First seen on schneier’s blog, it certainly made me laugh quite a bit.
Category: media-and-expression
Why I moved to Manchester…
#Manchester from Craig Murfin on Vimeo.
A video project inspired by the talented people and content featured on the @wearemcr instagram group.
Music mixed and edited by me
Wait For Me (Aaron Mist) / CC BY-NC 4.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode
What a great piece of work and really shows off why I moved to Manchester over 7 years ago.
Limitless as a TV show
Remember Limitless… It always made sense as a TV show right? I mean NZT-48 just like Lucy’s CB40, as a plot point was/is literally endless (pun in-deeded).
This idea of unleashing the brain’s potential, of course, is a popular notion in science fiction, from “Limitless” to the Scarlett Johansson vehicle “Lucy” all the way back to “Forbidden Planet.” Mostly, though, the mysterious drug, NZT, is just another way to create a super-soldier, one who in this case is drafted by the authorities to assist in thwarting crimes, with his FBI agent contact
Be interesting to see how it turns out…
Inception as a TV series?
Myself and Chris were talking about a number of things at breakfast in Vivid Lounge as we do. We got talking about the Marvel and DC universe and the state of cinema and TV media.
I mentioned, TV is the new cinema.
Forget what you’ve read about cinema’s dominance over the small screen. Television has plenty to teach the movies about characterisation, storytelling and breaking new talent.
And the differences and experience between Cloud Atlas and Sense 8 for the Wachowskis. TV allows for build up and character building cinema can only dream about. This is especially good when thinking about universes such as the Marvel one.
Chris said he would love to see inception as a TV series? I obviously am in total agreement.
This isn’t anything new but it certainly got me thinking about other films which could be better told in a TV series and heck a game/experience?
It strikes me that any film with plot device like eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, chronicle, etc… could work. Similar to person of interest, where small things happen every episode but theres a over arching plot leading to something much bigger.
An ex-assassin and a wealthy programmer save lives via a surveillance AI that sends them the identities of civilians involved in impending crimes. However, the details of the crimes–including the civilians’ roles–are left a mystery.
I mention person of interest because the director is Jonathan Nolan, who is Christopher ‘Inception’ Nolan’s younger brother. Who knows maybe a Inception TV series isn’t as far fetched as first thought?
BBC Proms 2015 Season: Radio 1 Ibiza Prom
Anybody who loves dance music MUST watch this BBC Radio 1 special from the BBC Proms in the Albert Hall.
Who says electronic music and classical don’t mix? Well Dance music was elevated to one of the highest levels at the Proms.
Pete Tong takes charge of the BBC Radio 1 Prom and decides to employ the Heritage Orchestra to play a selection of Ibiza classics. The Royal Albert Hall has never seen anything like it!
Jules Buckley conducts the orchestra through dance masterpieces by Fatboy Slim, Eric Prydz, Shapeshifters, Robert Miles, ATB, Moby, Frankie Knuckles, Orbital, Inner City, Daft Punk, Faithless, Stardust and so many more, with the help of Ella Eyre and John Newman.
I had this playing out over BBC iPlayer with my Philips Hue lights dancing along side the music. My favourite part has to be Orbital’s Belfast which stokes up many memories for me, although I would have love it if they did Chime instead.
Amazing to watch and certainly another chapter in the continuing cultural domination of dance music.
When 6 wasn’t enough, theres Sense 8
One gunshot, one death, one moment out of time that irrevocably links eight minds in disparate parts of the world, putting them in each other’s lives, each other’s secrets, and in terrible danger. Ordinary people suddenly reborn as “Sensates.”
Cloud Atlas was great but few people got it and watched it. The Wachowskis undetermined have put together a fascinating TV series for Netflix called Sense8.
Its almost like 6 connected peoples stories over 3hours wasn’t enough… So they went for 8 hyper-connected stories told over 12 hours.
By all counts the reviews are reasonable good and I’m enjoying it so far (on ep2).
Google photos vs Flickr Pro for my image backup
It all started when I came back from Tokyo to find my Spideroak storage full. I decided a terabyte of photos which are hardly private in a super secure storage is a little crazy and its time to put them somewhere else so I can make use of the secure storage better.
Originally I did look at using Amazon Glacier but quickly found out that its really not for general use in any shape. I looked at trove again to find trovebox has been shutdown… but there is a Github community project for those wanting to keep developing.
We’ll be shutting down the hosted Trovebox service on March 31, 2015. We may extend this deadline to help accomodate customers to obtain archives of their photos.
A few of my friends said why don’t I use Flickr, especially since I’m already a pro member and have been since 2004!
I thought about it, because I tend to use Flickr to only upload photos I actively want to share rather than a place to upload all my photos. Basically I never really trust the privacy options and only upload things which I’m happy being public. It was time to trust Flickr’s privacy model but to be fair I’m still only uploading stuff which it doesn’t matter too much if its public.
Started doing that then Google announced at IO 2015, a revamped photo service with unlimited storage (if you are happy with them converting them down a bit).
This has got me wondering, if I should switch?
Flickr Pro is $ 24.99 a year but Google is $1.99 a month for 100gig,
Economically it makes sense to stay with Flickr as its unlimited even on high resolution photos and I have most of my good photos already there (incumbency advantage). But the google space purchase would only be used for photos over 2048x2048px big. Which I guess is quite a few as I switched to 5mpx and above very early on . I guess there’s the option of trusting googles image compression. I guess having the extra space in google drive would be useful but its not a big deal yet.
I’m going to keep uploading the photos and let google photo shake out a little. When the next year of Flickr comes up, I’ll decide then. Even made a google task to remind me. Hopefully there will be flickr to google drive exports or I’ll have gigabit internet and can upload the lot super fast.
Feminism slowly breaking through?
Its great to see more positive female role models in the media, but I wonder if they go far enough?
You must have heard the pilot episode of Supergirl was leaked (I think put online, I mean the Gotham and Flash pilots and others were also leaked)
The first episode of CBS’s forthcoming Supergirl series has leaked online a full six months before it was scheduled to air. Two versions of the 46-minute episode (one in full HD and another in lower resolution) made their way onto torrenting sites late last week, with BitTorrent news site TorrentFreak describing the leak as a “complete surprise” to the pirating community.
I watched the pilot episode and it struck me as fun and very like the Flash (not really a surprise as its the same kind of team). I’m not the only one who says so either in this spoiler free view.
After Agents of SHEILDs got very samey, I pretty much ignored Agent Carter till I saw people talking about it.
Cannot believe there is a question over renewing #AgentCarter. She’s fucking awesome, the show’s awesome, yet somehow there’s doubt? Why?
— Suw (@Suw) February 8, 2015
To be fair I checked out a couple of episodes but it hasn’t grabbed me, so its just sitting there waiting for me to watch the rest sometime. However, I have to admit its got a good feeling throughout.
Agent Carter, is a sly analogy for the state of women today, especially women in geek culture. The show reflects pop media buzz topics, like Gamergate, Fake Geek Girl memes, and the sexual harassment of creators, through the lens of a time that seems archaic. However, the topics, the misogyny and inequality that Peggy deals with, is anything but archaic. These are things that modern women deal with on a daily basis: the street harassment, the catcalling, the sexualization, the dehumanizing, the diminishing, and the belittling.
Peggy Carter is the modern woman, capable and strong, but forced into a world that will not accept her for who she is and will not listen to her speaking out against the men who put her down
Some reviews are less sure about the feminist angle.
When I first saw posters for the Madmax reboot, I pretty much dismissed it but then I started hearing how interesting it actually is and how it passed the Bechdel test…
The Bechdel Test is a film litmus test. To pass, a movie must have two female characters, with names, who talk to each other, about something other than a man. It’s not perfect but it helps illustrate how utterly underrepresented women’s voices are in film. “Mad Max: Fury Road” passes on a level heretofore unheard of outside “chick flicks.” There is a moment late in the film when no less than twelve women — seven of them named — are talking together. On the one hand I am mortified this is cause for celebration. On the other hand, it’s a decisive victory worthy of a fist pump.
I’m not saying this is all something new, just interesting to see a few come out about the same kind of time. It would be nice if Hollywood would take more risks with the under represented.
Sure its a glitch in the matrix and we’ll be back to the 50 shades of greys again soon enough…
Although I’m going to say, it would be amazing to turn some parts of Girl with a one track mind into a film?
Its certainly could/would work better than as a TV series which diary of the call girl got turned into. Its worth reading both blogs as they so very different in many accounts! The feminist message of empowerment could really work well, wonder if Zoe ever considered it as a film, especially as she use to be in the film business herself…
Did you see the Channel4 Tinder documentary?
Well I finally saw it and I was not impressed. Sensational and stereotypical topics. What a load of rubbish I’m sorry to say. There was no depth whatsoever! The tinder title says it all… It was mainly about dating apps in general, but of course the secret life of dating apps wouldn’t have worked on TV.
To be fair it will make popular TV but I was just waiting for the catfish and danger aspects to come along. I mean who invites a date to their home on the first date? Seriously WTF! Thats dating 101!
They bumped against the paradox of choice but it was for about 5 secs. I far preferred Dawns guide online dating, which was also from Channel4.
Thanks Claire, Mr Brislr and others for highlighting it to me… but I say garbage!
Films you may have missed in 2014/15
There has been some great films recently… including Kingsmen, Selma, Interstellar, Citizen four, The intimidation game, Theory of everything, etc.
But heres a bunch you may have missed…
71 is a movie that I usually wouldn’t enjoy but unlike unbroken (which started well but pulled too many heartstrings). The 71 tells a story about the conflict in northern Ireland. Its got a few small twists and turns but takes you in for a good ride.
This one is a interesting tale which hinges on the balance of science and spiritual belief. Like Lost Its hard to describe but its a heros journey as the man of science tries to grapple with things which directly conflict with what he can prove. I like the style of the the film as most scenes look simply gorgeous and the focus on the human eye was always going to be a winner from a photography point of view.
This reminds me of the Martha Marcy May Marlene. Its all about mind manipulation, brainwashing and deprogramming, its pretty wrong. It also reminds me of Suicide Kings, but faults goes much deeper. Watch and be shocked… Reminds me I need to read the back story for this.
Everytime I watch this, I side with one side or the other. I keep thinking who wound whom up and when they could have stopped. But honestly the ending is excellent and will have you punching the sky. If you missed it in the cinema, get it in DTS and play it loud!
Very good film which surprised me as I knew nothing about it. Then as it unfolds you realise this is actually a true story not just the stuff you heard about. I understand why I didn’t get much attention but it deserves so much more.
Time travel! You know how much I love time travel films. Predestination is good but its not quite a Donnie Darko. Its more of looper I would say but worthy of a good watch a few times over to understand what is going on.
This movie is a surprisingly good time travelling film. It feels on the lower end of the budget, but not a primer style budget. Its a good story told but certainly doesn’t have the depth of primer. Its quite constrained and I guess compared to Predestination, its slightly less confusing.
Continuing with the time travel theme. Project Alamnc feels like a cross between Primer, Timelapse and Chronicle in filming style. Its a MTV film, so its full of teenagers partying and usual music stuff. Even with all that, its quite a solid movie with the ups and downs. The ending is a let down but if you compare it to other teenager films it stands its ground well.
I don’t quite know what to say about this film except it kind of jumps the shark so many times you have no idea what on earth is going on. Maybe its because I’m not paying too much attention everytime I see it but I’m keep wondering what on earth? The computer screen stuff is hysterical too but reminds me of a higher budget welcometothescene.
Its not usual that I can recommend a rom-com but this one has some hairy balls. Its funny and tragic but even though you know whats going to happen at the end, its interesting to see their marriage break down and the things they do to get it back on track. The premise that some people are simply not suitable for each other is a worth while message throughout.
The maxi-scooters of Tokyo
Most people know I ride a big scooter and always been a fan of them since a early age. I like to think of the scooters (officially and legally called maxi-scooters) like the crazy machine in the Akira. Its clear Tokyo takes its maxi scooters pretty seriously, they were everywhere. Its was interesting to see the types and how they have been pimped up/out.
Its my silverwing but a newer model, wondering what cc? as maybe an upgrade is needed in the near future?
What on earth is this? Not fan of the colour but I like shape. Either its heavily customised or something I’ve never seen before? Reminds me of this crazy thing.
This is a weird scooter (honda helix) which I thought died out but I saw quite a few of these but also pimped out.
I use to have a Yamaha Majesty but it certainly didn’t look like this thing. Check out the trims and attention to detail.
Skywave or Silverwing? I couldn’t work out if this was the same beast as mine with a slightly different body or something totally different? They look similar?
Another one of those very long honda helix scooters. They appeared to be everywhere in Tokyo. So much so, I stopped taking pictures unless they were very different.
If/when I go back I’ll be hiring a scooter (almost hired one while I was there).
The Business of Film with Mark Kermode
I have to give film critic Mark Kermode’s series about the economic realities of the film industry, a thumbs up. Its in 3 parts and available forever as a podcast. Its well worth listening to if you are a film fan
Mark Kermode charts the cycle of ‘development hell’, where producers turn in scripts, listen to conflicting opinions and resubmit their work hoping for that magical green light.
I especially love the donnie darko reference and I do think Matthew Vaughn has a very good point.
Mark Kermode examines how films get financed and distributed. The challenge, of course, is that nobody knows the ultimate appeal of the film.
I’m really feeling this as I try and put a project I’m working on forward (I’ll explain more in the future).
Mark Kermode considers the crucial moment in a film’s life – the opening weekend. Marketing may convince us of a film’s merit but a tweet can ruin even the most inventive campaign.
I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this type of thing many times over this blog but its fascinating to hear regardless.
Imagine if media could scale?
People always ask what I do at work or the BBC. I generally and quite flippantly say build the future. It may seem like a bit of a joke but theres quite a lot of truth to it too. One such area of research is around the future of media and storytelling.
I decided with colleagues after the perceptive radio, the radio needed content of its own. This lead to the idea of a variable length documentary which was first showed at Sheffield Doc Fest, which would scale based on a number. That number could be time, movement, attention, or something else.
Responsive Radio is a new experimental way to make radio content more personalised, relevant and flexible. Responsive radio creates the story you want at the length you’ve time for. And this is just the start of a broadcasting revolution.
Imagine if Serial or any podcast could scale to fit your journey to work? Thats the level of personalisation were talking about here. Non creepy, and actually useful.
The responsive radio (as it became) morphed into a much bigger project and finally you can go experience it for yourselves at BBC Taster. http://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects/responsive-radio
Loving man seeking woman
There is a new TV series on FX man seeking woman.
Man Seeking Woman is an American television comedy series that premiered on January 14, 2015, on FXX. The series is based on a book of short stories, The Last Girlfriend on Earth, by Simon Rich, who is also the series creator, executive producer, and showrunner.
Its worth watching as its got such great pieces throughout. For example when our unlikely hero is finally in a relationship, he is tempted back into singleton by alien women from the planet of sex. Then later, his friend gives him a tour of his future while he’s dressed in prison clothes. They go for a ride prison ride into suburbia, where they witness a man bbqing big flat mushrooms instead of meat.
Its all fun and games and worth watching…
50 shades of an opportunity wasted?
Girl with a one track mind, reviews the 50 shades of grey film, so we all don’t have to watch it…
It is not acceptable for a man to stalk a woman, harass her, and to drive a wedge between her and her friends and family. Showering a woman with expensive gifts does not make it okay that a man can break in, then hide in her home waiting for her. Emotionally manipulating, then harassing, a woman to agree to a man’s relationship terms (or have no relationship at all) is not, in any sense, alright. All good relationships are built on respect, trust and consent and this one contains none of that. Grey’s abusive behaviour is excused, because he is “a dominant”, as if enjoying a sexual kink removes the need for a man to be a decent person too.
As I imagined, its a male power film with elements of BDSM thrown in to convince/sidetrack people in to thinking its ok to be a total dick, because the female is calling the shots in his playroom.
No its not ok… Its creepy, manipulative, bullying and just not on, now or ever…
Like Zoe I was hoping for something a little different from this film. I haven’t read the books but heard so much that I feel like I know the text. Not necessarily because its a female writer and director but because it 2015 and I hoped friends would say how good and surprising it is. Heck a clever twist, on the story would have been great. But the opportunity was utterly wasted…!
…as I want to applaud a movie written and directed by women, I can’t condone one which idealises male power and emotional abuse as something seductive and sexy. They’re not. With the kinky-sex as a saucy distraction, the central message of this film – that it’s okay for men to control and manipulate women – remains unquestioned, and that’s not just bad, it’s dangerous.