TMZ says Michael Jackson died! The King of Pop, man! He had a heart attack and died! He was 50! That’s messed up. You know what else is messed up? Farrah Fawcett also died today — of anal cancer — at 62. Wow. No one lives forever, huh?
Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen movie review by El Guapo at Latino Review. My sentiments will probably be expressed there as I will more than likely hate the movie, too. But really, since I don’t care, I’ll probably feel more like Ron in his review and just…not feel anything, but still come out with a jarring headache and “WTF?” written all over my face. I plan to see it this weekend.
I found this list of common frames and formats at the Panavision New Zealand website. Interesting stuff. I made this Photoshop file to help me with my 2.4:1 stuff and you can use it, too.
Here is a spot I wrote, produced, directed, edited and voiced for the RGV Dorados arena football team here in Hidalgo County, Texas. The gimmick was that the football team’s dancer squad and the local Hooters Girls were going to have a powderpuff football match as part of the half-time entertainment. Below is my Director’s Cut of the spot.
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Next up is a spot I made for a local clinic. It’s in Spanish but I think I did a pretty decent job on the first half of the spot where I took over a household dining area and turned it into a virtual movie set. I don’t think I’ve done location lightning quite like this: where the windows were small enough where I could flag them with a black comforter and some 1″ clamps. Enjoy.
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Erick pointed out some Mole-Richardson 2K fresnels on eBay and I snatched them up. Turns out that when it was all over I bought a Junior, a Baby Junior and a Midget (it’s called an Inbetweenie in the real world) with two Mathews heavy duty location stands for the price on one Junior brand new at B&H. The Junior comes with a bunch of scrims, the Baby Junior comes with scrims and an 8-leaf barndoor and all of them come with at least two appropriate globes (4×2K, 2×200w). The Mathews light stands look awesome and the Midget will work with one of my light weight stands. The seller messaged me yesterday to let me know she’d ship them this weekend. Also, Erick just bought some gear from B&H and it should be arriving on Friday. Looks like Christmas came early this year!
So I walk into Anthony’s office to tell him how much Nikon sucks when he shows me the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt thing at Amazon.com. It’s reported here and it is, in fact, awesome.
An awesome lightning storm, shaped like a mighty anvil, waged its war above the clouds. This was taken last night in my driveway around 9:45pm as I was about to drive over to Rudy’s BBQ for dinner. There was no thunder, only wind.
So, 3d Realms has shut it’s doors, huh? Twelve years of waiting for Duke Nukem Forever and no pay off, huh? All righty, then. See what happens when you try too hard? The project became too bloated for its own good and they ran out of money. Nice. That’s the biggest F-U to gamers I’ve ever heard. I seriously hope this is a marketing stunt.
Orange Media Filmworks’ Twisted Date: winner of four awards at the First Annual Cinesol 24 Hour Film Dash, May 2 and 3, 2009, including Best Sound (Rigo Montenegro), Best Original Music (Jason R. Johnston), Honorable Mention: Cinematography (Jason R. Johnston) and Second Place Overall. The nine total competing films were screened before the awards ceremony held May 8, 2009.
Teams had from noon Saturday to noon Sunday to create a five minute short film from scratch with the following requirements:
Prop: umbrella
Character: nerd
Dialogue: “You had me at hello.”
Action: spilled drink
Theme: twist of fate
Shot on a Panasonic AJ-SPX800P with an RNG35 v3.1 DOF adapter, with Nikon 50mm f/1.4 prime, mounted onto an AJ-D610WBP zoom. Recorded in standard def 1.78:1 (16×9) on P2, but composed and later flipped and matted for 2.39:1. Lowell tungsten lamps used, none brighter than 250W.
Director: Edward Cordero
Producer: Ivan Buenrostro
Writer: Bertha Gonzalez
Executive Producer: Erick Treviño
Cinematographer, Music: Jason R. Johnston
Editor: Gabriel Ramirez
Sound: Rigo Montenegro
Grips: Belit Martinez, Amanda Ramirez
Donald: George Magee
Gaby: Gabriella Gutierrez
Amy: Bianca Cantu
Drunk: Ivan Buenrostro
Waitress: Binky Cantu
Contains spoilers.
I saw Star Trek last night and although it was great fun it was certainly not the best of the franchise. However, the guy who does Lost and the guys who wrote Transformers did do something very intelligent. This Star Trek is not a reboot in a Batman Begins sense. It’s a reboot in a Back to the Future alternate timeline, Biff Tannen-in charge sense.
There were quite a few moments in the movie where I was completely ready to call “bullshit”, but the movie’s one saving grace appears: Leonard Nimoy as Spock. And he’s not J. J. Abrams’ Spock. This is Gene Roddenberry’s Spock from the future; the same future timeline as the original series, movies and The Next Generation era. In that timeline everything we know and love about the established Trek universe is still going on. But some shit goes down and the bad guy and Spock are thrust back in time where the bad guy kills Kirk’s dad, among many others: an event not supposed to happen, and thereby changes the Trek timeline at least 25 years before the events in the original series. That’s ample time for production design to change.
Once Leonard Nimoy’s Spock tells young Kirk that all the shit happening in this movie never actually happened in his timeline and it’s all a completely alternate universe where now anything can happen (including newly reimagined encounters with Khan, the Borg or a new Federation-Klingon war), Abrams and company have a fresh, clean slate to do ANYTHING they want and it’s ok to the die hard Trekkies and Trekkers who, like me, would have called this film an abomanation — Star Trek 90210, for instance — because it’s an alternate timeline. And if Tasha Yar can come back in an alternate timeline and give us Sela in the established timeline, then why not an alternate universe where Spock gets to flesh meld Uhura?
After that explanation, I could totally buy Abrams’ Star Trek, but I couldn’t get over how EVERY scene had to be filled with action. Not only are we about to be destroyed by an alien vessel but my wife’s gonna give birth. Not only do I have to walk through the snow for 18 miles to call for a taxi but I have to be chased by carnivorous alien creatures. And even a mellow exposition scene like like two dudes chatting in a bar has to be shot with nervous energy; like they handed the camera to a starving Ethiopian.
Still, even this grotesquely overly epic little movie pays homage to Roddenberry’s Trek like red shirts being inexplicably dispatched in the first two seconds of an away mission, Scotty being taken for granted and Sulu being a gay fencer. Because fencing is gay. Unless you’re Rob Roy.
Also, I really enjoyed the few moments where Kirk got his Shatner on: the head bobbing and casual, badass delivery. I think the movie tried too hard to be cute for teen audiences like Kirk eating an apple during the Kobiashi Maru test, the Scotty in the “why is this here?!” dangerous water chopping thing scene, Kirk being tongue-numbingly, hand-bloatingly sick scene and others. Felt like a loud teen comedy, J. J. But hey, they’re alternately young so of course they won’t act EXACTLY like the established and mature crew we all know and love…yet.
With a wisely manufactured alternate timeline, this “not really a reboot” reboot can deliver something fresh and exciting for today’s Michael Bay-loving audience while still not completely flipping off the original fans. A smart move from J. J. “I like Star Wars more” Abrams.
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