Open Hatch

[Update Jun 1st: there were several inaccuracies in this article now corrected, and I’ve added some too - all in bold.]

I just ordered a Canon VIXIA HD30 camcorder - this is a higher end HD consumer beast. I’m excited about it. There are many things I’ll do with it.

I’ve been asking around and doing a lot of research about HD and particularly how it may transfer to film and/or project on a big screen, and I want to say I notice a fairly sharp divide between people who insist video should never imitate or copy to film vs. people who say go for it. What’s odd to me is that folks against it seem to usually describe that as the more realistic or practical approach, or that copying video to film is only “dreaming.”

Well, gee, imagine any film maker dreaming.

I’m in no mood after writing my thesis to cite the sources of facts I present and form my conclusions on. Suffice it to say I believe you could verify these facts.

My take is that in truth it is more practical to go digital if you can. We are in a digital cinema revolution, and physical film stock may always have its place, but the reality is that the blockades to shooting digital film which audiences don’t perceive as different after transfer to film - never mind the options to just distribute digitally increasing every year! - blockades to that quality break down steadily every year.

[Why am I speculating? With a ruler I drew a grid on a post-it note at the resolution of HD - 3 pixels an inch assuming a 30 foot screen - and filled it with alternating black-and-white squares, and looked at it from 40 feet back. There would really need to do be some image processing and projection magic with the way pixels transition into each other to make it look good. Fairly obvious “I am pixels” look at that resolution. But I need to know. I’m looking for sources that give a lot more detail on this, and I’ve also simply got to do real application visual tests on all this theory myself, somehow.]

About digital film projection, I’m going to speculate now. I don’t know how this actually plays out, this is theory, and I’d love to know of the real-world tests that certainly are playing out on these questions. But my speculation is that depending, digitally projected high-definition video could look not only anywhere from sufficiently as good as film to just as good, but better. Consider resolution available from the Red One. Here’s a picture of a 2006 model with some kind of super-exo-death-armature-skeleton-frame thing around it.

………………..

[This section had inaccuracies about the resolution of the Red One when I first wrote it - it’s fixed now.]

It shoots 2k (just over 1080 vertical pixels). That’s a bit more resolution than George Lucas thought was good enough (snobs have turned against him after the Star Wars prequels - yes, I will make that abusive statement, anyone who derides Lucas over his Star Wars prequels is a snob - I have qualms with the stories and writing on Star Wars Episodes I, II, sorta III and totally VI, but IV and V still rock the world, and I give Lucas full faith as a technological pioneer: arguably, he has single-handedly initiated the special effects revolution, and then the digital cinema revolution. Whether he simply vanishes like a good Jedi or makes it to heaven or not, before and if you pass the pearly gates, you’ll at least have to give him a hearty “thank you”.) Never mind that the Red One looks like a Star Wars Tie Fighter or something, and has a name reminiscent of Luke Skywalker flying the Death Star trenches - they have their market down - but it can record 1152 vertical pixels (or rows) at 120 frames a second, so that if projected at the same rate, it’s showing images exactly five times the frequency of standard film. I’ve read of tests going back to the 1970s demonstrating that people see a difference between 24 frames a second vs. 60 frames a second, and 120 is twice the upper range of those tests. I’d think that would probably look brilliant. Or you can do about a five hundred more rows of pixels at 60 frames a second, or again about five hundred more than that (or 2048 rows) at 30 frames a second - still a better frame rate than film. And digital projectors that do this are steadily spreading to theaters worldwide - my dear local Wynnsong has some now

Interesting math: that highest resolution mentioned (4x) has 4,096 vertical pixels, and if you divide that into 30 feet (for the typical height of a theater screen, and that link passes those paramaters into google calculator), and express that in inches, it’s about 8 pixels an inch. The math for x1080 resolution gives 3.333… pixels an inch. How does that look when you’re sitting 30 or 40 feet back (or further) from the screen? Losing detail and size for distance, they’d likely appear a lot finer and closer together I’d think. How does the density of pixels multiply across the visual range with distance? [When I first posted this I wondered if ten inches would shrink to 1, visually, so that what used to look like 3 pixels in an inch would be 30, and whether that would be enough - but no, 300 pixels an inch (or 100 times as many as 3 per inch) would correlate with the usual baseline for digital images.] That would seem like a reasonable baseline they’d go for in apparent density for “digital film”. If the visual density multiplies by about a hundred - would it? - I haven’t done that math or looked it up - but if that were the case then x2 resolution might be effectively 600 dots per inch, and x4 resolution maybe 1200 dots per inch?]

I’ve read of cinema house worries over the fickle and perhaps difficult to manage aspects of digital media, and there may be a lot of kinks and things to figure out with digital cinema along the way - but what do we expect? - it’s a brand new medium. Besides, those kinks will probably be worked out fairly fast. It took a good 60 or 70 years or so to figure out how best to technically work film, but vast improvements with digital film are advancing over stages of years, not decades! Ten years ago nobody would have thought you could buy a camera that shot at 1080 vertical pixels for under a thousand dollars. Three years ago the same camera would have cost several thousand dollars. If the trend continues the same quality camera will be available in a few years for half the price, and a camera twice as good will be available at the same price. Expanding that trend to decades it’s easy that around, say, 2020, teenagers from middle to low income families could be armed with camcorders that shoot at a resolution you can blow up to an IMAX screen - and by then there may be some bid-to-rent digital distribution network in place so that they can show their independent film at a local theatre for costs low enough that independent filmmakers of today might gasp. You can distribute for what cost? That low?

That all sounds like a dream, and it could be, but again, given the way these specific technologies have advanced in the past decade it’s easy they may advance to that stage in another decade. In my book digital cinema has to be the way motion pictures go. (I think high definition and beyond will also radically transform home entertainment.) We’ll still use film a lot, I think, especially for long-term storage because digital storage is notoriously destructible and fickle.

[UPDATE: the original of this post suggested using the “Dean Scream” in entertainment projects, and failed also to credit and link to a fellow from whose page I obtained a copy of the “Wilhelm Scream”. I’ve learned that the “Dean Scream” most probably is not necessarily in the clear for use in entertainment projects - which is too bad ]

(Close your eyes when it turns black and white with Uma Thurman slashing a sword, and when someone pulls out a knife. Unless you aren’t squeamish or don’t hate gratuitous violence.)

This is another of at least a few videos posted at YouTube showcasing the myriad uses in films of a stock sound originating at Warner Bros. in 1951, eventually dubbed by Ben Burtt the “Wilhelm Scream”.

Yes, it is actually used in all those shows and films. This isn’t some weird dub-over of them (I was really surprised and amused to learn it was used in THE LORD OF THE RINGS films two and three).

I found a wave file of the “classic” Wilhelm Scream apparently directly copied from the original take Here it is. Click. Click. Click.

(That’s an mp3 burn of the sound)

You can also hear the sound at sound designer Steve Lee’s web site, hollywoodlostandfound.net (this is where I grabbed the sound from), and read a detailed history of it there.

At that page and in an interview with a director (in addition to Steve Lee) in this YouTube video, I’ve learned that the man who popularized the sound, Designer Ben Burtt, will no longer be using the sound (he used it in all six Star Wars films). My blunt take: the public has caught on to the “secret” of its use - previously, mostly an in-joke between many sound designers - so now, it’s, like, popular. And the first rule of hard-core Nerddom is that if it’s popular, it isn’t “cool” anymore.

I think that’s a silly decision on Ben Burtt’s part (I only speculate, perhaps unfairly, on his reasons).

I emailed Steve Lee about the legality of using the Wilhelm Scream - in a nutshell no one knows for sure who the original artist is, and while technically it is owned by Warner Bros., it has been used very abundantly (by people from all kinds of other studios and networks, etc.), and no known squabbles or legal issues have been raised over it.

Lee also added:

By the way, Ben is indeed working on “Indy 4″ and I
would be very surprised if there isn’t a Wilhelm in it.

An interesting aside - I’ve noticed a certain recording of a hawk cry appears almost pedantically in many desert and wilderness scenes in films, and it turns out it is in fact an often used recording - it’s mentioned in this Wikipedia page as “..a certain recording of the cry of the Red-tailed Hawk.”

A tradition of people who know the in-joke of the Wilhelm Scream is to shout “Wilhelm!” whenever they hear the sound effect in a movie. But if it isn’t cool to use the Wilhelm Scream anymore, how about something else?

This scream of Howard Dean, the “Dean Scream”, famously baffled and alienated the public to Howard Dean (arguably in part because the press replayed the “Scream” a lot - which.. I dunno.. it’s pretty funny and may deserve press).

I pulled that flash video out of YouTube, dumped its audio to a .wav file, made a sample of the audience cheering noise in the background of it, and then used that noise in a noise removal tool to isolate a very good approximation of Dean’s Scream without the audience cheering in the background.

(There are technical reasons this sound may not be “perfect”, but I doubt I’d hear much or any difference without those factors - also that’s an mp3 burn of the .wav file).

I wish, oh how I wish, that the “Dean Scream” was legally a for-sure “in the clear” sound to use in any entertainment project. For informational / educational / news use (such as this post), it’s in the clear under “Fair Use” - but it isn’t necessarily in the clear for use in entertainment media.

If another actor imitated the Dean Scream however, and released it to the Public Domain - hey, we could have us the basis of something new.

Wait a bit - I think I’ll do just that.

Episode III spoiler

I read somewhere, and I don’t remember where, that according to the official REVENGE OF THE SITH novel, Darth Plaguis is Darth Sideous’ master, as I predicted.

Still no official word I’ve come across anywhere to the effect of either of these dark lords creating Anakin, though I hold to my observation of Sideous referring in passing to Anakin as “son” as a strong suggestion to the effect.

I came up with these absurd lyrics years ago for various themes appearing in Star Wars Episodes IV-VI. I’ve slightly revised them since.

The Imperial March/Darth Vader

HE IS BAD, HE IS BAD, HE IS BAD!
HE IS BAD, MAN HE’S BAD, HE IS BAD!
BAD BUD BA-DAD BUD BA-DAD-A-DAD
BUD-BAD BUD BA-DAD-A-DAD
BUD BAD, BUD-BA-DAD, BUD-BA-DAD!
BAD BUD BA-DAD BUD BA-DAD-A-DAD
BUD-BAD BUD BUH-DAD-A-DAD
BUD BAD, BAD-BAD-DAD, BAD BAD DAD!

The Force/Luke Skywalker

HE’S YOUNG, RECKLESS AND FORLORN,
BUT HE HAS GOT THE SKYWALKER BLOOD
AND HE IS GOING TO BE A HERO:
THE GALAXY WAITS ON THE ONE WITH THE FORCE.

Luke and Leia

IT’S LUKE AND LEIA
THEY’RE SIBLINGS AND THEY KNOW IT NOW
YES LUKE AND LEIA
SOMEHOW, THEY’VE ALWAYS KNOWN, SOMEHOW;

IT’S LUKE AND LEIA, YES!
IT’S LUKE AND LEIA
YESS IT’S LUKE AND IT’S LEIA
YES IT IS LUKE AND IT’S LEIA.

Suite version of Luke and Leia - from Ep. VII album

IT’S LUKE AND LEIA
THEY’RE SIBLINGS AND THEY KNOW IT NOW
YES LUKE AND LEIA
SOMEHOW, THEY’VE ALWAYS KNOWN, SOMEHOW;
THEY’RE LUKE AND LEIA
INCLUDING THEN, INCLUDING NOW
DEAR LUKE AND LEIA,
SOMEHOW YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN
YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN
YOU’VE KNOWN SOMEHOW

IT’S LUKE AND LEIA
THEY’RE SIBLINGS AND THEY KNOW IT NOW
YES LUKE AND LEIA
SOMEHOW, THEY’VE ALWAYS KNOWN, SOMEHOW;
IT’S LUKE AND LEIA, YES!
IT’S LUKE AND LEIA
YES IT’S LUKE AND IT’S LEIA
YES IT IS LUKE AND LEIA.

In all seriousness though.. the Star Wars films have some of the most profoundly beautiful and riveting music I know.

Warning: clue/spoiler to STAR WARS Episode III REVENGE OF THE SITH

INT. - CORUSCANT UNDERWORLD - SITH LORD’S CHAMBER

DARTH PLAGUEIS STANDS ALONE, ROBED AND HOODED IN BLACK. He is in a deep trance. Before him is A MAN-SIZED POOL OF MUD. He raises his arms. The mud bubbles, rises, glows in eeire off-colors, and forms into A RABBIT.

Darth Plagueis

(happy laughter, then maniacal, then hysterical)

WE WILL HAVE REVENGE!

Episode III spoilers!

Fabian at dailynugget draws the same conclusion I did, that Darth Sidious’ master was Darth Plagueis and that Plagueis created Anakin. Someone else I know volunteered this idea. I had thought the same on the Sidious/Plagueis relationship except that I thought Sidious created Anakin. The reason I think this (as noted in an email copied in a previous post), is that in the film and trailer Sidious addresses Anakin at one point as “son.”

I agree with almost everything in Fabian’s review. I.. don’t like the swearing though
My disagreement is that anyone attempted to derail Natalie Portman’s performance - I think it’s just clunky dialogie.

I had also thought yesterday that maybe a tear or two would be due from Obi-Win in his lines right after “YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!”

Additionally yesterday I was haunted by Obi-Wan’s line: “I have failied you anakin.” How rending.

alankistler at MonitorDuty intreviews Darth Vader about inconsistencies that ROTS makes for ROTJ. He brings out a question I’ve asked: is Anakin the Chosen one or is Luke?

In ROTS the interpretation of the “balance” prophecy given by the Jedi is that balance means destroying the sith. I’m not totally following alankistler’s argument (who are you saying is the Chosen one or what is your interpretation of balance?), but he seems to be saying that balance means good and evil coexisting, whearas if the Sith are destroyed only the Jedi rule, which apparently isn’t balanced. He also seems to say that Vader killing his master is a feeble and way overdue act (more on this in a bit) that isn’t very “chosen”, so that Vader isn’t the chosen one.

I add: If being chosen means destroying the Sith, Luke isn’t chosen because Vader destroyed the last sith, not Luke.

Here is my argument. At the end of ROTS, Yoda speculates that the Jedi Order’s interpretation of balance to mean the destruction of the Sith could be incorrect. I don’t think Lucas would put that in the script unless the speculation had a lot of weight i.e. we are supposed to conclude that Yoda is correct. This is the only thing that Yoda has ever admitted being possibly wrong about. He bowed to Obi-Wan’s wish to train Luke only as a martyr, unwilling, conlusive of Luke’s unfitness for the task.

Also, if alankistler’s version of balance means evil and good force-wielders coexisting, Vader and/or Luke throw the Force out of balance by eliminating evil force-wielders. I think this reinforces that Yoda’s speculation is right: balance means something else.

Which leaves me to return to my previous speculation on what balance means.

This rebuttal to Vader is hilarious:

I think what you’re telling me is that if the Red Skull killed Hitler when the Russians were crushing down on Berlin, the Skull should’ve been considered a good guy in the end.

The insolvability of Vader’s mass murders is a problem I’ve also thought on, and I explore a possible solution in that same writing that explores the interpretation of balance.

alankistler also goes into Leia’s memory of her mother as not really possible. I’d thought on this. I don’t know, I’ve thought maybe Leia has some Force abilities and is really only seeing a vision of the past through the Force. That’s problematic though and I’d like my rewrite to explain it.

Lastly - alankistler seems to identify Yoda’s description of Qui-Gonn’s “path to immortality” as meaning to know how to be a ghost. I hadn’t thought of that. I was picturing an actual, corporeal Qui-Gonn. We may not know unless Lucas continues to not leave his films alone and inserts scenes with Qui-Gonn into Ep. IV. alankistler says Vader couldn’t be a ghost without contacting Qui-Gonn - I think that Qui-Gonn would have waited to intercept Vader’s soul right at his death, and train him.

I find the concept of having to train to be a ghost troubling - my belief is that everyone is right at death.

One PunditGuy concludes from Episode III that preisthood celibacy should be reinforced. This person also draws an analogy between Anakin’s concealment and homosexuality. That is.. extremely illogical. The only similarity is concealment. The virtue or vice of the matters being concealed is totally different. I don’t draw the conclusion that Anakin should abolish what he has to conceal, but that the pressure on him to conceal and dissociate.. that pressure is what should be abolished. This previous post of mine gives more towards that view.

I’m glad this other reviewer likes the film. At the same time I have major gripes with her review: she complains that Padme was marginalized and is no longer a “strong fighter”. Does this reviewer really expect that a pregnant woman would be out doing kung-fu and blasting baddies? A pregnant woman doesn’t make these apparenty important battles - most of them are stuck on their butt trying not to throw up every day for at least the first trimester, struggling to be anything other than immobile most of the time. This reviewer trivializes the task and value of childbirth: “..nothing to do really.. but pop out the twins”. Is that a small thing? But continuing the race is the greatest of things: without it, all plans are foiled. All plans should surround this. Two posts ago I speculate that attaching to those around you (Anakin’s marriage) is in fact what balances the force: the Jedi Order’s dissociation led to Anakin’s fall.

I will here point out that both of these reviewers apparently subscribe to values that in my opinion devalue the family. I object.

Warning - EPISODE III spoilers

In my last entry I said I was wrong in my old prediction that Palpatine is Anakin’s father (originally I said that either Palpatine or Darth Maul is in some way). Hours after posting it, I realized: I think I was right! Here’s how; let’s return to the strong clue that Darth Sidious is Darth Plageus’ apprentice: wherein he offers Anakin the knowledge of how to prevent death. From the Darth Plageuis story we know that right along with the power of preventing death comes creating life.

I think Darth Sidious created Anakin!
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Warning - Episode III spoilers

I just saw this movie. I thought it was great. All of the leads amazed me. I cried. At first thinking this through, I think this movie not only surpasses EPISODES I-II but nearly justifies EPISODE VI (Return of the Jedi).

Why? It seems to solve the major problem of Anakin murdering thousands (and later assisting in the murder of millions) of people while apparently comprehending the wrong of it. Episode III makes a strong case that he doesn’t comprehend the wrong of it. It shows Palpatine pressing upon a vulnerable Anakin an equation of Padme’s inevitable death as precipitated by the Jedi witholding knowledge from him - offering that a power of the Dark side could stop it. This with the pressure of the Jedi order placed on Anakin against Darth Sidious - who is the only one offering what seems a real solution to him for that problem - convincingly justifies in Anakin’s mind his betrayal of the Jedi Order.
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Note - I think some as-yet unspecified event brings Luke’s grief for his father to the surface. Further, he may feel rage over a sense of betrayal. In THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK he called to Ben for closure, and hasn’t had it. I think he wants three things - 1)The ability to grieve for his newfound identification with his father 2)His father back - which he doesn’t realize right now - too much distraction with greif and also distraction with 3)His mentor back and a sense that someone in the universe understands him.

Someone said not to make a person’s objective to be understood/loved. Why? On the contrary I think this is the core objective of most people: the paradox is that acceptance comes (from those who will give it) when you understand and accept them first.

Also - I employ what I suppose must be an archetype here: sight of the sightless. The 3rd Matrix film used it and probably pulled it from the “collective unconsious” of humanity.

EXT. TATTOOINE ? BEN KENOBI’S ABANDONED HOME ? DUSK

A lone X-wing lowers to Ben’s home and lands. A figure jumps out of the X- wing and runs to the entrance of Ben’s home. It is Luke, his soul rent and enraged. R2-D2 lowers out of the X-wing droid slot and follows Luke into the home.

INT. ? BEN KENOBI’S HOME - FRONT ENTRY

Luke runs into the home in a furor, forgetting to close the door. Standing in the front entry and calling for Ben, who doesn’t show, Luke flies into a rage of SCREAMING AT BEN/VADER, his two fathers, and while he is at it Owen, about abandonment and turmoil (writ unknown). It is more than he can bear and he settles into a post-traumatic memory burial trance. The trauma won’t bury. His unconscious is aware of available help: consciousness isn’t. It exhausts him and he collapses unconscious.

EXT. - BEN KENOBI’S HOME ? NIGHT SANDSTORM ?

The sandstorm SCREAMS VIOLENTLY across the land. Impenetrable, powerful dark umber and orange gashes of sand SCREAM ENDLESSLY along our view.

INT. ? BEN KENOBI’S HOME ? MAIN ROOM

The SCREAMING of the sandstorm continues outside. Luke lies unconscious on the ground. R2 has dragged Luke into the main room and sealed the inner door. LUKE’S POV - All is deaf silent as Luke awakens. His bearing is off. 3RD POV - the sandstorm screams outside; Artoo CHIRPS a greeting to luke. LUKE’S POV - DEAD SILENT - Luke recollects consciousness and remembers why he is here. Vader, the unburied dead. Horror, grief. He inhales slowly, exhales sharply:

LUKE

(MUTED)

Vader. Father.

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Of Star Wars encompassing core ideas of myriad religions, philosphies, and myths: Lucas pays tribute to the works of Joseph Campbell for this. Cambel said that Lucas was his best student.

So to understand Lucas, go to Campbell. I tried that in High School - the Hero with a Thousand Faces was indegestible. Maybe my brain has stretched since then (for mercy’s sake I hope so!)

Or perhaps more easily - at least for a primer (if you know me you know that I’ll read Campbell’s books eventually) - there are myriad books that set out to educate on one religion/philosophy or another by way of comparative study to Star Wars.

I began reading in the bookstore a book entitled CHRISTIAN WISDOM OF THE JEDI MASTERS. I found it extremely compelling. To distill precisely the virtues and ills inherent in the films is something I’ve wanted to do for this rewrite project. Problematically, that it is a comparative work isn’t clear: people of slipshod thinking would take it as integrative and start referring to themselves as Jedi Christians. Bad idea. If media and religion marry, let’s at least stay clear that they are different people. Similar titles: THE TAO OF STAR WARS, THE (DHARMA?) OF STAR WARS, PHILOSOPHY AND STAR WARS. I also want to read a work entitled PHILOSOPHY AND THE MATRIX.

This entry is based on what information I have prior to watching the final installation of the STAR WARS films - being EPISODE III THE REVENGE OF THE SITH, to be released in theaters only a week from now.

My present view is that mercy cannot redeem Darth Vader.

This is a terrible problem! I know from my young fan days reading STAR WARS insider and other sources that Lucas’ focus is really on the idea of a fall and redemption for Vader: Vader is the main character of it all, I-VI, if Luke is the major character of episodes IV-VI.

Watching Return of the Jedi, I want a sense of closure for Vader’s redemption terribly, I even get caught up in the drama and believe it, and then afterwards.. I don’t. I do not mean that a person who had commit crimes to the extent of Darth Vader’s would be irredeemable. On the contrary I believe that someone with Vader’s crimes could be redeemed if the circumstances are right.
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STAR WARS is dying. EPISODE III will shortly be released, and the series will be all done, all over.

But for me the films have long been dead. This death came as my realizations emerged of Return of the Jedi’s impossibility. I am not talking about discarding my childhood belief in my telekinetic powers.

Many years ago my email correspondence with a friend, and also my family, evolved from complaints about the film Return of the Jedi to thoughts and ideas on what generally would satisfy us in the film, if it were different, and from there to the ambition of re-writing the entire film.

Here, I’ll pull from those summaries, and post the gripes, questions, and proposed revisions, peacemeal. I invite you to comment on each. I begin with my own present summary of what I view as the film’s most critical flaw.

I was delighted when my brother spotted an article illustrating that Orson Scott Card has the same primary complaint with Return of the Jedi.

Here is a movie (just below, in quicktime format) of me variously reading a difficult line Mark Hammil had at his Star Wars audition. Actor Validation Disclaimer: I’m being a “spaz”; this is not work suited for film. Also, I think my Napolean impression is a bit off.

Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is much greater than on Aquili or Sullist, and what they do have is most likely directed towards a large scale assault.