Windows Animation

Lash up your scanner to your
Windows box, and load this
great pencil test software,
to do cel animation.

Gnu 3D Animation Software

This goes in your 3D box, almost
whatever flavor. Truly cross-platform,
and you can roll your own 3D.

35mm Film Cold and Cheap

Raw stock from the Great White North,
fresh and cold. How much art can you
make in only 200 feet? 2.222 minutes.

In Praise Of Don Knotts

There Was A Man Dept.



Very sad to hear of the passing of tv/movie great Don Knotts, at 81. He was a very talented and nice man.

I and my pal John Halvorson wrote a funny scene for Don to do in my western Surreal West, and it would have been just perfect. I'm sorry now we can't.

My condolences to his surviving family, and my friend Dana Snow, who sometimes housesat for Don. And to, I guess, the world. It's just not the same now.

Don Knotts, wherever you are, you are great.

Festival: Bogen Film and Video Shorts

Watch and review new videos from all over.
Bogen Imaging Film and Video Shorts Festival.

Old Man iRiver

iRiver makes solid state MP3 players,
like an Apple iPod, but record sound
without adapters and peripherals.

(I told Apple I wanted to do recording,
but did they listen to me? No.)

The iRiver iFP 7xx and 8xx models take external
mics in their "Line In" jack. Don't use the
T10 and T30 series, they only use a built-in
mic, only good enough for voice notes.

Favorites: Play Misty For Me

Clint Eastwood is a man of surprises. He was done with tv, did spaghetti westerns in Spain with Sergio Leone. Became a superstar.

When he wanted to Direct, he made a thriller. A disk jockey is stalked by his deranged fan/lover. What?

Pictures and music and Clint's cool style made this surprising movie a hit. "Play Misty For Me."

Gear: German Engineered Movie-Tech

German big film gear....mmm.

Rise and Fall of the Old Republic

"Faskinatin'" as Popeye would say,
"Uk uk uk uk uk!"

Ever wonder why the movie biz is why
it is? What "Star Wars" was really
getting at?

Those who do not pass History
must repeat it in Summer School.

Just follow along, as we study
the old Republic.

Locations: "Stagecoach"

"Stagecoach""Stagecoach" was one
influential black and white western.
Here's where it was made.

Sanyo Very Much, But No

It's small, it's light, it's
(barely) HD, it's available.

Meet the Sanyo 720p camera
that I just know cheaper
filmmakers will love.

Not me thanks, but here it is.

Interview The Guy Who Knows

Great interview with George Lucas,
on where the movie business is going.

George has a very good prediction
track record. He's the guy who's
changed movies most in my lifetime.

The only other person in his league
for filmbiz change is Walt Disney.

Here's what George says.

Valentines Day: Datebuster Movies

Valentine's Day: Datebuster Movies


Happy Valentine's Day! Promise her anything, give her Arpege®. Candy, flowers, a nice card, but there are some movies you must never, ever watch together! Any day, but especially today.

Here's a list of Datebuster movies you must avoid at all costs, if you are to survive as a couple.

Odd they omitted the greatest Datebuster movie of all time, Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita."



datebuster
valentine's daydatebuster movies
happy valentine's day
valentine's day datebuster movies

Locations: "Body Snatchers"

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was a fantasy
about one's neighborhood gone awry, people you
trust being replaced by amoral, inhuman pods who
only want to take over, and suck the world dry.
Yep, a fantasy.

Here's where it was made.

Blair Witch Revisited

How did it work? Why did it work?
Don't know, don't care.

Jim Crispi describes it.
Like it or not, it worked.

Free Video Editing/Compositing

I can't begin to tell you how many times
I've viewed the "Thugs At Bay" site, and enjoyed
their silly music video "A Canadian In Berlin."

Its goofiness and the green, green trees are home
in the summertime to me. T@B seem happy musical
folks, offering their music, recipes, and
free funny-name cross-platform
video editing/compositing software, (now v4),
so you can make your own surreal mini-classic.

Far out, and thank you, Thugs!

Get it!

Seoul Proprietorship

ANTI-HOLLYWOOD KOREAN PROTEST

Over 1500 South Korean movie Producers, Actors and Directors
protested Hollywood films, near the U.S. embassy in Seoul today,
opposing trade negotiations with the U.S. to ease South Korea's
restrictions on the number of Hollywood films that can be shown
there. Officials are willing to increase the number of Hollywood
movies showing in Korea, because Korean films are so successful,
both artistically and commercially. Of top ten hits in South Korea
in 2005, seven were Korean, and no U.S. film was in top five.

Eva Longoria Birthday Countdown 2006!

Date: 15 March 2006 (3 days after mine.)
This is the first year I've not had to spell my
last name for people! Thank you, Eva Longoria.

People ask if I'm related to Eva.
According to Esme, her devoted sister who wrote me,
and has researched such things, the answer is "yes."

I had a small role on "The Young And The Restless" a
decade before Eva was on it, (so I doubt nepotism was
involved, in either direction), and I'm glad the public
loves her. She's very talented, I think she's great.

Happy Birthday Eva, and "Hi" to Esme!
(Write her yourself, or tell ABC you like her.)

Mr. Super 16mm

Somebody asked to whom they should turn,
for a wise Super 16mm maven. The guy I
recommend knows all about the format, and
his bright idea for lightening camera ground
glasses was nominated for a tech Oscar.
Meet Bernie O'Doherty.

WGA Awards - A Celebrity Show

Writers Awarded, Yet Loathed by Angela Taylor

I was very excited to be invited to attend the Writers Guild Awards as a member of the media. I thought I’d mingle with the minds behind "The Simpsons" and "Arrested Development" and "A History of Violence." However, this is an awards show and that means, for the most part, celebrities in designer clothes.

There were appearances by Paul Haggis and Stephen Cannell on the red carpet, but they hardly received the attention that Amy Smart, Geena Davis and Steve Carrell got. (Okay, Steve Carrell was a nominee for "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but I don’t think that increased his cachet with the paparazzi.)

In fact, many nominees skipped the red carpet gauntlet, and just went in the front door like normal, un-famous people. Were this the Golden Globes, or the People’s Choice, or Academy Awards, that wouldn’t surprise me, but this is the Writers Guild Awards.

Writers — despite movie audiences' continuing assertion that it is stories, not actors, that drive them to theaters — have long been treated, by producers and studios, as the ugly, red-headed stepchildren of Hollywood. They are kept away from the public eye. Somebody must write those movies and tv shows, but who?

Five seconds after a script gets a greenlight, everybody pretends it sprang full-formed from the head of Zeus — or the Head of Development.

It seems this loathing bleeds over, into the Writers Guild Awards itself. This night — one night out of dozens during the self-aggrandizing congratulo-rama that is awards season — is supposed to be about writers. Isn't it?

It’s nice that Geena Davis and Seth Green and Jenna Elfman show their support and appreciation of the people who provide them work, and who give them something to say, but should the show really be about them?

Shouldn’t this be the one night when some otherwise-anonymous balding writer guy, who doesn’t know who designed his tuxedo, gets to walk the red carpet? Don’t writers deserve to be the stars of their own show?

While the WGA muses about televising the awards in the next year or so, it was not broadcast this year. So, why try to please mainstream America celebrity-worshippers, if nobody's going to see them anyway? Why not let writers like Charlie Kaufman, William Goldman and Nora Ephron present awards?

Is someone afraid they won’t be able to read cue cards?

WGA Awards - Redefine Reality

President Calls For Redefinition of Reality by Angela Taylor

Newly-elected WGA West president Patric M. Verrone opened the February 4 Writers Guild awards with a call to include reality television writers in the Guild’s bargaining. “Technology is nothing without content,” he said.

For months WGA leadership has been attempting to organize the “story editors,” “story producers” and “plot directors” who create reality television. It is these storytellers who have made possible the bottomless pot of gold that networks have found in reality programming, yet they are made to work in conditions that violate not only Hollywood standards, but California labor laws.

Verrone’s call was accompanied by video interviews with these “non-writers” recounting 22-hour workdays, working in conditions without running water or food, even when they were provided meal breaks, and astonishingly low compensation, given the fat cash cow that is reality television.

Missing from Verrone’s remarks, but very much on everyone’s mind, is the WGA’s contention that writers should share in the haul when they twist their work to make room for product placement. Look for that issue to be a bullet point when WGA contracts come up for re-negotiation in 2007.

Here's who won.

Free Audio Editing Software

What? Free, cross-platform audio editing?
Where on earth could you find such a thing?
Here.

Free Director Software

You're the Director. Pre-production
is a most important use of your time.

Can you afford to have an Assistant 24/7?
You need this software.

SD HD Video Big Guns

You want to edit HD, or SD video, and you don't want
it should cost a lot, but you need it to
be really good.

Hokay!

Linux.
Cinelerra.