Japan - Day One

Japan is a place I've heard and seen a lot about, but I haven't managed to actually come visit here... until now of course. Its always seemed like an intriguing country, a mash of eastern and western influences and an extremely densely populated place. And although I took Japanese for awhile during school, that hasn't really helped me so far as I only remember the extreme basics of the language. Its an odd experience having some trying to speak Japanese to you at McDonalds and having absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

It all started off with a flight from Edmonton to Vancouver, an airport where I first arrived in Canada. It was a lot nicer this time however since Spring is rolling around, the weather was nice and the airport was surprisingly not busy. Its nice when places aren't extremely packed full of people. There were some interesting places in the airport like a huge aquarium filled with salmon and starfish. After quite a few hours of waiting around there and a couple of lunches it was finally time to board the Tokyo Express, which was a fairly small Airbus plane.

The downside to the smallness of the plane was that it wasn't equipped with the new lcd screens I had become familiar with. Flying to Canada with Air New Zealand, you get your own screen where you can choose from around 20 different new movies or television shows, enough to keep one occupied for the really long travel time. This time however there was only a couple of shared screens, and the only films that played were Enchanted and some other movie involving some old lady and Morgan Freeman, not my first choices of course. The flight took 10 hours which is slightly less than going to New Zealand, but is still a really long time to be cramped into a seat.

Finally arriving in Narita, Tokyo, the weather was warm but really humid. In fact the humidity level was so high that it formed a massive cloud of mist over the entire city. My first impressions of Japan entirely different than what I expected. First of all, it was like landing in a tropical island full of bamboo and other greenery. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen plants look as green as they do in Japan. It must be the humidity or something. Even traveling into the main city on the Limousine Bus, the streets were lined with trees and gardens which I found really surprising. The Tokyo area is the most densely populated area in the world, with the area holding 35 million people in a land-mass much smaller than the state of California. Hence my surprise to see so much greenery.

We did a little bit of walking around in Sunshine City, a large mall right next to the hotel, but I was rather tired from all the traveling. Another thing that really called me out was the time difference, with me going to bed at 9pm and waking up fully at around 3am. I guess I'll get used to that in the days to come. So far it seems like a really interesting city, and I'll be looking forward to exploring the town more today.

Southland Tales

Well I finally got around to seeing Southland Tales, which was written and directed by Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame. It has been quite some time since Richard did anything, with Donnie Darko being both his first and last major project before making Southland Tales. I must say, it certainly appeared as though it would be interesting - especially with such interesting casting decisions, including Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott and Justin Timberlake. There are even a couple of interesting actors that play smaller parts in the film, including Christopher Lambert and Mr. Inconceivable himself, Wallace Shawn from The Princess Bride fame.

The setting of the film is also very interesting, as the film starts off in the relative present, but sets off down an alternative path. A nuclear bomb is dropped on Texas which sets off World War Three, and the United States are cut off from all their overseas oil sources which puts them in a very compromising position. The government locks down the country, and in the state of panic becomes more of a dictatorship. In order to combat the energy crisis, a massive tidal power generator is built off the coast of Los Angeles, which causes some interesting problems later in the film. Dwayne Johnson plays Boxer Santaros, an actor with a case of amnesia, Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Krista Now, an adult reality television star, and Seann William Scott plays a cop. They all get involved in an extremely convoluted plot.

While this film wasn't necessarily bad, Richard Kelly did make quite a few mistakes in making the story far too complicated for most audiences to understand. Quite frankly, I had major problems trying to keep up with everything that was happening. Basically the audience is presented with a huge amount of characters, each with their own agendas and business, without really being told why everything that is happening is happening. By the end of the film things make more sense, but because of the sheer overwhelming amount of information the film looses its focus and doesn't make quite the impression that Donnie Darko did when the climax occured. Surprisingly, when the film was first released to the film festival circuit, it was longer and even more complex. In order to get a distribution deal with Sony, Richard Kelly had to edit the film to center more around just the three main characters, and cut down on a lot of the extraneous footage. In its original form, I can only imagine how mind boggling the film would have been.

Richard Kelly also tries to incorporate a lot of his quasi quantum physics ideas, which worked in the most part for Donnie Darko but seem to fall short of their mark in Southland Tales. For instance, the massive tidal power generator in the film causes the Earth's rotation to slow fractionally, which messes up the time/space continuum and causes a rift in the fourth dimension in the desert. Okay . . . Although I guess it could be possible in some twisted reality, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Which is similar to a lot of aspects in the film, they hold good ideas that could work if executed correctly, but Richard often falls short of executing them in understandable ways.

So did this film live up to the high expectations set by Donnie Darko? That would have been a pretty hard thing to do, and although this film had its merits I don't beleive it did in the slightest. The film is very dense and there are a lot of hidden gems in there, making it worth a view, but as a whole its slightly disappointing that it wasn't better than it turned out to be. Although most of the cast were questionable actors, they actually did a fair job of playing their roles in this film. I must admit I was concerned about Justin Timberlake's role, but he did play a fairly small part and worked as a disfigured soldier. The film is definitely worth watching, as long as you can bear the sheer amount of information presented.

The Sad State of Horror Films - Prom Night

Recently I had the unfortunate experience of watching the film Prom Night. The worst thing was that I wasn't expecting anything good from the film, so my expectations were basically set at naught. Which is usually a good thing, for when your expectations are low you can often be surprised by having the film play out to be better than you hoped for. Not in this case.

I'm not sure exactly how the script for this film received funding, or even how it reached number one at the box office. Quite simply, it is one of the worst films I have seen in a long long time. Not only does it employ a lot of techniques to try and build suspense and horror, it horribly fails to employ any of them well, leaving a predictable and stupid mess of a film that has no redeeming features.

The film starts off with our heroine whom I can't remember the name of returning home from seeing a movie with a friend. I can't actually remember any of the characters name, as they are never developed. She goes inside, and for some reason most of her family is dead. She hides under a bed, then sees her mother get killed by some guy who apparently is looking for her, and decided "Hey, she's not here, so I might as well kill her family to pass some time." Is this backstory? Nope its a stupid dream sequence, she wakes up. It turns out to be actually what happened awhile back. Suddenly she is going to the prom with her friends, and suddenly the deranged guy has predictably broken out of jail and is coming to get her.

On top of this extremely simple and predictable plot, the filmmakers/writers failed to establish any characterization whatsoever. What was the killers motive? Apparently he used to be her high school teacher and became obsessed with the main heroine for some reason. He shows his love by killing her family in an attempt to get to her. Of course this is logical, because of course she is going to go with him after such an ordeal. The heroine is also underdeveloped, and we are shown absolutely nothing about her personality or character, except that she is a blonde girl going to the prom with some guy, and that she is still affected by having her family killed by her teacher.

All the characters in this film are lifeless husks. You have the heroine with her couple of friends, and they have some boyfriends. You have the unmotivated killer, the chief of police with his helping hand, and the stupid hotel receptionist. No details are established about the characters, except perhaps for the most basic of human emotions. Frankly I don't care about some stupid high school kids who are graduating, and their old high school teacher who sneaks around in a baseball cap and has a knife.

Later in the film, during the prom, it is established that the kids have booked a couple of rooms up in the hotel the prom is being held at. The killer also has a room, and manages to get himself a master key. The film tries to throw as many excuses as it can muster for random kids to go upstairs into the room, to either be killed or scared by the guy creeping around. "I left my purse up in the room", "I'm mad at my boyfriend, I'm going upstairs to cool off", "We're both going upstairs, even though they're crowning the King and Queen of Prom and we know we're in the runnings and if we don't come back people will know something is wrong." It becomes more and more ridiculous each time they go up there. The worst part is when the police evacuate the entire hotel, and the heroine decides to go up to the room alone for some reason. It simply boggles the mind.

In conclusion I have no idea how this film has become so successful. Is this what the masses expect from films these days, or were they just tricked into seeing the film through marketing? Apart from a very basic horror plot, the film is lacking of any characterization or developed story. It uses a lot of gimmicks to try and boost up the suspense, but fails miserably. Please don't go see this film, it isn't worth your time or quite simply anyones time.

Scarlet Camera Unveiled

NAB came and went, and with it the Red company made a few interesting announcements, one of which of course being the anticipated Scarlet camera. They have so far released prototype pictures as well as a list of technical specifications which they claim will likely change, given the 2009 scheduled release date for the new products.

Apart from the Scarlet camera, they also announced a Red Ray device which looks like a combination High Definition optical disc / compact flash player, and more excitingly the 5K Epic camera. It looks as though the Epic will be released to stand at the high end of film style productions, along with a high end price tag to go along with it. Estimations of $40K price tag have circulated, although these may be entirely incorrect.

Returning back to the Scarlet camera now, lets see what specs they have posted so far:

* NEW 2/3" MYSTERIUM X SENSOR
* 1-120 FPS (180FPS BURST)
* UP TO 100 MB/SEC REDCODE RAW AND RGB RECORDING TO DUAL COMPACT FLASH
* 4.8" LCD
* 8X T2.8 RED ZOOM LENS
* FULL AUTO OR FULL MANUAL SHOOTING MODES
* HDMI and HD-SDI
* FIREWIRE 800 and USB2
* STILL MODE
* COMPATIBLE WITH MANY RED ONE ACCESSORIES
* WI-FI CONTROL

No mention yet whether the camera will have onboard audio or support for external solutions. Of particular interest however is the amazingly fast framerate speeds offered by this camera. The only competition to this from other Prosumer style cameras is 50-60 fps, roughly double speed, under 720P. Scarlet blows this away with its 3K resolution, which would be roughly 2250P, although such a term of course does not exist. The zoom lens looks as though it is mounted to the camera, so would be included in the package.

Although it looks slightly like a children's toy, under the hood the Scarlet camera packs more of a punch than any of the current competition, including professional film style cameras. It will be interesting to see what changes as time goes by.

NAB Convention in Two Weeks...

Coming up very shortly is the NAB, or National Association of Broadcasters, convention, where the Red team are going to unveil the upcoming Scarlett camera. In a recent post the the Red website, team leader Jim Jannard announced that there would be not one, but three major announcements during the convention.

Already having made a rather big splash in the industry with the Red One camera, I'm sure that their newest addition will be just as intriguing and useful to all those budding filmmakers out there. Although no new details have emerged about the camera, the current speculations are very interesting indeed, so it will be interesting to see what they unveil in two weeks time.

Unfortunately I will be unable to attend the convention, although I was looking in to trying to go. The ticket, hotel and purchasing a ticket to the convention would be too much monetary weight to bare right before leaving to Japan at the end of this month, so I will have to witness the announcements remotely.

The convention is really just around the corner, so here's hoping to a prospective unveiling in just two weeks time.

The Search for Meaning, or the Lack Therof

Edit: Warning, rant ahead.

Once upon a time, the world was a wholesome and meaningful place. It could be argued that everything seemed to have more soul, and was somehow more important. Things were made to last, and things used to cost a lot of money and were hard to come by so many people didn't have much of them. Life used to be a lot more difficult, and people gained character because of it. Not only that, but life used to be a lot more dangerous and short so people made the most of what they were given. Real values were taught to children, and they had to learn to calculate math in their heads and not with calculators. I should add that I am talking about recent history here, recent meaning going back to the change of the century, 1900's style.

Oh how so much has changed. Almost everything made today is not made to last, and almost everything is complete junk. People don't have morals, standards or values. Children are spoilt rotten and are never disciplined, which makes them whiny whinging little devils.

Perhaps this paramount change in society has had effects elsewhere as well. Society as a whole has become obsessed with image and flashy superficial gimmicks. In fact, I suppose this is what they expect from films these days as well - a few fancy special effects, their favourite actors and some quick whipped up story that says little and lacks a lot of substance. Worse yet, they don't even need to mean anything.

Of course there are exceptions - there are some genuinely good recent films out there, most of which were produced on the independent front, or even rarer still the occasional big budget film, which is usually based off an older product from an older era. Why does society today edge away from intellectual, meaningful films? Are they that turned off by something that might affect them for the better? I guess that money and sex are the only things that matter to the majority of the population, as popularized by modern culture and the popular hip hop/rap music.

Things need to change, and I only hope that society will be willing to accept this change and leave behind their current ways of thinking and living. Stories can have a profound impact on societal values, so it needs to start with the storytellers, the writers and the filmmakers of today. If you are going to produce a story, make it mean something. Instill some values back into the social fabric, and return back to basics. Watch some older films or read some older books, and feel the amount of soul and depth hiding inside them, and see how different they are from the current examples out today. Although today's films might be a lot better technically, there is often something that seems missing or lacking. We need some more soul, before the world becomes a lifeless husk of what it used to be.