and has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.
The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.
The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.
"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," the AP's director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement. "AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to Mr. Fairey's attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution."
"We believe fair use protects Shepard's right to do what he did here," says Fairey's lawyer, Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University and a lecturer at the Stanford Law School. "It wouldn't be appropriate to comment beyond that at this time because we are in discussions about this with the AP."
Fair use is a legal concept that allows exceptions to copyright law, based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.
Legal experts offered differing views on the Obama image.
Jane Ginsburg, a Columbia University law professor who specializes in copyright cases, questioned whether Fairey has a valid fair-use claim and says that he should have at least credited the AP.
"What makes me uneasy is that it kind of suggests that anybody's photograph is fair game, even if it uses the entire image, and it remains recognizable, and it's not just used in a collage," Ginsburg said. "I think that's pretty radical."
Robin Gross, an intellectual property attorney who heads IP Justice, an international civil liberties organization, believes that Fairey had the right to use the photo, saying that he intended it for a political cause, not commercial use.
"Fairey's purpose of the use for the photo was political or civic, and this will certainly count in favor of the poster being a fair use," said Gross, based in San Francisco. "Nor will the poster diminish the value of the photo, if anything, it has increased the original photo's value beyond measure, another factor counting heavily in favor of fair use."
A longtime rebel with a history of breaking rules, Fairey has said he found the photograph using Google Images. He released the image on his Web site shortly after he created it, in early 2008, and made thousands of posters for the street.
As it caught on, supporters began downloading the image and distributing it at campaign events, while blogs and other Internet sites picked it up. Fairey has said that he did not receive any of the money raised.
A former Obama campaign official said they were well aware of the image based on the picture taken by Garcia, a temporary hire no longer with the AP, but never licensed it or used it officially. The Obama official asked not to be identified because no one was authorized anymore to speak on behalf of the campaign.
The image's fame did not end with the election.
It will be included this month at a Fairey exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and a mixed-media stenciled collage version has been added to the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.
"The continued use of the poster, regardless of whether it is for galleries or other distribution, is part of the discussion AP is having with Mr. Fairey's representative," Colford said.
A New York Times book on the election, just published by Penguin Group (USA), includes the image. A Vermont-based publisher, Chelsea Green, also used it — credited solely to Fairey— as the cover for Robert Kuttner's "Obama's Challenge," an economic manifesto released in September. Chelsea Green President Margo Baldwin said that Fairey did not ask for money, only that the publisher make a donation to the National Endowment for the Arts.
"It's a wonderful piece of art, but I wish he had been more careful about the licensing of it," said Baldwin, who added that Chelsea Green gave $2,500 to the NEA.
Fairey also used the AP photograph for an image designed specially for the Obama inaugural committee, which charged anywhere from $100 for a poster to $500 for a poster signed by the artist.
Fairey has said that he first designed the image a year ago after he was encouraged by the Obama campaign to come up with some kind of artwork. Last spring, he showed a letter to The Washington Post that came from the candidate.
"Dear Shepard," the letter reads. "I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign."
At first, Obama's team just encouraged him to make an image, Fairey has said. But soon after he created it, a worker involved in the campaign asked if Fairey could make an image from a photo to which the campaign had rights.
"I donated an image to them, which they used. It was the one that said "Change" underneath it. And then later on I did another one that said "Vote" underneath it, that had Obama smiling," he said in a December 2008 interview with an underground photography Web site.
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Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Washington contributed to this report.
Monday, 2 March 2009
Finger Nose Hair Trimmer
(notice how the model's eye colour changes from blue to brown when he switches from nose to ear trimming!? uncanny!)
Jumpin Banana
The Pale King
Hard To Fill
In the March 9, 2009, issue of the magazine, D. T. Max writes about David Foster Wallace and his struggle to write his third novel, “The Pale King.” Here is art work by Wallace’s wife, Karen Green.
“Steal This Book.” Art work by Karen Green; photograph by Carolyn Kellogg.
Bad Bambi - Jasper Goodall
I liked the idea that I could corrupt Bambi, a modern day symbol of innocence and turn her ‘bad’ thus re creating the nun cliche in a new way.
jasper goodall