Co Hoedeman (Is that how you spell it, I don’t' know)

So, the Co Hodeman film festival was a great success, other than the fact that it was really long, but all in all, it was more than worth it. Lets list the films I watched with short summaries and thoughts of what I thought about them, how 'bout it, eh?
- Oddball : A film about a little stick guy who liked to play with balls, no plot really, but the visuals were a bit stimulating and the color spectrum stuck to the basics.
- Tchou - Tchou : A film about a boy and a girl who meet in a world of blocks and have to survive against an evil dragon. Loved it, the whole thing was filmed with blocks, the ones you would use when you were a little kid. Every scene drawn unto the blocks, pretty cool, this one kept me awake, unlike the next one.
- Ludovic - Winter : A bear called Ludovic and his adventures during winter with a doll. Obviously aimed towards the child market, it reminded me a lot of Franklin the Turtle, or whatever that children's show is called. I got bored, and the voice for the bear was very annoying, but I can't complain, I'm sure the kids eat it up.
- The Sand Castle : Everyone liked or even loved this one, because it was the one he won the academy award for, so if you didn't like it then you're going to burn (maybe that is a bit too harsh). This sand creature makes other sand creatures to build a huge sand castle but in the end the sand piles over it, a bit of a hanging ending there, music was great, and there were a lot of funny parts in it.
- The Box : Co Hoedeman in his own films….Creepy. Co makes a little guy and sets him free into the world of animation were he encounters many different things. Interesting, but after the sand castle a let down, and once again, Co is his own films, creepy.
- Sand Animation : (Not By Co) This was about an owl and a duck having children and the awkwardness they have and about their life. Ending is a big let down. Amazing how you can do that with just sand and a light table, amazing what you can do with light tables. It was an Inuit legend but I can't explain it that well, I apologize.
- Charles and Francois : One of his films with a deeper meaning than the rest of them, it brings back some memories. This was the film I watched when I came on my visit in December of last year, it was a good memory. Living to a rip old age, and the understanding of life and where you go after life, don’t want to ruin it for you.
- The Sniffing Bear : A bear finds a toxic chemical by an igloo and commences to sniff it and get "high" or something like it. A seal and owl try to take it away, but the bear is so involved in the sniffing that he doesn’t know it’s a poison, its just nice. So he fights the animals that are tying to help him. Almost killed by his ignorance and temptation, the seal and owl finally show him it is bad and he smashes it and walks away. The project initiated by Inuit natives, a public service announcement for igloo people, don’t' leave your weed and coke outside of your 'gloo where animals can get to it.
(Last but not least) - Mariennes Theatre : Strange, a theatre within a theatre within a theatre. I didn't like it that much, thought it didn't match up with his other works, but it was the last one and I was getting tired, as I am now, so I'll say it just depends on your state of awake fullness, the more awake you are, the more you'll appreciate it.

You cannot sedate all the things you hate.

C.S. Lewis was a very smart and creative man; no one can really match him in his wisdom. I don't entirely agree with him though, sometimes I know how I thought of ideas, "I was thinking of this, and it suddenly popped into my head." Wouldn't that work as an explanation of how I thought of something. But I do agree with him about the stories, once you start writing something, the words just flow out of you, unless you are being forced to write something, like a research project or assignment for something. And if you stop then you might succumb to writer's block and won't get your flow back for a long time, it just depends. Technology Sucks. Now that I stopped writing this paragraph and then I tried to get back into it and it just didn't work. So this is it.

Why do we have to wait until next Tuesday to watch the rest of the films, why not today? Not my choice, I know. The films were good, a lot better than I thought they would be, even mine, which I thought was going to be awful. The first one had some awful quality to it, but I can't blame them for that, or maybe I can! No, it was interesting, the funniest movie was The Door, the darkest was obviously Trying to Make Friends in the DC…., I don’t feel like typing out the rest of it. The movie I liked the best was Poetic Justice, but if the title is too overpowering then I guess I'll just star in a better titled movie. Compared to the amount of time we had to make these films I am surprised by the quality of them, it was fun to watch them, that’s all I going to say about that, I'm tired of "looking deeply" into movies, and I'm done with critiquing for today.

30 seconds until impact.
Falling down a building can seem dangerous,
The window around me shimmering,
Looking down I see ants and hot wheels,
Flashes of people looking through windows,
The wind rushing past me at incredible speeds,
Or am I rushing by the wind?
Falling so fast that it is having trouble catching up,
20 seconds until impact.

How did I get to this place?
Know one, not even I, know that,
I was in the process of doing something,
And I knew that if I stopped I would forget it,
Life just wasn't what it was supposed to be,
Falling for 30 seconds in reality,
But falling for eternity in the next world,
10 seconds until impact.
There are no more ants and hot wheels,
I hear screams over the honking of horns,
This one thought brings happiness to my soul,
Falling for eternity.

"All Work and No Play Make Kelly a Dull Boy!"
The Shining, a horror movie, a masterpiece, or a bunch of little lines going in a bunch of different directions. Before I even came to this class I thought it was an absolute masterpiece, the music mixed with the big open spaces and the long, never ending hallways. Kubrick is a brilliant filmmaking, or was (He is now dead), and no one else can match his work, since some person in Hollywood decided they should remake the movie, and they totally slaughtered it, but that’s what happens with movies that are masterpieces. Since Hollywood can't think of anything original anymore, they are going to comic books, the remaking of old movies, and the buying of popular indie films. But back to The Shining, an awesome horror movie, with only a few bloody parts and a few shocking ones, but other than that, it’s a pretty conservative horror movie. If you can take a Stephen King book and make it into a good movie, then you have successfully passed the test. After Kubrick died, King went back and made his own version of The Shining, and it bombed, obviously.
Our movie is going along quite well, as of now, we have all of it shot and all of it edited, so all we need to do is add sound effects and music. But let me tell you, it is all hanging on the music, the SFX and video aren't all that great, so if the music is awesome, maybe that will redeem our film. Sound effects guys that made the sound effects for the whole movie (mostly) that is talent, I know I wouldn't be able to make sounds like that come out of my mouth. I wonder if they go around and have live concerts of them doing what they do best. We came up with the name "Before Crises Films" and "a KNAAR production" for the first initial of everyone in our group, so much fun.
Want to see a film with some great cinematography, The New World, Collin Farrel and Christian Bale, a great movie. Compared to other movies, this one barely has any dialogue present; it is all visuals, no sound effects and no camera cranes or dollies. The cinematographer and director had a set of rulers that the crew had to abide by; *
*1) No artificial lights. All is shot in natural light.
* 2) No crane or dolly shots, just handheld or Steadicam shots.
* 3) Everything is shot in the subjective view.
* 4) All shots must be 'deep-focus shots', that is everything (foreground and background) is visible and focused.
* 5) You (the camera crew) are encouraged to go and shoot unexpected things that might happen in accident or if your instinct tells you so.
* 6) Selective shots: any shot that does not have visual strength is not used.
I thought that was pretty cool.
Other good movies that are out on DVD; United 93 and Goal: The Dream Begins.

I loved this short film, great production values and great actors, with an added extra of some amazing dialogue, a lot better than many films I have seen. Whoever wrote the script for this movie should win an award, I don’t know what, but something, the word play was worth of Kevin Smith, if I can say that. The red shirt of the Director/cameraman played well against the other colors in the film; it was loud and shouted at you. This film showed the way low to no budget movies are made, and how frustrating it can be when nothing is going right and you are about to snap. I loved the kid you ran into the shot sometimes and drop kicked the tree, I have no idea why he was doing it, but it added a lot to the comedy of the film. It beautifully showed the epitome of low budget movies, and it did it in a very professional way.

Films with ninjas in them, got to love them, if you take a bad film, and you put a ninja in it, it automatically becomes a good film. I don’t care what the ninja does, or if it is a crappy ninja, just the thought that a ninja is in your film makes it that much better. This film, even though it mad fun of the ninja, it was still funny, especially the grapefruit in the eye, then death, who would have thought. The frame tale aspect of it was also cool; starts with the jogging, and throughout their jogging, he tells the story of how he got a ninja to be his roommate, and the films ends when he gets done jogging and comes back to the apartment, perfect example of frame narrative. Another aspect of this film I liked was that it was so out there, your friend dies of juice in the eye, and then you get a ninja as a roommate, and then that ninja dies and another ninja comes in to be your roommate, it doesn’t have to make sense, it’s a freakin’ Ninja!

And finally the Star Wars debate, a couple of words on this, it has been, is, and will always be, so get used to it, and respect people with their different views. Film was funny and perfectly shows what millions of people were doing after they saw Episode One, thank you.

This is about a short film, something you may have read 100 times over, but, beat with me. Bad Animals, not a great film, I can't believe that is this film can get on that ResFest DVD, then what other films got on too. You film can have hardly any production values, no story, and nothing really at all, except for a very strange story. Of course this film is six years old so I have no reason to criticize it, its almost out of my generation.
And my DMA movie isn't going to be any better, so I can't complain. A Steve Leeper edited film, and true, a bad film, they could've done something better, you would think, but they did all the stuff they had to do with what they could with the little time that they had and the other stuff that didn't happen. Since a lot of the people already have experience in filmmaking, hopefully our movies will be a lot better than the movies I just saw, since they will actually be focused on a specific subject.
A French amateur film is up next, this should be interesting…amazing. Whatever they did to film that, it was ingenious, way more than an amateur film. Biker Witches, who would have thought, it was a great idea, and I'm sure they spent a lot of time planning. A fun story and cool visuals, that is what it is all about, and some violence mixed in there. I especially liked that part where the man in the wheelchair got hit and flew towards the camera.
Talking about a fun story, last night I watched "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" , a wonderful anime film that is very, very good, great story. If you ever get the chance, check this out, it would be a good experience and you will be inspired.
If someone in this class doesn't know how to use a simple Panasonic camera, then they should probably do a little research before coming to class.
The way to film is without tapes, tapes are overrated, seriously, decks in cameras always die way to fast. The way to go is hard drive, once the image quality gets to 3 CCD, that is what everyone should get.

The past events; One of my external hard drives decided to quit, but luckily there was only 200 gigs on it, no big deal. Heard Rumors that the school was going to get another T1 connection and maybe a T3 connection by winter, that would be so awesome, so much more bandwidth for people to suck away. I'm trying to get a hold of the whole Ghibli Studio collection of movies, since all the ones I have seen are more than moving, they are masterpieces, and not just the ones directed by Miyazaki. Right know I'm listening to the soundtrack for the movie Snatch, and if you have not seen it, then you must have a huge hole in your heart, its right up there with Fight Club. The short film is going superb, I don't really know how it is going to turn out, but hopefully something good will come of it, not just a pile of crap on the screen. The speakers I bought a week ago stopped working, so I going to have to send them back to the company. The book were supposed to read is pretty interesting, but I keep falling asleep when I try to read it, I need to get more sleep.