We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
~The Tramp as The Great Dictator (full text by Charlie Chaplan)
John Boswell (melodysheep) is back with a new single, this one of Chaplin’s speech in The Great Dictator. More of John’s excellent work on my blog.
Hard to know who to root for, but damn it looks like fun.
On Absolute Michigan today I wrote a feature on Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s baffling budget that kills the Michigan Film Incentive. Once again, as Mitch Albom so aptly explains, Michigan has gone out, run 1/2 a block and wondered why we haven’t won the marathon.
Either way, he kills the future of the film/TV/video game industry here. With such a low cap, few new projects will come. Many have pulled out in the last few days. Studios just washed millions down the drain. Folks who moved here to be part of a growing industry will leave again.
And we look like fools. Imagine a state that yells, “Come on in!”, leads the nation in a program — then three years later shuts it down. Would you want to do business here?
Sometimes I really feel we are one of the nation’s stupidest states. Click here to read more, check out Rick is Wrong and watch this video from Mitch Albom explaining the inexplicable.
Today is the 71st anniversary of the Wizard of Oz movie. While there’s some great videos like how they cast Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch, a tribute to her Wickedness, some stories from the set of the Wizard of Oz, and this alternative ending courtesy of MadTV, here’s the Dark Side of the Rainbow…
One of the things I’m doing this week – you probably should check it out bigger on YouTube.
All next week Absolute Michigan will be On Location at the Traverse City Film Festival and I came across this in researching an article for Wednesday (tune in for sure!). I also coordinate online media for the festival and in 2010 we will be posting daily video digests, and the link above and traversecityfilmfestival.org are the place to get all that and much more!
Apparently YouTube has been showing full-length movies for some time. They don’t have a ton online but it’s got to be enough to give NetFlix the heebie-jeebies.
Here’s Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, but you might prefer the original fan-fic The Hunt for Gollum or a horror film like cult classics Dracula vs Frankenstein or The Blob. They’re featuring some Bollywood films as well!
Computer Graphics From a Long, Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away from Topless Robot:
Oh man. /Film started my day with this 10-minute documentary from Larry Cuba about how he made the computer graphics for Star Wars, specifically, the Death Star assault video Dodonna plays for the Rebel pilots, and it is so, so awesome. Cuba is obviously so proud when he says he’s moving his Death Star model in real time, and he should be, since back in 1976 that probably needed 400 computers glued together and the blood sacrifice of a white calf. Anyways, it’s fun for Star Wars fans and a neat look back for computer nerds alike.
Imagine the movie industry doing what they do now without the plastic reality offered by oceans of computing power and unbelievable software.
Topless Robot is a kickin’ site that features geek chum like Teenage Mutant Reservoir Turtles and The 10 Best ’60s Batman TV Villains Who Should Make the Leap to Comic Books (10 villains, 10 videos including Vincent Price as the Egghead).
I was contacted by a US government publication who wanted to use this photo. I didn’t think much of the original, so I decided to bump it around in photoshop. I found it pretty cool how a picture that made me yawn was transformed into something that captured a little of the energy and pop of the very cool Traverse City Film Festival (July 31 – Aug 5, 2007, annually thereafter).
My digital photography ethic has been to try and do all the work with the camera. I think that may be changing.
This is pretty darn good and since only 2,000,000 people have seen it, there’s a chance you haven’t. Seems to me that productions like this will be what drives the success of GooTube.
There were (at time of posting) 4 Episodes.
farlane.blog 