Co.Exist:
Radar trains local journalists in regions where Western reporters don’t go unless there’s a disaster, and has them file stories via text, with the hopes that the news might get some stories–and perspective–it usually ignores.
There are all kinds of stories to be told. Radar sounds like a way for (trained) citizen journalists to help get those stories told.
This story, written by Matthew Modine, first appeared in The Loop Magazine Issue 13.
What is a film director? Is it just a person who yells “action” on a film set? Is he or she the one who controls the artistic, visual, and dramatic details of a film? Or does a director simply follow a script, a cookie-cutter set of rules and micromanage the gathered actors and technical crew? Are they just people that “shoot a schedule” to bring a film in on budget? The answer is, it depends on the director.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with some amazing directors. Most recently, Christopher Nolan, and over the years with John Schlesinger, Jonathan Demme, Alan Parker, Abel Ferrara, Oliver Stone, Alan J. Pakula, Robert Altman, and Stanley Kubrick, to name but a few. I’m often asked what these filmmakers have in common. If I was forced to use one word to describe an aspect each of them share, I’d say risk. The best directors take enormous risks with their creativity.
That’s not to say they’d jump out of an airplane without a parachute. Each of them comes to work with a clear understanding, vision, and agenda, always exploring and questioning the art of motion picture storytelling. They also listen to ideas from their actors and crew. Even though Kubrick would say, “One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. So it is essential that one man make a film,” I can tell you that he was an appreciative collaborator. The long list of credits on each of his films indubitably communicates that—while Kubrick was a filmmaker with a singular vision, he joined forces with hundreds of talented artists and technicians necessary to actualize his unparalleled vision. Cinema is the art of one man’s ability to collaborate with many.
In 1985, while filming Full Metal Jacket, I was witness to and participated in Kubrick collaborations. If you saw things differently than him, he didn’t become obstinate or rude. Stanley would start a discussion involving the subject. Together you’d discuss the idea, thought, frustration until the most logical solution, the best possible resolution was reached. During the filming of Full Metal Jacket, I kept a detailed diary of my experience. In the early days of filming I was feeling quite lost and uncertain about how best to bring my character, Private Joker, to cinematic life.
Here is an excerpt from my personal diary:
LOCATION: Beckton Gas Works
DATE: October 1985
SUBJECT: Playing vs. Being
I walk around and try and find out where everyone is. I go to the temporary production office and am told that Stanley is looking at dailies. I walk back toward “Trailer-land” and decide not to. I know what the conversations there will be and would prefer not to participate in a bunch of negative bullshit.
I decide to explore the buildings that have been blown up and knocked down. Beckton is a big dead place. It’s so creepy. I get away from the buildings and go for a walk in a field of waist-high grass. I’m trying to think about Joker. Trying to imagine myself in his shoes. I see Stanley driving by in an army jeep. I think about hiding. Lying down in the tall grass. But it’s too late, he’s turning and driving toward me.
KUBRICK: What are you doing?
MODINE: Just walking around. Thinking.
I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly emotional. I try my best to hide it from him.
KUBRICK: Thinking about what?
MODINE: I don’t know. I just feel, I don’t know, it’s stupid.
KUBRICK: What?
MODINE: I just feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel like I don’t know how to play Joker.
Stanley turns the jeep off. Looks down. Pulls on his beard. He thinks for a moment before saying…
KUBRICK: I don’t want you to play anything. I just want you to be yourself.
There is an awkward pause. I don’t know how to respond to that. How do you play yourself?
KUBRICK: Do you want a ride to set?
MODINE: No. I’ll walk.
Stanley drives off, and I think about what he said. The important part was his choice of words, how he interpreted my situation. There’s a tremendous difference between “play” and “be.”
Playing vs. Being. I don’t believe Kubrick chose the word “be” randomly. After all, “being” and existing in “a world of shit” are major themes in Full Metal Jacket. The philosopher William James had come up in conversations about 2001: A Space Odyssey. Discussions about how the universe is mostly a silent, vast, empty space of no-thing and that we would never be able to answer or build a logical bridge from this immeasurable no-thingness to our being. So why “play” a role? Be the character. Research everything you can about the role and understand the lines you are to speak. Be Private Joker.
John Keats wrote, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” I believe Keats was expressing that, in a world filled with lies and liars, it is the artist who endeavors to find truth in their creation. In a universe so incomprehensibly large and a world filled with so much inconsequential trifling and vain pursuit, it is the storyteller that provides a perspective, a point of light in the vast, inconceivable, and frightening darkness. It is the painter, the sculptor, the dancer, the storyteller, the playwright, the screenwriter, the film director, it is all the artists that strive to generate meaning and fabricate new ways of seeing and thinking and behaving and guiding the mass of humanity toward a more humane and peaceful world. The one thing artists share is a fear that they might waste their lives not taking risks. To have wasted their days not leaping into the void.
Matthew Modine is about to direct his second feature film, The Rocking Horsemen. His last short film, Jesus Was a Commie can be purchased on iTunes as part of a collection of his short films. You can also visit Film Annex to view many of his short films and videos for free. His book, Full Metal Jacket Diary, is now an award-winning interactive iPad app available on the iTunes Store.
Clearly, the big comment of the story is the fact that Lenovo plans to surpass Apple and Samsung over time, but the story behind the acquisition is interesting too. I think the next 12 months or so will show how successful the new Motorola can be.
I use a multimeter all the time. Between building and testing circuits and fixing things around the house and car, I find my multimeter to be an indispensable tool. The video below walks you through the basics, but is worth a watch even if you already know how to use one.
[Via BoingBoing]
Obviously, this store is still in the planning stages, but I always look at what the company is doing with its stores. Simply beautiful.
Great tip from Chris Breen. I find myself needing to batch rename images from time to time, especially when I’m working on The Loop Magazine.
This is reprehensible.
Legislation introduced in the Kansas state legislature by a lobby for cable companies would make it almost impossible for cities and towns to offer broadband services to residents and would perhaps even outlaw public-private partnerships like the one that brought Google Fiber to Kansas City.
The Senate bill doesn’t list any lawmaker as its sponsor, and there’s a reason—a Senate employee told us it was submitted by John Federico on behalf of the Kansas Cable Telecommunications Association, of which he is president.
That’s a lobby group with members such as Comcast, Cox, Eagle Communications, and Time Warner Cable. The bill was introduced this week, referred to the Committee on Commerce, and scheduled for discussion for Tuesday of next week.
I get the logic, but I hate the intent. Here’s the heart of the bill:
Except with regard to unserved areas, a municipality may not, directly or indirectly: (1) Offer or provide to one or more subscribers, video, telecommunications, or broadband service; or (2) purchase, lease, construct, maintain, or operate any facility for the purpose of enabling a private business or entity to offer, provide, carry, or deliver video, telecommunications, or broadband service to one or more subscribers.
This is a great idea.
[Via iOS Dev Weekly]
App developers are faced with a difficult choice when it comes to pricing their apps. In the linked article, Dan Counsell explores the three main revenue models available on the App Store, paid, paymium, and freemium.
If you have any interest in the mechanics of the iOS app marketplace, this is definitely a worthwhile read.
From sunrise in Melbourne to nightfall in Los Angeles, they documented people doing amazing things with Apple products. They shot over 70 hours of footage — all with the iPhone 5s. Then it was edited and scored with an original soundtrack. Thanks to the power of the Mac and the innovations it has inspired, an effort that normally takes months was accomplished in a matter of days.
This is a great story and video.
I think this is a brilliant move. For some students, taking a foreign language in school is important. It broadens the mind, exposes people to a culture wider than that in which they were raised. I’ve got no problem with the requirement.
On the flip side, many schools force you to make a choice. You have a limit to the number of elective courses you may take and there are times when a student must choose between taking an elective course like computer programming and a required language class.
For kids who feel the calling, being able to take a computer science course in high school will change their lives. Well done Kentucky.
Scott Knaster worked for Apple back in the early days, even before the Macintosh. Here’s a blog post showing Scott finding his name on the posters Apple created containing every single employee’s name. The posters are organized chronologically and Scott’s name is on the very first poster.
That alone is cool. But Scott turned out to play a very important role in Apple and Mac history. Scott had recorded a video of Steve Jobs’ original unveiling of the Mac. You’ve no doubt seen the video. It shows Steve pulling the Mac out of the case and the Mac speaking for the first time.
The linked post tells the story of how that video came to be and how Scott rescued it from obscurity.
Right away, people were interested in seeing the video. I recorded the video over the air in 1984 from a public TV station that rebroadcast the event. Then it sat on a shelf for awhile – OK, for 20 years – until it apparently became something rare.
Great and important story.
io9:
The 2014 Campbellian Anthology – a DRM-free ebook featuring the work of over 100 authors eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in science fiction and fantasy – is currently available for download. 860,000 words of fiction. For free (for now). Go grab it.
Available as a Mobi file for Amazon Kindle and Kindle Readers apps and as an Epub file for iPad, Nook, Kobo, Sony Reader, and most other e-reader devices and apps.
BuzzFeed:
I have no idea how I exist as an adult human who consumes food and didn’t know most of these, and yet here I am. No shame about not knowing these.
As a city kid, I’ve rarely seen fruits and vegetables in their natural state. Some of these are really fascinating. Bored Panda has a bunch more.
Boing Boing:
Long have I heard tell of the Cockney Rhyming Slang ATM of Hackney Road, but na’er had I chanced upon it…until today! As soon as I stuck my debit card in the machine in front of the Co-Op Grocers in Hackney Road and was asked to make a language-selection between “English” and “Cockney,” I knew I’d found it at last.
We have Chinese language ATM’s here in Vancouver but this is so much cooler.
Many thanks to Twocanoes Software for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week.
If you run Windows on your Mac with Boot Camp, check out Winclone and Boot Runner. Winclone is an easy and reliable way to make an image of your Boot Camp partition so that you can quickly restore, migrate, and mass deploy Windows in Boot Camp. Boot Runner provides a powerful way for both users and administrators to switch between OS X and Windows on dual boot Macs.
When you get a new Mac or have issues with your Windows installation in Boot Camp, reinstalling Windows is time consuming and difficult. Winclone makes it easy to make a complete clone of the Boot Camp partition, and restore it back to the exact same state on your existing or new Mac. Winclone supports migration of Boot Camp partitions over the network, moving your Boot Camp partition to an external drive and making it bootable, and much more. It also works great for mass deployment so deploying Boot Camp is as easy as deploying a package to a group of Macs.
If you manage lots of dual boot Macs, Boot Runner provides a great way to manage the OS selection. People can decide which OS to use by selecting OS X or Windows prior to logging in. Network administrators can fully customize and manage the selection screen, and can even remotely select the OS through network policy. Boot Runner also includes a scheduling feature to make sure that the Mac is booted into Windows during your maintenance window. Check out the intro video to learn more.
Winclone and Boot Runner are available for purchase and download today at twocanoes.com and have full phone, email and forum support options.
What the hell is this guy talking about!
Very sad.
Cycloramic takes a 360 degree panoramic photo, hands-free, using vibration to rotate the phone. The panorama is stitched together using software and Cycloramic is protected via a utility patent. It’s been around for a while and, before the appearance, had 660,000 downloads, made about $175K.
Fantastic story. Very smart for the developer to apply to Shark Tank.
Worth a read if you don’t have access to Fox via traditional means, but do have net access. Not sure if and how this applies outside the US.
Walter Isaacson sat in on a panel discussion on Bloomberg TV. At one point, he addressed an earlier comment he had made about Google being the most innovative company in the world.
I will say one thing about the comment I made about Google being the most innovative…Innovation is great, but it ain’t everything. It’s not the holy grail. Execution is what really matters. Apple is the best at execution.
I appreciate the correction, and he’s certainly right about Apple being the best at execution. But I would argue that, in the areas that grab Apple’s focus, Apple continues to be the best at innovation.
If Apple decided that the time was right for a wearable heads-up device, do you think people would be paying $1500 for Google Glass? Or would everyone be queueing up for an Apple iGlass device, running a version of an operating system that makes for an unparalleled user experience? The latter, I think.
When Microsoft first shipped the Metro interface, there was tremendous pushback from desktop users. Metro was designed for a touch screen, not for a keyboard and mouse environment. Windows 8 removed the Start button, arguably the anchor of the Windows desktop interface, but brought it back in Windows 8.1. Now it looks like the upcoming Update 1 to Windows 8.1 will bring the desktop interface back as the default for desktop users.
The update is still in development, and Microsoft could alter this further before it ships, but it’s currently being changed to appease desktop users. It may seem like a minor change, but the move reverses parts of Microsoft’s original vision for Windows 8. While some critics argued Microsoft simply forced the Start Screen interface onto desktop PCs with little regard for keyboard and mouse users, the company pitched its “Metro” environment as the future of Windows. With the interface booting by default, developers had an opportunity to place their apps front and center on millions of PCs.
That last sentence is a big part of the value of Metro for developers. It’s a billboard for pre-installed apps. This was not an easy decision to make, I’m guessing.
The Windows Store continues to grow with applications, but we understand that Microsoft has been paying close attention to telemetry data that shows the majority of Windows 8 users still use a keyboard and mouse and desktop applications.
This puzzled me from day 1. Who owns a desktop machine with a touch screen? Can’t be many people. That’s why the Mac has Mac OS X and the iPad and company have iOS. Metro on desktop just never sat right with me.
I love this app. You can hum a new song into the app, so you can remember it for later. You can also write lyrics in the same window, so your song is kept together.
Equally important in relation to color (chromatics) is “no color” (monochromatics), which is the negative space or nothingness that surrounds an object or subject, something of particular value in publishing, the art industry, and advertising. Recent trends have seen a return to the simple—celebrating crisp and clear designs that demonstrate professionalism and accuracy, thus giving the consumer a sense of reassurance as well as stylistic aesthetic satisfaction.
Color is fascinating. It can make you feel warm, cold, happy or, if there’s too much, confused.
Some very interesting points from Ben Evans about what the future may hold.
Constructed using woods that were seized by the Feds, then returned once there was a resolution and the investigation ended, this radical Government Series II Explorer makes the perfect memento of an infamous time in Gibson history. And it’s a fierce performer in its own right.
Wow, that’s quite a swipe at the government.
Om Malik:
Before he was the front-runner to be the next CEO of Microsoft, I sat down with Satya Nadella in San Francisco. We talked about the cloud, competition and the future of Microsoft. It’s very revealing, the challenges facing whoever is soon-to-be-announced new CEO.
Interesting to see how the (maybe) next Microsoft CEO thinks.
Backstory on the 1984 Apple Super Bowl ad, woven around a conversation with Steve Hayden, the Chiat/Day advertising VP who wrote the spot. My favorite bit:
Like Jobs, Steve Hayden isn’t much of a football fan, so he watched the spot alone at home. He was pleased with how the commercial looked and, especially how it sounded. But he missed seeing the audience reaction, the gobsmacked expressions as fans crammed into sports bars and Super Bowl parties fell into stunned silence as the hammer was hurled through the air. “About 10 minutes after the spot aired, I was doing the dishes. And the phone rang. I’m up to my elbows in turkey grease. It’s Jay Chiat. He says, ‘How does it feel to be a f&$king star?’”
Nice.
Slate:
This Sunday, the eyes of millions of Americans will turn to a fetid marsh in the industrial hinterlands of New York City for the country’s most important sporting event—and some would say the key to understanding its proud but violent culture.
Slate has been running this series for a while and it’s funny to read how American events might be reported through the eyes of others.
Wall Street Journal:
“The Lego Movie” gathers characters who don’t normally hang around together, coming from separately owned franchises and studios. These include Warner movie characters like Batman, Superman, Gandalf, Dumbledore and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle; but also Han Solo, Shaquille O’Neal, and Milhouse from “The Simpsons”.
I’m going to borrow a nine year old and go see this movie.