Annecy's 50th Anniversary

Anyone who says there aren't any original ideas left obviously hasn't stuck a fox and a chicken in a field inexplicably littered with champagne bottles.

Thinking way too much about e-books

I’ve been lukewarm about the whole e-book concept for a long time. On top of the hassles of a book in file form, there just a certain value in something being tangible.

Now I’m starting to realize that electronic publishing is the solution to the type of problem I assume kept Marshall McLuhan up at nights.

See... He's thinking about it.

It’s my personal belief that all media should be readily accessible. I don’t mean free per se, but capable of being acquired at a reasonable cost.

There’s an untold amount of books, movies and such that are either out of print, making them very difficult if not impossible to get, or were never released in your home country at all, making them even hard to acquire and likely not translated into a language you read.

For example one of my favorite anime franchises is Full Metal Panic. Along with three different TV series there are 2 different manga series and 3 of the original light novels released here in the west.

But at the same time, there are 7 light novels, 10 short story collections and about 20 volumes of manga that have never been released in North America; and unless they make another anime or restart the abandoned live action remake with Zac Efron probably never will.

You were my only hope.

That problem is the sort of thing e-books could fix. Without the financial and physical limitations of printed books publishers could better cater to niche audiences and release tons of previously inaccessible material.

At the same time it’s occurred to me that on top of lightening my shelves, electronic books would also kill off the used book market.

The reason I have so many books and DVDs and the like is because I buy almost everything used.

Re-selling an e-book isn’t allowed and even though $10 for an e-book is much cheaper than a new printed one, it’s still far more than the $4-5 I’ll spend at a used bookstore or Amazon marketplace.

So the difference is between greater access top media and less freedom to use it.

The only questions are where the balance is and whether the trade off is worth it.

Place Your Bets

If you think that what Hollywood needs is more suits, this is the plan for you.

Government regulators have approved the creation of a new commodities market that would trade on the projected revenues of movies; even though every one in the movie business has come out against it and part of the financial regulation bill currently working through the Senate would ban it.

Commodities trading has always seemed a little shady to me, but then applying that to a good that doesn't really follow supply and demand definitely sounds like a terrible idea.

The backers of this idea say it'll reduce risk and encourage investment in smaller, independent films, but to me this sounds like the opposite is more likely. where it would lead to more "safe" bland summer blockbuster-type films to help guarantee the projected outcomes. But then again maybe I don't understand it.

I'm sure that even though studios could potentially make a lot of money on such trading, they know that movies are a risky enough venture as it is and would rather keep things the way they are.

Didn't any tell you it's not polite to double dip?

With M. Night Shyamalan's live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender hitting theatres in July, Nickelodeon/Paramount is doing what any studio would do: fill the shelves with DVDs to tie-in to the release.

I should point out that I don't actually know what's different from the previous release. I knew this set has 7 discs and the other only had 6. it sound like that extra disc has a new documentary.This new set also contains a book full of designs and artwork.

The price is really good. $26.99 for a 20 episode TV series. isn't too bad, especially with all the goodies. The Original Book 1 box set cost $40.

But as much as I loved the show (and am rather dreading the movie) I can't see myself drop over $25 bucks on something I already own.

And for me this would actually be a triple dip. Nickelodeon first released Avatar¹ in single disc releases that I had to sell once they were doing box sets.

So if you've never bought any Airbender DVDs, now's the chance to get the best deal on them.

And you want to make five bucks, I'll totally buy that book off of you.

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¹If there's one thing I begrudge James Cameron's movie for it's that I can't mention the cartoon without saying the full name or saying "Not that Avatar, the other one."

I didn't even know you could nominate.

There's a new nominee for really, really, really bad idea: Ghost in the Shell 2.0

The makers of this anime classic apparently decided to go all George Lucas and "enhance" the visuals with new CGI graphics.

Most of the changes are to secondary things like the helicopters and computer displays. Things you never really pay attention to and don't really matter if they look a little more detailed or not.

Progress!

They also took a couple of the landmark scenes (including the opening sequence) and redid it all in CG, Kusanagi included. On top of her looking like a Poser model and it being really awkward when they cut back to her in her original drawn form, the redone versions are composed terribly. Iconic shots now look really cheap. Often there's just more artistic freedoms in 2D.

Which do you prefer?

On top of changing graphics that didn't need changing, they also redid all the sound effects, and not for the better. All the guns now sound kind of out of place.

The weirdest part of all is that they've completely changed the prevailing color scheme of the movie from blues and greens to orange. Not only have I no idea why they would got through the effort to do something like that, it really changes the mood of the film from cool and mysterious to just sorta toxic and burned out.

Again, which would you rather look at?

I should point out I've never been a big fan of Ghost in the Shell. I do own it and recognize its influence on anime and on me as an animation fan, but I still think it's cold and confusing.

But despite all that, there's really no point trying to fix something that wasn't broken.

Milking it for all it's worth

I was surprised to look on Amazon today and see Avatar show up for pre-order. For a film that's still in theatres and still making well over $5 Million a week after three months, (over 6.5 this past week in the US alone) I wasn't expecting a release for months. But one is set to hit shelves on April 22nd.

Earth Day, natch.

But it turns out the release coming out next month is just the movie and nothing more. For someone like me who's only real interest is in the special features that's of no use. Well, except for Rifftrax.

The pimped out version I was expecting isn't coming out until November, and even that won't include the 3D version of the film. (Fine by me, but some people are sure to be angry.) That probably won't come out until next year. By then Avatar will likely be re-released in theatres, if it ever leaves in the first place.

And of course they're also planning a 3D re-release of Titanic.

Multiple DVD releases is a pretty common Hollywood trick, (I'm annoyed enough about re-buying a couple favorite films in Blu Ray) but I've never seen anything like this.

Maybe this will encourage someone to take the next step and only sell the first half hour of a movie and make people buy the rest a month later.

A guy can dream.

Go-Go HBO

This is a testament to how much more TV influenced my childhood than movies. If I were to pick to most iconic piece of media from when I was a kid, I'd probably go with the HBO "starship" intro.



If I could make that fanfare my ringtone, I would.

Of course it didn't hurt that they were occasionally still using that intro all the way up to 1999. That's probably why I remember it so much.

Also take a look at the Behind the scenes video which bills their little model city as the most elaborate ever built. I know this this is almost 30 years old now, but it's hard to imagine that as "cutting edge."

Although learning how they did the light effects toward the end is pretty amazing. I could figure how to build all that in After Effects, but couldn't fathom how they did it pre-computer. I never would've thought they used some sort of spinning fiber-optic light rig.Of course I never expected they actually built a big, chrome HBO logo either.

Squeezing out a few more Tunes

With the yearly Looney Tunes Golden Collection releases drying up in 2008, I was wondering if there would be a chance for the cartoons that never made it on to a Golden Collection set to get released on DVD.

The answer is.... kinda.

In April, Warners is putting out two 1-disc releases of 15 cartoons each, one for Bugs Bunny and one for Daffy Duck.


Obviously these aren't the cream of the crop, or else they would've made it on one of the earlier sets. They all appear to be from the 50's to when the studio shut down in the mid 60's. The only cartoon the stands out to me by name is Lumber Jackrabbit because it was made in 3D during the time when WB shut down animation for a year to feel out the 3D fad.

Cartoons like these might seem second rate to most people, and they probably are, but to

The Looney Tunes have the luxury of still having a fair amount of marketable stuff to sell, just not enough for a 4-disc set anymore. There are scads of Walter Lantz cartoons that'll never see the light of disc because they're not Woody Woodpecker.

Hopefully there'll be more little releases like this that can wring out as many classic cartoons as possible.

I got back from finally watching Avatar about 4 hours ago and I'm finally to the point where my screed against the movie will be fairly succinct rather than a multi-page bilefest.

I'm not going to complain about the "Pocahontas/Dances With Wolves" story, but I'll try to be tot he point since I'm sure everyone has read scores of rants and raves about Avatar by now and I don't want to subject you to any more if you don't to.

One little thing first: I'm also mad I went against my better judgment and watched the film in 3D. To me 3D It always takes an hour of crap swooping out at me before actually don't notice and can really get into the story.

Anyway, the one big thing that pisses me off about Avatar is that I see the potential for a really cool story in there that was cast aside for a poorly done version of the "don't kill the trees/American Imperialism" morality tale I've seen countless times before.

The main plot point of Avatar is this concept of putting someone in another body. Given how people more and more are living their lives through machines and online programs I personally can't think of a better allegory to explore our modern world through storytelling. And here's a movie that takes it one step further by putting people in the bodies of another species that they're in conflict with.

This raised up a lot of questions I would have loved to seen answered in the film. What is it like to be in another body? What is it like to literally see the world through someone else's eyes? What is is like to fall in love with someone who's in many ways not real?

The story points are all there. The big mech suits are essentially avatars. The way when one body is awake the other is basically in a coma. Jake initial motivation for spying on the Navi is so he can walk again, even though he can already walk in his Navi body. It's just that all of that stuff is glossed over in favor of Indian Wars/Vietnam symbolism.

It's like James Cameron found a cool story, but pointed his camera in the wrong direction.

As much as I hate to say it, I do feel like I've got that bullshit post-Avatar depression people have talked about. But not because I'm sad I don't actually live in a world full of technicolor dragons and floating rocks. I'm sad because for better or worse, Avatar was a once-in-a-lifetime moment in filmmaking and it was spent making the wrong movie. And now the movie I wanted to see can't be made.

I did stuff

I just finished a 3 week winter session class in stop motion animation. I never realized how little I knew about stop motion, especially considering how much I know about other forms of animation. Plus I got two pieces of animation done in 3 weeks. One good and one... less so.

First the not so good one:



For some reason, I wasn't smart enough to do the audio until afterward, so I couldn't sync things up the way I wanted. Plus I suck at waves, so the tail looks awful.

Now for the other one:



For my first ever stop motion piece, I'm pretty satisfied. Although I had a lot of problems, I shot it all on a green screen, so I was able fix some of my biggest problems in After Effects. Of course the green screen caused problems of it's own.

I'm a little mad I had to resort of stock sounds for the screams. The ones I recorded just sounded anemic. But thank God for freesound.org.

All in all, it was a decent use of 3 weeks, although I have a ton of paper scraps to clean up.