EUFF 2011

I thought I'd share my opinions on the organisation of EUFF 2011 for Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist with Great Expectation screening at GSC 1Utama.

In short what had happened was that there was a lot of mis~communication/organisation in the Ticket Availability and where to purchase/collect the tickets. The lack of advertisement banner display at the makeshift booth regarding Ticket purchase for EUFF sc
reenings yet there were so many posters around but non at the actual ticket booth. Just by having the Seat Availability as Sold Out would have made potential general audience from asking any further questions regarding EUFF screenings when in fact there was a stack of free tickets to be given out if you had asked.

I was so very eager to catch Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist with Great Expectation film screening at GSC 1Utama this Saturday(19th/11) afternoon. To my surprise all the tickets were sold out in bold red letters when I got to the queue. I was already hesitating if I should just go home after being stressed out getting stuck in a jam just to catch this film which was sold out. To my luck they mentioned that it was redeemable for free at a counter at the entrance of the cineplex, apparently it was just a survey booth. I had to queue up a second time at the ticketing counter before they eventually pointed me to the right make shift table counter to redeem the tickets. Honestly it was quite an embarrassing sight; just a make shift table with no banners of any kind to advertise EUFF 2011, even though they had posters all over the place but non at this very important booth. A person passing by would have thought they were selling cotton candy as the booth was situated next to one. I was surprised again when the person in charge told me that I had printed out the wrong form to collect this particular screening, at that point I was pretty much about to just leave but since the screening has already started and I had explained to him that I was rushing to catch this screening that he kindly gave me both the screening tickets, for which I am grateful for. I was kinda irritated though that there was still a giant stack of tickets for those 2 screenings yet on the film time schedule display stated that it was sold out. True enough both screenings only had a handful of people, approximately a dozen which was maybe 8% of the hall seating and it was a small hall.

Anyway after all the fuss, I did enjoy both films as it's the first time I watched a Silent Black White and a classic Black White film. I was happy to have caught a screening of Sophie Scholl as well, it was a great film, one of the best films I've seen this year. Thanks for 2011 and I'm looking forward to EUFF 2012 but with better organisation.

Sophie Scholl is a must watch for facial and emotional studies, as well as a lot of secondary actions and small subtle gestures in a very stiff body motion. Lot's of slow intense interrogation drama with subtle facial changes which portrays the characters emotions.

Steven Paul Jobs

If it weren't for Steve Jobs (1955 ~ 2011);

We'd probably not have Windows OS

We'd not have innovative user interaction and immaculate modern gadgetry brand designs.

There wouldn't be Pixar, we wouldn't have RenderMan thus most of all the awesome visual/CGI effects we have in films digital era.

Apple + Steve Jobs Tribute Logo design by Jonathan Mak

Steve Jobs Art Tribute

The HAND

The very first 3D film (1972) created by Ed Catmull (founder of Pixar) and Colleagues.

Martha Graham

Ryan Woodward animates Google's header sketch in commemoration of Martha Graham ~ modern dancer.

YAY

My DVD's and Manga have traveled a great distance into my arms :) Finally got my hands on a copy of Ashen Victor!!!!!

Go buy Waking Sleeping Beauty!!!!

Ray Harryhausen 90th Birthday BAFTA Tribute

Unfortunately the embedding code has been disabled but click the pic to go to to the vid;

Should check out the other videos as well, its worth watching :)

European Union Film Festival 2010

European Union Film Festival 2010


Aren't you just sick of Hollywood crap? Why not try something new :) Tickets are ridiculously cheap at RM5.

James Cameron giving a talk at Ted.com

James Cameron : Before Avatar ... A Curious Boy

80's "Western Anime" & Cyber Formula

So... I was day dreaming childhood memories of cartoons I've watched when I was like 5 but never realized what they were about nor what they were called and they were just soooo cool!..... well back then. A pang of nostalgia hit me and I just felt like searching the intro to those "cool" 80's ~ **"Western Anime" cartoons such as Thunder Cats, Ghost Busters, Voltron, Saber Riders & The Star Sheriff, Robotech/Macross, Jem and Mask (the one's with big helmets and changing automobiles, not the green face guy). And the intros are still great to watch because most of the production money went into this 30 -40sec montage thus higher frame rate with cooler effects and opening theme song :)

**I don't really know what to call these cartoons because they weren't Warner Bros, Disney, Hanna Barbara nor anything similar to the limited Saturday cartoons and they do look and feel more like Anime, so I call them "Western Anime", was probably shipped to Japan to be animated anyway....

Getting back to point ~ back when I was like 5, I also remembered a cartoon which had really cool 6 wheeled racing cars which could transform (anything that transformed was automatically cool when you're 5), so went Googling and found the anime. Cyber Formula is an Original Video Anime (OVA) which means it was created originally as an anime TV series, usually Japanese anime series are either based off existing manga or stories.

The anime is about the young drivers, advancing technology in the cars and the racing sport which is similar to F1 except with really advanced technological vehicles installed with AI guidance and not forgetting the ridiculous Jet Boosters propelling the cars up to 600kph. The race cars themselves were cool but sort of strange and really outlandish to have a 4 to 8 wheeled steering/driving chasis and thought that it was just as a design appeal for the anime.... . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . .... then I found these;

Apparently 6 wheeled F1 cars actually existed back in the 70's, they were experimenting on traction and steering control, you can read more about it on Forix as well as the following wiki articles;

Tyrrell P34
March 2-4-0
Covini C6W


80's Cartoon Overload!

Enjoy!

Roy Edward Disney

May Roy Edward Disney Forever be Loved & Remembered

(1930 ~ 2009)

"If you don't tell a good story... forget about it, you know ~ it's like real estate.
There's 3 important things about it, about film that's story, story and story...
and if you don't tell the stories...
well they've got someplace else to go pretty quick."

~ Roy E. Disney

Archive of American Television
AWN Article

6 Degrees of Separation

Here's a question;

Bambi
(1942)


The Banyan Deer
(1957)


Hikayat Sang Kancil
(1978)


?

They just might have more in common than you think....

A Train of Thoughts...

Was watching Hustle the other day, great BBC tv series about con men. Anyway the thing that caught my attention in the Designer's Paradise episode was the antagonist fashion designer reasoning about Charles Saatchi and a tiger shark in a tank which sold for 8mil. The name Charles Saatchi rang a bell as I recalled an ad agency named Saatchi & Saatchi wasn't sure if they were related. So what did this guy and a tiger shark in a tank and $12 million had to do with fashion/art.

Charles Saatchi was co founder with brother Maurice of the leading global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. He is also known as an art collector and established the Saatchi Gallery in 1985. Charles Saatchi developed a strong interest in US pop culture during his early years in secondary school and had a strong enthusiasm for collections of Superman comics to Jukeboxes.

In 1991 Charles Saatchi commissioned Damien Hirst for whatever artwork he wanted to create, thus the creation of "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" ~ a 14ft Tiger shark preserved in a tank filled with formaldehyde, total cost of work was £50,000. On December 2004 Charles Saatchi sold it to an American collector for $12 million (£6.5 million).

Damien Steven Hirst dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990's, world renowned and reputed to be the richest living artist to date. His career in the 90's was closely linked with art collector Charles Saatchi whom commissioned him to create;

"The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"

...which evidently became an iconic work of British art in the 90s and Brit Art world wide. Death is one of the themes in Damien Hirst's work, in which he was famous for a series of dead animals preserved in and sometimes dissected in formaldehyde.



Although he physically participated and the making of his earlier works it came to a point where the volume of work produced would require a factory setup where assistants will execute his ideas like a film director molds a film with the help of actors and a crew. Damien Hirst work philosophy wasn't much different than of Andy Warhol's that a legitimate art piece isn't the execution but the ideas and subject matter envisioned by the artist himself whom his assistants could execute it even better for him.

Andrew Warhola more so known as Andy Warhol was leading figure in the Pop Art movement in America of the late 50's. He had a successful career as a commercial illustrator and was later recognized as a painter, filmmaker, record producer, author and a public figure. His studio dubbed The Factory was a place where he worked and to setup an assembly line for the mass production of his silkscreen works as well as a place a where prominent people hung out and the setting for most of his film making with the workers who doubled as actors.

Though more known as the Pope of Pop in the pop art movement for his works of Marilyn Monroe silk screen prints and Campbell Soup Can paintings, he was quite an underground filmmaker due to the controversial, explicit, abnormal films he made and the reason why it remained underground as non of the theaters wanted/could show them as for those that did usually got raided. Of such films, his 1965 film ~ Vinyl was a BWhite experimental film early adaption of the novel "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess.

John Burgess Wilson (pseudonym Anthony Burgess), an accomplished musician, author and linguist. Most known for his novel "A Clockwork Orange" which was adapted into film by Andy Warhol in 1965 and later in 1971 by Stanley Kubrik. The title of the novel came from an old Cockney expression, "as queer as a clockwork orange" and thought he could use it punningly to refer it to a mechanically responsive human due to his time in Malaya as a teacher and education officer for the British Colonial Service in 1954.

John Burgess Wilson was stationed at Kuala Kangsar, Perak and taught at the Malay Residential School, established in 1905 the first fully residential all boy all Malay prep school dubbed Eton of The East, founded by Mr R.J.Wilkinson and headed by then the headmaster of Penang Free School, Mr W.Hargreaves. Besides the languages German, Russian, French and Spanish, John Burgess Wilson was fluent in Malay speech and Jawi writing. In addition to his teaching duties he had responsibilities as a housemaster in charge of the students who were housed at a Victorian mansion known as the King's Pavilion.

He devoted some free time to creative writing during his stay in Malaya and published his first novels ~ Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in The Blanket and Beds in The East was known as the Malayan trilogy and later published under a single volume The Long Days Wanes. In 1956, John Burgess Wilson composed the symphony ~ "Sinfoni Melayu", which draws on many musical styles he encountered while he was in Malaya, he described is as an attempt to "combine the musical elements of the country into a synthetic language which called on native drums and xylophones".

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