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ct-multifandom · 4 years ago

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MLB ideas/hopes/predictions/prompts

Bunnix using her umbrella to fly like Mary Poppins

Ladybug coming up with an overly convoluted Rube Goldberg machine type plan with her lucky charm, but not having some of the components, so she just sends Pegasus to the store in the middle of a battle

Characters who are close slowly finding out about each other’s superhero identities in funny ways

Pigella picking up something massive and like 10x heavier than her and chucking it

I really want one of these heroes’ tools to be a comically large anime-style weapon, but alas I don’t think they’d do it

Season finale boss fight featuring all the new heroes, which is totally gonna happen at some point, but it would look really busy on screen to have them all running around at once, so I’d split them into smaller teams based on their skills to carry out specific parts of Ladybug’s Epic 36-Step Plan™️. It would make for a satisfying “oh yeah, it’s all coming together” montage and also give us some unique character interactions.

Ladybug picking unique combo teams of new heroes based on their skills to fight specific strong villains

Alya starting a school paper and getting the whole team in on it. I love the episodes where the class does one big project together, they’re so cute.

Someone/a group getting akumatized on purpose to disobey Hawkmoth and take advantage of their akuma’s power for a noble goal

Episode from the POV of a boring background character detailing how the life of the average Parisian is affected by LB and CN. Unreliable scheduling, monster traffic jams, the sheer embarrassment of getting got by an akuma...

I want an animal to get akumatized. Someone’s dog who feels lonely when their favorite human gets a new, demanding job and turns into a terrifying Cerberus beast or something.

Mayor Bourgeois allocates some taxpayer dollars into a LB bank account to support her, and she has to make the very important decision on whether to save it for a real emergency or buy 17 hamburgers.

Okay part of me doesn’t want to make kwami/future hero predictions in case I accidentally come up with something way cooler than what will really happen and then be disappointed, but the other part of me is like hee hoo predikshun. So don’t expect these to actually happen lol.

I won’t talk about Multimouse because we kinda know everything about her, but she looks cute and it’s nice to see two heroes who aren’t super skinny.

The silhouette of Minotaurox in the intro doesn’t offer a lot of insight other than his epic horns. I have no idea what his tool might be. His costume looks to be pretty simple/practical, though, which is in line with Ivan’s character. I heard a theory that his power will be increasing in size, and it makes sense looking at Stoneheart and the pattern of flipping the characters’ flaws on their head, but that sounds kind of boring to me, especially compared to all the other creative abilities.

Tigresse’s silhouette makes me think her design will be awesome. Her tail looks like it might be her tool. It kind of resembles Amethyst’s whip from SU so maybe she can use it to grab things like Ladybug does with her yo-yo. I heard a theory that her power will be invisibility which I support because it takes the flaw that turned Juleka into Reflekta (wanting to be invisible out of insecurity) and makes it powerful like the stealth of a tiger.

From the silhouette, Caprikid looks a bit like a beginner’s Trollhunters cosplay, but I’m sure he’ll be cool. I’ve seen people argue whether he’s Nate or Marc and I’m positive he’s Marc (making Nate CC) so if anyone asks for an explanation I’ll make the comprehensive post on why. He’s holding his tool, and I’ve seen debate over which direction it’s in. If he’s holding it pointed up it looks like a giant calligraphy brush, but I think he’s holding it pointed down and the “brush” is just a decoration on the end. I’ve heard a theory that it’s a shepherd’s cane which is my favorite one. Personal idea here: I’d make his power telekinesis. Pretty basic, but I can imagine it being very useful for the type of scenarios we see in the show without it being OP. I like the idea of using a cane to “shepherd” something through the air. This could reflect Reverser’s desire for control, but flip it to be more collected and useful.

I fully support Coq Courage’s ninja pants, they are simply Correct. It’d be cool if his tool was a bow and arrow, and that seems like a pretty popular theory. The shape to the left of his torso looks like it might be a quiver but it’s probably just his other arm. Thumb rings are used in archery, but what little we’ve seen of the miraculous (disguised on Marinette and Chloe) shows a different type of ring. Still tho. Also get ready for my crazy never-gonna-happen idea: the bow can turn into a hang glider. Roosters can fly, but not super well/freely, which could translate to gliding. It’d add some versatility to the way the heroes move around since a lot of the temporary ones can only run, and it would let him reach places LB might not be able to. I’ve heard a theory that his power will be supersonic voice which could contrast how Nathaniel is bad at communicating and quiet until he gets mad and blows up.

Orikko might be the kwami of illumination. Roosters are associated with the sun and Evillustrator’s power was sourced from light. At first I thought his transformation words might be “sunrise” and “sunset” but someone said the activation code could be “rise and shine” which sounds awesome.

Traquemoiselle, believe it or not, is actually in the intro, she’s just hidden at the very top and only a snippet of the head is showing. All we know is that she has round dog ears. Barrk is surprisingly one of the more fleshed-out kwamis as of now, having a few solid lines of characterization in Furious Fu. Kwamis are usually yin-yang to their holder, so Barrk fits Sabrina perfectly, being loyal yet independent while Sabrina is loyal and an absolute doormat. No clue about her tool. Her power is kinda in the name: tracking. Maybe she can track down some one specific thing of her choice, but maybe she can sniff out akumas. As seen in Dark Owl and Gang of Secrets, Hawkmoth can be creative with akuma placement, so she can probably save the team from some close calls.

I have no theories for the transformation words of the other kwamis. Ziggy or Stompp could include “horns” or “charge” and Roaar “stripes” but I can’t think of any phrase including those words that isn’t too similar to an existing one. There are some phrases based on powers, though, not the animal. Or maybe they’ll just give up and give us another iteration of “Sass, scales slither”.

I think the theme for one of these remaining new heroes might be “assertion”. A lot of them struggle with that as their civilian selves, and the animals that are left can all be associated with independence/dominance, not that the animal traits always play into what the heroes are.

Ok last one, long one: in season 3, Luka’s main traits were “cool and nice” which doesn’t make for an interesting, complex major character, and at first he seemed like the perfect love interest, but from an outside perspective the extent of his kindness is kind of disturbing. I’m hoping they can flip this around and turn it into a character flaw where he has practically no boundaries, and it turns into a problem. Maybe he could agree to run random errands for the background characters for nothing in return, and at first it’s just him being nice, but later people start seeing his help as an obligation. They get peeved when he’s unavailable one day and get akumatized into a “boss rush” of classic akumas, effectively trapping and forcing him to help them. Then Tigresse Pourpe comes and helps save the day, expanding on Juleka and Luka’s relationship. The resolution can teach kids that putting yourself first isn’t necessarily selfish, and that sitting back and letting people take advantage of your kindness isn’t heroic.

There’s probably some stuff I forgot which I can put in a different post later, but lmk if you want a separate post about any of these things in more detail! This was just me rambling out all my new hyperfixation thoughts. Also if anyone uses any of the hypotheticals/scenarios as a prompt I’d love to see it.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #miraculous spoilers #miraculous les aventures de ladybug et chat noir #miraculous season 4 #miraculous lb #too lazy to add all the character tags #long post #brain go brrrr

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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FEATURE: Why Kamen Rider Black Remains Well-Loved After Nearly 35 Years

Image via Toei

For decades now, fans of Japanese tokusatsu (live-action with heavy special effects) have been getting to know each other with one simple question: “Which Kamen Rider do you like best?” With nearly 130 characters to choose from, each one sporting a distinct theme, setting, and ability, picking your favorite vaguely-grasshopper-themed, armored superpowered character is almost like a personality test that reveals who you are as a person.

Maybe your favorite Rider is Wataru Kurenai, a hardworking oddball loner who transforms into the Halloween-themed Kamen Rider Kiva. Or maybe your favorite is Gentaro Kisaragi, an optimistic and badass idiot whose dream is to be friends with everyone and who fights evil as the rocket-themed Kamen Rider Fourze. Or how about Oren Pierre Alfonzo, a queer ex-member of the French Foreign Legion, a world-famous pastry chef, and owner of one of the most badass Kamen Rider armors in the entire franchise: Durian Arms?

Image via Toei

In a group so diverse, it feels almost impossible to stand out, yet Kamen Rider Black (1987-1988) seems to have done just that with all the sequels, remakes, and reboots that it spawned. Kamen Rider Black RX was the first direct follow-up to a Kamen Rider show in the history of the franchise and became the basis for Masked Rider, which was Saban’s attempt to bring Kamen Rider to the US like it did with Super Sentai/Power Rangers. In spring of 2022, we will even get a more adult-themed reboot of the original called Kamen Rider Black Sun, directed by Kazuya Shiraishi who’s very much NOT a tokusatsu director. He’s actually more known for gritty dramas that explore the darker side of the human psyche like the excellent but sadly underappreciated Birds Without Names. This might actually be our first clue as to the enduring popularity of Kamen Rider Black.

A More Serious Tone

Image via Toei

Making a “darker” version of Kamen Rider Black will actually be quite easy seeing as the original series was pretty dark to begin with. The show dealt with two foster brothers, Kotaro Minami and Nobuhiko Akizuki, being kidnapped and cybernetically enhanced by the evil cult called Gorgom who want them to become their next leader, the nightmarish Creation King. Most previous Riders also gained their powers against their wills at the hands of one evil organization or another, but what sets Kamen Rider Black apart from them is just how much focus is given to everything the main character lost because of it.

Through flashbacks and present-day interactions with his friends and family, the show takes its time to let us know the person underneath the (now iconic) Kamen Rider Black armor. Once you start seeing him less as a superhero and more as a human in an unbelievably tragic situation, the show throws more tragedy at you as it lets you know the story is building up to Kotaro and Nobuhiko having to fight each other to the death. Although it’s not terribly complex, the story has an almost Shakespearean quality to it. But that’s not the only place where it excels.

Creative Fight Scenes and Knowing Its Limitations

Image via Toei

The special effects in Kamen Rider Black ... sometimes take you out of the story. But the show tries to make up for it with creative practical effects, especially when it comes to the fights.

Every Kamen Rider iteration lives or dies through its fights, and among the first eight shows, Kamen Rider Black probably has the best combat scenes. Every punch or kick feels like it really hurts — and there are a lot of them in every episode. The action is lightning fast and incredibly inventive, taking advantage of each set up in its own, original way. For example, in the very first episode, Kamen Rider Black battles spider monsters, with the show taking full advantage of the enemy’s web-shooting ability. There’s swinging, there is binding, and there is a lot of focus on the monsters themselves, which are pure nightmare fuel.

Now compare it to the second episode where Kotaro battles a leopard mutant. Here, the action is totally different because he’s fighting a monster that uses speed as a weapon. The battle is full of scenes of confusion and speed blurs which not only set the fight apart from what we’ve seen in the earlier episode, it also helps conceal the leopard mutant costume, which was as far from the best as you can get. But it shows that the series is aware of its shortcomings and tries to find creative ways around them, and you have to respect it for that.

Nailing the Fundamentals

mage via Toei

Kamen Rider Black doesn’t feature the most tragic backstory ever, nor does it have the best fight scenes in the franchise. Those all came later, primarily from the Heisei era (1989–2019). But Black was the first to truly get that ball rolling with its relatable, human character, fights that were more than just acrobatic punches and kicks, and a story that followed a simple Monster of the Week format but also had something much bigger hanging above it.

You could tune in to the show at any time and enjoy the creative and often actually scary-looking monsters that Kotaro fought in inventive ways, but all of it was slowly building to the ultimate, tragic confrontation with his brother. It all just made you feel like you were watching something epic in a franchise that, up until now, had more than its share of campy moments. Basically, Kamen Rider Black and Kamen Rider Black RX are remembered today because they did so much with very simple ingredients, taking them as far as they could go. This left the following shows no other choice but to grow and try out new things, ultimately leading to 50 years of Kamen Rider. A lot of people remember what Kamen Rider Black and Kamen Rider Black RX did for the franchise as a whole, and many fans will undoubtedly check out Kamen Rider Black Sun to see if it will have as much dedication and love for the iconic main character as the original did.

Are you a fan of Kamen Rider Black? What do you love about it? Are you planning to watch the reboot series? Let us know in the comment section!

Cezary writes words on the internet. You should follow him on Twitter.

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By: Cezary Strusiewicz

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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phantastus · 4 years ago

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Is there any symbolism behind the bird scientific names tags representing Silent Hill characters? Like, did you pick them for any particular reasons? 👀

Oh man, well, I guess I never went into detail about them anywhere. They definitely were picked for a reason but the reason is related to a currently-unwritten fanfic and literally who knows when that’s going to happen (Gravity needs to get finished first and who knows when that’s going to happen :’]), so I might as well try and do it now.

When I was in college I started coming up with concepts and symbolism for a fic project and because I’m obsessed with birds all of it involved birds and the title of the fic was appropriately “Four and Twenty Blackbirds”, with the ‘four’ specifically referring to Harry, James, Heather, and Henry (because they were the main characters). Each of them had a different ‘blackbird’ species representing them.

So when I decided to make separate aesthetic/inspo tags for individual characters (I already have a #silent feels tag for general SH inspiration, but I am crazy and it was NOT CONVOLUTED ENOUGH FOR ME), I decided to use the scientific bird names since it was conveniently already cemented in my brain. THIS IS GOING TO BE VERY, VERY LONG SO I’M PUTTING IT UNDER A READMORE. Click for pretentious Silent Hill fan analysis.

HARRY MASON | CORVUS BRACHYRYNCHOS (American Crow)

Harry Mason is the “”generic”” all-American protagonist who rises to a heroic status pretty much out of sheer determination and a commitment to his loved one. He’s not an unusual person, in fact he’s deceptively normal-- so the American crow felt right for him since they’re so common. You see them so often you don’t even think about them, but they’re smart, resourceful, and resilient survivors (something that especially comes into play with Harry post-SH1 when he’s eluding the Order). Harry is underestimated because of his normalcy but he’s capable of incredible things.

Also crows (and other corvids) have deep, almost humanlike family bonds between parents and offspring. They’ll maintain relationships even after the babies grow up and become fully self-sufficient, with the adult children regularly visiting their parents and socializing or helping to take care of younger siblings.

In the context of the fic Harry’s symbolic/prophetic connection to such a common “pest” species is sort of a derogatory assignment on the part of the Order/the town, as he’s seen as a heretic troublemaker (CULTS HATE HIM!! LOCAL MAN STEALS MESSIAH AND THWARTS FATE WITH ONE COOL TRICK!)

JAMES SUNDERLAND | CORVUS CORAX (Common Raven)

Ravens are like the most symbolic corvid, every gothic poet/novelist/artist and their grandma used them to represent death, grief and malaise, and James’s story is nothing if not filled with all three of those things. I mean, come on: “By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.” -Edgar Allen Poe, u know where it’s from.

Also in college, I got very interested in the myth “Raven Steals the Sun”, which has a number of different variations (it’s a story shared across multiple First Nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, there’s no one clear origin-- you can read about a couple of versions here!) but most involve the titular Raven delivering the Sun to the world after stealing or freeing it from a dark place where it was kept. Depending on the version, Raven's motives can either be purely selfish or more benevolent, and sometimes starts the story as a pure white bird who is stained black with soot in the act of taking the Sun. The duality of Raven’s intentions as well as the theme of light/warmth being hidden in darkness until it’s brought out felt fitting for a character whose motivations are complex and left a little ambiguous in canon (James grapples with whether his own act was purely selfish or one of love/mercy) AND someone who is naturally warm and caring but slipped behind a cold, dark wall of depression and self-isolation. The theme of being permanently marked/transformed by an act, whether for good or for bad, felt fitting too.

(Obligatory Disclaimer That My (Very White) Personal Interpretation Should Not Remotely Be Considered An Authentic Take On The Myth And Is Not Intended To Be Appropriation. For fic purposes the story would only have come up as an interesting symbolic parallel/running motif among many others, not a Literal Connection. James is a clueless white dude and Silent Hill doesn’t even take place on the west coast.)

“BUT WAIT! Doesn’t stealing the sun from a malevolent party and freeing it sound sort of like Harry rescuing Alessa/Cheryl/Heather??” Yes, this was going to be a source of in-character confusion and a surprise twist when it turns out they got their birds mixed up. Blah blah nothing is as it seems and destiny is mutable.

One time while I was walking on a foggy beach I got followed around by an enormous raven who was just sort of waddle-hopping after me looking forlorn and scruffy and the experience stuck with me and now all these years later my enormous galaxy brain is just like “That was Big James Energy”.

Wow that was long, I’m sorry.

HENRY TOWNSHEND | CORVUS FRUGILEGUS (Rook)

The most obvious symbolism is probably the chess piece with the same name-- that felt fitting for Henry since he’s probably the protagonist who has to do the most strategizing. Between his limited inventory and his progressively-more-cursed apartment and escorting Eileen and his five billion trips across multiple fractured Otherworlds, my poor guy has a lot to mentally keep track of. In the fic, he was going to wind up being the one to keep track of all the weird complicated bullshit items and rituals they had to complete to get through the Otherworld.

The rook chess piece also resembles a castle, and unlike the other protagonists whose stories progress in a linear fashion, Henry operates from/returns to his home base shitty cursed apartment.

BUT ONTO THE BIRD the rook is a corvid like the crow and the raven, and shares their pest/death omen status in popular culture. Just appropriate for SH protags in general since they keep getting in the way of the cult’s business and also misfortune follows them.

In the SH3 Crematorium Puzzle (I’ll talk more about that in Heather’s section), there is a poem: "The black Rook is the praying sort Who hears the gods in the skies His whispered petitions go on without end And glassy and dim are his eyes" Obviously this does NOT describe Henry as a person, but it IS eerily reminiscent of the title that was thrust upon him: Receiver. Maybe if Walter’s plans had succeeded, this is how Henry would have ended up.

There is also an old belief that if rooks abandon an established “rookery” (place where they regularly roost), it’s a sign of calamity to follow. If Henry the Certified Homebody (tm) bursts out of the apartment complex and goes staggering down the street, you should get out of that apartment complex.

HEATHER MASON | AGELAIUS PHOENICEUS (Red-Winged Blackbird)

Oh boy this one’s probably the weirdest but here we go.

The first obvious thing is that unlike the other three, the red-winged blackbird is not actually a corvid (it’s from the Icteridae family, not the Corvidae family). In-universe, this was supposed to represent Heather being inherently different from the rest (like... she basically is an iteration of the Silent Hill deity), even if she seems to be a normal human. Harry’s act of stealing her from the Order and changing her appearance/name to hide her was going to be depicted as “dousing Her in black ink, but [the ink] not able to fully conceal Her radiance”. The red and gold shoulders of the blackbird visually symbolize her “””true nature””” peeking out.

I also associate her specifically with the MALE red-winged blackbird (the female looks completely different, hooray sexual dimorphism) because gender is a fuck and Heather understandably has some really intense and complicated issues with womanhood/femininity. One of my favorite aspects of her as a character is how she blurs the line between masculine and feminine, especially since she’s been through so much... extremely gendered violence, to put it lightly. Heather Mason says FUCK YOUR GENDER BINARY.

As a fun side-note, Heather is also represented (or appears to be, ymmv) by a bird in canon! The SH3 Crematorium puzzle (on hard mode) features a series of poems each about birds, and each one represents a character if you squint. Heather seems to be referenced in this one: "The Wren, with pure heart as yet unrefined Makes us laugh with his feeble lip-smacking But still we all know he shall never grow old And he knows not how much he is lacking." Heather’s role as a brash, foolhardy youth who talks tough to cope is pretty blatantly summed up in there, as is the fact that she’s... functionally immortal and keeps fucking reincarnating. The wren, a plucky little bird, is perfect for her. The part of the main riddle that references the wren is also... ominously on the nose, given Heather’s backstory: "Burn the one who knows no death Pure, adored by those above No prayers within, just simple love.”

YET ANOTHER CREMATORIUM POEM could be construed as representing the town’s God (or the spiritual force of the land, w/e), damaged/corrupted/turned malevolent by All The Bullshit: "The Kite, hot, crazy, and panting mad Sweet shackles that tease and excite Death itself would drive him wild Red blood that turns milky white" Heather is a pure-hearted protagonist in one sense, but there’s plenty of not-so-subtle hints to a bloodlust and desire for violence just waiting to break free (ESPECIALLY when Heather does certain things that could be considered taking on the role of God). So to me the Kite is what happens when Heather gets sick of being nice and decides to go apeshit.

“BUT WAIT what does this have to do with the red-winged blackbird?” The inherent trinity of Heather’s character (Alessa/Cheryl/Heather, the Mother of God/Daughter of God/God Herself) deserves a bird trinity too. I’M GREEDY, I WANT *ALL* THE BIRD METAPHORS!

Red-winged blackbirds are bold little shits who will straight up harass birds of prey. Kind of like Heather does to God.

The fact that “phoeniceus” was part of the scientific name was a VERY delightful coincidence-- but I’m not complaining about how satisfying I found it that my Bird Choice (tm) inadvertently connects her to the concept of the phoenix, poster child of pyrogenesis.

That was even longer than James’, I’m so sorry.

SO THAT’S THE META BEHIND THOSE CHOICES FOR THE FOUR MAIN CHARACTERS. If you’re still interested after all that BS, I can write up another (probably much shorter) post for the other characters. Thanks for the ask!

#Silent Hill #Harry Mason #James Sunderland #Heather Mason #kit rambles about silent hill #my dumb fanfic #poppycrowns

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artemis-entreri · 5 years ago

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[[ This post contains Part 2 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

I. Introduction

II. Positives II.1 Pure Positives II.2 Muddled Positives

III. Mediocre Writing Style (you are here) III.1 Bad Descriptions III.2 Salvatorisms III.3 Laborious “Action”

IV. Poor Characterization IV.1 “Maestro” IV.2 Lieutenant IV.3 Barbarian IV.4 “Hero” IV.5 Mother

V. World Breaks V.1 Blinders Against the Greater World V.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril V.3 Self-Inconsistency V.4 Dungeon Amateur V.5 Utter Nonsense

VI. Ego Stroking VI.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall VI.2 Me, Myself, and I

VII. World Breaks VII.1 No Homo VII.2 Disrespect of Women VII.3 Social-normalization VII.4 Eugenics

VIII. What’s Next VIII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood VIII.2 Profane Redemption VIII.3 Passing the Torch VIII.4 Don’t Notice Me Senpai

Mediocre Writing Style

I admire some authors for their lyrical phrases, some for their poignant imagery, some for their rapid-fire dialogues, and with so many others, for their ability to show a true mastery of language. I have never felt this way about Salvatore's literature, which will probably never win any awards for its diction if it remains consistent to its current level of quality. Salvatore has his moments, which I've described in the previous section, but sadly, they range from being vastly to overwhelmingly dwarfed by the rote and tedious writing practices he employs. It doesn't help that in addition to the employment of unimaginative diction, Salvatore writes a lot of long and laborious scenes full of words that serve little more than to fill up space. There is so much telling instead of showing, a problem further compounded by the exhausting amount of poorly-chosen anecdotes which he relates that, despite being a nonstop action book, Boundless is very hard to pick back up after putting it down. And, of course, there's the repetition of the same themes, of the same kind of things happening to the same characters, that certainly doesn't help the predictability.

Bad Descriptions

For every good turn of phrase I mentioned earlier, there exists a score of bad ones. If I were to give examples of all of them, with the other things I'd like to discuss, this article would end up being as long as the novel itself, so I'll simply point out the most cringe-worthy ones.

The metaphor that takes the cake for the worst of the book is, "The horde had come, and now it pounced upon them misshapen humanoid forms, the wretched lesser demons known as manes, shambling out of the brush like an army of humans risen from the dead." Basically, what is happening here is that Salvatore pretty much wrote, "those demons came shambling out like zombies". It doesn't matter how much one dresses up a turd, the most one gets from the effort is a fancier-looking but just as stinky piece of excrement. Furthermore, the dressings that Salvatore uses in this example are flimsy and unsatisfactory in substance, with the vague adjective "wretched" that's as descriptive here as his customary usages of "magnificent"/"fine" and the tedious repetition in "humanoid" and "human". Additionally, it begs the question of why Salvatore specified an army of humans in a world in which the undead of all races would shamble, or, better yet, why not simply say "zombie", for a zombie is a prevalent and known theme in both the Realms and our world. It would've been one of the few ways Salvatore uses a shared concept without incurring a world break like he normally does.

A close second in the diction mediocrity contest is, "as if Yvonnel's breath, blowing them out, was that of a magical dragon, one designed specifically against the life force of a demon." Why a "magical dragon"? Are there non-magical dragons that breathe magic? Not that there exists a type of dragon in Forgotten Realms lore with a breath weapon that is specifically designed against the life force of a demon. However, as is par for his course, to counteract lore not agreeing with his lazy constructions, Salvatore doesn't bother to research an appropriate in-universe analogy. He completely invents one but doesn't actually develop it, not that doing so would be appropriate in this context, but the creation of it is wholly unnecessary for the sake of a poor analogy.

Another awful passage is, "with horrid creatures -- half drow and half spider -- all around the drow women and filtering back through the many shadows of the forest. Scores of these horrid mutants milled about..." It's bad enough to use the adjective "horrid" in an empty and vague way, but to do it twice in quick succession makes it seem like Salvatore doesn't know how to describe driders. By itself, a half-drow half-spider creature isn't inherently abominable. There's an increasingly large number of art pieces featuring dark elf arachnid centaurs, with beautiful humanoid faces and torsos attached to streamlined spider bodies that would even give arachnaphobes pause. What makes driders menacing, which Salvatore has described himself in the past, is that they're not these romanticized images of spider centaurs. Their humanoid torsos, rather than looking like they should belong to supermodels, are bloated and misshapen such that they're more reminiscent of the flesh beasts of nightmares. They have vicious mandibles protruding from their cheeks, sometimes multiple insectoid eyes, making their faces look more decidedly non-elven even with pointed ears. Admittedly, the physical appearance of driders has fluctuated through the D&D editions, but it's as though Salvatore couldn't be bothered to look up what their current iteration is. Maybe he did try and couldn't find a definitive answer, in which case he could've approached the drider's description in a more evocative way, for example by describing how the tips of their arachnid legs were sharp like swords digging into the earth, or perhaps by mentioning their aura of menace as they regarded the dwarves whom they towered over with hungry anticipation, as though the shorter folk were their cocooned victims waiting to be devoured. Or, even referencing how the driders came to be, the excruciating transformation process and fall out of favor with their goddess, both of which would've rendered them at least slightly unhinged.

Some descriptions consist of fewer words, but are just as bad. For instance, Jarlaxle's bracers are at one point described as "magical wrist pouch". This evokes an imagery of literal pouches hanging from around his wrists, dangling like a pair of testicles in the wind, testicles that shoot out magical daggers into Jarlaxle's hands. Another similar example doesn't contain an analogy but is just as bad is, "a smallish man dressed in finery worthy of a noble house. His face was clean-shaven, his hair cut short and neatly trimmed." This description is so ambiguous and features adjectives that have been applied so frequently to other characters that it could have easily been Artemis Entreri, except it is someone quite different (Kimmuriel Oblodra). Putting aside how jarring it is to use "man" to describe male drow, there's a world break here in that drow shouldn't need to be clean-shaven, as they can't really grow facial hair, but at least there's the nice detail that Kimmuriel is apparently short-haired, contrary to what many assume of him to have long hair. Nonetheless, what happened to the usage of the word "short"? Furthermore, why not just state a height for Kimmuriel and put it into his character bible? To be fair, I've speculated that Salvatore doesn't use character bibles, but it's never too late to start.

Salvatorisms

Boundless sees a return of what I've dubbed “Salvatorisms”, which are clichés and poor sentence structures that Salvatore abuses frequently. In Boundless, there's more than just those Salvatorisms dragging the narrative down. It's disappointing to see a professional author, especially one who'd been working in the field for over three decades, fail to follow a rule taught to amateur writers. Making the New York Times' Bestsellers' list does not make the usage of clichés, such as "merry band of misfits", acceptable. Especially considering how it's not even appropriate in the context that it's used for, namely, describing Bregan D'aerthe. Even though it's a priestess of Lolth who is considering the mercenary band this way, it's so incredibly unlikely that she'd think they were jolly, which the meaning of that cliché specifically includes.

In Boundless, we also see a return of the “how [character] [action]ed!” sentence construction, after a refreshingly complete lack of any in Timeless. This is one of Salvatore's favorite ways to tell and not show, for stating how a certain thing performs a certain feat doesn't, ironically, actually ever convey how that thing is done. There's a new overused Salvatorism to add to his cliché stable, namely, the “up went”, “down went”, and other similar ways to open a sentence. There's nothing wrong with these kinds of phrases when used sparingly and with variety. As it is, the flavor of the text is quite intolerable, seasoned as it is with an excess of one type of additive. By the same token, in a fight scene between Arathis Hune and Zaknafein, Zaknafein's superior prowess is indicated by the sentence, "Except Zaknafein wasn't there". This sort of device can be effective to convey surprise and the unexpected, again, when used sparingly, but unfortunately, it is yet another one of Salvatore's favorite writing practices. The sentence is hardly even a proper sentence, but is used as its own paragraph.

The telling and not showing approach in Boundless extends beyond the diction. On numerous occasions, it's almost as if Salvatore couldn't be bothered to actually demonstrate how something is true, but instead, just tells us that it's the way it is. One way that he does this is through the usage of rhetorical questions, for instance, "Could anything be more invasive and traumatizing than having your body stolen from your control and turned against you?" I'm not sure if any of his readers can actually answer that question from personal experience. It's almost as though Salvatore did that purposely to minimize the possibility of someone realizing that different strokes exist for different folks and that the most traumatizing scenario for one person could be very different from that of another person. That aside however, a question like this leaves little room for imagination, and is even a bit bullying, for it corners the readers into having to answer "no" even while the scenario painted prior to it was not powerful enough to solidify that impression.

Another way that Salvatore tells rather than shows is to use empty comparisons that lack a frame of reference. For instance, the reader is to understand Athrogate's strength and resolve through, "A lesser fighter would have fallen away in terror. A less sturdy person would have simply melted before the reeking horror." The problem with these statements is that they don't serve any purpose. They state the obvious, and are a poor attempt at being evocative. They have the same effect as simply stating that Athrogate stood his ground and didn't falter, except being more verbose and less effective.

It's not just word usage that's repetitive. Boundless sees a continuation of the theme of having the same sort of things happen to the same characters. It's as though each character is a designated target for certain motifs, with those motifs not being applicable to other characters. For instance, Entreri appears to be the go-to target for torture, and after being made the one with the repeated childhood sexual assault, the sexual victimization in Menzoberranzan, the victim of rape by a succubus in Neverwinter and the over seven decades of enslavement, I'm getting very sick of seeing him the victim of yet another long-term grueling experience. Meanwhile, Drizzt is as holier-than-thou and full of sanctimony as he was in Timeless, and it's not a flattering look for him. I'm not sure if Salvatore thinks it is, but it isn't so much character consistency as stubborn obnoxiousness. In Drizzt's journal entry, he writes, "I fear that Zaknafein's transformation will not come in time to earn friendship, even familial love, from Catti-brie or from our child, and in that instance, it will not be in time to earn the love of Drizzt Do'Urden." Drizzt then goes on to state, "But he is my family by blood, and she is my family by choice. I have come to learn that the latter is a stronger bond." While the message that's attempted to be conveyed here is a very important one, the validity of it is harmed by the context. It's very unfair for Zaknafein to be presented as though he were more akin to the other Do'Urdens instead of the unconditionally loving father who didn't hesitate to put himself in harm's way, including dying in excruciating and humiliating ways so that his son could have a chance at freedom. This is yet another scenario in which Salvatore creates unnecessary drama while ignoring facets of his story that have genuine dramatic potential. Zaknafein is not the type of character with whom Drizzt should have to choose between family by blood and family by choice, as he's already shown that Zaknafein is trying his best to adapt to the new world. It is true that there are few opportunities for Drizzt to flaunt his moral beacon in Boundless, but there's nothing wrong with that, and should've just been left as it is, but it's as though Salvatore can't write a Drizzt novel without Drizzt having to be sanctimonious and preachy. It was wholly unnecessary to villainize a non-villainous character to repeat some of the same old tired writing practices.

Also in the category of repetitive and tired themes, albeit one that doesn't further butcher the characters, is the catching of projectiles in one's cloak. This is a phenomenon that happens so frequently in the Drizzt books that had a reader no knowledge of the purpose of cloaks, they might think that their main purpose is to act as an anti-missile system. Cloaks originally became common because they protected the wearer from inclement weather while allowing access to the wearer's worn possessions. In D&D and other games, it became an additional equipment slot and as such, gained an practical value as well. A cloak without enhancing properties would actually serve as a detriment in a fight, acting as a loose and difficult to control extension of one's body that can be easily grabbed by the opponent, something that's accurately made a point of in The Incredibles. I suppose that there could exist a magical item like a Cloak of Missile Catching, but this isn't what any of Salvatore's characters ever wear. It's difficult to give Salvatore points for coming up with a creative use for what's basically an aesthetic item because it's just so impractical and unrealistic. It doesn't help that he repeats this motif so much that it approaches ego-stroking levels.

The second most major contributing factor to Boundless' tediousness is the obscenely large amount of recollections strewn throughout the book, making them overall more unsightly than the plastic polluting our modern day oceans. In the scenes set during the current timeline, almost at every turn we're given a history of what so-and-so is, or who so-and-so have associations with. These reviews, although brief, make up for their concision with their frequency. I can understand why Salvatore does this, for Timeless wasn't as standalone as he'd hoped, but his attempted method to rectify this fact in Boundless is more distracting than enlightening. Especially considering that much of the reviewed content is along the lines of, "Drizzt, trained in the ways of the monk by Grandmaster Kane", ergo, telling us how awesome Salvatore's protagonists are rather than shedding light into the significant events that shaped what is happening in the current book. When a significant event is mentioned, it is done so in such a cursory way that all a new reader would know is that something happened in the past that relates to what is happening presently, but otherwise it's like explaining different colors to someone who's never had vision before. For instance, "this was a trick Kimmuriel had used before, and very recently with Drizzt in Menzoberranzan, creating a telekinetic barrier that absorbed the power of every strike, magical or physical, holding it in stasis, ready for the magically armored person to release it back." This recap does manage to explain the relevant mechanic, however it also alludes to a very significant event, yet it's unclear what the purpose of it doing so is. The reference to what Drizzt did in Menzoberranzan doesn't say enough to allow anyone who hasn't read Hero to understand, but someone who's read Hero should remember the details of the climax of the book. So much of what Boundless presents is like this, retreads that make the novel tedious to read for those who have been reading, and probably only serve to further confuse those who haven't. Who is Salvatore writing for, then? Those who continue to throw money his way but never pay enough attention to what happens in his books to remember the climaxes? Are these the kinds of people that any author should point to as "proof" of their literary excellence?

Laborious "Action"

The one aspect that drives most of Boundless' tediousness is the sheer amount of long and boring action sequences that are wordy and not much of anything else. Salvatore's action scenes are more reminiscent of IKEA furniture assembly instructions than descriptive imagery, except that IKEA instructions are actually visual enough for one to use in constructing a pragmatic (and sturdy) physical object. Salvatore's action scenes are reminiscent of the type of smut in fanfiction that gives fanfiction a bad name, namely, cut and dried descriptions that are more like making a grocery list than painting a picture. At the very least, Salvatore's action scenes are not too anatomically ridiculous (yet), which makes them slightly better than the kind of fanfiction referenced.

An example of a grocery list action scene is as follows:

There's so much going wrong in this passage. The inconsistent specificity of each element makes the whole feel like an incongruous collection of parts. Jarlaxle hooking his fingers on a jag in the stone is clear enough, as is flipping over, and rolling his feet can be understood even if vague, but how all of that ties together is as clear as a chunk of obsidian. How Jarlaxle pulled himself around the base of a mound isn't articulated, other than that he did it while keeping his momentum, which is superfluous because any acrobatic maneuver would keep its momentum because momentum is what makes those maneuvers possible. It's like the only basic physics concept that Salvatore understands is gravity, because "he fell with gravity" is one of the few things he doesn't spell out in his action scenes. In any case, specifics like if Jarlaxle went left or right aren't what's needed, but rather, how about some evocative imagery like, "he snapped like a whip around the sharp turn"? I'm not saying that's the correct analogy to use, I honestly don't know, because I have no idea what's supposed to be going on in this passage. The same is true of what's said of Zaknafein, which while a bit better, is still painfully dry. Some of the stuff doesn't make sense, for instance, how did Zaknafein leap on the wide base of the stalagmite? The base of a stalagmite is that which the stone formation grows out of, inside the rock itself, does Salvatore mean that Zaknafein propelled himself off of the side of the stalagmite near its base? The rest of the sequence, it's unclear what Zaknafein is flipping over and running along. Is it still the same stalagmite, or a different stalagmite? All of that is just words words words, except, of course, the one thing that's clear enough: that Drizzt is awesome and so is his dad.

Another grocery list action scene is, "A glance left, a glance right, and off he sprinted, up the side of a stalagmite mound, leaping, spinning, somersaulting, to hit the ground in perfect balance and at a full run." What this scene brings to mind is more along the lines of a Driver's Ed course followed by the Sky Dancer toy from the 90s rather than the agile moves of an acrobat. Again, an excess number of words are used to little effect, and all that's conveyed is, "Zaknafein is awesome". I almost feel like he should be clad in skin-tight black leather and be wearing high-tech sunglasses.

Yet another example of writing that only conveys how awesome Salvatore's characters are is, "the barbarian came to realize that this foe was far more akin to Drizzt or Entreri than to what he'd expect from a pampered Waterdhavian lord. The man's sword worked in a blur, every movement sending it at Wulfgar in a different angle, sometimes a slash, sometimes a stab, sometimes a punch from the hilt." The first sentence in this passage, although not describing any action, tells us a lot more about Wulfgar's opponent than the second sentence, which does actively describe the man's actions, even to a new reader whom wouldn't know about Entreri's history and what makes him what he is. Furthermore, there's a stuttered nature to the second sentence, with the "blur" description disagreeing with the choppy rhythm of the specified attacks. Rather than a blur, the noble's attacks feel more like a predictable pattern of programmed thrusts from an automated training dummy.

Boundless wouldn't be the first Salvatore book in which I'd wondered if he'd confused himself with his writing. One example of what leads me to think so from this novel is:

What is even going on here? Did Salvatore switch Zaknafein and Jarlaxle's names by accident, intending for Zaknafein to be the one caught by surprise? Zaknafein's "don't wait for us!" suggests that he knows what's going on and has some level of confidence in the circumstances, yet as is demonstrated later in the passage, this is not the case. Indeed, later in the sequence (not shown), Jarlaxle is the one in control, deploying a back-up plan to guarantee their safety amidst the chaos. Yet, it's unlikely for Jarlaxle to scream, and Zaknafein to gasp, so perhaps Salvatore meant what he wrote. It's all too convoluted to tell, however. Further, while its a trifle nit-picky, wouldn't the command to "Let 'em fly, boys!" come before the quarrels were discharged? I mean, these are quarrels that do make things like stalactites explode, both powerfully AND beautifully, but dwarves have a lot of discipline.

Perhaps the most tedious action sequences are Zaknafein's extensive training montages, like the one in chapter four. It takes up literally forty percent of the chapter and proceeds in excruciatingly dry detail. The entirety of it is too long to quote here, but there are a lot of statements like, "hands across his belly to grab the hilts of his swords at his hips, right forearm over left", "he turned his right wrist as that sword came across bringing it vertical in its sweep, then shortening the cut, while the left went across perfectly horizontally, with full follow-through and even a step with the left foot in that direction", "he went to a series of same-hand, same-hip draws, where he brought forth the sword on his left hip with his left hand, right hand for the right", and so on. It's like Salvatore is writing The Dummy's Guide to Drow Swordfighting, as these sentences are more like step by step guide points than flowing combat moves. It's actually worse than that, because more than likely, these moves are more theatrical than actually practical, such that anyone who followed such a guide would indeed be a dummy, and quite a dead one at that if they expected to survive in drow society like that. And there's just so much of it, such that it begs the question of if Salvatore had a word count quota that he had to fill.

Finally, after a refreshing break away from it in Timeless, the standard Salvatore C-rated Hollywood stop motion fight scenes are back. Speaking to many members of the SCA and historical combat re-enacters and fencers, including ones who have read Salvatore's books, have taught me that most of the combat scenes, specifically concerning the usage of swords, are totally wrong. A consensus among the actual martial artists is that there's a lot of slashing when there should be stabbing, and the way that the characters conduct themselves in combat is more akin to sports than martial arts, being particularly evocative of hockey. It isn't surprising that Salvatore's inspiration comes from hockey, that is what he knows after all (more than swordsmanship and D&D anyway), but it seems that rather than improving his knowledge with research, he supplements it with popular themes in movies. Something like, "slowly they closed, though, until they were but a few strides away, when both, as if some silent understanding had passed between them, leaped into the air and roared" feels more like a transcription from a live action sequence, for in reality no purpose is served for two combatants to leap at each other roaring. It's a waste of energy, especially as the two have been aware of each other's prowess for a while and are not easily intimidated. If this scene was something that we were watching rather than reading, the sound effects might enhance the the drama, and while imagined sound effects can do the same for a written scene, something as bland as simply "roaring", just makes the whole scene banal.

#ooc #Boundless #legend of drizzt #Forgotten realms #R A Salvatore #book review #Generations Trilogy #Artemis Entreri #Jarlaxle Baenre #Kimmuriel Oblodra #Yvonnel Baenre #Arathis Hune #Drizzt Do'Urden #Catti-brie #Athrogate #drow #drider

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lia-nikiforov · 7 years ago

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Fall 2017 Anime Watchlist

Blablabla school is kicking my butt blablabla I shouldn’t even be doing this blablabla THERE’S A LOT OF GOOD ANIME THIS SEASON

So naturally I’m gonna go back to my worst to best format for this list. Get the trash out first

Dropped

Dies Irae: Aren’t these villains named after actual historical Nazis who were directly involved with orchestrating the holocaust soooo cooooool , so interesting, such tortured profound souls that--- ugh, I just threw up in my mouth a little. I don’t care if the Nazis are the villains, making them into complex, appealing characters is unacceptable, less so given the times we live in.

(get it, it’s a real nazi getting punched in the face, aren’t you glad you follow me so I can provide you this quality content)

Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de aru: Yuusha no Sho: Because I wasn’t a big fan of the first season, I thought this might make for decent hate-watch, but it’s just not bad enough to warrant it. It’s also criminally boring. And because part of what made the original so bad was the ending, and this being a prequel we already know how it ends, there’s no point to it imho. I enjoy screaming at the void about shows I find stupid, but this one isn’t even worth the time. Ballroom is all the hatewatch material I’ll ever need

Black Clover: I could say a lot about this show’s egregious lack of uniqueness and originality, or how poorly executed the whole thing is, but really the only thing you need to know about this and why it’s an insufferable watch is:

THE!!!! PROTAGONIST !!!!!NEVER!!!!! STOPS!!!!! YELLING!!!!!!

Inuyashiki: My first problema with this show is the main dude is supposed to be 58 years old but he looks older than most 65+. It’s a dumb little thing, but it completely breaks my suspense of disbelief. Other than that, the writing is just so viscerally hateful it’s extremely uncomfortable to watch. What I’d understood from the synopsis was that the aliens had accidentally merged the old man and the young dude into a single robot body, but the way it is presented -with the old guy as the hero and the young guy as the villain- the moral of the story seems to be basically “millennials are killing the diamond industry”, or, in terms of a more well-known -though perhaps too easy- meme:

Urahara: I really wanted to like this show and support these young female creators in an industry that tends to not give them any opportunities. It’s not like it’s bad at all, nor is it offensive, it’s just really boring. The visuals are adorable, but the characters feel completely unreal –three high school girls run their own shop in Harajuku?-, especially pigtail girl who delivers every line like she was trying super hard to sound like an ojousama archetype. The show is completely committed to its Harajuku kawaii culture aesthetic and attitude, which is commendable but also something that honestly make me a little uncomfortable for no particular reason. I also feel extremely robbed off actual transformation sequences in this magical girl show. In a less busy season I might hold on to see where this went, but as it is, I’d rather wait and see how it ends and then decide if I should spend time on it.

Utter trash that I’m still gonna watch because I hate myself or something

Ousama Game: I think it’s important to make a distinction between hate-watch and irony-watch. Hatewatch is something you do with a show that’s terrible and probably offensive, but it never touches so-bad-it’s-good territory. You can pick the show apart for all of its flaws, be it an ill-conceived plot, poor characterization, or, you know, being grossly mysoginistic. Examples of shows I’ve hatewatched include KADO, Sailor Moon Crystal and Super Lovers. An Irony-watch is a show that pretty much everyone can agree is a dumpster fire, and it succeeds so much in its terribleness it’s histerical. Hand Shakers and Neo Yokio are prime examples of quality irony-watch material. And so is Ousama Game. It’s not even worth pointing out its flaws because there’s just nowhere to start, there is not a single thing this show does right and it’s hysterical. Of course it has the squick factor of having some gross fetish with people’s tongues lolling out and their faces getting ridiculously contracted in gross fashion when they die, but other than that, it takes itself so seriously and mixed with its 2006 low budget aesthetic the whole thing is madly hilarious.

Welcome to the Ballroom: This is my choice for hatewatch show of the seaon. After the disgusting dung that was episode 15, I’ve lost all hopes of the show ever getting “better” as was repeatedly promised by fans of the manga once the queen lord and savior Chinatsu appeared. Lo and behold, Chinatsu’s character arc is to learn to be more “feminine” and to let herself be “controlled” by Tatara. Throw in some casual homophobia just for good measure. I really have to wonder why the mangaka set out to write a manga about a sport that necessarily requires a man and a woman in partnership if she hates women so much and can’t treat them as anything above second-class citizens-

(srsly show, why do you hate women so much)

Sengoku Night Blood: It’s been a while since we got a dumbass Sengoku bishonen show that wasn’t aggressively boring. This one though, still challenges my tolerance limits for being dumbass ridiculous with its premise of vampire/werewolf Sengoku daimyo. The costumes and character designs are super ridiculous yet strangely non-distinctive. I have a hard time figuring out who is who because most lack their historical counterparts most notable features, and there’s a lot of same-face-iness everywhere. The show is clearly not afraid of embracing its otoge origins, the “love event” moments are terribly transparent. I just wish either the female character was completely erased or that the guys would stop treating her so badly. I know she’s useless, but I don’t understand why the show has dudes saying things such as “it’s really bothersome that you’re here” and frame them as if they were suuuuper romantic.

(lmfao there are no gifs for this one, maybe I’m the only sucker watching it)

Juuni Taisen: To be honest I was ready to drop this one after confirming it was gonna be more Nisio Isin fake philosophical bullshit that is actually just otaku fanservice. Instead I got schlocky ultra violence garbage and it’s actually kinda fun? Look, I’m gonna come clean, I’m just watching it for the necromancer chip’n-dale rabbit with high heels and a huge fluffy tail, but if that’s not a good reason to watch a show, none is.

Not bad, but not quite good

Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryoukou: This was another one that wasn’t quite on my radar before the season began, I only checked it out because it got excellent reviews. It’s actually surprisingly charming, although the pacing is slow, the muted color palette can be tiring and nothing really seems to be happening. I honestly struggled to stay awake during episode 2. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with the show, I’m considering dropping it because I’m just watching too much stuff and don’t have time, but I’ll wait for episode 3 to make my final decision (I’ll probably watch it Monday)

Shokoku no Altair: After the really good Sultan arc, apparently we had to go through another speed course on how to acquire new members for the party. I’m pretty much resigned to this not being the epic historical drama Arslan also failed to be, but it’s still sad to see this one getting the crappy production values while Inuyashiki is a lavishly animated production about bitter old men hating youngsters. Anyway, as long as further arcs can replicate the level of excitement and intrigue of the sultanlu arc, I’ll be looking forward to it and how Mahmut’s story unfolds.

Fate/Apocrypha: You can tell how trashy the summer season was that Fate, which was one of my favorite shows of the season, is barely in the middle of the pack of this crowded Fall season. It’s also worth noting that I’ve lost a lot of the goodwill I’d mustered for the show after the writers remembered Palurdo-kun was supposed to be the protagonist, so now that he’s taken the center stage (and become Astolfo’s Master, which is a travesty, Astolfo deserves so much better than satisfying otaku’s otokonoko fetiches orz) I find myself rolling my eyes more often than not. Still hope to get cool fights out of this one and more Astolfo and Mordred.

GARO Vanishing Line: MAPPA brings us a new iteration of the GARO franchise, this time with a modern setting that throws back to ultra macho 80s anime OVAs aesthetic –I wouldn’t know, never watched those-. The hero is a buff uber muscular dude that literally prays at women’s boobs and Zaruba is a giant motorcycle that thinks women stink. The production values are impressive, both fight scenes are incredibly cinematic and exciting. The hypermasculinity borders on the hilarious, but I wish it could do away with the sexist humor, which luckily hasn’t been abundant enough to be insufferable. It’s a little soon to judge because they’re barely introducing us to the characters, but I’m still hoping this won’t devolve into shit territory like Crimson Moon did.

Kino no Tabi: Full disclosure, I only watched the first season of Kino a few months ago, so I have it very fresh in my memory. Since I didn’t know that this new season was more a soft reboot rather than a sequel, I thought I needed to watch the first one to check this one out. Turns out it wasn’t necessary, but I’m still glad I did it because the first season is fantastic. Which is why I’m a little concerned about this one, because the reinterpretation of the Colisseum story was… not good. It rushed through the story and made Kino look like a psychopath. The first episode was good so I’m crossing my fingers that this won’t turn into a horrible mess, but so far I’m feeling cautious and worried. But even if this one turns out to be a good reboot, I’d 100% recommend you check out the original.

Anime is in Fact Good

Classicaloid: Another show that came back with a different director and that I worry will struggle to replicate what made the first season special. There are some tonal things that make the change very evident, but so far it has overall been pretty great nonetheless, Classicaloid insane business as usual. I must say “New character appears claiming to be X’s relative, X believes it and starts treating N better to the detriment of the established cast” is a trope I’m not too fond of, but I’m willing to give them some time purely because they have a Hippopotamus that can do Musik. Honestly watching anime makes one write the weirdest of sentences.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu. Something comedy shows have in their favor is that if they come back, even after a long time, it feels like they never left. Hoozuki’s the same old Hoozuki and it’s a load of fun. I’ve loved both episodes so far, I can’t even pick a favorite skit of the ones we’ve had so far because all of them were so good. There’s not really a lot to say, if you liked the first season you’ll like this one. As usual it’s only detriment is you may miss some of the jokes if you’re not familiar with Japanese folklore, but there’s a lot of fun to be had nonetheless.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie: Honestly, I’m very quick to judge a book by its cover, or in this case, an anime by its title. In this case, I promptly dismissed this as yet another otaku oriented harem videogame fantasy or whatever without even reading the synopsis. Then I heard the positive reactions to it and decided to give it a shot and boy was I pleasantly surprised! Not only does it feature a woman in her thirties as a protagonist –which is insanely rare! But it also focuses on delightfully adorable romance that breaches the barriers of gender. And honestly, there’s that scene in episode two in which Moriko sends a text and then horrified realizes it’s 2:00 am and feels super ashamed about it and it was so relatable I was 100% sold.

Best of the season

(don’t mind the order, I’ve loved all of these equally

Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau: So I may have misunderstood what this was about. I rarely read plot synopsis, so for some reason –I guess at first I thought the title was Kujira wa Sora- I thought there would be flying whales. There aren’t, but that’s definitely not a detriment to this incredible fantasy dystopian world. The color palette and the watercolor texture of the backgrounds gives it a magical atmosphere that is just a delight to watch. Although there’s a lot of exposition, none has felt like a forced infodump. The pacing is overall fantastic, and although the characters are a mystery for the most part, they’re already very endearing. This season is ripe with enchanting fantasy worlds and I’m really hyped about it.

Houseki no Kuni: I was concerned about the CG designs on this one, but they work surprisingly well! The plot is still a bit unclear, but they’ve done a really good job in building the characters through their relationships to one another. Even though we don’t know a lot about them, I felt a lot of empathy for Cinnabar and Diamond and Bort, and Phos is a pretty nice point of view character to follow around. I’m definitely intrigued by the concept, and the execution has been great so far.

Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond: I hadn’t realized how much I missed this show until I watched the first episode of this new season. The loss of Rie Matsumoto’s wonderful directorial vision is very noticeable in the straightforwardness of the storytelling, but otherwise the show is surprisingly still a load of bombastic fun with endearing characters and fascinating world building. I particularly liked the hospital episode. I’m not sure where this story is going, but I’m excited to go along for the ride.

The Ancient Magus Bride: It’s important to note that the first episode has a lot of questionable material (please, can Elias never ever call Chise a puppy ever again), but I have to commend a great production when I see it. Readers of the manga assure that the questionable content will be contextualized later on, so I’m hopeful, because I’m already really sold on this show and I really don’t want it to be gross. It’s hard to explain or describe, but it just has this fantasy magical charm and a beautiful production that got me hooked from start to finish. It has been hyped to hell and back and so far it has lived up to my expectations. I think, apart from the lovely production values, the characters feel very real and deep from start to finish. It’s hard to explain why I feel so drawn to this show that should have so many red alarms ringing in my head, but I can’t help feel completely charmed by it

How am I gonna survive such a busy season with so much homework? Will I die trying? Will Ballroom ever stop hating women and gay people? Stay tuned to find out! And let me know which shows you’re watching this season!

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rajasri-systems · 5 years ago

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Ethics of AI Image Recognition and Machine Learning in an Android Application Development

e utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) for image recognition offers extraordinary potential for business transformation and problem-solving. In any case, various duties are entwined with that potential. Prevalent among them is the need to understand how the hidden technologies work, and the safety and ethical contemplation required to direct their utilization.

Leverage the power AI For Facial recognition:

Facial recognition is the technology that aids in checking, verifying and approving the personality of an individual by perceiving their face. Facial recognition works by catching, breaking down and looking at facial examples from the individual’s face. Facial recognition has built up itself as the favored biometric benchmark. The main 3 classifications that are the main shoppers of facial recognition are Security, health, and marketing.

The flood in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) space has moved the development of facial recognition as key players intend to coordinate Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) with facial recognition systems.

How does facial recognition work?

You’re either acceptable with faces or not. All things considered, that is your memory doing the difficult work for you. We should discover how facial recognition really functions. Facial recognition is a complex framework including various advances, each having some expertise in a specific undertaking as a component of the procedure. As an individual’s face experiences a few changes during their lifetime, complex facial recognition frameworks consider different factors, for example, aging, plastic medical procedure, beautifying agents, impacts of medication use or smoking, posture, stance, and picture quality. Every one of these components adds to the general exactness of the recognition technology.

We can break this procedure into two consistent advances:

Pre-processing Stage

Recognition Stage

The Pre-processing stage can be additionally ordered into:

Face detection and tracking

This is the initial step of facial recognition – to detect or identify if the given example (picture/video) has a face(s). It likewise tracks certain facial highlights or articulations for sometime later cases.

Face alignment

Facial recognition technology needs to battle the way that our faces are not adjusted or organized in a specific way in an example. The face may be obscured, incompletely secured with an item like a book, showing a side profile, which makes identification considerably trickier. This is the target of the face arrangement. It features the molding facial lines and highlights for a face in the given example.

When the Pre-handling is finished, next is the Recognition stage. The Recognition stage involves two sub-stages:

Feature extraction

This is the most basic bit of the riddle. This is the place the recognition innovation peruses the geometry of the face in the example. It catches singular highlights, for example, the eyes, nose, lips, chin, the distance between the eyes, distance from the forehead to the chin, etc. The information is caught in an organization that can make a unique facial signature and be devoured by calculations to perform facial recognition.

Feature matching

Here the framework looks at the information extracted (scientific equation of the face) in the past stage to a known/given database of facial signatures to discover a match. The yield can be utilized in a few different ways, for example, Facebook and Google who consequently recognize and label individuals in your photographs.

Applying Machine Learning in Android Application Development

Machine Learning is an application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that enables programming to learn, investigate, and imagine results consequently without human impedance. Machine learning has been utilized in various fields, and it is presently forcefully serving to mobile application development.

There are different approaches to apply machine learning in an Android app. The most appropriate route depends on occupations or undertakings you need to split with the help of machine learning.

Machine learning algorithms can do the investigation of focused client standards of conduct and have looked through solicitations to make proposals just as suggestions. It is widely utilized in mobile internet business applications. А video and audio recognition is even a sort of Machine Learning utilized in the entertainment domain like Snap-chat.

Machine Learning for Mobile Apps

Mobile app developers have a ton to pick up from innovative transformations that Machine Learning (ML) is offering over the industry. This is conceivable because of the technical abilities mobile applications expedite the table empowering smoother user interfaces, encounters, and engaging organizations with conspicuous highlights, for example, conveying exact area based recommendations or immediately distinguishing ceaseless infections.

Individuals need their experience to be completely customized nowadays. Thus, it isn’t sufficient to make a quality app, yet you need to try and make you’re focused on users to stay with your mobile application.

Here, machine learning can support you. Machine learning innovation can remodel your mobile application into the user’s vision.

How to make a Machine Learning Application

Making Machine Learning applications is an iterative procedure that includes confining the center machine learning issues with what is directly watched and what solution you need the model. Next, you have to assemble, clean, and channel information, feed the outcomes, and further use the model to create estimates of required responses for the recently produced information examples.

How to Apply Machine Learning to Android

There are various machine learning frameworks accessible and we get here TensorFlow for instance.

TensorFlow is an open-sourced library of Google that is used in Android for implementing Machine Learning. TensorFlow Lite is utilized as a TensorFlow’s lightweight solution for mobile devices. It empowers on-gadget ML deduction utilizing a low dormancy which is the reason it is quick. It is very useful for mobile devices as it takes the little twofold estimate and even backs hardware acceleration by using Android Neural Networks API.

Using TensorFlow Lite in an Android application

Here is the rundown of the android TensorFlow machine learning model and how to apply Machine Learning to Android. To execute the model with the TensorFlow Lite, you should change the model into the model (.tflite) which is recognized by the TensorFlow Lite. The significant stuff while utilizing the TensorFlow Lite is to assemble a model (.tflite) that is total opposites from the standard TensorFlow model.

How to make a Machine Learning Application

How to Apply Machine Learning to Android

There are various machine learning frameworks accessible and we get here TensorFlow for instance.

Using TensorFlow Lite in an Android application

By achieving the model and the name record, one can start and mark documents in the Android application for stacking the required model and anticipating the yield by using the required TensorFlow Lite library.

We have the experience of building a whole running example application by utilizing the TensorFlow Lite proposed for required item recognition.

Preparing a TensorFlow Model on Android

It can require some investment to prepare a TensorFlow model which needs a huge amount of data. Be that as it may, there is an approach to make this methodology a lot shorter without requiring immense GPU preparing force and gigabytes of pictures. Move learning is the strategy of utilizing a recently prepared model and retraining it to assemble another model.

You can do this preparation by following underneath steps –

Step 1: Collect preparing data

Step 2: Transform the data into required pictures

Step 3: Create organizers of pictures and gathering them

Step 4: Retrain the model with the new pictures

Step 5: Optimize the model for open cell phones

Step 6: Embed .flitted document into the application

Step 7: Run the application locally and see in the event that it recognizes the pictures

The trouble of the section for utilizing machine learning is getting less huge. Numerous organizations have made totally prepared machine learning.

Conclusion:

So I hope you have known Ethics of AI Image Recognition and Machine Learning (ML) in an Android App and it should be in a positive way. If you want to take the opportunities of machine learning for your company. In case you still need AI Development Services or you wish to work with Machine Learning Development Company for your business, do contact us, and a team of experienced developers will be glad to handle all your queries.

To know more about our services, please visit our website Rajasri System, our email id “[email protected]” and Skype “rajasrisystems1“.

#artificial intelligence development #face api #face api development #AI Development Company in India #ai software development #machine learning #machine learning technology #machine learning software

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sinceileftyoublog · 6 years ago

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Jessica Moss Interview: Failed Truths

Photo by Joseph Yarmush

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Best known for her work Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, violinist and sound artist Jessica Moss has developed a prolific and provocative solo career. Late last year, she released Entanglement, her second solo album. Like its predecessor Pools of Light, it’s divided into two distinct parts--this time around, a 20-minute track called “Particles” inspired by quantum theory and four numbered tracks of “Fractals”. An excellent record, it shows Moss continuing what made past releases so successful, the combination of layered, building, heady studio composition with raw and wonderful spontaneity.

I spoke to Moss about Entanglement from her home in Montreal last month the morning after her record release show. Be sure to catch her on tour right now opening for Julia Holter, including Thursday at Thalia Hall, and read the interview, edited for length and clarity, below.

Since I Left You: Entanglement has two distinct parts, the first inspired by quantum theory. When did your interest in quantum theory begin?

Jessica Moss: My interest in that started and ended just by hearing about entanglement theory almost in passing. I was listening to a podcast about something else, and they casually mentioned entanglement theory and how it works, with two particles becoming entangled and affecting each other at a great distance and forever. It blew my mind and opened up my doors about magical thinking and human entanglement and the way we affect each other. I found it romantic, and beautiful, and sad, and terrifying. It was an explosion of ideas, and I started working from there. I don’t have much of a grasp on the science behind it. The fact of it was the inspiration. It made me think more about us in the world. It’s pretty incredible.

SILY: The second part of the album saw you experiment with live recording--you recorded, amplified, and sampled.

JM: I always record that way. I pull things completely apart and then carefully put them back together.

SILY: So what differentiates the four parts of “Fractals”?

JM: Basically, I had this melody that had jumped into my mind and fingers. I’d play around with it every time I picked up my violin at a soundcheck. I knew I wanted it to be a focus for the record I was going to make. I was trying to find the perfect iteration and the perfect arrangement to feature this melody, and I kept trying to make the perfect version of it, and I kept failing at that. I would create the arrangements around it but couldn’t fit the melody in properly. But looking at what I had created around [the melody], I fell in love with [the arrangements] instead. It became a search for truth in a way. I was trying to express this one true thing, but I couldn’t. It made me meditate on, “What is truth?” Maybe the work you do around searching for truth is the truth. These four tracks are both failed attempts and better versions of this melody. It became a metaphor for allowing imperfect things to be perfect in their own way.

SILY: How do you adapt the tracks to a live performance?

JM: So far, I’ve been able to adapt only two of four “Fractals”--the one that’s all vocals and the last one, I feel that I can’t properly express them live by myself. I’m inspired and excited about gathering some kind of ensemble in the next while to be able to play those two parts that I feel need others with me, and also parts of the previous record I haven’t been able to express live either, the whole second half called “Glaciers”.

SILY: The parts you do perform live--when you’re on stage, do you go through that same mental truth-seeking shift when you’re up there?

JM: Yes, very much so. The “Fractals” pieces have sort of transformed as I performed them live. I travel usually by myself when I tour--no transportation, no sound manager--it’s just me, my pedals, and my violin when I show up. It’s given me this beautiful opportunity to give me a window into community efforts to put on shows. Communities of people who put on shows are little microcosms of communities working together. If I’m lucky, it’s a collective working on it, and I can witness and appreciate the different ways that collectives work. I can see similarities and differences everywhere I go. To me, it’s the most beautiful idea and thing in the world--people working together for the sake of working together and doing something good. In a small way, to put on a show, but in a big way, to change the world. I’m a solo vessel right now--a satellite--but I’ve had [collective work] in my life, and I look forward to having it again in my life. But right now, I feel a bit like a researcher of collective work. Somehow, the two pieces I do perform called “Fractals” have meant more to me as a meditation of working together. I think about that when I perform those two. When I perform the “Particles” side, I’m thinking about everybody in the room--connection, romance, heartbreak. I’m a pretty emotional performer, I’d say. [laughs]

SILY: In the past, you’ve been part of collectives--like some of the bands you’ve been in--but now you say you’re more of a researcher. What have you observed about commonalities between collectives?

JM: There are similar dynamics at play. Similar personalities get drawn in, and similar difficulties occur between people aiming towards the same point. I almost feel like the closer in kind the people are aiming towards the point, the more difficulties there are. If you’re almost on the same page as someone, it can be more painful than being on a completely different page. So I’ve observed dynamics that interrupt good work but also heroic efforts to get over those dynamics and point towards the original goal. That’s the most beautiful moment--learning to allow for small differences and working towards what you’re trying to do. Sometimes, it fails when you’re trying to get there.

SILY: Do you feel like the material, when you play it, takes on its own life? Has it expanded beyond when it was recorded?

JM: Absolutely. Entanglement I toured a lot before I recorded it, as did I “Entire Populations” on [Pools of Light]. Just by coincidence, the records had a similar experience in that the first half is something I created by playing it live, building it slowly but surely into what it was, but the other half came out of my mind as a goal and was created more in the studio. I have played “Particles” now 60 times live. It is never once the same exactly. The day it starts feeling like I’m playing something the exact same way I did yesterday, I’ll move on. I don’t want to put on a show that’s easy and that I can count on. Every night, it’s affected by who is there, the room, the amps I’m borrowing, the promoters that are there, the conversations I’ve had. It all feeds into that evening’s performance.

SILY: What else are you working on at the moment?

JM: I’ve been incredibly busy, so everything I’m working on at the moment has been in my mind. In terms of my own stuff, I feel like I could go into the studio and make another record right now, but that’s impractical, so I’m going to take my time and work slowly. I hope to have another release as soon as I can. [laughs]

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching that’s caught your attention?

JM: There’s so much in my mind right now, but I’ve been listening to the sound of wolves howling. I just listen to different recordings of wolves howling. I actually played some last night at my launch [show]. I came across somebody posting something about wolves howling, and I thought about how it’s such a beautiful type of communication. I wish we could communicate like that instead of the Internet. I wish we could go outside and howl longingly and talk about this fucking fucked up world. So basically, yeah, that’s what I would say is what I’m most thinking about at the moment.

#jessica moss #interviews #constellation #failed truths #joseph yarmush #Godspeed You! Black Emperor #Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra #entanglement #pools of light #julia holter #thalia hall #live preview #live picks #live music

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michaeljtraylor · 6 years ago

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10 lessons from Marketos growth to a multi-billion-dollar exit

Doug Pepper Contributor

Doug Pepper is a managing director at Shasta Ventures.

More posts by this contributor

A New Revolution Modernizes The Revenue Supply Chain

Have one person own revenue

Hire a chief people officer (CPO) ASAP

Give back when it makes no sense

Charge your first customer

When you’re a startup, short-range thinking is seductive, but long-range thinking is powerful.

Build a world-class Rev Ops/Sales Enablement team

Focus on continuous ARPU expansion

Incubate new product initiatives

Pursue constant technology renewal

Always be seeking more TAM

Watch the clock during scale up

Via David Riggs https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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cecillewhite · 7 years ago

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Attraction Marketing Tips For Extended Enterprise Learning Success

Are you responsible for marketing educational content to customers, channels partners or other audiences that operate outside of your organization? If so, how easy is it for you to connect with these audiences and convince them to engage in training?

If you think this process is challenging, you’re not alone. A few months ago, we asked nearly 100 learning professionals to finish the question: “Attracting new or returning external learners to buy or consume content is…”

42% told us that above all, attraction marketing for extended enterprise learning is difficult. Another 33% said it’s time-consuming, while 8% said it’s expensive. Surprised? I’m not. As an analyst and consultant who focuses exclusively on extended enterprise learning, I hear these concerns all the time.

But here’s what really caught my eye – 8% of respondents actually find it EASY to attract and engage new and existing learners to their content! That’s encouraging news.

I hope to follow-up with these people, find out more about their “secret sauce” and then share their tips with you. Meanwhile, I’d like to share suggestions from another professional who is doing an excellent job of putting attraction marketing to work for his company’s extended enterprise learning programs.

Kevin Hanegan is Vice President of Knowledge and Learning at Qlik, a visual analytics software company, where he’s responsible not only for employee training but also for channel and customer education. Kevin’s credentials are impressive. He’s a professor at the University of California in Irvine, where he teaches web design and development courses. In addition, he has written multiple books about programming languages, so he brings technology depth as well as expertise in user experience and instructional design.

Here are several useful ideas inspired by my discussions with Kevin:

Attraction Marketing Tips For Extended Enterprise Learning

1) Map Content to the Learning Journey

External learning audiences move through a process similar to the “customer buying journey” popularized by marketing professionals. Here’s the basic concept:

THE LEARNING JOURNEY

Awareness > Assessment > Application > Adoption > Advocacy

Mapping learning experiences to this multi-step process is a smart approach. But contrary to what many technology companies may think, the best time to introduce feature/function training is not at the start, but in the “application” stage.

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For example, imagine your company just purchased a software tool that you’re expected to use. Kevin says, “It wouldn’t make sense to toss you into an intensive two-day training class immediately. You wouldn’t have enough context to make that training worthwhile.”

“New users don’t need training. They need awareness. They need to understand what a product can do for them and how it adds value.”

Once you’re aware of how a new tool can help you, you should be ready to give it a test drive. After that, you’ll be ready to apply the product to a specific need. If all goes well, you’ll gain mastery and adopt it more fully. Eventually, you may even champion this tool to others, and drive adoption in your broader professional circles.

Bottom line, this is an indoctrination process, and thoughtfully designed educational content can help customers succeed, every step of the way.

2) Choose Marketing Tactics Strategically

Free trials. Freemiums. Discounts. Coupons. Bundles. Bulk sales. The list goes on. As I’ve discussed previously, there are endless ways to gain visibility, attract attention and drive interest in training content, But with a smorgasbord of marketing options that can quickly exhaust even the heftiest budgets, what’s the smartest way to invest your dollars?

Again, if you rely on your audience’s learning journey as a guide, your marketing priorities will become much clearer. Why does that matter so much? Well, it’s one thing to pull learners to your content for their first learning experience. But you have only one chance to make a good first impression. If that impression is weak, learners won’t engage, they won’t return, and they certainly won’t tell anyone else how great it is.

So it pays to think carefully before you put promotional energy in front of your content. Precisely what knowledge and information will your prospects expect to have at their fingertips? Do they want a quick answer to a very specific question? Would they benefit from access to a collection of related resources they can explore over time? Or would other types of content be more effective?

Defining the “what, when, where, how and why” of key user scenarios will inform the learning experiences you develop. Then you can craft appropriate communications to drive the right audience to the right content at the right time. After that successful experience, you can have confidence they’ll respond when you invite them back for more.

3) Empower Multiple Voices to Spread the Word

As Kevin says, “With demand generation, content may be king, but context is equally important.” And in extended enterprise learning, there are often many voices to leverage. Your corporate education group doesn’t have to carry the entire load. Your sales team, your channel partners and your corporate marketing team are resources that can extend your marketing outreach.

In addition, consider empowering existing customers. If your training is effective, you can encourage those learners to tell their professional connections about it through social media and other communication channels they use.

4) Win Ambassadors By Demonstrating Value

If you want to convince your sales team and channel partners to sell training on your behalf, you have to provide a compelling value proposition. So, as you develop your marketing agenda think carefully about the metrics that matter and be sure track them over time.

In Qlik’s case, they did a comparative analysis of customers who bought training along with their product, versus those who did not. They discovered that customers who bought training as part of the initial sale actually made their next purchase four times faster than customers who didn’t buy training. Plus, among customers who had purchased training, subsequent sales were seven times larger.

As Kevin explained, “These results make sense. Education helps drive user adoption. Customers have less shelfware and they buy more licenses, so deals are quicker and larger, overall. With meaningful metrics that explained ‘what’s in it for me,’ it was easy to get our partners and sales teams onboard.”

Conclusion

When I studied instructional design several decades ago, marketing wasn’t part of the curriculum. Experience taught me that we shouldn’t expect to pick up marketing know-how by accident. But with intentional effort, we can use marketing tools to make learning more visible, relevant and rewarding for those we serve.

So if you think it’s difficult to reach external audiences and you’re not sure what to do next, why not follow the path of successful extended enterprise learning programs? Take a step back to verify the specific needs and behaviors of your target audiences. Look for ways to leverage your content, technology and communications channels. Then test and iterate, based on meaningful metrics.

It may not be easy, but I guarantee, you’ll see progress. Thanks for reading!

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lorrainecparker · 7 years ago

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ART OF THE CUT with the editor of “War for the Planet of the Apes”

William Hoy, ACE got into the editor’s seat on feature films back in the mid-‘80s. One of his first major feature films was Dances With Wolves. Since then he’s edited a string of box office and critically acclaimed hit films: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Patriot Games, Se7en, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Bone Collector, Dawn of the Dead, Fantastic Four, 300, Watchmen, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Art of the Cut caught up with William recently to discuss his work on War for the Planet of the Apes.

HULLFISH: The ape performances were obviously motion capture. What was the workflow for editing?

HOY: The genius of WETA (the visual effects company responsible for the motion capture, animation and VFX rendering) is that they can translate a human face into a simian face. If you see the motion capture performance side by side with the final animation, you’ll absolutely see every nuance that Andy Serkis had. Every little twitch. Every subtle look. The tear falling – they matched the tear falling off – that was CG but that is entirely Andy’s performance. As Matt (director, Matt Reeves) and I go through the picture, we choose the actor’s performance. This picture is different in motion capture from some other ones that I know of because the motion capture on others are shot within a virtual set, so the actors aren’t performing in the real environment. We were actually shooting scenes in the forest. We had all these “witness cams” that capture the action of the apes and then there were also cameras on their faces and they have dots all over their face and they are wearing these sensors on these gray spandex suits that looked like gray pajamas. But we’re on location and Serkis has to walk like an ape. He has to do all of the physicality of an ape. Right before picture started, Terry Notary – who was also in Rise and Dawn as Rocket – he runs Ape school. So any new actors go to this school and he teaches them how to move. They have these crutches so their movements simulate quadrupeding of apes.

All of that goes to WETA who translates their performances. The translation is amazing and it’s only gotten better through each of these pictures from Rise to Dawn. So I would come in in the morning – because WETA is in New Zealand – and I would see these shots that have come in overnight and I would be so moved because you can actually see the emotion in the performances. These apes in the animation had the performance that we originally chose from the actor. When I first started seeing the nuance coming in on this particular film, it was at another level which really was breathtaking. So the performances of our actors is basically what we work with. A huge part of the budget on this picture is visual effects and almost all of it was dedicated to performance. So that’s why I wanted to return to work another one. There is also the collaboration with Matt Reeves. It’s become easier because there’s a bit of shorthand. So I can actually take a performance and slap it on the side of captured performer’s head and Matt can look at it and understand what he’s eventually going to get.

HULLFISH: So beyond that shorthand, do you find any other value to working with the same director/editorial team?

HOY: The big thing is that the director has confidence that you’ve been diligent about choosing the right performance and that you didn’t say, “I cut in the last take because I thought that’s what you were going for.” On the first one it took a while for him to trust me in that way because he’s very very meticulous. We would go through each scene and take, but on this one he accepted some of the takes that I chose without asking to look at them all again. He would say, “Oh yeah. That is the best one. I remember that.” And we could move on and spend time solving bigger problems, which is a real help because the picture was so complicated.

We shot a lot in the Pacific Northwest forest, but we also did shoot on the motion capture stage. So while they were shooting, I’m on location, but I’m actually in my editing room cutting the picture, so to spend time on the set means time away from putting the picture together. When they shot on the motion capture stage – which was very close to where the cutting rooms were – it gave me an opportunity to go down there and see how things are shaping up to see if I have something to add that early on because a lot of times those scenes haven’t been put together.

On this particular picture we held out three weeks of motion capture to be shot later because we knew we wanted to visualize some scenes first and see how everything fits in. And we knew we would want to tweak things so there were certain scenes that weren’t entirely shot in the first pass. So we waited until the picture was together and then we shot motion capture here in L.A. and I was on the set for that. We actually had our Avids out on the motion capture stage. So we could see that we need characters to run quicker or a certain character needs to enter here or for a certain performance because we need these interconnecting pieces. There’s also scenes that we had to reimagine in the cutting room, Matt and I. And so those are the scenes that we talked out extensively.

For example, “what if we just had Caesar come down the mountain here and he slid?” Because I have this amazing wide shot and wouldn’t it be nice if he slid down the mountain and caused this slight avalanche, which is kind of a precursor to what comes later? So we captured Andy doing this action on the stage. Without that, it might come out of the blue. If we had that happen, we know that the snow was unstable so WETA put in a little break in the snow.

HULLFISH: So you actually started by cutting using the motion capture footage?

HOY: Absolutely so. I start editing the picture as soon as they finish shooting a scene with our human and motion capture actors and began crafting that scene into what I hope it ultimately would be. But in the meantime we need to begin to turn some of these visual effects over because they just take so long. And you can’t jam up WETA’s pipeline all at once: say, “OK, we’re done with the locked picture. Here are 1,400 shots.” It’s not going to happen. So we segment out with a schedule of what WETA can handle and what scenes are first. Then we would focus our attention on those scenes. We had the luxury of actually putting the picture together on this one and we could turn it over as soon as soon as Matt saw the picture, which was two weeks after we came back from location. So right after that, there were some scenes that he was happy with already, so we could send those out.

I should add to that I was on location on my own and put most of the picture together then Stan Salfas, who also worked on the last one, came onboard in Los Angeles a few weeks before we came back from location. Because the picture was so demanding – as far as time is concerned – I’d come in the morning and look at shots and then Matt would come in, we’d look at them together, discuss the progress of each shot and then we’d work on scenes together. Matt broke for dinner at about 7:00 or 8:00 and I’d continue to complete my work for the day. He would work with Stan until midnight. He’s the hardest working guy on the picture.

You’re right as far as: how do you visualize some of these performances? When they’re rendered, the performances begin to transform. We have complete faith in WETA, but you never know exactly what you’re going to get, so we have a tendency to leave things just a little long if we can – just a few frames, but when there is an action match or something like that there’s nothing you can do. We just go on the faith that we picked the right frame.

As the picture evolves, and you begin to see some of these rendered apes in their final form, we found that we could drop some of the music, because we didn’t need that music to tell us how to feel about the apes at this point in the story. When we’re at a more primitive state, technically, we had a tendency to load the picture up with temp music. But when we came to the final mix, we started stripping out music and just letting these characters play, because they’re so real and they give you everything you would want from an actor. You just look in their eyes and say, “Oh My God! I get it!” We don’t need all this dressing. As a matter of fact, sometimes the music made it too melodramatic. Sometimes it telegraphed an idea. So we were kind of showing our hand before the climax or the point of the scene.

We put this together with motion capture characters and then we have to screen it. So I look at it with Matt and he says, “Yeah that’s working pretty good.” But how do we represent this in a screening? The characters are looking the wrong way or we had elements of a scene that did not exist at that point. We had VFX editors who would actually cut heads out and put it in where needed. We know that ultimately WETA is going to make that seamless. But, how do you show that to the studio? How do you show that to an audience and get the emotional reaction that you want? So there’s another step which doesn’t lead to the final step, but it’s a side step that we need to take because none of this will end up in the final, it’s just for screening. Our VFX producer, Ryan Stafford, knew this from working on Rise and Dawn. He knew to have a whole crew of post-viz artists, so they could depict these in more detail.

We had what we call “ape puppets” – something to represent a character be it Caesar if he’s riding a horse – we were able to put this ape puppet on there and put “Caesar” on his chest, and have him riding on the horse. Ultimately we know that’s going to be a photo-real Caesar riding on that horse. But these are the interim steps we have to take to show it to someone before we start getting the shots back from WETA.

WETA delivers different iterations of the animation. The first is what’s called blocking. So, they’re WETA’s puppets in the position with the right movement and then we can see if one shots matching into another as far as movement is concerned. And then they go into animation, where they start doing the facial features and the actual emotions of the character. And all through this process we sit and and talk to WETA for hours at a time each day. Matt’s sitting there. He’s talking to them about the details of a shot and what he wants out of Andy’s performance and almost all of the time Matt is referring back to Andy’s actual performance, like, “He’s just sadder in this shot. He just has this very subtle sadness in his eyes.” Somehow we have to capture that. So then WETA goes in and put just a little glazing on his eyes, like he’s been tearing up, or he’s about to, details like that. Matt wanted to preserve the performances of our actors who were pretty phenomenal.

HULLFISH: I’ve talked to several editors who said that they were able to cut lines from the script once they saw the performance of the actor. The actor can tell you something in a look or an expression that makes the scripted line superfluous. Were you finding the same thing when you were getting back these expressive WETA ape shots?

HOY: Yes. And that goes for the music and goes with entire scenes. With this movie, there’s not a lot of dialogue going on. The ape and the humans are connecting by just looking, and so we’re relying heavily on CGI characters. It’s a pretty amazing thing. We go through the picture and say, “Are we being redundant saying this again and again? We’ve mentioned it three times.” There’s that rule that if you repeat it three times, the audience will get it, but there are times you need to break that rule, because otherwise it can feel like, “He was really heavy-handed in this. I get it. I get what he’s going for.”

We have a scene where our main characters are saying goodbye to each other, but we found that at that moment it was slowing down the action. Not only that it, but it becomes redundant because that happens again later. It was one of my favorite moments by the two actors, but it was really slowing us down. So then you lose that. But you only know that once you see the picture as a whole. When you read the script you say, “Oh yeah. We need that because those two characters are the bedrock of this whole franchise.” But then you say, “No, we don’t. Because at this moment we don’t care about this. This is what’s going on at this moment, so we want to get past this. What is the important thing here? It’s Caesar’s quest at that moment.” And so we want to simplify it and refine it to that point where we modified the scene. So yes: we did lose lines for sure… entire scenes.

I agree about what you said earlier: that if you have great actors, they can say so much with just their face – with just that performance. That’s what can eliminate an entire scene. If you cut from his reaction and his reaction then tells you what the next scene was going to be about. When you read the script you think, “Oh my God. We need to see our hero get angry and then go on the road.” OK. But I have it in this close up. I have it and I can just cut this entire scene right out of the movie. What I’m left with, if I cut him at the right moment, he’s fuming he’s holding his son and he’s worried for the fate of his people.

Andy Serkis on the set of Twentieth Century Fox’s “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

And that’s what the next scene was about. But he already said it – not in so many words: I’m worried for the fate of my people but I have to go and do this. But he says it all with his face and you understand that when we come to the next scene and you see what he’s doing you realize, “I don’t need that scene to tell us this.” With a script you want things laid out for you sometimes. I think the written word is different than film obviously because you get so much out as you’re watching. You’re forming all these ideas and it points to one direction. I think as an audience we are very impatient to get moving. There’s a tendency to try to repeat things to make sure the audience gets it… but yeah, I got it… move on.

HULLFISH: Exactly. You’ve worked on a lot of action and VFX pictures, but the only way to get these pictures to work is through the performances and the emotion, and caring about character, right?

HOY: You know we have a tendency as editors to get typecast in a certain way. I’m proud that I’ve done a bunch of FX or action movies. But there’s something that lies underneath that which is performance and character and emotion and story. And the best battle scenes in any movie and hopefully ones I’ve worked on – is character, and if you don’t care about the characters then your battle scene becomes just noise and action. But if you care about your character and you have taken the time to build that, then you really care about what’s going on and you can cut to one look from our hero or the villain and you know exactly what’s going on and you’re invested in these characters. You have to build that into your editing somehow. I’ve been asked, “So, what is your editing style?” I don’t really have an editing style but I’m hoping my style or whatever I do is what the picture is in need of. And hopefully that comes out of intuition and that comes out of trying to get the best out of the story and the characters.

I’ll watch a movie and it can be very simply shot – wide shots… close ups. But if the story and the characters are involving. I’m just drawn into this for an hour and a half. Story absolutely is the most important thing. I can’t remember a movie I’ve seen where I thought, “The story was terrible, but I loved it because Wow what a spectacle!”

HULLFISH: But building that concern for a character has to be so hard when you’re dealing with characters you don’t really even get to see until later.

HOY: I go by faith that whatever I’m envisioning – that that’s going to be part of what’s going to end up on the screen. So I’ll look at a shot and there will be nothing in there…

HULLFISH: Like a plate.

HOY: Like a plate. It’s just a shot moving across the mountains and at some point there are going to be some apes on horseback going across there … or we’re looking at a green screen. We’re looking at two actors and they’re saying goodbye and behind them there’s this enormous army. So I look at them and think, “Well, how long do I stay on this? Is it a transitional moment? Is it an establishing moment? Is there emotional value? How long do I stay on the shot? With the plate shot of the apes traveling: look where they are in the wilderness. Where have they gotten themselves into now?

The other thing is emotional. It’s an army leaving and these two characters are framed in front of a huge army that’s waiting for them – probably to go to their death – so you want to stay on that longer and just let that play out and your eyes can do the searching for you. So in those two instances, that would be the idea of pacing. The pacing has to do with the dialogue and dialogue scenes – regardless of whether you have heavy visual effects – that pacing is based on what type of a scene it is. Do I want to sit there and watch their eyes and just be really absorbed with these characters? Because if I cut away, it’s going to ruin that moment. It’s going to be artificial. But if I just stay on that, that’s amazing. I don’t need to cut. This is where the moment is, right here.

In a battle scene, there’s a rise and fall to it. You’re pacing it and then you get to the height of the battle. How far can you go? The sound is now maximum. The music is maximum. The pace is cutcutcutcutcut. Where do you go? I like to go to the character. What’s he seeing? How’s he feeling about this? So when the opportunity presents itself, there have to be these moments where, “Oh my God! There’s something else happening in this battle or something’s happening in this character’s head. Something is happening other than just shooting people, dying, suffering or characters witnessing it. So how does that play out? Do I play that out in his head? Do I play that out in silence?

I have to find another way to transcend that moment which is: I think I’m reaching the climax but NO, NOW I’m into somebody’s head. Those are the kind of things that, as far as pacing is concerned, it fascinates me, because I actually love those little moments where you can you can insert something that is unexpected where you think, “What? Where are we now? Wow! I didn’t think I was going to feel this during this battle scene.” So those are some instances, as far as pacing, but when you see the picture as a whole you think, “OK, we have to tighten this area because I really don’t want to get bogged down here. What’s happening here is really oppressive, but we don’t want the picture to slip into oppressiveness. We want our hero to go through the pain and suffering, but we don’t want to dwell there for a long time because for an audience: “I get it. He’s suffering. Can we move on now?”

HULLFISH: I would think that it’s hard to screen some of these scenes with so many VFX and temp motion-captures as “stand ins.”

HOY: Sometimes you get art work: “Your king is leading an army and there is this army behind them and it’s an open field.” You want to make sure that you sit on that long enough so that you absorb it all. In that case, I stayed on it so that I would have our characters do most of the action in this wide shot and then much later go in to a close-up or more coverage. In other situations, maybe I wouldn’t if the visuals didn’t support the emotion of the scene. If there’s nothing more to get from the wide shot, let’s go in to a close-up and get the emotions there. But if, with the wide shot, you did get the emotion, because it was a spectacle, then you’re fine. Here are these two characters who are reduced to less significant things in this vast landscape.

You want to be able to make use of all of the tools that you have at hand, so let’s maximize this because soon enough I’m going to be in on a close-up.

There are certain steps along the way before you actually commit yourself to X amount of thousands of dollars for a shot There are shots where things are moving and you have to imagine: “How long does it take for the arrows to travel until they get there?” After a while you can come pretty close to a few frames of guessing those timings.

I co-edited with Neil Travis and back in the film days and he would measure out a piece of film from his nose to arm’s length and with a wink say to me, “That’s the length of a reaction.” Roughly two and half seconds. So that’s one guideline to how long a shot might play.

Every frame costs thousands of dollars. On Dawn an ape shot was $60,000 a shot. (More for shot length over 5 seconds.) I think it’s slightly less on this one just because of the way it was budgeted and they figured out how to do it for less, but that’s really expensive. And we have over fourteen hundred ape shots.

I worked with young editors and assistant editors and I tell them, “You’re paid to have an opinion.” You’re not paid to be a pair of hands. Go in there saying, “This is what I think it should be.” They want that opinion. Hopefully I bring things to the movie that the director may not have thought about. What I like to do is tell the director after principal photography, “Please take a break for 10 days, two weeks and come back and I’ll show you the movie. I’ll try to put as much music as I have time for and sound effects and I’ll show it to you and you sit here and watch it with some objectivity and then decide what do we do with the picture as a whole.”

With most directors, I’m on location. I’m showing them scenes as I go, so they know the performances are being captured the way they want. So when they see the picture as a whole, then we can talk about any differences of opinion. The director may say, “I intended to start the scene with this shot instead of this one.” We can work that out and we can talk about why. Ultimately, we can cut it the way he originally visualized, but there have been times where they say, “I actually like what you did before. Let’s go back to that.” That’s having a point of view and an Avid and being able to save all those versions. It’s a real plus, because on film, when you re-cut, those original choices disappear. The director needs to have a vision for the movie as a whole, and so I try to help bring that vision to the screen. If I have a difference of opinion, it’s only because I want what’s best for the picture. And as long as the director knows that, they’re OK with it. It’s not because I like it that way. It’s not because I cut it that way. It’s because that’s what’s best for the picture.

HULLFISH: It’s nice to have trust in a person, but if you both trust that what you both really want is for the good of the picture, you’ve got a solid foundation for solving any disagreement. How do you have your assistants set up your bins?

HOY: Basically in the same alphabetical order they shot the setups, so I know where the shots will be. I like to have my bins set up in Frame view. My assistant will also choose a representative frame for each shot that best represents that shot, so when I just look at the clip, I see, “ That’s the wide shot and there’s the close up, and there’s the over the shoulder.”

Also the director will choose select takes and the assistants will put a checkmark beside that take. We print everything. (meaning non-selected or B-neg shots are in the bin just like any other shot)

I watch all the dailies straight through and then I’ll go back to the daily bin. I put markers on moments that I think might be the foundation of the scene. The assistants put them in the bin in a straight line, and if I like one more than the others, I just nudge it up a little higher in the row. We also have assistants building selects reels, where every setup and take of a specific line plays back to back. So if I wanted use another performance or to replace a word I can go in there and see if it’s clearer somewhere else.

But that’s only in the refining process that I use the select reels. There are times when there are certain moments that will be the backbone of the scene. There are some moments that you say, “I somehow have to have this moment in here and action-match doesn’t matter. I need to get to this moment.” So I approach the scene – what I call “from the inside out.” I don’t start at the beginning and move through, instead I’ve got to get to this moment so I’ll start putting it together knowing that the scene is going to progress so that I can reach that moment.

Then I can start thinking about the rhythm of what that scene might be. There might be two of those moments – and I’m basing it on performance. Obviously when it’s an action piece: What is the best piece of action that got him from point A to Point B? What shows him doing this best? What shot do I have of the sword going through. What’s the best and quickest shot that I can use that to depict this particular moment. Those things are what you discover when you begin to put an action piece together. Then I start putting just the dialogue tracks and the picture together. And when I feel that scene is ready for some sound effects or some temp music I’ll start laying some of that in. At which point, if the director’s around and I think it’s ready to show him, then I’ll show it. Sometimes he may want to see a scene really quickly because of some concerns he may have about it and I’ll have to show it before I feel it’s ready, but I am loathe to show a director something that is not really polished, because it’s not fair to me. It’s not fair to the director either, because they’re very self-aware. They don’t want to come in and look at something and think, “Oh my God! That’s not working! Is it me? … Or is it you?” Right? So you don’t want to do that. You want to have it to that point where you can analyze: How are the characters working? How’s is the story working? How’s this scene working?

So once I start putting scenes together then other scenes will begin to come in, but now I get to see how he starts the next scene. So, I might have to go back and rework the scene that I had leading into this scene because the transition doesn’t work. You have to keep in mind what the transitions are going to be into the next scene and that’s an ever-evolving thing, because if you eventually lose that scene, now you’ll need to make a different transition to the next scene coming in. So that’s an ongoing thing.

As we go through I’m trying to imagine – based on the script – what the next scene is going to be and how he might approach that. And at some point you will have something resembling the movie which is always amazing and surprising to me.

HULLFISH: So at the point you have the entire movie together, do you find it useful to watch that as a whole from beginning to end? Because in the 100 interviews I’ve done, there is not complete agreement. There are some who feel they want to hold off on viewing the whole movie, because it affects their ability to remain objective about the story as a whole.

HOY: I certainly agree that objectivity is your best ally and that we lose objectivity because we’re into the minutia and it’s hard to maintain that objectivity. My first impression is when the picture is finally put together and I have a chance to sit there and watch it with the director, because, up until that moment, I probably have not watched the picture entirely myself because I just haven’t had the time to. I’ve certainly watch a better part of it but I don’t know how the picture is progressing, so to watch the movie and to have that impression … I try to hold on to some of those first impressions that I have so that it continues to inform me later on. I can see what those other editors are talking about, but for me, and any director I’ve worked with, I’ve never experienced that.

The other important thing with these big VFX movies is that we have to begin to turnover our visual effects. How do we know what we actually need from the visual effects if I haven’t seen the picture in total? That could cost a lot of money down the line, because we could discover that we can or must cut entire scenes of visual effects. And for pictures where the budgets are so huge, it adds up real quick. So discovering that you can delete an entire scene can save a lot of money.

I’ve mixed this film in my Avid for all the screenings. We got 5.1 surround tracks from our sound design team. The temp music editor, Paul Apelgren is part of composer Michael Giacchino’s team.

I’ve actually mixed the picture eight times. For the studio alone, we screened it probably four times, five times easily. There was one time where I was rushing to get the picture finished for the screening the next day and after the screening, Matt asked me what I thought and I said, “I didn’t think anything, because I didn’t get anything out of that screening, because I was so worried about technical stuff.” Sometimes the objectivity comes in for me by just removing myself from that normal seat or that usual theater. So we took it from a theater which was right downstairs from our editing room and went to the huge Zanuck theater on the Fox lot. It was just the director and the two editors sitting and watching the movie, and because I already knew the picture was in sync – that it was supposed to play the way it was supposed to play – that I could actually sit and watch the movie and see it as objectively as I could. Sometimes when I’m screening for an audience I’m so worried that some critical thing is going to happen and spoil the screening and all the work we’ve put in just to get to this moment will be ruined – that’s always in the back of my mind. Once I know the screener is OK, I can actually become an audience member again so that really helps.

HULLFISH: The other thing is just getting away from the editing controls, right? Just the fact that you can’t hit pause and fix something completely changes the experience of watching the movie.

HOY: It completely does. In my cutting room I have my Avid set up with a 43 inch plasma on my right. So for the most part that’s where I watch it. But I also have a 65 inch to the side with it’s own dedicated sound system. So you hit a button and I play it over there. So just by me turning around and not being able to get close to my mixing board and the volume controls and not be distracted by the Avid screens and just dedicating myself to the picture as a whole, that gives me some objectivity. It’s just a matter of changing seats – getting out of my Aeron chair into a couch just feels different right there.

HULLFISH: Can you remember any of the things that you temped with?

HOY: Paul Apelgren the music editor, he was also on Dawn and I’d stayed in touch with him, so when I came back to LA to edit, he asked, “So what music have you been listening to?” When I’m editing I like playing music in the background even though I’m not cutting to it. I said, “It’s a funny thing. I’ve been listening to a lot Ennio Morricone especially his spaghetti westerns and I’ve been listening to Nick Cave, so I don’t know how that works.” And he says, “That’s an Interesting mashup between Morricone and Nick Cave.” It’s a funny thing because as Caesar takes off on this quest it becomes this epic Western. There is a hint of that in certain places which I hope that I brought some of that to it, but I also talked to the director and tell him, “I’ve been listening to this and this.” and he says, “Yeah. I can see that.” Paul also temped with a lot of the music from the Dawn movie, so there was a lot of Michael Giacchino’s music in there, but we also used different composers, like (Alexandre) Desplat. Paul found a wonderful cue from Snow Falling on Cedars.

Sometimes I like to temp the whole picture, but this picture really needed my attention elsewhere, so honestly, I trust Paul. He did an amazing job on the temp score, so I only chose maybe five or six cues. One of the cues I cut in is where Caesar is walking in what we call the trench. After the first battle he’s seeing the devastation on his apes. So I put this piece in there from some Junkie XL who did Allegiance and Divergence. I played it for Matt and he says, “This is a great piece, who’s this from?” And I say, “Junkie XL.” He said, “No!” But that piece stayed in there for the longest time.

HULLFISH: Can you tell me anything about these two scenes from the movie?

HOY: What I find interesting is what both scenes have in common – the lighting. In the scene with Bad Ape, Maurice and Nova it’s lit with flashlights. The performances that were chosen have a natural light to the little girl and our motion capture actors which WETA then had to replicate how the light would interact on Maurice and Bad Ape’s fur and clothing.

In the scene between Caesar and the Colonel (Woody Harrelson) there is a searchlight moving behind the Colonel in the background. Only the light hitting our actors was evident in the raw footage, there was no background. When we began to have discussions about the background we had to determine a believable motion of the searchlights because the interactive lighting was visible on the Colonel’s shaved head and Caesar.

Also in these two scenes if you were to watch the raw motion capture version and the finished scene you will see the amazing performances of our actors.

HULLFISH: Thanks so much for talking with me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

HOY: Me too. Good to talk with you. We need to meet some day.

This interview was transcribed using Speedscriber.

To read more interviews in the Art of the Cut series, check out THIS LINK and follow me on Twitter @stevehullfish

The first 50 Art of the Cut interviews have been curated into a book, “Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV editors.” The book is not merely a collection of interviews, but was edited into topics that read like a massive, virtual roundtable discussion of some of the most important topics to editors everywhere: storytelling, pacing, rhythm, collaboration with directors, approach to a scene and more. Oscar nominee, Dody Dorn, ACE, said of the book: “Congratulations on putting together such a wonderful book. I can see why so many editors enjoy talking with you. The depth and insightfulness of your questions makes the answers so much more interesting than the garden variety interview. It is truly a wonderful resource for anyone who is in love with or fascinated by the alchemy of editing.” MPEG’s Cinemontage magazine said of the book: “In his new book, Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV Editors, he gathers together interviews with more than 50 working editors to create a mosaic of advice that will interest both veterans and newcomers to the field. It will be especially valuable for those who aspire to join what Hullfish calls, “the brotherhood and sisterhood of editors.”

Check out the editing on some other big-budget features like Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Transformers: TLK, Guardians of the Galaxy and Wonder Woman

Or if you prefer, some documentaries: OJ: Made in America, or a lower-budget indie: Colossal.

The post ART OF THE CUT with the editor of “War for the Planet of the Apes” appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

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Morgan 3 Wheeler Review

Your eyes aren’t fooling you. Yes, this is Motorscycle.com and, yes, the thing you’re looking at has three wheels, a steering wheel, bucket seats, seat belts and three pedals on the floor. It’s called, simply, the Morgan 3 Wheeler, and because it’s missing a fourth wheel, the Department of Motor Vehicles classifies it as a motorcycle (yes, even in Texas). And so, since we are Motorscycle.com afterall, it’s our duty to give the 3 Wheeler a whirl.

A Brief History Lesson

In the early 1900s, Harry Morgan, the company’s namesake, set out to build a fun and affordable motor vehicle in his English factory in Malvern Link, England. His idea was to fit a powerful motorcycle engine (usually J.A.P. V-Twins) into a lightweight chassis. The invention was called a “Cyclecar,” and subsequent iterations of Morgan’s first design went on to win numerous races and set records. In its day, it was a popular two-seater to have if you were serious about your motoring.

Albert Ball with his Morgan “Grand Prix” Cyclecar. Albert Ball was just such a man. An English pilot who would later perish in battle during the first World War at only 20 years old, Ball was the modern day equivalent of an adrenaline junkie. Not long before his death, he took delivery of a special Morgan Cyclecar with sportier bodywork, dubbed the Grand Prix. So enamored he was with it, he once said, “To drive this car was the nearest thing to flying without leaving the ground.” Morgan would later create the Aero (of which the namesake still exists in the company’s four-wheelers), a more sporty, mass-produced three-wheeler inspired by the Grand Prix. The Super Aero came next, and its lowered stance covered with streamlined bodywork influenced future Cyclecars and 3 Wheelers to this day. Throughout the years, the basic architecture of the 3 Wheeler remained the same, and later more powerful Matchless engines replaced the J.A.P. units. Morgan ceased production during WWII, but resumed again in 1946. However, steel supplies were limited at this time, and the popularity of the 3 Wheeler was waning. Morgan decided to discontinue producing the 3 Wheeler in 1950, with the last one rolling out the factory doors in 1953.

The Morgan Super Aero, of which you can see many styling cues that have carried over throughout the years.

Modern Revival

Contrary to what some believe, the Morgan Motor Company never went out of business, instead focusing its efforts on its four-wheelers. Meanwhile, at the start of the new millenium, Pete Larson, of Liberty Motors in Seattle, decided to build his own Cyclecar based on the Morgan 3 Wheeler. His version uses a Harley-Davidson Twin Cam 88 or 103 (depending on customer preference) but otherwise looks nearly identical. Charles Morgan, grandson of HFS Morgan, learned about this and was so inspired that, in 2011, nearly 60 years after the last 3 Wheeler left the factory, decided to return to the company’s roots and revive the legendary 3 Wheeler, modernizing it for the 21st century. Morgan and Larson negotiated a buyout of all ACE designs, and the ACE was transformed into the Morgan 3 Wheeler. Now Larson is one of a select few Morgan 3 Wheeler retailers in the U.S.

Inspired by the Morgans of old, Pete Larson set out to build his own 3 Wheeler, called the ACE Cycle-Car. At first glance it’s difficult to distinguish between it and a Morgan, though the Harley Twin Cam engine is one clue. Despite the fact our particular tester is a 2013 model, the only thing modern about the current day Morgan 3 Wheeler is its fuel-injected S&S V-Twin and the 5-speed Mazda Miata transmission bolted to it. The 1983cc, four-valve S&S X-Wedge engine is the perfect combination of old and new. Its 56-degree vee angle is wider than the 45 degrees used on Harleys, and it uses three belt-driven camshafts – one central intake cam, two outer exhaust cams – with pushrods running nearly parallel to the valves. A one-piece forged crankshaft with plain main and connecting rod bearings help the X-Wedge cope with the added weight the 3 Wheeler (published reports claim curb weight at 1268 lbs) presents over a lighter motorcycle. The engine proudly sits on its rubber mounts at the front of the vehicle, a smart positioning considering it’s air/oil-cooled. The rest of the 3 Wheeler is of steel-tube frame design with aluminum sheeting making up the body panels. Double A-arm suspension up front is car-like in its design, while the single rear wheel is suspended via trailing arm and fed power through a belt. Skinny 19-inch front wire wheels are just 3.5-inches across and add to the vintage appeal of the Morgan. The hidden rear wheel is a slightly more standard 16-inch variety, wearing 175/55 rubber.

Analog speedo and tach from VDO are complemented by digital readouts for odometer, tripmeter, voltage and fuel percentage remaining, though the latter’s accuracy is wildly off. One particular trip indicated 0% fuel remaining, and after stopping at a fuel station, only 5 gallons were needed of the 11 gallons it is claimed to hold. Note the engine-turned dash, polished accents and toggle switches, including the center start button. The steering wheel with wood trim is optional equipment.

The Experience

Morgan claim 82 hp at 5250 rpm and a peak torque of 103.3 lb-ft at 3250 rpm. On paper, those don’t sound like remarkable stats, but once you get behind the steering wheel, it all makes sense. First, however, it helps to detach the steering wheel to aid ingress. Once inside, soak it all in. Admire the hand-stitched leather seats, center-mounted dial gauges, toggles to control the various lights and horn, the polished parking brake lever, the nicely weighted shift knob, and especially admire the starter button, hidden behind the “bomb release” cover as Morgan calls it, many of us wanted to yell “Contact!” before pressing it. They are all quality pieces that contribute to the experience. Clutch in and starter button pressed, the X-Wedge takes a few cranks to come to life, after which it settles into its lumpy, unmistakable V-Twin rumble. It’s not a quick-revving engine, but it sounds oh so sweet with each straight pipe running down the length of both sides. You can see it slightly vibrating way out in front of you, but you don’t feel any of that at the wheel or the pedals. Shift into first, let the clutch out, and the appeal of the 3 Wheeler is immediate. The engine carries plenty of torque to chirp the rear tire as you shift to second, though there’s a sizable gap between the two gears, says E-i-C Kevin Duke. And because you’re riding so low, the sensation of speed is elevated as the ground whizzes past. Manual steering means “communication is direct but lacks precision,” says Duke, attributing this to the skinny and tall-profile front tires. Braking, too, is not power assisted, but a meaningful push with your foot delivers, as Duke puts it, “pure feedback during threshold braking.”

Though its handling limits are low, exploring those limits is incredibly fun. Note the inside tire coming off the ground. Rowing through the gears is a delight, as the Mazda Miata 5-speed positively engages each gear, its throws nice and short. On downshifts, the brake and accelerator pedal are nicely spaced for a bit of heel-toe action (well, more like a modified version of it with the sides of your foot). The car behaves like a well-thought-out 60 year-old sports car because, well, that’s what it is. However, when the pace picks up, its limitations expose themselves quickly. The skinny tires mean you can’t pull enormous g-loads through a corner (not that you’d want to), and the V-Twin runs out of breath up top. The chassis does exhibit a little flex, which Duke surmises, “likely aids suspension compliance and, when cornering hard, helps keep its tires in contact with the road.” The 3 Wheeler’s limits are low, but it never claims to be a performance-oriented machine. All of our testers agree, driving it slow is equally as fun as exploring its limits, and probably more rewarding – at least you’ll have time to notice all the passersby checking you out. We were pleasantly surprised with its highway manners, too. The ride was fairly smooth with the suspension communicating bumps in the road, but the bumpsteer effect some journalists decried of early-production 3 Wheelers was nonexistent on our tester.

Even at a much calmer pace, it’s hard not to grin when operating the 3 Wheeler. This view shows the limited cabin space for two passengers.

A Niche Within A Niche

Without a doubt, the Morgan 3 Wheeler is a unique and very special vehicle, and while your humble MO staff are motorcyclists through and through, we’re unanimous in our affection for the Morgan. Editorial Director, Sean Alexander, simply said, “I love it,” and Kevin called it “the coolest trike on Earth.” It’s not without its faults, however. Without any doors, it takes a little practice to get in and out. The challenge level rises when factoring in the added obstacle of a hot exhaust pipe. Once in, the Morgan is cramped. “It needs about one more inch in every cockpit dimension,” says Sean. Each side of the 3 Wheeler features a padded leather cover over the body panel as a concession from Morgan that your outside arm will rest on it. If traveling with someone you particularly enjoy talking to, the intimate seating arrangement lends itself towards conversation with your passenger. However, wind noise brings talking to an end at over 40 mph. And though it looks to have spacious bonnet and boot areas, there’s hardly any storage under there.

Pricey? Yes. Unique? Absolutely. Then there’s the price. Morgan West, of Santa Monica, California, who lent us this car, quoted a base price of $44,743 at current exchange rates. To get one like our tester, you’ll have to add the special order Harley-Davidson Candy Black Cherry paint job ($944.04), quilted leather interior ($400.70), Mohair based dark red tonneau cover ($421.08), ignition immobilizer ($224.13) and Factory Bright Pack, which includes chrome roll bars, polished exhaust, polished lower engine case, and chrome headlight buckets ($3,796.47). Tack on another $4418.03 for airfreight, Customs and delivery charges from Malvern Link, UK to Santa Monica, California, and you’re looking at a total of $60,734.37. For our tester, once it arrived at Morgan West, the $12,660.63 Queen’s Diamond Jubilee package was added, which includes: A pair of Ruden Meister Swiss/German Mechanical stopwatches on engine turned dash mountings “Raptor” chrome air cleaner assembly S&S fuel injection system adaptor for “Raptor” Stainless Steel badge bar “In celebration of the new Morgan Three Wheeler” badge Triple earred Morgan knock offs on front wheels Pair of stainless steel/chrome wire wheels, including mounting of factory tires MotoLita wood rimmed steering wheel, exclusive for 3 Wheeler Pair of chrome turn signals Polished stainless steel rear tail light surround Silver center body racing stripe with red highlights on edges Morgan winged logo in center of steering wheel Engine turned dash panels Seat belt extensions UK front license plate MOG/RAF graphics Shark Graphics When all is said and done, a Morgan 3 Wheeler like our tester will bring you back a lofty $73,395. Even keeping in mind that each one is built to order, that’s a tough pill to swallow (I’ve seen used examples in the $40k range). However, if price is no object and you truly want a vehicle unlike any other to enjoy the open road, look no further than the Morgan 3 Wheeler. + Highs Incredibly fun to drive Build it how you want it You’ll always be the center of attention – Sighs Shallow wallets need not apply Cramped interior You’ll always be the center of attention Click to Post

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myupdatestudio-blog · 8 years ago

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Drivemode raises $6.5M from Panasonic and others for smartphone vehicle tech

In case you’re an Android device proprietor and also a driving force, you can already be acquainted with Drive mode: To be had on Google Play, it’s one of the maximum popular apps to be used in automobiles, with extra than a million downloads and energetic customers unfold throughout one hundred eighty countries. The app is designed to reduce distractions for drivers through an eyes-loose interface designed to get admission to cellphone capabilities like navigation, messaging, calls and greater, totally through voice.

Smartphone Vehicle

Drive Mode Car

Drive mode simply raised $6.five million in a brand new Collection A spherical, led with the aid of Panasonic, which, amongst its many abilities, is also considered one of the most important automobile enterprise suppliers within the global. Panasonic is a strategic investor, and others blanketed within the round include coverage issue Mitsui Sumitomo insurance through its VC arm, in addition to Innovative Undertaking Fund Investment and Miyako Capital. The nature and supply of the funding show Drive mode have aims nicely past its existing patron app. Founder and CEO Yo Koga confirms the enterprise is targeted on building out additional features for the app thru its new partnership with Panasonic, but that it additionally has other objectives in the works.

“Manifestly, Panasonic desires to make use of our recognition as a using app whilst working with automakers,” Koga defined. “So what we’re operating on now could be integrating their infotainment structures with our client app so that we will paintings with hardware merchandise like show audio or basic audio, customers have lots extra to customers thru the patron app. On the equal time, numerous automakers also are interested in white label stuff as nicely, so that we’re running on separately, as well.”

Free Smart Phones

Businesses appear eager to associate with Drive mode; Koga says there’s a huge backlog of deal pipeline it can pursue, but with a crew of only eight humans a lot of that has been on the keep. What, then, is preventing other Groups from stepping up and filling the demand either internally or thru change companions? Google’s personal Android Auto app on the Play Shop enjoys worse critiques than Drive mode, for starters, which is a good indicator that Koga’s proper while he factors out how hard it’s far to make an app that does what Drive mode can do, and do it well.

“Drive mode is a very technical app,” he stated. “numerous automobile Businesses try to reflect what we’re doing, and a variety of hardware Groups try to try this, too. hardware Businesses, for example, will have the amazing hardware, however figuring out the hardware experience is the toughest component. Even absolutely answering incoming Facebook messages by means of voice is exquisite technical, and not many can do it, at the least with the right interface.”

Drive mode has been running on the hassle with actual person feedback because the app first released in beta in 2014, and continues to iterate on its voice-based interplay version. It’s additionally in normal touch with the National Motorway Site visitors and Safety Management (NHTSA), and Koga says they see eye-to-eye with the federal frame on the wherein in-car use of devices and offerings are headed in terms of maximizing Protection.

Drive Mode Camera

Meanwhile, he argues their cost to the potential automaker and supply-facet companions will only grow, given the direction wherein the industry is headed.

“What’s taking place in the car enterprise is that software program will be key from now on,” Koga defined. “The problem with this is that automakers and providers don’t have direct access to the users, that’s why they’re seeking to provide you with new standards like SDL [SmartDeviceLink] and others to discern out ways to hook up with customers. Getting statistics, and then releasing the records, in the automobile industry might be the key problem for [automakers].”

Drive mode’s loose, in-app buy supported model method it already has certainly one of the largest setup bases of any 0.33-party software program for use on smartphones in motors, which is bound to interest carmakers. Its variety of capabilities means it could also monitor loads approximately person conduct, providing much more insight about purchaser conduct than carmakers, other than tech-centric games like Tesla, can commonly assume to get hold of.

Nifty Tech Hacks In your car The Clever era is anywhere nowadays, and during the last decade or so, quite a few the maximum superior, nation of the artwork software To be had has determined its manner within the common current day vehicle. Manufactures additionally generally tend to provide vehicle shoppers the opportunity to upgrade the tech inner their contemporary cars, often releasing new software additions designed to create a using experience reflective of the virtual age.

The disadvantage? Tech-heavy motors are pricey, and so is the system of putting in software to make your car look like it belongs in the 21st century. If you’re looking to save a bitcoins but nonetheless fancy the delivered perks, check these nifty, low-cost tech hacks For your car.

Flip Your telephone Right into a Dashboard Cam

Verizon Smartphones

If you have a spare telephone kicking around, why not Flip it Right into a digicam that you could fit onto your vehicle dashboard?

Having a sprint cam to record your trips is a cool little addition to your car, and might prove to be especially available If you ever get into an accident and need to claim on coverage.

It’s surprisingly easy to type, too. Step one is to get yourself a mount on which to Shop your smartphone. Look for a strong layout and take it for a check spin around your block before you hit the open street (this can determine whether or not It’s assured to stick in location). The following move is to discover yourself an appropriate app. There are lots available on the smartphone app Save, including CamOnRoad, automobile digicam and AutoGuard dash Cam. Have a play with all of them to peer which one is right for you.

Hidden Storage Far off

In case you own a Storage with an electric powered door or stay in an apartment block with a gate, you have probably got the get admission to Far flung stowed away inside the cup holder with the aid of the gearstick or in the unfastened alternate compartment. An available region to hold it? Yes. but a sensible region? now not truly. A few thieves are an opportunist, however, others like to take a quick go searching the auto earlier than they act. In the event that they spot a device that gives them access to your Garage (wherein you’ll in all likelihood have valuable objects stored), they may not suppose two times approximately breaking in to get it.

So why not make yourself a cheeky Garage Faraway concealer? Invest in a big cup that you could Store inner your car, and tape the Remote to the bottom. This manner, the valuable piece of tech is hidden from sight, giving thieves little incentive to interrupt in and even less of a threat to them locating a way to get entry to your Storage/rental gate If they do.

Shade Sheet

A Colour sheet gives a multiplied experience of visibility whilst you’re on the street, blocking out the ones pesky wallet of mild that could come streaming into the automobile to blind your eyesight. you can purchase one for a totally affordable charge at numerous exclusive retailers. just ensure the layout you pick out may be effortlessly peeled off the screen in a second’s note, but is likewise prepared to stick rigidly to the region for the part of the adventure in that you need it.

GPS Tracker

Having a GPS tracker for your vehicle lets in you to decide where your car is always. If you’re a determine who is currently – but truly begrudgingly – agreed to insure your child on your car, that is a fantastic way to keep an eye fixed on them and ensure they are not using to any dodgy locations. A GPS tracker may even show precious if a person comes to a decision to pinch your motor, giving the police every hazard of monitoring the thief down and getting the car lower back to you in a single piece.

Cellular Hotspot

Did you recognize there are simply methods for you switch your car Right into a hotspot?

by means of having your very own net community in your vehicle, you may be able to link up to the web in a moment’s observe at faster speeds, permitting you are making crackle-loose calls even as you are on the move (using a hands-loose headset or speakerphone of direction – in no way cell phone in hand) and imparting a way to hold your youngsters entertained on lengthy trips as they connect to the net on their cell phone or iPads.

Vehicle Title Search

You could locate gadgets that transform your vehicle Right into a Mobile hotspot all over the net, and frequently for a totally affordable rate. If you use this software program regularly enough, you’ll quickly make your cash back from all of the cash you save by using a connection in preference to 4G.

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