Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. A popular example is seeing colors while listening to music. Anyone can experience it in it’s adventitious form while using psychedelic drugs. There is also another form of synesthesia that is genetically based and constantly “on” with some people. The estimated prevalence of this in the population have varied between 1:20 to 1:20000. As a matter of fact, some might argue that “seeing stars” is a rather common experience.

There was a phase of scientific research between 1880′s and 1930′s, but due to difficulties in assessing and measuring subjective and internal experiences, the studies gradually waned. In the recent years, with the advent of more sophisticated neuroimaging methods such as fMRI, scientists have begun to study synesthesia again and synesthetes have formed organizations and community sites on the Internet.

It is a fascinating phenonomen and if indeed every 1 in 20 persons have mild synesthetic experiences there are a lot of implications in education, for example. The strength of the phenomen varies greatly and there is also variance between the prevelance of different forms as illustrated in the table at Richard E. Cytowic’s Encyclopedia of Neuroscience.

There are a number of other genetically inherited abilities (color blindness, perfect pitch, etc) that can produce rather unusual combinations if the person also happens to be genetically inclined to synesthesia.

While reading about it, it occurred to me that it is possible that some of the paranormal abilities that people are describing are in fact nothing more than a rare form of synesthesia perhaps combined with another extremely rare and unresearched genetically inherited sensitivity. People who claim to see “auras” of other people may be associating another ultra low level sensory experience with colors and therefore have a strong sense of color in the presence of another person. The physical or chemical activity that triggers the color experience could indeed be something as simple as the odor cues that the other person is emitting. The smell receptors in the aura-sensing persons nose could be transmitting the signals to an area in the brain where the cross-signalings takes place although they are not consciously experiencing any kind of peculiar aroma. As an analogy, it is well known that dogs have the ability to detect various forms of cancer in humans just by sniffing.

I googled around and sure enough, other people have come up with this same idea.

To take this theory a bit further and just for the sake of discussion: What if there is a gene that increases the magnetic sensitivity in humans on a cellular level, but it normally causes no sensory experiences whatsoever and therefore is quite difficult to study? Now, what if that gene is combined with an equally rare, say, radiation → visual or radiation → spatial synesthete gene? Again, it is easy to draw a parallels between species with primitive limbic systems that can predict earthquakes and use magnetic fields as a navigation aid. It has been found out that there is a tiny magnetite crystal in the ethmoid bone of humans. The ethmoid bone is located between the eyes, behind the nose. This magnetite is speculated to be vestigial, i.e. lost most of it’s original function during species evolution.

I would like to explore this idea in the form of an art piece or perhaps a short film. I welcome comments by anyone interested in this subject.

Being able to digitally capture moving images with an apparent quality of 35 mm film has been the proverbial Holy Grail of many people for a long, long time. Independent movie makers with a micro budget, art students, video artists, video production companies and a whole bunch of other organizations and individuals would love to have that elusive “film look” in their productions.

There are quite a few big time Hollywood productions being made with digital image acquisition right now, but the new thing is that some of these technologies are beginning to trickle down to a price level that small companies and even individuals can afford. Here’s a quick round-up of three solutions at a price point of less than 10000 dollars including a lense or two (say, a Zeiss
Planar T* 1,4/50 for example).

Nikon D90 and Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Nikon and Canon have both introduced DSLR cameras that can capture HD video. Nikon’s D90 and Canon EOS 5D Mark II can both capture decent HD video. Nikon is using motion JPEG compression and Canon is using the more efficient H.264. Nikon is capturing 720P at 24 fps and Canon is using 1080P at 30 fps. Unfortunately both of these cameras have only an exposure lock, but ISO and shutter speed are automatically controlled by the camera. This is not a very desirable behaviour for more ambitious film projects. Nevertheless they are a huge step up from video capture capabilities of previous DSLR models. A lot of people will most likely be using these cameras, especially the 5D mark II for a new style of independent film production called “web cinematography”. It’s basically a video/film production where the end product will be available only on the web… perhaps as a embedded video in a browser window, a downloadable quicktime file or even an entire film distributed over Bit Torrent. Have a look at this video by the cinema accessory manufacturer Zacuto to get a feel on how to pimp up a DSLR for professional productions.

• Canon 5D videos on Vimeo
• Nikon D90 videos on Vimeo

Scarlet

The other big news this year was the announcement of Scarlet… a more affordable version of the Red camera, which has already been used in several Hollywood productions as the main camera. A price point of 3000 US dollars for a camera that can capture 3K resolution images would have been a laughable proposition just a few years ago. Some of the high-end digital cinema cameras such as the Panavision Genesis are not even available for purchase, but are for rental only. Scarlet has been projected to ship in 2009, but with a small and unique company such as Red, one never knows.

One of the many desirable qualities of the “film look” is the shallow depth of field. It is more easily created with a fully open aperture, but the effect is more noticeable with a larger sensor size. The most economical Scarlet will only have a 2/3 inch sensor which is the same size that is most commonly used in broadcast video cameras. To get as shallow depth of field on a 2/3 inch sensor as on a 35 mm sensor one would have to open up the aperture about 2 and a half stops additional stops. That is, on a 2/3 inch sensor you have to shoot at T1.9 to have the same depth of field as T4.0 on a 35 mm sensor.

2/3 inch is often seen as a completely inferior format to a “full frame” 35 mm sensor. If you have any doubts that a smaller sensor can’t be used for big time productions, have a look at the trailer of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The entire film was shot with a Thomson Viper, which has a 2/3 inch sensor. A very interesting interview with Claudio Miranda about the workflow can be found at the Studio Daily web site.

Besides shallow depth of field, “Film look” does have numerous other components to it. Sound is actually very important as well. One of the other key components is the latitude of the image, or the depth of the dynamic range in an individual frame. Scarlet has an obvious edge in this respect, because it records what is essentially an equivalent of RAW images in still cameras. It is a compressed image, but it does have high bit depth and therefore malleability that one needs in order to color correct or to put it in film terms “grade” it in the post.

Sony PWM EX-1 and Letus adapters

As far as HD image capture is concerned, what’s happening on the prosumer / low-end professional video front? The new big dog on that field is the Sony EX-1 / EX-3 duo which is Sony’s counter strike to Panasonic’s P2 format. Sony is using a new SxS card as a solid state storage solution for their new camera which can shoot at 60 fps for slow motion effects. The DSLR cameras mentioned above cannot do any slow motion effects, by the way. But the DSLR cameras do have that beautiful and saturated film look that everyone is after. How do you recreate that on EX1? The answer is a depth of field adapter that projects the image of a 35 mm lense on a ground class for the video camera to capture. You can get absolutely beautiful results with these, but they are bulky, very sensitive to calibration, inherently lose a lot of light in the optical path and they are quite pricey. However, at the moment, many people think that they are the best that current techonology has to offer for a relatively inexpensive way to capture film like footage on a digital camera. The XDCAM file format, while not as flexible as REDcode format, is still a step up from the DSLR video file formats.. as far as the flexibility for color correction is concerned.

For an assortment of sample videos with a depth of field adapter, have a look at these videos at Vimeo.

• Letus – a manufacturer of depth of field adapters
• Sony XDCAM product line

I believe that in the very near future there will be a revolution in the sheer amount of indie film production made with these new, affordable tools. I am eagerly waiting for more news about Scarlet. I can hardly wait to jump on this wagon and finally be able to produce relatively film like results without breaking the bank and virtually switching careers.

I produced a micro website for the finnish version of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening. In addition to information about the musical itself, the site contains a grungy typographic motion graphics Flash intro produced in Final Cut Pro and a web form to invite your friends to watch yourself on the unique stage seats on a specific date. The stage seats are likely to be sold out rather quickly. I advise to hurry if you are a student and you are interested in this sort of thing.

Spring Awakening is a Tony Award-winning rock musical with music by Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Sater. The musical is based on the controversial 1891 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. Set in late-nineteenth century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of sexuality. The original play was banned in Germany due to its portrayal of masturbation, abortion, rape and suicide. In the musical, alt-rock is employed as part of the folk-infused rock score. During the musical, characters sometimes break the fourth wall to express their motivations and desires directly to the audience.

Edit: I ended up repurposing the flash intro as a full HD pre-movie commercial for theatrical release. It was heavily modified and sweetened with a 5.1. surround sound track.

Cetacean intelligence – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dolphins are known to engage in complex play behaviour, which includes such things as producing stable underwater toroidal air-core vortex rings or “bubble rings”. There are two main methods of bubble ring production: rapid puffing of a burst of air into the water and allowing it to rise to the surface, forming a ring; or swimming repeatedly in a circle and then stopping to inject air into the helical vortex currents thus formed. The dolphin will often then examine its creation visually and with sonar. They also appear to enjoy biting the vortex-rings they’ve created, so that they burst into many separate normal bubbles and then rise quickly to the surface. Certain whales are also known to produce bubble rings, or even bubble-nets for the purpose of foraging. Many dolphin species are also known for playing by riding in waves, whether natural waves near the shoreline in a method akin to human “body-surfing”, or within the waves induced by the bow of a moving boat in a behavior known as bow-riding.

The wikipedia article about the intelligence of dolphins and whales is a fascinating read. While sleeping, dolphins appear to rest only one side of the brain at a time. This is sometimes given as an explanation to their exceptionally large brain size. Their brains (1500-1700 grams) are actually heavier than human brains (1300-1400 grams) and the wrinkles in them are of near equivalent complexity.

I’ve seen dolphins underwater once near the Eilat Dolphin Reed in the Red Sea. One of them came all the way to a nearby sandy tourist beach obviously seeking human contact for his or her amusement only. A delighted child ran to the dolphin and whatever they were doing, it was most obviously some sort of playful social interaction for both parties.

Here’s another interesting experiment that is being conducted on captive dolphins:

More recently, researchers at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii have been testing dolphins through an underwater touchscreen attached to a computer. There are no food rewards, so the dolphins use the touchscreen solely for intellectual stimulation. The scientists found that the dolphins weren’t particularly interested in abstractions, such as geometric patterns or artificial sounds. But they were very excited about touching the screen if it resulted in their seeing videos of other dolphins or hearing dolphin sounds. The next step will be to let dolphins choose video or audio sequences and then try to analyze why they’re making those decisions.

I can confirm this behaviour in humans as well. Even without any experiments, I know that people are much more interested in seeing other people and hearing human sounds compared to seeing geometric patterns or artificial sounds.

While exploring photographs that might suit this definition, I quickly noticed that in real photographs there are often little “mistakes” that wouldn’t make it to a computer model. The random decay and debris is often almost too perfect in computer modelled scenes.

Please join and add a photograph or two if you happen to have anything in your archives that would be relevant to this group.

I usually don’t write negative reviews, but either it was the brain washing of the Vatican or perhaps Golden Compass is just a bad movie. The plot keywords made me salivate in anticipation, but as soon as the lights went out and the endless trailers and commercials had ended, I quickly found out that this particular film wasn’t my cup of tea. While Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra wasn’t exactly an untalented actress, she failed to breathe life to the synthetic, blue screened scenes. Nicole Kidman herself had slight troubles orientating to the invisible daemon friends who were all digitally added to the frames in the post, no doubt.

This is a problem I’ve seen in many, many films. I, Robot suffered from the same blue screen syndrome. So did Mirrormask by the way. (On the other hand, I did like Beowulf quite a bit… perhaps it was because it didn’t mix live action with CGI, who knows)

It is hard for an actor or an actress to imagine that they are talking to a 4 meter tall polar bear when they are actually just talking to a giant chroma key wall or, even worse, to the microphone in a tiny little voiceover booth.

Before I forget it, let me just mention that my favorite performance in Golden Compass was Sam Elliot as Mr. Scoresby.

Technology aside, I wasn’t swept away by the plot either. It felt very much like a made-to-order saga with a little bit of myths and scandinavian names thrown in for good measure. The film is based on a book by Philip Pullman, one of England’s most outspoken atheists. There is a strong anti-christian (or anti-dogmatic, to be more precise) undertone in Pullman’s script. On the other hand the fascination with the ancient mythology seems very shallow and gimmicky in this context.

I’ll give Golden Compass two stars out of five. Ahh, I’m looking forward to I am Legend to also give two stars only. This will equalize my ratings scale nicely and make it look more like a gaussian curve instead of a baseball cap with every other movie getting three and a half or four stars…

I’ll be back

Well, I finally made it to redrum last night. To warm up for a night out, we doped up with some cava (Conde de Haro) and a nourishing meal at Grotesk. The tuna pastrami appetizer at Grotesk was excellent, by the way. Grotesk is a fancy fine dining place with relatively high prices on the menu, so I was surprised to see a high profile biker gang complete with emblems over there enjoying the creations of the chefs. It greatly enhanced the already eclectic atmosphere of the restaurant.

After a quick taxi ride, we ended up at Redrum, the club with allegedly best sound system around. Well, after last night I can confirm that the sound system is indeed unbelievable. It is built by Funktion One and combined with the unique interior the music sounded totally out of this world. Maybe I’m just used to the el cheapo systems at other clubs or maybe it was the Cava, but the acoustics in the wood paneled club sounded practically studio quality to me. You could easily chat with your friends without shouting and still hear the music with vibrant clarity. The bass was superbly satisfying as well. I think there are at least 6 or 7 layers of acoustic material on the walls.

If you are visiting Helsinki and dance music is your thing, I highly recommend redrum for the acoustic experience alone. Sometimes they host rock concerts as well.

Sunshine

The director also considered the story of Sunshine as an appropriate counterintuitive approach for the contemporary issue of global warming, with the death of the sun being a threat. Originally, Sunshine was scripted to begin with a voiceover talking about how parents tell their children not to look into the sun, but once told, the children would be compelled to look. Boyle described the sun as a godly personality in the film, creating a psychological dimension for the astronauts due to its scale and power. The director also described the film’s villain as based on light, explaining, “That’s quite a challenge because the way you generate fear in cinema is darkness.” The director also sought to have the characters experience a psychological journey in which each person is worn mentally, physically, and existentially and is experiencing doubt in their faiths.

I like to get a little dose of science fiction every now and then to keep the subconsciousness nourished with far-out ideas. Sunshine was just what the doctor ordered as far as the science part of the movie is concerned. In the movie a “Q-Ball” , the nucleus of a supersymmetric particle, gets itself lodged in the Sun. The hypothetical Q ball eats through normal matter, ripping apart the Sun’s neutrons and protons and converting them into supersymmetric particles. The Earth’s last and only hope? Why, to launch and detonate a gigantic nuclear bomb to fix the problem, of course!

Here’s an interesting review with the scientific advisor of the film.

Well, science aside, I think the film makers did a pretty good job with many other aspects of the film. The art direction and visual effects in general were well made. More importantly, they were also original and refreshing, which is not an easy task to accomplish in this day and age.

I found it particularly inspiring that the sun was treated as a god-like entity much like the ancient egyptian Sun God Ra and the aztec god Huitzilopochtli. As a matter of fact, sun has been worshipped for all of recorded history.

My personal prediction is that the Sun God is about to get quite angry while us mere mortals are thinning the ozone layer which is protecting us from his angry UVB eye.

CSS: CANSEI DE SER SEXY “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex”

This is the soundtrack to a consumer made iPod commercial that made it big time. It’s being remade in hi-def by TBWA for broadcast use.

Consumers creating commercials “is part of this brave new world we live in,” said Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer at TBWA Worldwide, based in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Playa del Rey.

“It’s an exciting new format for brands to communicate with their audiences,” Mr. Clow said. “People’s relationship with a brand is becoming a dialog, not a monolog.”

Check out the YouTube video that caught the eye of the ad agency.

Tom Hanks Interview

The Oscar-winning actor spent months on a remote Fijian island for his new movie Cast Away and far from being an idyllic experience it proved to be something of a nightmare for the 44-year old star.

Not only did he have to lose 55lb in weight for the role and spend weeks up to his neck in water, the shoot almost turned to tragedy when he caught a serious infection.

“Just before we left the island I had a little sore on my knee and something got inside there. We left Fiji on the Friday and by the Sunday my leg was twice its normal size,” explains Hanks, looking more than a little relieved to be in the urban surrounds of London.

“I had to go to the doctors and I thought I was going to get it cleaned and some antibiotics to take. The next thing I know there were five doctors running around in a panic trying to figure out what was inside my leg.

“I underwent surgery that night and was out for three weeks. We had to shut down the movie. I was very close to blood poisoning, which can kill you. If I’d really been a castaway on that island, doctors told me I would have been dead in five weeks.”

I really liked Cast Away, but I don’t think Tom Hanks did a very good job with his method acting a.k.a. losing weight for the role. He had a full year to do it. He had a special “Weight loss trainer” that is credited at the end.

There was a lot of press about the weight loss and Mr. Hanks got completely bored with endless questions about it in interviews. Just to give a little perspective to Tom Hanks’ 55 pound loss, Christian Bale lost a third of his normal body weight (63 pounds) for his role in The Machinist. Tom Hanks had gained extra weight for the first part of the movie and I think that he simply returned back to slightly below his normal weight.

Although method acting doesn’t usually refer to physical alterations in an actor’s apperance, weight loss and gaining for a role is often seen as a measurement of actor’s commitment to the role. Sadly, sometimes things go a bit wrong when people commit themselves too deeply. Requiem For A Dream star Jared Leto was diagnosed with gout after losing weight for a film role.

Body weight is one of those things that you can’t yet fix in the post.

I just read an interesting story about the new generation of wiretapping technology that FBI is using in the USA. Coincidentally, three of the last Hollywood blockbuster movies I’ve seen (Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4.0 and Ocean’s 13) have all dealt with the general themes of “individual versus the surveillance system” and “we can see your every move at the hidden command center”. I also saw Wim Wenders’ “The Land of Plenty” which was about a Vietnam war veteran who had become more or less obsessed with surveillance.

I remember seeing scenes in Hollywood movies portraying the Echelon as early as 1994 (“Clear and Present Danger”), but recently it has become the most trendy plot element that you can have. The usual way to weave it into an action film plot is to have the protagonist somehow fool the system and simply outsmart the government agents at the hidden command center by switching the sim card in a phone or hiding behind a balloon seller at a busy railway station.

Bourne Ultimatum went completely over the top with the surveillance theme though. All I can remember about the plot was that the same scene was basically acted out in slightly different variations about 5 or 6 times. During the end credits they played the theme song by Moby.

Well, I guess my point is that not only the script writers, but also the audience in this seemingly less secure world have become fascinated with wiretapping and remote sensing. Whether it’s good entertainment or not, I can’t say. But I do know that during insecure times, horror films repeatedly become a more popular genre. A society based on the remote surveillance and monitoring of the potential threats in the neighbourhood is indeed a bit horrific.

A bit of more of me

David Keith McCallum, Jr. (born September 19, 1933) is a prolific Scottish actor and the son of concertmaster violinist David McCallum, Sr.. He is best known for his role as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, on the popular 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

Although McCallum subsequently became a familiar face on television, he was never able to achieve the same level of popular success as he had done with his role as Kuryakin. His best-known roles were in Sapphire and Steel (opposite Joanna Lumley), as the lead in a 1970s remake of The Invisible Man, and as Judas Iscariot in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

In the 1960s, McCallum recorded some albums for Capitol Records with producer David Axelrod, such as Music: A Bit More of Me (1966) and Music: It’s Happening Now! (1967). The most well known of his pieces today is arguably The Edge, which was sampled by Dr. Dre as the intro and riff to the track The Next Episode. There is some controversy over what role McCallum actually played in these recordings, as he did not sing on the tracks (they are instrumentals), nor did he write them.

DJ Majestic Mood played a really nice set a few weeks ago at Palmenhaus. I asked him about a particularly interesting tune and it turned out to be from a weird 60′s album conducted by none other than David McCallum.

I wrote a draft for this entry earlier, but decided to postpone publishing it due to..uhm.. some eBay bidding activity. I am now the proud owner of both of his 60′s vinyl albums. I can’t wait to get back home to listen to them.

As a quick update to our Balkan tour, we’ve succesfully visited Budapest, Ljubljana, Split and the Island of Hvar. On the last night at the island we met an interesting character. He was a local island man, who had studied archeology and came up with the concept of “herbal tourism”. In a word, he was a herbalist. He graciously gave us a whole bunch of wild herbs which he had been collecting earlier that day with a group of Swiss tourists. Sadly, we had to leave for Split and we didn’t have a chance to interview him in more detailed manner. Split was a superb experience as well. Our accommodation was right next to Jupiter’s temple in the Diolectian palace, which is the most active and well preserved site of it’s kind in the world. It is part of the Unesco world heritage program and so is a part of Graz, where we are lodging at the moment.

I’m typing this at the hotel lobby internet terminal while slightly intoxicated, so this will have to do for now. Resuming normal blog update schedule when I’m back in Finland in the beginning of July.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I picked up a rental DVD of Terry Gilliam’s latest creation Tideland. I knew that the film hadn’t been a commercial success, but that was nothing new as far as his works are concerned. I had enjoyed Brothers Grimm and come to think of it, every other movie by Terry Gilliam as well, so I decided to give it a shot. The movie is a roller coaster ride through the life and inner universe of a junkie’s daughter. It is rated R for “bizarre and disturbing” content and I can’t blame the rating people for that decision. It is disturbing and provocative, but at the end of the day, it is a kind of movie that sadly very seldom gets financing. It must have been obvious to even some of the financers that this might be a commercial flop around the premiere, but like many other Gilliam’s movies, I’m sure that it will recognized as a masterpiece in the years to come.

The plot is not very important and I don’t want to give it away. If interested, have a quick peek at the user comments at IMDB. According to director’s own words, this is a movie about the resilience of children. He has mentioned that many people will hate the film and many people will love the film. In the DVD version he notes that he is 64 years old now and it took this long for him to find his own inner child. He ends the intro by thanking the audience (three times in a row!) for watching this film and it makes all the difference if you watch this plea before watching the actual movie, which can be quite a shocking experience if viewed mentally unprepared.

I saw Pan’s Labyrinth and read The Life of Pi last year. Tideland has a rather similar concept. It is not only about resilience of children, but also about innocence, which seem to go hand in hand in this beautiful, magical and yet very unsettling work.

A few days ago I spotted a poster for Levi’s “Road trip from the Original” club tour featuring Felix Da Housecat. The poster was at a huge local store specializing in water pipes and hydrophonic cultivation systems. The original venue was a small artsy joint called Loft 16, but they had to relocate to a bigger space apparently because they had pre-sold too many tickets. The new venue turned out to be the prestigious Zeiss Planetarium right by one of Vienna’s landmarks, the giant ferris wheel at Prater.

His style has been classified with terms such as Neo-Electro and Left-Field House

Left-Field House

Left-field house producers tend to ignore at least one major chapter of the traditional deep-house production playbook, whether doing away with the 4/4 rhythmic structure, the need for hand percussion, or the emphasis on the beat. If the deviation in the production can’t be pinned down to a specific quality, there remains something certifiably askew. There’s no single sound that typifies left-field house. It can be abstract and grimy like Theo Parrish, whose productions often favor low BPMs and samples from obscure jazz recordings, all the while retaining a pronounced 4/4 rhythm. It can come from house’s back door, through post-disco R&B and Italo disco influences, like Metro Area — a duo who regularly bypasses the relentless 4/4 thump completely. Or it can be equally experimental and contemporary like Herbert, whose concepts and methodologies (sampling sources that range from kitchen utensils to biological functions) occasionally overshadow his accomplishments.

Well, I’ve been a fan of the Housecat for several years now and I just knew that I couldn’t forgive myself if I let this opportunity pass. I wasn’t sure when he would start his set, so I showed up early at 11 pm. There was some trouble with the dryness of eyes at the home base, so I was clubbing solo this time. The location was very atmospheric (no pun intended) and there was even a spacious garden with beach chairs and all. I chit chatted with the locals and met someone who had cured his impending tinnitus with some type of ultra low frequency sound therapy. I decided to find out more about that even though I haven’t problems with tinnitus yet. As far as I could tell, I was the only person among about a thousand clubbers wearing ear plugs! The sound system was pumping a steady bass line at about at least 110 db, so it is practically certain that some of the speaker hugging crowd will have some high frequency hearing loss and/or tinnitus in the decades to come. Don’t lose the music, my friends.

After one or two Vodka Smirnoffs and an energetic show by the French Cassius, I decided to chill out the actual planetarium while waiting for the DJ set to start. According to their web site, the planetarium is one of the most advanced ones in the world (aren’t they all). I can’t remember if I’ve been to one earlier, but I found the huge revolving optical Zeiss “Universium” projector a very intriguing device by itself. The projected stars were visibly vibrating to the bass line of the music. I observed this interesting phenomen on the comfy seats for hours before returning to the main hall to find out that it had been invaded by literally hundreds of clubbers. There was no need for smoke machine since around here people will smoke their cancer butts just about anywhere no matter what the signs or laws dictate. They must have some sort of built-in reflex to avoid cigarette burns in other people and their clothes even in extremely crowded situations. Unfortunately there was almost no room to dance at all and dancing was mostly about maintaining your own 200 square centimeters of floor space with your feet while rhythmically shaking your hands at various directions to ward of the bottle wielding floor space invaders.

Well, soon after the Cassius act, they announced “DJ Felix da Housecat” and his instantly recognizable envelope twitching, aggressive and dirty Chicago house sound started flowing. I slowly worked my way closer to the DJ table over the course of an hour or so and finally saw the master of the wheels of steel himself. He was totally grooving to his own sonic creation in his little Pioneer/Apple branded techno altar and so was the crowd. I don’t know if it was the limited space or just the general politiness of austrians, but I didn’t see too much wild and out of control dancing. The club scene in Berlin for example is generally much wilder and expressive. The VJ work was stupendously dull and uncreative, but there were pleasant whiffs of herbal aroma in the air and the music was also pulsating and vibrating in a most enjoyable manner. I really like his style with the use of vocal samples and the seemingly endless variations with envelope modulations. There is no doubt in my mind that mixing music and sounds with this degree of proficiency is no less admirable than the work of master concert violinist for example.

Just listen to the “Buy Now For Sale” sample on his myspace page to get an idea what I am talking about. This is the kind of music that only works like it’s intended if you have the dynamics of a big sound system and a roomful of people jumping up and down to it. Isolated from it’s context, hearing it by itself on a small computer speaker it sounds like broken record player, but at the planetarium it felt like the universe itself was shaking.

I didn’t have the camera with me so I had to borrow the picture above from a Mysteryland 2005 gig. He is still wearing a similar t-shirt, shades and earphones and looked pretty much the same last night. He had a bright yellow helmet with a big number 3 on it as a type of an amulet or idol on the mixing table. A female member of the crowd had apparently placed blue panties on it and this caused much amusement among the technical crew and the DJ himself.

To conclude this slightly incoherent and rambling entry with even more irrelevant trivia, I’ll remind you about another type of musical event that is approaching with great inevitability. The Eurovision song contest is held in Helsinki on the 12th of May. For once they have managed to pull together a decent web site to showcase the host city. Check out www.helsinkihostcity.fi. I can’t comprehend why they haven’t been able to produce a tourism promotion web site of this quality before the excuse of this contest. Budgetary reasons perhaps. Anyway, two thumbs up for the creative use of photographs and soundtrack.

On Saturday the local audiovisual oasis for film addicts, über cool Alphaville, hosted an excellent 10 year anniversary party at the Gartenbau Kino. Unfortunately I’ve had a streak of bad luck and I’ve managed to break down both my iBook and the brand new ceramic inlay which I had inserted on my first molar about a year ago in Bangkok. I’m heading over to Hungary as a dental tourist to have the inlay fixed and hopefully get a new logic board for the iBook later this week.

Anyway, I missed some of the earlier shows at the party while I was arranging my travel schedule. I did make it to the gala premiere of Life in Loops which is a remix of fresh footage, music by Sofa Surfers and raw footage from another film called Megacities. I especially liked the New York hustler and crack dealer sequences and the dyestuff man in India:

Timo Novotny labels his new project an experimental music documentary film, in a remix of the celebrated film Megacities (1997), a visually refined essay on the hidden faces of several world “megacities” by leading Austrian documentarist Michael Glawogger. Novotny complements 30% of material taken straight from the film (and re-edited) with 70% as yet unseen footage in which he blends original shots unused by Glawogger with his own sequences (shot by Megacities cameraman Wolfgang Thaler) from Tokyo. Alongside the Japanese metropolis, Life in Loops takes us right into the atmosphere of Mexico City, New York, Moscow and Bombay. This electrifying combination of fascinating film images and an equally compelling soundtrack from Sofa Surfers sets us off on a stunning audiovisual adventure across the continents. The film also makes an original contribution to the discussion on new trends in documentary filmmaking.

After the premiere we headed to the pavillion in Stadtpark and bumped into two finns who were on a day trip from Budapest where they were studying to become hotel professionals. They had interesting stories to tell about their work. An older gentleman comes to the hotel with a different young lady several times a week and then visits the same hotel on a Sunday brunch with his family.

After midnight I ended up sitting almost next to one of my musical heroes, B. Fleischmann, while he was busy with his laptop mixing a new soundtrack to an old Buster Keaton movie. The movie was mostly about the american civil war and steam engines. The soundtrack was superbly minimalistic true to his inimitable style and he sipped a well deserved beer after the credits.

I’m off to Innsbruck next weekend. I’ll probably visit the Stubai Glacier to do some summer snowboarding to get some sun and shake off the bad vibes about stuff breaking down around (and in) me.

The all healing Summer is finally arriving and the sun is shining with it’s wondrous warmth and unrestrained luminosity. Take care, brothers and sisters… and remember to enjoy what life and mother earth have in store for you!

Smokey the Bear web site has an inspiring Museum section.

The campaign is the longest running public service campaign in history. Tv infomercials have a long tradition of using motion graphics and animation to convey their message. It is interesting to explore the various visual styles and approaches to the subject over the decades.

The flash intro of the site is a little spooky. As several horror movies have demonstrated to us, you can turn almost anything a little spooky by combining it with a children’s rhyme. The intro reminds me of Twin Peaks and the first poster of the museum reading “Death Rides The Forest”. Quite different from the 70′s Remember, there are babes in the forest poster. The new flash intro is a re-using a visual idea from a 1972 tv spot though.

The TV & Radio section of the museum has radio ads by celebrities and artists such B.B. King, Grateful Dead, Cheech & Chong and Dr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Ripe for sampling.

Haus Der Musik

HAUS DER MUSIK is an interactive discovery museum located in the heart of Vienna’s first district nestled between St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Vienna State Opera. A host of interactive installations playfully communicate openness to new things, understanding and enthusiasm in approaching music

HAUS DER MUSIK was awarded the Austrian Museum Prize for its innovative design and is located in the former Palais of Archduke Charles. You will find all 67 of its new inventions here. A total of 5,000 square meters has been set aside exclusively for areas dedicated to a wide array of approaches to music, and most of all, to the experience of music.

It is thanks to a private initiative that HAUS DER MUSIK was established at Sailerstätte 30 without public funding. Particular thanks goes to our partners from the business community who recognized that HAUS DER MUSIK represented a worthwhile investment. As per January 15, 2005 HAUS DER MUSIK is owned by Wien Holding.

How does it feel to beat a drum three meters in diameter, what do “notes” sung by vocal acrobats sing look like, what does Marvin Minsky have to say about the structure of the Brain Opera in comparison to the human brain, how does the Shepard-Scale continue on, seemingly for eternity, how does it feel to be applauded by the Vienna Philharmonic or to play the world’s largest electronic percussion instrument, the Rhythm Tree – these questions and more will whet your appetite to know, experiment and discover more about music. And this is exactly what HAUS DER MUSIK is all about.

I was really looking forward to the “Virtual Conductor” exhibit at Haus der Musik. It wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t as responsive as it could have been. I’m not sure what kind of motion capture technology they are using, but obviously it wasn’t such a mainstream technology in 2001 as it is nowadays with Nintendo Wii and PS3.

All in all, Haus der Musik was a great experience. By coincidence, I’ve previously worked on exhibits dealing similar subjects such as Shepard’s scale and the treshold of hearing so some of the subject matter was familiar to me. There was a nice a mix of traditional museum content (eg. historical items), various artistic “chill out” spaces, physical instrument exhibits and computer based interactive touch screens. Some of them were quite sophisticated. My personal favorites were the ones which let you “compose” little musical works and the ones that were dealing with the pitch of sound.

It’s a huge space and you can easily spend several hours over there. They have a 50% Happy Hour discount on Tuesdays from 5 pm to 9 pm.

What is the common denominator for the Woodstock documentary, Michael Jackson’s Bad music video and The Departed? Why, Thelma Schoonmaker as the editor, of course! This lady has won 3 Oscars. She began her film career assisting an editor removing random frames from the classic films of Truffaut, Godard and Fellini in order to conform their length for the U.S. television broadcasts.

While giving one of her keynote addresses she has noted that she doesn’t feel like the computer based editing saves her any time cutting a film, it just allows her to experiment more. (She is using Lightworks instead of Final Cut Pro or Avid, by the way.)

Film editing is an invisible art. The rule of thumb is that the better the editing, the harder it is to observe. But… she obviously has the courage to break the rules and be truly innovative with her cuts. Her style is just phenomenal.

IMDB Trivia

Works mainly as editor to Martin Scorsese, who tried to convince her to work for him for years. She was unable to work in Hollywood, however, because she couldn’t get into the union. When Scorcese called to ask her to work on Raging Bull (1980), she again demurred because of lack of union membership. However, she believes that Al Pacino got her into the union. To this day, she does not know what influence was used to gain her union membership.

Martin Scorsese introduced her to her husband, Michael Powell.

Her father worked for an oil company, so she was born in Algeria, but grew up in Aruba. She did not live in the United States until her teens.

She met Martin Scorsese during a summer program at New York University, where she was taking an editing course. As she had some professional experience editing movies for late night television, she was brought in to help student director Scorsese with problems on his film.

Honorary doctor of the School of Motion Picture, Television and Production Design in Helsinki, Finland.

Drawball.com is one of the collaborative art creation sites. You can zoom in on the ball and draw on any part of it. The beauty of it is that anyone else can do the same. Have a look at the playback of the project to get an overview how spaces like this evolve over time.

I find the Marilyn Monroe spot especially fascinating. It is not just the subject that reminds me of Andy Warhol here.

New York Surveillance Camera Players

Debut Performance

At around 11 pm on Tuesday 10 December 1996, six members of the Surveillance Camera Players (Michael, Katie, Bill, Susan, Lisa, and Orrin) performed most of Art Toad’s special adaption of Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi in front of a surveillance camera in Manhattan’s Union Square subway station. At the same time, three other SCPers (Grrrt, Michelle and John), as well as several on-lookers, watched the play on one of the station’s closed-circuit television monitors.

It is interesting to note that An International Day of Action Against Video Surveillance was organized on September 7th, 2001… just two days before the incident that changed the public opinion about government surveillance in general.

Here in Vienna they have a surveillance camera at the top of every escalator on the U-bahn stations. In contrast, the density of cameras at the Tube stations in London was phenomenal. Each staff member monitors up to 60 cameras. The New Scientist has an interesting article about new software that can spot dubious behaviour, suicide attempts, abandonded packages etc.

Face recognition technology is slowly crossing over from security products sector to consumer electronics. Canon’s new Powershot TX1 has a rather advanced face recognition system that can even recognize multiple faces in a scene while shooting video at HD resolution!

It just occurred to me that it wouldn’t be all that difficult to implement an “identity search” on Google Images. All it would take is to automatically index every face in each image and link it to the profile picture of your Gmail account for example. It won’t probably happen in a year or two, but who knows about the future? The technology is already here.

EDIT: I just learned that Royal Caribbean has a ship-wide surveillance systems utilizing facial recognition technology. This enables security personnel to locate any passenger on the ship, except in private areas (such as staterooms and restrooms).

Spencer Platt, USA, Getty Images.

Young Lebanese drive through devastated neighborhood of South Beirut, 15 August

The inter-relations between the people and the world that is surrounding them is captured with painful precision in the fleeting moment while the shutter of Spencer Platt’s camera opened for a fraction of a second. A multitude of questions immediately spring to mind while watching this picture.

Sometimes great photography is more about great timing than anything else.

This music video was directed by Lauri Warsta and Jouni Karttunen of the Las Palmas collective. They are masterfully utilizing the modern tools of motion graphic artists and animators to complement the mood of the song. In a music genre like this the title of the song is often the only clue about the “message” of the song and the animators have done an amazing job in animating and rotoscoping (with water colours on paper perhaps?) the war related footage and 3D models.

The video is for a band called Magyar Posse and it deservedly won the “Best music video of the year” at the Oulu Music Video festival as well as the People’s Choice award.

Las Palmas has a higher quality version of the video in the music video section of their website. Their other animation work is of superb quality as well. It is well worth checking out.

Space: 1999 Catacombs- Episode Guide

Film Compilations / Film 0 (1976) – 88 minutes

Compiled From:
Breakaway
Ring Around The Moon
Another Time, Another Place

Background

This movie was edited from three episodes to launch the series in Italy. The poster shows astronauts fighting; the spacesuits are white. This scene was not in the movie. It was subsequently released to Italian video.

Music

The title music and incidental themes are by famed composer Ennio Morricone (A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon A Time In America). Most of the music is random tonalities, but it becomes more lyrical during the return to Earth sequences.

Yes, yet another post related to space exploration! It must the Christmas that’s approaching ever so quickly (and those clever Swedes that made it space before us, dammit) that is inducing these fantasies about unexplored frontiers.

I still can’t believe that I missed the Ennio Morricone concert in Hammersmith Apollo while I was practically there… just a few tube stations away. The 50 pound ticket price seemed too steep at the time, but after I saw what eating out and living cost over there, it seems like a bargain now.

He is already 78.. I hope Lady Fate will grant me with one more chance to hear the master before he passes on to the eternal hunting grounds.

I’m not a big fan of Jack Black, but little birds told me that I should go and see Nacho Libre. Well, I finally had a chance to see it and it was a real delight. The film is wonderfully absurd. There is a strange mix of cheekiness and seriousness with a very humane overall mood. Farce is one of the most difficult forms of comedy. One of the easiest ways to spoil it is to underline every single joke so much that it’s no longer funny. Fortunately Jack Black, Héctor Jiménez and the rest of cast manage to maintain subtlety in their performances.

I admire the filmmakers for balancing so finely between slapstick and traditional story telling. Jared and Jerusha Hess have done an excellent job with the script. If you can watch and enjoy a random episode of the Simpsons and Zardoz in one go, you’ll probably love Nacho Libre as well. My verdict is four and a half stars out of five.

My friendly local cineplex Kinopalatsi had a 5 euros per movie discount day yesterday. I picked the new Finnish wuxia drama Jadesoturi ( Jade Warrior ) over Al Gore’s Inconvenient truth. I plan to see Gore’s movie at a later date though.

The Jadesoturi production is has a unique background. As funny as it may sound, it is a Finnish/Chinese/Estonian co-production mixing kung-fu, elements from the Finnish national saga Kalevala, Kaurismäkian dialogue, superb visual effects and a love story spanning several millenniums. No matter how you look at it, it is an extremely challenging and, in a way, inexplainably brave concept for a movie.

I deliberately avoided looking at too many teasers or reading spoilers about the movie. There is quite a publicity campaign around the film involving merchandising (including a Kalevala Koru pendant), a fancy web site, an irc-galleria campaign etc. The movie is being distributed in China with 150 copies!

Well, it’s easy to be sceptic and subconsciously I expected it to be some sort of overproduced special effects lollapalooza with a lot of artistic compromises being made here and there for the sake of financial reasons. I was happily surprised to notice that film was obviously a labor of love and there was plenty of artistic vision, skill and integrity to be seen. It is not an easy movie for the viewer. The plot is complicated and there are obscure elements of folklore and fantasy from two different cultures and traditions being mixed. Some people left the theatre early and I can’t really blame them. They were probably expecting some sort of high speed action packed martial arts movie. What it in fact is, is a love story. To connesseurs of wuxia this is hardly a surprise.

Tommi Eronen has been praised for his admirable work playing two roles and I tend to agree with some of the other reviewers who pick him out as the best actor in the movie. It is, however, a balanced cast and the rest of the artists do solid performances as well.

The visual effects were excellent and with my modest CGI artist background, I would even say that they are one of the best parts of the movie. All in all, it is an ambitious project and it is a great stepping stone and source of inspiration for other aspiring filmmakers in Finland. Although it might not be the most enjoyable or approachable movie you see this year, I still recommend that you go and see it. If for nothing else, for support of creativity and boldness in our small, Northern country. Four shining stars out of five.

I contemplated about writing about the death of game arcades or the sleep behaviour of dolphins this morning, but after seeing the founders of the company that was sold yesterday to Google for 1600000000 dollars, may I present my first YouTube blog entry ever: Two Kings.

To put this into perspective, consider this: YouTube has a staff of 67 employees and it was founded in 2005. It had an initial investment of $3,5 million by Sequoia Capital.

Answer honestly.. Would you give $3,5 million to two jokers whose business idea can be summed up with one sentence: “it’s a video sharing web site that converts your uploaded videos to flash video files”?

To quote my favorite master of modern poetry, Lordi: “The jokers soon’ll be the new kings”.

What do you get when you mix Spike Jonze, David Lynch and Bjork, sprinkle it with a little Monty Python and roll it carefully in a layer of John Woo? The one and only Beat Takeshi!

Helsinki Film Festival has faithfully been showing Takeshi Kitano’s latest creation every year. Like a deer in the headlights I’ve been mesmerized by them every single time. This time he has created a retrospective, highly symbolic and dream-like look at his career and movies. The movie is called Takeshis’ and it is once again a bizarre and eclectic mix of seemingly unrelated elements. Conceptual art, yakuzas, violence, comedy, dance, women, noodles, blood, existential philosophy, star constellations, slow motion, show business.. just throw it all together and blend thoroughly. His artistic process is obviously greatly influenced by dreams and the subconsciousness.

Many of the user comments at IMDB focus on the fact that the movie is a lot more approachable to someone who has seen his earlier work. To quote one of the comments:

Quirky? yes. Disjointed? Yes. Hysterical? Absolutely. Having watched Kitano’s interpretation of Zatoichi, Blood and Bones, Brother, Kikujiro and Battle Royal I and II, this movie is a complete spoof of his recent movie making career. How he managed to bring so many actors from all of these previous films onto one stage is quite something. In all honesty, viewers shouldn’t try to read too much into Takeshis’. It’s Kitano. It’s Kitano showing us what he feels we know of him in his films. Explosive, comical, distant, a little off the hook. Takeshis’ won’t make much sense to someone who hasn’t at least seen some of the aforementioned movies. Takeshis’ is classic Kitano. You either like and understand this fellow, or you scratch your head in wonderment.

According to his own words, this film marks the end of a specific stage in his directing career. I hesitate to call it a spoof.. it is much more than that. Just like the lonely fan in the film, I admire his work beyond words and consider him one of the most brilliant film makers of our time.

Take note, Neil Gaiman and Jim Henson fans:

MirrorMask (Theatrical Release) review

Long after the death of its founder, The Jim Henson Company continues to search for the next project that will be the next creative gem that people will want to watch and enjoy over and over again. Entering an early screening of Mirrormask, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a child I had come to love everything Henson touched from The Muppet Show (reviewed elsewhere on this site) to The Dark Crystal. I don’t know why I had any doubt in my mind because I was glued to my seat from the first frame until the last, in complete amazement of the entire film. Everything from the production design to the casting was top notch, with that great engulfing feeling of not wanting the adventure to end I had not experienced in a while. Maybe this has to do with me being a kid at heart or simply having a heart, though it was not any kind transference from previous works in the genre. For any age, Mirrormask is a beautiful journey into the heart and certainly the child in all of us.

Apple has a little article about the Dave McKean.

The digital visual effects in this film were made a by a squadron of 16 freelance animators in a what essentially was a “Do-it-yourself visual effects studio”. Photoshop, Maya and Shake, dont’ stir.

EDIT: I originally posted this blurp on September 30th, 2005. Well, I saw this film today at the Espoo Cine Film Festival and boy, was I disappointed. The visual effects were passable, but the dramaturgy and screenplay left a lot to be desired. I usually enjoy practically all kinds of fantasy films, but this one was almost boring. There were a lot of good ideas thrown in, but they got drowned in a plethora of confusing scenes that followed each other. I didn’t like the performance of the actors and actresses either. My verdict on a 1 to 5 star scale is one and a half.

Due to many coincidences I ended up seeing this film yesterday at the Espoo Cine Film festival. Here’s what the Norwegian Film Institute says about it:

The Bothersome Man
(Den brysomme mannen)

In The Bothersome Man there is neither death nor dreams, and no love either. When Andreas Ramsfjell arrives in this society, everything has been laid out for him. He is given a place to stay, a job and clothes. He is handed a life. Not unlike the destiny of a refugee coming to Norway.

The film describes total loneliness in a world that has everything – but that’s also all it has. A society which has lost something along the way in its quest for perfection. A dead society.

The film takes place in a parallel universe, or the life after death. Our main character is the only one who seems human, with his feelings and needs intact. Through his desperation and despair we can relate and maybe take a look at how we lead our own lives.

The movie was a real gem. It is competing for the Best European Fantastic Film title in the Melies Dor competition and it recently won the ACID award in Cannes. The protagonist in the film is a sympathetic man called Andreas. He arrives in a weird, utopian city with no memory of how he got there. Everything is so normal and perfect that it is grotesque. I loved the straightforwardness and genuinity in the story telling and cinematic style of this film. Surprisingly, this highly visual film is based on a radio play by Per Schreiner. The general vibe is a strange mix between Solaris, Brazil and The Truman Show.

I felt refreshed and inspired after seeing this masterpiece. The absurd and fantastic elements have been integrated in the story while still keeping it completely plausible in a strange kind of way. It resonates especially well with anyone who has lived in a Nordic welfare state. Five stars.

EDIT: This movie is on the programme of Helsinki Film Festival. Well worth seeing.

BBC Blog: Trusting Photos

“Today a photographer working in the field is under more pressure than ever, especially in a combat zone. He or she no longer has to just take the pictures, not to mention ensure they are in the right place to begin with, but they also have to edit, caption and transmit them.

“For this and other reasons photographers often work together, so at any major event you will usually have a number of sources to compare against each other – giving a good indication as to the basic truth of the picture.

“The Qana pictures are interesting, in that there are many ways to interpret the images. The basic truth is undeniable, but with so many photographers all shooting the same event, and filing many alternative pictures to their agencies, the sequence of events is hard to pin down.

“To some extent the presence of a camera will alter the event, but it’s up to those on the ground to work around this and present us with an objective a view as possible.

“Digital photography has altered the landscape of photojournalism like nothing before it, placing the photographers in total control of their output. All the news agencies have photo ethics policies, many of which are rooted in the days of film. The standard line is that photographers are allowed to use photo manipulation to reproduce that which they could do in the darkroom with conventional film.

Where do you draw the line? Cloning is forbidden, but photographers losing their job and/or reputation for mere color adjustments has become alarmingly common as well.

Anything on the Internet should be taken with a grain of salt. As the the media industry moves to a increasingly digital production and publication pipeline, the opportunities for digital manipulation and related mistakes (whether intentional or not) become ubiquitous. In a way, they are sometimes simply the modern, visual equivalent of a typesetting error.. a typo.

Early cinema goers freaked out when they saw the train approaching in the 1895 film by the Lumiere brothers. Modern audiences know that the train won’t come through the screen and run over them. I understand the viewpoint of Reuters and other agencies completely though. After all, reputation is the most important single thing that differentiates them from a casual blogger or other news source. A Reuters watermark in the photo essentially communicates: “This is the real thing”.

There is a new software called Nikon Image Authentication which enables the verification of the authenticity of images captured with a Nikon D2X pro digital camera. It can report if the image information or image data itself has been modified since the image was taken. Perhaps a new system of visual markers indicating the level of authenticity in news photographs would be a good idea.

LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits incoherent narrow-spectrum light when electrically biased in the forward direction. This effect is a form of electroluminescence. The color of the emitted light depends on the chemical composition of the semiconducting material used, and can be near-ultraviolet, visible or infrared.

LED technology has made a big impact on both interior & architectural lighting and, more recently, on fashion and street culture. Check out the innovative Night Writer and “Throwies” from Graffiti Research Lab.

Blinking rings and scrolling belt buckles have been around for a while, but have you seen LED license plates, backpacks, shirts yet. Check out tbuckles.com.

Bums’ Paradise

Bums’ Paradise is a 53-minute documentary that depicts the lives of the men and women who lived in the ten-year-old Albany Landfill community prior to their eviction. It follows them through the eviction and documents them one month after the eviction. The film emphasizes their concepts of community as well as the amazing art that they created. Instead of being a documentary about homelessness, Bums’ Paradise considers the question: What if the homeless — the indigent, the bums — told their own stories? This is exactly what filmmakers Tomas McCabe and Andrei Rozen set out to explore with the Albany Landfill residents. Both McCabe and Rozen shot for five months. Landfill resident Robert “Rabbit” Barringer was also given a camera to film life as he experienced it as a resident on the Landfill. What unfolds is a rich and complex story showing the full spectrum of human experience. We see segments on love, family, home, politics, community, art, insanity, and addiction: Paula and Chris are a couple — Sparky paints pictures on broken pieces of concrete — Rabbit talks about social egalitarianism and Marxism. Ashby talks about his experiences with the police; “Mad” Mark talks about a gas or liquid drug that induces hypnosis. Jean Paul reveals his shattering thoughts facing jail time versus being evicted:

For a long time I have had a soft spot in my heart for bums, wanderers, hobos, travellers.. whatever you want to call them.

A lot of phenomenal documentary movies have been made about the subject. One of my favorites is Dark Days by Marc Singer. It really opened up my eyes to the harsh reality and hopelessness that some of these people are facing. I’d love to see Bums’ Paradise as well. I don’t know what kind of education movies they are showing at schools these days, but here is probably one fine candidate for that purpose.

Coloured X-ray of a woman’s foot in a high-heel shoe. The construction of the shoe is clearly seen; so is the way that the foot is forced to rest mainly on its toes. Bones and soft tissues of the lower leg and foot are visible. The lower leg bones are the tibia and fibula. The foot comprises many bones, including the calcaneus (heel bone), several tarsal bones, five metatarsals, culminating in the phalanges bones of the toes.

Hugh Turvey of Gusto Images has been creating amazing X-Ray art pictures for many years.

I recently read Bill Brysons’s A Short History of Nearly Everything which was a highly entertaining introduction to the history of science. There are well over 400 reviews about the this best seller at Amazon and I tend to agree with the general consensus that despite the scientific or methodological flaws, it’s a wonderful and inspiring book… especially for readers with a non-scientific background such as myself.

At times Bryson’s book seemed like a non-stop flood of anecdotes and trivia, but it did get me in high gear with my interest in science. One of the many repercussions was that I found myself googling around for interesting X-Ray images. Another site I found was a collection of radiographic art photos of plants entitled X-Ray-art.com.

I recently finished a web site makeover for Helsinki Dance Company. One of the elements on the new site is a Quicktime intro video. It was a tremendous joy to be able to work on a project like this with a considerable degree of artistic freedom. I used layering, time remapping, motion paths and Live Type effects, all of which are standard features of Final Cut Pro. It is a marvelous, creative tool that really lets you get your ideas on the screen without drowning you in technical details. The kaleidoscope effect was made with a free plug-in originally programmed for After Effects.

On the front page there is a rolling feet video element which was a bit tricky to optimize, but finally I got it to work with the new alpha channel support of Flash 8. It helps set the mood and ambience without overpowering the page with excessive eye candy.

Charisma, Crowd Psychology and Altered States of Consciousness

Of even greater importance is charisma, which stands in absolute contrast to tradition. In its simplest form, charisma is defined by Weber as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (Weber 1978: 242). Individuals possessing charisma are portrayed by Weber as above all else emotional and vitalizing, in complete opposition both to the ennervating authority of the patriarch and the rational efficiency of the technician-bureaucrat. Instead, whatever the charismatic leader says is right not because it makes sense, or because it coincides with what has always been done, but because the leader says it. Orders can therefore be completely whimsical, self-contradictory and even lead to death or destruction for the follower, demonstrating the disciple’s inner emotional compulsion to obey without regard for coherence or consequence.
The extraordinary figures who inspire such unreasoning devotion are imagined by Weber to be, in their typical form, berserk warriors, pirates and demagogues. They reveal their capacities through a highly intensified and emotionally labile state of consciousness that excites and awes the onlookers, and jolts them from the everyday 6.

The primary type, from which the others spring, is the epileptoid magician-shaman who can incorporate the Gods and display divine powers primarily through convulsions, trembling and intense effusions of excitement (Weber 1972: 327, 1978: 401) 7. Through his capacity for epileptoid states, the shaman served both as an exemplar of ecstasy and as the leader in the rituals of communal intoxication and orgy Weber took as the original sacred experience (Weber 1978: 401, 539).

Why should such manifestations of apparent abnormality appeal to an audience? It is not intuitively obvious that a display of epileptoid behavior would be attractive to anyone; in our society quite the contrary is the case. But Weber postulated that extreme emotional states, such as those generated in seizures and other forms of emotionally heightened altered states of consciousness, had a contagious effect, spreading through the audience and infecting its members with corresponding sensations of enhanced emotionality and vitality; these expansive sensation are felt to be emanating from the stimulating individual, who is then attributed with superhuman powers. The charismatic appeal therefore lies precisely in the capacity of a person to display heightened emotionality and in the reciprocal capacity of the audience to imitation and corresponding sensations of altered awareness.

After seeing my friendly little neighbourhood being invaded by tens of thousands of beer wielding devotees, I couldn’t help but to think about the psychology of crowds, swarms, herds and other such groups of living matter. All the mechanisms for behaving in such situations have obviously been hard coded in our genetic heritage for thousands of years. It is exciting to think of our mythical past and try to imagine what mass gatherings have been like before the population explosion, television and urban life.

Charismatic

The term charismatic is also used by certain Christian denominations and movements to indicate that they believe in and practice the spiritual gifts of tongues, prophecy and words of knowledge, as well as other gifts of the Holy Spirit as found in the Bible (I Cor. 12:2- 11; Eph. 4:11-12), without the preeminence of glossolalia and legalism prevalent in Pentecostalism.

Charisma is also commonly referred to in role-playing games, being one of the abilities of a character. Charismatic ability modifies dice rolls concerning communication, persuasion, lying, inspiring trust in others, etc.

Charisma is a difficult thing to define, but one does immediately recognize it upon sight.

Kuluttajaviraston uutiskirje

The Consumer Agency believes that from the viewpoint of general principles (the recognizability of advertising and the prohibition of surreptitious advertising) products can be shown in programmes if this is based on editorial choice. For example, in magazine-type programmes different products could be compared and evaluated. Brands could also be shown in natural connections in drama programmes, for example.

Showing products or brands in programmes becomes advertising – and in practice usually surreptitious advertising – when it is done in return for payment or for similar consideration.

The proposed Directive would allow product placement on certain conditions. Product placement would be prohibited if it contains references of an advertising nature or if it meets the criteria for surreptitious advertising: it is intentional, it serves an advertising purpose and there is a risk that it will mislead the audience as to the nature of the presentation.

The line between permitted product placement and prohibited surreptitious advertising remains unclear and complex in the proposal. If advertising is allowed inside programming, it should be subject to the same rules as marketing elsewhere. It should always be recognizable as advertising and consumers should not be misled in this respect. This risk cannot be eliminated by mentioning product placement at the beginning or end of a programme, since consumers may not notice these texts – few people watch all the texts at the beginning or end of a programme. In practice it is hard to imagine product placement that is not surreptitious advertising.

It may come as a surprise to many, but hidden advertising is actually strictly forbidden in Finland and many other European countries. The key definition is that viewer’s should always be able to discern between an advertisment and a plot element or “actual content”. This is obviously a joke when product placement is integrated in the movie scripts in a very early stage. The highly popular reality tv shows have a not so secret love affair with the product placement specialists as well.

This is indeed a subject that needs a much clearer vision on European union directive level. Although there are a few big European names (VW, Nokia etc) that do occasional product placements in Hollywood movies, there is very little of this happening on the television front. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact is that soon less and less people (excepting the people who can’t afford a HD based television recording device) will watch commercial breaks. Analogue television broadcasts will end here in about one year’s time.

For reference, see recent Product Placements in movies

Here’s another interesting quote:

Tracking product placement in movies

However, the recognition headliner for 2005 is Germany’s largest public broadcaster ARD along with its foremost TV production group Bavaria Film. Arrests, resignations, sackings, and much public outrage was the result of mid-year revelations that Bavaria Films had, for years, been taking payments for placements it would then insert into shows it produced for ARD.

Both Germany and Britain have very stringent laws controlling product placement. The 2005 scandals led to involvement by the European Union, which is now examining the practice of product placement and how it may be treated in the future.

Right after I graduated from college and realized that some sort of artistic career might be my thing, I applied for a job as an intern at Villealfa film productions. They were a bit suspicious on the phone, but once I told that government would pay hard cold cash to them if they hired me, they invited me over for an interview. Needless to say I never got the job, but it was a valuable lesson in life, as the saying goes.

For a young person it felt a bit like being in a movie by itself. I was asked a single question: “What do you know, son?”. Based on the answer I was told that on location an inexperienced errand boy would be more of a hindrance than an asset.

However, somehow I did manage to create a relatively successful career for myself in the slippery ground between artistic and technical disciplines. Although the appreciation for highly specialized skill sets is becoming more and more prominent every year, I have no regrets in choosing the jack-of-all-trades/master of none career route. There are no hard and fast rules for decisions like this. Often luck plays a major role in determining a person’s eventual profession.

Helsinki by Night

Sightseeing. In this performance the audience will be taken for a bus sightseeing tour around Helsinki. In this performance the “stage” is outside of the bus and the “performance” is in the inside. In this performance reality and the performative material will blend in the consciousness of the spectator.

The art of perception. Performance art uses many different levels of communication. Normally the artistic or the symbolic levels are stressed. The art of perception underlines the sensory communication, what does the spectator experience with his or her senses or as his or her immediate impressions. The art of perception concentrates in fine tuning the spectator’s way of perception and focus of observation. The aim is to alternate the spectator’s consciousness and the way of perception for a short while during the performance – or permanently for the rest of one’s life.

We were lucky enough to get tickets to this truly phenomenal performance by Reality Research Centre. I’ve been working with the marketing of several professional theatres for more than a decade now, but this piece is really something else. It has completely renewed my faith in this particular field of art.

To cut a long story short, the Helsinki By Night has a superb dramaturgy, several very pleasant participatory aspects and a deep and meaningful message conveyed in many innovative and unique ways. There was a multitude of different “mini-shows” happening on the street during the sight seeing tour and it was all totally immersive and fascinating. Real life events blended with the staged components just perfectly.. the MC Cannonball birthday party, the burnt Storage houses next Kiasma, the passers-by in Tattarisuo industrial area and the Tax Office building… the show kept on surprising the viewers time and time again. Underlining the contrast to some of the main stream entertainment, I still had the highly predictable plot of Mission Impossible III fresh on my memory. It’s not a fair match to compary live theatre and a movie, but I’ll do it anyway. On a scale of 1-10, I’d rate this a 10- and give M:i:III a 3 or 4.

Helsinki by Night is sold out already, but here’s another modern and cleverly produced piece that I can highly recommend: Helsingin Taivaan Alla by Ryhmäteatteri.

I am a huge fan of Red Hot Chili Peppers. I don’t listen to their music that often, but their raw energy and, perhaps even more importantly, their ability to reinvent themselves has made an enormous impression on me.

They have a new album called Stadium Arcadium coming out soon.

Wikipedia – RHCP

The first single will be called “Dani California”, according to Kiedis the same girl from songs By The Way (“Dani the girl”) and Californication (“Teenage bride with a baby inside”) supposedly representative of every girl he has ever known.

The Dani California video is full of visual references to other rock bands and artists with super star status (Elvis, AC/DC, The Beatles, Nirvana etc.). A band like this can pull it off without compromising a single bit of their artistic credibility and integrity.

EDIT: Thanks for all the comments, this thread is now closed.

Pathfinder Travels

In a breakout performance, unknown skier Julian Carr explains the mindset and the tub science required to jump “ginormous” cliffs without injury. Not wanting to be perceived as a rock star driven only by adrenaline, Julian believes that it takes not guts but rather self-confidence and knowledge of the snowpack to go big. An introspective film featuring some of the biggest jaw-dropping cliffs ever recorded, including a front flip off a 165-foot (50-metre) cliff.

I’ve seen ads for this festival in National Geographic Adventure magazine. I’m glad they finally have a world tour and instantly bought a ticket (15 euros btw) at Camu when I found out they are coming to Helsinki. It’s a one night show with six different films.