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.