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Bullies on Klout

January 2, 2012 – 2:12 pm

High School never ends.

Stick with me, this one takes a bit of rambling to get across. I did not like High School. I was not one of the popular kids. I still am not one of the popular kids. Why? Because people like people just like them and no one is just like anyone else so the only way to make people like you is to be able to fake that you are just like them. I hate faking things. I always speak my mind and most people hate me for it.

A small number love me for it. Why? Because they can trust me. If I tell them they look good in an outfit. They know I am not being polite because I don’t do that. That is not to say I am not polite. I just don’t lie to be polite.

Why? Because I think it is not polite to lie. I think you are showing more respect for someone if you just tell them the truth. People can handle the truth. They many not like it but they can handle it. And if you don’t tell them the truth, it hurts very badly when they finally learn the truth and they will.

People do like being lied to. They love it. The more someone lies and the better they are at it, the more friends they have. Honest people like myself have few friends but those friends are loyal. One more thing about myself. I prefer quality to quantity so what this all adds up to is that I like me and if you don’t then you can fuck off. I learned a long time ago not to seek out the approval of others. First because it is irrelevant, and second because it is a losing game.

All popular social groups are run by some sort of bully dictator that controls everyone. And if an honest person of competence joins that group, the bully notices and dispenses with you in short order. I know because I have been the subject of such attacks on a regular basis since about the third grade.

It used to hurt more. Almost exclusively these bullies rely on disinformation and malicious gossip to discredit their target. Some spread lies about me, the best at it know to tell others, falsely of course, that I am telling lies about them. It is sort of like those people who bounce phone calls around lots of satellites so the call can’t be easily traced.

Now I know when it is happening and why so when a new attack happens I know just to leave the situation and invite all that have been turned against me to return to being my friend when they realize the truth. I know from experience that bullies fly like eagles and fall like rocks in short order and I don’t want bridges burned by someone who is likely just months from losing their perverse power.

Even though this kind of behavior is juvenile and should burn itself out after High School. There are just enough sociopaths with arrested development out there to destroy my chances of a normal life. Therefore, for me at least, it appears that High School will never end.

Occasionally I find temporary respite. I joined MySpace in 2006 and met a friend who I went on to collaborate with just by randomly adding him and sending a message. I moved on to facebook in 2007 and really enjoyed being a kidult for about a year, throwing skid marked pants at people and chest bumping them until non kidults started using it and I began getting criticized on a a regular basis for just about everything I said and did on my wall. Again, my honesty pissed people off and the bullies in my life made quick use out of facebook to make my life hell.

Then I moved to twitter. The awkward types were not on twitter. It was the perfect forum for me. I just spew forth the bullshit in my head on a regular basis. No wall to attack me on. I can block people who tweet back awkward stuff. I decided to start following a lot of people and interact with people impulsively. Just like I like to in real life. And then…

I started getting a lot of spam tweets for one. And then I noticed someone who I respected being +Ked on klout and decided to investigate. I had joined klout in 2009 and had a score of 11. When I looked at it around late November, my score had gone up to 50ish. I should have known right then and there that I was in the wrong place. But I didn’t. I regret that now.

I started +King people, thinking of it as a bit of impulsive fun. After doing that for some time some asked what it was. I said I honestly don’t know but I was just complementing them. Just being whimsical. But today I started to investigate and I was really upset by what I saw.

I found several videos YouTube of people explaining what klout is. Many were cynical, some hurt that their score is low so they lash out, others amused that their score is high and people give them strange things, but the following video actually upset me. Starting with tip number two this advice starts to look like the kind of manipulation and lying that I just hate and to be honest, that I am just not capable of.

One guy actually suggests that you print out a list of your friends with the highest klout scores and purposely interact with them every day to get up your score.

That strikes me rather a lot like marrying for money and then faking orgasms to get free stuff. This just isn’t me.

Now I find myself with the same anxiety that I used to have when I was being socially bullied in school. I worry that opting out will make me some sort of weird outcast and my world will collapse. I worry that staying involved will give the bully more and more power to hurt me and use me as a tool to control the people I care about who are being systematically turned against me.

Now I just feel triggered, upset and anxious. I wished I had never heard of klout. I really wished I had never +Ked anyone but at the same time everyone I did that for seems to have been flattered and it made them feel better…

Yep High School never ends… and now it is on klout. And I honestly don’t know if  opting out will make me like some weird hippy living in the woods with no phone, TV, or internet…

Thankfully, perpetual High School… ie life, has its class clowns (myself being one of them). Check out these guys. I think they have social media in the proper perspective…

By anne | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Review: Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy

December 28, 2011 – 7:55 pm

Ars Gratia Artis. That company motto was first brought to my attention sometime in 2006 when I was a member of a pub quiz team called ‘The Oswalds, Ed, and Anne’ (I think that requires no explanation) at the pub in the basement of the Belmont cinema in Aberdeen, Scotland. If memory serves, the question required us to recall what that motto, that of a major motion picture studio, meant in English. Cynic that I am, I almost choked on the popcorn I was eating when I heard the answer explained. It means ‘Art for Art’s Sake’.

Really? A major motion picture studio has THAT as a motto. I remember mumbling something like ‘Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say ‘Money for Money’s Sake’. And believe it or not, I was not yet involved in the entertainment industry when I had that reaction. I remember thinking that might, MIGHT, have been appropriate at one time but even as an avid enjoyer of independent and art house cinema, I could not recall any film that I thought of as fitting the description of art for the sake of art itself. I have now changed my mind.

Two days ago I went to see Tailor Tinker Soldier Spy (2011) and I really wished that I had been more prepared for what I was going to see. Believe it or not, I actually had only heard about the film through word of mouth. My British expat friends went to see it one night and I missed the outing so when my mom called about a week later saying she wanted to go see it, I jumped at the chance. Not knowing anything about the film production, other than that it starred Gary Oldman, I went off to it with the expectation that it might be a 300 million dollar budgeted Hollywood version. I think I was expecting something like the James Bond franchise. I just expected it to be designed to make lots of money. Apparently it is only in limited release right now and will open nationwide in about a week or two.

When it does, I am not sure how large the advertising budget will be. It is not designed to make money from the looks of it. It appears rather to be a craft film based on the novel written in 1974 at the height of the Cold War. I must say, it was not what I was expecting but I was very much pleasantly surprised!

***From this point there may be plot spoilers. If you have not read the book or seen the film. Read at your own risk.***

First off I had to adjust my expectations. I arrived all hyped up and almost felt like I had attention deficit. This is because the film, in every aspect, appeared to be one that was actually made in 1973 when the film takes place. I just kept thinking ‘But Gary Oldman was not in his fifties in 1973′ such was the illusion.

It was really distracting. And the pace was that of a film of the period. The editing was slower, there was no gratuitous or unrealistic action. The tension came from the script, worst of all you had to actually pay attention, there were no photographic or sound effect punctuations such as quick zooms or epic sound effects to point out what the important information was. You just had to pay attention.

Worse still, I hated the 70′s. I was born in 1972 and did not have a very happy childhood. What’s more I was born with a highly developed sense of style into an unfortunate decade in which everything was frankly, ugly. I have many theories as to why. Perhaps after years of drug abuse in the 60′s people were just depressed and loved ugly things. Perhaps there was a desire to produce designs that had never been produced before… because they were ugly. Whatever the reason, aesthetically speaking the 70′s and I just did not get along. I don’t think i even cracked a smile at anything design related until 1984. So my initial felling, after the surprise wore off of course, was that I did not like this film.

But even in this transitional state of deciding this film was not for me I really loved that it was made. I loved that someone endeavoured to and succeeded in creating something out of its own time that really felt like the time in which the action was placed. I have an upcoming short that does this with the noir film genre and I can only hope I have been as successful and the makers of Tinker Tailor.

But even when I thought I did not like this film, I loved it as an example of what Britain has to offer film. Because I started my career in the UK, I really ally myself more with British film than American. One thing that struck me is that the whole attitude in the US is geared towards the ‘box office’. You never cast anyone without asking ‘What’s his box office?’. Across the pond you tend to be a little more concerned with who is right for the part. The reason for this is simple. Film and television in Europe are tax funded and art is still a very big consideration. In the US, everything is privately funded. If it does not make money, it will not be made.

Its not that there is no consideration for money, it just is not the first thing in one’s mind. For instance the tax funded BBC includes programming that I would never watch but for every program that has me reaching for the remote, there is one that I want to watch that I know from my former flatmate’s reactions, not very many others do. I can’t remember the number of times I was banned from the tv and had to watch something in my room on iplayer because I was overruled.

So as I was sitting there, not really enjoying the film, I was smiling to myself, absolutely delighted that it had been made. I was marveling at the production design which made me want to be sick simply because it really did look like the 70′s and wondering if the Director of Photography purposely used grainy film and old lenses or if the look was achieved entirely during the post production phase. And then something happened. My brian turned on. I guess it was because I was analyzing the production aspects but suddenly I was thinking about the plot of the film and it is a very complicated one.

Suddenly I was was really enjoying the film (just wishing it was placed in a more aesthetically pleasing decade) and by the time it was revealed how the wife of one of the characters was used to distract him, I was riveted. I think I may have even uttered an audible gasp. All I can say is go see this film, just be prepared to think. It is very old fashioned that way.

I have noticed in the past that many of the films I used to enjoy in the 70′s and 80′s, I no longer can sit still for because my attention span has shortened due to the fact that I constantly multitask. A typical day for me is listening to some sort of ‘tv’ on the internet while answering emails, changing music on my ipod with one hand and texting someone with the other. I rarely carry out a phone conversation without using the internet on the phone at the same time and often when I do actually turn on the television, I am streaming something from YouTube at the same time, constantly adjusting the volumes to be able to switch my attention back and fourth.

One of the reasons I hate to drive is that I can’t, in good conscience, do that without giving it my full attention. If I walk or take the bus, I can be listening to music, web surfing, and writing something in my head at the same time. But watching this film took me back to my previous ability to just sit and fully engage with a film that required every bit of my intelligence to be active and on high alert.

I miss that.

According to IMDB stats it looks as if the film has made back it’s budget but that is not always enough to cause a film to be seen as successful by those who fund them. I can only hope that even if it does not make bank for investors, this film will be seen as a wonderful example of film as an art form and that more, similar productions will go ahead.

So that you won’t be taken off guard by the film, here is a link to the trailer. In it you will see what I mean by the look of the film but unfortunately, the trailer uses quick witted editing and epic sound effects in a way not seen in the film. Pity. You will just have to go see the film to know what I am talking about then. ;)

In contrast to the Tinker Taylor trailer, check out this trailer for The Conversation (1974) which is not entirely devoid of such techniques but relies much more on dialogue for the film and narration.

By anne | Posted in opinionated opinions, Reviews | Comments (0)

Vintage Post About Peter Cushing From 2009

December 21, 2011 – 5:25 pm

Ok, with the sequel to Sherlock Holmes coming out, I am reminded of this post that I wrote for another blog in 2009. I decided to share my thoughts again. This is not a review of the film so much as an opportunity to gush about Peter Cushing.

Where is Peter Cushing When You Need Him?

As I was watching the latest Sherlock Holmes film, I found myself profoundly disappointed for many reasons. The production design was over the top and lacked realism, the new face of Holmes, as a tormented genius, got my hopes up but was over played, and the story was weak and too weird for my taste.

Perhaps my standards are too high. Sherlock Holmes is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time and having lived in the UK for many years, I think I felt a little disappointed that so many Americans were used in the film to play English characters, including Holmes himself.

Having worked in London frequently, I remember using the Baker Street tube station where some of the architecture is still Victorian and the platform walls sport tiled silhouettes of the great detective with his signature hat and pipe. Thinking back I always thought of that silhouette as being that of one actor who played Holmes better than anyone in history, Peter Cushing.

Most Americans have seen his work in Star Wars but don’t know his name. Every time I direct a character who is evil, I make Star Wars required homework and I ask my actor to pay special attention to Cushing.

What makes Cushing so great? His use of emotion, or lack thereof. Evil feels but does not emote. Hatred emotes, hatred is warped love, based in actually caring about the object of one’s hatred. Evil is the enjoyment of indifference.

Watch the clip below to see how Cushing delivers the line ‘Charming to the last.’ And even when his character, Tarkin, becomes frustrated and angry, this emotion is held behind a mask of indifference, emotional control, and anticipation of the suffering of others. Also note Cushing’s awareness of his lighting.

That clip shows what I believe to be the pest performance of all time by the best actor who ever lived. Every screen actor should study this performance. (since writing this in 2009 I learned that during this scene Cushing was wearing fuzzy slippers because the boots made for his costume were too small. And he still managed to play evil this convincingly)

Sadly Cushing died in 1994 and there will never be another actor quite like him. As proof that this performance comes from a unique mix of talent and hard work born out of professionalism, take a look at the real Peter Cushing, unlike Tarkin, Cushing was a cute and cuddly old man who emotes genuine kindness. One can hardly believe this is the same person.

Also, in this clip notice his awareness of the needs of the studio cameramen as he only partially stands to shake hands with Terry Wogan. Cushing is the kind of actor directors dream of.

By anne | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Review of Breaking Dawn

December 7, 2011 – 11:32 am

My reaction:

At the request of @extrafriends I am reviewing the latest Twilight film. Before I start my review, I would like to make the comment that as a filmmaker myself, I have the greatest appreciation for anyone who makes films and I know how difficult it is to get right. One can work very hard indeed and still come up short.

That said, I think that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part One (2011) was not as successful as the filmmakers might have hoped. At the time I am writing, the latest installment in the Saga has a 4.8 out of 10 rating on IMDB so I don’t think that it will be a surprise that I found it lacking.

I should note that I am not a Twilight Saga fan, though I did very much enjoy the first film. I think the reason that Breaking Dawn did not seem the same to me is that the whole premise, of a human girl falling in love with a vampire, fits well within the framework of a teen film, but is less suitable for the very serious adult themes that the saga is now moving into.

***From this point on the review contains plot spoilers***

At 39 years of age, I am not exactly the target market of the saga, but I really enjoyed the first film because one can always enjoy a great teen film. The topics covered in teen films are simplistic and often fall into the category of idealised fantasy and that is something that anyone who has ever been a teen can relate to. Ever since I saw the high school film Clueless (1995) at the age of 20, I have found it quite easy to enjoy teen films even as an adult. Though the idea of a dangerous vampire really being a misunderstood, deep feeling, good person seemed naive to me, I was quite happy to remember when such a premise would seem truthful, and just enjoy the film.

The problem with the current installment in the Twilight Saga is that, while it is directed at a teen market, it is not a teen film. The saga has moved to the point at which the main characters of Bella, a human, and Edward, a vampire, are getting married and making a decision about whether Bella should herself become a vampire. No matter how you sugar coat it, this is not a light subject, ergo this is not a teen film.

The bad IMDB rating suggests that at least part of the target audience felt the same way.

In addition to the subject matter departing from the romanticized storyline of the first film, the story also felt very contrived and took some convoluted twists and turns that reveal what the saga really has become, a soap opera. I don’t want to get into too much detail in case those who have not seen the film are still reading but I will also add that with one exception, the results of the convoluted plot created drama that just did not make for a satisfying story. If you are interested in what that exception was, please tweet at me @annelabarbera and I will let you  know what it was.

The technical bits:

Just as fair warning, from here on if you are not a filmmaker, you are in danger of becoming very bored if you continue reading.

As someone who often works as a Director of Photography, I found myself thinking that I would have made some different choices. I felt that the film was over colored, causing the film to look cartoonish. I also noticed that, though the themes in the film got much darker and less romantic, the lighting of the film looked more like a romantic comedy than the first film had. This lighting combined with palad make up, actually did nothing for R Patz’ looks and his looks are a very big part of what the franchise banks on. I also noticed some scenes that used chroma key compositing that was less than fully successful.

Additionally, I thought the costume, hair and makeup reflected the look of a much smaller budget than the film actually had. Overall the film had the look and feel of an episode of Beverley Hills 90210, while it explored themes as dark as those to be found in the likes of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

I would have preferred darker colouring, a more grany film stock, and larger, moodier sets.

It had me thinking that the Twilight Saga simply is not my favourite vampire story. I think vampires belong, in crusty old castles in Europe with very little sunlight, not in beach houses in Brazil, or in British Columbia for that matter.

By anne | Posted in Reviews | Comments (0)

Shriekfest My First Impressions

October 1, 2011 – 7:26 am

I am in Hollywood for the 11th annual Shriekfest film festival taking place at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood California. I came to support a fellow film maker, Tomax Aponte whose short, Confined, is playing on Sunday at 2pm.

Shortly after I knew I would be coming to Hollywood for the festival, I found out that a festival pass which guarantees me admission to every event and screening was available for only $100!

Coming from Austin, Texas where passes of that nature cost upwards of $1500, I jumped at the opportunity to spend a weekend in LA watching some of the best Independent horror films out right now.

So far I have been to the Opening night party and day one of filming (I did miss the first film due to the infamous 405 traffic) and I have to say I think I have found my festival.

I have already fallen in with a regular crowd and feel like part of it. This is why I love smaller, more exclusive festivals over the more crowded ones you get in Austin.

It is wonderful to feel a part of something that few know about and that pulls a crowd of professionals and enthusiasts rather than hoards of people who are just trying to get a glimpse of an A lister.

The festival is run by Denise Gossett and reminds me a lot of the Brancage Film Festival which I attended on the channel island of Jersey a few years back and of the Bafta events I used to attend in London. There is a feeling of being part of something that has not yet been discovered.

Shriekfest is small, exclusive, intimate, and you don’t feel that pressure you sometimes get at a large, crowded market festival. It feels like a tucked away corner of quiet sanity in a town know for it’s side show atmosphere.

With the quality that Denise delivers with Shriekfest, I am sure that some day it will be as large as those festivals that invade my current hometown of Austin, Texas and my former home, Edinburgh Scotland, but for now I am enjoying being part of a small in crowd who are intimate enough to remember each other.

I am also loving Los Angeles. Except for a short time in 1989, I have never been to LA or Hollywood. It is hard to avoid the nutty touristiness of Hollywood by Shriekfest is affording me the opportunity to step out of the madness into a quiet corner where people are enjoying a great horror selection put together by Denise.

Whilst in LA for the festival, I have a feature shoot going on in Austin which I am keeping in contact with by phone. That feature is a horror and I can’t help but wonder if we will get picture lock in time to submit to Shriekfest 2012.

That is all for now. I will be back with a full review after I return to Austin!

By anne | Posted in Reviews | Tagged | Comments (0)

The Rise of the Professional Tourist

August 15, 2011 – 5:17 pm

No, I don’t mean the kind who gets paid to go on holiday, I mean the kind that pays good money to have an industry TELL him or her that he or she is a professional.

I suppose it started with Space Tourists, or perhaps with Executive Producers (the kind with lots of private money and no professional contacts), and proliferated with reality TV ‘stars’ in the naughtys, but what has me thinking about this particular topic right now is the whole FCPX fiasco that myself and other (perhaps former) Final Cut Pro editors have just gone through.

For those of you who have been spending millions to hitch a ride in space for the last few months, I will fill you in as concisely as possible. Basically, FCP editors were anticipating the launch of Final Cut Studio 4 back in April when the consistent rumours that the suite was going to add Shake into Motion, thus blowing out of the water the one program Adobe had that was superior to Apple’s, namely After Effects, were replaced with very credible leaks that what was really happening was that the guy who f***ed up iMovie had been monkeying around with Final Cut and the new release was alarmingly similar to the 2007 version of iMovie, a version so bad and widely rejected by the public, that despite it’s price tag of $0, Apple had to give away a previous version for free to stop the riots.

By June we got definitive news and some had even bought this new version of iMovie now named Final Cut Pro. My first reaction was denial and then a sense of ‘how could they do this to us’. Then I went into business mode. Like my own industry, the tech industry is a business first though this is often difficult to remember. I looked at it from Steve Job’s perspective and then it made sense.

When Apple first got into the business of editing software, they were a small company and a boutique product appealing to a small user base made sense. But post iPod, iPhone, and after the renaming of the company from Apple Computers to Apple Inc. in 2007, can we really expect them not to want to lay off the team developing a product that has only 20,000 users? Doesn’t it make sense to get out of the business of professional editing in favour of the exploding customer base to be found in ‘pro’sumer editors potentially numbering in the billions.

The only question that remained for me was why transfer the name Final Cut Pro to a program that is an enhanced version of iMovie and for which iMovie projects are the only ones that are reverse compatible? Why the nominal fiction?

And then it hit me. Professional tourists. For years people with a bit of money to spend had been splashing quite a bit of cash on Final Cut Studio because they wanted to buy a place at the table. My first purchase of Studio 2 was second hand from just such a purchaser. She had bought it thinking that having the pro tool would make her a pro and quickly learned that not having the pro skills rendered her pro tools useless. I was able to purchase Studio 2 which cost at the time around £800, for only £400.

In contrast, when I first started and was still developing my skills I bought as old an upgradeable copy of Final Cut Express as I could find for £49 off of eBay and upgraded for £50, under cutting the retail price of express by almost £100. This is what pros do when they start out. I only looked to upgrade when I had my basic editing skills in place an was in need of colouring, transcoding, and motion graphics tools.

This idea that to be a pro you must buy professional products is a decidedly consumer driven idea. As a director of photography I was once given the option of shooting on a RED camera with unpaid labour or using my DSLR with paid pros on my team and I actually pleaded against the RED in favour of a team of pros with skills. Of course I would love to have a RED or ARRI with skilled labour but given the choice, skills trump equipment.

For instance if one were very motivated and had enough skilled people, one could accomplish a ‘bullet time’ effect with a bunch of pinhole camera obscura. I am not saying it would be easy or look as slick as the effect did in The Matrix (1999), but it can be done. In fact, for me, a mark of professionalism is a hesitance to pad the budget with expensive equipment just because you can get your hands on it in favour of careful consideration of the abilities of those on one’s team.

So this brings us back to Steve and his decision to call a souped up version of iMovie, heretofore free with every Mac, by the name of Final Cut Pro. Once I got over the shock and settled into editing professionally on Adobe products I can only see this as pure genius from the perspective of a man trying to attract large numbers of consumers who want to buy a ride on the professional train.

I have used FCPX in the shop and I can say that what it lacks in professional features, it makes up for with a very shallow learning curve. Within hours I think someone who has never edited before can find their way around some pretty impressive presets and make some really cool videos. And there are enough presets it might even take the world six months to get tired of them. For most people that is well worth the $299 price tag and as an added bonus they get to be told they are a pro a believe it for a while.

Genius Steve. This truly changes everything.

By anne | Posted in opinionated opinions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Fear of Change, Fear of Ourselves

August 5, 2011 – 2:58 pm

I just recently watched the film Tron (1982) for the first time since 1982. When I watched it the first time I did so at the old SFA theater in Nacogdoches, Texas and was dropped off by my mom or perhaps she came with us. I was 10 at the time.

I remember the experience. The SFA theater was a relic of thirty years earlier. It had one of those popcorn machines that popped the corn right in front of you and dumped it out into a large glass container. Watching it pop was part of the entertainment. The sign out front was neon, from the classic cinema days of the 50′s. The ticket was probably only one dollar, two at most.

Last week when I watched it for the second time I did so on my iPhone, rented off of iTunes for $2.99. In 1982 I watched a cutting edge film, made with cutting edge technology in a forum that was an ode to the past. The second time the forum was cutting edge and the film itself had become a relic. In 1982 I don’t think I was even yet aware of the coming home video format and any suggestion that I would one day watch this film on a phone, that was not even plugged into the wall would have sounded like the plot to the next big scifi hit that I might go to the cinema to watch.

At that point I had only once seen a modem that worked with a phone. You dialed a number and when it made funny noises you put the handset on a cradle and let it scream at the modem until you connected to something. It was for my uncle’s business and I really did not find it interesting at all. I thought it was boring. I discounted it entirely.

Fast forward and my phone connects to a site that lets me download and watch a film. That would have gotten my attention. And I find myself watching this film that was so cutting edge, so tomorrow, so exciting. It was about computers. In 1982 I had never even operated a computer. I had seen them but at that time they were not for kids. They were mostly for businesses. Fast forward to 2011 (just the mention of a year like that would have sounded scifi back then) and I see the film and it’s message as old, about simplistic outdated technology, nostalgic, and naive.

Not to imply I did not enjoy it, I loved it. It helped me remember a younger me and a bygone era. Doing so helps me understand who I am and the value of that can not be understated.

I was struck that the central theme of the film reflected a fear of computer technology and a disconnect between how we related to this new technology and how we previously lived our lives. We had to learn to replace people with technology. A personification of programs reflects our difficulty in digesting the idea that programs do work and yet are not people. The idea of ordering something to do work and destroying it or rewriting it if it did not work right was a disconnect from the times when all work was done by people who had to be treated with respect and who were not disposable.

This naïveté is adorable in it’s cluelessness but admirable. We could learn from this attitude today. Now rather than relating to computers as if they were people, we all too often relate to people as if they are machines. We shout at people for not being perfect, people are fired without a second thought. People are treated as disposable.

I find a comparison to Tron Legacy (2010) instructive. The plot of Tron is far more sophisticated. The fear expressed in Tron Legacy is far less naive, it is the fear of the self. And a healthy dose of that is something we should all have. Computers were never something that could hurt us, only we can.

Yes, as I detailed above, the computer age has brought negative changes in how we treat each other. But computers did not do this, we did. We feel more powerful when we treat people as disposable. Computers gave us a taste of that power and without realizing it we transferred that to our relationships with others.

WE did that. And we can reverse that. In Tron Legacy, Clu, who was part of Flynn divided out when Flynn was too young to understand the value of imperfection, terrorized the Grid, treating the most beautiful, organic programs as a threat to his desired perfection. A perfection that Flynn himself had ordered before he knew of the future arrival of organic, imperfect programs.

In the real world there is a Clu in all of us. A desire to be perfect and ‘normal’, but as we grow up we realize the elegance of imperfection and begin to celebrate it. As a society we should go back to the way we understood the world pre computer age.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate the loss of technology, rather an understanding that it’s perfect, black and white binary way of understanding the world works only for a computer, not for how we relate to each other. Ones and zeros make computer thoughts nearly perfect but binary code lacks the beauty of imperfection that lives in the human mind.

We should celebrate the imperfection of those around us, not punish it with harsh words, road rage, and over medication, and rejection.

I think the most powerful part of Tron Legacy was Flynn’s quiet assessment that Clu was not an enemy in need of destruction, rather a part of himself in need of acceptance. We have to recognize and accept our imperfection before we can accept it in others.

In 1982 I was wrong about modem technology. By 1993 I had my first one and by 2010 I owned the ultimate blend of computer and phone technology, the very device upon which I watched Tron for the second time in 2011. But in 1982 we had one thing right, we feared the perfection of the computer rather than the Devine imperfection of the human being. Perhaps the message in Tron is not so outdated after all.

By anne | Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Splatterfest!

August 5, 2011 – 12:03 pm

I am so excited to be on Team Snuggle Struggle as the editor for the Splatterfest competition on the 9th to the 11th of September in Houston.

http://www.buttonshut.com

By anne | Posted in Competitions | Comments (0)

The Fear of the Gorgon released on blip.tv

July 30, 2011 – 8:01 pm

Check it out now:

The Fear of the Gorgon | Pictish Productions Presents on blip.tv

By anne | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Poetry Comes to Life

July 30, 2011 – 7:20 pm

http://www.buttonshut.com

We are now trying to raise awareness of Kriss Erickson’s DID The Ultimate Energy Disorder so that we can go into production on it in the next few months.

About six months ago we were about to go into production on a film based on Kriss’ film but Kriss and I had felt pressured to allow the director to rewrite the film. She felt that Kriss’ film, which is more like free form poetry, would not find an audience.

In the end I decided that it was more important to keep Kriss’ original script or it would lose the power of what it is. The film is an expression of how it felt to Kriss to develop DID and how she feels about having it.

My original reason for wanting to get involved was to provide a means for Kriss to express herself into the medium of film rather than to make a film based on her experience.

So for those reasons we will be shortly attempting to raise funds via crowd funding so that we can soon go into production on Kriss’ original script.

Please like us on http://www.buttonshut.com

By anne | Posted in Projects In Development | Comments (0)