morgulq

So, I downloaded VideoPad. It. Is. FANTASTIC!

It's like Final Cut Pro in its most basic form, it's better than AVID (not hard) and it's FREE!

It even RENDERS faster than AVID.

*huggles*

If it wasn't 2 am I'd be dancing in happy circles. The state of my room also impairs that movement too...

Hey everyone, how's your projects coming?

Ah...I'm using Caligari for mine. Those of you who don't know it...prepare for gushing and what will amount to a trailer. Uh...not gonna give the ending away and, yeah, I'm spoilering for a 90 year old film, aware. Thanks.

So, brace yourselves for the film that started the German Expressionistic period and that is STILL the best, up there with M and Metropolis and The Man Who Smiled and I'm gonna be quiet now. Comic Book fans, CONRAD VEIDT! If you get it, marry me!!!

I'm essentially using this as a test to see how much of my attention I can devote to my audience at one time so...polished it might not be. Still, have fun ya'll!

Mark Fryers (Writer, Sound Technician) put our film, Where's Robin? on YouTube so, anyone who's interested, watch it here.

It's a 5 minute short film written by Mark Fryers and directed by Tyson Ibele, produced by Simon Scorey and edited by Seanne (Me!) with Arthur Chan taking the Director of Photography's cap and made for Victoria Universty of Wellington's Film Production class earlier this year.

Interesting fact: our main location (the old hospital) was also used by Peter Jackson in The Lovely Bones.

I've been putting off reviewing this for a few days, god knows why, but here goes.

OK, District 9, simplish premise: aliens arrived nearly 30 years ago and were moved into a slum in Joburg. The SA government plans to relocate them to District 10 and things go horribly wrong...

The racism parallels are very blatant, especially at the beginning, and the 'abortion' scene is particularly anvilicious. I have no idea why the Nigerians have subtitles unless it is to draw further parallels with the aliens but it's a bit...weird. They're not really needed. Because of the 'in-your-face' racism line the main character is really hard to identify with, to the point where I wasn't cheerng for him but rather on the verge of screaming 'If you don't fix that I'm gonna climb in there and END YOU, you PRICK!' So we're talking redemption rather than heroics, which is a nice change from many action films. The switch between doco and omni-cam is a bit...weird at times as well. And the alien weaponry 'popping' people is incongruously amusing at dramatic moments.

Bad stuff, that is all. It's a fantastic film that has a relatively fresh take on the alien invasion narrative and combines SciFi's 'what-if'ness with social commentary on a scale not really seen since RoboCop. The acting isn't oscar worthy in the same way that the acting in Serenity wasn't, it's not an insult and the actors inhabit their characters well. The story moves along pretty fast for the supposed 3 days it takes but that's forgivable hand-wavy meh.

Christoper Johnson, oh Christopher. The ultimate woobie. He is just utter love. I dare you not to feel sorry for him with the thing in the room with people shooting. It'll make sense when you see it, I swear.

The short version: flaws it has but they are negligible. This is a brilliant movie and pretty much a must see for anyone with spare moment.

So...what's the probability that I could pull off a Zombie Apocalypse video in the style of the Repo! backstories? Huh, huh?

In other news, my GOD mac mouses SUCK!

The first media assignment is done. Remind me to kill myself when I have the time.

The maternal unit is in Christchurch (YES!! *dances*) and I have the house. Unfortunately, the water mains have broken which SUCKS! Because you have to go outside and turn it on and off manually - this is a bitch when one needs to pee at 4am.

Wellingtonians - Gandhi got LEI'D! I have pictures...like I could resist THAT!

Black cigarettes have been procured, this is why Vivian St is occasionally awesome.

Shazz0r, if you're reading, the guy next to me is playing Mafia Wars.

Supposed to be working...la la la la!

Really watching Gargoyles...la la la la!

I FINALLY have the hang of Quartz. It's sending me in a tailspin, I understand what they were trying to do when they designed it and it's brilliant if you know how to use it. It's just the knowing how to use it that's the problem. So I have the basics down now and it's all good and I like that it's made for the finicky stuff...it's just that it's made so that you can't use it unless you already know how and when you add a video or pic it doesn't keep the dimensions so you have to go and find them and input them manually.

Which is a bit daft and Apple all over really.

This is me, saying that not everything Apple sucks. Just their OS.

OK, I relent. There are some good remixes out there.

Yeah, I found Girl Talk.

Dear Religion Teacher: 'a' is a single letter, please do not make it do the work of 5. It's 'Africa' not 'Africaaaaaaaaa'.

ETA: Please, don't go out of your way in modelling an essay for us, we do know what chalk is so stop treating us like we're morons, not knowing how to work slideshow and blaming it on stupid technology doesn't get you any points. When you work with the aged mass of technology that the film school does, you may have a point. Windows slideshow? No sympathy.

Two words: Nazi Zombies!

If that doesn't fill you with glee, you have no business seeing this movie. *waggles finger* It's actually pretty good, all amateurish camera and basic B-Movie musical scare tactics aside, the gore was well done, the fights were pretty fun and the movie was full of homages.

I'm sure some of them were more subtle in Norway but to a New Zealander at a mindight screening of a zombie film, a main character wearing a Braindead shirt is less subtle than the Faster Pussycat Kill Kill one in Deathproof.

This is gore. Slapstick. Homage. And, most importantly, FUN!

Trashy B-Zombie Flick fans, watch this. Romero commands thee.

Let me start this by saying that I adore horror films. I love them, always have. When I was young The Fly was my favourite movie. Let me also say that there has been a sad lack of truly great Western horror in the last 20 years and that the last decent one was Mirrors, although even that was based on an Eastern film.

I tell you this so that you know what I mean when I tell you that this is not only the best horror I have ever seen but one of the best films to come out this year.

The protagonist is rather brilliant, blonde, yes. Stupid, no. This isn't one of those films where you want to choke the daft bint to death before the killer because of her sheer stupidity. This blonde is only guilty of being opportunistic at the wrong time, which is very human. Her boyfriend, played by Justin Long (who I've had the slightest geek crush on since Galaxy Quest) plays the slightly clueless but supportive and sweet boyfriend to perfection. And the Old Woman, oh lord, the woman. I don't think I've been so thoroughly creeped out by someonething since the Pale Man.

Raimi uses every single camera trick known to cinema, my favourites being the move from rather plain shot of two people in bed moving along a very voyeuristic path to a close up and the focus pull after a fly lands on the lens. A friend of mine described the scene in the garage as a textbook example of slow->fast cuts.

In terms of horror, he uses all four styles: yes, there are a few of the quick cuts and shock value flashes, but there is also gross-out body horror, the fear of the unknown (used to well in Jaws) and the slower, more psychological buildup terror. And, being Sam Raimi, there is plenty of black humour to go around. The use of a stapler as a weapon of choice? Classic.

The story isn't all that bad either. Girl gets cursed by gypsy and will have her soul stolen by a demon if she can't disperse the curse within 3 days. Simple but elegant, something recent horror has lost.

Yes, the film has its flaws but really I don't care. It's fun, it's scary, it's a hell of a ride and the ending is a surprise...until you remember that the general of the Army of Darkness is the one behind the wheel.

If you like horror, actual horror, referring here to scary stuff that isn't torture-porn, go see it because you will love it. If you enjoy the blackest of humour, go see it because you will love it. If, like a friend of mine, you will only watch Rom-Coms, let your friends drag you to hell see it, because your reaction will be hee-larious!

In short, this is a director at the height of his powers returning to the genre that made him famous in an effort to expell nearly a decade of cinematic repression. And it is bloody brilliant!

My life wins!

Jonathan Coulton's work is under the creative commons, which means you can use it for non-commercial work.

Which means I can use it for my final project. MUAHAHAHA!

I wonder if there's a techno remix out there...

After Effects, doo doo dee doodoo!

So...guess who's sick? Like, really sick. Again. I managed to escape the 'coming down with flu on the first day of uni' like I do every trimester. Instead I came down with something in the middle of the second week.

At least I have saturday off work although I'll probably have to call in sick tomorrow. I really hate doing that, I always feel really guilty, remnants of catholicism I suppose.

In other news, Alice in Wonderland banners arrived at work. OMG, so cool! I love The Red Queen's outfit, the little heart, the clothing...she's like the ultimate caricature of Queen Lizzie the first. I'm still not entirely sold on the Mad Hatter...but I am so in lust with his hat-pins. They are beautiful!

Note to self: try and watch Drag Me To Hell before I collapse. Dead Snow is showing at the Wellington Film Festival and I really want to catch that. Why? NAZI ZOMBIES!

ETA: Sitting in class, my teacher tells me Zombies are OK. Because they are awesome and, in the words of Hwin, all you have to do to make a rom-com awesome is ZOMBIE KITTENS!

(I am aware that I have a slight obsession with zombies. I think they're cool. I have a whole massively epic B-Movie worked out entirely around the concept of Zombies vs Aliens. It is so the shiz! And I will write it up one day so I can post it, along with my personal Civil War canon.)

So...Seanne's Odyssey:

I went to get some cash out from the ATM. It froze itself on my savings account details and ate my card. My savings data open to the world, no phone reception in the building (in fact, it's openly blocked) and no form of help line on the ATM itself I had to go find help.

Leaving my data on the screen.

Two buildings away, I was talking to Campus Care on the phone. Their reaction? 'Sorry, it's not our problem and none of our business.*clickbeepbeepbeep*'

Insert creative swearing here.

So I rang up The Bank and spent 20 minutes getting my card cancelled. This is probably going to cost me $25 for a new card. The Bank charged me for a new one when my wallet got stolen. They are wankers.

At the same time, because of this, I was missing my religion lecture.

Having walked into it now, I should probably be grateful. Psychotic American Religion Nut YELLING at the class like she thinks she's the leader of a Cult.

I'm sorry, I've studied classics for several years. I probably know this better than you so SHUT UP!

Camera has been aquired. For $90...which isn't all that bad for a brand new 3.1mpx camera.

In other news, I have been reading Batman/Superman (Yes, the comic is actually called that. Slash and everything. The entire point of the comic seems to be to make everyone who reads it shout: JUST SNOG ALREADY!). 25 issues in and we already have two cases of Rule 63. One is an alternate universe Bats-and-Supes-always-were-chicks and one is the both of them bodyswapped into femmebodies. Now all there has to be is turned-into-chicks and all three 63s will have been managed.

Seriously though, I love this series. It's crack around the same levels as Deadpool. Without the meat-suit.

(Hwin, I know. Scans or it didn't happen. I'll get them to you. For the lulz. And Supes in a white leotard.)

So...It's been an exciting couple of days. My great-grandmother is back in hospital, uni is in full swing and one of my oldest and dearest friends is pregnant. We've got an appointment at Family Planning tomorrow to find out exactly how pregnant she is.

I've just got to the media labs...and just realised that, all drama aside, I've forgotten to e-mail my blog to my teacher. Oops! Big oops. Fixing that now.

OK, have a VideoPong ID. Huzzah! Everyone, look for Delyse, she shall be uploading stuff soon. No promises on the quality, though.

So, Quartz... Feeling very out of my depth here. Will have to spend a lot of time playing with this until I get the hang of it.