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#found-footage-film-seminar
lesbiansforboromir · 1 year
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Whats up with shippey and hosstetter? I know i didn’t spell that right, sorry :( I’m extrapolating from your posts that shippey is a racist but Ive never encountered his academic works so I’m like, who is he and why was he associated with trop? And isnt hosstetter one of the guys who put together NOME? the other two incidences of eowyn scholarship you described are ludicrously awful btw. Thinking I need to do some more tolkien scholarship reading simply so that I’m in the loop on the terrible academic takes
Tom Shippey is one of the most well known 'Tolkien Academics' there are. He was incredibly present for the Jackson films and featured on the BTS footage for the extended editions quite a bit. He is also one of the guys who SO insists on comparing Sam and Frodo to 'officer and batman' rather than allowing any queer interpretation. In this paper I just read, Melissa cited Tom Shippey's pushing for the rohirrim to be viewed as a barbaric culture. His academia is as bland and traditionalist as you can find, he works tirelessly to reinforce the most narrow minded catholic-nationalistic ways of reading Tolkien and really the reason he is known so well and cited so widely is because he does indeed have an academic background and can write fairly cogent arguments (not that that's saying much, and memorably he stated that Denethor killed himself because he saw the corsair ships coming up the river, when Beregond says they've been aware of the corsairs for days). Tom Shippey insists on propping up this culture of Tolkien idealism and is a major part of the problem with Tolkien academia.
He's associated with RoP because he was originally a part of the project but left after a while. There is a rumour he was fired, which had the whole goddamn anti-rop mob frothing at the mouth, but Tom Shippey himself stated his leaving was unrelated to the project itself or it's runners and that he'd not been fired. Secretly I still hope they fired him though.
Carl Hostetter is indeed the author and compiler of Nature of Middle Earth. And after that book's publication he went onto reddit and facebook and wrote reams in disgust at 'The Left having to make everything about sex' when some fans were excitedly interpreting the melotorni/meletheldi (love brothers and love sisters) new notes that were in NoME as canonising queer relationships between elves. Carl Hostetter was also involved with RoP, in particular the translations and linguistics of the show, so hopefully not the plot itself. But hell will freeze over before a show set in middle earth gives us a canonically queer character so I doubt he had much impact on that front. In general he is also one of the traditionalists who idolise Tolkien and hold academia back from any interesting directions.
If you want to be more involved with tolkien academia I recommend actually starting with the tolkien society seminars on youtube, specifically the 2021 diversity seminar found HERE. It's both an easier way to get into tolkien academia than just trawling through all the disparate platforms of tolkien academic work in search of something worth reading, whilst also giving you an excellent snapshot of, essentially THE UPPER LIMITS of Tolkien academic progressiveness. I am not kidding when I say the works within are the furthest into feminist/queerfriendly/antiracist/disability-minded academia the tolkien community has ever gotten. So it's good to set your expectations, it's all downhill from here. Dimitra Fimi's work is still considered and often cited as THE best published work to do with Tolkien and racism and she STILL in that work has to devote pages to reassuring people Tolkien himself wasn't racist.
'Dwarves are not heroes: Antisemitism and the Dwarves in Tolkien's Writing' is an excellent piece (the only goddamn mythlore paper that's readable) and really does dig down into the clear issues, but the author, again, has to devote time to reassuring people that Tolkien himself was not anti-semetic. The culture of treating Tolkien like an un-impeachable religious figure is hardwired into the community.
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henryharvinblog · 5 months
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Master The Art of Visual Effects with Henry Harvin’s Courses in Delhi
Today’s cinema allows us to experience some magnificent worlds that are simply impossible to exist on Earth. Well, thanks to VFX, otherwise called visual effects.  You may have noticed that VFX technology is now used in gaming, commercials, and even websites to some extent and is no longer limited to movies. Therefore, the demand for VFX artists is growing enormously. If you aspire to be a visual effects artist, read the blog and learn how to master the art of VFX through visual effects courses in Delhi. 
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A brief understanding of visual effects:
Visual effects is a technique that involves adding special effects to a movie with the help of a computer. These effects aim to add something imaginary and make it look real. These visual effects are added to a recorded movie and not while filming. To be precise, you must have noticed the green screen behind actors while shooting a film, these screens are removed during the post-production stage to add the imaginary effects in the background. In a nutshell, VFX combines live-action footage with manipulated or enhanced pictures to create realistic scenes. 
How to create VFX?
Movies can inspire us to become visual effects artists or supervisors; however, they cannot teach us the technique that goes behind them. Therefore, enrolling in an animation course is crucial to learning the principles, tools and techniques of visual effects. Well, the good news is, today there are plenty of institutes offering animation courses. 
Looking for  Visual Effects Courses in Delhi?
VFX is a fantastic career choice if you are passionate about understanding the technology that goes into creating spectacular, realistic movies with the help of CGI. Enrolling in a visual effects course in Delhi is the first step towards making a career in VFX because proper training in this field is crucial to making it big. Moreover, you can become a certified VFX Artist by completing the course. However, choosing a reputable institute is essential. To the best of my knowledge, Henry Harvin is one of the finest platforms to enrol for visual effects courses in Delhi. You can check out “ animation course Henry Harvin” for further details.
Why Henry Harvin?
Henry Harvin is one of the leading ed-tech companies that started in 2013 to provide training and advisory services. It has branches across many states in India, one of which is Delhi. It has seen magnificent growth since its founding and today provides more than 800-course programs in 27 categories. Henry Harvin offers world-class course materials and top-notch faculty to transform the growth of individuals as well as organisations. Additionally, famous publication houses like Hindustan Times, Times of India, Aaj Tak and many others have applauded Henry Harvin for its uniqueness and quality. Above all, it won awards like the best corporate training platform. Therefore, Henry Harvin is among the best institutes to take Visual Effects Courses in Delhi.
Features of Henry Harvin’s Visual Effects Courses in Delhi:
Their visual effects courses are designed as per the current industry and studio standards. Precisely, they follow an AVGC industry-recognised course curriculum
Learn from expert faculty with studio experience
Collaborative projects and assignments are conducted by the animation course Henry Harvin to give you a practical learning experience.
They conduct regular studio visits to provide a better understanding of the technique
You get an opportunity to interact with world-renowned studio experts through seminars, workshops, and online sessions.
Get expert guidance to understand show-reel development.
For a better learning experience, the gaming and animation course Henry Harvin conducts regional, zonal and national level competitions for students.
Their unique job portal and placement support team provide 100% placement assistance.
Events and Engagements for VFX Students at Henry Harvin:
VANTAGE:
 This event facilitates seminars conducted by experts in visual effects and animation, where you get to see their career journeys and understand the scope and future of this field. Therefore, this is a perfect platform to transform your vision into reality.
ANIVIBE:
This is an Annual National Student’s Meet conducted for students so that they can interact with stalwarts of the VFX industry and get inspired. 
ZONAL STUDENTS COMPETITION:
This event allows you to showcase your best to get awarded and nominated for Radiance, which is a national awards event. Hence, it is a perfect stage to showcase your creativity. 
RADIANCE: 
It is an annual awards evening where Indian and International animation experts honour students for their outstanding contributions to VFX, design, animation and gaming. 
Therefore, if you are looking to master the art of visual effects, then Henry Harvin is your place. 
Career Benefits of Taking Visual Effects Courses in Delhi:
Through the course, you can acquire the skills that will help you create beautiful visual effects for video games, movies or TV. 
 For a better understanding of the principles of composition, colour, and animation one has to enrol in visual effects courses in Delhi
In addition, the visual effects training helps you learn the usage of industry-standard software like  Nuke and Adobe After Effects.
Furthermore, you will learn video editing, motion graphics and visual effects along with animation.
Whether you wish to become a VFX artist or a supervisor, the visual effects courses in Delhi can help you advance your career.
Conclusion:
To sum up, taking visual effects courses in Delhi improves your skill sets that can be applied in various sectors. The tools and techniques that you will learn through this course will enhance your creative-thinking abilities while improving your knowledge. Therefore, enrol in Henry Harvin’s visual effects courses in Delhi. 
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climateresearch · 1 year
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Chasing Coral
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(source) Above is the Chasing Coral trailer picture, showing a diver underwater, a coral community, and a quote stating "What lies below reveals what lies ahead."
I recently watched an amazing documentary on Netflix called Chasing Coral (here is the link to their website). I asked myself a big question before watching: What’s going on in the ocean because of climate change… and how can humans change their negative impacts??
Chasing Coral is a documentary made by scientists, divers, and photographers in an attempt to discover what is happening to coral reef communities around the world. According to the team of filmmakers, “the film took more than 3 years to shoot and is the result of 500+ hours of underwater footage and coral bleaching submissions from volunteers in 30 countries.” This documentary starts off with a very intriguing appeal, showing divers setting up equipment to go underwater to study a reef and the animals around it. They show a beautiful sea turtle and some bright colored fish, while the narrator explains why he has always been amazed by the ocean. In the background are news reporters talking about how the team is mapping the ocean almost how Google maps out streets. The documentary also shows an emotional appeal, in that they discuss how much we rely on the ocean and how much it has changed just within 30 years. For more information on why corals are so important, click here. The documentary goes on with interviews with multiple scientists for their thoughts on coral bleaching, as well as photographers and divers to discuss how and why they decided to join this project. The project is going through the process of creating an underwater camera that can get a timelapse video of coral communities while sustaining storms and the pressure of the water, highlighting the successes and failures of it all. The documentary closes out by spreading the word about coral bleaching around the world in seminars, classrooms, and conventions. They strongly emphasize the importance of coral communities and how little we will have left if nothing is changed, but if we act now, we can still help. Some ways you can get involved, provided by the Chasing Coral team, can be found here. 
I absolutely love this documentary. I think it is such an important topic that needs to be discussed and taught more. I love how the team worked through this process and explained every step, and how they are continuing to spread the word about what is happening to the ocean. It is so upsetting to see how fast coral communities are dying, but I do have hope that the next generations can change their bad habits to change the world, but we need to act fast. Since I am majoring in marine science, I have learned about corals and how marine animals rely on them for survival. I think it is crucial that people know more about why corals are so important for life, and how fast the world is negatively changing. 
Some really interesting things I learned while watching Chasing Coral is how much of the Great Barrier Reef has died in only a couple years, the oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the heat created by greenhouse gas emissions, and how the entire world relies on coral, kind of like a food chain. To answer the big question stated above, climate change has been affecting our oceans for many many years, and it is not getting better. In the documentary, they say that corals are suffering and dying because of heat stress brought on by climate change. If we do not fix this problem, by the end of the century, all coral communities will be bleached, and animals will not be able to rely on them for their own health. So, as a partial solution, spreading the word is a good way to start. Even if you cannot physically do something yourself, telling other people this story may get them interested in helping in some way. The documentary showed the importance of teaching this in schools, education centers, Ted Talks, workplaces, and even just at family outings. One person can make a big difference. Help as much as you can, and we might be able to change the world for the better.
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rrrauschen · 4 years
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Bruce Conner, {1981} Brian Eno & David Byrne: Mea Culpa
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artbyblastweave · 2 years
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Plot Idea I’ve been kicking around for about thirty seconds- A horror-comedy following an upper-middle-aged eccentric Auteur filmmaker renowned for his found footage horror films. His “trade secret” is that he made every single one of his films by going out to the sites of actual supernatural massacres, recovering footage taken by victims, and editing it into coherent docudramas out of a commitment to publicizing the undelivered truths of those who died before they could get their stories out to the public. 
Crucially, he’s very up front about his methodology, but everyone in the industry and media is under the impression he’s sticking to a Lemony-snicket-style framing device with impressive Kayfabe. Also crucial is that he’s under the impression that this is how all found footage horror films are being made, and his assistants take pains to keep him under that impression out of a real fear that he’ll start kicking in the doors of other horror directors out of anger that they’re muddying the waters.
(As an ancillary to this, he’s widely viewed as the single most dangerous person in the entire supernatural community, because in many cases actually recovering the footage entails beating down or outsmarting whatever killed everyone last time. Every one of his “film shoots” has a story attached that’s worthy of a movie in itself, but he suffers from a frustrating inability to center himself in a narrative- he’s a documentarian! That shouldn’t be done!)
The plot kicks off when he’s recruited by a struggling film school to teach a seminar on producing found footage films, still under the mistaken impression that a course in practical countermagic and combat archeology is a thing most aspiring documentarians will deliberately sign up for. It follows the the misadventures of his undergrad students as they gradually come to realize that none of this is either a found footage production course or a practical exercise in method acting. 
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symphonic-scream · 3 years
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Last of the Zoo Mock episode descriptions
Episode 4:05- the Tagger;
"a sudden rise in the amount of graffiti in the zoo causes Fu to appoint Alix, Juleka, and Nathaniel to investigate so they can hopefully stop the culprit. Meanwhile, Luka and Kagami go to Nino for dance lessons, in the hopes of not embarrassing their partners out in public"
Episode 4:07- the Training;
"to avoid a lawsuit, Hank Matt must have his employees complete a training day to learn how to deal with visitors properly. Rather than run his own seminar, he convinces Fu to host a joint training day between the Miraculous zoo staff and the Akuma Aquarium staff"
Episode 4:09- the Club;
"Kim overhears Juleka and Marc talking out of context, and becomes convinced some of his co-workers have formed a secret club, and now he wants in. Meanwhile Aurore has to hide Lila in the arctic section for the day as some of the boomers she bullies on Facebook found her"
Episode 4:10- the Haunt;
"It's Halloween again. This year, the keepers decide to have a competition. In teams, they attempt to scare each other, the winners being whoever scares the most people. The prize? Getting the losing team to clean their enclosures for a week"
Episode 4:11- the Show;
"To promote the documentary, the local news station has asked the zoo to send someone in for an interview, so Fu sends Alya and Marinette. Meanwhile, Chloe asks Alix an important question, and they ask Kim to help them with with what comes of it"
Episode 4:12- the Election;
"Paris is running mayoral elections again, and much to the horror of the zoo staff, Hank Matt has put his name on the ballot. Meanwhile Max and Ondine go to Marinette and Nino to prepare them for dinner with Kim's family"
Episode 5:01- the Replacement;
"out of seemingly nowhere, Fu announces his retirement and begins searching for a replacement. The staff try to accept this change while dealing with some of the candidates"
Episode 5:02- the Stalement;
"with Su-Han (I think that's his name) chosen as the next warden, he starts to implement new ideas to make the zoo more efficient. However, he comes face to face with a wall when he tries to rearrange things with Anarka in the parking lot. Meanwhile Alix and Alya take Chloe and Nino out of town with them to attend their older siblings' wedding"
Episode 5:03- the Compromise;
"Riley Elektra approaches Juleka with a proposition to end their long feud, requesting that Juleka help her woo her newest fixation. Meanwhile, Alya and Mylene are asked to field some of the calls coming in from Su-Han's new Complaint Line project"
Episode 5:05- the Decision;
"News that a new zoo is being opened a few cities away reaches Miraculous in the form of an open ended offer for one member to transfer. Permanently. The decision is up to Su-Han, and the staff have to think about whether they'd be able to stay with Miraculous for the rest of their careers if some of them left"
Episode 5:06- the Farewell Part 1;
"the documentary has reached the end of filming, and the crew conduct final interviews with the staff. For each pair or group, a moment from the first three seasons, one from the last two, and a scene that hasn't happened "yet" are shown"
Episode 5:07- the Farewell Part 2;
"a continuation of the precious episode. When every interview is done, the episode cuts to footage of the ten year reunion party for the documentary, showing how the staff are doing years after the doc would've aired"
--
Yeah that's the last of em. What do you think? Let me know. Also if you want more details on episodes or just the au in general I'm always eager to talk about it
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Do you have any horror movie/show recs? Ideally creature features but I'm up for whatever
Before talking about my favorites, I think it’s important to say outright: classics of horror are classics for a reason. I watched Psycho wide-eyed in a mostly-empty theater; and Alien on a cramped laptop screen in an airport, and Freaks in a staid college classroom with barely enough room to fit my seminar and the bookshelves, but it still left me trembling all over. If you’ve never spent any time with Hitchcock or Romero or Carpenter; omens, exorcists, and King, you should---they actually are very good in ways that resonate to the present day.
Outside of the classics, my tastes are a hodgepodge of good (loved Babadook, still think about the ending) bad (loved Repo! and am very sorry about it) and satirical (everything from Shaun of the Dead to Happy Death Day.) I make no promises about quality, but here are some of my lesser-known favorites that come to mind.
Let me kick things off with El Orfanato. Truly the best horror film I’ve ever seen, exemplifying what I’ve said before about how ghosts are about grief and memory. I think about “Uno, dos, tres, toca la pared,” and a lot, and especially during this spooky season.
If you’re an episodic person, I love Channel Zero --- admittedly, I really only liked season one (”Candle Cove”) and season two (”No End House”) but overall I think the series sticks out as the most effective horror television in recent memory. Richly set, well acted, and doesn’t flinch from being horror or stray into camp like some other recent horror television I could name.
(...this is not to say camp horror doesn’t have its niche, as Rocky Horror and Mommie Dearest and...geez, probably a half-dozen B-horror movies, some musicals like Bat Boy and The Toxic Avenger, and a handful of novels, can attest. But it’s a different thing.)
When it comes to serial killer horror, my favorite is The Cell --- directed by Tarsem Singh, The Cell marries his lush and dreamlike visuals to a Silence of the Lambs-esque plot. Definitely not a traditional horror movie, but I think it should count. There’s so much stylized violence and magical realism as a tool for understanding the deviant mind---if nothing else, JLo walks among a corpse spliced into microscope slides, and it is horrifically effective.
I’ll also put in a good word for found footage, a device I think gets a bad rap. The Conspiracy, a docudrama-style horror movie, managed to genuinely terrify me. And while I was initially skeptical, I ended up really liking The Houses October Built---not only is it a killer title, but they utilize found-footage horror in a way I thought was interesting.
There’s also a much wider universe of non-English language horror, beyond Orfanato. Yesterday I watched Bulbbul, which is a Hindi-language film, and I love the Korean Piper (again, period horror and family, my weakness) plus the deservedly-lauded Train to Busan. I also adored the Basque Errementari, which is a classic fairytale-like horror story about deals with the devil, a blacksmith, and an innocent girl. When it comes to television, I love the Mexican Diablero, which is not quite horror per se, but traffics in demons and possessions; Kingdom, which is like no zombie television I’ve ever seen; and a lesser-known Netflix gem, the Argentinian Kirlian Frequency, which is WtNV meets "The Secret Knots”.
As a final note, there are so, so many schlocky horror movies that I think deserve second looks. I mean All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, and Cabin in the Woods, and Culture Shock---I love those movie that you happen to watch on FX because it’s on late at night with limited commercials. (I’m still massively weak for The Others, Shutter Island, and half a dozen bad exorcism movies for exactly this reason.) I truly believe horror is situational, and the film you accidentally stumble onto at 11pm in your father’s basement is going to hit in a certain unrepeatable and phenomenal way. That’s what I love about horror, more than anything: how, no matter how much of it you consume or how much you analyze, you still occasionally stumble onto something terribly real.
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spgmedia-blog1 · 4 years
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Online Video Production
Before embarking in your online video production strategy you will need to clarify a few things. Video has potential to boost your sales and gain you additional subscribers, so it is is likely to interest to invest time planning out how you intend to best use web video production.
You will need to consider just who your market is. Understand their demographics and any details you deem necessary. YouTube has the energy to boost your traffic, but you will need to understand how to use it.
It really is not worth jumping on bandwagons and doing something simply because somebody else is performing it. Any digital video marketing you undertake should be of strategic benefit to your organization, otherwise you won't get the results you desire.
Discover a website corporate video company Toronto strategy that you believe is going to be suitable to your organization model. Once you have done this you may find online video production services that can allow you to achieve your goals.
These questions should be answered:
Does your customer utilize the internet? How quickly is their internet connection? Are they employing their mobile phone to gain access to the web? Are your company and products familiar to the customer? Do they buy regularly from you or have they bought in the past? Are there any services you are able to offer them? If you find your customer base uses the web then right away you understand they will have a way to gain access to video content. It will be fair assumption to conclude that you might target them with online video content. By doing YouTube marketing you will undoubtedly be giving yourself a better potential for grabbing sales and new customers.
Video marketing secrets
The utmost effective video site is YouTube and it has an enormous quantity of worldwide users. However, there are many other video sites that you could load your video onto as well. There is a site called Metacafe which can be fairly well known.
There are many other sites also and the more you spread your content around, the better traffic you will get. Try to vary your online video production marketing and you will reap the rewards.
Use video editing software to insert your website link into the video itself. You will need to share with your viewers how they can contact you. Also add the link to the YouTube description box when you have uploaded the video.
Before you do any internet video production agency Toronto you need to do your keyword research very carefully. If you obtain this wrong it may have an effect in your video rankings in the search engines.
With online video production it is important that people can locate your video otherwise you may find it hard to obtain traffic and indeed sales.
With this particular in mind you must pick keywords which have adequate monthly search volume. It's worth considering both related keywords and also what're referred to as long tail keywords.
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Once you have most of your keyword then go and name the video file. The file name should have the keyword in it somewhere or it could even constitute the entire name. Once the video is loaded onto YouTube the keyword also needs to form the video title and be added in the description box somewhere.
What sort of online video should we be creating?
You ought to make an effort to inform or educate the viewer about your product or service. It's nice to add some humor into it also, but this isn't always possible.
Try not to make the video too boring in nature and at the very least sound happy. This would help to create a production that's engaging to the viewer. The video length should be around two minutes otherwise the person watching can become bored and look at others videos.
People want to be educated about things and you are able to demonstrate your product or service to them in the video. You might find lots of types of this on YouTube. Have a look at demonstrations or reviews of one's favourite camera or smartphone.
All of us love honesty inside our reviews so speak about the great points, but don't hesitate to mention any negatives. Your online video production will gain the trust of the viewer if you offer a good honest review. The better your video the more visitors you can get coming to consider your website.
Video presentations
Maybe you have given speeches or seminar presentations? This will be great material to capture on video. You are able to upload this onto YouTube, but also you could sell it as something, perhaps as a DVD. People enthusiastic about your regular content will be keen to get something such as this since it offers tremendous value.
Video blog
A video blog is also known as a VLog. If you have seen or used a blog before you then know it is all about reading text. A video blog is actually blogging on camera. Why not film someone talking about the organization or product and upload this footage onto the video blog. You could also video blog concerning the everyday events of your lifetime or your business.
Video testimonials
Maybe you have seen a text based sales page filled with testimonials? Sometimes they've a photo of the person giving the testimonial. The problem with this kind of thing is that it's not always possible to trust these testimonials.
A video testimonial is better. Ok, the trust may not become far better, but at the very least to be able to see and hear a genuine person giving the testimonial may be more favourable. You are able to sometimes see video testimonials after having a seminar for example. Members of the audience speak about how they found the event.
Sales pages into video
A dry long text sales page may be difficult to command our attention. Why not convert these into video sales pages. Normally it takes a little bit of online video production preparation, but the results are so far better, especially if you are likely to be making video for business purposes.
If you have a voice speaking aloud the sales text then it can help to construct trust. You can even demonstrate the item on camera. You never necessarily need showing yourself on camera either. You could just use the words from the sales page in the video and talk over it. You would be narrating the sales page in effect.
Should this be beyond after this you look for an on the web video production company to deal with it all for you. There's also many online video production courses available to obtain you on the best road.
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samwise-though · 4 years
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Sabrina’s Top Ten
This is a little bit (a lot bit) out of my blog’s wheelhouse, but I ask you guys to bear with me! For one of my seminars, I have to do a Top Ten project, in which I talk about ten different things relating to Pop culture, music and/or theory. So, if you don’t want to read this, that’s fine! I’m putting the bulk of the post under the cut!! This is basically just me commenting on how weird pop culture is, and fangirling about Taylor Swift.
(Sorry Dr. Burke, you’re absolutely going to have to read about Taylor Swift, and I am realizing that after Adorno I’m incredibly cynical about popular culture now)
#1: Taylor Swift: Archive, Collecting and Identity
I think as I began this year, there was this feeling of necessity to blast off with the song “22” from @taylorswift​’s album Red. All the way back in 2012 little fifteen-year-old Sabrina knew that when she turned 22, she would be playing that song All. Day. Long. 
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Here’s the thing though: while yes, I did listen to “22” more than any of the other songs on Red that day, I also spent a lot of time listening to the rest of the album as well. I came to the realization that I could identify with the album better than ever. There was something so profound about the way @taylorswift​​ captured that moment in time, in her life, and have it still remain so relatable. I spent a long time considering this, but it wasn’t until I encountered Jean Baudrillard’s The System of Objects that I really began to find a way in which to understand what was happening for me (and undoubtedly many others, considering Swift’s success). In chapter two: “A Marginal System: Collecting” Baudrillard references Maurice Rheims’ ideas of collecting for children, “For children, collecting is a rudimentary way of mastering the outside world, of arranging, classifying and manipulating”. Ultimately, collecting is a way in which we learn to form identity - and what is an album, if not literally a collection of music that in and of itself acts as an ultimate tool of identity construction? I’ve been listening to @taylorswift​​’s music since her official 2006 debut. That is a lot of time spent self-identifying with a musician and her music. Constructing even part of your identity from something that is a collection that is very much a large part of someone else’s identity is such a weird concept. Why do we do that? 
Even more interesting though, is the fact that Taylor has said on multiple occasions, that her albums are like diary entries (not to mention the great number of other people drawing that particular comparison). Thus making each album that she has released up until this point a small archive, collecting and ordering that point in time. Either way, @taylorswift​​ continues to find success in creating archival collections that are reflective or refractive of her own identity.
With the release of Lover and the inclusion of her diary entries as an addition to the deluxe versions of the record, it follows in the history of including controlled snippets of her life in the physical copies of her albums. From the first five albums, she included secret coded messages within the lyrics of each of the songs. In 1989, Taylor included copies of polaroids with lyrics written across the bottom of them, each numbered - so you knew you got certain ones, and not others. As well, starting from 1989 @taylorswift​​ has also included voice memo recordings from her writing and recording sessions, so that fans can have a better understanding of her creative process. 
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All of these details add to the personal feeling that @taylorswift​‘s albums seem to emanate. This feeling is only magnified through the additions of the diary entries in Lover (deluxe). Each album is a carefully constructed archive of @taylorswift​‘s life, that her fans then go on to add to their own ‘Taylor Swift collections’ and continue to alter their identities through the new piece of the collection that she has created.
#2: The Reproducibility of Childhood
If there is anything in recent memory that should be considered with Benjamin and mass-reproducibility in mind, Disney and the company’s capitalizing on re-making all of their old animated films should be discussed.
They did this really clever marketing tactic in which they pretty much re-do the original trailer they released for the original movie, shot-for-shot with the new film footage:
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I will admit it didn’t work quite as well with the 2015 version of Cinderella, in which they altered a greater amount of the story, as compared to The Beauty and the Beast. Obviously, the trailer that has found the most success thus far with this tactic, was the most recent release of The Lion King.
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What is the most intriguing thing is that Disney is embracing the past iterations of the movie, basically just repackaging the old story in (for most of the movies) live-action acting rather than animation and selling the audience very nearly the same exact thing. And not only are they very blatantly reselling the masses the same thing, but they are also saying, with these side-by-side trailer comparisons that “hey, look, we're doing this thing exactly the same way” and without question, we buy into it because it is familiar and feels of childhood. Having read Adorno’s Culture Industry Reconsidered, I feel as though we should really be taking a moment to question why we are allowing Disney to amass so much capital from movies that we have already seen. By drawing on our cultural memory of these movies that were so fundamental to many children in Western society growing up, Disney is literally monetizing our childhood memories. It is just as Adorno says, “The culture industry fuses the old and familiar into a new quality.”
While these movies get a shiny new paint job, it is still blatantly the old and familiar.
But I guess Disney has always been about capitalizing on memory.
#3: The ‘Classics’ and Aura
I have spent a lot of time over the past year, shaping my identity. I made a lot of life-changing decisions, one of which was to go to grad school. It was not a quick decision, and it more or less happened over the span of a year, during an English course I took. The class was a lecture on Victorian and Edwardian literature. I found myself really fascinated by the Victorian novels that we started the class with. When we got to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles I was a goner.
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I fell in love with Hardy’s story and my love for the Victorian and 19th-century studies only solidified further throughout the semester. However, my entire experience at the university has been plagued with serious imposter syndrome. Thoughts of how “I don’t belong here,” and that “I don’t really know what I am talking about” were the soundtrack playing in my head every single day. I was always worrying that I had grossly misunderstood the texts we were studying, my interpretations were wrong, and that I would make myself look like a fool. All of these feelings, when analyzed at a later time, were all rooted in the idea that we were studying ”The Classics,” narratives that were part of the Western Literature Canon. How could I possibly understand literature that was considered “Great”?
There is a constructed aura around the literary canon that is also extended to the place in which that canon is taught. A very elitist feeling that has been cultivated since the beginning of higher education. For me, when making the decision to continue my university education by taking the leap to apply for Grad schools, this aura only grew - to the point in which it almost feels that it will be impossible for me to get into a graduate program. It feels as though Graduate programs are meant for a specific group of people - and somehow I am evaluating myself to not fit into that group. 
But what exactly is it that still continues to be such a fundamental influence over the population that University is considered elite, and those narratives should be the ones to makeup Western Literary Canon? Is the legacy of Colonialism still so etched into our ideas that we literally still believe that the novels that a bunch of white dudes agreed were good are the be-all-and-end-all of good literature?
What’s bothersome about this is, I didn’t get to start asking those sorts of questions, and experiencing a wider array of literature until I reached my upper-level seminar courses, for my honours degree. 
Courses that you cannot take unless you are a part of the honours program.
Ironic isn’t it? The elitist aura can only be questioned from well within the elitist institution.
#4: The Avengers: [Streaming]Game
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Marvel’s first cycle has now come to an end with Avengers: Endgame. It’s odd to think just how emotionally attached the fans (myself included) have become to the superheroes that, many of which will not be returning after this installment in the Avengers franchise.
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(Loki Gif included because bae deserved better - and a TV show that I have to pay for absolutely does not make up for it)
Marvel is now going to capitalize on certain character deaths (see above), by giving them TV series and prequel movies to help entice the masses that have been so invested in their stories up to this point in the cinematic universe. The problem is, though, any character receiving a show, it will only be aired on the Disney + streaming service.
The Disney + streaming service comes long after Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and other streaming services have already established themselves. The issue that arises out of this system of individual streaming platforms, is that subscribers have to either subscribe to every new platform that arises or else to pick an choose which content they are willing to not have access to. It's a ridiculous system, and it will make it nearly impossible to have conversations with those around you because it should be a safe assumption at this point - ad if not now, certainly in the near future, that no, they probably haven’t watched it, because they don’t have access to it. 
This is obviously just a new way to control the products that companies produce. But it also brings to mind Benjamin and his ideas regarding mass production (”Work of Art”). Has the aura of the film been diminished because of the sort of re-producibility that come out of easy access (watching it any time you want), or, has there been a new mutated aura created for these films and tv shows because of the lack of access people may have to multiple platforms?
I guess we got what we wanted, easier way to access the tv shows and the movies we love, but at the cost of having to choose where we are willing to spend our money. It's a very Adornian thought, in that we wanted something, it was produced to the best possible economic value for the companies creating them, and then we continue to buy into the product. 
#5: Sparknotes and Memes
If you have a twitter account, and like literature, you should really check out SparkNotes’ twitter account.
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They have become more and more popular over the last few years due to their use of the relatable internet language we know as memes. They, of course, are not the first company to engage with their users in such a way, many companies have been using social media to brand themselves in a very personable (and personified) way.
By doing this, they are making themselves appear more accessible to today’s youth, who are primarily influenced by what they see and interact with on the internet. 
There is something less sinister about SparkNotes utilizing the internet and memes to direct themselves to the younger audience - they are after all an educational aid group in which they are providing texts in more manageable and understandable terms. 
Other companies, however, like fast-food restaurants who utilize social media as though they are an individual rather than a company... That is quite a bit more insidious. 
 #6: Concert Movies
I want to return to music once again. But not in the traditional sense. I want to discuss concert movies.
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There is something so weird about concert movies! They seem to exist in a separate space from actually attending a concert with live music and listening to the album. There is something very artificial in the sense that most of the time it feels very engineered, because of camera cuts and camera changes, and the difference in going from a front-row perspective to the camera shot cutting away to a wide shot so that the stadium is in full view. But then it also fulfils its purpose as “live music”. There is this sense in which it feels like you can’t look away, in case you miss something, even though you can pause it! 
It is a heavily controlled, or perhaps, curated experience. Realistically, there are so many different cameras that are recording the same moments, that in post-production they are able to choose the best possible moments to cut together to provide to the viewers (I avoid the word audience here, because there is, in fact, a physical audience that we as viewers of the movie, are separated from). 
I looked into the history of concert movies, and a quick google search led me to Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii a concert movie in which Pink Floyd played a short set of songs to no audience and recorded it.
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Which is an odd concept, especially when you think about how it inspired other artists to film concerts. 
That they played. 
To no one.
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I could see with Pink Floyd it being more of an artistic venture, but more recent concert movies like: Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, Reputation Stadium Tour and Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids all are more framed as giving the viewers the opportunity to experience the show, but still having them remain apart from it. Some of these concert movies feel as though they were produced to allow those who did not have the opportunity to attend the show in person the chance to experience what that might have been like, others are made with the intent to give the viewer a little bit more of the backstage/behind the scenes experience. What all of them have in common, however, is the opportunity for the artists to profit once again off of the shows that they have already played. 
Whatever the purpose is behind the movies being produced, they all are this weird experience of not-actually-being-there and knowing exactly what it would have been like to have attended. 
#7: Instagram: Curating the Self (Definitely inspired by Sophia’s Presentation) 
The Instagrams of popular artists are heavily curated to really emphasize their brands (”that’s very on-brand for you”), and who they are trying to portray themselves as. I feel as though no one really does this better than @taylorswift​. 
Shortly before she released reputation she wiped her Insta clean and started sharing gifs of different parts of a snake - a motif that she fully embraced for that particular era in her career. It was a practice she embraced again, leading up to the release of the first single of Lover. While she didn’t wipe her Instagram clean again, she did lead up to the release with little hints and teaser images that were all very inspired by the colour scheme and feel of the new album:
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If you look at any artist’s Insta account you will find at least some of this curatorial work.
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This brings us once again, back to the class on collecting, archiving and how collecting plays into identity construction. Each artist is curating their identity that they want to show the world (not unlike the discussion that we had involving Lana Del Rey and the front that she presents to the world, instead of her true self).
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The work that goes into the Instagram account is mirrored in every public appearance, every show they play, and every interview they give. It is an odd concept when considering it in regards to the artist, but it becomes even weirder when we consider it in terms of just everyday people. We curate our lives on social media platforms to present ourselves in the best way possible. And we don’t have millions of people watching us while we do. Perhaps the hope is that the ideal that we portray could someday be reached, and that's why we continue to collect the images and videos to construct the ideal identity for ourselves.
While my life certainly isn’t very glamorous, I definitely do at least some curatorial work on my own Insta.
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#8: Nostalgic Television
There has been a resurgence in the love of some older series like Friends and Gilmore Girls through the access to the full series on streaming platforms. Some of these shows have not aged very well (see: a good deal of Friends’ jokes), but the love for them continues anyway. 
Recently, tv shows such as those named above, have been branded as “nostalgic television” and has been slated to be psychologically beneficial to help with anxiety. 
But why do we remain so attached to TV shows such as these? Well, supposedly, just like the way we are drawn to watching the remakes of Disney’s movies as I mentioned earlier, it reminds us of our childhoods:
Will Meyerhofer, a New York-based psychotherapist and author, says watching our favourite old shows can be a useful tool for dealing with anxiety and mild depression.
"For my clients, these old shows are like the food they grew up with. 'The Brady Bunch' or 'The Facts of Life' or 'The Jeffersons' is like that beloved baloney sandwich on Wonder Bread with just enough mayo the way mom used to make,” he told TODAY.
 A recent Facebook post on The Mighty health community got hundreds of responses to the question: "What TV show from your childhood would you want to marathon-watch on a bad flare day?" The answers ranged from "The Waltons" to "Barney Miller."
That's because television from yesteryear can make us feel safe and secure in a world that feels increasingly chaotic.
“In therapy terms, it's an instant — and for the most part healthy — regression in the service of the ego,” Meyerhofer said, adding that he unwinds with old episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
We long for a time when we felt safer, less stressed and when we were able to really enjoy the things we liked. TV shows that we watched as we were growing up provide us with the nostalgic fulfillment that we need to feel happy - even if it is just for the length of a thirty-minute Friends episode.
#9: Screen TIme 
 Something I noticed when I was watching Reputation Stadium Tour... for research... there was very few people who were actually just watching the show. There were many screens visible in the crowd at all times. 
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Something that has become very prevalent in concert culture, is that you don’t actually experience the concert first hand, you view it through your phone screen, as you record. 
It is something that I have noticed myself doing, and have set the limitation of only allowing myself to record two songs out of the entire concert.
By viewing the concert through the recording, the actual experience of the concert is altered, and even though you are standing there in the room, you are participating at a distance, rather than being involved in the moment.
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The need to record and to photograph, I would argue, comes out of the feeling of necessity to archive and sort every memory that we have. Concerts are special occasions and we don’t want to forget them - and if we don’t have a video or photo, did it really happen? We need to archive every moment so that we can go back to it later and remember how great it was. 
But how great was it really if you were staring at your phone screen the entire time?
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#10: The Rise of KPop in Canada and the US
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There seems to have been a shift lately in Western popular culture in which Kpop (Korean Popular Music) is now being considered more mainstream.
Groups like BTS have found success on Western pop charts, their collaboration with Halsey, Boy with Luv, peaked at #10 on Billboard’s hot 100. Other Korean groups like Blackpink and Twice are also making a name for themselves on Western pop music charts.
What is interesting is that Kpop doesn’t really follow the same frame that most of the Western pop does. A lot of Kpop seems to be more dance-influenced, thus influencing the music stylistically and opening a lot more interesting opportunities for music videos.
Kpop is something different and separate from what Western Pop is comfortable with, and what influence it will have on the framework of the norm will be very interesting to see. I do wonder what Joshua Clover would have to say about Kpop groups and their involvement in popular music, and whether or not he would classify them in with the “Abject, feminized, and inauthentic: *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears...[who] dominate the list of best first-week sales”(103). There is, after all, something about the rhythm-based and often synthesized melodies that are prominent in Kpop that feels like a call-back to boy bands and pop stars of the late 90′s and early 00′s
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Well, that is it for my top ten! If you made it to the end, and are not my Prof [who does have to read it all the way to the end - Hi Dr. Burke! You made it! ] Thanks for reading!! 
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not-a-statement · 6 years
Text
Chasing ghosts. Chapter 1
I’m finally posting the first chapter.
Forgive me for my grammar, like I said I'm not a native speaker, but I hope you'll find it at least readable.
As always big thanks to @edward-or-ford for all his help and guidance
I’ll soon figure out how to create a master post, but just for now I’ll leave a link to a prologue (if you haven’t read it) here
Hope you guys enjoy this chapter
New City, NY, August 31st 2024
Dipper set aside the empty glass and glanced around at the merry people gathered to celebrate the Pines twins’ birthday. There were friends, a couple of relatives, colleagues. Mostly the Zach Turner’s colleagues: Dipper himself did not have personal contact with many people every day. A freelance journalist is called freelance for a reason. But if you are a stockbroker, even a beginner, then you might be in this kind of crowd. All of them fit, most of them tanned (probably from a solarium), wearing fancy Trussardi polos, a full set in order to impress you. To make you believe that you are looking at a wealthy confident man who knows no worries and ready tackle any money issues.
No, It’s not that Dipper could blame them, it's just their job to look successful and reliable. But from all this dazzling crowd hanging out in the backyard of the house he began to feel a ruffling sensation in his eyes. As if somebody poured a bucket of transparent glue on each of them and after they were shot with a sequins canon or whatever. It’s just seemed that each movement of these people somehow refracted the rays of sunlight at such an angle to hit Dipper directly in the eyes with a piercing beam. But anyway, Mabel was probably over-delighted with this kind display. Somehow it became a sort of tradition for the past ten years: what was painful for Dipper was pretty joyfull for Mabel.
Pines mentally kicked himself for that last thought. It sounded terrible, even if he didn’t say it out loud. And it sounded even worse coming from the thoughts of a loving brother.
Hah, a loving ... brother. It's odd even to put these two words in one sentence…
Another mental kick. Don’t you even dare to think about your feelings for your own sister, not now. Better to not ever.
Disgusting thoughts.
Wrong feelings.
Bad brain. Very bad and being an ass right now. We need to focus on what is important: today's birthday. Stan could get to us from his backwoods. Dad and Mom are also going to visit in a couple of days, when they return from the next trip around the country. They are probably happy with their new life without the constant care of children, busy only with each other and with their dreams.
Everyone was happy. Why couldn’t Dipper at least relax a little and pretend that he enjoyed this noise, instead of constantly thinking about escape paths from this house filled with smiling mannequins and idle talk? From the house where every piece of furniture, every spoon from the gift set and every word uttered by its inhabitants would forever remind Dipper of what he lost, and more than that, what he could never get. It was taken away from him by this slender hard-built bastard with a radiant smile from ear to ear and the sweetest speeches that he poured in huge doses into the ears of everyone around him. All these manners, courtesy. Damn, was it really only Dipper that was sick of this man-made likeness? Did no one else see his essence? Why did no one else see him as the dirty bastard he was? And why was Mabel, sweet smart Mabel, so blinded by all his fake ... this fake ... facade?
Dipper let out a deep sigh and reached for the glass again.
You know what? Forget it. You once again begin to come up with wild ideas and seeing things. Not every man hovers around Mabel actually turns out to be a psychopath, a juvenile maniac or a bunch of wild Fae creatures.
Yes, but I was right then!
Because then you tried to protect your sister, not the girl you are in love with.
As if there is any difference.
Newsflash. Of course there is. Want an example? Okay second year at college, the black guy what’s-his-face? Always found an excuse to hang in your dorm room with Mabel. You do remember him, right? And how long did it take your eye to recover from swelling.
Hey, it's not my fault that he got into a fight.
It happens when you get a lot of suspicious glares.
There weren’t so many of them ...
Dude, he still probably thinks you are a racist or something.
The rumble of a bourbon being filled in a glass was almost a lullaby. Dipper did not even notice how he filled the vessel almost to the brim.
Well, that was great: he was talking to himself now! Not that it was the first time. He often arranged internal disputes on this or that topic, clashing his rational part with itself or with the sensual, but never before his emotional side sounded so offended and pitiful.
Dipper frowned, sipping an amber drink, which burned his tongue and throat, but at the same time it became a little easier to consider everything that was happening and himself in it. With this ease, eyelids grew heavy, thoughts became slower - only the footage of the last six months of his life began to flash before his eyes.
If it could be called that. A life ...
Life is something sensible, controlled in the most of things. With no comprehensible forecast, only with assumptions - and that's enough, believe me.
And this kind of floating in the time-space with rare interactions with random objects floating there as well could hardly be called a life. It's like flying on autopilot without a specific purpose. And even you can not enjoy a journey in spite of what they say. A kind of asteroid in the cold space.
Or more like....
Perhaps it's ... like a satellite? Yes, a satellite that spends its entire life quietly orbiting its planet - a circle after a circle, year after year. It's boring, but you can adapt, especially if you do not think about why you get in this orbit and what happened before. If you do not replay in your mind moments from the past when at the age of fifteen you started to notice things that should not have been noticed, when your sweating hands, weak legs and lack of words turned the simplest conversation into an attraction of strangeness and awkwardness. If you do not replay memories of prom night over and over again in your head, which you found an excuse not to go to having no date to bring along, and your sister spent the whole night accompanied by that tall blond guy from her Spanish class and returned only the morning after. Or how you secretly threw out letters from the MIT that was ready to tear you away from the opportunity to choose a college in the same city as Mabel did.
Collect all these pieces together, and here you are - Dipper Pines - a proud mayor of the city called "What am I doing with my life?". Population: one person.
No, not like that.
And you are ready to go out into the streets and tear leaflets to passers-by with an invitation to the seminar "Are you too happy with your life? I will tell you how to get rid of this feeling. Every Sunday at a local community center. BYOB"
Yes, that's better. I can at least raise a little money.
Wait, what am I talking about? I need to open my eyes ...
A little more ... a little more ...
Oh, No! Bad idea!
Too light! Too light and too many people!
Oh... damn it …
Hmm ... although what am I? This was like it before I fell into my thoughts.
And yes - I'm still here. In the backyard of this hellhole, where Turner dragged my May ... um ... my ... my sister in his clawed paws. And from this hell I will never get her out of.
Dipper opened his eyes a little wider and looked at Zach's two-story house with complete disdain. Painted in a sky blue color, with windows washed up to the illusion of their absence and a neat backyard with garden gnomes, miniature paths lined with wooden footbridges, solar-powered lanterns and a low fence separating this site from the neighboring ones, it fit perfectly into a quiet family scenery, which New City of himself represented. This house came in no comparison with a small apartment in Brooklyn, where the twins has lived for almost a year after moving to New York. The apartment, which was a witness of moments of happiness and sadness, where the TV sometimes wasn’t turn off til morning because of the another marathon of cheesy horror movies, which housed the whole world of two closest friends, who loved each other sincerely and unselfishly. And which kept the secrets of one of them about where in its sincerity and disinterestedness there were footnotes in small print.
At the age of sixteen, Dipper told himself that only time was needed and that everything would end, everything would pass.
Now that’s a funny statement. Like a film or a book with an open ending, it gives a choice. For example, how long will it take or what will end? How many more will a small gray spinning top spin before shaking and gradually slowing its course until it stops? And will it stop at all?
Well, anyway, Dipper learned one thing - nothing can depend only on his will and obey the dry logic and, therefore, control. At the age of eighteen, he began to feel how gradually the situation began to develop according to his own scenario, regardless of his efforts to manage it. At twenty-two he could hardly find an explanation for his actions and decisions, and six months ago …
Six months ago, the satellite nevertheless descended from orbit and began its journey through the cold dark and empty nothingness. Six months ago, time had finally passed and everything was over.
On that day he walked from the editorial office with a new assignment. It was Friday, there was nowhere to hurry, although on the streets of New York even if you do not want to you have to merge with the eternally rushing crowd. There was a smell of spring in the air, and no matter how cliched this phrase was, damn it, it was true. Even Dipper felt something like that. Light and warm whiff. For the short time that he walked from the editorial office, the world around acquired more color, more smells - not literally, New York, with its busy streets, always supplied smells even above normal. Everything around seemed to come to life, blossoming in all its glory.
Not surprisingly, Mabel was always so happy about the arrival of spring, wherever we were. Maybe I should learn from her? Observe her today while taking a walk in Central Park - why the guy can’t invite his sister to take a walk in Central Park? Also, it’s now so beautiful there - bare trees are just beginning to be covered with the first signs of foliage, old men and women and young lovers are walking slowly along the paths of the park, contemplating what’s happening around them ...
It is possible to pretend that there is no hidden sadness that there is no emptiness inside. You can just move your legs, do not think about anything and absorb the sensations. And all this next to the most beloved person in the whole world …
Immersed in these thoughts and not particularly paying attention to scurrying hurried to and fro people around him, Dipper did not notice how a lazy and pacified smile began to creep across his face.
At least today life is good!
Mabel was waiting for him in the Ferrara bakery on Grand Street, where she was heading after another interview. It turns out that it's not so easy to find a job in New York for a mobile designer, but Mabel was not one of those people who despairs even after four months of searching. Although it seemed to Dipper that her enthusiasm was already at an end, and only by some miracle she still finds the strength to get up in the morning. He wanted to cheer her up, somehow raise her spirits, even if she does not admit that she is sad. Show that he is near, that he was always and will be there.
He planned everything: meet Mabel after work, a walk in Central Park, pizza for dinner and several pre-prepared playlists to choose from - romantic comedies, musicals, horror films and detectives. When they were sixteen, they could spend the whole night before the TV screen watching this kind of marathon of films. It's clear, they are older now and they have work and responsibilities, but, hey - today is Friday.
Simple and sincere. Only two of them, together.
It sounds like a date. Something like that…
From Worcester Street, on which stood the editorial building, it was ten minutes to go to the venue. Turn to Grand Street and go east, bypassing Green, Mercer, Broadway, Crosby, Lafayette, Center, Baxter and Mulberry Street. Piece of cake.
Despite the fact that after the turn the only thing that he had to do was to be on the straight line all the time, Dipper repeatedly checked the route in Google maps to make sure that he does not get lost and will be in place on time. Yes, it sounds odd, but New York is a big city, and it needs to be able to navigate. He didn’t want to repeat the story when Mabel mistakenly left for Jersey City and Dipper had to explain to her how to send her geolocation message to find it and pick her up.
Although now, probably, Dipper with all the desire could not not find the place where his sister was waiting. Huge signboards to the owners of the establishment seemed to be not enough, so they hoisted a giant plastic cones with a multicolored ice cream on both sides of the entrance, put a showcase with sweets on the street, and on the visor above the entrance for some reason they’ve put an old red baker's truck or something like that. Only the red carpet leading inside was missing. Oh, no, here it is …
Mabel sat in the far corner at a table for two. Before her stood a half empty mug of latte (obviously with a syrup of bubble gum, how can one drink it at all?) And a barely touched strawberry cheesecake. A slight dreamy smile played on her lips, a look through half-open eyelids was directed against the wall opposite her, the cheek is propped up by the palm, and the head is slightly tilted. Oh, so might it be that today she was at luck?
And how did it always happen that in any situation, in any position and with any expression of her face, Mabel was more beautiful than all the girls, that he’s ever seen in his life?..
"Hi, sis," Dipper said with a smile. "How was today?"
Whatever Mabel dreamed of, she was deep in her thoughts, because only the creak of the chair being moved in front of her and the appearance of her brother in her field of vision could bring her back to reality.
"Oh, hello, Dip," she chirped smiling wider. "I didn’t expect you so early."
“What?” Dipper was slightly taken aback. “I thought that I was even five minutes late ... wait, is this sarcasm? ...”
"No, no," Mabel said, quickly removing her elbow from the table and tucking the hair into her ear. She scanned the bakery, as if not quite understanding where she was.
“What time is it now?”
"Um, seven o'clock, just the time we agreed to meet”
"Oh, already?" Mabel lowered her eyes slightly and began fiddling with the tips of her hair.
"The time flew by so quickly," she added in a half whisper. Her cheeks glowed softly.
“Yes, already”  something suspicious was in the behavior of the sister. But put it off, Pines. You were going to offer something.
"Well, how did it go this time? Everything’s worked out? Looking forward to the call?”
"Or I can call first," Mabel playfully giggled.
“Mmm? Can you call them first for what?”
Mabel raised her eyes to her brother, in which a certain perplexity was read. For another couple of seconds, the sweet mist of dreams in her gaze dissipated until something clicked in her head, and she finally realized what Dipper was talking about.
"Ah, yes," she did her jazz hands "an interview. Well, it seems that next month you’ll still have to pay for the apartment. "She sighed and took a mug of coffee with both hands, lowering her head," again ... "
"Hey, hey," Dipper reached out and covered Mabel's arm, "it's all right. It's not important, the main thing is that you find a place where you’ll be appreciated and where it’ll be interesting for you to work and manifest yourself. You're the most creative person in this world. Heck, they're just idiots, if they didn’t take you right away!”
Mabel looked into Dipper's eyes and sadly, but sincerely smiled.
"I'll help you with what I can and will be around," Dipper smiled back.
God, how beautiful she is. There were so many guys in high school who liked her that the fingers of Ford's hands would not be enough to count them. True, none of those who had the luck to be with her, did not last more than two or three weeks, because none of them saw that behind the beauty of her there is also a very sharp mind. The whole universe with its rules and colors was stored in this charming fair-haired head. But none of them seemed to notice this.
Unlike Dipper.
Mabel embodied all the things that he lacked so much: freedom, creativity, infinite energy. Without it, he would not be a whole person. No one would have him learn to enjoy life and look at the world from a different angle, different from the position of dry logic.
"Thank you, bro bro," Mabel said quietly. "It means a lot to me, really”
"Any time, May," Dipper snapped his hand away and looked at his watch. "We still have plenty of time until the sun sets. It's about 20 minutes by metro to the Central Park, so I thought that we could wind up our heads a little. What do you say? You didn’t have any plans for tonight, did you?”
Mabel looked away and blushed profusely, covering her mouth with her palm and softly giggling.
Oh no. No no no! He screwed up, did he? He said it as if he was inviting her on a date. Oh, damn, oh, damn it! He rehearsed this phrase so much that it sounded like a simple friendly proposal in order to funk up anyway ?! She knows, she knows for sure, and now this situation will become even more awkward.
Set the panic aside! I need to figure out how to get out of this. Just laugh it off or try to explain what he meant.
Shit, why his palms are so sweaty? Is he in the eighth grade again?
“It sounds tempting, Dip. I’d really like to take a walk now …”
Oh, my God, phew. Everything is fine.
"... but, you see ..."
But? What’s for but? But what?
"... I really don’t know how it happened ... it seems that I have a date tonight!" Mabel finished her phrase. Her eyes were just glowing with happiness. The smile was broader and more dreamy than before, which made Dipper feel cold in the lower abdomen.
“I really didn’t know that this is the case in real life, but when I was walking from Five Points here ... i mean, our eyes just met, and I realized that he’d come up to me and ask me some question or say something... I just don’t understand how you constantly experience such stress every time you try to talk to a girl, this has never happened to me ...”
But Dipper wasn’t listening anymore. Only now he finally noticed all the details surrounding them. Strawberry cheesecake - when was the last time Mabel allowed herself something sweet in the city? Of course, they were not so poor, but given the fact that Mabel still did not have a permanent job, she tried to save money and not squander the money of her brother over trifles. So it was a treat. Then, how did Dipper not notice the empty espresso cup standing on his side of the table? He was too busy contemplating his sister to draw attention to this and to the fact that Mabel was constantly fiddling a napkin in her hand, on which was visible the pen-written sequence of numbers and one word.
Zach.
He left her his phone number. Who does this now? What kind of moron should one be to do this, instead of just dictating a number to be recorded in the phone?
That invisible, light breath that warmed Dipper so far from the moment he left the editorial office was instantly replaced by an importunate cold draft, from which all the muscles of his face grew cold and numb, turning nis face into a fixed mask that did not express any emotion. The bright March evening began to be replaced by a dark emptiness.
And Mabel kept talking and talking. She was extremely excited by what was happening: so many emotions, so many assumptions and hopes. As many as many times the only one phrase sounded in Dipper's head:
It happened again …
Sooner or later, it should have happened, but why today? On the day when he finally felt a barely perceptible wave of happiness?
Sometimes it seems that the universe itself is against you. Whether you achieve something desirable say some fun and joy come to life - bam! Sign here, please.
On the one hand, you can, of course, decide that this is "designed" so, that it’s fate and junk, that everything is natural and the time has come. The time for whatever - for example, the time to give up.
On the other hand, one can regard this same "bam" from the Universe as an appeal not to relax and to act further, to become better, to grow and all that.
You can, of course, just not react at all.
It depends.
A lot of dependencies happens to be all around us. Someone sits for hours with a guitar, learns to play the way his or hers favorite performers do, someone shoves career needle into his or hers veins, someone’s obsessed with science - yes, there are plenty of examples.
And love is something you can depend on too.
It’s even addictive.
And for someone who already has a strong addiction, something smoother will ... be like ...
Damn ... words ... how to make them into sentences? ..
So, enough for today's memories.
And speaking about strong and smooth ... I need another drink.
The glass stood on the table right here. Where is it ... hey?
Hey!
What the...?
"You tell me. That's enough for you, kid."
Kid? Oh he didn’t...
Dipper opened his eyes, trying to make out the speaker with him. It would have been better if it was anyone, but Zach.
"I think you might have the wrong glass, buddy," he croaked, trying to focus on the figure of the man next to him holding a vessel with amber corn liquid.
“Oh yeah? And didn’t you have the wrong party, knucklehead? The last thing I want to see right now is how my nephew gets drunk as hell at his birthday party”
Wait…
Stan? ..
“No, Pope John Paul II. Who do you think?”
In a second, Dipper's eyes flew open, and consciousness returned to online mode. Was he talking all this time out loud?
“I ... um” Dipper uncomfortably fidgeting on the chair, adjusting the edges of the shirt that was pulled up and briskly brushing his hair with fingers.
"Stan ... how long ... are you sitting here?"
"What? You wanna know how much of that nonsense that you muttered I heard? Don’t worry, your secrets will die with me.”
Oh no…
Dipper swallowed nervously and nodded uncertainly, looking before him. Stan responded with a laugh and added, changing his tone from more strict to good-natured:
"It's a joke, kid," he lifted his massive hand onto his nephew's shoulder, "there's nothing for me to blackmail you. This time.”
If they were in another place and under different circumstances, Dipper would have laughed along with his Gruncle. Now he did not even try, because together with laughter it would have turned out to be some silly awkward likeness.
"And yet, what made you to portray that guy ... Kain Rivers? Give you a piece of cake in the hand, and there’ll be complete similarity.”
"You mean Keanu Reeves?"
“Him, too.”
Dipper sighed and lowered his head, covered his face with his hands. Stan, having sipped a little bourbon from the glass, put his hand on his shoulder again.
“Seriously, Dip, what's wrong?” he added worried.
“Nothing, I'm fine” telling lies to a man who has proved over many years that he is the most understanding and caring member of the family left a disgusting taste on the tip of his tongue. If someone than it would be Stan to always be able to hear out and help. He would lay down his bones for the well-being of his family. Maybe he can at least somehow pour out his soul? ..
“What did you feel when Gruncle Ford disappeared in the portal? What’s it like to understand that your closest friend’s gone forever?”
Stan also sighed, setting aside his glass, and turned to face Dipper.
“Listen. You and Mabel, as long as I can remember, have always been together. You grew up, studied, moved to another cities. As I said, you rarely see such a relationship between a brother and a sister. But sooner or later, both of you should have had other companions of life. This is normal - it’s so arranged in the world. People get married, have families, children, invite each other to their dinners, go to work, dig in the garden in the backyard. It’s not the same as getting lost in another dimension for thirty years. Mabel just got married, she didn’t disappear from your life. Yes, now you’ll be separated not by the walls of the rooms, but by a good one and a half hour drive, but ... I’m not a good speaker... anyway,” - he drank some more whiskey.
"You two are better than we were with my brother. I'm telling you this, Ford claimed it until his last breath - believe me. Even if you were separated by space and time, you’d find a way to find yourselves... I mean to find each other. Do you understand what I mean?”
Dipper looked at the old man. In Stan's glance, God bless his heart, confidence and love were read. As always. And although he did not come even a bit close to understanding what was going on in Dipper's heart, his words still warmed.
"Yes, I do, Gruncle," Dipper smiled slightly. "Thank you."
"Well, it takes more than a simple thanks to be stuffed" Stan laughed and rose from his seat, leaning on the cane, "if you knew what they feed you on the plane, you’d understand what I mean. Next time I fly business class, and you pay. I spotted like a table with snacks inside, it's time to visit it.”
With these words he headed toward the house, stepping unsteadily and constantly leaning on his cane. Dipper saluted him in the style of Lando Calrissian and frowned. It was not fair  to upset Stan today with talk like that. So much of a burden was falling on his shoulders lately, and then there's just a glimpse of joy. Still, not every day his grand-niece marries.
It's a pity that Ford did not live to see this day. I definitely need to take a couple of  days off and go to Oregon. Stan becomes too weak to regularly care for the grave.
“Dipper! Bro-bro!”
Oh no.
Dipper pulled a smile on his face and turned to the source of the sound. There she was, flying to him in a light purple summer dress with a white collar.
"Silly drunken little brother. Where did you disappear?“ Mabel laughed, catching him with an empty glass and a half-empty bottle.
Dipper rolled his eyes and smiled wider.
"Mabel, we're the same age. Also I noticed that one bottle of champagne was open before the guests arrived”
He frowned in a mocking way and rubbed his chin,
“Hmm ... But who drank the champagne?..”
He pretended to be chewing a pen, thinking hard.
Mabel stuck out her tongue at her brother and laughed loudly.
"You’re such a nerd!"
She plopped down next to him and laid her head on his shoulder.
“Just think of it, we’re twenty-five now. Do people even have to live so long?”
"I'm still surprised that you even lived to be of age, considering the amount of sugar you absorb daily ... Ow!"  light elbow pokes from her still caught him off guard.
“You deserved that. Be grateful that Mister Tickles didn’t show up for such conversations with your sister.”
“Okaaaay. Mabel, are you sure you’re twenty-five?”  Dipper quickly moved away from Mabel, who was ready to attack on his brother's ribs with his fingers spread out, and raised both hands, "Okay, okay! No more of that!”
"Good brother." Mabel nodded with a satisfied look. "And now, if you'll allow me, jokes aside."
She took a small rectangular bundle from her handbag hanging from her shoulder on a thin chain and solemnly handed it to Dipper.
“Here!”
Dipper took the package from his sister's hands and for a few seconds admired this neatly wrapped in a nice-to-feel gift paper object. It was a pity to spoil such beauty.
“Come on, open it!”
In one motion Dipper opened the package, and in his hands was a large, thick notebook of dark blue. On his soft leather cover was woven golden threads of a small pine tree. Dipper carefully opened the title page, which was encoded with a neat letter. This time Dipper's face was lit up with a sincere smile - they invented the cipher together, many years ago, when in the classroom they passed notes to each other or left them in lockers.
"Wow ..." Dipper sighed. "I ... um ... thanks, Mabel."
"You're welcome, Dip," his sister shone, "I just wondered where it's seen that Dipper wouldn’t have a journal, would he?"  she again laughed and wrapped her arms around him, pulling her brother in a bear hug.
“Happy birthday, Dipper.”
"Happy birthday, Mabel," he replied, breathing in the fragrance of her floral perfume. "I ... um-uh ..." he cleared his throat and pulled away. "My present ... it... I decided not to carry it with me, so it's in the house, but ... I'm sure you'll like it too.
“It would be better if it was so.” Mabel said haughtily. With these words she jumped up, grabbing Dipper by the sleeve of his shirt and dragging him toward the house.
"There's a whole bunch of them there! Gifts!” she skipped off to the house, taking her stumbling brother along with her. "Let's go! I can’t wait to open each one right now!”
* * *
“Son of a…”  the lighter was still sent to the garbage because of malfunctioning, and now all the hope remained that the houses still had matches. Dipper had already rummaged through all the drawers in the kitchen, but not even one sucker was found in this abundance of kitchen utensils and cutlery, such an absurd abundance for the apartment, now serving as a lonely young man's refuge.
Dipper's gaze wandered around the kitchen, the space in his eyes doubled, quadrified - in general it was multiplying in every possible way, and it was extremely difficult to focus on something definite.
Was it really necessary to get so drunk? He did not have a car in New York for the time being, he used to travel by public transport and a taxi, but this is not an excuse for finding a pub on his way home to Brooklyn and staying there until midnight. The morning will be very bad. Very painful and bad.
But, it looks like this is the problem of tomorrow's Dipper, not today's, who has a real business to do now.
He held his hand to the countertop, and staggered to the gas stove, which looked like the last chance to light a damned cigarette, clamped in his teeth. Unsafe last chance. After meditating for couple of seconds, Dipper shook his head, muttering "No, sir," and went to investigate further. Still an eternity, according to the present chronology of Dipper, was wasted - there were no lighters or matches in the house, so that the stove was again in his field of vision.
Still adhering to the nearby interior for a safety net, Dipper drove to the suspicious fire-breathing inhabitant of his house. The fire was only lit from the fifth attempt, and, bending over to the hotplate itself and almost putting his shirt collar on fire, Dipper finally sucked in the pungent tobacco smoke.
And, it turned out that trying to smoke his first cigarette in life right now was a bad idea. Even disgusting. Not only that, he immediately became overwhelmed with a heavy cough and the shaking of his diaphragm awakened something dark in the stomach, consisting of half of bourbon, and half of the birthday cake.
Oh, shit, shit, SHIT!
To the left from the kitchen into the corridor, to the end ... lights on...
Where’s this switch ?!
Oh no! ..
FUCK!!!
At the last second Dipper managed to touch the toilet before he utterly unpleasantly vomited. All thoughts and emotions were compressed into a dot, leaving the consciousness with a devastatingly pure emptiness.
At some point, it might even have seemed that Dipper had blacked out, but as soon as the last urge receded, he straightened leaning with his hands on the rim of the toilet bowl and stood on his unsteady legs and went to the sink, much more tired and much less drunk.
At least giving the face a splash and rinsing the mouth with a freshener will not hurt.
And what do we have here? Oh, nothing, just your dirty still green face with a week stubble and some substance smeared around your mouth.
Oh, gross, ew!
He pulled off his shirt right over his head, doused his face with cold water, rinsed his mouth and staggered into his room.
Well, that's my life now. Drinking, no permanent job, a broken heart ... what could be better?
Dipper hobbled to the bed and plumped on it, without even bothering to remove the veil and pull off his trousers.
At least here I can quit pretending, he thought, as the tears came down bombarding his pillow.
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dhrupad · 6 years
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Amrit Gangar: RENU’S MUMBAI / रेणूजी की बम्बई 
The title might sound as unpredictable as Renu Saluja’s ‘cuts’ in the films that she edited in her short but brilliant career in Mumbai. Renu Saluja (1952-2000) sailed across the shores – both parallel and mainstream. And on both sides of the river, we’d invariably discover precious pearls of her creativity. When Praba Mahajan informed me of the titles of the films to be screened as part of the GraFTII’s homage to her, I found that out of eight films, five – Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! (A Summons for Mohan Joshi, 1983), Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Who Pays the Piper, 1983), Parinda (1989), Dharavi (1991), Split Wide Open (1999) – had a direct relationship with Mumbai, the city where Renu lived all her working life.[1]
It’s all about Renu’s Mumbai, thought I. A strange claim, but in the film production line-up, she was the final artist who had to weave a definite story from the available footage; cutting and splicing shots and sequences, honing the director’s vision, and imperceptibly her own, too. In the process, she had a legitimate claim on the ‘city’. These films so palpably demonstrate how strongly she must have felt about her city, else how could have they evoked its indomitable self and spirit in their peculiar pace and pep?[2]
To me Bombay is the city of ‘cuts’ (not in the corrupt sense of ‘cut’ practice, but in its dramatic sense), the astonishing ‘experiential cuts’ that you find while walking on her streets, or driving on her roads, or travelling in her trains, you always encounter the unexpected, on every step, at every moment. And these ‘cuts’ Renu Saluja must have experienced and internalized to give back their spirit to the films that she gave the final shape to as editor. In the crevices of their ‘cuts’, the punctuations chosen by Renu Saluja breathed the city. It matters little whether she was born in Mumbai or not. But cumulatively she was writing a meta-cinematographic ‘editorial’ about Mumbai. I think she was giving us a Baudrillardian high, “Where is the cinema? It is all around you outside, all over the city, that marvellous continuous performance of films and scenarios,” said the philosopher.[3]
Editing was the final scripting stage of a film, Renu believed. A script is first written on paper – once, twice, ten times; it is then rewritten in the director’s mind and in the minds of the technicians and actors. Then a major rewrite takes place in shooting. Finally in the editing, it is constructed bit by bit with images and sounds. As she once said, one needed as much time to do sound as the actual picture cutting did. She always worked in close liaison with the sound recordist after the final cut.[4]
[...] For every filmmaker, I suppose, the initial challenge is how to take off, how to set the story ball rolling on the screen. Watch any of the films edited by Renu and mark the ways they take. In those few foundational minutes, she skillfully quintessentializes the macro world of the story into its contextual microcapsule, while the rest, as it were, would be just an elaboration, an unfolding. The way she ‘cut’ the first seven minutes in Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! is remarkable. It is difficult to make out whether she cut it on music and song or was it the other way round. I saw it over a decade and a half ago but still can’t forget the juxtaposed image of the dying fish; perhaps because of the power of Renu’s montage that could enter the Brechtian conscience. The way we are introduced to Mohan Joshi and his wife Rohini and their ensuing struggle to get their chawl tenement repaired – it sustains even today. It is Saeed Mirza who has so consistently evoked Bombayness in his oeuvre – the city’s neighbourhoods, its lifestyle, its street language, its hybridity, its oddities, its aspirations, its agonies and ecstasies.[6] Last year, while participating in the IBM² seminar on the New Wave, Mirza said, he was the most regional filmmaker in India.[7] As editor, Renu very subtly understood the filmmaker’s urban ethos. 
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hadarlaskey · 3 years
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Bad Trip
To Eric André’s credit, he makes viewers of his new film Bad Trip wait less than three minutes before allowing us a glimpse of his testicles.
His debut feature as writer and producer extends the vérité pranks he mastered over the years on his deranged Adult Swim talk show, threading them through a bare-bones narrative in three acts rigidly structured by McKee’s story seminar. Suffice it to say that his predilections for wanton destruction, various excretions, and the human body’s nether regions have not been compromised for Hollywood’s sake.
And yet his antics, however profane and destructive they might still be, have a milder flavour here than in the small-screen series that made him a cult legend among not just alternative comedy nerds, but skaters and anarchists and druggies and other miscreants. A palpable punk hostility imbued his TV work with thrilling live-wire chaos, a subversive streak absent from this loose collection of hidden-camera sketches much closer in intent to Punk’d than Borat.
Maybe the issue lies with the unremarkable road movie template guiding us from one sketch to the next: André plays a risk-taker schlub who sets out from Miami to New York so he can confront a boyhood crush, with his buttoned-up bestie (Lil Rel Howery) riding shotgun in the “Bad Bitch-mobile” they have borrowed from his incarcerated sister Trina (Tiffany Haddish). After the volatile nutcase busts out, she sets off in dogged pursuit, their parallel paths dovetailing in a grand finale that doesn’t quite earn the first word in that phrase.
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Rather than push any genuinely discomfiting buttons, director Kitao Sakurai would prefer everyone have a harmless good time, as affirmed by the credit-roll footage of André showing delighted participants that they’ve been caught on tape. There’s no sense of nihilistic ideological purpose behind the stunts of a man best known for antagonising Alex Jones and grilling Scary Spice about Thatcher’s war on the IRA. One scene roping in an Army recruiter begins with André asking, “What wars are going on?” and culminates with him bluntly offering, “I’ll suck your dick if you’ll kill me,” but ends with the two palling around.
Though André previously found success by dragging his taint along the line between genius and stupidity, in this instance he comes down hard on the latter side of that divide with gags that seek to amuse instead of scare the shit out of their unwitting marks. It’s not that the hijinks involving a hand getting mangled in a blender or an impromptu musical number in a mall food court aren’t funny, because they are – it’s that after the laughs have died down, these jerry-rigged gotchas all seem modest in ambition, offering little more than surprise.
The telltale sign is that the comedy comes from the observers’ reactions over the routines themselves, their obliviousness to the fakery being the whole point. As an ass-baring Allen Funt willing to put himself and his dignity on the line for our diversion, André deserves his recognition for going places few of his peers would be willing to go.
But the knowledge of how much farther he could have gone leaves this long-awaited opportunity – a movie budget, in the hands of a maniac! – looking squandered on the pedestrian. His havoc burns bright but fast, a controlled flame that never grows into the wildfire it should be, razing everything in its path.
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ANTICIPATION. Look out, America, because here comes trouble! 3
ENJOYMENT. Spooking the bejesus out of unsuspecting people never seems to get old. 4
IN RETROSPECT. Gorilla jizz notwithstanding, pretty tame. 2
Directed by Kitao Sakurai
Starring Eric André, Lil Rel Howery, Tiffany Haddish
The post Bad Trip appeared first on Little White Lies.
source https://lwlies.com/reviews/bad-trip/
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peerbear · 3 years
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Workflow & Creative Camera Techniques: Avid Seminar & Critical Analysis of Visual Exercise 1 - Week 7 (29/10/20)
This week we had another avid session with Kieran in which we linked sound footage to video footage from someone else’s film. The idea was to understand how to sync up sound and audio and then to edit consistently after that. Again there were technical issues that were hard to solve over zoom, but I still learnt some new things and was very glad to be there at all.
This week we also had a Feedback and Discussion Session, a Critcial Analysis of our Visual Exercise 1 projects. Primarily about the framing section. I found this was a very helpful exercise as it made me look at my work with fresh eyes and almost objectively critique it, which if used correctly could grealty improve my work. I think the main issues were to do with background and the framing choices, if I would have tweaked these the photos would have been much better.
I really enjoyed Jack’s project, because I found his subject was very artistic and interesting. The subject was a person with a sheet over their body, dressed as a ghost and i found it really had character. Sadly only one type of framing of this project was visible so I was unable to compare it to the others, but I found it very well done and very creative
This week I watched Cleo de 5 a 7, which is a French New Wave Film from the 60s. I really enjoyed the way in which the opening credits scene was set up. It was a tarrot card reading and when the tarrot cards would be moved a name from the credits would appear in its place. It looked very aesthtically pleasing. What was interesting about this segment was also that it was shot in colour, whereas the rest of the film is shown in black, so Agnes Varda has clearly chosen to film in black and white as a creative choice for whatever reason. Another aspect of the film that I find very intersting is the way in which it is layed out into chapters, showing different characters viewpoints amongst the the different chapters. This form of editing gives the film a clear timeline and a build up towards something that will happen, a climax.
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rrrauschen · 4 years
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Joseph Cornell, {1936} Rose Hobart
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amypca · 4 years
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GCOP200: Narrative Seminar
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Sergei Paranov, The Colour Of Pomegranates 
“The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova (King of Song) that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film is presented with little dialogue using active tableaux which depict the poet's life in chapters: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court (where he falls in love with a tsarina), The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death.” 
To open the seminar with The colour of Pomegranates shoots life into the lecture, I believe this particular movie was chosen as opening material due to it’s rich dialog and narrative explanation. The movie bring culture into perspective and regains an interesting story though extraordinary circumstances.
Narrative as a core dimension of artistic practice:
When reading this title it radiates the true meaning behind bringing art and story's together. To truly add substance to photography I must incorporate a bold narrative to accompany it. I feel I am currently working hard on this subject in my practice of photographic creativity with the the 202 module.
- Art that tells a story - Art that is inspired by a story - Art that composes a story from existing stories, fictional   stories, or both - Art that invents a wholly new story   as opposed to... - Art that is not necessarily narrative - for example abstract   painting, music, dance - but can this create a story as well?
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Susan Hiller, Monument, 1980-1
After we discussed the subject of Susan Hiller’s Art I wanted to look ferther into the understanding of her project -
I managed to find the display caption for this piece of work -
“Monument explores memory, death, history, heroism, representation and time. Its subject is taken from a series of Victorian ceramic tiles photographed by Hiller in a London park. These commemorate acts of courage by ordinary men, women and children.”
 The narrative is more about the people that lived than the art itself, making me think about the kind of people that were chosen to represent her work - or maybe her work representing them!
I wanted to hear the recording that was presented at the exhibition so I did some digging and found the footage -
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The audio presented is a recording of Susan Hiller herself, It states that the audience should sit with their back facing away from the monument. I have suspicion she did this to create a metaphorical meaning of the past and what has been and gone. I love this work! It has everything that interests me in art.
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Mark Dion, Tate Thames Dig, 1999
This double-sided cabinet houses the artefacts retrieved during the Tate Thames Dig
. One side contains items found at Millbank, the other those from Bankside. The cabinet is in the style of nineteenth-century display furniture still found in many museums. However, Dion has not labelled any of the objects, allowing the visitor to form their own ideas about them. - Gallery label, August 2004
As simple as it seems the cabinet represents the possessions of others that brings the kind of person they are to life, I have come across his work before as I had done a similar demonstration in my Practice. In my views the cabinet is a metaphor for the now where as the things in it are the past and the story of those times. 
HERE IS A SIMILAR APPROACH THAT I CREATED IN MY PROJECTS -
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This is just one of the picture I took of a series of people that lent me their possessions for a day. I did this as I wanted to represent a person without them being present, being captured in the kind of person they are in that very moment - relating to Mark Dion’s work.
Anti-Narrative
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Philip LorciadiCorcia
The theatricality of his images is carefully constructed: he arranges the objects of each scene and devises precise lighting and framing for every project. His work is often described as cinematic, a description that diCorcia deplores.
In the Image above (described as cinematic) It remind’s me of a certain scene in the movie ‘JOKER’ as it is presented with similar colouring, almost a gloomy fade. 
This is the image that the PHILIP LorciadiCoria remind me of -
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I wanted to really highlight the similarities of the two images. As Pillips images were stated to be giving of a cinematic effect they truly give of the same vibe with colour and aura.
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Paul Auster
“The novels of Auster can feel like an exercise in frustration We are provided with the paradox of extreme detail coupled with a high degree of ambiguity This particular novel refuses any clear cut explanation and the reader leaves the tale with a trail of untied threads This sense of an elusive storyline has two opposing effects – it both attracts and repels”
I found an interest in his book  4 3 2 1 as the story brings a twist and turn throughout keeping the reader ingadged in the tale.
“The last thing you’d expect Paul Auster to write is a social-realist novel of panoramic, Dickensian scope. He’s known for his concision, his affiliations with European modernism, his conjuring tricks and sleight of hand. But there’s a telling tribute to David Copperfield halfway through this book, along with a rebuke to Salinger’s Holden Caulfield for badmouthing Dickens in the first sentence of The Catcher in the Rye. More to the point, the opening of the novel – Auster’s first in seven years – is engagingly old-fashioned in spirit, as the genealogy and childhood of one Archibald Isaac Ferguson are set out. “
  LINKS -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Pomegranates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEWOFCVigLs
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dion-tate-thames-dig-t07669
https://www.moma.org/artists/7027
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/27/4321-by-paul-auster-review
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theblackshit · 4 years
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What is going to happen next? That’s important. We need to have another goal. And our goal is clear: it ́s to grow out of these roles.
— Virgin Mary
Daniel Hopp stages social circumstances and successively orchestrates his protagonists in precisely edited video works. His artistic practice brings together professional actors, relatives, friends and himself in situational response to a predetermined exploration. Channelled through intense and oftentimes confrontational group dynamics, his performances bring to light the eternal conflict between individual desire and the need for social belonging.
For his video works, Hopp retrospectively condenses footage of these stagings and confronts it with documentary material from his research. His characters’ identities are not derived from the protagonists’ autobiographies, but amalgamated from scripted acting, self-conscious reflection and unforeseeable interaction; thus mirroring the fictitiousness, respectively the impossibility of being “true“ to – or even knowing – oneself.
His new, two-part video installation Foulplay evolves around the figure of Robin Hood and the struggle of a group of acquaintances to come to terms with their respective urges to do or be good, while not really trusting the idea of individual heroism.
Initiated by an invitation to perform in Hamburg at the “Summer of Knowledge” festival in June 2019, Hopp consecutively organised a collective seminar, a trip to Pakistan with a camera operator, and a workshop following their return with rehearsal phase and subsequent stage performance at the Town Hall Square (Yayacla (Robin Hood)). Aspects from all three of the project’s components comprise this work. Its participants gradually became enmeshed in the project’s encompassing queries, and video footage from all three sequences make up the source material for these films.
On their way to figure out a solution that everybody would be happy with, it turns out that foul play is inevitable. Though each participant approaches his or her prescribed role reflexively, positions and beliefs collide, and the one true path is nowhere to be found. All joint efforts to “change the rules” and turn Robin Hood from a classical male role model into a socio-communal principle are doomed to fail.
Which doesn’t mean to say that one has to try anyway.
— Ellen Blumenstein
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