The State of AI Art
Amazing, scary, and world-changing, especially for creatives. If you’d like to see some of the A.I. art I've been making, check out my A.I. Artwork Gallery.
Back to the Theater
At least two movies are on my “must see in a theater” list.
Conspirituality
Unfortunately, like many people, I've lost some friends to the current political climate. A surprising number of those are people I never would have even argued with before. They were seemingly open minded, peaceful, even reasonable. Did I share all their beliefs in crystals and energy healing and past lives? No.
But we found common ground. That seems to have all but slipped away. Why did some of the most live and let live people become attached to such a toxic movement like QAnon?
Drury Lane
About 10 years ago we started production on a film called Drury Lane. It was written and directed by my friend and mentor, Lynne Van Dam.
I was one of the cinematographers, one of the editors, as well as one of the actors in the movie. We were a small film that dreamed big and everybody wore multiple hats.
Working on Drury Lane was a long, sometimes difficult journey but I feel lucky for the experience and to work with so many super talented people: our wonderful actors, including our star, Kristen Murphy, our awesome camera people, our fabulous crew, my co-editor (as well as our music composer!), Alex Harris, and of course, our amazing writer, producer and director, Lynne.
Because of a music licensing hiccup, it looked like the release of this film would be limited to festivals only. Thankfully this has been resolved, and Drury Lane is now available to rent or buy on Vimeo.
Richard Dawkins Interview
Fascinating talk with Richard Dawkins about politics and religion, both in the US and the UK. This feels so unlike most discussions we get on American television.
We did start as a secular nation, despite what the "God fearing patriots" currently in power might say. I hope one day we'll elect an atheist or even agnostic president but I fear it will not be in my lifetime.
Blood Machines
I remember first coming across Seth Ickerman’s “Turbo Killer” a while back and being totally blown away. This grindhouse-style music video is for the French synthwave artist Carpenter Brut, whose tracks are a mix of heavy metal horror and 80’s-style synths, and it is absolutely beautiful. Seth Ickerman is actually a pseudonym for the filmmaker duo Raphaël Hernandez and Savitri Joly Gonfard. So I was a bit disappointed that I completely missed their Kickstarter campaign to create a feature(ish)-length film based in the Turbo Killer universe. That film, Blood Machines, looks to be near completion, and just dropped a new trailer. Holy eyegasm. These guys know how to paint the cinematic canvas. I will gladly give these French madmen my money if they ever decide to go the crowdfunding route again.
Age of Resistance
If you have any nostalgia or good feelings for the 1982 film that this series is based on; I urge you to check out Age of Resistance. It is still a puppet show, so if you can't get past that, this is not for you. But if you can suspend your disbelief, this show will amaze you. I feel like it's one of the few recent projects based on Jim Henson's ideas that he would be truly proud of. So good.
Premiere Pro Downgrader
Does this look familiar? If so, you may want to try PPDG, a free Premiere Pro project downgrader for macOS 10.8 and later. If you edit with this software, you’ll know its project files have no backward compatibility. This utility avoids that by simply changing a value in the .prproj file’s xml code, so that Premiere will attempt to load the project, rather than giving you the error message below. If you are a Premiere Pro editor and use a Mac, take a look.
Trusted Sources
The people who complain the most about the mainstream media would make the world's worst journalists. Good grief... Does anybody fact check before sharing on Facebook anymore? To put it bluntly, most people's "trusted sources" suck. At best, they are serial memers playing a game of telephone and at worst they destroying the importance of facts. Remember that whole glass houses metaphor? If you are peddler of lies on social media, intentional or not, you have no authority to talk about the mainstream media.
But if you’re interested in actually doing some fact checking before you share that FB post, here is a site that may be helpful:
It's Not A Moon
I don't know how I haven't seen this until now but this is a masterpiece.
The News Hasn't Happened Yet
David Firth of Salad Fingers fame is still making the stuff of nightmares. It's just a little bit closer to reality now. I think this is some of the best work.
Blue Moonlight
I thought this was an interesting article about a common color grading convention: making night scenes look blue. It's more about how we as humans perceive light than it is about accuracy.
Tobe Hooper
I had to share this great video essay on an extremely underrated director.
Oliver Reed and David Letterman
What a delightful bit of absurdist theater this is; a spectacular example of Letterman in his comedic prime. His responses to the off the wall and out of his mind Reed are genius. This is the type of interview I would fall asleep to in junior high. This was Late Night with David Letterman.
dropFFish 1.32
I've released another revision of dropFFish, my GUI for using FFmpeg and other CLI video encoders. If you work in MacOS and need to convert some video, you might want to give it a shot. Download it here.
Hot Wheels
This Hot Wheels stunt video turned me into a giddy schoolboy. The track design is impressive enough but then throw in some sweet slow motion footage as well as a very cool GoPro POV shot and now I'm just a little sorry I gave away my collection so long ago.
If You're Woke I'd Rather Be Asleep
Jesus. I just spent way to much time on a comment thread discussing MKUltra with a conspiracy theorist friend. I followed her down her very deep paranoid rabbit hole. On Facebook. And I mean she is ALL in. Lizard people? Check. Chem trails? Check. Illuminati? Check. And then her friends chime in. And I'm drowning in a sea of crazy. Fuck this. I need a shower. Seriously, I just want some proof. A little solid evidence; that'd be nice. Satanic cults and trauma-based mind control are really the source of all our woes? Really? It's not that humans are generally selfish fucks and will do anything for power and money? Also, not bringing up the Bible as proof of anything would help. But fuck me for wanting to be rational about this.
Here is an insightful article about The Power of Conspiratorial Thinking.
Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Ford
What Is Westworld Really?
Well, I've been watching HBO's Westworld and I love it. I had low expectations because I did enjoy the original film, as dated and flawed as it is, and I didn't think a remake or TV show could do its ideas justice. I thought it was destined to be shallow or cheesy. But I've been pleasantly surprised how deep this series is, and how philosophical it is (I consider that a good thing).
Westworld poses a question that's been explored in science fiction before: once artificial beings are advanced enough, what will separate them from us? I think the answer is frighteningly... nothing. But there's another question I think Westworld is asking that I find equally fascinating.
Let's take the robots out of the equation and what do we have left? Westworld is about actors and playing a role. Not just professional actors but the acting we all do in everyday life: the repeated lines and actions that make up the majority of our lives, the struggle to "improvise" and "go off script" and the constraints put upon us by those who are in control.
Because life often feels like a loop, not just for the Westworld hosts, but for humans too. How much different is our thought process from the branching flowchart that we saw when Maeve was in diagnostic mode? Perhaps the only real difference is that we can't dump our thoughts to a terminal like they can with the hosts... yet.
The series poses a question that is much older than robots, perhaps as old as humans: what is free will and how many of us actually have it?
I Woke Up In An Alien World
Friends and family fade and disappear. In their place, I find myself surrounded by strangers. They remind me of the people I once knew, while at the same time, they seem alien. I try to understand them, be part of their group. But we have little to talk about anymore. We no longer share the same passions. We laugh at different things. And our world views are irreversibly out of sync. What happened?