Monthly Archives: July 2006

Canon XH Series

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Canon XH A1 cameraI love cameras. Recently, I posted about HVX200 winning an award for design. I admit it’s a well-deserved award – HVX200 is a good-looking camera.


I just got word (and a few photos) about the upcoming Canon XH series: XH A1 and XH G1, both are based on Canon XL H1. Man, this camera is at least 10 times sexier than HVX200. Look at the specs as well:

  • 1.485 Gbps uncompressed HD-SDI output (XH G1 only)
  • GenLock input and Time Code input /output (XH G1 only)
  • 3 x 1.67mp CCDs (1/3rd-inch, 1440 x 1080, same as XL H1)
  • Digic DV II processor supporting 30fps & 24fps (same as XL H1)
  • Built-in 20x HD OIS lens with new “Instant AF” autofocus system

Just compare the 1.485 Gbps throughput to my USB 1.1 vs USB 2.0 discussion. Amazing!

I’m considering switching from my web cam to this baby. Here’s a short guide on how to select a web cam.

Silent Bob strikes back

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Kevin SmithContrary to popular belief, Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) is not really that silent. In fact he often speaks out. Most recently, I posted about Kevin Smith vs Joel Siegel – a duel of titans. Kevin called Joel’s moustache “cum catcher” and things got worse from there.

In his new post, he has a problem with people having a problem with his “MySpace credits” promotion. In essence, at the end of the movie, once the “regular” credits are gone, you get a 10 second pause and then you get a LIST of people who participated in the MySpace promo. (Does that count as user-generated content? I don’t think so!)

In addition, Clerks II was labeled as failure by Nikki Finke. This really got Kevin going:

Our flick’s budget was five million bucks. We did twice that in the opening weekend. The film’s foreign sales more than covered its negative cost. Our marketing budget was pretty modest – especially for a summer release. Even if after the box office split the Weinstein Co. will make with the theaters, our thetrical [sic] run winds up simply being a wash (meaning all costs are covered), that means everything we made on DVD is pure profit. If Clerks II DVD is anything like the DVD on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, we’re looking at forty million bucks, easily. Forty million bucks in profit.

Nikki Finke responded that there’s no way in hell that he’s going to make so much money. You gotta love blogs – this thing can go on for months!

Dr Stangelove in Nigeria?

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Dr StrangeloveIt was definitely strange to tune to CNN and all of a sudden I hear that theme from Dr Strangelove – that fake patriotic theme that was played in Major Kong’s scenes.

It appears Nigeria’s government is doing some kind of commercial about the incredible opportunities for investment in the country. I could imagine the investors waiting in line … marching to the tune.

I’m not holding them responsible – not everyone knows this 1962 Kubrick masterpiece by heart. I do.

Nollywood is number 3

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Thanks to CNN, I now know that Nigeria’s blossoming film industry is number 3. That’s third place after Hollywood (duh!) and Bollywood.

I went to wikipedia’s Nollywood entry and here’s what I learned:

The efforts of early Nigerian filmmakers in the 1960s, like Ola Balogun and Hubert Ogunde, were frustrated by the high cost of film production. Nollywood, however, is a video movie industry—Nigerians call them “home videos.” All Nollywood movies are produced using digital video technology. Television broadcasting in Nigeria began in the 1960s and received much government support in its early years. By the mid-1980s every state had its own broadcasting station. Law limited foreign television content so producers in Lagos began televising local popular theater productions. Many of these were circulated on video as well, and a small scale informal video movie trade developed.

Panasonic HVX200The report on CNN featured a production which had all the features of a low/no-budget production: a video camera and NO lights in sight. The scenes were shot in the blistering hot Nigerian sun so who needs a light at these circumstances! They could’ve used a reflector to soften the light but they probably wanted that gritty look – it looked like a ganster movie.

I bet these guys are buying Sony FX1 and Panasonic HVX200 by the dozen. They are shooting a movie a week – they need to shoot 20-30 setups a DAY!

The Weekend numbers explosion

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According to a post at the Long Tail, it would seem that Hollywood is doing its best to hide the fact that blockbusters are few and far in between.

I first posted about Hollywood’s plans to produce fewer movies last year. Now it seems they’ll also be massaging the numbers as well.

According to post (a reader who requested anonymity said):

I happened to be riding to work with an exec from one of the major studios this morning, and he mentioned that the studios are increasingly making deals with theaters to inflate opening numbers. In particular, they will give the theaters very high revenue share for the first X days of the movie (he mentioned 100% for the first 3 days), incentivizing the theater to maximize the number of screens the movie’s shown on, inflating opening numbers.

The particular example of Superman and Pirates were actually the ones he brought up – that Superman’s decline was partially due to the theathers’ incentive period running out.

I have no idea how true or prevalent this is, but something you might want to look into. This would be done for movies which the studio considers potential “hits”, increasing discrepancy between them and normal movies.

Funny, I don’t think I heard Bryan Singer mention it in his Superman interview.

I’m still hopeful that the explosion of user-generated content will severely erode the blockbuster’s share of the pie. Remains to be seen if Google Video will finally launch their marketplace for indie producers.

Kevin Smith vs Joel Siegel

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Silent Bob and JayWith Clerks II opening on July 21, there’s plenty of stuff on Kevin Smith’s website. I’ve been a fan for quite some time – I own most of his movies on DVD (I think I only miss Mallrats).

You gotta love his latest post, tastefully entitled : A Dick in a Mustache is Still Just a Dick.

This is an excerpt:

Apparently, rather than quietly exit, both Joel and his Cum-Catcher (my slang for the fancy kind of mustache he sports) made a big stink about walking out, calling as much attention to himself as possible, and being generally pretty disruptive.

Check this shit out: roughly forty minutes into the flick, when Randal orders up the third act donkey show, Siegel bellowed to his fellow critics “Time to go!’’ and “This is the first movie I’ve walked out of in 30 fucking years!’’

I must SEE this movie.