Live with Water

It is true that users generally don’t want to watch a beautiful four-minute mini-doc that comes after a 30-second pre-roll ad. That’s video as we now know it. But what the market is showing, and what I fundamentally believe, is that viewers want to immerse themselves in a visual story that makes use of the full range of creative techniques afforded by the tiny little computer in their hand that’s connected to the internet. And what that looks like is not exactly a “video” — that’s a new form of journalism.

German slides

In film and video, a freeze frame is when a single frame of content shows repeatedly on the screen—"freezing" the action. This can be done in the content itself, by printing (on film) or recording (on video) multiple copies of the same source frame. This produces a static shot that resembles a still photograph.

Freeze frame is also a term in live stage performance, for a technique in which actors freeze at a particular point to enhance a scene or show an important moment in production. Spoken word may enhance the effect, with one or more characters telling their personal thoughts regarding the situation.

Unica Dortmund

More than 240 enthusiasts attended the UNICA Congress 2017 in Dortmund. Each will have her or his own favourite memory. The venue, an industrial museum created from the headquarters of the Zollern Coal Mining company, was a star in itself.

The best bits were:
the choir at the opening ceremony
climbing the mine’s winding tower to look out over the city
eating curry-wurst on the grass with friends
visiting the stadium where Borussia play
when the fire-alarm went off and we thought it was part of the film.

Striptease & Spy: Mata Hari

On the cold morning of October 15, 1917, Mata Hari was executed in the Parisian suburb of Vincennes, President Raymond Poincare having refused her request for clemency.

Witnesses wrote that she wore a long, black velvet cloak with fur trimmings and a large square fur collar.

She is said to have declined a blindfold and blew kisses to her executors.

Asked by a military clerk whether she had any last revelations, she replied: "None, and if I had, I would keep them to myself."

The ultimate femme fatale, she has inspired a dozen films, numerous books, historical works, exhibitions and even a ballet by the Dutch National Ballet.

Her iconic status was cemented in 1931 when Swedish-born actress Greta Garbo played her in a film entitled "Mata Hari".

The nature and extent of her espionage activities remain, however, uncertain, and her guilt is still widely contested today.

"She never provided the least valid information, neither to the Germans, nor to the French," according to the French magazine Le Point in 2016, echoing a view expressed in other media.

Super 8 Lab

Frank Bruinsma:
I gave a short interview to Stichting Amateurfilm. This foundation has an aim to create interest for amateur film in past, present and tense. Many thanks to Ronald and Hans who made this video. There are no English subtitles, it is spoken in Dutch language only, sorry.

Camargue animals

Filmmaking is in a very strange place right now.

While traditional filmmakers focus on witty scripts and clever cinematography, technology such as smartphones have revamped how we tell stories; how quickly we can tell them, and how many get access to see them (hint: everyone).

Now we have 360 videos. Game changer.

The ripple effect this has had on both filmmakers and film festivals is quite astounding. While the latter was once seen as a traditional, formal event for the elite filmmakers of the world has now opened up to let anyone with a good idea and a phone create award winning films.

Loving Vincent a review

On 27th July 1890 a gaunt figure stumbled down a drowsy high street at twilight in the small French country town of Auvers.
The man was carrying nothing; his hands clasped to a fresh bullet wound leaking blood from his belly.
This was Vincent van Gogh, then a little known artist; now the most famous artist in the world.
His tragic death has long been known, what has remained a mystery is how and why he came to be shot.
Loving Vincent tells that story.

Tour du Gard

Communicators are filmmakers and content providers who have something to say using the power of moving images with excellent sound, well crafted stories and good sound tracks. Communicators will also consider a host of different mediums including short two and three minute episodes for mobiles (mobisodes) or internet (webisodes). Gaming and phone apps also provide interesting storytelling possibilities with a host of different strategies for monetizing current content being debated around the world.

Graceful Montpellier

The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film.

In 1964, it was replaced again by the Grand Prix du Festival before being reintroduced in 1974 as the Palme d'Or.

Romans' Way

Vienne is a commune in southeastern France, located 32 kilometres (20 mi) south of Lyon, on the river Rhône. It is only the fourth largest city in the Isère department, of which it is a subprefecture, but was a major center of the Roman empire.

Before the arrival of the Roman armies, Vienne was the capital city of the Allobroges, a Gallic people. Transformed into a Roman colony in 47 BCE under Julius Caesar, Vienne became a major urban center, ideally located along the Rhône, then a major axis of communication. It was to Vienne in 7 CE that Augustus banished King Herod Archelaus, so the Herodian family may have had land there. The town later became a Roman provincial capital. Numerous remains of Roman constructions are still visible in modern Vienne

Raining Cats and Dogs

His Master's Voice (HMV) is a famous trademark in the recording industry and was the unofficial name of a major British record label. The phrase was coined in the 1890s as the title of a painting of a terrier mix dog named Nipper, listening to a wind-up disc gramophone. In the original painting, the dog was listening to a cylinder phonograph. In the 1970s, the statue of the dog and gramophone, His Master's Voice, were cloaked in bronze and was awarded by the record company (EMI) to artists or music producers or composers as a music award and often only after selling more than 100.000 sound carriers such as LPs.

Montpellier, the old city

Video production is the process of creating video by capturing moving images (videography), and creating combinations and reductions of parts of this video in live production and post-production (video editing). In most cases the captured video will be recorded on the most current electronic media such as SD cards. In the past footage was captured on video tape, hard disk, or solid state storage. Video tape capture is now obsolete and solid state storage is reserved for just that, storage. It is now distributed digitally in formats such as the Moving Picture Experts Group format (.mpeg, .mpg, .mp4), QuickTime (.mov), Audio Video Interleave (.avi), Windows Media Video[1] (.wmv), and DivX (.avi, .divx). It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with images recorded digitally instead of on film stock.

Entree of the Ardeche (valley)

Shooting in the round refers to a style in cinematography in which the 180-degree rule is broken and the actors are filmed from all sides.

During TV show panel discussions, shooting in the round can help the guests feel like all the panelists are equal and create a feeling of greater intimacy.

The name of the style is originally brought from the theater, called theatre in the round.

 

La Petite Camargue

A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of trained and captive animals. Sometimes they are about wild animals, plants, or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema medium. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series.

 

La Grande Motte

A step outline (more commonly called a beat sheet) is a detailed telling of a story with the intention of turning the story into a screenplay for a motion picture.

The step outline briefly details every scene of the screenplay's story, and often has indications for dialog and character interactions. The scenes are often numbered for convenience.

It can also be an extremely useful tool for a writer working on a spec script.

Finding Film Ideas

Backlight (Dutch: Tegenlicht) is a documentary television series by Dutch public broadcasting organisation VPRO. The first episode of Backlight was broadcast on 8 September 2002.

The series "aims to grasp the quintessence of prominent trends and developments" in the practice of critical journalism, and tries to improve understanding of the intricate inner workings of our modern society.

Wijnegem mall near Antwerp

The first camera using digital electronics to capture and store images was developed by Kodak engineer Steven Sasson in 1975. He used a charge-coupled device (CCD) provided by Fairchild Semiconductor, which provided only 0.01 megapixels to capture images. Sasson combined the CCD device with movie camera parts to create a digital camera that saved black and white images onto a cassette tape. The images were then read from the cassette and viewed on a TV monitor.  Later, cassette tapes were replaced by flash memory.

Fleur de sel

Each year, Aigues-Mortes produces 500,000 tons of salt, making it a worldwide benchmark.
In the Camargue, salt can be found widely in the soil, and the nature of the flat and clayey land, dotted with ponds, lends itself well to the extraction of sea salt. It is also a region where evaporation is the most intense and rainfall the weakest.

The salt production in Aigues-Mortes goes back to Antiquity. Peccius, a Roman engineer at the start of the Christian Era, was put in charge of organising salt production.
In 1856, the different salt marsh owners united to found the Salins du Midi (Saltworks of the South).

 

NRA - Sunday with Lubach

An anti-war movement (also antiwar) is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict.

Grand Causses

The Causses and the Cévennes, Mediterranean agro-pastoral Cultural Landscape located in the southern part of central France with over three millennia of agro-pastoral history.
The region is mountainous with numerous narrow valleys, making conditions poorly suited to host cities, but well-suited for pastoralism. Consequently, the landscape of Causses and Cévennes evolved over time to reflect all types of Mediterranean agro-pastoral systems. The Causses and the Cévennes retain numerous testimonies of this evolution of pastoralism over time. Mont Lozère is one of the last places where summer transhumance is still practiced in the traditional way.