DV Info Net - Various TOTEM posts 2001

DV Info Net (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/)

- The TOTEM Poll: Totally Off Topic, Everything Media (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/totem-poll-totally-off-topic-everything-media/)

- - Various TOTEM posts 2001 - 2003 (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/totem-poll-totally-off-topic-everything-media/78-various-totem-posts-2001-2003-a.html)

I did a Google news search for "bruce almighty" "gods phone number" and got 135 articles! Apparently folks in phone exchanges from all over the country have been discovered that they have "god's number" and have been receiving lots of phone calls. Here is one of the articles:

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/58235.htm

At 2:30 CST my wife , son & I will be at the Ford Center for performing arts in Oxford,Ms to see the great Merle Haggard. My son is 8 yrs old and loves Merle. I have introduced him to all genre's of music from the time he was born. At 8 yrs old I'm glad to see that some of his favorite are the likes of Merle, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and assorted bluegrass artist. Oh he just discovered ZZ TOP. Anyway this should be a great concert. The Ford Center is a new facility and seats about 2K.

Merle Haggard! Boy...just hearing that name floods me with memories...and makes me want to grab a beer.

Enjoy your concert. Come back and tell us how it was. And tell your son he's got fine taste in music.

Hello,
A question for everyone with a website, who did you go with to host? Right now I was looking at Dotster.com, Powweb.com and Emegaweb.net. I'm just looking for a reliable place. Thanks.

matt

Re: Website Hosting

<<<-- Originally posted by Matt Betea : Hello,
A question for everyone with a website, who did you go with to host? Right now I was looking at Dotster.com, Powweb.com and Emegaweb.net. I'm just looking for a reliable place. Thanks.

matt -->>>

It really comes down to what you are going to do with it. If you plan on streaming video, you should look at a provider who supports this - i.e. high bandwidth allocation.

What will you be using the site for? Based on that I can make some recommendations.

Sorry, I should've mentioned it in the first post. Nothing streaming for now. It'll be a flash site to host photos. I registered a domain with dotster for 2 years, so now I just need the space. Thank you.

matt

How many FPS can your eyes process?

This is a not so recent article, but I just stumbled across it in the last day or 2......

http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

Very interesting article, Dan. Thanks for passing that along to us.

Hi Def Expo and Cinegear Expo

Cinegear Expo: Sony CineAlta was everywhere. Whoever was demonstarting their products, it was in conjunction with Sony CineAlta. Some were naturally privately labeled, like Panavision, etc. I would say that there were about 60 of them there. I saw something like 4 Thomson Vipers and about 3 Panasonic Varicams. Panasonic had a booth there. Sony did not. Sony did not have a booth at the High Def Expo either but everyone demonstrated their products with CineAlta. Varicam was in the Panasonic booth only.

There was also display at the Cinegear Expo of an English made prototpe of 16 mm camera, where instead of the film magazine you could install an HD back with nice flip out screen. It was made in cooperation with Ikagami and is made to feed HD arrays. The CCD is 2/3". Production should start this year.

Does anyone know (for a fact) or during the show have heard someone say if royalties are paid for the songs the contestants are singing.

Count on it. It's not just a good idea... it's the law.

Recently I was able to watch Jean Luc Godards 'Contempt'. I was impressed with his use of Camera movement and the long continuous takes. Things you don't normally see anymore. This is a movie about making movies. Based on the comentaries about the film, he felt he had sold out somewhat when he made it.

So he paid his producers back without them realizing it. Even his use of color spoke about the multinational team financing the movie, and how he was forced to cast Briget Bardot to get financing. Mix in some direct attacks on facism and hollywood style movie making, and you have an excellent satirical film.

Any comments about the visual aspects of the film from some of the cinemetagraphers that hang around here would be appreciated.

TiVo to sell viewer data to advertisers and network programmers

TiVo, the manufacturer of personal recording devices for television, has revealed it will soon report the viewing habits of its subscribers to advertisers and network programmers.

Under the new plan, TiVo will tell advertisers which commercials its subscribers watched in their entirety during an episode of a comedy, such as "Friends".

The new audience measurement system ? capable of creating a second-by-second viewing record ? represents a potential new revenue stream for TiVo, a company that?s trying to remake itself into a media services company. The new data service would represent income beyond TiVo?s standard monthly subscriber fees.

TiVo currently allows its subscribers to opt-out of the monitoring of their viewing habits. However, a TiVo spokesman told Reuters that most do not do so. Under the new plan, TiVo will tell advertisers which commercials its subscribers watched in their entirety during an episode of a comedy, such as "Friends." It can, for example, also inform "Friends" producers of how many viewers changed the channel when a particular character entered an episode.

TiVo has targeted a viewing sample of one million subscribers by early 2004.

Maybe Orwell was right?

online casting boards

Looking for an online forum for placing casting notices in Vancouver. Do any Vancouverites know of the biggest/best ones?

I have vacation time to use...

... and I was wondering if there's any possibility I could visit a real production set and observe (I do have broadcasting experience but I don't think anyone would trust me). I've never been on a real motion picture set before (or a network TV show). I think it'd be a tremendous learning experience.

Are there any connections out there?...

I could go to a beach somewhere and soak up the rays and fine ladies.... but it really ain't all that productive. :)

ooo I just noticed I'm a 'trustee' now, wohoo!

Looking for a good (stills) photo academy

Hi!

For a friend (young talented lad) I am looking for a good (stills) photography academy in the English language, in the US or UK.
Any tips? Know about prices?

Thanks,

Dan.

Dan

I wrote you a rather detailed response and then my computer crashed...before I had posted, so.....check these three out

http://www.brooks.edu/

http://www.artcenter.edu/

http://www.rit.edu/

They are all highly recognized for their photo programs...If I had to do it all over again, I would probably choose Art Center because of the level of students and the variety of creative disciplines that are offered (and cross pollenated).

Barry

Happy Father's Day

Hey Everyone.

Just wanted to say Happy Fathers Day to those dad's of ours out there.

THANKS AGAIN FOR EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DONE FOR US!
(my dad too...)

- Aaron

To frame or not to frame

<<This is a continued thread from "Lady X" that got a bit off track...onto the subject of using frames in web sites.>>

Basically, it surprises me how people are so anti-frames. They're really useful for doing one thing...controlling flow. Imagine telling all your friends to stop by your house any time...but only one or two uses the front door. All the rest climb through windows, back doors, through the chimney...just wherever they can get in. And when they get in they don't see everything--just what they want to see. The guy who climbed in the back bedroom window doesn't even know about your prize Lion fish collection in the den, because he never took the full tour of the house (the Lion fish are visible when entering the front door).

Non-frame sites are great for "hit and run" visitors...where "info" is the main content and by having non-frames you can catalog and archive that info, search for it, and have people access it directly...rather than going through a series of clicks to get to that info. "News" sites...and sites like "DVInfo.net" that are crammed full of info are great for non-frames design.

But in a site where you want people to at least see the full menu of what's inside, especially in a "gallery" type of site (not an archive site), then having everyone come in through the front door increases those odds.

As for the Lady X site, I didn't want a situation where the family and friends of a certain filmmaker go to the direct link for his/her episode page, then ignore the other filmmaker's pages. By coming to the front page, they at least see the long list and are perhaps motivated to watch other episodes.

So if you need controlled flow, using frames (or Flash...which is also based on a frames priniciple) is a good way to do it.

Just recommending to web developers out there not to rule out the use of frames.

I feel there are several reasons for frames, some you have touched on.
1, Branding- Your logo, name, whatever, is always poised right where they will see it.

2, Easy menu- It's also always right there.

3, Design possibilities- I have done some really cool, yet highly fuctional sites in frames, none of them were "Run of the mill".

4, You decide what gets seen on the front page, whether they want to see some other page or not. Instead of missing relevent info by jumping into the middle of the mix, they get to see the whole bill of fare.

5, Individual pages load faster when they don't have to keep loading the same stuff over and over.

i agree frames are great for info sites, but a pain to deal with when working with datadriven sites, so biggies like cnn, nytimes don't use them...

Thanks Barry!

They look real good on the web. I have passed the info on!

Dan.

Best Buy, "WARNING"!!!

There is an email circulating from a fictitious Best Buy Fraud Department. It tells you your credit card information has been stolen, and you need to go to their secure website to verify your card information. You can read the handwriting on the wall for that one. Best Buy confirms that this is a scam. Don't go there.

Thank you for the warning, Harry!

Hey All,

I have a few questions about doing 3d work.

1. Is it possible to take an object from either lightwave or 3dstudiomax into after effects and do all your animating in after effects using 3d layer tools?

2. I need to create 2 things for a uni project, the first one is like a view of brain nuetrons firing off and those tree light structures when you delve deep into a cell, king like this

http://www.jackals-forge.com/bodysto...situ_brian.jpg

The second bit is more of the simple circular look of a cell when not as closely magnified... like this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/193000...97_cell300.jpg

And i need them to be spliting them swarming around, like a comets tail.

Now, for this project it really only requires that these look monocromatic, kinda like when you look through the magnifier... but probably with a blueish tinge to it instead of straight grey scale, but with a very high level of detail, photo realistic.

How ambitious is it to create something like this, are these super super difficult things to model then animate?

There is only around 10 seconds of the video where these will be upclose and very visable, as they start to multiply they will move further back from the active camera.

Anyways thanks for your help.

I have access to either 3dsmax or lightwave... but i am only really confident with animating cameras and views with after effects, so it would be 1000x easier if i could pop these models into after effects and do them in there. Alsa compositing these are say alpha or chroma mattes or similar could actually create more work for me than just doing all the movement, keyframes and camera moves in after effects.

Anyways..

Zac

I don't think the first one is possible, but more progress has been
made in exchange. I have read some things on this somewhere
once, but have forgotten where.

Usually what you do is one of the following things:

1. export a frame sequence for the 3D effect and have this sequence
on a polygon or background in a 3D package (very easy to do
in LightWave!). Then in the package you create and integrate
the 3D effect in/over the footage and render it back out as a
movie/image sequence.

2. render your effect with an alpha channel so that it can be
composited back into your footage in something like AE

My big trip today

We'll gang, I'm off. In a few hours I leave for a 30 day trip across American and eastern Canada. I am hoping to shoot about the small off beat attractions on the side of the road, grave yards, and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

You guys have been a grat help helping me choose my gear. When I come hope I'll let you know how things went.

If I can get to a computer on the road, I'll let you know how it is coming.

Thanks to all and talk to you soon.

B&H changes shippers

B&H switched to UPS for shipping. The scourge of international shipping with their rediculously high brokerage (and other fees).

It's so very hard to find a good Vinten dealer, now my #1 choice won't save me much money afterall....

but you cant argue with thier products

Hit for good funny ideas.

Sorry for having to resort to this, but all of a sudden that some more people seen a video of mine, they want to do a video with me. They want to do it this weekend, and I am all cool with that, but I told them to get a good idea first, and write it out, but it seems everyone is broke on ideas.

Anyone care to help out? (Mark Moore, didn't you mention you had some good ideas that you would share over email or something?)

Whatever it is, it needs to be stupid, but funny. It also has to be something that we can easally do with no budget or anything, so we can't like blow up a building or anything like that. The reason I put that last stupid video I did online (instead of keeping it to put it on a future hour long video I hope to put together) was because it wasn't really funny.

Thanks.

You should check out www.shortscriptsonline.com
There are a lot of short scripts on that site you could produce, broken up into genre. Most of the good ones are snatched up quickly but there are some you might want to use.

They have the sluglines there and you can email the writer and ask for a copy. A lot of these guys aren't filmmakers and just want to see their work produced. Some of them expect Steven Speilberg to cut them a 1 million dollar deal on their poorly written short but just be honest and tell them your independent and can make their movie. If you want, send them a release form and have them sign it if you plan on reading any of them so you aren't obligated to make it and they can't sue you if you come out with an idea with similar themes.

Other than that, my suggestion would be to do some short comedy spec ads for fake products. Most of the things you and you're buddies joke around about every day can be filmed for a short ad.

Desk Panaroma + some other random pictures.

You may be interested in learning how to achieve a 360° panorama using a shiny chrome ball as a light probe. There's tons of fun to be had in making high dynamic range light probes and then using the resultant luminance map as a light source to light 3D models and environments with using a 3D modeling/rendering application.

Here are some links to get started.

Panorama Tools
Dr. Paul Debevec's web site - download HDR Shop and learn how to stitch light probe images together with it, then paint out the camera from two light probe pictures taken 90° apart from each other!

FrameForge3D, did anyone take a look at the Expo?

There is a new 3D storyboard program out called FrameForge3D. It looks like a great tool for the drawing challenged.

Their web site said they would be demoing at the LA Expo. Just wondering if anyone stopped by and took a look?

If it's any good, the intro price is right.

http://www.frameforge3d.com

Great Canadian Films

It is Canada Day and in celebration of that great day upon which I have almost always worked I am presenting forthwith this list of great Canadian films in no particular order.

DEAD RINGERS - David Cronenberg's strange but true story about two twin gynecologists who live together and die together features Jeremy Irons in a marvellously creepy performance that established him as an intellectual weirdo for the rest of his career. The props for the gynecology scenes deserved star billing, as well.

IF YOU LOVE THIS PLANET - Along with "The Atomic Cafe" one of the great propaganda pieces of the 80s attacking the nuclear age. Based upon the book by Helen Caldicott, it is a totally slanted National Film Board of Canada short that won the Academy Award with its emotional, slamming message. Today Caldicott is a bitter radical. No surprise.

MANUFACTURING CONSENT - Canadians do very good straight documentaries but this one is very stylishly put together. An examination of the work and thoughts of political critic Noam Chomksy, this is really one of the great political documentaries and a staple for media junkies. Chomsky's critique of the mainstream media's reporting of the United States' influence on human rights in various countries that fall within its geopolitical sphere (or out of it) is damning. A very entertaining film as well with nice devices. The one shot everyone remembers if the big Noam Chomsky head lecturing down from the jumbotron in a football stadium about how Americans treat war as sports as football players high five.

EXOTICA - Atom Egoyan's film is structured like rose with each layer unplucked slowly to reveal the truths of the past. Oddly marketed as a sexploitation movie, actually it's a film about grief. Bruce Greenwood stars as a Revenue Canada auditor who has seen his life fall apart after the murder of his daughter. He returns night after night to a stripper bar where the pretty Mia Kirshner (the lesbian assassin in "24") performs for him in a schoolgirl's uniform. Why he does this is the question. A wonderfully structured movie and my favourite Canadian movie.

THE SWEET HEREAFTER - Atom Egoyan's adaptation of Russel Bank's novel about a school bus tragedy investigated by an 'ambulance chasing' lawyer. Egoyan sets the novel in a B.C. town and uses his same ensemble of actors (Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwoood, Murray Chaykin, Arsinee Karijian, Elias Koteas) and adds Ian Holm as the lawyer. A nicely structured plot that winds ever inward to expose the relationships and pasts of the villagers.

CUBE - basically a graduate film school project by the Canadian Film Center that turned into a cult SF rental standard. Take a single rotating cube set, change the lighting and you have a psychological futuristic mystery about a group of strangers who wake up in a 3-dimensional puzzle. Avoid the sequel, HYPERCUBE.

HARD CORE LOGO - You can describe this as a punk "Spinal Tap" but it's not really a parody. It's the story of a Canadian punk band that comes together for one last benefit tour. A road trip film (like other Bruce Mcdonald films), it is very funny in parts but turns very serious as the punk band begins to unravel as the trip wears on.

ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER - Last year's festival darling was the fresh pairing of new technology (digital video) with an ancient Inuit myth. The stark lines of digital video present the high contrast beauty of the arctic icescape in an environment that hasn't seen much treatment since Nanook of the North (which I have not seen). The story about two brothers and their conflict with a rival group of brothers is both brutal and funny. Weird weird humour. It features one of the most memorable images in film, the naked 'fast runner' of the title being chased over ice floes by hunters.

BLACK ROBE - One of the best films about Canadian history, Black Robe came out around the same time as Dances With Wolves and to my mind is a far superior movie about aboriginals and definitely avoids the golden interpretation of Indian lives that the Kevin Costner film spoons out. Set in 16th century Quebec, it is the story of a young and fanatical Jesuit (Lothaire Bluteau) assigned to bring the word of god to the Huron. To get to the Huron mission he must travel with a company of Algonquin (lead by August Schellenberg) through epic lakes, forests and through a cordon of fierce Iroquois. The Iroquois are skeptical of 'the black robe's attempts to convert them. At once a gritty survival film and a spiritual, cultural clash, it is one of the glossiest historical films about Canada you will see. Impressive photography showing the tiny, liliputian humans paddling amidst the immense geography that was and is Canada.

CLEARCUT - A grim thriller starring Graham Greene (from Dances With Wolves) about a white liberal who is kidnapped by an Indian activist and taken for a tour of the forest. The politics are a bit strange and not very well laid out but there is something deliciously fierce about Greene's performance. I don't know how it was received among aboriginal audiences but I wonder if they cheered when Greene blows away the RCMP and begins carving into the leg of the white liberal.

JESUS DE MONTREAL - the sole Quebecois film on my list (purely because of my own ignorance of Quebec film) is one of the best known films from Denys Arcand. Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1990 it is a modern parable about the life and sacrifice of Jesus as experienced by a group staging a passion play. Lothaire Bluteau is the title character. Frequently shown in religious studies because of its uncynical examination of religiosity in modern life. Denys Arcand is a past Cannes favourite, having made a splash previously with The Decline fo the American Empire and its sequel this year.

32 SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD - An inventive and never boring fanciful examination of the life of pianist Glenn Gould who is forever enshrined in the performer pantheon for his recordings of the Goldberg Variations. I'm not a classical music fan (had enough of that learning piano when I grew up) but this is excellent filmmaking. Indeed, it is 32 short films in one package, each film encapsulating a certain point in Gould's life or a certain work. Playing Gould as an adult is Colm Feore who you will recognize in quite a few international films usually playing a stately middle aged man. Director Francois Girard also made The Red Violin.

Other Canadian films worth seeing: HIGHWAY 61, STRANGE BREW, THE NAKED LUNCH, ROADKILL, THE GREY FOX, THE BAY BOY, VIDEODROME

Vancouver in 2010!

So as some of you probably know by now, we won the Olympic Bid! The 2010 Winter Games will be in Vancouver :)

I'm really excited about it, and I know we have a few other people from Vancouver on these boards. What's everyone's opinion on the bid?

Can't wait to be able to quintuple my rates...
I mean, I'm proud to host the Olympics!

:)

In seven years I hope to be in a successful career.

Which is about the only way I'll be able to buy tickets for a Canada hockey game.

Interesting stuff indeed Robert! Now if someone would pay so I
can play with this kind of stuff all day long and quit my day job <grin>

I see that Gateway has a HDTV compatiable plasma TV. What would be a good set to go with that has s-video and all the bells and whistles. Am I to understand you have the choice of 16.9 or 4.3 but not both? I read that the life expectancy of a plasma was somewhere around 25000 hrs before picture degeneration occurs. That is suppose to equal 24/7 viewing for app. 2 years.

tks, charles