Coolio - 2 Minutes And 21 Seconds Of Funk MP3 Download @ KOHit.net

Coolio - 2 Minutes And 21 Seconds Of Funk MP3 Download @ KOHit.net

Final blog of Jen's course.

Must admit I hated blogging when i started this class. And having to do them every week was at times painful, particularily with some much other stuff going on at college, work, family, and DJing.

However, I have begun to integrate blogging into my digital life. They are very handy for project work, particularily when you have to colloborate with other people. Also a very good way to keep several conversations going at the same time without 100 million e-mails flying all over the place. As I am so over e-mail this is indeed a blessing!

A good and handy way to express ideas too. Often it helps to write ideas down, even the rawest outlines of halfbaked ideas can take on a life of their own in the blogosphere.
I like too the informality of blogs. Because one can be as formal or as informal as they like in this forum.

Chau chau for now ...

Movie Makin' & Cyberspace Copyright

Movie-Making in the Digital Age

In his article, Graham Roberts quotes Owen Thomas .. "Technology doesn't matter. Nobody pays to see it. Nobody cares. Any discussion of where cinema goes must remember this."  This is the most sensible statement I have read in regard to the debate about digital media.  Why, does cinema think itself as so very important?   When was the last time a movie changed the world, or even defined or signified an era? It is smoke and mirrors. A trick show at worst, at best a great medium for storytelling.  It is simply entertainment.  Now in the post modern age, the practitioners of this art are using digital instead of analogue methods to create the same product.  It should not matter what or how these tools have made life easier or in sum cases more difficult for the filmmaker. They are merely tools.  The music industry moved to digital recording, editing and production approx a decade before the film industry did.  But yet there was no discussion on whether or how these techniques affected the product (the album). The artists still had to write, sing and play just as they did in analogue days.  Yes, the recording and production were made easier, but those things are invisible to the customer shelling out 15 bucks or whatever for the CD. Yes, of course there is the old vinyl/CD debate,  but that was never about the quality of the product, just about the resonance of the sound. It did not compromise the music itself.

Why then is there such a big debate about moving to new technology in movies?

Robert's article was published in 2004, however most of his arguments were outdated even then, particularly those regarding distribution via the web .  By 2004 most technology professional would have agreed that the bandwidth wasn't there yet, but nobody had any doubts that they soon would be. Of course by 2008, not only are they there, but its also very widely used from sites like Netflix etc on the legitimate side and quciksilverscreen.com, surfthecannel.com etc which aggregate pirated material from web sites all over the world.

Why do film industry professionals, critics, and indeed movie buffs, take it all so seriously? Is it because they just love being dramatic?  Its just new technology, baby.

Copyright in Cyberspace.

There's nothing new in copyright piracy.  VCRs, tape machine, photocopiers, and of course computer have had the ability to copy stuff for years.  Now, however, everybody can access pirated stuff far more readily.  Problem is that the most secure systems allow copyright holders to protect their interests they also infringe on fair use, which has been struck down by US courts as being illegal. But, the unsecure systems allow, and almost encourage piracy.  And there really is no middle ground.  As some as somebody unveils a digital rights management (DRM) system, some hacker somewhere will find a way to break it, usually within days of its release.  Again the music industry has struggled with this for the last decade,  and still have come up with no technological solution, instead they have started to investigate and implement new ways to derive revenue from different streams and through different channels.  The business model has most definitely changed.  I would imaging that it was time for the movie people to think about doing the same.  They have over charged us for years (just like the music industry did) and now they will have to come up with a new model to protect and generate revenue that is being lost because of piracy.   

I love the anarchy that new media has brought to these old institutions that have had it so good for so long.  

Reality, if the studios etc want to protect their interests against the digital pirates, they should provide their customers (the movie-goer) with a better product, something value-added. For over 100 years they have had the same formula, crowd people into a theater, turn off the lights ... time for something new to keep their customers happy.  How about a beer with that, buddy?  :)   

Project Update

Script outline has now been updated to include links to the multi-media aspects of the program. 

Interviews now all complete and have transcribed them on to paper for ease of storyboarding.

Next up is an attempt to document "secondary sources"  ... not exactly sure what that comprises of; need to get clarification on what that is exactly.  Once that has been clarified I should be able to submit my project.

Beyond Update.

When trying to update the script for this weeks class, a number of issues have cropped up that have led to a rethink on the show's focus. A trip North at the beginning of October saw the Beyond production team interview several more contributors for the punk documentary. With now over 10 hours of recorded interview with 8 different contributors has led to a problem most documentary makers would sell their grandmothers for; too much great stuff. How does one tell this story in just 60 minutes, and do it justice? The thought now is to concentrate on the Belfast and leave the Derry story for another time. The Belfast story illustrates the non-sectarian nature punk in a much better manner, as Derry scene consisted of the Undertones and very little else.

Beyond - Why radio?

Why radio?

2 reasons really.

1. Have background in radio. I have no experience, nor much love for TV/Film

2. Way cheaper than TV/Film from a number of perspectives. No archive footage to purchase. Royalties (music) covered by radio station's fair use policy. TV contributors usually look for guest fees, where as with radio the norm is for guests to provide their interviews for free.

Friedberg & Andrew

End of Cinema

Friedburg asks how movies, TV and computer media been altered (Remember that computers haven't always been digital either.. Ed.) by digital technologies. She then goes on to say that its not just digital technologies that have impacted, and that changes have hit these industries before. TV has been hit with many changing factors to its spectatorship. Cable TV, VCRs and even the humble remote all have had a major effect on the way TV has been viewed. She goes on to breakdown the effects of the coming of all these technologies and the impact they have had on both the TV networks and on their audience. She then goes on to say that the same thing now applies to the film with the advent of digital. These controls have now been moved out of the hands of the projectionist and into the hands of the owner of a DVD player, particularly one with a remote in their hand. Of course subsequent innovations in web technology has meant that her findings are even more true today and because of this that we need to re-evaluate not only film theory. Also spectatorship needs to be revisited because the screens by which we watch video all have changed too with the advent of digital projectors, LCD screens, Flat screens, iPods (bet she didn't see that one coming) and so on.

Adaptation
Dudley argues that pretty much everything is an adaptation of something else and that there are basically 3 modes of adaptation. Borrowing, which means taking extensively from a previous work, is the most common form. Trainspotting would be an example. However, Romeo & Julliet set in 1990s Miami with a heartthrob actors playing the leads would probably more likey to be considered by him as an 'intersecting' adaptation, in that the movie faithfully stays true to Sheakspeare's original dialogue even though it set 400 years later, and in America.
Dudley then says that the third mode, fidelity of transformation, is probably the most tiresome of discussion. How well it stays true to the original meaning of the originating text is just one of the factors, and that is fairly easy to see. How its fidelity of spirit, tone, imagery, values etc is much more difficult to qualify.

he concludes that adaptations, which are not only works of art in their own right, but that inform us of the cultures that creat them.

Trainspotting

Trainspotting ...

It is unavoidable that a book and a film of the same story will have some dissimilarities, if only because they are two distinct media with two different audiences. The book and movie I have chosen is Trainspotting one of my all time favourites.

In the movie the plot is linear in the main, where as in the book the time line is not as straightforward. In fact, the book is more a collection of sometimes very dark short stories with the different storylines loosely linked. However, the film plot is tied together far more tightly, and overall is a fairly traditional narrative structure. The movie is not anywhere as near as dark as the book.

Although much of the witty dialogue that peppers the movie script comes directly from the pen of Irvine Welsh, it is used in different scenes that they appear in the novel. For example the 'it's shite being Scottish' speech takes place in the pub where Begbie tosses the pint glass into the crowd below, in the movie this monologue takes place when the boys head out to the countryside for the day ... (this bit of the movie always did bother me, why were they out in the country? dinnae makes sense, likesay.)

With music, for me, it is all about the songs; as your average A&R man will tell u. Likewise with movies or literature, its all about the story. A good plot is imperative, regardless of the medium. And in this particular case of adaptation, I would so far as saying that the film ever surpasses the original work and stands on its own two feet as a genuine work of art, regardl

Punk Archives

Although there seem to be no web pages devoted specifically to Belfast punk, sites such as punk77.co.uk and the Punk in Derry pages provide me with some very useful background. Band web sites SLF.com, theundertones.com also provide some useful background. More relevant sites exist on myspace.com for some of the less well know bands, many of whom were far more important to the story of NI Punk than Stiff Little Fingers or the the Undertones ever were. That being said, the Virtual Pub discussion board on SLF.com is extremely useful, as here one can make contact with some of the old punks who were involved in the very beginnings of the North's most successful period in modern music.

For context the CAIN web site (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk) provides all sorts of demographic and socio-political data which is very important to highlight the economic and social conditions during the relevant time period. Population/census data, for instance, paints a clear picture of a society in decay as thousands fled the dole queues and sectarian violence to seeks better lives in mainland UK, the US or Australia.

Writing Machines II

Electronic literature works in a fundamentally different ways than print and thus requires a new critical framework for analysis. new paths can be forged by the reader between the different lexias.  E-lit is not necessarily about reading the words from beginning to end, but can make use of navigation to follow many different paths to discover background documents, maps, letter & journals that serve to possibly enhance the reader's experience, making it a more interactive environment that the normal print one.  E-text has its own properties and should be viewed as a medium rather than a transparent interface.

In traditional literature the author's voice is privileged, however, it is my opinion that with e-lit the voice is no longer solely that of the writer.  The graphic designer and programmer now also have a voice that was not originally there. This will obviously dilute the voice of the writer, something that has left the traditionalists agasht. But this also may perhaps elevate the work of the programmer/designer to the level of art, which in some cases is long over due. 

This new medium has lead some writers to explore and experiment with the new form, embracing the technology and making it part of the narrative.  The example cited is Lexia to Perplexia. The author here actually creates a creole in which computerspeak and english are intermingled and it all become part of the story. He continues to integrate humans and computers further. 

The wordiness of this book makes me wish i too could use a more powerful tool to navigate the reading, skipping her little life adventures and getting straight to the point.

Drupal Rocks.

Not normally one to get excited by software, but this is cool.

Got to learn about Content Management Systems (CMS) last week.  Amazingly powerful stuff. The one we looked at in particular was Drupal, which is open source (free)  .. sweet.  Already used to to jazz up my own web site ... take the pain of HTML away, which is a good thing.

How to Write Fiction

while working on the market on saturday i came across a guide to writing a novel in the Guardian (a paper i never normally read) ... this might be handy for a certain class i thought, so i brought it home with me.

Richard Harris, author of Pompeii (a novel i read in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvio) had an interesting piece of advice when starting to learn how to write and that is; write any sort of crap (his word), but just start writing and that a page with any sort of crap was better than a blank page. u can always edit, spell/grammar check later and by polishing up some of it u may in fact be able to use it, if not there and then, possibly later on. 

in other words, just start writing and don't throw anything away.

Punk: Beyond the Wire

A documentary chronicling the punk movement in Northern Ireland from 1975-1983, and its lasting legacies.

This is a human interest archive piece documenting those times in Ulster's troubled history, when the much maligned punk culture was in fact one of the very few positive lights, bringing people together regardless of their background (religious/class etc).

We have no political agenda, and see ourselves as apolitical storytellers, nothing more. The piece itself is aimed mainly at music fans and social history buffs, and of course those who have an interest in the history of this island, particularly the bit with the good roads ;0)

When we talk of 'fans' i am using the term (maybe wrongly) to indicate fans of punk, who may or may not have been involved in running fanzines, managing, promoting, running indie labels, playing in bands, all of which represent the DIY ethos of punk. In other words, the people who got off their arses and did something. We're not terribly interested in talking to SLF, or get into the 'rockstar' bullshit feuds they had with the Undertones. We talk to the guys and girls that started bands and got up on stage just to have a bit of craic, or promote their anarchistic political agendas, or just to relieve the boredom. We wish to highlight that DIY attitude, and indeed applaud it. We also wish to tell people's interesting stories of battle with the spidermen (local hoods), paramilitaries, the army, cops etc. We will be focusing on the Clash's aborted gig at Ulster Hall in 1977, that seemed to inspire people to get together as one of the opening points of the story. We also wish to tell the story of lasting friendships that grew between people in this most improbable of environments across the sectarian divisions, because of punk.

The story will be told using contributions of people that were involved in the beginnings of Northern Ireland's infamous punk scene. We will be interviewing, filming and recording all using digital media. Archive footage and music from the era will also be used to propel the story along all of which will be mixed using a digital editing suite. Research for the project will be almost entirely an on-line effort, using bulletin boards, web sites and email to contact these old punks.

Production will require the use of a data base management system in order to store all data relating to the project; interviewees, time code, index, transcript and the audio files themselves broken down by subject and cross referenced. This will speed up the editing phase considerably.

Animation, graphics, old documents, concert and other archive footage will form the basis of the visual aspect of the project (expand)

A web site will also need to be created for both the marketing of the program and also to provide more information on the bands who's music was played in the show, the people interviewed and further background on the subject. The show should be available either as a vod/podcast, or else streamed from the website.

Blake

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is Blake's take on morality, and his satire on organised religions.

Where as the text itself written in poetry and prose in a manner similar to some of his contemporaries, it is the engravings and images he uses to help propel the text along that for me is most interesting part. Here he is using more that one media to tell his story, which would have been very unusal for its time.

Writing Machines

so, the chick digs electronic books ... apart from really annoying me with her life's story, this document proposes a life for books in a digital form. i suppose it's inevitable, as the children of the (digital) revolution grow up with no experience of reading old fashioned paper books, that electronic books will begin to take over. however, i suspect that the move to the digital form will not encourage better plot lines, rather like the move to the digital form in the movie world has in most cases meant a lesser focus on the story and a greater one on the FX.

Writing in the Digital Age

1. The ability to write concise pitty web ready pieces to promote shows or events.


2. Not much.


3. Have designed/managed and edited various web sites from band/dj sites to more complex airline reservation systems.


4. Have written creatively for my BA. Also have published on the web. And also written proposals for grants etcs. Am currently producing a radio documentary on Belfast Punk in the 1970s, for which I have had to write script treatment etc.


5. This course as a whole should serve to bring together my disjointed halves: technology and the arts.


6. Too many chopices really, but lets pick one song - 'Can't do nuthin for u man' Public Enemy ... I'm not sure it is possible to really explain the experience of music where the other person is deaf. If one starts to describe the drums, guitars, horns and synths, those are useless reference points for the deaf..