Random Thoughts for the Day:

[Welles]

is like rendering a bunch of perfectly reflective spheres, you know?

You got a problem with that?

[Gare]

Hey Spinner—

You really want a mind-numbing, idiotic position? In addition to your current gig?



I don't think so. I think you want to elevate the standard and eliminate that position entirely.

We can begin by using our native language a little more precisely.

Okay, a lot more precisely.

Like many tools, language loses its sharpness—and with it, its capability to make a point—with generalities, deceit, compromise, all that good stuff used to dull its edge.

You speak and listen "fuzzy" and eventually you begin to think "fuzzy". Most of the Marketing professionals (?) I've ever met fall into one (perhaps both) of two mindsets:

• They're exceptionally clever and perceptive, but use these skills for personal gain, not for promoting the idea or product they were hired to promote.

• They're 22, have a Masters and an uncle in the business, and think they are in the Creative Department of an ad agency instead of Marketing. There's a big difference: a good Marketing person is the Producer to the Creative professional's Director, if you templated motion picture roles onto the hierarchy of advertising.

I'd personally like to remove the word "key" from our language to get away from the ambiguity we're faced with today. "Key" means three entirely different things in cinematography along!

Next, I'd like to shuck the term "3D" to describe the result of modeling, lighting, setting up cameras, applying textures, and finally rendering a scene. Graphics.com has a huge gallery of artists' work that they call the 3D Gallery. It's not: it's a collection of renders, overall no better or worse in quality than galleries with Photoshop and illustration work. Not one of them is 3 dimensional, any more than a painting by one of The Masters hanging in the Met or the Louvre.

I suggest that "a sense of depth" is a much more apt phrase to describe the result of a good rendering session performed on a modeled scene.

"Wow! That looks really 3D!"
Nope. It looks photometrically plausible, but you didn't get out of its way or try to shake hands with it, now, did you?
"This is great! This Poser model looks totally real!"
Doubtful. Aside from the breasts being too large, the rendered scene probably shows elements of photorealism, but not realism. "Realism" means "real".

Everyone uses slang. Most of us shorthand when we speak. But eventually, a though or idea becomes blurry because we are too lazy to explain ourselves with the right choice of words.

It doesn't make our words wrong. It just creates very sloppy perception over the course of time. Like believing that if a foodstuff is good, adding Calcium will make it better. Or that by adding 3D (ouch!), you can make a movie better.

Trick lies in the word "better". Suggest "more salable", just for the sake of accuracy?

[Gare]

is like rendering a bunch of perfectly reflective spheres, you know?

You got a problem with that?

Larger than you can imagine, Welles.

[Welles]

Me Too!

[Gare]

Nice colors, tho'.

[Raven Song]

...okay, that's a pretty spooky emoti...
This spoof turned out even spookier

[Gare]

I'm with you in spirit, Maya...

Ga're.jpg

[Spinland]

Even on Pandora they have good taste in beer.

Ma'rk_500.jpg

[Raven Song]

Careful with those -- Hahahahahahaha!!! Those are great, you guys! Where's We'lles? Where's Ni'kkie? There's almost enough for a Pandoran spinoff.
---Ma'ya

[Gare]

Here's a thought, a "cheap" one, concerning the most-assured sequel:

(BTW, Variety magazine posted a carefully-stated Help Wanted for crew and technicians earlier this month, and Cameron makes no secret about the sequel)

Quaritch wasn't killed at the end. He went planetside in an avatar of himself. The Corporation has got to value "talent" enough to grow clones of their best, evangelical military commanders, no?

So he's back in the sequel.

Again, just a "cheap" thought about dramatic conflicts in Avatar II. I'd prefer to explore Pandora some more in the sequel—we no nothing about the other clans, the desert Na'vi, the ocean Na'vi...Cameron gave himself a world of legroom to grow the franchise!

-g-

[Spinland]

Interesting idea. He was a rather picture-perfect villain.

After the first flush of victory Jake is certain to rise up as the new tribal leader--a tribe without a home, that's lost many of its best and brightest in the battle, and with an implacable enemy with deep pockets that only needs to bombard strategic targets from orbit, out of reach. They'll know better than to get close again.

I see hard times ahead for The People.

[Gare]

I'm struck with a profound sense of comparison between Myst—in timbre and approach—and Avatar. And would prefer to spend my disposable income following and adventure, light on the obvious, classical sort of conflict.

Actually, a lot of the criticism of Avatar was that the element of conflict—which follows the art of story-telling to before the spoken word (!)—at least with Avatar was that is was an overly-simplistic morality play. And this particular moral—Universal Defoliation—deserves a more complex unraveling. A little more shade of grey? A little more of Dave Mason's, "There aren't no Good Guys, there aren't no Bad Guys..."

If we Fanboys and girls are to preserve what has just become a modern legend, we need to get our heads around that demonic element of equivocation in decision-making. Did we care at all that innocent grunts from Earth were dispatched? No, we cheered!

If Cameron can write it, I'd like to see a more tangled web of conflict in sequels. Naturally, he needs to pack it with action or it won't sell, but how about this? He writes the screenplay along with:

•M. Night Shyamalan-Who understands the dynamics of the classical three-part play better than anyone in Hollwood.

•Nicholas Meyer—Who is the Author's Chameleon. He can write in the authentic style of Arthur Conan Doyle, he did a wonderful, unsuccessful flick with H.G. Welles tracking down Jack the Ripper in Time, he saved the Star Trek motion picture franchise with Wrath of Kahn by making this sequel more Trekkie, more of a human plot. He understands Humanity in Outer Space and writes very clever dialog.

•Terry Pratchett-Just for laughs. Seriously, he's the Crowned Prince of Obsurdity when it comes to fantasy tales, and can always reel the reader back in with a profound observation. I'm certain he's the illegitimate father of Douglas Adams.

I'd want to tip Mr. Pratchett in—and I'm dreaming because he's afflicted with a sort of Alzheimer's now—because he'd do something interesting we could relate to as Jake now has his new 10 ft. tall body. Remember how we all laughed when Chris Reeve in the first Superman went dashing for a telephone booth to find they've all been replaced with boxes on polls? This sort of thing, this witty commentary on man versus his own creations. He also captures our blindly stupid moments and makes us content with them through humor.

I wanted Jake to say something a little more earthy than "This is great!" the first time he links up. What would you say? Honestly? In four letters or less?

As Cameron takes us light years away from home, I want a little humanity to cling to, like Linus' comfort blanket, if only as window dressing in the sequel.

-g-

[Spinland]

On a much more personal and less happy note, I finally got enough of my shit together to say goodbye to my friend Jerry.

http://spinrants.spinland.biz/?p=219

[Gare]

Good for you, Spinner.

We often mistake "catharsis" for something bad, or "venting", when it's what purges the poison from our souls so we can face another day of horror with a laugh.

Is the golf klatch going to have that salute? You know I'm good for a toast.

-g-

[Spinland]

We probably will, when enough time has passed. Your toast will be among them.