This is a 38-second preview of a music video I shot 1.5 months ago, and it should be completed in December, after we do some necessary re-shoots. The Bay Area artist is Andy Kong, the song is called “Accidental Love Song”, and it’s part of his newly released album “This Beautiful World“.
It was shot with a naked Canon HV20 (just an ND filter was used). The specific “band” scenes you see here were shot in PF24 (at 1/48), but the rest of the video actually has cut-scenes of a little background story we put together. The cut-scenes were shot in 60i, interpolated to 60p, and then slowed-down to 24p (2.5 times).
Edited with Sony Vegas Pro 9, Cineform removed pulldown to 24p, and the following plugins were used: AAV ColorLab, Color Corrector, and a custom Magic Bullet template.
Finished watching The Prisoner’s 2009 remake last night. A total of six episodes, starring Ian McKellen (as 2) and Jim Caviezel (as 6). Spoilers below.
The cinematography and pacing was good throughout the six episodes. It starts with 6 finding himself in the desert and getting back to this seemingly idealistic “Village”. The people there have accepted that there’s nothing beyond the village, that there’s no other world beyond it. During the six episodes, No 2 is trying to break No 6, to make him believe that there’s nothing beyond the Village. However, unlike most of the others who only have dreams relating to other places, No 6 has clear as day memories of his New York life that happens in parallel to his Village life. Naturally, he tries to break free of it, but he can’t. No 2 is the authority in the Village, and he’s got a son and a comatose wife. The Village is not a nice place in reality: everyone’s spying on everyone else, people are getting abducted or getting killed if they are reported. The idealistic nature of the Village is only skin deep.
At the end, is revealed that the Village is not a real place, but a subconscious (or other state of consciousness) level, ran by the brain of No2’s real-life wife in New York, who’s a scientist and creator of psychotropic drugs. The other inhabitants of the village are random NY people, most of them employees of Summakor, the corporation that real-life No2 leads (and that No6 recently resigned from). Summakor runs this project supposedly to help these people, who are all chosen to occupy the village since they lead a troubled real life. So basically, the Village acts as a restrain of the subconscious mind in order to control unwanted behavior of the real life person.
Some people were not happy with this resolution, that the Village is not a real place, but I like it just fine. I think it’s sci-fi enough, and pretty interesting too. Others were unhappy because the series was not like the original ’60s series. Personally, I don’t care about this at all, I review this series on its own merits, as an individual work of art. My problem with the series is elsewhere.
My problem is with the ending. No2 is blowing himself into pieces in order to free himself from the Village’s plane of existence, just as 313 (6’s romantic interest in the series) takes a special pill that makes her real life NY counterpart the new “brain server”, rather than No2’s wife. Now, No2’s wife is not comatose anymore (she was comatose in both lives, because her brain was needed at 100% operation in order to run the Village), and 313/Sarah is. At the very end, 6 is trying to make the Village a better place (in the Village life), and he’s accepted back a higher ranking job at Summakor (in his NY life). The last thing we see in the series is 313 crying, and we don’t know if it’s because of happiness because 6 will indeed try to make the Village a better place, or because 6 has turned, without realizing it, into the new 2: a tyrant.
See, this is a very unsatisfactory ending. We spent 5.5 episodes seeing 6 fighting the status quo and rebel against the tyranny. Even just 20 minutes before the ending the NY counterpart of 6 was questioning the ethics of running such a project. Are we to believe that just like that 6 accepted the Village for what it is and decided to stay in it? Why? Just because of a woman? And was No2’s plan all along to get 6 to accept the Village and be part of it, even if 6 had full knowledge of the other world? In other words, was the whole thing a trap, to find a new boss for the Village? A new boss who while he knew of the truth he would choose to stay?
I just find it stupid knowing the truth and not killing yourself to get out of it. Regardless if there’s a woman involved or not. Made no sense to me. Or is this an allegory for “yeah, you’re young, you’re rebellious, and then you get married, and your life is over“. Because honestly, that’s the only “deeper message” I got out of the series. Or are we, the viewers, to believe that such an experiment with people’s minds “is a good thing” and that’s why 6 accepted it? I personally don’t see anything good with it, it’s evil. Especially since none of these people volunteered for it!
What should have been done instead was the NY 6 destroying all computers and maybe even No2’s wife in order to end the Village. That’s what any sane person would have done. Instead, (a pretty confused throughout the series) No 6 becomes a conformist himself, in both lives. Or was 6 brought into the Village in order to tame/conform him, a subconscious development that subsequently controlled his NY counterpart to accept the job as the new high ranking exec of Summacor? Is this how that corporation hires people, by manipulating their employees’ morality in their subconscious level first? Most people do conform later in their lives, so I guess the ending does mirror real life.
Regardless, the ending just felt unsatisfactory as it left a negative, hopeless mental let-down to the viewer. And the writing was particularly confusing at the end. This is a series that could have been done a bit better if the story and subplots were spelled out a bit clearer with less over-done “artsy” cuts like the ones at the end of each episode. Less surrealism please in the last 5 minutes. Thank you.
Having nothing more to do tonight I browsed the archives of the HV20.com forum to search for good HV footage (and I already check out properly tagged videos on Youtube and Vimeo daily). Found some interesting stuff. Two full-length HV movies for one. “Hollow” is a drama, and “Envelop” is a horror movie (login to the site to be able to view the screen-caps). Both movies are in post-production right now.
Secondly, I found this beautiful music video shot with an HV20 (w/ 35mm adapter). I believe VH1 and MTVU was going to show it, not sure if it actually reached the TV sets. It did reach their web sites though. The song is currently offered for free for promotional reasons. Get it here.
And one more music video, with the same director and band. I believe this was also shot with his HV20, but I will have to confirm with the director. UPDATE: Confirmed, it’s also with the HV20 and a Letus Mini adapter. Here’s a picture of the director’s rig, and a yet another music video by the same director and band, with the HV20.
It’s been over 2.5 years since the release of the HV20. During that time it became the most game-changing camcorder to ever hit the market: it was the first consumer camera with 24p support, and with its improved lens/sensor, it inspired thousands of amateur filmmakers who were previously limited by the hardware to do what they always wanted to do. Some amazing videos were shot with the HV series, short films, and about 400 official music videos too — an amazing feat for any camera, let alone a consumer one.
However, in the quickly-moving technology of today, the HV series is now fading away: it’s bowing to AVCHD cams, and to the Canon 5D and 7D dSLRs. Once upon a time there were as many as 30-40 HV videos uploaded on Vimeo daily, now we are lucky if we get 5-6. Obviously, as with everything, its time is passing. It’s fully functional of course for those who want to still use it, and it still outperforms some non-Canon AVCHD camcorders! But most artists from the “old gang” on Vimeo have moved on, and I have done so too with my recent purchase of the 5D Mark II.
In light of this, and by trying to close this chapter, I decided to put together a best-of. These are my top-5 favorite HV videos for each category:
Short Movies
1. A Thousand Words *
2. White Red Panic
3. Manifest Destiny *
4. The Ring *
5. Semblance
Runner up: The Unfortunate
Music Videos
1. Malbec – Story Of A Broken Heart
2. Twinn – Don’t Cry *
3. Arman Bohn – Combat
4. Pitchblend – Celsius *
5. Malbec – The Answering Machine
Runner up: Motiva – Repülj Madár *
General Art
1. Rainy Day
2. Birth.Life.Death. * (NSFW)
3. Ape *
4. Mirror, Mirror
5. Seeing Red
6. Reflections of Home
7. Luna 2 *
8. Unspoken
9. GAY = SIN
10. Wii Boxing *
Special mention: The Condition:Human sci-fi web series.
* The asterisk denotes the usage of a 35mm adapter.
More of carefully selected best-of-the-best HV videos can be found on the HV group.
Reza Productions just posted on Vimeo the full short movie they shot last March with a bare-naked Canon HV30. In my opinion, it’s on the best top-5 of all the HV short films shot so far: it’s color graded well, light and photography is great, it’s cut pretty well, and the director was smart to setup his shots in a way that by zooming-in he would introduce some slight shallow depth of field. Shallow enough to make this short movie to look very “filmic”, as in “movie-like“. I am very impressed by the look he got out of his naked HV30. Download the 1080p HD version here.
This short movie proves that HV’s 1/2.7″ sensor & semi-fast lens are enough in most cases, if you know how to light & shoot properly. From all the gadgets I’ve bought over the last 2.5 years to feed my filmmaking hobby, the 35mm adapter was the most useless one. Except the initial test with it, after it arrived on my doorstep, I never used it to shoot anything. I wasn’t happy with the vignetting, the loss of resolution and stabilization, the bulkiness, the difficulty of actually shooting with it. Instead, I learned how to maximize my camera’s ability to achieve a shallow-enough-for-my-purposes DoF. Even a tiny bit of shallow DoF is enough to get rid of the “video look”. You don’t need massive amounts of it! The latest music video I shot has some pretty shallow DoF at times, and it’s shot with a bare HV20 too. Here are two snapshots from it:
I believe that most of the videographers who bought a 35mm adapter are misguided. Except maybe a handful of HV videos shot with a 35mm adapter on Vimeo (out of about 500 such videos watched so far), the majority are just shaky “tests”. Sure, there are situations that very shallow DoF looks better, but I am personally just not sold on it. There are more important things on a video than blurriness. And I am not willing to lose so much just to get blurriness. In fact, now that I have a 5D MarkII, I will do my best to keep shallow DoF under control.
Will update this post with a picture when I cook this recipe again (we had it a couple of times now, loved it).
Ingredients (for 2-3)
* 2 small cans of tuna
* 150 gr of noodles
* 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
* 1 can of ‘cream of mushroom’ soup
* 2/3 cup of frozen peas
* 1/3 cup chopped onion
* 1/2 cup low-fat milk
* 1/2 cup of bread crumbs
Execution
1. Cook the frozen peas and the noodles together, al dente (3-4 minutes less than what’s directed in the pasta package). Drain, and set aside. Preheat the oven at 400F.
2. On the stove, use a deep frying pan and pour the olive oil in it. Under medium heat lightly fry the onion in it. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon.
3. Add the cream of mushroom soup, milk, and stir until the mixture becomes smooth. Turn off the heat.
4. Pour the tuna can’s content into the mixture, and very gently stir 2-3 times. Add the noodles and frozen peas and stir gently again a few times.
5. Pour the whole thing into a baking dish. Spread the bread crumbs on top. Bake for ~30 minutes until the bread crumbs start to get golden brown, and there’s not a lot of liquid left in the dish. Serve hot.
Ingredients (for 2)
For the fish
* 2 fillets of tilapia (thawed)
* 1.5 cups of white flour
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup of olive oil
* 1/2 teaspoon of paprika
* Two wedges (1/4 each) of a lemon
For the rice
* 2/3 cups of Thai or Indian rice
* 1/3 cup of frozen peas
* 1 tablespoon of butter
* 1 teaspoon of turmeric
* The rest half of the lemon
Execution
1. On a pot, start boiling some water (3-4 cups) under high heat. Vigorously wash the rice with some cold water so its natural white powder substance goes away. Pour the rice into the boiling pot, along the turmeric.
2. Wash the fish with some cold water. Pour the flour on a clean surface, and coat the fish.
3. On a deeper dish, add the paprika and beat it well with the egg. Coat the fish fillets on both sides with the egg mixture, and then coat them again with the flour.
4. Bring the olive oil in a big frying pan under medium heat. When hot, add the fish and fry well on both sides for a few minutes. When done, remove them from the oil and let them rest and dry in kitchen paper towels.
5. Three-four minutes before the rice is done, add the frozen peas. When done, drain the rice/peas, and bring them back to the pot. Add the butter, and squeeze the half lemon too. Stir a few times under a medium heat, until most of the liquid is evaporated, and then remove from the stove.
6. Serve the rice and tilapia with wedges of lemon, and some toasted bread.
Last night, the new sci-fi show “V”, had a major dip in the ratings (from 13+ mil in the pilot, to 10.6 mil for the second episode). The only way from here is the bottom, just like any other genre show lately on TV: Dollhouse got canceled today too. FlashForward’s and Heroes’ ratings are a disaster too. Except Lost and BSG, no other genre shows have seen an actual return in their investment in the last few years, and a date for a natural, non-abrupt ending.
So what’s wrong with sci-fi shows? Why are bullshit like NCIS get over 16 million viewers, and genre shows hit rock bottom within few weeks of airing? Here are the reasons why, in my opinion:
1. The writers are buffoons
Except the two main LOST writers, I have been personally disappointed with all other writing teams on TV. None of these people have the vision, drive, and money to create an epic franchise of a show, rather than going to work 9-5, sitting behind a desk, and simply rehash whatever we’ve already seen on TV the last 60 years.
Add to that their scientifically weak plots, which drives the younger generations (who actually gone to college and they know that there’s no sound in space) away. Sci-Fi has to be “hard sci-fi” in this day and age. Having Flash Gordon-type bullshit doesn’t work anymore.
I think that the networks need to employ young writers. Just like Damon Lindelof was inspired by Twin Peaks and brought LOST a step further at 31 years old, the networks should find new writers, who have been inspired from *recent* shows, like LOST, and then try to innovate and bring their own shows one step further.
In other words, sci-fi writing must have innovation in the story telling method and plot, backed with hard sci-fi. And it has to be epic. Complex stories with many characters involved. Small stories about a small group of characters that no one cares about when there are bigger fish to fry (just like in V), just won’t work anymore.
2. Young people don’t watch much TV anymore
Oh, don’t get me wrong. Americans watch more TV than EVER before. Almost 5 hours a day (God help us, although I recently read that Greece is SECOND in that list!!!). But it’s the youngsters, the important 18-49 year old demographic that advertisers are after, that actually watch less. With the booming of the Internet, people spend a lot of their free time browsing (and not necessarily YouTube), rather than watching TV. And it’s that demographic that usually watches sci-fi shows.
3. Money
There’s a reason why LOST was so successful originally. Its 2-episode pilot cost in the excess of $14 mil, more than any other TV show before, or after. But the reality is, to create an epic show, with lots of characters and elaborate sets, you need money. Normal TV shows usually get between $1 and $3 million per episode to shoot, and unless you move to the cheaper Vancouver studios to shoot, or you only get uknown actors, your budget won’t be enough to create a truly great pilot to hook your viewers up. LOST hooked people mostly with its first 4 episodes for example.
4. No space ships
The last “space”-based sci-fi show on network TV was Firefly (BSG was on cable). That was 2003. Since then, we are fed with daytime-like soaps that happen to have sci-fi elements in them (e.g. the terribly dull Dollhouse). That’s just not enough to inspire the sci-fi crowd.
See, science fiction is mostly liked by people who try to look at the big picture, the future. They are idealists, visionaries. Therefore, offering them a soap with some sci-fi elements in it, just won’t work anymore.
5. People aren’t into sci-fi anymore
The truth is that NASA hasn’t exactly inspired people in the last 20 years. Their new spaceships look like ass, and are crammy as hell. All this make people not want to have lots to do with the whole space thing. Laugh it all you want, but it’s a factor. Why do you think Apple is selling like crazy?
This is my editing desk: a 2.4 Ghz Core2Duo DELL PC, 6 GB of RAM, an nVidia card, Vista 64 bit, with Sony Vegas Pro 9 32bit (for plugin/codec compatibility reasons), and two monitors. The 28″ one runs the main Vegas interface at 1920×1200, and the secondary 22″ one previews the actual video in 1:1 ratio size at 1920×1080 (so I can see all pixels as they truly are and edit/color-grade accordingly).
Click for a larger view
The video project loaded is a music video that I am working on for a Bay Area singer/songwriter. I used 18 tracks there. The look I chose for this video is a green-ish low-contrast look. I am hoping to have the video released by Sunday, after we re-shoot a few scenes on Saturday.
On the left side you can see my Canon HV20, 120 GB iPod, and my new smartphone, the HTC Hero. I still need to use better speakers with that PC system though. We have some very good high-quality Logitech speakers in storage, we just haven’t taken them out to connect them. So I am still editing with these $10 speakers (although most of the time I am using some very good headphones, so it doesn’t really matter much).
Here are some indie bands that I believe deserve more popularity. They make beautiful music, and at least 2-3 of them break new ground. Except for one of the following bands, I found out about them through their promotional free mp3s (Malbec, I found them through the Canon HV20 community). So I decided to return the favor and spread the love. If you like their music as I do, please buy their albums to support their work too.
Disclaimer: No songs are stored on this server, and no copyright infringement is intended. The sole purpose of this article is informational. I did my best possible to make sure that the songs linked are legal, stored on official artist/label/PR sites or on music/promotional sites that have the required distribution rights. If you represent one of the labels or artists found below and would like me to stop linking to your songs for some reason, please contact me.
* Cloud Cult
Description: One of the best bands of all time, in my opinion. On their latest record they play some very accessible… experimental music. It’s a fusion of classic, rock, folk, all in one. No one else makes music like this.
Mp3s:
- The Tornado Lessons
- Everybody here is a Cloud
- When Water Comes to Life
- Journey of the Featherless
- Lucky Today
- Take your medicine
- Chemicals Collide
* Longwave
Description: A great shoegazing band. They had a contract with a major, they lost it for not selling well, and then they release independently their best album ever. Each and every song on their latest album could be a huge hit if it had the right backing.
Mp3s:
- Secrets are Sinister
- No Direction
- Theres a Fire
- Everywhere You Turn
* Portugal. The Man
Description: An Alaskan band that moved to Portland to hunt their musical dreams. Through the years they went through various experimentation stages and they often introduced brand new takes on existing genres. This is a band that can hop between genres without effort. I highly recommend you buy “The Devil”, and “How the Leopard Got Its Spots” tracks btw.
Mp3s:
- Shade
- People Say
- AKA M80 the Wolf
- And I
- Out and In and In and Out
- The Sun
- The Woods
- Ruby Magic
- Sapphire Magic
* Living Things
Description: Now, this is real rock! Hard, provocative, entertaining. You will love all three of the tracks! Their singer is my kind of guy: he says it like it is.
Mp3s:
- Oxygen
- Mercedes Marxist
- Let It Rain
* Malbec
Description: An LA band with a beautiful and very accessible electro-pop/rock sound. Their music videos (that they shoot by themselves) are wicked too!
Mp3s: (16 songs)
- The Answering Machine, EP1
- The Answering Machine, EP2
- The Answering Machine, EP3
- The Answering Machine, EP4
- The Answering Machine, EP5
* Loquat
Description: Beautiful indie pop/rock from the Bay Area. “Swingset chain” is one of my all-time favorite songs. The version linked below is not the one that ended up on their album though (the album version is a bit nicer).
Mp3s:
- Swingset Chain
- Harder Hit
* The Rosebuds
Description: Another indie pop/rock band (a husband and wife). Very atmospheric, amazing melodies.
Mp3s:
- Leaves Do Fall
- Life Like
- Get Up Get Out
- Blue Bird
- Kicks In The Schoolyard
* Wiretree
Description: Indie pop/rock with a very distinctive guitar sound. Their “Big Coat” song linked below is one of my favorite songs ever.
Mp3s:
- Big Coat
- Back in Town
- Satellite Song
* Glint
Description: A relatively young NY band with easy-listening pop/rock. Good ratio of good songs on each of their albums/EPs.
Mp3s:
- Freak
* The Rural Alberta Advantage
Description: A very nice indie folk/rock Canadian band.
Mp3s:
- Frank Ab
- Don’t Haunt This Place
* Sin Fang Bous
Description: A very interesting experimental folk singer from Iceland. I suggest you buy the “Melt Down the Knives” track from his first album, excellent track.
Mp3s:
- Catch The Light
* Black Gold
Description: A new indie pop/rock band from Brooklyn. Their latest album, “Rush”, is well worth listening to.
Mp3s:
- Detroit
Red Giant Software released yesterday a Vegas version of their brand new product, Magic Bullet Mojo. Mojo is a simpler version of Magic Bullet that only has one goal: to make your footage look like the Hollywood movies of the last few years: teal-looking, but by preserving the skin color (which can be a tricky thing to achieve without this plugin). I tried the demo, and it indeed does what it promises. The algorithm they use to auto-figure-out where the human face is in the frame, and preserve that color, works great. You can use the plugin’s UI to bleach or warm your video, punch it, change the color tint from green to teal to blue, select the way the algorithm finds the face in the frame, and finally, how much you want these settings blended with the original, ungraded look.
Talent is Dave Tsui, from the Bay Area band HIJK
The only problem I encountered is that the “mojo” slider punches up contrast and/or gamma (even with “bleach”/”punch” all the way down). I would prefer to contrast/gamma my video separately if required, with the use of another plugin, and only use Mojo for its teal/skin abilities. Finally, on Vegas, we are used to double-click the UI’s slider buttons to get them to jump back to their default values, but this doesn’t happen with the Mojo UI.
Update: One more example. Except the unwanted dark gamma change that I can’t get rid of with Mojo, the rest of the tint is as it’s supposed to be. I know that to some of you it looks weird and that the original picture looks more natural, but the point of Hollywood movies — that Mojo emulates — is to not be natural.
Litl’s super-secret product, the Webbook, that the company was working for 2 years now, was announced yesterday. It’s a netbook-style laptop, with a TV-like presentation mode when in “easel mode”, HDMI TV-out, and custom user interface — where the web browser is the interface. A lot of the information is stored in the cloud, and the laptop auto-maintains itself at night when not in use. It’s using Linux underneath, with some highly-modified Gnome technologies on top. More info and videos from here.
The reason I originally got interested about it last night was because it kind of reminded me Be’s “internet appliance” touch tablets back in 2001 which were running the BeIA operating system (based on the BeOS). Kind of reminded me that romantic era in terms of operating systems and new emerging technologies and whatnot.
Then, after the 2 minutes of day dreaming, I flash-forwarded myself back to 2009. And I realized what a stupid idea this is.
From the get go, the Webbook is simply over-priced at $699. It has no additional hardware that a $300 netbook doesn’t already have, and I am willing to pay an extra $100 for the special software that did cost money to develop. But 700 bucks? No freaking way. Especially for a non-touchscreen device like this (touchscreen that you would expect in this day and age), this is an overpriced item. Given the kind of homes shown in the marketing pictures on their web site, this feels like it’s geared towards the kids and grandmas of filthy rich people who try novelties like this for the fun of it (”oh honey, daddy can’t be in your birthday party tomorrow, he’s got work to do [see: whoring in Vegas]. But I bought for you a lovely present, your friends will be so jealous of your new toy computer!“).
Then, you will have to think about how *useful* this computer is. Interestingly, not much. It does WAY LESS than what an iPhone can do for once (both in terms of third party apps and basic functionality). And at least in the Bay Area (which is where most of the potential rich suckers for the Webbook live), everyone and their dog has a freaking iPhone (in fact, yesterday at Google’s headquarters I saw a lot of people using an iPhone, even if Google gave a free Android phone to all of its employees last year). And then there’s the AppleTV for the HD TV-out abilities, and even the PS3 and XBoX360 can show movies and pictures. Not good enough? Think that a REGULAR netbook, one that costs $300, can do everything that the Webbook can, and then some! In other words, the functionality offered by the Webbook is commoditized today, and easy to come by with cheap — or better understood — alternatives.
The only thing that the Webbook has for it, is its “easy to use” custom interface, but I think that custom interfaces that don’t offer a real (non-HTML) platform underneath for developers to really tap in, can simply not sustain themselves in the big picture. And heck, what is wrong with LiTL not offering a 3G connection? I mean, these devices are home-bound without a 3G connection, and given that they use the cloud so much (much more so than normal computers), it makes them utterly useless when wanting to take them with you. Or are we to believe that this webbook is supposed to be home-bound, and act as a middle ground between your stationary normal PC and your mobile cellphone? Because honestly, I don’t think there’s a market for that since a regular laptop can do most of that. And if not, Apple’s upcoming tablet will, in 3 months time.
So basically, my opinion is that LiTL has spent money on a product that simply can’t sustain itself. It couldn’t in 2001, and it can’t in 2009. Maybe if the netbook explosion hadn’t had happen 1.5 years ago, maybe — just maybe — there was some glimpse of hope for the Webbook. But the way things are now, it’s a lost endeavor. And it’s sad really. Especially for the engineers who worked on the software of this device.
And don’t get me started about that remote control (optional addon). Instead of really breaking new technological ground and creating a system like Natal (or at least a Bluetooth-based battery-powered touchpad device), users have to use that butt-ugly right-out-of-the-’60s remote control with its cumbersome “I am feeling blue” wheel-button. I honestly don’t know what the hell these people were thinking.
We watched the remake of “V” tonight on ABC. I’ve only watched bits and pieces from the original TV series, but this is besides the point, since this is supposed to be a full reboot of the show.
So basically, “V” is mediocre at best.
The problem is that the episode felt rushed and disconnected. It felt like a 2 hour pilot, cut into 1 hour. Things just go too fast and we don’t have the time to really see the reactions of the world on this new major situation.
Adding to that is the unbelievable behavior of people towards the aliens. When the original message off of the spaceship is done, everyone claps their hands and welcomes the new world order. If that was a real life scenario, people would just panic and loot everything in front of them. No one in their right mind would believe that message of peace. Or when that anti-V terrorist finds out that his old friend is actually alien he seems to accept it and go on by his business instead of showing even a small shred of disapproval.
And, oh, did I say “aliens”? Sorry about that. It’s “Vs” (pronounced vees), or “Visitors”. No one is calling them what they really are, aliens that is. Apparently ABC had a problem making it an alien show, of fear of alienating housewives (get it?).
Finally, there was very little mystery left in the series after the first 45 minutes. Two guys already getting revealed as aliens instead of one of them, or none. The show feels like it’s a cold-told tale of things happening to a few people we care nothing about rather than adding mystery, and making it a high-impact plot to the whole of the planet (we need to SEE it rather than just brush it off like nothing happened and accept the new world order out of thin air). Where is the UN and US government and military of the world in all this? UN got referenced but we see nothing that went on in that building.
Overall, just like “Flash Forward”, and “Heroes” before that, “V” is a good idea with a bad implementation. I don’t understand how some people can screw up a production so much. I wonder if the only talented TV writers left in the world are Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. At least these two guys can only screw up romantic plots, but when it comes to action/mystery/thrill, they know their shit.
Update: New York Times’ review got it right too.
I had one of these good and sucky all in one days.
Good: Going to Google’s headquarters to shoot a video for a company. Then, I had a nice lunch with JBQ there. I spent most of my day editing that video today, since I need to have it ready ASAP for a presentation.
Bad: Cage the Elephant’s marketing staff got me a press pass for the band’s concert in SF after TWO weeks of having me “on the wait”, in order to review the performance for a music magazine that I very occasionally write for. But by some sort of miss-communication in the morning, they removed my photo/video pass request. I emailed them at 1 PM with the exact requirements, but they didn’t reply to that email. I emailed again, and by 4 PM they told me it’s too late to get authorization for photo/video (I requested a pass for a 1-minute video, nothing more than that). So I got pissed off, and I didn’t go to the concert. I mean, I wanted to go there to visually also show to readers how it feels to be there, it wasn’t for that 16 bucks the ticket costs. Thank God, I can afford these 16 bucks. I must say that in the 10 years that I am dealing with PR/marketing people of various software/hardware companies, I never had major problems with them. As much as engineers like to poke fun at their marketing people, the technology marketing people rule compared to the entertainment ones.
Good: While still thinking that I have a photo pass, and while at Google, I stumbled at Romain Guy, a software engineer (and serious photographer) who works along my husband on Android (read at the end of this article about the funny way I got to know Romain). He was trying to sell his (second) Canon 5D Mark-II, and I was in need for a good low-light camera for the concert tonight. So I bought it. It looks good so far, although its ergonomics are a bit schizophrenic.
Bad: I can’t put off that laundry anymore. I hate laundry.
Of course, the 7D is a better deal in terms of video, and I still suggest to all of you to go for the 7D instead of the 5D. I went with the 5D because the price was right (as a second hand unit), we have lenses that better suit the 5D, and because I needed the camera tonight for the concert (that I eventually didn’t go).
Ok, off to go watch “V” now. After I start off that stupid laundry…
