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DVD'd up to my neck...
Nov. 24th, 2001 07:05 pmLast night was DVD night. Galina, Lee, and I watched Shanghai Noon and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within while Drew, Shannon, and Huntur went off to Sean's parents' house for dinner.
Shanghai Noon is a Jackie Chan film and as with most such films, you will find a lot of physical humor mixed in with the martial arts moves and fighting sequences. Pretty much all of Chan's movies are "see-once" kind of affairs, but they predictably deliver an entertaining time.
The second film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, stakes its claim to "groundbreaking" fame on the basis of being a realistic animation (i.e., one in which the producers tried to make the people, scenery, etc. look like the real McCoy, down to moles on the skin, the wrinkling of foreheads, the movement of water, etc.).
In truth, the whole concept bothers me. No, it's not that... it's what the concept may (and probably will) become.
Technically, the film is pretty good. There are times one can suspend disbelief of the fact that one is watching a sophisticated cartoon. The environment allows the producers to do things that would simply be prohibitive using real people in the real world. This allows for some interesting shots (weightlessness in space) and effects (the ghostly aliens). [As an aside, I must mention I was repeatedly brought up short by the characters' eyes. Most of the time, they didn't seem "right." Indeed, if the eyes are windows onto the soul, this film demonstrated that the characters within had no souls.]
This movie was the end result of a massive collaboration effort that, in the end, provides entertainment that is on basically the same level as Shanghai Noon. I cannot help but think that this level is all any collaboration can achieve.
This is good news for Hollyweird, since (a) the primary point of filmmaking is to make money (art is nice, but runs as a distant also-ran), and (b) none of the "characters" in the film are ever going to be difficult to deal with, especially in the bottom-line department. (Lee tells me, in fact, that the character of Aki Ross is already on the storyboard for another movie.)
Yet this is bad news for people who enjoy talented acting, because you simply can't have a committee cobble together a performance worthy of a Connery or a Streep.
Economics will drive this. If you can make a movie using animated simulacra for, say, one-third the cost of a movie starring a real, big-name actor and take in only half as much money, you're ahead of the game. Moreover, as is the case with any new technology, people are motivated to apply it indiscriminately to solve all sorts of real, as well as imagined, problems. Who cares about world-class performances by real people? You want good acting? Look for a revival of live theater.
* * * The weather dweebs at KOAT predict some snow overnight (1 to 2 inches at altitudes of 7500 feet and higher). Lee needs to be at the Albuquerque airport by around 3 pm or so, which will give her about 1-1/2 hours to go through security, etc. I figure if we leave around 9 am, all ought to be copacetic (though it may be a tiring, stressful drive).
* * * A pleasant surprise from Proz: the points associated with a number of Kudoz questions I'd answered were automatically "awarded" on the basis of peer evaluations, since the people who originally asked the questions never bothered to "grade" the answers. So, I suddenly found myself with an unexpected bonus a couple of days ago. (Said bonus plus $2.59 will buy me a cappucino at Starbucks, methinks.)
On the minus side, a person offering a job up for bid set things up so that all bidders could see the other bids submitted. The work involved translating a 225-page computer book into Russian, and the prices bid ranged from $10 per page down to $900 for the entire job. Ye gods. Besides a paucity of jobs being offered on Proz, it would appear that a number of my colleagues are willing to work at rates that, to my mind, are simply not realistic.
* * * Yesterday, the Wolf Creek Ski Area was open for business and offering a day's ticket (for one operating skilift) for $8. Today, the price rose to $21. Unfortunately, the Thanksgiving weekend was pretty much of a bust for the area (in an "average" year, they get 3,000-4,000 people on the slopes over Thanksgiving, and they got nowhere near that number this year). This will have wide repercussions for the community; I just hope not too wide.
Cheers...
P.S. Sasha had a bad day.
Shanghai Noon is a Jackie Chan film and as with most such films, you will find a lot of physical humor mixed in with the martial arts moves and fighting sequences. Pretty much all of Chan's movies are "see-once" kind of affairs, but they predictably deliver an entertaining time.
The second film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, stakes its claim to "groundbreaking" fame on the basis of being a realistic animation (i.e., one in which the producers tried to make the people, scenery, etc. look like the real McCoy, down to moles on the skin, the wrinkling of foreheads, the movement of water, etc.).
In truth, the whole concept bothers me. No, it's not that... it's what the concept may (and probably will) become.
Technically, the film is pretty good. There are times one can suspend disbelief of the fact that one is watching a sophisticated cartoon. The environment allows the producers to do things that would simply be prohibitive using real people in the real world. This allows for some interesting shots (weightlessness in space) and effects (the ghostly aliens). [As an aside, I must mention I was repeatedly brought up short by the characters' eyes. Most of the time, they didn't seem "right." Indeed, if the eyes are windows onto the soul, this film demonstrated that the characters within had no souls.]
This movie was the end result of a massive collaboration effort that, in the end, provides entertainment that is on basically the same level as Shanghai Noon. I cannot help but think that this level is all any collaboration can achieve.
This is good news for Hollyweird, since (a) the primary point of filmmaking is to make money (art is nice, but runs as a distant also-ran), and (b) none of the "characters" in the film are ever going to be difficult to deal with, especially in the bottom-line department. (Lee tells me, in fact, that the character of Aki Ross is already on the storyboard for another movie.)
Yet this is bad news for people who enjoy talented acting, because you simply can't have a committee cobble together a performance worthy of a Connery or a Streep.
Economics will drive this. If you can make a movie using animated simulacra for, say, one-third the cost of a movie starring a real, big-name actor and take in only half as much money, you're ahead of the game. Moreover, as is the case with any new technology, people are motivated to apply it indiscriminately to solve all sorts of real, as well as imagined, problems. Who cares about world-class performances by real people? You want good acting? Look for a revival of live theater.
On the minus side, a person offering a job up for bid set things up so that all bidders could see the other bids submitted. The work involved translating a 225-page computer book into Russian, and the prices bid ranged from $10 per page down to $900 for the entire job. Ye gods. Besides a paucity of jobs being offered on Proz, it would appear that a number of my colleagues are willing to work at rates that, to my mind, are simply not realistic.
Cheers...
P.S. Sasha had a bad day.
