Tucker and Dale vs Evil.
I watched this movie recently and found it to be fairly original. It is about two simple guys who find their dream vacation in a cabin in the woods only to find that a group of college kids out for some fun misinterpret them as killer hillbillies and, in their attempts stop them, they all accidentally kill themselves, furthering their murderous image.
While copious amounts of blood and gore in conjunction with college kids out for a party isn't itself original, this film was clearly meant to mock the genre to an extent. The foreshadowing and misinterpretation starts almost immediately, when one of the guys (I'll be referring to them as guys and kids from here on out) approaches a girl at the gas station, just to say hi. In his awkwardness, he laughs when he shouldn't and forgets that he was holding a scythe, making him seem like a reaper. The cabin in the woods that they fall in love with is even filled with remnants of an old serial killer who used to live there. Still, the writers needed to have a reason for the college kids to try to defend themselves against the hillbillies, so they made the men rescue one of them from drowning in the swamp. They manage to scare the rest of the college kids off by shouting "We got your friend" as they pulled her body into their boat (they sounded so sincere).
From that point on, the writers focused on eliminating the college kids one at a time until the plot had developed enough to just blow the rest up. The characters are designed well. When not being attacked, the men talk to, care for, and treat the girl they rescued with great respect, even playing a game of trivia with her. At points, the writers took liberties in how they depict the characters' reactions to the death all around them. When the girl finally walks outside to see the gore, she still believes that the men in the cabin are telling the truth (though when one of the men started crying it was pretty convincing). And when the kids in the woods send their weakest member, armed only with a pointy stick, into the fight first when the leader of the group is busy throwing an ax at a tree with great accuracy, it just didn't make tactical sense).
Anyway, the visuals of the movie were pretty simple. The image quality seemed low but I think that was a result of the download. The colors were pretty plain, with few bright colors. The cabin was probably the best visual in the film, having been filled with newspaper articles about the murderer and a few traps. It fit the location and had the right amount of shadiness to it.
The camera angles helped make the movie work as well. Being a somewhat lower budget movie (or it looked like one), they avoided ruining it by showing close ups of the college kids as they died, tending to have the violence occurring just off screen.
Even the dog was written into the story pretty well. It's the typical angry looking dog with a good heart. It seemed to make the men seem more dangerous.
Those are some thoughts on the movie. It's time for class so I'll end it here.
27.10.11
15.10.11
Process of a Movie
So far, the things I've talked about were those that coincided with the time period during which I remembered that I was supposed to be leaving these posts every so often. As such, they are rather random and have no unifying theme. Having had only a few sentences of instruction on this several-week-long assignment and having received no input on my progress so far, I have no choice but to continue writing whatever comes to mind.
What comes to mind this week is the movie I was watching last night, Shaolin Grandma. It is the story of an old woman who knows Shaolin kung-fu but who is thrown out of her society and experiences modern life for the first time, even falling in love and burning down a croquet field. It's a movie so bad that it's good. The main character, a nameless old woman, wears the same, emotionless expression for upwards of 95% of the film. She seems to be completely merciless, ignoring her devoted pupils (who ran away with her) and eventually killing the mail man who thought he found her dead body while delivering the mail and stayed awhile to read her life story (which she wrote down apparently). It is amazing.
In terms of what it was trying to do, the story isn't as atrocious as its delivery. Those wigs they put on the old woman to make her seem young were to demonstrate that she wasn't always an aged woman. Those stunt doubles they used were to show that she once could bend enough to touch her toes. The part where she wins her love interest after beaning his wife in the head with a croquet ball, causing her to foam at the mouth, and lighting the entire field on fire was meant to be romantic. The part where she remembered how devoted her students were when they got the crap beaten out of them and cried at her feet like five year olds was meant to be a highly emotional, spiritual moment. The part where she describes through pictures her sexual exploits with her new-found love ("I was your first?" ~ 70 year old man) was just her finding herself (it's practically the same as those teen disney shows where everyone is exploring their sexuality except with old people). The part where she trains herself by breaking sticks, carrying buckets, and attempting not to fall over while head-butting, culminating in the most emotionless bout of cheering ever witnessed was supposed to be a Rocky moment. The movie was almost a conceptual masterpiece!
It's impossible to rule out the possibility that someone intentionally made the movie as bad as it was. Sometimes we go out of our way to fool ourselves into that kind of thing. A discussion on the various things to watch for in order to figure out the intentions of the director would be endless, like trying to figure out if someone is using reverse psychology on your or whether they just want you to think that. So I won't. Instead, human nature (the bad kind) drives me to want to believe it was an honest attempt at making a movie that simply failed in every regard.
What comes to mind this week is the movie I was watching last night, Shaolin Grandma. It is the story of an old woman who knows Shaolin kung-fu but who is thrown out of her society and experiences modern life for the first time, even falling in love and burning down a croquet field. It's a movie so bad that it's good. The main character, a nameless old woman, wears the same, emotionless expression for upwards of 95% of the film. She seems to be completely merciless, ignoring her devoted pupils (who ran away with her) and eventually killing the mail man who thought he found her dead body while delivering the mail and stayed awhile to read her life story (which she wrote down apparently). It is amazing.
In terms of what it was trying to do, the story isn't as atrocious as its delivery. Those wigs they put on the old woman to make her seem young were to demonstrate that she wasn't always an aged woman. Those stunt doubles they used were to show that she once could bend enough to touch her toes. The part where she wins her love interest after beaning his wife in the head with a croquet ball, causing her to foam at the mouth, and lighting the entire field on fire was meant to be romantic. The part where she remembered how devoted her students were when they got the crap beaten out of them and cried at her feet like five year olds was meant to be a highly emotional, spiritual moment. The part where she describes through pictures her sexual exploits with her new-found love ("I was your first?" ~ 70 year old man) was just her finding herself (it's practically the same as those teen disney shows where everyone is exploring their sexuality except with old people). The part where she trains herself by breaking sticks, carrying buckets, and attempting not to fall over while head-butting, culminating in the most emotionless bout of cheering ever witnessed was supposed to be a Rocky moment. The movie was almost a conceptual masterpiece!
It's impossible to rule out the possibility that someone intentionally made the movie as bad as it was. Sometimes we go out of our way to fool ourselves into that kind of thing. A discussion on the various things to watch for in order to figure out the intentions of the director would be endless, like trying to figure out if someone is using reverse psychology on your or whether they just want you to think that. So I won't. Instead, human nature (the bad kind) drives me to want to believe it was an honest attempt at making a movie that simply failed in every regard.
4.10.11
A Note on the Process of Crime Solving
Thinking about the similarities in the structuring of various TV shows. Some patterns and whatnot.
What I think is the main theme behind these shows is the continuous stream of impossibly improbable, often life-threatening crisis occurring repeatedly to the same group of people with unusual regularity as if every day was an action packed story. You will never watch an episode to find that they guessed it on the first try, the end (which is why we watch them). By the end of the episode, there is only ever a single solution but in the beginning, there might be none or several. Often, the final solution isn't even included in the starting options (as is often the case in House). I would imagine that most, if not all, of the different patterns that these conflicts follow were pioneered in the old detective novels like Sherlock Holmes and other whodunits. While they aren't always the most original, the writers still have to go to a lot of effort to keep their viewers from guessing which direction they will take. Will it be the first person you saw? Will it be the person who waited silently to the side of the main suspect? Will it be the person actively trying to appear innocent? By changing out the idea of a person being the antagonist and replacing it with any sort of problem, you can get the structure for a lot of other shows.
The characters in these shows have varying levels of deduction that determines the feel of the show. Some shows always seem to have an expert ready to analyze the clues as they appear (like in Bones or House). In many of the more detective, single character shows (Monk, Psych, Sherlock Holmes), the characters specialize in connecting the dots and having initiative.
In addition to their utility, the characters have differing levels of personality. Despite seeming to be constantly updated and developed, once you think about it, most characters remain fairly constant. Many have that single episode per season that adds to a character or the unsolved mystery that is a part of the character's past and drives the show (Monk discovered something new about his wife's murder every season, allowing the writers to eventually end the series). These overarching stories are like glue that hold the individual episodes together. The reason the characters remain constant is because they are made specifically to appeal to the viewer. Scrubs wouldn't be interesting if the characters stopped being funny, yet they have revelations (serious moments) in quite a few episodes.
The reason I think of a show like Doctor Who being at all similar to detective shows or CSIs is because it really does fit the descriptions I've just given. The Doctor is a fairly consistent character (though the series is designed with unique ability to switch its actors out every few years) who finds new things out about himself and his past. Ultimately, it doesn't change him that much and he's back to himself by the next episode. In addition, he faces a new, impossibly improbably, life-threatening crisis every single episode. The main difference, in this case, is that the series has a lot less deduction involved in solving the problem, or not directly. Instead it is more like the detective shows. There is definitely a feel that there is only one answer to the problem if you can only connect the dots and figure out what it is.
Shows I watch: Monk, Psych, Bones, House, Sherlock Holmes, whatever is on...
After thinking a bit about the similar structure of such shows, it is also possible to try and figure out which parts I like or dislike about them. For me, the more serious the show looks at a glance, the less likely I am to watch it without knowing its characters. At that point, it just looks like the same thing I've already seen a hundred times before. I also tend to like the quirkier characters rather than the serious ones. I still haven't really got into shows like CSI (A-Z), NCIS, 24, and most anything with an abbreviation, partially because their images of justice and science they use to add depth to the series doesn't agree with me (it's easier to ignore that all of these shows constantly break the law if you don't mention the law). It's also harder to see the unique plots at a glance because they will always look like the same cop show.
Really, what I've described is just TV in general. Writers need to put that level of action into every show if it is going to be successful, and if not, they need good characters to make jokes.
1.10.11
Process of Abuse
While looking for some new role playing games for my iphone on the app store, I came across three that were eerily similar. They had the same descriptions, the same screenshot of a menu, and the same insane price tag: $20.99. The sad thing is that, not having looked at the prices, I clicked on two in a row without noticing. What I found, in looking at them further, is that they take advantage of the lack of information available on the app store along with some carefully designed exteriors to draw in potential buyers. Here's my mini investigation into the things they are doing to cover up their scam.
"A Mysterious Castle in Egremont" - Reading the description on any of these three games, you'll find that the setting is the abandoned Egremond Castle. The thumbnail image features a castle and a small "HD" symbol, indicating that this is a game of quality.
"Become a Warrior" - This app features a cleanly drawn image of a cartoony knight. The descriptions all label the character the "young knight Sir Lamorak" and then go on into a long, decently written story about his encounter with the castle. It sounds somewhat interesting, as long as you don't look at the lack of screenshots or the massive price.
"A Clever Warrior" - Again, going off the appealing character of Sir Lamorak. Its icon is also very cleanly drawn and features a knight riding a toy horse.
All three of these games are also 9.2mb, or about the size of 6 or 7 pictures from the iphone camera and definitely not enough for a game. On the app store, the only things that go for over $10 are ported from actual computer applications, like Pages. Games generally run from $1 to $5. One game I bought for $5 has a file size more than half a gigabyte, just for comparison. Still, $20 doesn't seem like a lot because most of us are still transitioning from the prices of console games ($40 - $60). $20 is almost a steal!
Another area that these apps take advantage of is the lack of proper description on most apps. Even successful apps tend to focus on bragging about the size of their fan-base, their awards, etc. rather than giving customers an adequate description of what their app actually is. So long as you make it seem like a good game, people may buy it.
The one thing I didn't understand about these games was that they came from two different developers: Core Game Studios and Open Game Box Ltd. I took some more time to look at their other apps and found out why.
All nine of the other apps by Open Game Box Ltd. go for $6.99 or $7.99. At those prices, you better get some quality games. Most of them feature a single screenshot, usually a menu, and have file sizes under 10mb. Their descriptions are usually just a sentence or two, clearly going for the "oops, I forgot to write more" approach. My favorite app of all of these was "Angry Bombs HD" which hits every base possible. Firstly, its name is a variant of "Angry Birds", the app people buy just to fit in. The title also uses the magic word "HD" for bonus points. The thumbnail, even, takes advantage of popular culture and features Bullet Bill, the giant bullets from the Mario series. Unfortunately the screenshot leaves a lot to be desired. It appears to have been drawn in MS Paint (no joke). The whole app is a massive 5.7mb and goes for the low low price of $6.99.
Other titles include "Addictive Beauty and Jewels HD", "A Bear and a Cute Kid II" and "A Global Navy HD 2011" which features a single picture of a battleship and happens to be identical to their "Blue Sea Navy HD" game. Three images into a google image search I found the submarine used in that game. I got as far as finding out which aircraft carrier was featured in the other image (the Nimitz).
Core Games Studio is also guilty of the same sort of schemes. All their games go for high prices and consist of a single sentence, a screenshot of a menu, and tiny file size. I found at least one that had an identical description to a game by the other developer. Another had the same name (you'd think the app store would pick up on these), description, and screenshot. Of their games, my favorite was "A Funny Egg Chess", a combination of words that, collectively, means absolutely nothing. It isn't chess, though, it's some variant of tic-tac-toe (an easy mistake). It's file size is 585kb.
I'll finish up with another app I found awhile back which went the extra mile to lie to its customers. For starters, it is reasonably priced so people will actually buy it by accident. The app itself claims to increase any photo, be it 3 megapixel or 5, to an 8MP photo. Anyone who knows what this is suggesting knows that it is impossible (or impractical, not being able to add any new information). Knowing this, the developer took extra steps to make its customers seem happy. It commented on and rated its own app once or twice a day, until there were a few hundred comments. Every twenty or so you find an extremely angry customer but otherwise everything seemed to be all cheery. At the time I spent a few hours reading them and noting similarities that would tie them to the developer or, at least, to the same person. Here are my favorite snippets of comments:
"Me Out!!!"
"Without this app your camera is pathetic figuratively speaking!"
"Charitable app!", "Surprising app!", "Cheerful possibilities!"
"Prrretty addddicting apppplication you got there mister"
"I admire this cutie!"
"Hey people! Did ya see how supercalafragilistic this application works?"
"This application is a merciless nuclear explosion for all its predecessors!"
"Love is the only emotion I'm feeling while thinking of my phone right now"
Tips on taking advantage of the app store:
*Don't provide any useful information.
*Make your descriptions as needlessly colorful as possible. Understanding the proper use of adjectives isn't required, just use in excess.
*Snag some clean, appealing images of the internet for use as a thumbnail.
*Spend ten minutes photoshopping another image to look like part of a game.
*Ask a price that is bordering on unreasonable.
*Use descriptors like HD, Full Version, Bonus, put the letter "i" before everything, Pro, etc.
*Offer lots of apps.
*Place images of attractive women next to half of your screenshots (Evony style).
*Make knock-offs of popular games, especially Angry Birds and zombie games.
*Make impossible claims.
*Lie about the size of your fan-base (downloaded over 9 billion times last month).
*Lie about compliments received (praised by National Geographic for being the best mall shopping game of the year).
24.9.11
Process of Design
I wrote down some notes on the design of the movie 1408 as I watched it this week. Its story is utterly predictable: a skeptic who debunks ghost stories finds an actually haunted hotel room. At the same time, it takes that overused plot and turns it into something unique that keeps the viewer interested throughout.
One of the main visual themes is the use of warm lights in safe conditions and a pale blueish green at other times. The movie begins with very warm colors. The hotel room that is supposed to be haunted appears to be very clean and welcoming. One of the first things I noticed about it was that every room seemed to have a dozen lamps casting dynamic light rays up and down the walls. It disrupts the otherwise warm colors by cutting the room apart. What's more, the walls of the room are a strange shade of green that doesn't go well with the orange colors. The effect of this is that the room feels slightly off. The reason for the lamps also becomes obvious as soon as things start shaking the character up. He knocks them over constantly and the lines they cut across the room become extremely chaotic. In other words, the room is designed to be destroyed. Even small things like the sheets on the bed throw the careful balance off.
The camera helps to emphasize the feeling that the hotel room is changing. Throughout the movie, rooms seem to appear from nowhere, often containing old memories of the character's family. These rooms are very brightly lit, slightly foggy as if it were in a freezer, and a pale blueish. In order to facilitate these appearances, the camera never seems to show enough of the rooms to get oriented. When the character arrives in the room, the camera zooms in on the motion and sound of every abrupt motion he makes, like setting down the keys. Already knowing that something is going to go wrong, these motions put the viewer on edge. You know one of them will be the trigger but it actually is put off for an extremely long time. Right from the movie makes you watch for the moment everything goes wrong and you ignore the layout of the hotel around it. The particularly disorienting moments come when the radio turns on at full blast. It is so abrupt that you forget everything that was happening.
While the movie is very consistent in its thrills, it does have breaks every once in awhile. Each one seems almost like an end but you know that it won't be. The music will quiet down and the character will stop fumbling. The colors are often brighter and cleaner at these times. They also occur a lot in the rooms that are added to the hotel, meaning that the only time you have for orienting yourself is useless.
The designer of the movie tried hard to avoid using darkness as part of the scare-factor of the movie. They preferred instead the dynamic lighting of the lamps. There are a few times, though, that they did use darkness very well. The main example is when the character is first entering the room. The lights are off and you see his silhouette moving out into the room. That's when the almost friendly lights come on to reveal the almost friendly room within.
The exterior of the hotel has been distorted to make it seem more isolated. The room is 14 stories up and the ledge outside his window leads only to his window. The side of the building seems, at times, almost like the sides of a castle. All in all it doesn't fit in with the rest of the city around it.
One of the best touches to the movie is the oblivious phone operator. Several times she talks to him on the phone in his room but no matter how many times he yells at her to send help, she replies with a level of concern equal to Hal (I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that). He tries to get the attention of the people in the neighboring rooms, the man across the street, the cars down below, and anyone out in the hall. He almost succeeds but in the end it is always the room playing with his head.
There was one set of camera angles I really liked. When the TV in the corner of his room turned on and began playing a clip of his daughter, the camera was behind the TV, making it seem massive and him small. A few moments later, when he realized what was playing, it was reversed in a shot that showed him as large and revealed that the TV was a small thing in the corner. Another part I really liked was when he finally go ahold of his wife on his laptop only to have the room take over his webcam with another image of him, saying things he didn't want to say.
Whenever his memories and family are brought into the story by the room, he becomes vulnerable. For a short time, the room is destroyed and entirely made up of browns and greys. The only color comes from piercing lights shining through holes in the ceiling (as if the rest of the hotel above him no longer existed). He meets his dead daughter in this place and falls to his knees to hug her. As the viewer, you know the room will never be merciful to him. For a moment, though, there is a small circle of hope and warmth in the hotel among the burnt wood of the surroundings.
Anyway, the movie does a good job of avoiding the typical night-vision camera style that all other paranormal movies now use and the only ghosts that appear in the film are those of the other victims who died in the room. Its characters are believable- even after the inexplicable happens the character explains how it could be done normally- and they make it easier to contrast the emotions of the character to the feeling of the room (in other words, you can actually understand the character. He's not a squealing baby like those found in other horror movies). The colors enhance the sense of isolation and chaos.
One of the main visual themes is the use of warm lights in safe conditions and a pale blueish green at other times. The movie begins with very warm colors. The hotel room that is supposed to be haunted appears to be very clean and welcoming. One of the first things I noticed about it was that every room seemed to have a dozen lamps casting dynamic light rays up and down the walls. It disrupts the otherwise warm colors by cutting the room apart. What's more, the walls of the room are a strange shade of green that doesn't go well with the orange colors. The effect of this is that the room feels slightly off. The reason for the lamps also becomes obvious as soon as things start shaking the character up. He knocks them over constantly and the lines they cut across the room become extremely chaotic. In other words, the room is designed to be destroyed. Even small things like the sheets on the bed throw the careful balance off.
The camera helps to emphasize the feeling that the hotel room is changing. Throughout the movie, rooms seem to appear from nowhere, often containing old memories of the character's family. These rooms are very brightly lit, slightly foggy as if it were in a freezer, and a pale blueish. In order to facilitate these appearances, the camera never seems to show enough of the rooms to get oriented. When the character arrives in the room, the camera zooms in on the motion and sound of every abrupt motion he makes, like setting down the keys. Already knowing that something is going to go wrong, these motions put the viewer on edge. You know one of them will be the trigger but it actually is put off for an extremely long time. Right from the movie makes you watch for the moment everything goes wrong and you ignore the layout of the hotel around it. The particularly disorienting moments come when the radio turns on at full blast. It is so abrupt that you forget everything that was happening.
While the movie is very consistent in its thrills, it does have breaks every once in awhile. Each one seems almost like an end but you know that it won't be. The music will quiet down and the character will stop fumbling. The colors are often brighter and cleaner at these times. They also occur a lot in the rooms that are added to the hotel, meaning that the only time you have for orienting yourself is useless.
The designer of the movie tried hard to avoid using darkness as part of the scare-factor of the movie. They preferred instead the dynamic lighting of the lamps. There are a few times, though, that they did use darkness very well. The main example is when the character is first entering the room. The lights are off and you see his silhouette moving out into the room. That's when the almost friendly lights come on to reveal the almost friendly room within.
The exterior of the hotel has been distorted to make it seem more isolated. The room is 14 stories up and the ledge outside his window leads only to his window. The side of the building seems, at times, almost like the sides of a castle. All in all it doesn't fit in with the rest of the city around it.
One of the best touches to the movie is the oblivious phone operator. Several times she talks to him on the phone in his room but no matter how many times he yells at her to send help, she replies with a level of concern equal to Hal (I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that). He tries to get the attention of the people in the neighboring rooms, the man across the street, the cars down below, and anyone out in the hall. He almost succeeds but in the end it is always the room playing with his head.
There was one set of camera angles I really liked. When the TV in the corner of his room turned on and began playing a clip of his daughter, the camera was behind the TV, making it seem massive and him small. A few moments later, when he realized what was playing, it was reversed in a shot that showed him as large and revealed that the TV was a small thing in the corner. Another part I really liked was when he finally go ahold of his wife on his laptop only to have the room take over his webcam with another image of him, saying things he didn't want to say.
Whenever his memories and family are brought into the story by the room, he becomes vulnerable. For a short time, the room is destroyed and entirely made up of browns and greys. The only color comes from piercing lights shining through holes in the ceiling (as if the rest of the hotel above him no longer existed). He meets his dead daughter in this place and falls to his knees to hug her. As the viewer, you know the room will never be merciful to him. For a moment, though, there is a small circle of hope and warmth in the hotel among the burnt wood of the surroundings.
Anyway, the movie does a good job of avoiding the typical night-vision camera style that all other paranormal movies now use and the only ghosts that appear in the film are those of the other victims who died in the room. Its characters are believable- even after the inexplicable happens the character explains how it could be done normally- and they make it easier to contrast the emotions of the character to the feeling of the room (in other words, you can actually understand the character. He's not a squealing baby like those found in other horror movies). The colors enhance the sense of isolation and chaos.
14.9.11
Deduce
The visuals in the previously mentioned book series are all memorable but I need only one. Here are my thoughts on their visual elements and what I think of them.
Ender's Game Series - This book's visuals are mainly conceptual. In the first game, the best ones to me are either of the war games that the boys trained on, the bugger fleets, or the contrast between high government officials and the young children they were training.
*The author went to great lengths to flesh out all of the elements of the zero-gravity war game, using real strategies and changing things up along the way to challenge Ender. The game took place in large open rooms with floating obstacles and stars which could be used to hide or push off of. Ender helps to establish the idea that there is no floor or ceiling in such an environment and uses his fellow teammate's bodies to form complex moving barriers which would be both awkward and awesome to see. The lack of orientation makes for interesting options for the camera which might flip completely upside down from one moment to the next.
*The buggers are the main antagonist in the first story. They are a race of misunderstood insect-like bugs which had previously attacked Earth. I don't have any particularly strong images in mind for them-there have been so many insect like aliens in movies that it is hardly worth trying- but it may be interesting to make the old outdated training videos from the first war (many years before the time in which the book takes place) to play in the background.
*The age of the main characters is an odd addition to the book and would make for many strange images. Ender was "chosen" by the government and shipped into space for battle training. There he has to quickly learn to defend himself from the physical aggression of older trainees. The adults don't make anything easier for him, pitting him against harder and harder teams in the battle room. Later in the series ages getting even stranger as he meets his sister again after having been sent off in space and aging slower. Ender is middle aged while his older sister is much older. The weirdest difference is when he accidentally brings his older bully of a brother back into the world having not seen him since childhood. These sort of interactions would create thoughtful tensions. The most mature, reasonable, and most suffered character in the book is also the youngest (and not in a disney sort of way).
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - This series is less about imagery built up over the course of the book and more about short bursts of inspiration. There are so many that it is hard to tell which ones are worth expanding on.
*Frogstar Planet B is one of the places I remember most. It is where the total perspective vortex, a device which shows you just how significant you are in the universe and utterly crushes your soul. It is also the victim of the shoe event horizon and as such Zaphod spends some time in a spaceship that has been delayed seemingly indefinitely. If I remember right, the passengers would wake up to be fed and would immediately start screaming. I think there is a lot of potential in designing a device with such devastatingly depressing power. It is much like a sci-fi version of the leather dentist chair in the asylum.
*Arthur's house and the Heart of Gold, the spaceship he would later travel in, are done good enough in the movie and I don't have much to add to them.
*The home of the ruler of the universe is a disappointingly small place. The ruler doesn't know anything about the outside world and lives with his cat, alone on an isolated planet. He has issues accepting anything as real and generally does what he wants and says what he feels. He is about as unfit for ruling as one could be.
*A large ship Arthur and Ford found themselves stuck on was filled with the frozen bodies of one third of the population of a people who were relocating. They stumble into packs of people jogging around the ship for exercise before eventually finding the captain. The captain basically lives in his bathtub and fills them in on their situation. Their planet was threatened by a mutant star goat so they sent the population out in three ships. This ship contained all the useless people who fell for this explanation. The ship later crashed into a planet where they used leaves for currency and were generally unable to survive on their own. The mutant star goat makes me think of several interesting possibilities for images.
*There are dozens of other characters and places whose names alone are interesting enough to use. Maybe the mattress creatures or the creatures who believe that if you can't see them, they can't see you.\
His Dark Materials - As I mentioned before, it's been a while since I read this series. I do remember a few settings from it though.
*The cold snowy regions in the book have a few locations I remember. The polar bear kingdom is pretty unique, especially the fighting between armored bears. There is also the camp where daemons were separated from their children and a few other places.
*The cities in the book have different feels to them as well. The main character grows up in an academic area if I think. There was a river town where boats were more a part of the society. There was even an area where daemons weren't visible (like our world).
*The realm of the dead was a vast land stuffed with souls and guarded by harpies.
*I really don't remember most of the images in the book. This one is clearly ruled out (though I could always listen to it again).
The Old Kingdom (Abhorsen) Series - This book has lots of imaginative settings and concepts. I've also never seen any movies or art based on it aside from the covers. The covers are actually useful in that they give a good idea of the characters and the feel. The world is a parallel to ours in a way. Magic works only in the Old Kingdom but not in Ancelstierre, making it very similar to ours.
*The first book starts at an academy in Ancelstierre. The site is later attacked by the dead which come in with a dense fog. Unlike typical zombie stories, the dead in this book are under the control of necromancers and they continue to fight until their bodies are too weak to hold together. The defenders used guns and other normal weapons but they did little to the dead.
*Death, in this series, is a river with nine levels. Each level has different obstacles and ways to pull the dead down towards ultimate death. Necromancers and the greater dead are able to fight against the current and necromancers often raise them. The Abhorsen is basically a good version of a necromancer, putting the dead back into death using a set of bells which make the dead walk when they are heard (and the abhorsen too if used improperly).
*Throughout the Old Kingdom are powerful forcers bound and hidden away. The biggest of these was bound in two hemispheres that were then separated, buried, and forgotten. Eventually another necromancer got together a force of dead and excavated them. This was the ultimate conflict in the series.
*The Claire are seers who live in a glacier. They aren't overly confident psychics or anything. The more magical energy in an area, the harder it is to see. The Claire go in groups to try to see something about what they are looking for. Lirael was a girl there who never got the sight (a coming-of-age among the Claire). After nearly committing suicide in her sadness, she gets a job at a library. She is abnormally clever and soon learns to enable certain restricted bonds on her library key and secretly gets access to areas of the library that have been closed for many years. The mysteries she finds there offer numerous images.
*The Old Kingdom often incorporates magic in place of mechanics, sometimes surpassing it and sometimes falling short (mechanical airplanes vs. magically lifted paper planes). It is a dangerous place where the dead are often raised. The border into the Old Kingdom is patrolled by soldiers in Ancelstierre.
*The cold snowy regions in the book have a few locations I remember. The polar bear kingdom is pretty unique, especially the fighting between armored bears. There is also the camp where daemons were separated from their children and a few other places.
*The cities in the book have different feels to them as well. The main character grows up in an academic area if I think. There was a river town where boats were more a part of the society. There was even an area where daemons weren't visible (like our world).
*The realm of the dead was a vast land stuffed with souls and guarded by harpies.
*I really don't remember most of the images in the book. This one is clearly ruled out (though I could always listen to it again).
The Old Kingdom (Abhorsen) Series - This book has lots of imaginative settings and concepts. I've also never seen any movies or art based on it aside from the covers. The covers are actually useful in that they give a good idea of the characters and the feel. The world is a parallel to ours in a way. Magic works only in the Old Kingdom but not in Ancelstierre, making it very similar to ours.
*The first book starts at an academy in Ancelstierre. The site is later attacked by the dead which come in with a dense fog. Unlike typical zombie stories, the dead in this book are under the control of necromancers and they continue to fight until their bodies are too weak to hold together. The defenders used guns and other normal weapons but they did little to the dead.
*Death, in this series, is a river with nine levels. Each level has different obstacles and ways to pull the dead down towards ultimate death. Necromancers and the greater dead are able to fight against the current and necromancers often raise them. The Abhorsen is basically a good version of a necromancer, putting the dead back into death using a set of bells which make the dead walk when they are heard (and the abhorsen too if used improperly).
*Throughout the Old Kingdom are powerful forcers bound and hidden away. The biggest of these was bound in two hemispheres that were then separated, buried, and forgotten. Eventually another necromancer got together a force of dead and excavated them. This was the ultimate conflict in the series.
*The Claire are seers who live in a glacier. They aren't overly confident psychics or anything. The more magical energy in an area, the harder it is to see. The Claire go in groups to try to see something about what they are looking for. Lirael was a girl there who never got the sight (a coming-of-age among the Claire). After nearly committing suicide in her sadness, she gets a job at a library. She is abnormally clever and soon learns to enable certain restricted bonds on her library key and secretly gets access to areas of the library that have been closed for many years. The mysteries she finds there offer numerous images.
*The Old Kingdom often incorporates magic in place of mechanics, sometimes surpassing it and sometimes falling short (mechanical airplanes vs. magically lifted paper planes). It is a dangerous place where the dead are often raised. The border into the Old Kingdom is patrolled by soldiers in Ancelstierre.
Conclusion: The Old Kingdom
I think the two books that give me the most ideas out of these four are The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Abhorsen series, the first because it has so many points to expand on and the second because it has a lot of interesting visuals. I think I prefer the Old Kingdom series. It's pretty fresh in my mind too. With the Hitchhiker's Guide, most of the joke has already been made by Douglas Adams anyway.
5.9.11
Story Time
I must admit.
As I've gotten older, I've read fewer and fewer books. Now, I read only a few a year. Reading, as I've come to see it, is a horribly inefficient activity. If my eyes are busy, I really can't get much done with the rest of my senses (excepting taste). Besides, you see stories through your mind's eye anyway, your externals add nothing.
Despite feeling this way, I probably gotten through just as many books, if not more, than anyone else. According to my iTunes, I've listened to 40 days of audiobooks in just the past few years. Audiobooks take up one of my lesser senses, my ears, leaving me free to do 40 days worth of other activities. I probably made the switch back when I would spend hours building LEGOs while listening to cassette tapes. I listen while doing chores, when walking, when biking, when modeling, and pretty much any other moment I have to myself.
One result of listening to books rather than reading them is that I listen almost exclusively to fiction. Audio provides voices for my mind to remember and connect to characters so it is only natural that they improve stories more than something like a textbook. It's sometimes odd when you hear these narrators pop up in other stories but the feeling goes away after the story grows on you.
A few of the greats.
It turns out that my favorite stories are actually series. Strangely enough, the first two series I actually read before I listened to them. Those two had particularly notable narrators who I think made them even better than they already were. I've reread a few of them, though I badly want to read all of them again. I have to force myself to wait so that they are just as good the next time around. Here are my favorites.
1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Clearly the best book ever written, the version I listened was read by the author, Douglas Adams, completing the British humor package. It's the kind of book that manages to pull together one of the most mind boggling twisty plots by means of "making stuff up until it works". Authors often talk about how readers might read their books differently than they intend, but when the author reads it to you, you get all the emotions they meant it to have. It's the difference between a script and a play. Visually speaking, there are enough aliens, planets, ships, and robots to come up with a new image for each page.
2. Abhorsen Trilogy - This series is also set in England, giving it a bit of that British feel, though it's not a comedy. I listened to it narrated by Tim Curry, one of the most recognizable voices out there. The books focus on a different kind of hero, a sort of reverse-necromancer that brings the dead back into death via a set of bells while double-reverse necromancers (ie. necromancers) bring them back up. It integrates a healthy amount of reality into its fantasy and chooses female leads (also a rather fresh addition it seems). The imagery of the books is very unique, from the libraries and viewing rooms of the Claire in their glacier to the fogs rolling past the academy where the military has holed up as the dead approach to the Abhorsen's house in the middle of a river perched above a massive waterfall.
3. Ender's Game series - This series is a bit like Artemis Fowl but the genius feels even more rewarding. The first book follows a young boy genius, Ender, who is abducted, trained, and abused to make him ready to save the Earth from the buggers. The later books further examine his psyche as he, in exile, tries to make right everything he blames himself for. The plots are very cleverly written and the characters feel real. It even invents a space-age sport before systematically showing how to beat it. The settings are reasonable rather than outlandish (a habit of sci-fi books). More than any other book I've read, it goes to great efforts to describe exactly how its seemingly magic technologies work.
4. His Dark Materials - Probably better known by its first book, the Golden Compass, this series had a really good plot and a world that made me want to live in it. It includes its own ideas about life and the afterlife as well as daemons, basically a physical embodiment of the soul in the form of an animal that goes everywhere with you. They're basically super pets. I can tell by the deteriorating state of facts in my head regarding the exact plot that it is almost time to read the series again, something I'm looking forward to as of now. I would have to agree with the cover of the movie that Iorek Byrnison in his armor (he's a massive polar bear) is one of the most memorable images of the book.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
A Grand Introduction
This is me.
This is the part where you ask me what I think of snow and all that cold weather stuff.
My reply is to explain that I lived in the hills of northern Pennsylvania for my first 16 years and I much prefer it. It's nice not to sweat through your shirt when you go turn the garden hose off in the backyard.
Here I am.
I'm attending RIT for 3D Digital Graphics, a major which (officially) came into being the year I arrived. I'm now in my third year and am glad to have finished up my liberal arts classes, allowing me to focus more on 3D. Though I've compiled a list of industries the skills I'm learning are useful for, (gaming and movies, of course, but also medical, military, architecture, engineering, and just about any science you can imagine at this point) I still don't know exactly where I'll land. I'd prefer it to be somewhere soft, like in the grass or in a lake somewhere.
What I am that isn't me.
I do quite a lot of things. I'm doing several right now. But when I'm not doing those things, I'll probably have found something else to do anyway.
*One of the more unusual things I do is to tend to my herd of myotonic goats (fainting goats). I never go out of my way to faint them (unless I need pictures of them fainted to register them) because they faint so much on their own. They eventually learn to spread their legs out so they'll remain standing (most of the time) and the boys are so stocky (packing my own weight into an animal that is still shorter than my waist) that they become immovable tables when they faint.
*More things I do when I'm off doing include biking and hiking, collecting and building meaningless items out of useless junk, playing guitar, and consuming copious amounts of oxygen throughout the day.
One of Many Ends.
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