Wisconsin Film Festival 2008: Sunday

Saw two films today on the last day of this year's Film Festival.

Welcome to Macintosh

This film explored some history of the Macintosh and Apple, along with the impact that the company had made on the computing industry.

Some notable interviews were that of Wayne Bibbens who collects and has thousands of old Apple computers, and Jim Reekes, who created today's startup Mac sound and was a somewhat disgruntled ex-engineer, calling some of the other engineers from his time "retarded".

I wasn't really a big fan of the documentary itself. I've seen a lot of really really well done documentaries, both inside and outside this festival, and this was not at that caliber. My primary complaint is that it lacked focus-- jumping from being organized chronologically to by some random selection of topics. It was also slowly paced... many of the interviews went for several minutes, uncut.

The directors had a Q&A afterwards and acknowledged both issues, letting us know that this wasn't the final cut. They apparently have 8 hours of usable footage and have had difficulties from the beginning deciding what and what not to include. They additionally acknowledged some of the interview segments were long, and hope to cut them down in time along with adding some additional interviews that didn't make this cut. I think if they work on both of these issues before the DVD and final distribution, it has potential to be enjoyed by those who aren't Mac fanatics.

Fermat's Room (La Habitación de Fermat)

This was like a children's version of "The Cube", for those that have seen that movie. The movie is about four mathematicians, trapped together in a room. They were given a PDA where math problems and a time limit pop up. If they didn't solve the math puzzle in time, the walls started to close on each other.

Equally puzzling was how they were related, why they were lured into this room, and who was behind it. What was disappointing was to the extent every question the viewer had about the movie was spelled out at the end. I'm not a big fan of movies that leave you totally wondering what happened, but you can't just explain everything to us either.

listed in: Apple, film, Madison, movies, wisconsin film festival | ∞

Wisconsin Film Festival 2008: Saturday (2 of 2)

I finished up Saturday by seeing two more films-- suspense films this time.

The Case (Xiang zi)

This Chinese film was about a man, who one morning, found a suitcase floating down the river. As he brought it home and opened it up, he discovered it was filled with cut up body parts frozen in ice.

In panic, he struggles to hide the suitcase and its contents... meanwhile his wife thinks all the sneaking around is because he's cheating on her. This misunderstanding takes over the topic of the film, as you start to hear or learn less and less about the suitcase.

The movie was interesting... funny at times... but nothing spectacular. The ending was weird.

Stuck

The movie follows the true story of a woman who hits a man which gets stuck in her windshield. The man was having such a horrible and rotten day, it was only natural the next thing that would happen is he gets hit by a car.

The woman, however, is up for a promotion at work. In panic, instead of calling 911 or dropping the man off at a hospital, she ends up driving home to her garage with the man still in the windshield. She then subsequently learns that he's not exactly dead.

The movie soon turns into a race-- can he somehow get help before she "takes care of" him?

The movie was significantly more gory and bloody than I had expected. It's always fun to watch a movie like this with a large crowd, as you could hear the whole audience of a few hundred people all cringe at once.

listed in: China, film, Madison, movies, wisconsin film festival | ∞

Wisconsin Film Festival 2008: Saturday (1 of 2)

Today marked my first day of the Film Festival. Unfortunately with classes and work, I was unable to see any movies from the first two days.

To start off Today, I saw two solid documentaries, both which I would call "magical".

The Pixar Story

This documentary was a very interesting look into the beginnings of Pixar, and how it has kept going strong. Has anyone noticed how everything that comes out of Pixar is, well, really good? The Incredible, Finding Nemo, Toy Story...

It surrounds a lot around how Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, John Lasseter (right) came to get together, Pixar's origins at Lucasfilm, and struggles and benefits they have had with Disney... featuring interviews with Steve Jobs and George Lucas among others.

My favorite parts were seeing the early animations that Pixar produced, including Luxo (the lamp) Jr.

The Linguists

There are 7,000 languages... and one language disappears every two weeks.

That's where David Harrison and Gregory Anderson come in. They are linguists traveling the world trying to document dying languages, despite governmental red tape or political unrest.

The documentary surrounds around specific trips to Siberia, India, and Bolivia (left) as they attempt, more difficult as it seems, to find one of the ten or one of the hundred left that speaks a dying language.

I had a good laugh with the linguists as they discovered a language in India that counts using both base 20 and base 12. "Our favorite number is 93," Anderson said. "It's four-twenty-twelve-one."

listed in: film, languages, Madison, movies, Pixar, wisconsin film festival | ∞

Endless Fear

I just wanted to share my final project from my film production class with everyone.

It was filmed using 16mm silent black and white reversal film and a Bolex camera, and edited on Final Cut Pro. It explores how the editing process can build up suspense in a scene.

The clip shows a similar chase sequence 4 times, building on different elements each time (different shots, different angles, faster cutting, sound effects, and music).

Within the sequences, it also explores differences in film speed, depth of field, and hand-held vs tripod shots.

My film was shown in the "Spring 2007 IFVC Show", which showcased some of the best work from all of the film classes in the Communication Arts department this semester.

(The sound syncs up in real life. The sound is a little slow in YouTube. Also, it's silent at first... so don't crank up your speakers or think they aren't working.)

listed in: film, life, school | Comments (3)

The Chase

I present to you the very first film I've ever created. In my media production class I'm fortunate enough to be able to work with actual film (who hasn't done digital video on a computer?), so this was an excellent learning experience.

This was filmed with a spring-wound Bolex camera on 16mm black and white reversal film. It took me 200 feet of film to get all the footage I needed, and took about 5 hours to edit down (by hand... with scissors and tape) to about the 60 foot (two minute) narrative we were required to do.

I was more worried about the exposure settings on the camera that some of the continuity of the clip isn't what I would have liked, but it's a fun little film :) It looks MUCH better projected... the film wasn't prepped for digital conversion.

listed in: film, life, school | ∞