the BBC world news has a spotlight on sms (texts) being used for medical monitoring in Kenya.
With all the talk of streamlining the health-care industry here in the states, the ability to keep in touch with and serve remote areas is yet another upside of our hyper-connectivity.
I’ve mentioned 42 entertainment and their marketing endeavors before. Slashfilm has an article and series of links about their Alternative Reality Branding efforts.
Gizmodo has an excellent write up on lenses. How they work, how they’re made, etc. Give it a read it’s one of the better ones I’ve read.
I’ve been using Photoshop for just over 10 years now (Version 5 if I remember correctly) and will continue to do so. Via digg I stumbled across 10 free alternatives for Photoshop. I’ve mentioned Gimp and some of the other alternatives before but it’s worth taking a look at.
Digg has been fruitful this evening.
Movies that thrived during recessions. I’d rather see some data on which studios thrived during downturns but that may be too somber to post now.
In a humorous and possibly blasphemous ceremony. Ash Wednesday has a new ritual. I would recommend watching the commentary on army of darkness (the official bootleg edition) as it’s among the funniest I’ve ever listened to.
The horror film is a staple of low budget film making and near and dear to many of my friends. Of that genre the most popular continues to be the zombie film. In a this is why I love the internet post, someone has outlined the emergence of the zombie in popular culture.
I’ve been promising updates on 16mm lenses for some time, I’m doing some DIY and waiting on one or two more packages to arrive but I promise to have some pictures and tutorials posted soon.
Hello all, I’ve been traveling again so please forgive the lack of content.
I just wrapped on the St. Louis Episode of Clean House (E! / Style Networks) and really enjoyed it. I might go poke about their website and do an analysis of their online presence in the coming weeks.
In the meanwhile I have two links to share.
11 alternative and open source design software programs.
40 Adobe After Effect Tutorials.
I was going to try and make the True False Film Festival next week but may only be able to attend some of the workshops. If any of you are interested in car pooling there let me know, I have a boat of a car.
It’s been a while since I’ve last updated. The job hunt is all consuming at this point but I found a few links well worth sharing.
Microsoft has unleashed what it means to be a Garage Band killer Songsmith. I’ve yet to test it out but on multiple occasions I’ve had to rely on Window’s Movie Maker to make a last minute adjustment when AVID, Vegas, or Premiere cecided to crash. It won’t be an Pro-Tools killer but at $30 it’s not meant to be. I’ll wait for some reviews from some of my more active Post Sound friends but it may prove a more useful bridge between Audacity and Pro-Tools for those of us who don’t have 64 Channel mixer banks to worry about.
Make Magazine has an excellent post and series of links on free I-phone development guides/tools. I’d like to see the three way war between Apple, Adobe/Flash, and Microsoft’s Silverlight to be a bit closer to resolution before diving into this pond but it’s worth trying and perhaps getting a few toes wet.
As time permits I’ve been playing with encoding. For those of you unfamiliar with some of the more common standards here’s an quick peek at codecs and compression.
MIT maintains some open source lecture materials for some of their prior courses. Their Media Art’s and Sciences department has some very interesting material on well everything. I urge you all to browse through some of the material.
And some more from the I should practice what I preach department. A guide on how to set up a social media cheat sheet on any subject.
I’ve talked (not at any length) about the changes in the music industry due to individual track sales and the possible resurgence of emphasis on singles rather than albums. Reuters has an article on the uncertain nature of digital strategies.
This is old hat, but apparently one can make money writing I-phone applications. I have one or two ideas but as: A. Apple and Adobe don’t play well with each other, B. I’m not a coder it might take a while.
Also via digg, 35 tools for writing online. There are also some rumors floating around that Google will be adding more support for .pdfs in Google Docs.
I’m doing a radical overhaul of my website . I’m not attuned to html or java so it’s time to break out Flash, and give Photoshop images some alpha channel love. Those of you who are decent at coding should take a look at 10 ways to cut down on web development time.
Finally not necessarily new media related, a student at Missouri State University recovered his stolen Xbox 360 using his wireless controller. I posted because of all the Universities I went to Missouri State was the one that gave me a degree. Stealing someones 360 just before break is just harsh, doing it during finals week probably implies that you’re not really University Material anyway.
Back to drawing out element boards.
J. Ewan Van Dijkhorst
So it seems for all intents and purposes the election is over. I’m still waiting to see how Missouri voted out of curiosity. At some point I’d like to go into an analysis how technology/convergence changed the way this election played out. I think it’s a fair assessment to say that blogs, camera phone footage, and ready access to a buffet of information played a large role in this election. I’ll go over that and the implications in a few weeks when we’ve all had a brief but much needed respite from election topics. I will say it’s a little harder to get away with election day shenanigans now then it would have been thirty years ago, but by the same token it’s harder to keep policies and internal rifts under wrap as well.
One of my most satisfying papers I wrote while in University was on the history and mechanics of Propaganda. I will adapt portions of it to posts here, as it is a topic I find to be of much interest.
The BBC reports that one of Bin Laden’s video producers was sentenced to life. From a purely analytical stand point the War on terror has been revolutionary in the way ideological messages are propagated. This has largely been because of new technologies and how the flow of information is controlled.
Prior to the American Civil War conflicts had been chronicled in much the same way. Be it Jospehus’s account of the Roman reconquest of Judea and Israel or Jean de Joinville’s Chronicles of Crusade are similar in nature. It can be argued that literacy gradually increased to the point where more and more participants were able to document their experiences and if one is to look at the volumes written about the Second World War the inclination would be to agree. But it is with still photography during the American Civil War that the aftermaths of battles became more than temporary.
World War I saw the mobilization of Governments and incredibly draconian and unconstitutional (but perhaps necessary?) impositions on the press by the Wilson administration. Governments were still effectively able to control the flow of information by virtue of control over printing presses.
The Second World War is where the shift started. Digressing again a bit I thought I’d share this.
“The quality of the Arri design is clearly demonstrated by the World War II footage filmed by the German forces with their Arris, which far surpasses the footage shot by the Americans with their unwieldy Mitchell or Bell & Howell cameras. You can view this footage twenty four hours a day on cable TV on the History Channel: “All Nazis – All the Time!” D. Knox in Strike the Baby and Kill the Blonde.
Though Mr. Knox besmirches by Bell and Howell Filmo he’s correct The Major powers quickly realized the value of footage for newsreels, training, and good old fashioned propaganda. You can see some of that footage here.
There are countless thousands hours of footage and innumerable photographs but the flow of information was still rigidly controlled. If one were to look at the frightening casulties during the landings on Peleliu or the oft shifting balance of power on the Eastern front the lack of accurate dissemenation of information to the public is startling.
Vietnam let the proverbial cat out of the bag. TV crews beamed uncensored and often unintended images into millions of sets and as predicted by Ho Chi Min influenced public opinion/the outcome of the war.
Now though almost everyone has access to a video camera, be it soldier or insurgent, government minders or citizen watchdogs. The Internet has made distribution of any content instant, wide reaching, and in most places impossible to fully prohibit. Some nations (who I shall not name) have realized this and have made every effort to control access to said networks but others do not have the infrastructure to do so. Looking at the troubles in Burma last year and despite all regulations, penalties, and other sanctions information leaked to the world. Cell phone cameras are more common than tanks, and the BBC was still able to get field reports (and covered the situation weeks before the press here did).
When I go further into depth on the subject (I assure you the above was merely a brief hint) I may venture into the territory of online propaganda.
IO9 has a few brief quotes on the technology that made the Curious Case of Benjamin Button possible. A friend of a friend (and a good chap to boot) worked on the film in that regard. So I thought it deserved a posting.
Via digg: 25 Free Digital Audio Editors. I’ve been rocking Audacity for a little while now, I don’t do too much sound editing but after a Pro Tools class it is a definite positive to have around. If he is allowed/willing to go further in depth (the article is a bit light on detail) I’ll be sure to post on that.
Down in the valley a former Music equipment manufacture is having a sale. I”m going to swing by and try pick up some vacuum tubes for a project I’m making, and maybe a vintage mic or two.. Heavily dependent on prices of course.
Cheers for now I have some prep for an information session tomorrow night.
Juard Van Dijkhorst
Smashing magazine has a page of 50 Beautifl Movie Posters. Check out The Unforgiven poster it was my wallpaper for a bit. We sometimes under estimate the power of posters many movie-goers (including myself) have shown up to a theater and picked a movie that we may have heard nothing about simply off of the poster. Speaking of posters Warner Bros. released the poster for Gran Torino. Slash film has a good post on the movie. Eastwood as a salty old dog usually equates to a good movie.
Radiohead’s In Rainbows pay what you want download model was revolutionary. NME has an article on it’s profitiablity.
Maybe a bit old hat but Nikon and Canon have finally jumped on the CMOS/Video bandwagon. The announcement is a bit dated but the article does contain some points of interest. If it was big enough news to force a redesign/rethinking of the Red Scarlet it’s worth keeping any eye on.
A page on ten ways social media can change the world.
And finally IO9 has an small piece (Which could really use some expansion) on how Webisodes are the new direct to DVD. I can’t say I agree fully with the assessment, in terms of it being a good way to be noticed and the latest in aspirations for low budget content producers sure.. Direct to DVD though is another beast.
Edit: Gran Torino trailer has now been released, click on the image for link.
Juard Van Dijkhorst
Yes I have yet another round of applicable/interesting links:
News on the possible SAG strike: I sincerely hope a strike can be avoided and the issue can be resolved promptly, I of course say that because I’m job hunting and really would like some greenlit productions to start crewing up now.. SAG has updates on their site as well.
Citizen’s take on recent news, via digg
Most disappointing tv cancellations, via digg – No mention of firefly!
Top Five post apocalyptic movies
Michael Moore on Slacker’s uprising and piracy
Huge Compilation of Photoshop tutorials – I play around with Photoshop whenever I can and will be working my way through these as time permits.
Sony is now offering cheap DRM free music – This is a far cry from the rootkit scandal a while back.. Nice to see they’ve moved away from the “hey let’s make it that as soon as the customer puts in one of our cds their computer explodes!”. It also looks between Wal-mart and news like this Digital Rights Management is going to take a bit of a dive.
Honesty in advertising, Humorous.
Weta workshop is selling a limited edition Steampunk raygun, I love steam punk in fact it’s the theme I’m planning on doing my room up in when I can afford the glory that is home depot! I don’t think I’d pay that much for a steam punk raygun it would be far more fun to build one.
Ridley Scott making brave new world! Ridley Scott is my favorite living Director and I can walk into one his films knowing that it will 9 out of 10 times be excellent – Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, KOH, Alien!, and of course Blade Runner!
My Room mate Ryan is a whiz kid when it comes to the game industry, business, and entrepreneurship. A few weeks ago he mentioned Eve Online and how it’s virtual economy was so complex and revolutionary that economists were studying it. Business Week via io9 has a pod cast on Eve and Economy.
IO9 has a short entry on the BBC preparing a massive amount of Science Fiction material for the Radio. After my time at the University of Stirling I’m very enthusiastic about the BBC and its charter to: inform, educate, and entertain.
Basic technology helped Jonathan Liebesman actually land a pretty sweet gig. I’m hoping for a reference or two to X-com as well.
Sons of Anarchy has been picked up for a second season, I’m excited as I like the show. I’m a little weary though as well. The first two episodes were great, and the others have had moments that highlight potential but maybe the time constraint is hurting the show. If it were an hour long perhaps they could squeeze a bit more depth in. I can see what they’re trying to do in each episode but somehow it’s falling a bit short. Great actors, premise, and storyline just seems to be under reaching. Regardless I’m happy to hear there are more episodes in the can. [Edit: Just saw Episode 5 and it was great! Hope that continues]
All for now,
Juard Van Dijkhorst
Quick links of interest round up. (Mainly via Digg)
Five best media encoders/converters – via life hacker
X-box game store being revamped – Microsoft has really been ahead of the curve with content on demand, and the grapevine has a great many interesting rumors about the 360 and Zune floating about.
Article on perceived expense of video games – Keep in mind though that the retail stores in the UK such as Game, or Gamestop here are not covering their overhead, employees and so forth out of new game sales. It is in fact used game sales where they make the bulk of their profit, and thus would highly encourage us to have about a 75% used sales rate. Simply buy the game back for pennies on the dollar (remember paying 1.50 for something and putting it on the shelf later that day for 29.99), and of course the latest trend is to try and tack on at least 50% of trade ins a refurbishment fee.. (So that 1.50 could very easily turn into a .75). I worked on and off at Eb-games (and for Gamestop for a bit after the merger) for at least three years, I should probaly do a write up on those experiences and how the business model works.
30 Word Press Tips, Tricks, and Hacks I should take a closer look at this as time allows.
MPLC breeches Irish Law – in effort to collect royalties from Kindergartners. Failing to register with a patent office seems like a pretty large oversight on their part. Also royalties are nice, Irish tax laws when it comes to film making are excellent hopefully this doesn’t turn into an issue of the moment that could affect foreign eligibility of such.
Juard Van Dikhorst