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Historically, this [superior product wins] has not been true... VHS/Betamax is a classic example

Actually I don't agree. Better products do usually win. With two caveats: the product has to be noticably better, and it also has to have few or no liabilities in other respects.

In the VHS/Betamax example I remember hearing all the hooplah about how Beta was superior. Then I saw it and I honestly couldn't see or hear the difference. Doesn't matter much what the specs say if you can't tell. (For the record -- I'm an amatuer filmmaker so I'm probably more likely to notice than the average person.) Also Betamax had a serious liability: movies were not as readily available. So: not much better, but noticably inconvenient == not a better product. VHS won because it was better when everything was taken into account.

I'm a Mac user (after being an Amiga user) so I am not just jumping on the "popular is best" bandwagon. But even in those cases, I would say that for their purpose, taking everything into account (price, performance, compatibility) they were inferior products for most applications.

The reason people (especially geeks) think that the best product doesn't always win is because they don't usually look at the big picture, but rather a few exciting technical issues.

Cheers.

That day 0 copy of the next StarWars can and should land you in jail plain and simple.

Get a sense of perspective, for God's sake!

That day 0 copy of the next StarWars film should get you a stiff fine at worst. Prison? Are you kidding? I don't think people should breach copyright (sorry, it's not the same as stealing), but your extreme view shows you're way off base. Prison is for people who are dangerous to society. I am 100% sure that you yourself have done things that are more dangerous to society than downloading a stinking movie online.

What we all really know for sure:

1) Copyright and patent law in this country are out of hand, giving people the impetus for unlawful resistence.

2) Unlawful resistence is unlawful and not particularly effective in this case.

Everything else is speculation and fiery opinion. Personally I'm for reforming the laws. In the meantime, as an artist myself I have released some of my work under a creative commons lisence. I encourage other artists to do the same.

Cheers.

Some type of stedicam can really make a difference in low budget films. Sure wish I had one back in the day. I did buy a Glidecam 3000 (discontinued... but very similar to the one on the right) for $300 on ebay a couple years back. It works quite well though it gets mighty tiring on the arm after a few minutes. I'm using a Canon GL1 these days, which is a bit heavier than most consumer cameras.

One thing that I found very interesting about the whole steadicam thing is that it's not so much XYZ movement that causes visible camera shake, but the rotational movements (heading, pitch, bearing). That's what the gimbal mechanism on a steadicam eliminates. My model is handheld and doesn't have a spring loaded arm or vest, so there's still a fair amount of XYZ movement... but the shots still look stable.

With the camera usually looking at objects several feet away, moving up or down a fraction of an inch doesn't change the field of view much. But tilting the camera forward or back even a tiny amount changes the field of view a great deal. This wasn't intuitive to me until I tried the thing out.

Without any real experience, I doubt this guy's rig (basically a big weighted handle) is going to make shots much steadier than a careful handheld shot. I'd surely give it a try though, if I wasn't already set.

Anyways, steadicams are pretty cool.

Cheers.

It's interesting how differently people react to seeing this kind of stuff. I used to work at LinkExchange as a banner/site checker. My job was to seek out objectionable material on sites before letting them in the network. During the year I did it, I saw a lot of nasty stuff. Gory photos from crime scenes, child pornography, rape clips, etc... in my judgement most of it was real.

I never got desensitized. Every time I came across a site that looked like it might contain such content, I'd break into a cold sweat. I'd search cautiously and if I found something I'd quickly squint my eyes and navigate to the "ban" button. And my day would thus be ruined. The image would stick in my head for hours (if not days) and make me sick to my stomach. To this day I get the same reaction to such content. I am still very sensitive to the sight of real violence. I avoid it whenever I can.

On the flip side, I have no problem at all with movie violence. I can watch loads of sensationalized gore. I can enjoy movies like Evil Dead 2 and Seven without batting an eyelash. In fact I even made a reasonably violent indie film of my own.

I am sometimes deeply affected by realistic, emotionally charged film violence, like that in Schindler's List -- though not to the degree that snuff affects me.

I have occasionally had friends email me pictures or movies to "check out! funny!" and then watched a guy have his leg broken in half. Ha ha.

I don't really understand how so many people can watch real violence/suffering and find it entertaining, even in a morbidly curious way. However, I admit that many fine people I know can watch it and not lose their humanity. I'm sure there are people here who can't understand how I can watch movie violence and maintain my humanity.

I don't have a point. Just reporting :) Cheers.

No, there is a Santa Claus, and he seems pretty evil.

Check out this documentary here.

You can mirror my movie Vendetta: A Christmas Story. Mirror all the QuickTime content and you'll have 378 MB. It's under a creative commons license, so knock yourself out :)

I imagine there are many mucisians who would enjoy the free bandwidth as well, although movies will get you bulked up with less inode usage ;)

7563512 - 01_Santas_Cottage.mov
8119656 - 02_The_Chase.mov
7479552 - 03_Courtship.mov
5012681 - 04_Confrontation.mov
11057457 - 05_Finale.mov
8246026 - 06_Jesus_and_Santa.mov
6614752 - 07_Back_at_Headquarters.mov
8615730 - 08_Position_23H15.mov
4297252 - 09_Blaze_of_Glory.mov
7537006 - 10_Resolution.mov
39335090 - Vendetta_Part_1.mov
115479023 - Vendetta_Part_1_Large.mov
35308283 - Vendetta_Part_2.mov
85137408 - Vendetta_Part_2_Large.mov
6780948 - Vendetta_Pilot.mov

Microsoft Suggestion Form

I have sent them a polite request and I suggest you do the same. I also placed instructions on the video page of my website for visitors to do the same.

Stand up for interoperability - it is always good.

:)

Now here's the thing - all the posts I read make some comment along the line of "I could've written a better script". Well then, why are there so few decent fantasy movies out there? Every fantasy nut (I'm one myself) seems to think that every fantasy that comes out is nearly garbage, and that it would be terribly easy to make a better film. Will somebody please do it then? The guy who directed this got it made out of sheer will (first time director - just pushed until he got the deal). I wish to god that some of these genius scriptwriters/directors at Slashdot would put the effort in - half so that there would be a better film, and half so that they would shut up for a while.

I'm an amateur filmaker myself (Vendetta: A Christmas Story). No matter how much I suck, at least I'm doing something.

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Since the main site is probably about to explode, I thought I'd point out some mirrors of at least the pages, if not the movies.

Main site
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Since the main site is probably about to explode, I thought I'd point out some mirrors of at least the pages, if not the movies.

Main site
news.html
videos.html
about.html

Since the main site is probably about to explode, I thought I'd point out some mirrors of at least the pages, if not the movies.

Main site
news.html
videos.html
about.html