the 50 Greatest Independent Films

Empire's Ultimate Indie Line-Up. Gotta have my future-flick up there. On next list, for sure.

Downloading for Dollars

The future of Hollywood has arrived. "The real issue for the Hollywood studios is how they can dig into this potential gold mine without undermining their existing revenue streams. Since the 1980s, the studios have managed their revenue by employing a system of "windows" to release their products to different markets... But giant retailers, to spur their seasonal sales, have been demanding their DVD delivery earlier and earlier, and they've thrown this system into turmoil.

To avoid that outcome, and a potentially dangerous confrontation with Wal-Mart, the studios would have to delay the download release until well after the DVD release. But while the studios may find this embarrassment of choices somewhat paralyzing at present, as more and more consumers get digital recorders or video iPods, downloading for dollars may prove irresistible—even if it means doing away with the windowing system."

Pixar: 20 Years of Animation at MoMA

From December 14, 2005–February 6, 2006. Wow, 20 years already? You can enter MoMA for free after 4pm on Fridays. Avoid the early lines and enter leisurely after 5pm since the place is opened till 8pm. You can't avoid the crowd in the gallery rooms, but I gamely welcome them and always spot few cute travelers along with modern master works.

Consuming Media part 1.

Dead Media Everywhere. "Curiously, the apex of lost media is in our own era. The problem cannot get worse than it is. The irony is that this is an era where unprecedented technological revolutions are taking place, and yet we're losing important information. This has to be as tragic as the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria around 47 BC.

The media are not the only problem. Far too many expensive devices have become useless overnight because they were never designed to do much more than be sold and forgotten." There's no doubt about it. The next frontier is fought in bits and bytes where data format is the next media delivery options that will consume media after media. At least the hackers will write tools to convert old bits into new bits.

Bosnia unveils Bruce Lee bronze

Lee was chosen by organisers as a symbol of the fight against ethnic divisions. "We will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats. But one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee." Wow, who knew? Movie stars do make a difference!

Anime Invasion

It's... Profitmón! "Anyone can build up a huge library. It's what ADV does with it that's interesting. Ledford aims his shows at small groups, knowing that if he can keep costs down—licensing properties on the cheap, basing his operation in low-cost Houston, using non-union actors to do voice-overs in his own studio—he does not need boffo box office to make money. (His average per-title margin: 25%.) As long as the otaku are nice and frenzied, the formula works. So Ledford makes sure voice actors and execs in his companies make a big presence at the fan shows. He's also adept at creating useful controversies... The day that Apple unveiled the video iPod, Oarr was on the phone with the company, trying to figure out how to get ADV's library onto the iTunes Music Store.

This is open-source TV programming. "Fansubbers," as they're called, can spend more than a dozen hours collectively just to get a half-hour show ready for English speakers. The process is as orderly as an ant farm, with each fansubber having a specialized task... Typically the fansubbers organize themselves in teams to make the process move more smoothly. All this is done for free.

art of the reason is that the fansubbers police themselves with a zero-tolerance policy that would impress Eliot Spitzer. The first rule of fansub club: Don't trade fansubs once a U.S. company licenses a show. So when ADV announces a new acquisition, Gerard Krijgsman, the founder of AnimeSuki.com—the largest database of BitTorrent anime shows—immediately yanks the show from his site based in the Netherlands.

Last July, Taylor flew to San Diego to attend Comic-Con, the once dorky gathering of comic and sci-fi fans. The convention now pulls in more than 100,000 attendees. Taylor took a proposed producer of the Evangelion film out to lunch to see if he couldn't jump-start production, now that the project has raised about half of the $100 million to $120 million Ledford estimates he needs to make this movie right. Before they could sit down, a fan recognized Taylor and asked him not about anything he's actually done, but about Evangelion. Taylor turned to the producer and said, "This is why we have to do this movie."

"Everybody here in some capacity loves anime very passionately, or they love manga," says Ledford. "We've got businesspeople here who could care less—every company does—but you go to some of these big, mega-conglomerate media companies, and they go, 'Oh, anime is making lots of money.' But then they get into it and they don't do it right because they're not connected to the fans."" Before I say anything, this article title is horrible and trite. And get on with Eva movie right now! That's top on every otaku's head and I hope to see it before I turn 40! And Mr. Cameron, don't fuck up Battle Angel Alita. Transformer with Mr. Bay? Decepticons better blow shit up.

George Lucas talks piracy

George Lucas gave a rare, in-depth interview to The Hollywood Reporter last weekend, in which he liberally parcelled out his views on the future of motion picture techology. "The window must be collapsed... iTunes will keep the home entertainment industry alive... American movies are too expensive... Movie theaters don't matter... but they're not going anywere." I'm sure everyone in the Hollywood sees the writing on the wall, but the inertia of the old biz, and the risk of exploring new venues are still far and between. Until someone breaks out a big money making hit that bypasses Hollywood system, it will be like the old time.

Sony gets its act together?!

Movie for Mobiles. "Accordingly Sony is introducing movies from the stable of Sony Pictures on MMC cards of 128 megabytes size. All compatible handsets which can play multimedia files shall be able to play these movies. Luckily for once, the company has not insisted on its favorite Memory Stick Duo format which it insists on in Sony Ericsson phones. Sticking to the Duo may be politically correct for Sony but in that case, the sales of its movies would not have been anywhere close to what they can hope to achieve by MMC format." Now that they made some good money selling UMDs for Playstation Portable, this is the next step. Look how Sony's content biz is moving away from Sony's proprietary format. A sign of things to come? Nope, not according to Sony's blu-ray disk format.

1984 Revisited

The 1984 Apple Commercial. Sculley recalls, "The others just looked at each other, dazed expressions on their faces...Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen. Not a single outside board member liked it."

It was certainly a hammer through the heads.

Power of Google = More Power to Me?!

So you'll notice that there's a small Google ad banner on top of this blog. I'm not sure how much traffic this blog gets, but I decided to run some un-intrusive ads for fun and profit.

All the profit made by this ad revenue will go to making my debut film. I got time and some talent, but I'm pretty short on cash reservoir. So if you are dying to find out what my debut film will be, start clicking away!

The Conversations with Walter Murch

I finally finished reading The Conversations : Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje. The book was very readable and easy to digest as Mr. Murch conversed with Mr. Ondaatje who wrote English Patient. It's a great book for any filmmaker who's aspiring to tell a great story on screen. It's not too technical or not too philosophical about film editing, film making, and storytelling. After reading dense Avid manuals for hours, this book is welcome relief in my current reading list.

Apple Pro section got another great article on Walter Murch editing Jarhead.

"You’re watching people think in movies, which is the fascinating and completely unique experience of film versus other kinds of theater, where the thoughts have to be expressed in words. In film, of course you have words, but mostly you have thought and attitude, and that attitude is mostly expressed in the eyes of the characters."

"The thing that makes Final Cut Pro a pro app is its ability to interact with other departments. Tape isn’t dead, but I prefer to work random access with QuickTime and digital files. And with Final Cut, we were able to bypass that whole tape stage. We did a lot more updating, and we had a lot more current media going into the mix and into visual effects because we were using a tapeless system."

Technology marches on, but is storytelling leading it or following it?

Machinima Festival 2Thousand5

I went to check out the festival since I was relatively free that Saturday. (More on this later post.) It was a crisp, autumn afternoon as I ventured out to Museum of the Moving Image at Queens. I haven't had the chance to check out the museum itself, so it was an ideal situation, say the least.

It was a small museum as I expected and two friendly reception ladies for the festival promptly greeted me. They gave me a nice booklet and all, but unfortunately, they told me tickets are sold out. They were only holding tickets from Internet preorders. Bummer! I really wanted to see & hear what the Valve representative had to say about their tools to produce machinima, but I guess I would have to learn by trials and errors and reading all I can at their wiki site.

I didn't really care for missing out on the machinima shows themselves because they are pretty much available on the web. It's their only 2nd festival, hence there are ample room to grow along with this perculiar medium grows in its awareness.

On the related subject, the Movies, the game that allows you to be a movie studio mogul/director/actor/writer/etc to produce any movie that strikes your fancy is out and already showcasing some movies that people made with the game. (The game that makes movies, instead of otherway around, the circle is complete.) I saw couple of clips and I see some exciting potentials with the expressiveness of the game characters and the game engine. However, I'm hearing that Lionhead Studio is claiming all the copyrights for the movies made with their game. It is a gray area to begin with since many machinima makers are hard pressed to make their own digital assets that they mostly use in-game assets. However this case sets up serious precedent that may hinder more serious machinima productions for the game, unlikes the Sims 2, where it already claimed Rooster Teeth Production producing quality machinima episodes. Regardless of rising awareness of machinima, Lionhead Studio doesn't seem to view the Movie game beyond the scope of gaming, unlike the Sims with its rich narrative potential.

So where does that leave me today? Judging by this year's entries, the medium has a long way to go even though they are extensively used in nearly all commercial games. The entries are frought with many mistakes like any other students/independent films. I come to view it as more of a tool to tell some exciting stories than brand new medium. Machinima as a medium is shaky, but it's an effective tool for storytelling and pre-viz nonetheless for right creative people.

Star Wars = Lucas' Apocalypse Now

"Originally, George Lucas was going to direct, so it was a project that George and John developed for Zoetrope. That was back in 1969. Then when Warner Bros. cancelled the financing for Zoetrope, the project was abandoned for a while. After the success of American Graffiti in 1973, George wanted to revive it, but it was still too hot a topic, the war was still on, and nobody wanted to finance something like that. So George considered his options: What did he really want to say in Apocalypse Now? The message boiled down to the ability of a small group of people to defeat a gigantic power simply by the force of their convictions. And he decided, All right, if it's politically too hot as a contemporary subject, I'll put the essence of the story in outer space and make it happen in a galaxy long ago, and far away. The rebel group were the North Vietnamese, and the Empire was the United States. And if you have the force, no matter how small you are, you can defeat the overwhelmingly big power. Star Wars is George's transubstantiated version of Apocalypse Now."

Walter Murch from The Conversations

I just watched Episode III again with all the DVD extras, and I'm sorry to say, the movie gets worse on each viewing. No amount of glossy CG and SFX can't mask the rigid acting and clunky narrative arcs. With all the resources and the manpower under Mr. Lucas amassed after the enormous success of the original trilogy, this movie just doesn't cut it. (However, I and my gf loved Clone Wars Volume 1 and anxiously waiting for 2nd Volume. General Grevious & Mace Windu are badassssss!)

Now I can understand why the prequels are lackluster. Although Mr. Lucas may have been alluding the prequel trilogy to current political climate with the Bush administration, I don't think he has the force of conviction to show what it takes to overcome entrenched political dichotomy in the United States. The idealism is dead along with the Communism. It's ironic, or tragic, depending on your POV considering from his humble beginning to one of most influential filmmakers.

DVD Studio Pro 3 + Mac OS X Tiger = Not Friendly

Another day, another crash. This time, my old DVD project won't open properly on DVD Studio Pro 3. I suspect these recent problems are related to my recent upgrade to Mac OS X Tiger. Fortunately, prowling Apple support pages quickly yieled this nugget of wisdom. You'll need to download this update if you are not using the latest Final Cut Studio program (ie. Final Cut Pro 5 & DVD Studio 4). At least this problem didn't cost me hours like the last one. Sigh.

When did this blog became Apple programs support page?

External Device Not Found Error with Final Cut Pro

Delete QuickTime and Reinstall. It just took me over 2 hours to fix this problem. Arrrgh!

Make sure you are at the system's Library/Receipt, not your account/Libraray/Receipt as there won't be any there.

Back to your regularly scheduled digital editing turmoils...