YUP YUP YUP, AHA

HDR video accomplished with two Canon 5d Mark II’s and alot of video editing.

(I think when the Mk III’s come out, I will have a hard time resisting)

HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II’s from Soviet Montage on Vimeo.

www.sovietmontage.com

EDIT: Thanks for the comments! Please LIKE the video to bookmark it–and so you can see the upcoming film!

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This video highlights several clips we’ve made using our new High Dynamic Range (HDR) process. Video is captured on two Canon 5D mark II DSLRs, each capturing the exact same subject via a beam splitter. The cameras are configured so that they record different exposure values, e.g., one camera is overexposed, the other underexposed. After the footage has been recorded, we use a variety of HDR processing tools to combine the video from the two cameras, yielding the clips you see above.

HDR Video provides filmmakers with many exciting new opportunities. Not only can HDR video create interesting effects, it can also allow for even exposure where artificial lighting is unavailable or impractical. For example, when a subject is backlit, one camera could be set to properly expose the subject, the other the sky, resulting in video with perfect exposure throughout.

We will continue to develop and improve the HDR video process for better results and efficiency. For more information, check out our website www.sovietmontage.com.

Music
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Opus 40, Number 9
Performed by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed Under Creative Commons “Attribution 3.0″

old.

I still get that twinge of jealousy with all his equipment that would have cost a pretty penny back then.  Not to mention his parents never seem to care about him wardialing thousands of calls on their line.  My parents freaked out everytime a computer would dial me.  But how else would I join those wionderful BBSes and get my TradeWars on?

WarGames: A Look Back at the Film That Turned Geeks and Phreaks Into Stars

Wiki Articles of the Day. My attempt at making the wikipedia chain addictions into something (anti-)productive for you, the reader! (Henceforth tagged as WAOTD.)

Hedy Lamarr – Talk about a Renaissance woman. Not only a gorgeous and celebrated actress, but also an award winning scientist.

Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American actress. Though known primarily for her great beauty and her successful film career, she also co-invented an early form of spread spectrum encoding, a key to modern wireless communication.

I may slot these into the extrinsic posts instead.

Yes, this is quickly developing into a Youtube meme, but that is because it is good.

A 3-year-old girl explains Star Wars succinctly, in less than 2 minutes:

The format war is over.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

Now we can finally all go buy a damn movie player. Even though we won’t notice that much difference over regular DVDs. And now Microsoft can scramble to change their XBOX360, or not.

click the link at the top or the link below to see the full press release.

Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

19 February, 2008

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Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO–Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

A model that became one of my favorites the instant I saw it. This is a custom model entered into a contest on starshipmodeler.com called “Wrecks”. And, while there are many great entries, there is no doubt why it won.

It even won my heart :snif:

This is so wrong, but oh so right.

Joel Hodgson and some of the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew have set up a website for a new show they are making: Cinematic Titanic.

Fromt he blog/description, it sounds like it will be in the same format as MST3K, with B-movies and silhouettes and all. J. Elvis Weinstein and Trace Beaulieu are also in on the project, and the three of them happen to be the original cast of MST3K.

Interesting at least. I’m not sure why they are going back to old roots, but I hope its from inspiration and not from lack of living expenses. Mike Nelson’s Rifftrax were mildly funny to me, but nothing that made me laugh as much as MST3K. But I wonder if this project is in response to Rifftrax’s apparent success.

The Complex and Terrifying Reality of Star Wars Fandom

The Secret of Star Wars Fandom

If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans.

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

Not me, I am merely a pauper among nerddom, although I do my best. I heard about a movie called King of Kong that made a splash at Cannes or Sundance or somewhere a few months ago. It’s a movie about old arcade game champions and how they still compete today. I searched all over for a trailer of preview or something back then, and couldn’t find anything.

Fast-forward to today, where I caught Sicko at the Alamo, and one of the quirky trailers they showed was for the King of Kong movie.

I never realized that the world champion was so arrogant about being good at old arcade games. He literally sounds like Walken in his “When I put on my pants, I make gold records” form.

The Star Wars 30th Anniversary, we knew it would come to this…

It’s the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. This week there is a celebration and convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center called Star Wars Celebration IV. A featured exhibit at this event is called The Vader Project, in which 66 artists were invited to submit their own version of the Darth Vader Helmet.

Here’s a Flickr gallery with the helmets. Some samples:

This viral video has been sweeping over the net and coming at me from every direction. I usually don’t repost ones that are so widespread, but, since drzy has taken a turn towards robots lately, I feel I must.

So, I give you Nazi, American, and even Japanese mechs in an alternate past… a short CG film by the folks at cee-gee.net.

The Power of the Dark Crystal is the name of it, to be released over 25 years after the original was, back in 1982.

John Henson wanted to make an epic “muppet” movie, mixed with live actors, and did so in the original The Dark Crystal. I have only watched it once since my childhood, but I watched a ton of times then. It was a great movie with a very good story. After all this time, I had no clue that a sequel was in the works, this time fronted by Jim’s daughter: Lisa Henson.

The new writing credits still list Jim among them, so apparently he did have an extended story. Here is a plot summary as listed on the movie’s production blog site:

Power of the Dark Crystal is set many years after the events of the first movie. Jen and Kira, the gelflings, are older and are reigning as king and queen in the Castle of the Crystal. After the Gelflings welcome a fiery. and unexpected visitor. to their castle they learn that the very existence of the U-mun people, who live in the searing heat in the center of the planet, is threatened by the death of their sun. There is apparently only one thing powerful enough to heal the dying sun – a shard of the Crystal.

The Gelflings refuse the request for a crystal shard, as breaking the crystal would disturb the peaceful surface world’s balance. But the desperate visitor takes matters into her own hands and steals a shard, making a hasty escape through tunnels deep in the bowels of the castle. The surface world once again falls into darkness – as the UrSkek split into Mystics and Skeksis. So begins the adventure of Thurma, a girl “made of fire”, who bands together with Kensho, an outcast Gelfling, in an adventure in the “inner-world” over the fate of the planet.

The movie is slated for release in 2008. Some rumors went around that it was being cancelled but they were recently dispelled on the blog:

“The Jim Henson Company remains committed to producing Power of the Dark Crystal. The film has not been “cancelled” or “put on hiatus” or any of the other rumored status changes that have been floating around. This film is an ambitious undertaking for us and it continues to move forward…We are grateful to the fans who support Power of the Dark Crystal and we are excited to make this new chapter in the Dark Crystal story a reality.”

– Lisa Henson, co-CEO of The Jim Henson Company & producer of Power of the Dark Crystal

It’s the week of dystopian movies for drzy. I just watched Children of Men tonight.

I am a tad biased, as my favorite type of books and films are social sci-fi of dystopian nature, but really most sci-fi films have a relatively bleak look at the future, even if it isn’t our own future. (or, even a long time ago… in a galaxy far far away) For the books there are many, but these type of films are few and far between. And pretty much all of the films are based on or influenced by a particular book anyways.

Anywho, the film was very good. I’m not a big fan of Clive, but he’s done a decent job in all the movies I’ve seen him in, including this one. I’ll try not to give out any spoilers here beyond what the trailers show. Man has somehow accidentally engineered fertility out of our human equation. In so doing, the world plunges into chaos, and those countries left standing become racist/nationalist to an extreme. There are rebel groups fighting the power, and there are people who are now considered subhuman that are herded into camps.

The characters in this movie are remarkably deep and original, especially considering their limited screen time. Michael Caine was awesome, as only he can be. Chiwetel Ejiofor I have a fondness for since Serenity, and he definitely does not disappoint. Julianne Moore was ok, but I’ve never thought she was that great. Even the side characters manage to have a distinct personalities rather than being Guard #1 or Police Officer #7. The characterization is the real triumph of the movie.

For those looking for an action film, you may want to skip the first half. Sure there is a bit, but most before the half is marked with philosophy and discovery. Things pick up towards the end in a stark turn towards all out war.

As with many of these films, there is no clear resolution at the end. The glimmer of hope just becomes a tad brighter.

I recommend it as worth the ticket price and maybe even worth a second viewing, if only because you are like me and had metalhead days that flattened your hearing, so that UK accents are harder for me to decipher. Much of the dialog is very good.

I also rewatched Dark City today which furthered my dystopian trend. And… I saw Rocky Balboa last night, which surprisingly was a good movie that was enjoyable.

The 1962 French film, La Jetee, details a fractured society in a dystopian future (or past?). There is one man and one hope to try and gain help from another time. This short film inspired Terry Gilliam to make the movie 12 Monkeys, and it mirrors the story somewhat.

The whole film (26 minutes) is on Google Video. I am embedding it here, but I suggest clicking on it so that it will open the larger version at Google Video.

She went on to star in (a) French Film, Bed and Breakfast.

beep beep beep beep

Awwww, she’s all grown up. (At least her eyes have cleared up.)

youtube has a great snowball effect going. First they stole all the thunder from Google Video with their superior tagging, searching, and embedding. Then people started posting old 80′s series, and now there are full length movies on the thing.

Here’s some retro luvin’:

JJ Abrams, who is slated to be the director of the next Star Trek movie in the franchise, is reportedly eyeing Matt Damon as. the. ve-ry. essence. of Kirk.

He’s so interested that he’s apparently already sought support from the original Kirk, WILLIAM SHATNER. “Shatner gave his blessing,” my source says. “J.J. got his approval.” Damon first popped up in Trekkie circles as soon as the Abrams-’Star Trek’ deal was announced. Rumor had it that the new movie would center on Kirk and Spock’s early days at a space academy. “J.J. wants Damon as Capt. Kirk,” my source reports. “He really loves the idea.”

Fascinating.

Well, not exactly.

But this is a hypnotizing video montage of how they used Brando’s earlier role in the movies and updated it, complete with a speaking part.

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