Using Format to Create Cohesion
Per Aronofsky, filmmaking is about “how to make things blend.” With Pi, his decision to use black and white reversal film immediately pulled together elements he felt were otherwise divergent. In creating this alternate world, the high contrast visuals functioned as a suspension of disbelief.
Film as an Exercise in Subjectivity
What sets film apart from theater is its ability to “put an audience in a character’s mind.” While Pi was told from Max Cohen’s perspective, Requiem for a Dream juggled four points of view, which determined Aronofsky’s use of split screen. Additionally, the “hip hop montages,” with their rapid edits, were intended to mirror the all-consuming repetition of addiction.
via 6 Lessons on Filmmaking From Darren Aronofsky | Filmmaker Magazine.
Francis Ford Coppola Interview | The Talks
What did you learn by doing Apocalypse Now?
That a guy, having been blessed with the success of Godfather at 32 years old, could go off and make a film about Vietnam and no one would touch it – no studio would help him and none of his actors would join him – and then put up his own money, make a movie, and then be damned by Variety for having done this. It’s absurd. And then everyone applauds Superman – a man in a silly suit flying around. So that’s Apocalypse Now, that’s what it was about. That’s what I learned, that we live in a world of incredible contradictions that everyone accepts. Look at the movie industry: what is allowed to be made into a movie? It’s only a certain kind of thing. When someone goes and tries to make a movie that is personal and different there is barely any interest.
Today you seem to be very calm but sources say that you were much different years ago. Apparently after The Godfather and throughout the shooting of Apocalypse Now you became an eccentric version of Don Corleone yourself.
I was trained as a young person in theater and theater is very much like a family. You go to rehearsal and coffee after the rehearsal, you fall in love with the girl who’s there. It’s nice; you are all together and have lots of affection for the other members of the troupe. When I went to cinema school everyone was alone, they were editing, it was much more separate. So when I was successful after The Godfather I was much more like a theater and I had my own crazy friends like George Lucas or Martin Scorsese. I was very admired. Maybe it came from that.
You once said: “Happiness is happiness.”
I like that.
via Francis Ford Coppola Interview | The Talks.
The teenage activist wunderkind who was among the first arrested in Hong Kong’s Occupy Central – The Washington Post
Funny: GE ad with Jeff Goldblum
got link from Seths Blog
rePost::Ten Lessons on Filmmaking From Terry Gilliam | Filmmaker Magazine
Wearing a Filipino-print shirt he purchased at his favorite craft shop in Los Angeles, and socks covered with cows sporting sunglasses, Gilliam showed up the night after his award ceremony to the Palais des Congrès to teach a Master Class to an audience full of Moroccan film students. When asked why he films, Gilliam responded with a long pause and then said into the microphone, “I suppose it’s the best job out there.” For Gilliam, film is the one medium that combines every art form he loves. I caught up with Gilliam for a short chat before his master class. Here, in his words from both our talk and the class, are the combined lessons, or anti-lessons, he has to offer from his long and rich career in the world’s greatest profession.
via Ten Lessons on Filmmaking From Terry Gilliam | Filmmaker Magazine.
A Better Way to Introduce Your Friends at Parties
What if instead of introducing your friend as Jennifer the nurse, you started introducing her as Jennifer, one of most thoughtful people you know, or Jennifer the friend who helped you move in when you didn’t know a soul in this city.
Introducing your friends for who they are rather than focusing on what they do will remind them they are loved before and beyond their titles. It’s an easy way to remind them that you see them for their hearts instead of their accomplishments.
via A Better Way to Introduce Your Friends at Parties.
'Dota 2': the 1,000-hour review | The Verge
Without the internet, there is no Dota, 1 or 2. This game is built on a legacy of organic participation and collective creativity that’s inspiring and affirming of the best aspects of the web. Its continued existence and the funding of professional competitions are also directly dependent on the engagement of its players. While I’d prefer to see more decorum and maturity among said players, there’s still a chance for these online encounters to bring disparate people closer together. Dota 2 allows me, a Bulgarian living in London, to watch an Australian in Berlin commentating on a match taking place in China between teams from Malaysia and the Ukraine. Calling this game’s headline tournament The International is as fitting a title as any in gaming.
The humbling experience of having your face repeatedly slammed in the mud is what builds the incredible loyalty and commitment that Dota 2 enjoys today. NBA player Jeremy Lin describes it as a lifestyle rather than a game, and my experience this year has confirmed that in every way possible. I have a relationship with this game. It’s built on the trust of knowing that every screw-up and every triumph is my own. At a time when gaming is growing more cinematic and prescribed, Dota is pure, unadulterated, interactive fun. No training wheels, no assistant popups, no pausing to gather your thoughts. Thank you, internet, for being this awesome.
via ‘Dota 2’: the 1,000-hour review | The Verge.
Occupy Central civil disobedience movement
I support voting rights or the HK people.
Follow their stuggle here:
https://www.reddit.com/live/tnc30xhiiqom/
UPDATE: a link from cnn still via Mel:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/27/world/asia/hong-kong-five-things/index.html
Hat tip to Ms Mel Cardenas for the link from her facebook stream.
Pointless initiative | Inquirer Opinion
Why media people should stop interviewing Neri Colmenares.
It pains me to write this because I have great respect for many figures who stood up to lead the antipork movements, but I have severe reservations regarding others. As I fear that the proposed law was not well thought out, I instantly face-palmed when I saw Rep. Neri Colmenares quoted in many reports. He had previously consistently come unprepared and made vague claims before the high court. He was quoted saying, “I am not very familiar with the Internet” in the cybercrime case and, “I am not very familiar with Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act)” when he sued the Manila Electric Co. Similarly, it is difficult not to have reservations about the CBCP, given how they seem to be more of a political actor than a moral compass these days. So what are the real agenda?
via Pointless initiative | Inquirer Opinion.
rePost:Wasting Your Life: One Peso at a Time, One Minute at a Time | Filipino Freethinkers
I moved to makati because I felt this way. I was wasting my life by commuting. I haven’t regretted my decision save for a weakening of some bonds due to my lack of initiative to now go to places far from my boarding house.
In the paper entitled, “Stress That Doesn’t Pay: The Commuting Paradox,” economists Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer found that for an extra hour of commuting, a worker has to be compensated with a 40% increase in salary, just to make it worthwhile.
In other words, don’t work for a far location if the salary difference is minimal. If you’re working at an office 15 minutes away for P14,000, the same work SHOULD pay you P19,600 if it’s 1 hour and 15 minutes away. If it’s 2 hours away, the same work SHOULD pay you P27,440. Anything less and you’re incurring a loss.
The time we spend commuting takes a major toll on our lives. We experience neck and back pain,spend less time with friends and family, experience loneliness, spend more, get fat, exercise less, sleep less, worry more, and get stressed.
80% of Filipinos are commuters. 80% of Filipinos will have their happiness and their health compromised. Every minute we spend in the MRT line or on a bus along EDSA is a minute of work that we did for free. It is a minute with a loved one that was taken from us. It is a minute we could have invested in our own physical or intellectual development. It is a minute we could have spent preparing a healthy meal. It is a minute we could have spent with our children. It is a minute of our lives that was wasted.
Apparently, it’s not just our money, our taxes, that corrupt and inefficient government officials can squander. They’re wasting our lives: one minute at a time, one peso at a time.
via Wasting Your Life: One Peso at a Time, One Minute at a Time | Filipino Freethinkers.