Tag: video

The Jim Jones Revue, Rocked, Rolled and Reviewed

One of life’s great pleasures is discovering a new band that really blows you away.  I had one of those moments today when, thanks to 30 Days Out, I discovered The Jim Jones Revue.

Start with the true father of rock and roll, Little Richard.  Add big helping of vintage punk rock attitude, and a hard charging, rip-roaring, garage band-style blues vibe.  Then crank up the volume, toss your head around wildly and start digging The Jim Jones Revue’s self-titled record.  Released last year, this record completely and relentlessly rocks.  From the first second of the first song, Princess & the Frog to the last second of the last song, Cement Mixer, this record simply doesn’t let up.  Unadulterated rock and roll.  It sounds like The Black Keys on some Carlos Castaneda-inspired mushroom trip.  And I mean that in a good way.

Need to hear it for yourself?  Take a listen to Hey Hey Hey Hey.  If that doesn’t rock your socks off, you must be barefooted and deaf.

If you like rock and roll, go buy this record right now.  And turn it up.

While you’re at it, imagine for a moment that you’re back in the golden era of music videos, watching 120 Minutes, and this comes pouring out of your TV.

Not too shabby, huh?

The Hunt for Gollum: Not Your Father’s Home Movie

I noted the other day that Cassidy and I are reading The Hobbit together.  It, along with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was a defining moment in my early reading years.  I’ve been looking forward to sharing these books with Cassidy, and we are having a blast.  She has not seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, and I told her that we would watch each movie together after reading the book.  Just the other night we were lamenting the fact that there is not a movie version of The Hobbit.

Now, thanks to a dedicated director and a bunch of very talented actors/volunteers/fans, there is a very well-done movie inspired by these books that we can use to whet our appetites.  In our reading, we are just past the point where Bilbo Baggins finds the ring and escapes from Gollum and the goblins, with some help from the eagles.  So Cassidy knows about Gollum and the ring.

Filmmaking is not like journalism.  Unlike the ever narrowing gap between traditional journalists and bloggers, citizen filmmakers have not narrowed the gap between themselves and their Hollywood counterparts.  In fact, I think the difference between a Saturday night made for Sci-fi Channel movie and a Hollywood feature film is bigger than the difference between a good blogger and the New York Times.  Words all look the same and stand in their own merits.  Movies are multi-media events, where cinematography, special effects and other factors have a lot to do with the end result.  Accordingly, even talented actors look bad in a film with no production budget.

Which makes it very hard for independent films to measure up.

The Hunt for Gollum is a very pleasant exception to this rule.  This is an excellent 40-minute film, in HD no less.  The fight scenes were excellently filmed, choreographed and acted.  I really enjoyed the entire thing, and intend to watch it again- with Cassidy.

Take a look.  But be quick, because there’s no guarantee that some walking bad decision at New Line Cinema, who owns the rights to the Lord of the Rings movies, won’t try to squelch this little labor of love, and all the good publicity it will generate.  I hope that doesn’t happen.

Because it is a cool and well made film.

Video Fun: Playing Cards

I have been experimenting with the time lapse features of my camera.  Here’s a video I made last night during a game of Pay Me with our friends.  There is a lot of iPhone action going on between plays, demonstrating the iPhone’s penetration into non-techie America.

You can do a lot of interesting things with time lapse.  Back in the nineties, it took me about 8 hours to compile a two minute time lapse animation for one of my films.  Today’s technology makes it very easy.

I expect I’ll do more stuff like this.

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