Yes, it is a step up for power users, but I imagine it must be intimidating to n00bz and is a little too crowded for my tastes. But having finally spent some time with #NewTwitter, deeper problems make me think it got kicked out of the nest before its wings were fully formed.
Monthly Archive for September, 2010
We’ve just returned from a screening of Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, at Cinemateket with Jan Harlan – Kubrick’s brother-in-law and the film’s director – in attendance. The documentary itself, supreme as it is, is available on DVD; however, the Q&A session with Jan Harlan isn’t. A shame, as Harlan was both funny, honest and insightful about Kubrick and his filmmaking.
Which is why I recorded it.
Afterwards I asked him what had become of the 18 hours of material shot, I believe by Kubrick’s (later estranged) daughter Vivian, for Full Metal Jacket. Unfortunately it seems the sound was lost for most of it, and what remained is what made its way into this and the Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes documentaries. Shame.
Update: Thank you Jay Goodman Tamboli for normalizing the audio for me.
Foreword
The creation of Star Wars is comprehensive mythology onto itself, populated by rarely documented anecdotes, the likes of “the Millennium Falcon was inspired by a hamburger, with the outrigger cockpit being an olive off to the side” (1) or “My original inspiration for Chewbacca was my dog Indiana.” (2), compelling enough to be repeated until they’re so prevalent that they must be true, and are accepted even by hardcore fans and Lucasfilm itself. Unfortunately sometimes they’re embellished truths or half-truths, sometimes entirely false and in pretty much all cases oversimplifying a truly interesting, and luckily exceptionally well documented creative process.
And that’s what this is about; the creative process. Cultural touchstones like Star Wars might seem to have sprung fully formed from the minds of their lauded creators, but as in all creative endeavors, movie making, web design or this very post, nothing could be further from the truth. Creation is a process, and strangely, by looking at how everyone’s favorite plushy first-mate sprang into existence, we can learn a lot about any collaborative creative endeavor.
Unfortunately, perhaps because of the verisimilitude of the disciplines needed to make a film like Star Wars come together, the making-of narrative is surprisingly fragmented and often incomplete. A quick look at the bibliography needed to put together this post should give a good idea of just how fragmented. And once you’re down the rabbit hole, you quickly learn that nothing found there can be taken at face value. Quotes, drawings, photos and diagrams lack sources, are undated, some old, some new, some so distorted as to be pure fiction and most of it entirely out of context.
But while the official sources are often great, compiling from many different sources to dispel myths about Boba Fett’s ship, Slave 1 or tell in staggering detail the creation of the film from beginning till end as in the case of books like ‘The Making of Star Wars’, there are still plenty of dim, and in some cases even seemingly purposefully blacked out areas in the development of Star Wars. Just ask Michael Kaminski!
The story of how Chewbacca came to be is one of those. A fascinating look at what happens in the space between idea, page and screen.
Continue reading ‘George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It’s Okay’
Factoid time!
Human sacrifice was common in the pagan world. It was cruel but had a logic and rationale. The first child was often believed to be the offspring of a god, who had impregnated the mother in an act of droit de seigneur. In begetting the child, the god’s energy had been depleted, so to replenish this and to ensure the circulation of all the available mana, the first-born was returned to its divine parent.
Source: Karen Armstrong, A History of God, softcover edn, Vintage, 1999, p. 27.
And allow me, on that note, to pitch A Short History of Myth by same, one of the best, if shortest, books I’ve read in years. Insightful and inspiring. And short. It also comes in a beautiful mythology boxset, which is the edition I have — a present — though I haven’t read the other two books yet, so I can’t vouch for them.
I had a short discussion on Twitter this morning — I’d link to it, if Twitter had thread permalinks — sparked by Danielle’s tweet, in which she calls bullshit on Gawker’s article on the new Google Instant commercial, in which Ryan Tate (who has had a brush with Jobs earlier this year, and with whom I don’t agree in the slightest with regards to the iPad) asserts that regardless its intentions, this is one ad Steve Jobs will hate:
Even when I close any notifiers and twitter-/chat clients, I’m just too easily distracted to get writing done in proper on my Mac. I blame Command–TAB, however I guess I’ll have to take full responsibility myself…
Continue reading ‘Writing on the iPad: A Story of Love, Heartache & Infuriating Bugs’
I rather wish the sessions had been video’d, as the slideshows — particularly Tom Coates’ all-singing all-dancing extravaganza, Brendan Dawes’ interactive 2D physics and certainly David McCandless’ infographics — did carry quite a bit of weight. Nonetheless, thanks to Drew, that man of men, the podcasts are now up, and I heartily recommend you go download the following:
- Marty Neumeier on innnovation and design, arguing for making damned sure whatever you’re building isn’t just good, but different (and romantic).
- John Gruber on The Auteur Theory of Design. Every film reference seemed specifically aimed at me. Thanks John :)
- James Bridle on The Value of Ruins might have been my favorite of the conference; a natural speaker, informative and surprising from start to finish.
- Tom Coats on Everything the Network Touches needs the amazing slideshow somewhat, but should be a good listen nonetheless.
- Merlin Mann on Nerds is as always just a wonderful stream of words from the Mann himself. Without video I’m afraid you’ll have to imagine just how much Merlin looks like an animated, upbeat Stephen King.
- David McCandless on data visualization was great, but rather dependent on the slideshow. Luckily, he did a talk at TED, which by his own words, was largely the same.
Of course, if you simply want to gobble it all down into the belly of iTunes, here’s an RSS feed.
Gruber linked to these great minimalistic Star Wars posters, giving points for using the Falcon twice. I would note that seeing as the blockade runner was the prototype Falcon, in spirit the Falcon is actually the center of all three posters.
What a piece of junk…
dConstruct 2010 was above and beyond expectations, and it was, as always, pleasant putting real-world faces and mannerisms to Twitter streams. Others will do much better play-by-plays than I could hope for (the talks will be podcast, and I’ll be sure to curate my favorites then). For now, a couple of the highlights that stuck with me: