Archive for September, 2008
In Bruge (2008)
Last night I watch the feature debut of short film Oscar winning writer, director Martin McDonagh. The film, on the outer, was about two Irish hitmen hiding out after a botched job. Predicatively, the themes are consequence and regret. I walked away impressed with the film, particularly after being told that is was a feature debut. But like many late eighties, early nineties creations, in these cases at hands of music video directors, In Bruges lacked truth. McDonagh is trying to convey a thin plot with a series of conveniences and hooks. These are classic techniques when working in the short medium, but are obvious and clumsy when applied to a feature. This art does have its masters in Guy Richie and Danny Boyle and we takes these films for what they are. Richie and Boyle have refined this art by using over the top situations and characters, while McDonagh’s attempt to create a more believable story left his film shallow and untruthful.
I guess what I am trying to say is….I liked the film (go see it)..but my snobbery has tainted its memory L
|
|
Lightroom 2 and CS4 Launch
Last night was the Melbourne Adobe CS4 Launch party. It was held at a standard IT party location, only the crow was different. The normal IT party is a swarm of suited up sales crowds and distribution hawks…think…”I am a PC”. Last night it was “…and I’m Mac”. Everyone had a Mac…the demos where on Macs…many a lap was covered with a Mac…possibly the drinks where shaken with a Mac. As usual the bar was open…but I wasn’t drinking (maybe some more on that in another entry).
Apart from the Mac love fest the night was all about integration, easy and wow. Edit a video clip from Premiere in After Effects without rendering out. The changes made in After Effects are reflected in Premiere in real time…. Integration! Create a key frame in Flash, click and dragging an object creates a path…bend the path with the mouse…animation done…correctly with all the web friendly coding done….easy! A photo of a field with 4 cows…need more field…increase the size of the image..field grows (doesn’t distort) the cows remain 
unchanged (and trees)….wow!
I got home and had to break out the only current generation Adobe product I have, Lightroom 2. I hadn’t really played with it..but wow. Last night I did a 30 min shoot of some food..imported the raw images to Lightroom..created a set of modifications and copied them to a bunch of the shots. Fast…really fast..processing took less time than the shoot. The developed photos were on flickr within 40 mins of packing up the shoot. I am a convert…Don’t cry Photoshop…you can still play with the jpgs.
Tiny Legs of Fire
it is what it is
Further rant on Chrome
Ok..they covered search…Google would have to cover this…it’s what they do. Next email…nice, done…OK, send pagel..wait, what?? Left click..not there..ummmm, that little page icon, must be there..nope…ah shit guys
Fail….again
Leaf
God I love my new Lens. The brown bokeh is from the leaves in the same tree..only a foot and a half away..the white light above is coming from the street lights.
Google’s new browser is missing something
OK…Google has released a browser and I’m happy…well I was happy until I used it. Yes, yes it’s only a beta and I shouldn’t slam too hard but FFS Google. I assumed that Google creating a browser would be a Googler’s dream. I was wrong! I use all their products, from Gmail to reader and even their bookmarks and I assumed they would all be nicely integrated into the Chrome. Yes, I like how you can turn Gmail into an application, with it’s own shortcuts on the desktop. Yes, I like how when you boot up the application chrome loads in a minimal format….So what do I have to complain about….there is no Google bookmark integration at all. The bookmarks in chrome a local…wtf. Come on Google..Fairly basic thing there. Please fix.
Fail
