He understands how to use the camera to get the best shots. ..
Which means that he hires good cinematographers, which he does.
Spielberg - and Lucas - are hack directors in the traditional Hollywood sense. They turn out modern versions of the B-movies of the past, gangster movies and disaster films and westerns oh my. Except for THX1138 and American Grafitti neither has shown the least amount of ability to write fleshed out characters, inviting dialogue or interesting human interaction. They are at their best when manipulating tried and true set pieces and esy, overblown themes. In this sense, they are perfect Hollywood directors - they produce easy to digest, inoffensive tripe.
As you can guess, I will not be at the premiere, but that's what makes a horse race.
No iMac released before today supports Quartz 2D ExtremeM/blockquote>
Wrong. Any card which can run CoreImage can run Q2DE (hardware support for the ARB_fragment_program extension is required). This includes the 5200 in the original G5 iMac.
Any piece of enjoyable fiction, be it television or movie or book, has one thing in common: characters we care about and whom we want to follow through a fictional world. That one point of interest can make up for a lot of other shortcomings in writing and directing. This is exactly what happened with TOS, which happened to get exactly the right mix of actors and writers for the job. No one will ever mistake William Shatner for a good actor, but as Captain Kirk he captured exactly the right mix of swashbuckling charm and leading officer charisma, and it made him plain fun to watch. The same is true for the other major characters which, despite being relatively stock (the engineer in love with his ship, the cranky doctor with mixed feelings about being on a neo-military ship, the ultra-nerdy science officer) were imbued by their writers and actors with believable, engaging internal lives. These great characters allowed TOS to overcome its sometimes pedestrian writing and plotting. Most importantly, these characters were human - they had good days and bad days, character faults and bad decisions and often had to overcome their own limitations in order to survive. We could identify with their struggles and wonder how we would do in similar circumstances.
When the writing was firing on all cylinders the show was very, very good, and the conceit of the ship's five year mission allowed the writers the freedom to introduce new information with each episode, keeping the crew, and us, surprised at all times. The writers were able to take chances and write episodes which ranged from the purely speculative (City on the Edge of Forever) to plain funny (Mudd's Women, A Piece of the Action). The combination of engaging characters and writers with a free hand to create as they felt necessary meant we had a show which allowed us to suspend our disbelief and overlook plot problems because it was so damn fun.
The newer series (TNG, DS9, VOY) never had engaging characters. Roddenberry's decision that humans had developed past emotions by the time of TNG always baffled me, because it meant we were no longer looking at characters with whom we could identify. We were now looking at logical audioanimatrons, men and women who went through the motions of their lives precisely and efficiently. This spread out to the Star Trek world as a whole: I remember Picard mentioning more than once that the Federation no longer had money, or greed, or internal strife. Instead of a world alive with the ups and downs of humanity we had a world in which all the drama had been removed, all the potential for strife erased. This is an enormous problem, because engaging characters must have an engaging internal life, and our internal lives are not smooth and efficient. We are always caught in the tension between our logical half and our human half, between the urges of the animal and the control of the human.
Conflict in the new series was limited to simple, black and white moral problems. You always knew the crew would do the right thing and come down on the side of good and proper order. Without the messiness of true human interaction and decision making all conclusions were forgone and we were left with nothing but pretty special effects and the gleam off of Picard's head. Nowhere did I see an episode like A Piece of the Action, in which the Captain and his crew were forced to work their way towards a messy, and entertaining, compromise. The ultimate result of this, for me, was the show's increasing reliance on resolving plot through technobabble (we can reverse the polarization of the deflector dish, releasing a cloud of negatively charged anti-posi-neutrons!) With no tension and no uncertain outcomes, we are left with no real drama.
The second half of the problem, in my opinion, rests with the diehard Trek fans who insist on the hermetically sealed perfectness of their universe. The original writers had only a rough idea of the future timeline to go on, and thus were free to invent t
I hate to be so blunt, but he is struggling to invent himself because he has not released a single good movie outside of the Star Wars series. Ever
American Grafitti and THX 1138
Both very good movies. The first three Star Wars movies weren't bad. If Lucas makes more like THX, then I will be interested. As it is there's no way I'm paying to see Revenge of the Sith in the theatres. I will wait until it's on HBO for free so I can switch to Iron Chef America whenever a character opens his or her mouth.
The site also stated that many Trek crewmembers are now working on executive producer Brannon Braga's new CBS series Threshold, which stars Brent Spiner (Data).
The night that show premieres may be the night I throw away my TV.
Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video
on
New Mac System Specs
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· Score: 3, Funny
Dude, your problem is that you think the tiny, narrow world of prepress and magazine cover represents all of professional photography or, even worse, all of digital imaging. Among the billions of analog and digital photographs taken every year professionally, only a tiny fraction ever gets printed and an even tinier fraction gets published on magazine covers.
Yes, but those are the ones for which Photoshop was invented, and for which it is the tool of choice. I don't care about hobbyists taking digital photos of their kids or cars.
And even when you put things onto magazine covers, you should go lightly on manipulation (remember OJ?)
An irrelevant comment: drawing a connection between retouching photos and the OJ fiasco is either an attempt to misdirect the debate or a misunderstanding of what is being discussed. Once again: every picture which is printed is retouched, many of them heavily.
Yes, and that's the problem with people like you: your entire experience with advanced digital imaging technologies is through Photoshop--you only learn about this stuff as Adobe adds it to Photoshop.
Whereas before I only thought you a fool, you have opened your mouth and proved yourself one by assuming you know anything about my experience. I spent years in darkrooms before I ever touched Photoshop, and can dodge and burn with the best of them. My father's a photographer, and on and on and on. You know nothing of my experience, or my life.
Use Photoshop if you like. It may or may not be the tool you personally happen to need. But it is extremely arrogant of you to think that the whole world of digital imaging revolves around your kind, and it is irresponsible of you to give advice based on your limited and narrow application.
Where have I given advice? I have stated my opinion, based on fifteen years of professional experience, which includes working with numerous professional photographers. You are sounding more and more like a hobbyist who takes himself too seriously, the kind of guy who would give unsolicited advice to Walker Evans. The people I work with pay their bills with their photos and Photoshop skills. Perhaps you'd like to send me your CV and portfolio so I can judge your ability to give out advice.
I don't beleive they did in the old days, either. When I started using Kodachrome, I did some research into it and found that it was made really popular because of National Geographic. Photographers have been producing beautiful pictures with since it was introduced in 1935. I also found out that National Geographic optimizes each color separately when they make a print...and they've been doing it since 1935. It does produce some stunning pictures, but anyone who thinks they're not touched up (unless it explicity says so, and then you should check what definition of "touched up" they use) is fooling themself.
Definitely. Before digital (as recently as 15 years ago) there were stat cams, airbrushers, dot etchers, etc. Pictures have never gone from camera to print, really. The process is just more transparent now.
You are confusing the exceptional with the regular. For day-to-day work with digital images, if you need to fiddle in Photoshop, you are wasting your time: almost all product shots, portraits, landscapes, etc. should be usable straight out of the camera, and it shouldn't be an effort for a professional to accomplish that.
Dude, I'm beginning to think you're full of it. Every, and I mean EVERY picture you see in any magazine or newspaper has been modified in Photoshop, be it something as simple as adjusting colors for the heavier dot gain you get from newsprint to the two or three days of manipulation per image for the money shots in magazines like Maxim or National Geographic. As Photoshop's capabilities have expanded, so have the creative visions of designers. We're screwing with color and layout in ways that were impossible ten years ago. I've put one model's face on another model's body, changed the color of clothing, adding entirely new backgrounds, creating smoke and clouds where there were none, and I've done all of these things many, many times.
No one, repeat no one takes images straight from the camera/scan and plops it in a magazine these days.
I disagree on Column mode: I love it for navigating deep into server hierarchies. It's much easier to keep track of where I am and what's going on when I can open a column view to the width of a 20 inch monitor. Combine that with a Wacom tablet and it's the best thing since sliced bread.
What it comes down to is that you can use for photo editing whatever you damned well want to because the only thing that counts is the result.
Unless I need to subtract the values of one channel from the values of another channel, save the results of that as a third channel and apply that as a feathered mask to an image. Or if I need to work in CMYK. Or if I need to save an image as a DCS with two spot and one varnish channels. Or if I need to do all three to the same 500 megabyte image. . .
Nothing else does what Photoshop does as well as it does it. Despite my growing anger towards Adobe (can the next version be twice as bloated, please?) Photoshop is one of the few programs for which there is no substitute.
Enterprise is, for me, the most enjoyable of the spin sequels. It's nice to have characters identifiable as human, rather than emotionless audioanimatrons. I guess it's back to every episode being resolved by the same inane technobabble.
Interesting. I had read that he decided to use 35mm instead, but I guess either my source was wrong or he changed his mind again. Does explain why the print I sa was so washed out. I thought it was just a bad print.
Slashdot Mirror
It gets worse. Kubrick's ending for AI was the kid jumping out of the window. The twenty gag-inducing moments which follower were all Spielberg.
Which means that he hires good cinematographers, which he does.
Spielberg - and Lucas - are hack directors in the traditional Hollywood sense. They turn out modern versions of the B-movies of the past, gangster movies and disaster films and westerns oh my. Except for THX1138 and American Grafitti neither has shown the least amount of ability to write fleshed out characters, inviting dialogue or interesting human interaction. They are at their best when manipulating tried and true set pieces and esy, overblown themes. In this sense, they are perfect Hollywood directors - they produce easy to digest, inoffensive tripe.
As you can guess, I will not be at the premiere, but that's what makes a horse race.
Plus the fact that Spielberg is a no-talent ass clown. One no-talent ass clown per franchise is more than enough.
Now you tell me. I just flushed a snack!
Any piece of enjoyable fiction, be it television or movie or book, has one thing in common: characters we care about and whom we want to follow through a fictional world. That one point of interest can make up for a lot of other shortcomings in writing and directing. This is exactly what happened with TOS, which happened to get exactly the right mix of actors and writers for the job. No one will ever mistake William Shatner for a good actor, but as Captain Kirk he captured exactly the right mix of swashbuckling charm and leading officer charisma, and it made him plain fun to watch. The same is true for the other major characters which, despite being relatively stock (the engineer in love with his ship, the cranky doctor with mixed feelings about being on a neo-military ship, the ultra-nerdy science officer) were imbued by their writers and actors with believable, engaging internal lives. These great characters allowed TOS to overcome its sometimes pedestrian writing and plotting. Most importantly, these characters were human - they had good days and bad days, character faults and bad decisions and often had to overcome their own limitations in order to survive. We could identify with their struggles and wonder how we would do in similar circumstances.
When the writing was firing on all cylinders the show was very, very good, and the conceit of the ship's five year mission allowed the writers the freedom to introduce new information with each episode, keeping the crew, and us, surprised at all times. The writers were able to take chances and write episodes which ranged from the purely speculative (City on the Edge of Forever) to plain funny (Mudd's Women, A Piece of the Action). The combination of engaging characters and writers with a free hand to create as they felt necessary meant we had a show which allowed us to suspend our disbelief and overlook plot problems because it was so damn fun.
The newer series (TNG, DS9, VOY) never had engaging characters. Roddenberry's decision that humans had developed past emotions by the time of TNG always baffled me, because it meant we were no longer looking at characters with whom we could identify. We were now looking at logical audioanimatrons, men and women who went through the motions of their lives precisely and efficiently. This spread out to the Star Trek world as a whole: I remember Picard mentioning more than once that the Federation no longer had money, or greed, or internal strife. Instead of a world alive with the ups and downs of humanity we had a world in which all the drama had been removed, all the potential for strife erased. This is an enormous problem, because engaging characters must have an engaging internal life, and our internal lives are not smooth and efficient. We are always caught in the tension between our logical half and our human half, between the urges of the animal and the control of the human.
Conflict in the new series was limited to simple, black and white moral problems. You always knew the crew would do the right thing and come down on the side of good and proper order. Without the messiness of true human interaction and decision making all conclusions were forgone and we were left with nothing but pretty special effects and the gleam off of Picard's head. Nowhere did I see an episode like A Piece of the Action, in which the Captain and his crew were forced to work their way towards a messy, and entertaining, compromise. The ultimate result of this, for me, was the show's increasing reliance on resolving plot through technobabble (we can reverse the polarization of the deflector dish, releasing a cloud of negatively charged anti-posi-neutrons!) With no tension and no uncertain outcomes, we are left with no real drama.
The second half of the problem, in my opinion, rests with the diehard Trek fans who insist on the hermetically sealed perfectness of their universe. The original writers had only a rough idea of the future timeline to go on, and thus were free to invent t
I've never had problems with RAM (or anything else) from OWC. Been buying RAM and drives from them for five years.
Huh? You're glad to be stuck with a 167 Mhz system bus and slow, limited RAM?
Well, whatever makes you happy. Personally, I love my G5.
American Grafitti and THX 1138
Both very good movies. The first three Star Wars movies weren't bad. If Lucas makes more like THX, then I will be interested. As it is there's no way I'm paying to see Revenge of the Sith in the theatres. I will wait until it's on HBO for free so I can switch to Iron Chef America whenever a character opens his or her mouth.
The night that show premieres may be the night I throw away my TV.
Well, you can drink it once. . .
Again.
Hear, hear! You just brought back some childhood memories!
Yes, but those are the ones for which Photoshop was invented, and for which it is the tool of choice. I don't care about hobbyists taking digital photos of their kids or cars.
An irrelevant comment: drawing a connection between retouching photos and the OJ fiasco is either an attempt to misdirect the debate or a misunderstanding of what is being discussed. Once again: every picture which is printed is retouched, many of them heavily.
Whereas before I only thought you a fool, you have opened your mouth and proved yourself one by assuming you know anything about my experience. I spent years in darkrooms before I ever touched Photoshop, and can dodge and burn with the best of them. My father's a photographer, and on and on and on. You know nothing of my experience, or my life.
Where have I given advice? I have stated my opinion, based on fifteen years of professional experience, which includes working with numerous professional photographers. You are sounding more and more like a hobbyist who takes himself too seriously, the kind of guy who would give unsolicited advice to Walker Evans. The people I work with pay their bills with their photos and Photoshop skills. Perhaps you'd like to send me your CV and portfolio so I can judge your ability to give out advice.
Definitely. Before digital (as recently as 15 years ago) there were stat cams, airbrushers, dot etchers, etc. Pictures have never gone from camera to print, really. The process is just more transparent now.
Dude, I'm beginning to think you're full of it. Every, and I mean EVERY picture you see in any magazine or newspaper has been modified in Photoshop, be it something as simple as adjusting colors for the heavier dot gain you get from newsprint to the two or three days of manipulation per image for the money shots in magazines like Maxim or National Geographic. As Photoshop's capabilities have expanded, so have the creative visions of designers. We're screwing with color and layout in ways that were impossible ten years ago. I've put one model's face on another model's body, changed the color of clothing, adding entirely new backgrounds, creating smoke and clouds where there were none, and I've done all of these things many, many times.
No one, repeat no one takes images straight from the camera/scan and plops it in a magazine these days.
Because those are the things you do every day if you work in professional print production.
Because it's the easiest, fastest, most efficient way.
I disagree on Column mode: I love it for navigating deep into server hierarchies. It's much easier to keep track of where I am and what's going on when I can open a column view to the width of a 20 inch monitor. Combine that with a Wacom tablet and it's the best thing since sliced bread.
Unless I need to subtract the values of one channel from the values of another channel, save the results of that as a third channel and apply that as a feathered mask to an image. Or if I need to work in CMYK. Or if I need to save an image as a DCS with two spot and one varnish channels. Or if I need to do all three to the same 500 megabyte image. . .
Nothing else does what Photoshop does as well as it does it. Despite my growing anger towards Adobe (can the next version be twice as bloated, please?) Photoshop is one of the few programs for which there is no substitute.
Enterprise is, for me, the most enjoyable of the spin sequels. It's nice to have characters identifiable as human, rather than emotionless audioanimatrons. I guess it's back to every episode being resolved by the same inane technobabble.
However, moving around huge amounts of data gets easier the faster the bus -2 gigabyte Photoshop files are an example.
I quote: Called Eliica, short for Electric Lithium-Ion battery Car, it boasts a neck-snapping 0-100kmh time of just four seconds. . .
The times in the article are zero to 100 Km/H, or 62.138 miles per hour. The 911 still beats the electric car. . .
Not faster than a 911 Turbo. As a long-time Porsche fan, I feel the need to set the record straight. . .
Could be. The L train is iPod central.
Interesting. I had read that he decided to use 35mm instead, but I guess either my source was wrong or he changed his mind again. Does explain why the print I sa was so washed out. I thought it was just a bad print.