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I absolutely love this video!

This was created by Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean in Japan. Here are his notes on the video:

one take impromptu film made in Tokyo by Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean.

We were sitting in this sushi bar pondering how best to set up a camera to film things all by itself whilst we were in Tokyo.
Take our hands out of the equation… let the camera have its own journey.

I’d taken a cannibalised record turntable with me from the UK with the idea of filming slow panoramas but it was painfully bumpy and stopped every minute.

Then we had our eureka moment and filmed this.

A few years later I was working on a piece of music and married the two together.
The music is all about that feeling when you’re half asleep in the sun.. the ambiance of foreign voices becomes a lullaby to dream away.
There’s something beautiful in not understanding a language.. it becomes abstract, musical.
Opera is so much better when you can’t understand the words!

What we loved about watching this film back was the space that the camera was able to enter.. extremely personal and scrutinising but not too lingering.
dennis

The music is ‘lost in a moment’ by ‘shrift’ from the album of the same name.
myspace.com/shriftspace

more trivia: film was originally taken in 1998… married with the music much later.

Thanks for all the positive comments.. will upload a better quality version soon.

This film involves three directors, which means three distinct stories, messages and points of view, much like “Paris, Je Taime.” The directors are Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho (director of “The Host“) each tell a story based in the capitol city of Tokyo, Japan. In Gondry’s segment a girl turns into a chair, in Joon-ho’s an isolated man falls in love with a pizza delivery girl which opens a door of opportunities not fully revealed in the trailer, but extremely interesting. Finally Carax’s segment centers around a man, an outsider of sorts, that lurks below the city in the sewers.

Want to learn more about it check it out at slashfilm.com as well as get an inside on what they were thinking when making this film at nypress.com.

It’s a shame that standardized testing is allegedly so traumatizing that it is equally counted as fodder for political satire on prime time television shows such as this The Simpsons. Along with our economic crisis, this is one other issue that America is coping with–I guess. So, I honestly cannot foresee what the pros and cons will be after years of this allegedly aggressive approach to catching up with other countries in education (I’m applying the word “allegedly” to lessen the sharpness and affect of my commentary upon would-be dissenters. In other words, “I’m just sayin’, but you ain’t heard it from me”).

Don’t get me wrong, we need some means by which to gauge educational progress or the lack thereof, but one must admit that there has to be a breaking point for this brand of standardized testing. For when the bubble pops, will success and praise come out for the heroic think-tank that sparked this plan of action or a whole other set of problems coupled with angry townsfolk, pitchforks, and torches?

I look at it like through the lens of Social Exchange Theory, meaning are the benefits of this method enough to withstand the cost to stay and fight, or otherwise cut one’s losses and run. Another way to look at this is when a programmer proclaims to have a solution or a new helpful software or application, will it truly bring a refreshing resolution without any further recourse or create a whole new set of problems greater than the ones that already exist? Personally, I think it’s too early to tell, however too early may also be too late when it comes to down to it. We just have to wait and see these generations of standardized children, as I tend to label this latter generations, grow up. My generation and others before it sort of escaped it all….I think…..

Sunday morning my mother, brother and I headed out to a football college recruitment fair for high school seniors. My brother is graduating soon and we visited several tables of different college recruiters. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Basically we hit up a local Einstein’s Bros and I always find myself staring at these muffins because they look diseased to me–leprous even. Weird!

Anyway we ate on the way to the recruitment fair and finally arrived. The place was totally packed out with high school football players and their families. My brother was pretty excited about the whole thing.

Now let’s hope that one of the school’s that are interested in him will get back to us soon.

Fast-forward two or so hours, and to where we went to Red Lobster. On the way in I hit to the bathroom, but before leaving I had to do a traditional myspace-like photo. Hey, you have to get one or two taken at some point in the year, right?

Had a delicious lunch/dinner with the family at Red Lobster and those garlic cheese muffins are to die for. I died with each bite.

Monday… Hard beginning. This picture is how I feel about Mondays because it was taken near the end of my day in Film Appreciation class some time around 8:00pm. In other words, a lot of Mondays I’d like to just fast-forward to the end of the day. And as I sit here and write this blog post, let me tell you that today was better than most Mondays, but still hard.

This is part of poster that is basically plastered all over the Art Institute campus. I would love to attend this film festival, but I have to work that day. Arg! Being in a film appreciation class has further increased my love and interest in film. So if only I didn’t have to work. Shucks…

Skip Tuesday, Wednesday and we arrive at Thursday where I am traveling to the mall to check out some stuff at Best Buy.

Basically, I’ve been searching for some for the following things:

• 76-Key Keyboard or more
• Good HD Camcorder Completed!
• F.E.A.R. 2 for my brother. Scary game. Completed!