David Fincher’s Thoughts on Digital

I like the fact that there’s no guilt, you can just delete stuff. If something’s not worth the time that it took for everyone to say it, you can just go beep and it’s gone. So I like the plastic nature of how I’m able to work in digital.

…. Also, you have a giant monitor that everybody, from the boom operator to the makeup artist to the actors to the dolly grip – everybody’s looking at the same thing: this is the final, release print, it’s not going to change. And everyone can see, that shit’s out of focus, or her eyelash is coming off in the middle of that take, or she’s got a spot on her teeth.

…. And also, I hate voodoo. I hate the whole thing that you’re going to see seven out of eight takes that are out of focus, and somebody’s going to say, “But that last one’s pretty good.” And you can say, “When you’re directing your movie, you can get one out of eight takes.” No, as a way of working, I prefer having dailies in your lap, rather than waiting to see how much you hate everything you did.

 

Source Guardian

Among the dark news of environmental disasters, corruption, and human tragedy, I write to share that thiscoming Saturday more than 100 Afghan artists will give away 10,000 pink balloons to the citizens of Kabul.  The artists—filmmakers, painters, musicians, photographers and crafters of traditional arts— are preparing to take part in the largest public art installation to ever take place in Afghanistan.  This coming Saturdaymorning (May 25) they will be arming 10,000 citizens in the heart of the capital with pink balloons.  Our headquarters will be the historic Park-e-Timur Shahi in the heart of the city.   The orchestration has already taken place in India, Japan, and Kenya. Every city has been selected for its rich cultural history and its current state as a hive of creativity.  Furthermore, in each location the project has taken into account the social challenges of the city hoping to address them in a constructive manner focusing on creativity as a way of moving forward.   Our commercials announcing that this orchestration is coming to Kabul began to air today nationally in Pashto and Dari (broadcasted by Tolo and Lemar TV) and can be viewed here: YouTube. The funding for this project comes from individuals from around the world who believe in art and culture as a way of moving forward—and not war.  Thus far, more than 5,000 people from 43 countries have participated.  Their smiles can be seen on the campaign’s website at webelieveinballoons.com.   You can also learn more about my body of work here. If you are interested in covering this story you can reach me via email or call me directly at 0797360052.  I thank you in advance for your time and consideration,  Yazmany Here’s a nice counter to a lot of the bad news that has been coming out of Kabul. Passing along the good news from a friend of a friend. High-res

Among the dark news of environmental disasters, corruption, and human tragedy, I write to share that thiscoming Saturday more than 100 Afghan artists will give away 10,000 pink balloons to the citizens of Kabul. 
The artists—filmmakers, painters, musicians, photographers and crafters of traditional arts— are preparing to take part in the largest public art installation to ever take place in Afghanistan.  This coming Saturdaymorning (May 25) they will be arming 10,000 citizens in the heart of the capital with pink balloons.  Our headquarters will be the historic Park-e-Timur Shahi in the heart of the city.  
The orchestration has already taken place in India, Japan, and Kenya. Every city has been selected for its rich cultural history and its current state as a hive of creativity.  Furthermore, in each location the project has taken into account the social challenges of the city hoping to address them in a constructive manner focusing on creativity as a way of moving forward.  
Our commercials announcing that this orchestration is coming to Kabul began to air today nationally in Pashto and Dari (broadcasted by Tolo and Lemar TV) and can be viewed here: YouTube.
The funding for this project comes from individuals from around the world who believe in art and culture as a way of moving forward—and not war.  Thus far, more than 5,000 people from 43 countries have participated.  Their smiles can be seen on the campaign’s website at webelieveinballoons.com.  
You can also learn more about my body of work here.
If you are interested in covering this story you can reach me via email or call me directly at 0797360052. 
I thank you in advance for your time and consideration, 
Yazmany
Here’s a nice counter to a lot of the bad news that has been coming out of Kabul. Passing along the good news from a friend of a friend.

“1: Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2: Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3: Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
4: When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5: Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6: Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7: Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8: Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9: Be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.”

AriomblrReblogged from Ariomblr

Bertrand Russell’s Ten Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy | Open Culture (via ario) I’m sure I’ve re-blogged this before. I have a copy of this posted on my office door. (via notational)

(via kenyatta)

Source openculture.com

timmcfarlane: digitalfaun: SOURCE: Forbes.com This is all kinds of scary. Yahoo are obsessed with acquisitions of sites that execute services better as a way of getting you to use their product. The death sentence that was handed to Flickr through Yahoo’s integration is a prime example of how fast things can go a-wry in a simple business move.  It’s hard to fault David Karp if that number is really true though. A guy that never finished high school to making a billion dollar business deal is difficult to root against but I do hope that he holds up to his word when he discussed the possibility of a buyout in Forbes’ December issue as mentioned in the above source article. He didn’t want to get “absorbed into a behemoth of another company and raided for talent and traffic.” But he also mentioned being open to “acquisitions that leave the company alone….There are a lot of paths for us.” Yahoo’s integration strategy is rarely a case of attempting to get their current audience to use their new product, rather the reverse, ill-fated attempts at trying to push their current services on the existing users of a new acquisition.  Not thrilled about this news, but it probably makes good business sense for Karp. I guess it’s just “wait and see” time… David Karp’s spent as much time as anyone on this site helping to make it what it is. So before everyone freaks out that Tumblr will become another zombie site, let’s wait and see what actually happens. Give the guy the benefit of the doubt, speculation is for haters. High-res

digitalfaunReblogged from digitalfaun

timmcfarlane:

digitalfaun:

SOURCE: Forbes.com

This is all kinds of scary. Yahoo are obsessed with acquisitions of sites that execute services better as a way of getting you to use their product. The death sentence that was handed to Flickr through Yahoo’s integration is a prime example of how fast things can go a-wry in a simple business move. 

It’s hard to fault David Karp if that number is really true though. A guy that never finished high school to making a billion dollar business deal is difficult to root against but I do hope that he holds up to his word when he discussed the possibility of a buyout in Forbes’ December issue as mentioned in the above source article.

He didn’t want to get “absorbed into a behemoth of another company and raided for talent and traffic.” But he also mentioned being open to “acquisitions that leave the company alone….There are a lot of paths for us.”


Yahoo’s integration strategy is rarely a case of attempting to get their current audience to use their new product, rather the reverse, ill-fated attempts at trying to push their current services on the existing users of a new acquisition. 

Not thrilled about this news, but it probably makes good business sense for Karp. I guess it’s just “wait and see” time…

David Karp’s spent as much time as anyone on this site helping to make it what it is. So before everyone freaks out that Tumblr will become another zombie site, let’s wait and see what actually happens. Give the guy the benefit of the doubt, speculation is for haters.

Source digitalfaun

director jeffrey zablotnyReblogged from director jeffrey zablotny

zablotny:

‘photos every day’

this is a spot by tbwa/chiat/day for apple, called ‘photos every day’.  the craft is fantastic, and there’s some subtle, unusual attention to detail in it.

let’s take a look at the sound mix.  here’s a waveform of the spot:

and now here’s the waveform of a conventionally mixed spot — this is that ‘old spice’ commercial everyone flipped out for a couple years ago.  it might as well be any ad you see on tv today.

huge difference.  there’s incredible restraint in the amount of compression applied to the music in ‘photos every day’.  (from wikipedia, compression “reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or “compressing” an audio signal’s dynamic range”.)  my point here is that if you caught this on tv, it would be substantially ‘quieter’ sounding than other ads around it.

the other interesting thing about the mix is that the iPhone shutter click sound is substantially undermixed.  it comes across as incidental, and unobtrusive.  the ambiences are the real star here, and the sound editor wasn’t even afraid to drop them out entirely for effect (see snowy skyscraper, 0:23).

(via ericmortensen)

Source zablotny