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District 9 ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Generally when studios release very cryptic trailers to an upcoming film, a spectatorship amounts in trying to interpret the vague parts to something that we know little about but seems jaw-dropping enough to consider despite a prevalent plot. We all love alien films.
Alien invasion motif is nothing new but District 9 fully changed my perspective of what one typically expect from such films and it brought it down to a more understanding level. Rather than humans being the overpowered victims, it’s quite the opposite where the aliens are the non-aggresive refugees and they are being marginalized in Johannesburg, South Africa.
I love that the film doesn’t bore you with the conventional first encounter or arrival of aliens to earth but instead picks up on that “what if” thought that I’ve had in knowing what cultural impact aliens would have if they lived here.
The apartheid metaphor is more than obvious and in the middle of all the guns and explosions, there’s quite some sentimental moments that have you rooting for the other species. Twenty years the aliens have been on earth and what’s interesting is in how humans have already adapted to their complex language, culture and now just look to exploit their weapon technology.
The pseudo documentary style that characterized Cloverfield makes the film so authentic in combination with news footage and security cameras that blend in quite nicely. I really enjoyed District 9 and I anticipate in seeing more of this form of mockumentary in Hollywood.
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Photographer Spotlight: Brandon King
Born as James Brandon King but he would equally respond to being called BK is a photographer from Brooklyn, New York. When he’s not out capturing candid moments and friends he’s hard at work continuing to develop his own thing and shooting freelance. He also keeps things fresh with his photos over at wordbk.
1. How would you define your photographic style?
Well a little more than a year ago it would have been simply capture everything but I feel like I’ve pulled back on that greatly. I shoot now with a very focused purpose of telling a story. No matter if it is a single portrait, a series of 3 or 5 about the evening at a friends rooftop or with 20 photos from the photo booths I set up at house parties.
2. What does your camera equipment consist of?
My beloved Canon 5D. I remember when I upgraded from the 20D, it was the happiest subway trip back from Calumet
- iPhone
- Canon G9
- Mamiya C220. This is a square medium format. I love the way it feels in my hands. I don’t shoot with a lot but i keep rolls and rolls of black and white film just incase.
- Linhof Technica 4x5. I just recently started pulling this out for Polaroid 55s. It’s just to bad a pack cost as much as a small human baby.
- 24-70mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4 (my most used), 85mm 1.4, 16-35mm 2.8 L (i recently sold this but i realized it was a mistake and will get it again), 70 - 200 2.8 usm
- generic brand remote trigger
- two Elinchrom compact heads
- two White Lightening 1600ss
- a couple Pocket Wizards Pluses
- several light modifiers including my favorite, the Elinchrom Ocotobox
- Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod legs
- Manfrotto 468MGC2 ball head
3. What’s your post-production software of choice?
Lightroom. It is just the absolute best. I have a ton of developing presets that help me get work out super quick. I keep separate libraries for each year dating back to 05 and one for my huge archive of old film snap shots (scanmyphotos.com is an excellent choice to get all those old 4x6s into you computer). I also separate my paying jobs from my personal work.
4. Are you considering any equipment upgrades in the future?
Two. The 5DM2 and a new computer to handle the big files and video.
5. Share with us you proudest photograph?
I was still in school shooting and designing for a little local magazine. I went to shoot an Erykah Badu concert and afterwards a friend invited me back for a quick session with just me and her. I’ve never been so nervous! I shot one roll of black and white and one of color with my trusty Canon Rebel 2000, a kit lens and some cheap ttl flash. I love it because it just shows that no matter how much of a gear freak I can be or how badly I just need the latest and greatest, the only thing you really need is light, a subject and a way to record it.
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The Evolution Experience
StillMotion is a small studio composed of a unique team of artists that design some of the most amazing DSLR films I’ve ever seen. They specialize mostly in wedding events but not limited to it and what’s captivating about their work is not so much the equipment they use but in how every piece they create tells a beautiful story in the most stylish and moving way.
I’ve spent hours looking at each of their well composed videos in Vimeo and I guarantee there’s at least one camera technique or approach towards filming that you can walk away learning.
They recently put together a premiere personal workshop called The Evolution Experience for those want to study and learn the craft behind the unique wedding films they produce and aside from the fee, there’s only one more requirement for participating and that is that “you are very passionate about what you do, open to new things, and very motivated to push yourself further.”
There’s a section in video that stood out for me:
There’s this misconception in our industry that it takes forever, that it takes years to become a better shooter, a better editor, a better storyteller but in reality it doesn’t have to take years. All it is is that you have to start seeing things in a different way.
They majority of their films are achieved with the Canon MKII, lots of 50mm, 24mm, and 70-200mm lens, all slider shots with the Pegasus from Cinevate and steadicam shots done with the Flyer.
My favorite piece is not wedding related. It’s the one entitled The F8 Summit.
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The difference between you and a blog isn’t the writing, or how fast you get the news, or how big you are, or even how deep your pockets are … but how much people trust you. This trust is huge, actually, because it means when others might break the news before you, people will still want you to confirm that it’s true.
– Leo Babauta on 8 Valuable Lessons Newspapers Must Learn From Bloggers to Survive. I think Gruber’s writing is an ideal example to this statement. Regardless of who has linked to a hot topic, I’m always eager to read his take on the subject and the same holds true to any blogger who writes passionately about any topic. -
The Case for Effective Archives
The beauty of visiting bookstores is that there’s no set rules as to what you can do with the material as long as you don’t walk out not paying or destroy their property. You essentially escort yourself through long tranquil aisles, plucking out any title that seems intriguing, you peruse a couple pages and if any material is worth exploring more, you instinctively flip to the table of contents to examine what else the book has to offer.
With luck, the bookstore will have made a sale in view that everything you sought to look into was captivating enough to purchase the book. You committed yourself to it and this process is not too different when deciding to explore a blog.
Making them Explorable
When you develop a connection with an article on a blog, you feel compelled to review older entries through the Archives. A well designed Archives page is not only functional but also visually exciting and distinctive and when it’s not, the experience is just disappointing.
Consider the Archives page the table of contents of a book and if the reader is not able to locate relevant information that should provide an image of how the blog is organized, that alone makes it easy to lose interest and not buy the book as mentioned before.
There’s a reason behind the existence of so many great Wordpress plugins catered specifically for the Archives. The principal one being is that they are inherently plain and boring to look at so they require a little sprucing to make it easy to navigate and explore effectively.
Archives on Tumblr
One of the changes Tumblr made with version 5 was to enhance the quirky way in which the platform displayed its Archives and despite it’s refinement, it’s far from anything pleasing to go through especially if someone exceeds 60 or more post in a month.
Granted I use Tumblr and I love for the most part every feature that’s been released lately but can you see yourself going these cluster of boxes trying to find content worth reading? I don’t. There are distinguishing elements between each box to giving you a sense of what each is and what lies ahead before clicking on them but not to a point where it’s inviting to do so.
Simplistic & Attractive Archives
I probably should have taken the extra time to develop a mockup of how I envision the Tumblr Archives to look like but to give you a sense of what a simplistic and attractive archives page to me looks like, consider the following in no particular order:
- Ordered List: perfectly displays post titles and dates. As an added bonus, the presence of live search sweetens the deal.
- Justin Blanton: creator of WP plugin Smart Archives and he employs his quite nicely.
- Michael Mistretta: straightforward, intelligently organized along with sweet mini-icons to distinguish between a post and a link.
There is a hack that claims to display your Tumblr archives fancier but it falls short to me. Hopefully on Tumblr’s list of “things to improve for the platform”, the Archives is there somewhere.
