A Christmas Carol

This article from the New York Times examines the enormous marketing campaign conducted by Disney to make sure their new film "A Christmas Carol" is a blockbuster. The campaign features a train with an exhibit that delves into the original Dickens story and promotes the film. There have also been many different marketing ploys such as this past May at the Cannes Film Festival when the entire front of the Ritz Carlton hotel was covered in fake snow and Jim Carey was throwing snow balls outside of it.

"The studio is also pulling out all the new-media stops it can. There is a Scrooge iPhone application, a “naughty or nice” Facebook quiz and a themed video game on Disney.com. A Web site where people around the world can make virtual ornaments and decorate a communal online tree was unveiled last week."
-(taken from the NYTimes article)

These new types of digital and interactive marketing help propel technology. As Disney throws money at technology firms to help develop iPhone Apps, new discoveries are made, and new code from which other applications can pull is written.

Currently, when producing a film it is imperative to be use new media (at least the free kind) to promote a film. Many independently produced films make use of blogs, social networks, and applications to promote their film and spread word of mouth, and it proves to be affective. I predict that this new-media technology will become more and more important in the film industry as producers seek more ways to attract an audience keep fans.

Antichrist (last post about it...probably)

Today, the film Antichrist opens in New York. Here is the New York Times Review, and here is my review (previous blog post). The film is awful (according to both reviews), but I am somehow intrigued by it and can't stop wondering if it is ahead of its time.

New Resume, Demo Reel

I am currently in the process of making a Digital Resume and Demo Reel. On the site right now I have uploaded new versions of both, but the Demo Reel is a work in progress because I am working on 2 short videos right now.

"we have come to confuse information with understanding"

-quote taken from Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

In Gladwell's book Blink, he examines people's snap judgments and "blink of an eye" decisions. Through a series of case studies he makes the point that sometimes these impulses lead to a better decision, and one's first impression is often the best. One thing I found interesting was this conclusion:
"...what I have sensed is an enormous frustration with the unexpected costs of knowing too much, of being inundated with information."
Sometimes there is too much information! We are often bombarded with updates, articles, quotes, tweets, texts, calls, e-mails, commercials, etc, and even the information we receive that is pertinent can be overwhelming.
It takes a lot of filtering, time management, and prioritizing to make difficult decisions, but sometimes it just takes instinct. Sometimes less is more, and a quick decision without all of the info is the best decision.

Ramsey Work Out Center New Media Project

For a capstone class, three other classmates and I are developing a web application that will allow users to have an interactive experience while using UGA's workout facility (Ramsey). We hope to develop a "promotype" that will allow for a user to connect with other potential "work out buddies", keep track of the user's progress via a work out log, and produce a series of instructional videos that are linked from QR codes attached to different workout machines. One technology we are using is facebook connect, which will pull info from users and store it in the application's own database. In order to have such a database, we will need to transform our ftp server into a database, which we will do using MySQL. The most recent post on our Tumblr Account was about MySQL and how it works.

(screen shot of MySQL being used to manage a database)

Antichrist

There is an article in the New York Times today about Lars von Trier's film Antichrist.

Below is a review of the film that I wrote this summer at the Cannes Film Festival.

Antichrist Makes for Cute Date Movie

Chris Pamm

May 19, 2009

Jour 5590

Antichrist is a heartwarming flick about a couple’s trials and tribulations in their relationship. The film is full of striking visuals that seem to burn a brand in the memory of the viewer.

Antichrist’s prologue begins in black and white as a couple (Willem Dufoe and Charlette Gainsbourg) graphically make love in the shower. The scene is shown as a parallel sequence with that of their kid who is sleeping in the room next to them. As the couple proceeds to have sex, their kid climbs out of his crib, and jumps out the window of the home into the street killing himself. The scene takes place in slow motion with opera music playing in the background as the child commits suicide. The prologue is beautifully shot, but when it ends it makes you turn your head to the person sitting next to you.

The rest of the film deals with the psychotic mother’s grieving. She constantly has nightmares and hallucinations, and seems to cry about everything. Her psychiatrist husband walks her through breathing exercises and tests to help her to overcome her grief.

The majority of the film is based in a log cabin, the same one that the mother has already dreamed about. In and around the cabin, the audience is treated to a display of beautiful images in nature. These include that of a dead baby dear carcass dangling out of it’s mother, a baby bird falling to the grown and being eaten alive by ants, and a fox that is disemboweled and dampened with blood. When I watched the film, people in the audience began walking out of the theater after the first image.

One of the key lines in the film is uttered by no other than that of the fox. That’s right, the fox. In Jim Henson fashion, the fox, who is covered in blood, turns his head and says, “chaos reigns.” This is the only time any of the animals speak, and the line had about half of the audience laughing at what didn’t seem to be a punch line. At this point in the film people stood up and walked out.

The film involves a lot of scenes that include elements of nature, but is mainly focused on Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character. She evokes the qualities of a true lady when she bashes her husband’s erect penis with a two by four, and cuts of her clitoris with scissors. The film doesn’t shy away from it’s close ups and isn’t afraid to illustrate this true lady-like etiquette.

If the aforementioned images aren’t enough to make you fall in love with the film, imagine the woman screwing a metal pole into and through the man’s leg. This acts as a chain to keep him weighted down so he cannot escape. This might sound like a plot straight out of Hostel or Saw, but there is some foreplay that involves blood shooting into the air (use your imagination) that gives the scene a romantic overtone.

At one point in the film, the man comes across a book that was written by his wife. The book begins in neat handwriting and as he pages through we see that the handwriting gets sloppier until it finally is degraded into mere scribbles. This book is like the movie, pages of incomprehensive scribble. It starts out poetically and easily understandable and degrades as it progresses.

During most of the suspense filled moments of the film I was squinting my eyes so as not to see all of the images. I should have just shut completely and for the entire duration of the film.

After watching the film, one member of the audience noted that he was never going to have sex ever again. “I’m going to get so much shit done in the next two years, I’ll be so productive” he said noting that he was never going to think about touching a girl and would have so much free time on his hands.

One of the last scenes is that of a group of women climbing up a mountainside. This image either represents the fact that the women have been freed and brought back to life by the death of the female protagonist, or that the film Antichrist is showing in a theater at the bottom of the mountain and the women are appropriately running from it.

Overall the movie does make for a cute date movie, if you want to have your sexual organs beaten and chopped off, legs made into kebabs, and positive view of anything in nature destroyed. If this sounds like you, this film is right up your alley.

ANTICHRIST

Opens at Cannes Film Festival: 18 May 2009, 20 May 2009 in Denmark

Directed and written by Lars von Trier, edited by Anders Refn, produced by Meta Louise Foldager, distributed by ACME, California Filmes, Central Partnership, Estinfilm, Gutek Film, Lucky Red, Palador Pictures, Pars Film, Prorom Media-Trade, & Seven Films.

Running Time: 1 hour, 44 minutes.

WITH: Willem Dafoe (He), and Charlotte Gainsbourg (She).