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denisearef · 9 months ago

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Run Lola Run

Hyperreality

Hyperreality, in Baudrillard's simulacra and simulacrum, denotes a condition where simulations supplant reality, rendering distinctions between the two obsolete. Baudrillard notes, "it is as hyperreal events, no longer having any particular contents or aims... but indefinitely refracted by each other that they are precisely unverifiable by an order which can only exert itself on the real and the rational" (1). In this state, representations proliferate, devoid of inherent meaning, interconnecting endlessly. Such simulations evade verification by traditional frameworks limited to the real and rational, making hyperreality a realm where the authenticity of experience becomes obscured by a multiplicity of simulated layers.

Analysis:

The opening sequence of "Run Lola Run" establishes a hyperreal environment. Grainy visuals evoke a dreamlike state, blurring the distinction between reality and a constructed world. This initial haziness mirrors the indistinct quality of memories. Baudrillard's observation that "material production is itself hyperreal" (2) resonates here. The scene's hyperrealism is evident as the camera focuses on a single individual and then all the people in the background morph into the movie title, potentially signaling a broader societal commentary. Finally, the scene transitions to an animated sequence of a woman running. Animation itself signifies a manufactured medium, existing solely within human creation. This shift from live-action to animation underscores the artificiality of the world. The frenetic pace of the running sequence, coupled with the animation style, further amplifies the sense of unreality, potentially foreshadowing the protagonist's high-stakes situation. In essence, the opening scene utilizes various techniques to craft a hyperreal atmosphere. The blurry visuals, morphing figures, and the use of animation all contribute to a sense of constructed reality that transcends the boundaries of the physical world.

Simulacrum

Simulacrum, as defined by Baudrillard, embodies a state where representations cease to merely imitate reality but instead become autonomous entities. Baudrillard describes it as "not unreal, but a simulacrum, never again exchanging for what is real, but exchanging in itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference" (3). Here, the simulacrum exists independently, devoid of any direct reference to an original reality, perpetuating its own existence within an endless loop. It signifies a departure from traditional notions of representation, highlighting the proliferation of simulations that constitute contemporary culture, where the distinction between reality and its representations becomes increasingly blurred.

Analysis

In "Run Lola Run," the film's core structure delves into the concept of a simulacrum. Here, time itself becomes a constructed entity, detached from the traditional notion of linear progression. Each run isn't a direct continuation of the last; they exist as independent iterations within the film's hyperreal world. The outcomes differ significantly, defying a singular timeline. Furthermore, the repeated structure creates a self-referential loop. Lola's actions within each run influence the immediate situation, but there's no clear cause-and-effect relationship across the loops. It becomes an uninterrupted circuit, blurring the lines between a single timeline and a series of independent experiences. The film doesn't offer a definitive "real" timeline outside these loops, further emphasizing the simulacrum. Each run exists on its own terms, suggesting a departure from traditional notions of time. Is Lola truly making decisions in these loops, or is she simply navigating a pre-determined cycle? It challenges the idea of escaping a constructed reality and the limitations of agency within a world dominated by repetition.

Simulation

Simulation, unlike representation, which assumes an equivalence between the sign and the real begins from the Utopian notion of this equivalence's negation. Baudrillard explains, "simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum" (4). Here, simulation doesn't merely mimic reality but constitutes a self-referential system where the sign loses its value and any reference dissolves. It's a realm where the distinction between reality and representation blurs entirely, rendering the entire structure of representation itself as a simulacrum, thus highlighting the hyperreal nature of contemporary society.

Analysis

"Run Lola Run" utilizes animation extensively, particularly during Lola's frantic runs. This isn't simply a stylistic choice, but a deliberate exploration of simulation within the film itself. Unlike traditional representations that attempt to mimic reality, the animation in "Run Lola Run" creates a self-referential system, a hyperreal experience detached from a singular, objective reality.

The animation doesn't simply replicate a live-action running sequence. It employs vibrant colors, exaggerated movements, and distorted perspectives to create a world distinct from the "real" scenes. This blurring of boundaries between animation and live-action highlights the film's central theme: the constructed nature of experience in the contemporary world.

Repetition

Repetition, as discussed by Gilles Deleuze, focuses on singularities that resist exchange and substitution. Deleuze states, "Repetition as a conduct and as a point of view concerns non-exchangeable and non-substitutable singularities" (5). Here, repetition entails a transformative process whereby unique elements persist despite recurrence. It signifies a departure from linear temporality, emphasizing the enduring presence of singular moments. Unlike replication, repetition delves into the essence of these singularities, exploring their intrinsic value beyond mere replication. Through repetition, these singularities retain their distinctiveness, enriching the narrative.

Analysis

The red colored scenes serve as a clear marker of repetition. We see them twice – following Lola's death in the first loop and Manni's in the second. However, they function as more than just a visual cue to signal a restart. Here, repetition isn't simply a replication of actions. The dialogue in the red scenes, though similar in content, reveal a deepening emotional connection between Lola and Manni. This emotional progression highlights how repetition, within the context of the film, isn't just reliving the same events. It's a chance to process the emotional weight of the previous loop and potentially use that knowledge to forge a different path in the next attempt. In conclusion, the red scenes in "Run Lola Run" demonstrate a different form of repetition. They transcend replication, highlighting the transformative potential embedded within the cycle. Each new loop allows Lola and Manni to confront past failures and deepen their connection, pushing them to rewrite their narrative within the confines of the repeating structure.

Generality

Generality, according to Deleuze, is a perspective wherein one term can be interchanged or substituted for another. Deleuze asserts, "But in any case, generality expresses a point of view according to which one term may be exchanged or substituted for another" (6). This notion characterizes our approach to generality, where the exchange or substitution shapes our conduct.

Analysis:

With each start of Lola's journey, the background characters she encounters undergo varying fates in their respective brief sequences. This fluctuation highlights the notion that "generality expresses a point of view according to which one term may be exchanged or substituted for another." Through these interruptions, the film vividly portrays the interchangeable nature of individual actions and outcomes. Despite the shifts in background characters' destinies, the central narrative of Lola's race against time remains constant The seemingly minor alterations in their trajectories ripple outward, leading to significant and unforeseen consequences. This dynamic underscores the interconnectedness of events within the film's world.By juxtaposing Lola's urgent mission with the evolving fates of background characters, "Run Lola Run" illustrates generality and the interconnected web of events that unfold within the narrative.

Works cited:

(1) Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations”, 157.

(2) Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations”, 159.

(3) Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations”, 152.

(4) Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations”, 152.

(5) Gilles, "Difference and repetition", 1.

(6) Gilles, "Difference and repetition", 1.

#@theuncannyprofessoro #oxyfilmidentity

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ssssokkkk2kk · 2 years ago

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4K 60fps: What Does It Mean, And What Are The Implications For You?

While it may seem like a straightforward concept, there is much more to it than meets the eye 4k 60fps.

4K 60fps is a term that’s been making a lot of noise lately. But what does it mean, and why are businesses so interested in it? Simply put, 4K 60fps is the highest resolution video format possible. At this level of quality, videos can look incredibly smooth and realistic. This format is particularly popular among videographers and filmmakers, who use it to capture stunning footage for documentaries, movies, and more. For businesses, 4K 60fps has a number of implications. Chief among them is the potential to attract a premium audience. By offering consumers something truly unique and impressive, businesses can differentiate themselves from their competitors. So if you’re looking to take your business to the next level, consider investing in 4K 60fps footage. It’s sure to make a big impact!

How to get started with 4K 60fps filming

4K 60fps filming is the new hotness in filmmaking. It offers amazing detail and clarity, making your footage look like it was taken from a high-end camera. However, getting started with 4K 60fps filming can be daunting. Here are some tips to help you get started: 1. Make sure your hardware is up to par: If you're planning on shooting in 4K 60fps, you'll need a rig that can handle the resolution. Most modern video cameras can shoot in this format, but make sure to check first to make sure your camera is compatible. Some older models may not be able to capture video at this rate. 2. Shoot in raw: Shooting in raw will give you the most flexibility when editing your footage. You'll have more control over how your footage looks and can make adjustments later on without losing any data. 3. Shoot smooth motion: One of the biggest challenges when shooting in 4K 60fps is keeping the footage smooth. You won't be able to use traditional editing techniques that rely on motion smoothing (such as motion blur or stabilization). Instead, you'll need to use advanced software such as Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premiere Pro to clean up the footage after shooting. 4. Minimize noise: Another challenge when shooting in 4K 60fps is dealing with noise and graininess. To minimize these issues, try to shoot using low light conditions and aim for clean lines and sharp edges during

Tips for shooting in 4K 60fps

What is 4K 60fps? 4K60fps is the name given to a frame rate that provides twice the frame rate of a 1080p frame rate. So, for example, if you have a 1080p monitor and want to watch a movie or video at 4K resolution (3,840 x 2,160 pixels), then you would need a monitor that can display frames at 6,000 fps. A 4K60fps video will play on most current TVs and monitors. What are the implications of shooting in 4K 60fps? When shooting in 4K60fps mode, there are some important implications for your footage. First and foremost, the high frame rate means that your footage will be smoother and more fluid than if you were filming in standard HD or 3D formats. Second, because each image is filmed twice as fast as normal (24 vs 12 frames per second), it's important to ensure that your camera settings are correct in order to avoid any choppiness or jittery effects when watching your footage later on. Finally, because 4K60fps videos require twice as much storage space as standard HD videos, it's important to make sure that you're using the best quality storage option available when capturing such footage - preferably an SSD! So overall, while shooting in 4K 60fps mode has its own set of challenges and demands, it's ultimately worth it for smooth, high-quality footage that will look stunning on modern displays.

Conclusion

4K 60fps is a new video format that is quickly gaining in popularity. What does this mean for you, and what are the implications for your business? In a nutshell, 4K 60fps means that videos shot in this format can be displayed at much higher quality than those captured in previous resolutions. This has implications for both production and consumption: businesses will need to upgrade their equipment to capture and play back videos in this resolution, and consumers will want to watch videos shot in this format to achieve the best possible picture quality.

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rycusfunnies · 6 months ago

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I usually don't chime in for things like this but I wanna put in my own yap too about my special interest despite me heavily focusing on the lemons buuuuut this concerns them and I love worldbuilding and making sense of how their syndicate even works and headcanoning stuff about what happened offscreen. BIG OL' POST WARNING. I always was a supporter of Leland(pixar can u stop throwing away good characters w so much potential smh wheres my Finn and Leland backstory hmmmm???) was on a ship during the filming of that transmission and can offer high quality pictures of his scene(It isn't much since its purposely made grainy and pixelated but I figured it would still help) thats very telling to me he's prob on a ship esp w the structure of the metal on the side, reminds me of a hull imo and a bunch of other stuff I'll get into further down. You guys seemed to point out alot of things I noted.

(the last pic makes me crack up so bad I had to use it but anyway)

Because unlike irl where the workers on rigs are usually delivered via helicopter the lemons just wanna be special and load workers and cargo via cruisers, good on them I guess and I suppose because they're so large its just more suitable and efficient that way. How else would he get there anyway if thats their main method? And not to mention I was shown pictures of a Cars 2 book that pretty much implies the camera was delivered to the rig and was a prototype.

Another thing that pretty much supports this theory is that once Finn tries contacting him all the bustle is about unloading cargo and crates and during those scenes you can see the ship opening up a bay for the crane dude to assist on getting it all on the platform. Also the Leland cube was in a crate as well. ALSO, when it pans to a full shot where Grem speaks Lelands crate is NOWHERE to be seen until the prof is called over(tho oddly the forklift showing the box w the camera comes in from a dif angle from the left like it wasn't on that ship, so thats odd... perhaps they didn't think about that? Or perhaps since the crane dude is totally ok w just dropping other pieces of cargo anywhere... really don't want to believe the first bc this is pixar we're talking about)

As for who crushed him. It was def Acer and Grem. During the intro before Leland drives off you can hear a "Lets go!" in the background that eerily sounds close to Acer(Trust, when u basically have the movie on ur pc and cropped nothing but those two speaking or just existing on screen and also have all of their video game dialog its like, yknow. I am mentally ill about those two) They are second in command(Chief Henchcars according to the book I mentioned) and were the two to find him going by this info. And not to mention the silhouettes are def a Pacer and Gremlin(Though as to why the roofrack isn't there I have no clue LOL. The light bloom is prob too strong for it to be shown?? But the car on the right... it looks too square-ish and the roof is too flat to be just another Pacer to me and I'm obsessed w Gremlins, I know that shape anywhere.)

As for the coordinates that's really interesting it leads to somewhere in Alaska where its prob one of the many onshore base of operations they have. I wanna go by the hc he snuck on during cargo loading and they perhaps caught a glimpse of someone sneaking on and were suspicious and eventually went to check it out. And I suppose when Finn got there he arrived soon enough to where Tony was almost to the rig, but too late for Leland. Makes me question what the hell they even have on those ships to crush a entire car, dawg like what are u a swiss army knife ik they are former US military ships but??? Kinda scary to think about the conversation Grem, Acer, and any other lemons accompanying them must've had about it. Sending a message to the prof. To let him know and make the final decision on his fate. Prof just prob knew who it was by their description since Finn and Prof know each other he prob is aware of Leland too since he said his name before he was revealed. He's a scary dude that freak. By my headcanon with this here, all three of them are responsible, Prof Z made the call to dispose of him and the two did his dirty work like they always do.

Anyway I am done for now taking little details here and there waaaayyy too seriously, and probably some of it was never meant to be analyzed that hard but idc I wanna make sense of it and its fun. Its alot to take in but I love getting my brain going and THINKING. It was fun to write this.

So a while back, @little-red-irish-jaguar reblogged one of my posts with this devastating theory. The theory was that Leland sent Finn the transmission from Tony Trihull instead of the oil rigs. My first thought was to reject this theory because it went against my preconceptions that were so firmly rooted that my brain immediately sought to preserve them. However after rewatching the movie and studying the evidence, I can safely say that I was wrong. This theory tracks. And I will now write another essay to assess the evidence.

Firstly, the transmission itself: now it’s EXTREMELY hard to see shit in this video. The quality is god-awful and Leland never won any awards for videography. However this glorious angel on deviantart cleaned up some frames. (I’m not going to repost their art though since they don’t seem to be active in the fandom anymore and I don’t want to repost without permission. :/ ) but definitely go check it out!

So I’ll post the same shitty screenshots from the movie. Shoutout to veggieboy ultimate for uploading the opening scene on YouTube.

So there’s crates and metal reinforcements on the walls behind him. It does look like it could be on the oil rig.

Then he angles the camera to show this (port window?) like babygirl we can’t tell what that is… anyway it looks like a window of some sort and there fire. Now. That looks an awful lot like a round ship’s window.

Finally we get this weirdass shot of the ceiling? Again it’s very hard to tell what this is but it’s some sort of mechanical bay door that is closing.

Like it could be that? Tony does have cargo bay doors and that could be what we’re seeing.

Now the icing on top are these pieces of concept art from the Pixar website. That window porthole is drawn without all the overexposure and it looks just like the flair stacks from the oil rigs. And that’s why Leland is trying to get it in frame to show Finn. He’s seen the oil rigs from the ship. But that’s the last we see of him.

Next, we see Finn hightailing it out there to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Here’s the kicker, the coordinates Leland gives Finn do not take him to the oil rigs.

(And for my even shittier stills) Crabby takes him to the coordinates and is like lol okay here we are! There’s lot of water!!

Now this always confused me as a kid. Was Crabby off with the coordinates? Did he stop too soon? But then if Leland sent the coordinates from Tony Trihull, it makes sense why those coordinates would lead to open water and not the oil rigs. The oil rigs may not be at those coordinates…

but he sure is: the ship Leland sent the coordinates from.

Next we see Finn by the loading dock and he comms Leland to let him know he’s there. Now this threw me off. Finn tells him he’s at the rally point but he’s not at the coordinates Leland sent him. I guess he figured this is where Leland ended up? (I mean he wasn’t wrong, unfortunately.)

Then we see the professor. He’s there because of the camera which they’re loading onto the ship because they’re about to sail to Japan because of the race. But they’re also unloading crates from the ship and it’s one of those crates that Leland’s body is in. He’s being unloaded from the ship which is where he was likely murdered.

As for my finishing thoughts. There’s a lot to unpack here. Leland never made it to the oil rigs alive which is a tragedy of its own that he died before he got to see what he’d discovered up close.

He had a lot of faith in Finn to be able to find him from coordinates he sent from a boat. And that faith was well founded. Finn did in fact find him albeit too late.

Since he wasn’t on the ship at the time, Professor Z was not the one who killed Leland (though he may have ordered him killed) it was likely Acer and Grem who killed him—which makes sense since they seem to be the more sadistic of the lemons in later scenes—but I still hate Zundapp just because he was involved in it!

And Finn did in fact get his revenge at the end of the movie in London when he blew Tony Trihull to smithereens. (I’d add the screenshot but I’m at my 10 image limit already XD)

#BIG OL YAP POST TIME #UH OH RYS STILL TALKING ABT GAY CARS AGAIN #BUT THIS TIME THE AGENTS TOO WHAAAAT NO WAY

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tofumedic · 3 years ago

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hewo! for the affections number.. 16 is so cute.. would u be able to do headcanons of all the demon bros with it? if not, can u pls do levi then !

The Brothers + Simeon with #16!

16. taking a photo of them smiling or in their element

(lucifer's is here from a previous ask! and bc of that i added simeon only for having some lil funnies i hope you dont mind <3!!!)

Mammon

His collection is the largest, he flaunts it like collectables like cars or like Levi's figures. It is literally one of his biggest flexes and will use them like trading cards never wanting to send them in group chats or privately bc he took those ones get your own human >:(!

He will however hold his phone directly in one of their faces, waving the screen around to show how he has so many good ones.

He uses them for call screens, his lock screen, his home screen, any widget he can other than the Goldie one. He's a menace about it but do not call him out on it he will buy a second phone to use in the public.

Anyways, anyways for actually taking photos..

Mammon always takes too many, as in he will take a bunch within the same timespan because he doesn't trust his hands not to shake, so if he just takes a lot at one time so he can delete the others and save the best ones

But he just ends up keeping all of them, just favoriting the best or separating them into two albums of "valuables" and "treasures" depending on the quality.

Usually they will all have a small blur, him too excited at seeing whatever expression you wear, whether its a smile at seeing him purposely acting dumb or you enjoying a hobby.

He feeds a lot of unfiltered second hand serotonin off of you! Please do not disturb his "I have just had a very bad brotherly bonding experience, I must cope by looking at my photos of my human- No I'm not smiling already shut up"

Leviathan

Levi will use photos of you like wholesome memes so they carry the same energy as the hang in there cat poster, using different heart overlays and nice quotes

His are also a mixture of blurry but also high quality photos, for ones he takes.

This is because seeing you so dedicated or when you smile in his direction, his heart does this weird jumpstart the palpitations making him feel heavy yet light at the same time almost like a peach and its pit.

But he has a preference to use either this small tripod(he has it as a preparation for going to live shows) or a timer so its set away from him as he calls you over, its his own little trap.

His favorite, the majority of his collection, are those! It's photos of you being in frame with him in it as well because there's just something about how all that happiness of yours is completely focused on him, your smile as you walk over towards him sometimes blurry and mistimed so its only you entering the corner of the screen but you can tell how he takes your attention.

When getting in fights about who has the best photos, he will drop ones that are different hugs of him in your arms like he was a newly one plush. Mammon especially gets pissy about these as well as Belphie and Asmo.

If you can't turn your camera on when he calls or if he is locked in a raid that they're losing he would ask you for a selfie also, never requesting anything special other than just yourself but his favorite is when you send just smiles or videos of the which character are you filter :]!

Satan

Satan often tries to hide it, saying he's taking a photo of himself or checking his hair, maybe even going as far as saying the text on his study notes are too small so he has to hold it in front of his face so close.

Think about cowboys, shooting from the waist. That's him when you're too far away, maybe with a brother or during class or eating. He will scribble out his brother or purposely have the other cropped out of the shot.

He does have a lot of you when you're just turning around to face him and then your reaction, he can't resist the temptation of taking your attention when he's bored or waiting for his next book order to come in before he goes back to the cat behavior of only seeking out attention when he deems it necessary and otherwise pleased for a period of time.

He loves the ones where you look at him before he's ready, these are just slightly shaky from him jumping or pressing the button in an embarrassed panic at your smug yet happy expression.

Has definitely done the cut a hole in a newspaper and put his camera to it to look out like it was some camouflage but he's first, smiling much too hard and trying not to laugh at it, and second had seen it in multiple old movies and shows you had watched together.

Satan, speaking of movies, quite enjoys you in low light. On movie nights where your face is only illuminated by the projector screen and the photos turn out a bit grainy, there's something so romantic about you just existing in such an atmosphere. These ones he does like more when you're focused, looking far off with a small pleasant smile on your face at the soft plot of tonight's pick.

Asmodeus

Asmo will send you them all the time, he's like your own personal Devilgram manager he will even edit them for you and send the before and after of those photos too (MC: when did u take these??? Asmo: ,';p)

He will always have such good angles of you, from your side, from above or below, a 3/4, or full portrait, your silhouette. He may have one for each basic one at least though his favorites are above and below, these are the most personal feeling to him.

Usually these come as him trying to get your attention, bothering you with his phone and purposely leaving the little shutter noise on so you hear every single one while you're just trying to watch a DevilTube video or do something else.

Him snuggled into your side post cuddle just to lean up, phone in his hand and a menacing giggle, it's the first thing you see waking from your drowsy state is him on top of you trying to get cute pictures that he can use as teases as if something else was in progress.

Or ones where you roll on top of him, just trying to get up to see the dumb little flash as an alarm instead of his cute good morning kisses to your face(those are actually used to buy more time with you because he is allowed to be a little selfish as a treat)

He also has them set as his lockscreen and homescreen, these being photos of you together so he can have the best of both worlds, himself and your happy smiling face. He just finds it so cute, whenever you want an audience to see it he's in the first row.

Sends them to the group chat with his brothers to start some chaos

"My~ Isn't my dearest MC just the cutest?" Asmo has sent 28 attachments.

Beelzebub

His collection isn't one of the best out there but it is unique and keeps him content and happy, pleased.

He likes having photos of you for when you two are separated, it makes you feel closer to him and him to you

His may have some of the least blur, hands steady you work on something separately yet aware of the soft stare that was bearing into the side of your head.

He may forget sometimes about the sound so when you get the rare notification from his electronic betrayer it is free power to tease him, asking him if he wanted your attention or if he just took a photo of you and to be honest, then his photos if you let him continue for that setting are a little blurrier on your fine details. He's embarrassed.

He likes these more than ones with just your smile because then he isn't as satisficed because then he's thinking about how nice it looks in person and your laugh and when you let out a sigh being tired from your work, it'll be a cycle until he gives up and goes to see you in person.

But he likes the ones of you in your element very much and photos of you in general, saying that looking at them makes him feel "full"

He means to say complete, he's content and pleased and delighted and he has a reminder of you existing, that you're real and not a midnight sleep walk hallucination.

Belphegor

He has the smallest collection but next to rest, Beel, and his appearance he is mostly focused on capturing photos of you when he can.

He didn't get to really know you as long as his brothers have so its only fair he gets to spend more time with you than them until he's equal, and then some because you're really comfy and you make his twin happy? and then on top of that you make this face when you are concentrated and you smile different depending on if you're gonna laugh or if you're confident.

There's so much he has to memorize, he's rather demanding with having the attention so he may continue this personal agenda of his.

A lot of them are from similar angles, from laying with him in different positions but everything feeling relatively the same, normal. These are usually after he has woken up, not before he goes to bed so either it's your soft good morning smile, or your surprised "how long have you been awake" face, or you still asleep on your own.

Many of them often have his bed head just barely visible at the bottom, usually having laid on top of you and just using his selfie camera and angling it up to see you take up more of the screen.

For just being a pillow that moves a lot you definitely are photogenic.

He doesn't send his photos of you to chats but will save photos sent of you from everyone except Lucifer.

Simeon

PLEASE applaud.

It takes him such a long time, but Solomon gave him the idea saying it was something sweet you would also enjoy the concept of. So he is doing his best.

He will see you, just existing and his heart will swell, needing to pause a moment before kindly asking you to hold that thought and pose as he turns on his phone, maneuvering to the camera and trying to get it to focus on you perfectly.

It takes him a few minutes every time but he is getting better at it but his reaction is always the same, smiling at you showing up on his phone screen waiting for the picture to be taken.

He never can be sneaky about it unless he asks for help to get your photo, sending Luke on his biggest mission yet, a photo after he asks you what you thought of Simeon's cooking knowing you'll have that sweet face of genuine thought looking back on it.

But he has yet figured out how to turn the sound off and almost always accidentality flashes you up close, it's so bright.

He has the most blurry photos, and that's not on purpose but when he asks you to look at them with him so he can coo about how happy you look or how serious, its endearing with the blur especially as they clear up a bit continuing the timeline of photos.

He really does his best to have these mementos of you.

Is delighted when you surprise him by putting his favorite one of you as his home screen, he's so grateful let him match with you he wants to be yours too!

from this prompt list!

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fumpkins · 2 years ago

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How to shoot with Super 8 film

This article was originally featured on Popular Photography.

Super 8’s grainy, nostalgic look is having a moment right now, popping up everywhere from music videos to blockbuster TV shows. But even outside of pop culture, the consumer-friendly Super 8 film format is winning the hearts of amateurs and the analog community. If it’s caught your eye, too, here’s everything you need to know about getting started shooting Super 8 film.

This format might just be the king (or queen) of home movies. Introduced in 1965 by Kodak, it was a step up from the 8mm film that came before it, both in terms of quality—thanks to its larger frame size—and usability. This led it to be positioned as the new movie-making format of the masses.

More cost-effective than 16mm or 35mm, Super 8 film is housed in inexpensive plastic cartridges, so it’s easier to handle and load, too. These cartridges also convey to the camera important bits of information, like the film speed as well as filter information for B&W film. And in 1975, a magnetic strip was added to the cartridges to capture audio.

With its launch, Super 8 put the power of creativity in the hands of regular people. Suddenly, everyone was a movie maker.

Super 8 film today

Today, the medium is still very much alive—and by many indications—both doing well and picking up steam. Aside from the enthusiasts scooping up used cameras to record their summers, some of the biggest names in entertainment are turning to film—and Super 8 specifically—for their creative projects.

Harry Styles’ Watermelon Sugar, Katy Perry’s Daisies, Chopard’s short film with Julia Roberts, Burger King, and more have used Super 8 footage to create a grainy, vintage, old-school effect. Search for the medium on YouTube, and you’ll find there’s no lack of videos showing off the medium.

youtube

What Super 8 camera should I buy?

How much should I pay for a Super 8 camera?

Options are plentiful when it comes to used Super 8 cameras. Major brands still circulating include Canon, Nikon, and the king of Super 8, Beaulieu. Other brands like Minolta and Chinon sell for under $100, while Canon and Nikon Super 8 cameras can run as low as $300, depending on the model. But Beaulieu cameras are sure to command a heftier (over $500) price tag.

You can buy Super 8 cameras pretty much anywhere secondhand electronics are sold, including Ebay, Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, and used camera shops (like Pro8mm). But also know that an astute searcher may find luck befalls them at random garage or yard sale. The main thing you want to do when buying a Super 8 camera is make sure the motor works. If it doesn’t, you won’t be able to advance your film.

What to look for when buying any Super 8 camera

Some cameras may have a crank and are completely manual. Others will require batteries. If possible, go for a film-tested camera and always ask to see the footage and any CLA (clean, lube, adjust) certification the seller may have. It’ll be more expensive but save you the agony of wasted money on the back end. Developing Super 8 film isn’t cheap any way you slice it, so better to know you’ve got a working camera beforehand.

Best Super 8 cameras under $100

If you want to get your toes wet, there are Super 8 cameras out there under $100. The Chinon 723 XL is a good option with its autofocusing capabilities, and so is the Minolta XL 400 with its Zoom Rokkor-Macro lens, which has 13 elements. Both will shoot at 18 frames per second (fps).

If you can’t find those exact models, consider also the Bauer C series (A512 in particular), the Minolta Autopak 8 D6, and the Chinon 213 PXL. The Bauer A512 specifically may run you a little over $100.

Best Super 8 cameras under $500

The sought-after brands live here: Canon and Nikon occupy the top end of this range. Particularly, the Canon 310, 514, or 814 series are popular choices and finds. At the time of its release, the Canon 514XL had the world’s fastest lens at f/1.0. While the Auto Zoom 814, which is comprised of an all-metal mechanical design, was the first Super 8 camera to have an 8x zoom range with an f/1.4 lens.

There are also a handful of other Super 8 cameras that fall on the lower side of the spectrum, too, such as the Sankyo Sound SL-60S and Elmo 1012S-XL. The Nikon R8 and R10 would be considered the high end of this range.

Best Super 8 cameras $500+

If you’re sure Super 8 is your medium, you might find yourself fancying the fanciest of them all: The Beaulieu 4008ZM II. With beautiful design and a reputation for being the best Super 8 camera ever created, there’s a lot to its name. Thanks to its built-in rangefinder, plentiful shooting options (you can adjust the frame rate from 2fps to 50fps), and interchangeable lens design, this French-made camera gives creators plenty of control over their vision. Expect to spend at least $600, with mint kits running up to $5,000.

Also on the market are the Beaulieu S2008 and the 5008S, the latter of which is considered the professional model.

Several types of Canon cameras can still be found on the used market. Connor Betts on Unsplash

Types of Super 8 film and where to buy it

Kodak is the main purveyor of Super 8 film, and it’s available from major retailers like Adorama, Amazon, and B&H. The options are Kodak Vision 3 (color-negative 50D, 500T, and 200T); Tri-X reversal 7266; and Ektachrome 100D color reversal.

However, you can also find B&W Fomapan R100 film, and Pro8mm packages their own, which you can buy in a bundle to include processing. Film cartridges run about $40 ($27 if you’re going for Fomapan) and can record 2.5 minutes at 24fps and 3.3 minutes at 18fps. Expect to pay at least $25 to process it.

If shooting Super 8 for the first time, we recommend grabbing the Kodak Vision 3 50D and shooting in daylight. 500T and 200T are balanced for tungsten light, and as a color-reversal film, Ektachrome is quite saturated. These might be better to experiment with once you’re more familiar with the medium.

Though the beloved Kodachrome is no more, there are still plenty of Super 8 film options on the market. Connor Betts on Unsplash.

How to use a light meter for Super 8 video

Most cameras will often come with an internal meter, but unless you’ve confirmed it works, an external light meter is always a solid investment, whether you shoot stills or video. I personally use a Sekonic L358, but we’ve also got a list of best light meters for you to choose from. If you’re not ready to take the plunge on a real light meter, there are some apps, like Lumu, that have a video mode.

To use the light meter, you’d best take a look at the instructions, as each may differ slightly in how to operate the video mode. But, generally, you’ll want it to be in the f/s mode (frames per second), as opposed to A (aperture) or T (for shutter speed). Know that the frame rate you choose will affect how long you can film—at 24fps, you won’t shoot as much footage vs. 18fps.

Where to get Super 8 film developed

There are still a good number of film processors that will develop (and scan) Super 8 film. A good bet is to see if there’s a local spot in your area that still processes Super 8. If not, see the list below for where to develop Super 8 film.

Super 8 film can be developed at home or at a lab. Processing at home requires steep upfront costs and is best suited to experienced film developers. Thomas William on Unsplash.

Pro8mm

Pro8mm has an incredibly robust lineup of offerings, from selling/renting Super 8 cameras to film development packages. They’ve processed film for Harry Styles, Drake, and Katy Perry, to name a few. Their packages include film, processing, development, and color correction. If you find yourself really bitten by the analog film bug, they’ll also do 16mm, double Super 8mm, and Super 16mm films.

Film Photography Store

The Film Photography Store has many films on offer, from Super 8 to 35mm and 16mm, which they will also develop and digitize.

Negativeland Film

Negativeland is a motion-picture lab that will process Super 8 and 16mm films.

Color Lab

Working with clients including National Geographic Channel, NBC, HBO, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Color Lab processes 35mm, 16mm, and Super 8 color negative film and Super 8 B&W film.

BB Optics

BB Optics specializes in motion picture processing for Super 8, 16mm, Super 16mm, and 35mm, also offering color grading services and post-production supervision.

How to develop Super 8 film at home

This is a real commitment and should only be attempted if you have prior experience developing your own film. If you don’t, try 35mm first before taking on the (literally) gargantuan task of processing Super 8.

For those who want to take the plunge, any old developing tank won’t do. You’ll need a special drum that will accommodate the reel, which is typically 50 feet per cartridge. A Jobo Super 8/16mm drum kit (drum, tank, and foot pump) will run you about $880—and that’s before you’ve procured the chemicals.

After you’ve picked up the drum, you’ll want to consult the shop on the chemicals you’ll need to process the film. Then, you’ll need to make sure you have space. Practically, will you be able to hang 50 feet of film somewhere while it dries? This video delves into more specifics to consider.

How to convert Super 8 film to digital

Digitizing film reels is usually included or an optional add-on to the development package at labs. However, if you’re going to shoot a decent volume of film and want to save a little money, you can scan it at home—with less hassle than the development process.

Scanners are available from Amazon, B&H, and other retailers, and Wolverine Data seems to be the brand of choice. The Wolverine 8mm and Super 8mm Film Reel Converter retails for $299.95 and will digitize film at a resolution of 720 pixels. For $100 more, the Wolverine Digital Movie Maker Pro scans at 1080 pixels. Simply load up the film and the scanner does the rest, compiling the footage onto an SD card (that you must provide). This video offers a detailed tutorial on how to set yours up.

Further resources for Super 8

Feeling daunted? Don’t be—at the end of the day, you only need three things: A working camera, film, and a place to develop. Should you be searching for additional resources, try the Pro8mm Super 8 Reference Library, which features tips, a film calculator, education, manuals, and more. Super8camera.com is also a wonderful compendium of the medium. Happy movie-making.

New post published on: https://livescience.tech/2022/08/03/how-to-shoot-with-super-8-film/

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fandumbug · 3 years ago

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Llamageddon!!

If I have to experience this, so do you!

So this is how my day is going:

YouTube is down! How on earth will I have background noise and pretend I’m not lonely now! Eh, let’s see what Prime has, maybe I’ll finish Grand Tour. Ok, scrolling, scrolling… wtf is Llamageddon? “An evil lama from space crash lands on earth and terrorizes college students”. Sounds ridiculous. I could do with a laugh, let’s see how bad this is.

The first segment is a YouTube flash animation quality sequence of a planet of evil llamas, that hatch from eggs(?), building spaceships that look like livestock trailers with wings and flying about in space. One gets separated and crashes through the international space station, ripping it in half before landing somewhere in middle America, I’d guess like, Iowa or something. There’s a flash of lightning that’s animated the same way, and just as I’m wondering if the whole movie will look like this, it cuts to grainy footage of the llama (now in live action) stepping out of its “ship”, which is completely unscathed, and waking out of frame.

Next scene, we got handheld camera footage of a middle aged, around 55 years old, couple hoeing a garden. The quality is terrible, and looks like something from around 2005. When was this made? Lemme see, 2015. Wow. The couple notice the llama that wandered over but don’t give a shit and go to bed. The llama makes its way into the house, with more cuts to the same animated lightning, before killing the two people off camera. The woman screams as a jet of blood splashes across a photo of the two. It’s hilariously bad.

Cut to title screen. Dear god it’s only been four minutes. I’ve paused to either laugh or stare in utter bewilderment twice already.

Next scene, daytime in the field where the llama crashed. The ship is taped off and generic, I dunno, government (?) guys are inspecting the area. There’s a cut to a helicopter shot of the same area. There’s another cut and oh wow, they actually got a helicopter for this scene! It’s not very impressive, but it’s real. Some older guy gets out, takes his sunglasses off while staring out of frame and says “good god,” about as flatly and bored as possible. In the same breath he says “get this taken care of”, or something, I’ve already forgotten, gets back in the helicopter, and flies away. This guy was only in the scene for five seconds, what was the point of that? He didn’t even interact with anyone!

Next scene, “amazing grace” on bagpipes plays as the camera pans, competently to my surprise, smoothly across a graveyard. Then it cuts to a Honda Ridgeline, I think? Whatever their version of the Toyota FJ is, pulling out of it and merging into traffic. Cut to inside and a kid who looks like a cross between pubescent Harrison Ford and that guy I liked in middle school is talking, his face taking up most of the frame. “Why didn’t dad come?” He says, then his sister rolls her eyes and says “it’s not like they were his parents, why would he be here?” “I don’t care he should have been there! What was he doing instead anyway?” Then it abruptly cuts to an extreme close up of knockoff cristopher Lloyds face, mouth agape and panting. Cut to a new angle and he’s banging someone who’s young enough to be his daughter. Cut back to the car. Sister takes off her “depressing funeral dress” and inexplicably has a regular t shirt and jeans on underneath it? The fuck?

Then we find out that the couple killed off in the beginning were these kids grandparents? But the mom in the car looks almost 50 herself! Because movie, the kids are staying alone in their grandparents home. Typical “no parties!”, mom leaves, sister calls everyone she knows to throw a party, brother whines that she shouldn’t and he’s gonna tell mom, sequence plays out. Also typical “sister is a bitch” I’m broken because my parents got divorced schlock happens. Ok, the sister is supposed to be in college, I can buy that. The brother though, he looks like he’s in high school but acts like a 12 year old. How old is he supposed to be? The mom says something about him wetting the bed while the camera is uncomfortably close to her fish-eye-lensed face, which then cuts to the same bizarre close up up the two kids. And there’s mild voice distortion?? The fuck is happening!

Scene cuts and Brother is wandering around the property, still in his funeral clothes, when he sees the llama. Neither react to each other, then it cuts away to the crash site again. More generic guys mill about and two “doctors” are talking in the foreground. One says to the other “well, what do you make of it?” And he says “I think I’m getting too old for this shit.”

Im only 13 minutes into this mess!

This is where I had to pause it again and write this up. Hoho boyo, this needs to be documented. Ive laughed so loud it’s started the dog twice now, and none of it is intentionally funny. This screams “birdemic” at me, and it’s so terrible. But, because I hate myself and there’s literally nothing else for me to do right now, I’ll finish this out.

#Tori talks movies #llamageddon #shut up tori

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deadwalkerpedia · 3 years ago

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The Walking Dead, “Days Gone Bye” | Analysis

The final season of The Walking Dead comes in August, so I decided to rewatch the show from the beginning as the end is nigh. TWD has been a part of me since I started to watch TV series, and I’ve watched Days Gone Bye more than seven times, so this is certainly one of the pieces of audiovisual media that I’ve consumed the most. To add a new interesting layer in my rewatches, I’ve decided to see the episodes with a critical and analytical lens, seeing it more than just as a pastime, and write my thoughts here. This will be a great ride for me, and I can’t wait to see again some iconic moments from TWD throughout the seasons and write about them.

Part 1: The World Before

Before getting into the first act of the episode, let me talk about the teaser – the first five minutes of the episode – quickly. As this is our introduction to the world of TWD, Days Gone Bye couldn’t simply start with Rick and Shane having a chat. So it was necessary that the teaser served as a way to establish both the tone and setting of this story, and it certainly does. The teaser tells us that what we are watching is a gritty survival horror story that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, and the teaser establishes this perfectly without no more than two lines of dialogue. It is established visually: Rick stops his car on a deserted road with no traces of civilization anywhere, then goes to an abandoned gas station where other cars are – and those cars have dead bodies inside. From there, we know right from the start that this isn’t the world we live in. When Rick sees the young girl that is in fact a walker, it is established that this is a world where the main threat are zombies. At least for some part, as in future episodes the series will show us something far more scarier than walking cannibal dead bodies is the real danger.

Now storytelling-wise, TWD already proved its value in the first five minutes. Frank Darabont directed the episode and wrote the script, and his work in the episode both as director and writter is fantastic and set the bar high if the series wanted to have a consistency of greatness in its episodes. After the perfect five minutes purely composed of visual storytelling, the first scene of the first act is dialogue-heavy and character-driven. One would think that it is to establish to us that Rick and Shane are friends, that Rick has a wife and son and that they are cop buddies, and one would be right, but it is also more than simply introduction and exposition, and that’s the beauty of the audiovisual medium as a whole.

Reading books about screenplay writing, I’ve come to know more about subtext and its applications in both movies and series. Despite this first scene doing great work in introducing us to the two main characters of the season – their mindset, persona and some backstory – it also adds so much worldbuilding-wise. Shane goes on his rant about women not switching off the lights in a house before leaving it, and Rick talks about a discussion he and Lori had earlier. See, the teaser showed us a decaying world with walking bodies. Now, the first minutes of act one show us a world where people worry about such trivialities: switching off the lights. In the tagline for the first volume of the comic book, it reads “The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility“. The scene I mentioned is basically the live-action adaptation of it. We see the world of commerce and frivolous necessity in this introduction so we can understand better and fear the world of survival and responsibility that will come later in the episode. TWD started geniously: it went from visually-driven to dialogue-driven, and after that to visually-driven storytelling, all without losing its verisimilitude and charm.

Now, something about the visuals I loved: the grainy aspect. Because this episode was shot on film – in fact, up until season ten all episodes were shot on film – the film grain is obviously visible. But instead of being just an aesthetic choice – shooting in film or digital – I think it’s also meant to have implications tone-wise. The comic books this series adapt is in black-and-white (something unusual in American comics), but it’s because the writer Robert Kirkman wanted the comic to feel like a classic George Romero zombie flick, and it worked completely. Commercially, a black-and-white TV series wouldn’t be much embraced by a large and mainstream public, but I think that Darabont solved that problem and succeeded in maintaining an aesthetic similar to the feel the comic book wanted to transmit. The excessive film grain – something that made me feel like watching a Panos Cosmatos’ movie but without the acid trips – works because it resembles the Romero zombie flicks in color, like Dawn of the Dead. It is a classical and archetypal zombie story – even if it subverts some conventions various times throughout the series – and the visuals tell us that.

Not only that, but the episode has many moments that resembled The Mist in some ways: the camera being close to its characters to make the story feel grounded and experienced by real people, the back shots to make the audience feel like they are following the characters in their journeys, the handhold camera moments that gives a documentary feel, adding a realistic perspective. All that grants a grounded vibe to the episode, which works because this is a story about how people react and live in a lawless world which can kill them at any possible moment without any warnings. It’s where chaos and anarchy reigns and where death always lurks. A story like that works better when it’s experienced through the eyes of the characters. It’s also best represented in the moment where Rick leaves the hospital and sees the sun for the first time. In the shot, the Sun is blinding us with its shining light, but then there’s a cut, and in the next shot we see only Rick covering his eyes while the blinding sun rays don’t make it to the camera. It’s the switch of subjective to objective perspective, as in the first we see the world with Rick eyes – it’s a man getting out of the dark for the first time in months – and in the second we see the same moment but from outside lens, and it showed us that this a day like any other where the sun doesn’t blind you. Besides, this episode has a low budget sensitivity – not meaning that the quality is subpar, but that it has an authenticity that is extremely convincing. It is that low budget quality that makes the story feel real in a certain way. That is, of course, until the tank in the middle of a city is shown, but even with the realism, it is still tangible, and the story continues to feel realistic in its depiction of a zombie apocalypse in the “real world”.

The whole sequence of the car chase and the shooting between the cops and the criminals is beautifully conducted by Darabont, who knows his craft remarkably and executes it in a manner like no one else does. The memorable shots, shot by Darabont, immortalize the whole sequence and reach its climax – the gunshot Rick suffers – perfectly in a crescendo that works better here than in the comics, this being an easy task, but still, Darabont managed to do it in an impressive way, totally deserving a bravado status.

Also, something that I also appreciated, and I think it’s overlooked: when the police cruiser where Rick and Shane are passes through a road, we see a single crow eating a roadkill. What do this mean exactly? Animals can’t turn to zombies so one might think this is only a moment with no meaning behind it. But now I interprete it as a symbol. It is meant to represent that society has be decaying long before the dead came to eat the living. It remembers me the first Mad Max, where the world is not in the same level as it appears in Mad Max 2: Road Warrior – a full-on post-apocalyptic society – but it is in its final stages, leaning to barbarism and uncontrollable chaos. The producers of TWD announced an anthology spin-off series named Tales of the Walking Dead, and it certainly would be interesting to see more of the transition between our world and the post-apocalyptic zombie-ridden world, showing the process in-between of transformation and decay.

Part 2: Brave New World

The second act starts as Rick steps out of the hospital and faces the current reality of his world, and it’s an ugly one. Rick sees dead bodies everywhere and discarded military gear. Something dreadful happened when he was in a coma. The world undergone a change so great in his sleep that it’s impressive that Rick didn’t drown in total madness when he first saw what’s left of society. Most of act two is about Rick having to come to terms with his new life: one entirely ruled by survival. Now, another interesting element that is also a symbol in my interpretation: the bicycle girl. The bicycle girl (which is the zombie without its lower body) is the first walker Rick encounters. He is scared by her and runs away from her with the bicycle that was there next to him. The bicycle girl is nothing more than the remains of the past life of Rick and the world before. It is dead and alive at the same time – like the walkers – but in a pitiful state. It can’t be on its feet and is always trying to grasp and touch Rick, but, ultimately, it can’t. Rick fears it, and because of that he runs.

Most of the second act is focused on the interactions of Rick and Morgan Jones. Morgan, after encountering Rick and saving him from a nearby walker, takes him inside his house, but fearing that the gunshot wound was in fact a walker bite, Morgan rightly tied Rick to a bed and waited for him to wake up to ask some questions. Now, it’s incredible how this episode never misses a beat and is not made of only three truly great scenes, but all of the scenes are great. The whole dinamic of Morgan explaining to Rick what happened and what it takes to live in this new world felt so natural that no critic could say it was bad exposition. It was exposition done right, revealing more about Morgan’s character, showing him as a good man and a father to his son Duane. It’s easy to understand why Rick and Morgan liked each other one day after meeting for the first time. The chemistry is real, and it’s unbelievable how seasons later, when they see each other again, the chemistry is still there.

Andrew Lincoln and Lennie James are spectacular actors. Their acting in this episode is astonishingly extraordinary. I’m pissed that they didn’t won any awards for it, they certainly deserve it. Andrew’s acting was great all way through, but when he first arrives at his house and cries for Lori and Carl you could feel the man’s pain and suffering. One moment that is perfect and maybe one of the bests of all TV history is when Rick is having an existential crisis. “Is this real? Am I here?”, asks Rick while facing the ground. It’s such a powerful reaction to the absurdity he is experiencing and it feels so damn real because Andrew Lincoln can cry like a pro and give the gaze of a man that is lost. Rick is lost. And this scene can provide such a powerful punch to the audience that you can’t help but be already invested in Rick’s journey. He just wants his family, so he can put some sense in a mad world. Without them, Rick is lost.

The second act makes us empathize more with Rick and Morgan. They both have admirable goals. They just want to live and provide for their family. Their bond is developed exceptionally in their final moments together – before Rick travels to Atlanta – that you are left caring for them and wanting a reunion. The final scenes of act two were made to make you feel emotional without doubt, and I’m sure that it worked on some people and made them fall in love with the series instantly. It’s when Rick kills bicycle girl and Morgan fails to kill his dead wife, now a walker. The soundtrack by Bear McCreary is phenomenal and adds so much dramatic and emotional weight to the scenes, and it fits perfectly with the tone of pretty much the core of the series. It’s a haunting song, a sorrowful one full of melancholy, but it also has a spark of hope in it. It makes a statement: everything is sadly collapsing around us, but there’s still hope of rebuilding. The Mercy of the Living is TWD summarized in an orchestral piece, and I feel like crying every time I listen to it, just like the piece Alive Inside of Telltale’s game, that also does a masterful job in creating a sad but hopeful atmosphere in its melody. The bicycle girl – which is the past Rick and the world before – must be killed by Rick if he wants to continue his voyage, to which destination is his family. Rick is teary and heartbroken in killing bicycle girl because now he has to fully embrace a life ruled by survival. “I’m sorry this happened to you.” is Rick final message and requiem to the world and consequently to his past self – a quiet Rick that didn’t want to discuss with Lori in front of Carl –, both who had problems that they couldn’t resolve before the tragedy that hit them.

Part 3: The Beginning

The third and last act are in fact the beginning. We saw a peak of a world before the zombie apocalypse and Rick waking up in this desolated society in the first two acts, but the third one is to introduce and set up what the series is about and what will do to its end: show the characters in a battle for survival, and ultimately in a quest for the return of humanity and civilization. Both are depicted in the scenes where Rick is trying to save himself from a horde of walkers that attack him and his horse, and the other with Shane’s group listening and trying to talk in the radio with a mysterious survivor (Rick himself) who warns about his coming into the city, showing their efforts to help fellow survivors who might enter Atlanta without knowing its dangers, thus demonstrating that they are still human after all.

The episode show us a little about the relationship of Shane and Lori, as well as a glimpse to their group. It wasn’t exactly necessary, but it doesn’t hurt in any way the season’s progress and development. The third act is best represented by Rick entering Atlanta and having to escape a humongous horde of walkers. Rick manages to survive by hiding in the tank that was parked in a street. The scene also show us that zombies had some intelligence – they crawl and try to open things – and some of them look cartoonishly green or grey, instead of the realistic putrid rotting flesh look the marvelous make-up by Greg Nicotero can provide. And both of these things are common to the iconography Romero made for the zombies. It’s very clear that Darabont takes inspirations from his movies and respect their legacy by expanding it to a new range of people and an audience that is maybe not that familiar with Romero – I wasn’t when I first watched TWD and when I saw Romero’s movies I was impressed by how it influenced the series.

Days Gone Bye is a masterclass of how a pilot should be made. This quintessential pilot introduces a storyline that will be finished within the episode. while also setting up what’s coming next in the season, laying ground for all the future episodes in the best way possible. It introduces a protagonist that proves that he can sustain a show on his own – he is a caring father, loving husband, a good man and a kind of Western hero, we see him riding in his horse towards the imminent danger full of guns and determination searching only for his family. The Walking Dead may not be recognized as a TV series that revolutionized the medium, but it revolutionized its genre, and overall it is a great series that deserves recognition, and so does Days Gone Bye. It is simply the perfect pilot.

#the walking dead #days gone bye #rick grimes

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watching-pictures-move · 4 years ago

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Put On Your Raincoats #10 | Kamikaze Hearts (Bashore, 1986)

Kamikaze Hearts is a movie about Sharon Mitchell and Tigr. Sharon Mitchell plays Mitch, a popular porn star. Tigr plays Tigr, a less popular porn star turned porn director. Mitch and Tigr are working together on a porno movie. Mitch and Tigr are lovers, having met previously on another porno movie. Mitch and Tigr are also addicts, and we see them shoot up together. Their relationship is strained, to say the least. Tigr is upset with Mitch for failing to show up for filming after having been booked by the cops. Mitch is upset with Tigr for broadcasting their relationship troubles and Mitch’s substance abuse issues to everyone within earshot. Kamikaze Hearts is a movie about a co-dependent relationship that’s falling apart. It’s also about the act of making movies, specifically porno movies. It’s directed by a woman, about a lesbian relationship and about the adult film industry with a semi-inside perspective, all characteristics that make the film noteworthy for reasons other than its actual quality. It’s also very good.

The movie is a mockumentary, not a documentary, and that becomes part of the movie’s text. We spend time on a porn set, and like in overtly fictional films like Boogie Nights and Skin Flicks, we see a bunch of professionals at work navigating the demands between art and commerce. (I have never been on a porn set, modern or golden age, but the consistency between the portrayals leads me to believe they’re fairly accurate.) The movie they’re making is about an opera singer played by Mitch. The producers coughed up the dough to rent a real theatre to use as a set and even hired a classically trained singer to do the singing. The singer, who shows up with her children (thankfully they’re not filming any sex scenes at this time), confesses her struggles with singing the music in the original language, gently arguing with Tigr who insists (correctly) that the audiences for these movies don’t really care. We hear from the makeup artist, an affable man who takes a lot of pride in his work, and who is complimented by Mitch for the great job he did hiding the pimples on her ass.

There are also less cheerful moments, as when an actress refuses to do a sex scene in front of a producer. “He's the worst sleazebag in the business”, she says. “Get one of your junkie girls, they'll do it for 50 cents.” To which he responds, “Get her off the set!” It’s such a raw, uncomfortable moment that it’s startling to realize that the producer was played by an actor and that this was all a performance. Yet it feels undeniably real, as do the moments when crew members complain that Mitch’s drug problems create a bad working situation. The producer at one point also threatens to get his higher ups involved. “You know, New York people,” he says euphemistically. In another scene he plies a model into working on a movie, slowly building rapport in a subtly predatory manner. We learn about code words used to warn the cast and crew about police raids (at this time, it was illegal to shoot porn in L.A.). There’s also a guy with a Flock of Seagulls haircut and a saxophone in one shot. What his deal is, we never find out.

We spend time with Mitch and Tigr and learn how their relationship (”a romance designed for the business”) came to be. Tigr talks about first falling for Mitch when they worked on a movie together, and we pore obsessively over the grainy video images of their scene. Mitch is seen in a leather jacket and sunglasses, her boyish hair fluttering in the wind as she’s driven around to capture footage for the movie. It’s an image that perfectly captures her allure and sex appeal while sidestepping the male gaze of her movies. But we start getting the sense that both ourselves and Tigr have been sold an image. (When asked about her heroes, Mitch lists both Gloria Swanson and Ronald Reagan, masters of self image.) In a party for the cast and crew, Mitch keeps on a costume and starts doing fake interviews, seemingly unable to turn it off. We see an intimate moment when Tigr and Mitch are locked in embrace, interrupted by Mitch jokingly shouting a dramatic line. It starts to seem pathological, as when Mitch is showing off her ability to balance an egg on her pussy before they film, an act that seems amusing in isolation but compulsive when viewed as part of a pattern. (In this scene, Mitch also makes fun of Kandi Barbour, who for better or worse etched herself into my brain when she rose from a pool in a wet t-shirt in Neon Nights. Folks, I’m not made of stone.) We get the sense that this might be a result of the business, and that Tigr might be a bit complicit too, as when Mitch starts to head for the bathroom to take a leak after doing a scene and Tigr asks, without missing a beat, “Can you film it?”

When asked later about what was true about the movie, Mitchell offered an evasive answer “Everything and nothing.” Was it an accurate portrayal of their relationship? “Probably not.” Yet there are moments of rawness and emotional vulnerability that are hard not to be moved by, as when Tigr seemingly sheds real tears after a fight. Juliet Bashore said the movie was storyboarded but not exactly scripted, leaving plenty of room for improvisation, and that a lot of what’s in the movie was her turning the camera on different cast members and letting them have their rap. The effect is seeing a number of people with varying levels of experience in the industry exorcise their (often ambivalent) feelings about their work. (This ambivalence also gives it more credibility as a behind the scenes portrayal.) The movie they were making wasn’t real, but only some of the people (and at least everyone who had a sex scene) knew that. (This movie also serves as a testament to the acting talent of some of these performers, to go from porn queen / stud affectations of their starring roles to the immediacy and grit of their work here.)

I watched Kamikaze Hearts the same weekend as The Decline of Western Civilization, and it shares with that other film some of that lightning in a bottle quality and the irreplaceable sense of being present in a moment. even if the exact moment was manufactured to different degrees in both films. (Both Mitchell and Tigr also give off strong punk vibes with their sense of style, the former having been loosely involved in the New York punk scene in the late ‘70s.) It also brings to mind Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up (which this preceded by a few years), as both films play with the documentary and narrative forms to mine deeper truths. The “climax” of the film, so to speak, has Mitch and Tigr both shoot up moments after Tigr chastised Mitch for wanting a hit with cameras present. I can’t vouch for the scene’s authenticity, thankfully having been nowhere near heroin my entire life, but it felt uncomfortably intrusive. Heroin is a sort of truth serum, they say, and Tigr unloads to the camera her insecurities and fears, letting us bask in her self-loathing in the devastating final moments. This relationship isn’t going to last, and neither are they, if things don’t change. Tigr retired from porno movies soon after the film was made. Mitchell left the business in the ‘90s. To my knowledge, both are still alive.

#film #put on your raincoats #movie review #kamikaze hearts #juliet bashore

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clive-owen-and-the-knick · 4 years ago

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https://www.popmatters.com/123302-second-sight-the-complete-collection-2496189035.html

Clive Owen is, as they say, a tall glass of water. Ruggedly handsome, with sleepy, sad eyes, a deep rich voice, and cool and charisma to burn, he seems cut from a classic, if anachronistic, Hollywood mold. Combining a sort of arched-eyebrow knowingness with a heavy-browed brooding vulnerability, he is one part dashing leading man, two parts smoldering noir hunk.

I’m not sure the current film world quite knows what to do with him – though he is generally great in everything he’s been in, he always seems slightly out of place or time, like he just time warped from a late'40s noir that would star Robert Mitchum or William Holden. Perhaps the proper vehicles for Owen's talents and persona just don’t exist anymore, though some films have come close – Sin City and the vastly underrated Duplicity come to mind.

So it’s no surprise that his best work, and the role that catapulted him to fame in the UK, came in a millennial British mystery series, in which he plays a brilliant but brooding, sharp but tortured detective. Second Sight belongs to the same rich tradition of British mystery series as Prime Suspect, or Cracker, or any of the superior police procedurals that wash up on US shores on PBS. Conceived and written by veteran TV writer Paula Milne, Second Sight offers few actual genre surprises, but boasts a central character so richly developed (in such a short space) that he almost deserves equal footing with Helen Mirren’s iconic Jane Tennison.

Like Tennison, Ross Tanner is a brilliant DCI with London homicide. In the titular first “series” (oh the confusion trying to get around what to call each installment of these things, which are called series in the UK, but are more like TV movies by US sensibilities), Tanner is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a young college student visiting home for the weekend. He quickly begins to uncover a story more complex and sordid than it first appears (shocking, that!). Further difficulties arise as Tanner begins to experience various ocular disturbances – blurred vision, seeing things that aren’t there, a weird sort of starlight pixilation of the world around him.

A car crash lands him in front of an eye doctor, who diagnoses him with a rare, degenerative disease (AZOOR, an acronym for a lot of medical gobbledygook, but a real condition) of mysterious origins. Though not resulting in total blindness, the main characteristics, as portrayed from Tanner’s point of view with chintzy camera tricks here, are a certain fuzzed out quality to seeing the world, like it’s been made both super-bright and wrapped in gauze. Occasionally, certain things – faces, key objects – will come in to sharp focus. Or Tanner will see things that should be in a certain place but aren’t, his brain completing the image that is expected.

Tanner’s condition is the crux of the entire series, informing the show’s every aspect – and of course giving it its title. On a practical level, his waning eyesight is a seemingly insurmountable hindrance to his investigatory skills… or is it? There are hints, as the series progresses, especially in its later installments, of AZOOR granting Tanner some sort of mystical insight, allowing entry in to the minds of killers, or making connections in the chain of events that other detectives can’t see.

However, Second Sight never really commits to this angle, on how much importance to give to the quasi-supernatural aspects of his vision problem. It always just pulls back (rightly) from fully turning Tanner into some sort of mystic. It wants to have its cake and eat it too, presenting Tanner as both a dogged, rigorously intelligent investigator on the one hand, and as sort of a more dour, haunted Special Agent Cooper (minus the cherry pie and coffee obsession) on the other – solving cases more on luck, intuition and out and out hallucination, than because of any obvious sleuthing prowess. It’s an odd disconnect, the series at war with itself at what it wants its central character to be, and what do with its central gimmick.

The real surprise, though, is that this disconnect almost don’t matter. In fact, it dovetails nicely with what is really the key strength of Second Sight - the noirish mood of the series, and the richly realized psychological conflicts simmering within Tanner himself. Ultimately, the series is about a man at war with himself as the world he is accustomed to dealing with – a stark world of fact and certainty – crumbles away from his grasp.

His struggle to cope pulls him in every direction, and his pride and self-reliance take the biggest hit as he comes to have to depend on his comely new assistant, Catherine Tully (Claire Skinner), to literally be his eyes and support (and confidant, as she is the only one on the force in the know, at first). Throw on top of this custody squabbles with his ex-wife over his young son, and Tanner is slowly cooking to some sort of breakdown. Only focusing on the cases keeps him on track and from flying apart.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the mysteries themselves are incidental – there are four total, including the title series. They are more than mildly intriguing, if ultimately slight. They work best when they complement Tanner’s inner conflicts and personal problems. In this way, the later installments are actually better than the first one, which, though the longest and most complex of the lot, is the weakest.

“Second Sight” (the first, titular “episode”, as opposed to the series as a whole) suffers from too many red herrings, too much padding, and an overly chatty villain. The eventual solution is pretty well telescoped from early on, and only the constant degeneration of Tanner’s vision and his attempts to keep his condition secret keeps the ship afloat.

Much better is “Parasomnia”, the episode which best captures the noirish vibe the show is aiming for and highlights Tanner’s new unconventional investigatory skills. A gory murder, an amnesiac somnambulist femme fatale, and 90 minutes of Tanner slowly losing his mind to insomnia, paranoia and mounting frustration, this is the high point of the series, a riveting mini-film that would actually do well as a theatrical release.

The other two installments are engaging if not quite as enthralling. In “Hide and Seek”, Tanner is promoted to the head of a new crack unit of homicide, tackling stubborn and/or sensational cases. The first is a cold case of a murdered violinist, the unsolved status of which is a black eye on the face of the London PD. Meanwhile, Tanner and Tully’s relationship starts to buckle under the weight of his condition (how no one else notices on the staff that their chief is blind is beyond me – a great running gag if deliberate, a brutal oversight if not)

“Kingdom of the Blind” strains for political and personal poignancy with the case of a murdered black community leader, a decrepit old white supremacist, and Tanner’s finally coming to terms with his professional and personal life. The series ends here (for now), on an ambiguous note, Tanner striding forth into a blurry, hazy future (there are talks of reviving the show as a feature film, though details are… blurry for now).

Second Sight is finally collected in one DVD set a good decade after it went off the air. Previous releases of the individual installments had no special feature, and this has not been rectified with this collection, which is as bare bones as it gets. Spread out over five discs, the programs are slightly grainy, which actually enhances the look and feel of the show. I would have wanted something, anything, with Clive Owen talking about his first big starring role, before Hollywood came a calling.

#clive owen #second sight

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all-souls-matinee · 5 years ago

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25. Frankenstein’s Army (2013)

dir. Richard Raaphorst

Runtime: 84 minutes

Availability: Amazon Prime

During their recon mission into WWII Germany, a group of Soviet soldiers receive a distress signal. One soldier armed with a camera documents the party’s journey through grisly fields to an abandoned church, where they’re faced with killer half-human/half-machines courtesy of Victor Frankenstein 2. He’s the descendant of the original Victor Frankenstein,was hired by the Nazis, and then turned on them in order to end the war by,.. uh.. I think combining a bunch of body parts to make a centrist? Being Nasty

Should you watch this for the plot? filmmaking? acting? writing? By no means, it’s as awful as it sounds. Should you watch it for the creature design and practical effects? I don’t know, why don’t you ask PLANEY MCPLANEFACE

(Yes he chops a guy up with the propellor)

The one advantage to making a horror movie that’s an on-fire garbage can is that it adds a nightmarish quality to the whole thing. I don’t remember a single character’s name, but you can bet your boots I remember ‘mosquito man’ crawling around a silent hill bathroom on grainy shaky-cam for 10 minutes and stabbing a guy. It’s a solid idea for showcasing creatures; a war-ravaged backdrop gives us the right setting and tone for the concept and puts me in mind of video games, but the plot’s a mess and the message muddled (also as with.. most video games). The best it has to offer is consistency; it’s exactly what you signed up for, and the only slasher I can think that’s this bizarre and gives this much love and attention to its evil denizens.

Trigger warnings: Big Time body horror and gore

#frankenstein's army #halloween #reviews

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foxtrot-forest · 6 years ago

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Oziam - “Quality Control”

Pairing: Oz/Liam Rating: Gen Words: 985 [AO3]

While scrolling Instagram, Liam makes a discovery.

On the stage of the auditorium, students shuffled various props about as they cleaned. It was just about lunch time, and many were eager to be done with the class period. In the haste to get something to eat, they all failed to notice the vampire sitting amongst the rarely-used catwalks close to the ceiling. Perks of a vampire, he never had to break in to get up there. He could simply float up.

Liam rolled his eyes and closed the Twitter app on his phone. Some show, renewed for its final season, had just aired the previous night and his feed was blowing up about it. So mainstream, no one had any taste. He thought he followed people that would be immune to the consumption of such low-brow media, but apparently not. Mentally, he took note to unfollow some people and compose a vague tweet about it later.

Repositioning his legs to get more comfortable, he flipped through his extensive, carefully organised home pages before eventually settling on Instagram. Facebook was out of the question since 2015, but Instagram still held his interest. Hopefully a platform based on images would be immune to the tawdry series’ advances.

So far, so good. His feed was full of obscure, but craftily edited photos of a variety of subjects from macabre dead animals to … Polly’s latest ‘drug haul.’ Liam made a face, pondered the best series of emojis to reflect his disdain for something so uncreative, then posted his comment with a smirk. Stew, silhouette, bamboo, label, raised hand emoji (in that order) perfectly captured his feelings on the image.

He went to click away from the post after his glorious comment was posted, but paused. Polly hadn’t posted anything to her Instagram in a while, or at least he hadn't seen it. With his large amount of accounts followed, if she posted anything it may have been swallowed. Liam could not be out of the loop of his friends, it was unacceptable, even if their posts were… hard to look at, at best.

Polly was no visionary in the art of proper Instagramming, but she was good about keeping her feed fresh. It turns out Liam had only missed two posts: a broken beer bottle with a frowning emoji he recognised from her Snapchat story a few days ago, and a selfie showing off her breasts in a new bra she had ordered, also from her Snapchat story. Feeling content that he hadn’t actually missed anything new, Liam nodded and scrolled back to the top of the page, pausing when he noticed something interesting.

Damien wasn’t under the suggested accounts to follow.

On principle, Liam refused to follow the irritating demon, but always made a note to check his page every few days (purely to keep current, of course, nothing more). Usually he navigated there from his suggested (because he definitely didn’t memorise Damien’s handle years ago), but the spot usually filled with an obnoxiously red icon was taken up instead by… a default icon? Ugh, Liam thought to himself, a bot account to report. What a waste of my time.

“They can’t even be bothered to come up with an original name… BL4CK_GOLD? Even spam accounts could at least try to be creative,” Liam mumbled to himself, comfortable in the silence of the auditorium. He clicked on the page out of curiosity, wondering what sorts of scams people were coming up with these days. Instead, he was greeted with… Oz?

There were only six posts, and the aesthetic of the page was awful. No colour scheme, no direction, no artistry. Instead, there were a couple grainy pictures of food, a stray cat, some movie tickets to some B class film (discounted), and a single selfie. Wait, a selfie?

Sure enough, there the monster was, in all his yellow button up glory. It was after school (Liam recognised the cracks of the high school’s parking lot --fourth spot, second row, adjacent to the tree), and Oz was holding an umbrella. It wasn’t raining, and the overly-high angle of the camera made it even more awkward, but there it was. Posted. And now on Liam’s screen, in front of his eyes.

The caption was terrible. It wasn’t a good selfie.

In fact, it was a god-awful selfie, worse than his sad excuse for food pics.

But something about it… Before he even realised it, Liam had taken a screenshot of the image. He’s spent a decent amount of time with Oz, especially at game nights at his apartment, but he’s never really seen him smile. But this shitty, grainy selfie… It’s there. The gentle upturn of his cheek bones, scrunching his eyes up the tiniest bit. Without a mouth, it’s hard to tell, but it’s clearly there if enough attention was paid.

And Liam was paying close attention.

He looked for a couple seconds longer before finally pocketing his phone. Oz’s page definitely could use some work. And a better camera. Instagram posts were supposed to be vague and difficult to make out, but only artfully so, and on his terms. Not because the camera was actually worse than the one on Scott’s phone after he accidentally ate it the second time (how was the damn thing still running?).

The vampire made up his mind and got to his feet, tucking his satchel neatly under his arm before gracefully dropping down to the auditorium floor. He figured he was fashionably late enough to go to lunch and conveniently sit next to a certain fear monster. It would be easy work to casually drop Oz’s page into the conversation as he took today’s food pic while appearing entirely unaffected and nonchalant.

Somehow, he’d help Oz learn to properly post pics.

And if half the reason was only to get better quality selfies of him, that was strictly classified, and it was only in an ironic sense anyway.

#monster porm #oz x liam #oz monster prom #liam monster prom #fictrotting #fanfiction #kat #mp #liam #oziam #this is stupid lol

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20thcentutygeek · 5 years ago

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REVIEW: Asylum (1972) Second Sight Special Edition

Film:

One day I will get round to doing a podcast episode on the British film Studio, Amicus. They were the small studio that competed with Hammer, but are often forgotten when talking about the history of Horror Cinema. While Hammer focused on the Gothic horror with established characters Dracula, Frankenstein and the wolf man, Amicus tried something different. They entered the market with a series of Anthology or Portmanteau movies. Asylum, released in 1972, is my favourite of Amicus anthology horrors.

The story centres around a young doctor (Robert Powell) attending an interview at a secluded Asylum. As part of the interview he is challenged by the interviewing Doctor (Patrick Magee) to identify the former lead doctor of the facility, Doctor Byron, from the patients, as he lost his mind and is now incarcerated. He visits three patients and they recount the reason they are there, each one a story in the anthology.

As is the case with all anthologies, the stories vary in quality. While I enjoy them all I’m appreciate that elements of them haven’t aged particularly well. While macabre the opening story “frozen fear” hinges on the viewer accepting a concept that can be perceived as creepy or ridiculous. It’s a fast paced opener but not the strongest. The following two stories are much stronger and play out today just as well as they would have done in 1972. “Weird Taylor” has the excellent Peter Cushing in and is wonderfully atmospheric with a suitably weird end. The third of the three is less supernatural, the story of a young woman and her disturbed ‘best friend’. While the ending is predictable today it still has a great punch.

The final part of the film that really makes this a winner for me is that inclusion of the wrap around segments becoming part of the horror. The cast throughout take the horror seriously and are fantastic. I’m invested in each of the stories and the solid performances help me get passed the slightly sillier story points and special effects that haven’t aged well.

In addition to this, the film looks great. The Blu ray upgrade is crisp without loosing the 70s graininess. The colour and details pop, giving the film new life. Asylum is never going to get a 4K scan so this is the best it’s going to look, and it’s excellent.

It’s a great film and a fantastic example of the best of Amicus and British Horror of the 70s.

Special features:

The special features provide an interesting glimpse of the making of the film, and the history of Amicus.

On the disc there’s a new informative commentary from the director, camera operator and film historian Marcus Hearn. As well as several other new featurettes focusing on the films production and wider place in Amicus history. The two that stand out are ‘inside the fear factory’ a collection of interviews from those involved in the history of Amicus. These are accompanied by a featurettes from the 70s on set. This gives an interesting insight into the film and how films were presented in the early 70s.

In addition to these the Blu Ray comes with a 36 page booklet, containing stills from the movies as well as a selection of promotional posters. However, the primary content is three essays.

“Nothing to loose but your mind” a chronicling the final years of Amicus studios (a essay about the earliest years of the studio comes with second sights other recent Amicus release, The House that dripped blood). “Robert Bloch and Asylum” how the writer came to write the film and his relationship with Amicus studios. “Amicus productions and the rise of portmanteau in horror Cinema”, the title pretty much says it all.

The insight and information from the disc and booklet content round this release out. It’s an excellent presentation of the film with details and discussion on the film and its place in Amicus history.

Packaging:

I’m a sucker for a special edition and this is a beautiful edition. The slipcase is well made and the new art is beautiful. It captures the tone and madness of the film and the likenesses are spot on. It’s made better by the fact that the edition comes with a two sided poster including the new art the original poster art. This is also replicated on the reversible cover.

Overall it’s an Awesome edition of one of my favourite 70s British Horror movies. Second Sight have nailed it once again.

#Movies #Horror #Reviews #Pop Culture #History

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