Film UK shutting down

Jeremy Hunt Culture and media Secretary
Caution here when flaming this closure as a bad thing. it is worth a little reflection. An article from Prospect magazine in December reveals the salereies of some of the key personnel as being hugely inflated.
... A DCMS written reply this summer confirmed that four executives are earning more than a cabinet minister (that is, more than £144,520). Others argue that, if bonuses are included, the figure is actually seven. These figures bear no comparison to salaries in the industry itself: the head of development is on a cool £165,000 a year, at least three times the industry norm. Given these salaries, it is not surprising that the last four year’s accounts show overheads running at a staggering £8m—more than the total government funding for the bodies the UKFC replaced. The accounts also show that these overheads make up 25 per cent of the income that the Council derives from its lottery income. In 2008, for example, the UKFC received £29.7m in direct lottery grants and another £5.7m in recoupment from previous lottery investments. Besides spending £8m on itself, the UKFC put not one penny of its return from films back into film production, a feat it has managed every year that it has existed.
My thoughts about schemes are that schemes are good, but they do exert editorial control over the work produced, and that work becomes dilute, and manipulated by the scheme.
More films, less money, less editorial control over content. Less hefty saleries for the scheme honchos. shutting down maybe good to save these overinflated wages - but if it is at the expense of film funding - then not so good.

For Balance - there is a good Guardian Article about the closure. and out of it - this is a worrying quote;
No one I've spoken to is encouraged by the line in culture secretary Jeremy Hunt's statement that reads: "The changes I have proposed today would help us deliver fantastic culture, media and sport, while ensuring value for money for the public and transparency about where taxpayers' money is spent."

Jeremy Hunt - what does he look like?
Charity shops - there's another thing...

Too cute

Finnish Mum, has been taking pictures of her daughter while she sleeps... Series called Mila's Daydreams on her Blog. it is funny - but a finite task. rather like the TV show Roseanne could not continue, or Outnumbered is doomed to be obsolete. shows like the Simpson's suspend growing up - and can carry on reworking the scripts with no one aging.

word of the day ; Trope.

TROPE. tropos, to "turn". A trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i.e., using a word in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form.
there are sub groups;
* metonymy — a trope through proximity or correspondence, for example referring to actions of the U.S. President as "actions of the White House".
* irony — creating a trope through implying the opposite of the standard meaning, such as describing a bad situation as "good times".
* metaphor — an explanation of an object or idea through juxtaposition of disparate things with a similar characteristic, such as describing a courageous person as having a "heart of a lion".
* synecdoche — related to metonymy and metaphor, creates a play on words by referring to something with a related concept: for example, referring to the whole with the name of a part, such as "hired hands" for workers; a part with the name of the whole, such as "the law" for police officers; the general with the specific, such as "bread" for food; the specific with the general, such as "cat" for a lion; or an obj
* antanaclasis — is the stylistic trope of repeating a single word, but with a different meaning each time. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like other kinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.ect with the material it is made from, such as "bricks and mortar" for a building.
* allegory - A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse. For example: "The ship of state has sailed through rougher storms than the tempest of these lobbyists."
(Definition above from Wiki-)

The point is though, that new animation writers use 'trope' without fully understanding the root. there is a danger that their first 'funny turn' will do, and does not get a rewrite or seen from a different point of view.
there is a reliance on prior knowledge and experience to get the joke or story, hence the use of fable and folk tale parable etc.
Something 'bubbling under' - is something about to 'explode', it is a sort of countdown to an event before the aftermath.

An excellent explorer of moment is Larson, the farside cartoonist, who picks moments to illustrate ante- or post- event... the moment is about to happen or has either gone. all the movement is in imagination, and unseen.




Honore Daumier also chooses moments, this one is after a good night, one supposes, and can be empathetic if this experience is a common one. the state of play now with phones and cameras, passers by record aftermath, and also interfere with some situations to make their own humiliation humour.

Best we can hope for

if it is a tune or artwork or written rag, the readers, when moved reveal themselves with comments similar to below - which is quite depressing. Eh? cool, Nice!

the unseen video project

the idea behind this is that the video is affected by the weather condition locally and will issue a different, unique video each time it is called for.
one on youtube here, the website is here for more info. The Unseen Video was created at Augsburg University of Applied Sciences by Daniel Scheibel and Ferdinand Weinrother.

reminded me of Bill Callahan, Smog ~ Rock bottom Riser, (Directed by Paul McNeil & Brendan Cook. Produced by Picturedrift. Publicly available from dragcity.com.)

Jim McBride - David holtzmann's diary

David Holzman's Diary (1967), by Jim McBride, is not a documentary -- an actor, L.M. Kit Carson, plays a filmmaker who decides to film his own life and who frequently speaks directly to the camera. The film is a tremendously funny and prescient spoof of filmmaking and "one-man crew" shooting -- David Holzman's camera spies on, annoys, chases, and generally objectifies several women. BUT, this clip is wonderful.

A little more digging and Jim McBride made the remake of Jean-Luc Godard’s A bout de souffle [spoiler](1959) with Richard Gere and Valérie Kaprisky, [End scene can be compared, spoiler]... Breathless Gere is good, here he impersonates Elvis ~ Suspicious minds, the music continues with use of Philip Glass's Opening in this clip - (album lift off Glassworks)better Glass listening ability here go to Listen watch... Koyaanisqatsi is a cracking film presented by Frances Ford Coppola,Directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke, 1982.

Tim Minchin Pope song animated

Tim Minchin's naughty but clever song is gayly animated by his friend Fraser davidson, Tim Minchin - Pope Song WARNING _ _ THIS IS PROFANE _ _

New film by Tobias Stretch

video for In The Summer (by Crystal Fighters), animated by Tobias Stretch. Tobias has a very interesting website, with a great page of friends and blogs to have a trush through...

lovely remix for you

From pogomix. by Faggotron - using sounds and samples and picture from Pixars' Up.
Not quite Hextatic but fun for the Summer...

Anthology has a newlook website

"Anthology Film Archives has completely redesigned its website! The new site represents a major upgrade both aesthetically and practically. It features faster, easier, and clearer access to information about our film screenings, our history, and our resources, as well as offering selections from our collections of films, stills, audio recordings, and unique documents." 13 July 2010.


to celebrate Anthology's new website... here's an extract of Michael Snow's La Région Centrale (Quebec, 1971, 180 min., 16mm, color)



"La Région Centrale" was made during five days of shooting on a deserted mountain top in North Quebec. During the shooting, the vertical and horizontal alignment as well as the tracking speed were all determined by the camera's settings. Anchored to a tripod, the camera turned a complete 360 degrees, craned itself skyward, and circled in all directions. Because of the unconventional camera movement, the result was more than merely a film that documented the film location's landscape. Surpassing that, this became a film expressing as its themes the cosmic relationships of space and time. Cataloged here were the raw images of a mountain existence, plunged (at that time) in its distance from civilization, embedded in cosmic cycles of light and darkness, warmth and cold.

and a still from Paul Sharits N:O:T:H:I:N:G

Neal Hefti

Dusty Grove Records great for digging, making connections and great artwork.
Neal Hefti (Obituary 2008)

Samples of all the tracks off the album here, at my space, My fine feathered finks is especially good.
Sub heading: Composers for sound and music for film.
Neal Hefti, Batman
Covers by; The Jam, the Who,Synth-ahh-sizzer,Lyn Taitt and the Jets
The Marketts - the band that played Hefti's arrangements are probably familiar, if not known... (the Avengers theme)

heineken Football spoof film

clever viral big trick by Hieneken and JWT... have free tickets to a Classical concert - be persuaded by boss/ girlfriend to go rather than seeing ACMilan play Real Madrid... good stuff.

Shiriagari Kotobuki

Shiriagari Kotobuki - Born in 1958 at Shizuoka-City.
After graduating Tama Art University Department of Graphic Design major in 1981, joined Kirin Brewery Company, Ltd. and worked on packaging design and advertisements. works at Kobe University
video here,and here, a pair of rotoscoped simple dance movies, and exhibition installation here. website here (seemed a bit broken)

Music of Timetables - for Stations On the Yamanote Line
Hagihara Yoshiaki
© Copyright-HAGIHARA Yoshiaki (634479914140)
Record Label: HAGIHARA Yoshiaki

track 11 Takadanobaba Station - For the Robot Boy
track 16 Komagome Station - For Morton Feldman
track 23 Akihabara Station - For Modern Visual Culture
(Whilst we are on subject of music - CDbaby is good - has samples and previews)
this is close in audio terms to binary thoughts. I have a new hero. I am in love.

First, there was a purple phase. When it was layered 21 times with each BPM ...
Yoshiaki HAGIHARA says; It is said that a Japanese railway timetable is famous about its punctuality. One day I wondered. "OK, I know its punctuality, too. But how punctual is it?"

Yoshiaki HAGIHARA website Hagiplan.com

Oliver Tomas

OLIVER TOMAS working in Vancouver has a lot of good stuff... this one is essay by Eric Gill on typography, and this one is a book by karel-teige-a-typografie. And, a good survey of Karl Gerstner 1986 the Forms of Colour work.

radio check

radio from italy, also been trying to find guillaume saurel, and Nicholas Chatenoud version of Dziga Vertov man with a movie camera. bingo - french, collective inoui go "Les activities inoui" > cine concerts > L'homme a la camera.

big bang big boom - new blu film out

big bang big boom, new film by Blu is here... check out blublu.org for updates. follows on from MUTO (where this image is from)
MUTO for memory, is here.

Thursday 22 July -Oriel Davies Gallery Newtown

Newtown, Powys. the Oriel-davies Gallery is going from strength to strength. the current exhibition is called Re:animate, and runs til 22 August. There is a dedicated screening night in our temporary, informal ‘cinema’ space in the Gallery on Thursday 22 July, 7.30pm (duration approx 80mins). The rest of RE:animate will also be open to view.
some names;
Kate Allen, Edwina Ashton, Bermingham & Robinson, Sara Bjarland, Patrick Blower , Pia Borg, Richard Bowers, Sara Brannan, Savinder Bual, Bronwen Buckeridge , John R Burns, Ruth Carter & Tom Gilhespy, Joe Clark, Criostoir, Kristian de la Riva , Helen Grove-White, Anne Guest, Adam Kossoff, Jo Lawrence, Sharon Leahy-Clark, Ruth Martindale, Duncan McKellar, Georgina McNamara, Sophie Michael, Sibyl Montague, Helena Öhman McCardle, Sam Rees, William Rounce, James Snazell, Mary Somerville, Sally Stevens, Chris Stockbridge, Tim Stokes, Jacki Storey, David Theobald, Annabel Tilley, Sean Vicary, Neil Wissink and Simon Woolham

wave + woman = old woman

imaginative etymologies by MIYATAKE Gaikotsu (宮武外骨)'s Kokkei Shinbun ("Satirical news"), originally sourced from here, no-sword "In 1907, the Osaka-based journalist Miyatake Gaikotsu began publishing The World of Illustrated Postcards (Ehagaki Sekai) as a colour supplement to his monthly Humorous Journal (Kokkei Shinbun). This supplement took the form of a printed sheet of card, folded into an eight-page booklet, containing thirty postcards. Each card bore a colour design and a caption. In some cases the humour was straightforwardly coarse, in others, confusingly obscure: many readers are supposed to have complained of images they were unable to understand accompanied by captions that seemed to cast no light on them."