Attention Students! I’ve now collected all my learning resources into one site, and completed a few video tutorials on various applications including Unity 3D, Photoshop, InDesign & Dreamweaver.
September, 2008
20
Sep 08
Learn Me Silly! Tutorial Site Now Up.
12
Sep 08
50 Awesome film posters from Poland
Thanks to Si for stumbling across this – some excellent original pieces of artwork instead of the standard official posters. Given the decline in great non-photographic posterwork for films this is a fascinating insight into what can be done with a film’s visual concept. Click here to go!
11
Sep 08
Damon condemns Palin
With a seeming lack of valuable discourse on the matter being bandied around one of the most important elections in history, actor Matt Damon came out with some sobering thoughts hilighting the already rather obvious problems with Sarah Palin as running mate for McCain.
Whilst its clear that for the level headed individual one hopes that this election could represent hope for a better western dominated globe, there’s still that depressing thought in the back of our minds that in the end, the Republican party is still a dominant force in American politics. As one very astute friend of mine put it ‘They didn’t win last time and they still won!’ – a worrying thought considering the 8 years of republican rule behind us. McCain is playing it safe thus far, and not seeking to hilight the obviously unpopular Bush presidency as his key point of reference, but instead has opted for what Republicans presumably (and judging by the abhorrent revelatory ceremony) think is an ideal choice as a running mate.
With aim as transparent as clingfilm, McCain appears to have set out to capture that dominant middle America, striking hard at the heart of ‘community’, ‘family’ and other ideological sugar coated bullshit, hiring the ‘Soccer mom turned mayor’ that in the following video, Matt Damon astutely points out is like a bad Disney movie. This is a person who is anti-gay marriage, and anti-abortion, and potentially president of one of the few super powers in the world in just over a year.. well now i’m just paraphrasing so here’s the video -
11
Sep 08
Web Design Lesson 1 Video Tutorial
After success of my Unity tutorials in video format on the excellent Vimeo video service, i’ve decided to present my first web design lesson in video format also. Unfortunately due to their 500mb weekly cap I can only upload one part per week. This first lesson is in 3 parts, totalling 27 minutes, the first part is up now and i’ll add the next part when my space on vimeo gets reset, which should be on sunday.
Until then here’s a link to part 1 on vimeo, and here’s the embed :
7
Sep 08
[rec] : Return of the Spanish Zombie
George A Romero may have kickstarted the zombie horror genre and defined many of its parameters, but his recent effort ‘Diary of the Dead’ was a massive backfire, and by all accounts, a box office AND cult flop. However, the trend that gained mass popularity with the Blair Witch Project, and more recently Cloverfield, of using a camera as the audience’s point of view is utilised beautifully in Spanish directors Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero’s “[rec]“.
Centering around a young reporter and her camera operator following some firemen on their night duties, [rec] soon descends into chaos in its beautifully paced 70 ish minutes. After an introduction to the reporter as she does her best to make a piece for her tv show ‘While you’re asleep’ from an otherwise dull night at the local fire station, the crew are called to a local apartment building to assist an elderly lady trapped in her apartment.
Without wishing to ruin anything about the plot, its needless to say there’s more to the situation than meets the eye, and the story that unfolds feels well pieced together and has clearly learnt a lot from influences such as Dawn of the Dead and the Resident Evil and Silent Hill videogame franchises. Also worthy of note is the excellent use of diargetic sound in the film. Set as it is in a large apartment building, the use of echo and ambient sound is fantastic, so make sure you crank up the 5.1 for this one!
I urge you to grit your teeth, grab this on dvd and hit the lights out for an excellent night-in thriller to remember – I’d also recommend double billing this with ‘The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue’ – easily my number 1 zombie film, again by a Spanish director, curious..
