The "What Are You Thinking About Right Now?" PIP

[Enrico_sw]

Meanwhile, I'm rewatching this

 

[Cult Icon]

1 hour ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

Way to go! You get better at everything when you practice it.

 

I'm not a huge fan of Dr Grande, he sounds like a depressed bloke.

 

Your teleprompter is on your PC's screen and you place the camera above the screen, right?

 

thanks!

 

I have a large widescreen monitor and I use this program:

 

Free Teleprompter Software - Voice Activated Online Teleprompter [2022] (telepromptermirror.com)

 

It's somewhere over the words, the placement matters as it has to look natural.

[Cult Icon]

1 hour ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

I hope they learn from their mistakes with regards to production timing and release dates... and I really hope that their writing doesn't get polluted by the current thing going on in American entertainment.

 

I think Galadriel is a bit of a 'Joan of arc' type character in this one.  For some reason (Witcher Netflix too) I can't really get used to seeing black elves.  It just doesn't look right.  I am too conditioned for the old ways lol.

 

Are you watching both fantasy shows (HOD and Rings)?   This is the best time for TV.

 

[Enrico_sw]

4 minutes ago, Cult Icon said:

 

I think Galadriel is a bit of a 'Joan of arc' type character in this one.  For some reason (Witcher Netflix too) I can't really get used to seeing black elves.  It just doesn't look right.  I am too conditioned for the old ways lol.

 

Are you watching both fantasy shows (HOD and Rings)?   This is the best time for TV.

 

 

I was referring to Stromboli's link about CD Projekt and the new witcher games.

 

I'm not watching the new American fantasy shows (neither HOD nor the RoP). I love fantasy (particularly Tolkien and GRR Martin's) and I'm sure the visuals are great, but I came up to increasingly dislike American movie/shows in the past few years (probably since the last jedi). There are exceptions, but Hollywood is mostly filed with political nutcases today. And I watch movies/series for escapism, not for a reminder of how dilapidated things are in 2022.

 

---------

 

BTW, Galadriel is a fantastic Tolkien character, but I fear that Amazon has butchered her story.

[Enrico_sw]

25 minutes ago, Cult Icon said:

For some reason (Witcher Netflix too) I can't really get used to seeing black elves.  It just doesn't look right.  I am too conditioned for the old ways lol.

 

 

Me neither, because it doesn't look realistic. These fantasy stories are supposed to be based off European medieval type environment. But these actors are put here like tokens which isn't my cup if tea.

 

The Witcher's Northern Kingdoms are supposed to be a Polish /  Central & Eastern European environment.

 

In GoT,  Northern Westeros people look like Northern Europeans, Southern like Southern, Essos' ppl like Middle East / North Africa and actors are cast this way. It looks more realistic IMO. Anyway...

[Enrico_sw]

This is from when good American movies were made!

 

I remember when I was working in M&A, few people would publicly admit they knew these movies, but in private discussions most of them said they loved 'em!

 

 

[Matt!]

4 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

 

Yea, wow.  I thought she was immortal or something : - /

 

Yeah, me too. 

[SympathysSilhouette]

Predator II was rather poorly received by critics. I thought it was okay at the time, but not nearly as good as the original film.

 

Anyway, they changed Galadriel's backstory to fit her into their narrative. I can see Tolkien purists hating that.

What I cannot get is them accusing her of being a Mary Sue when she is canonically like top three or top four most powerful character in the original trilogy.

You cannot at the same time insist that Tolkien's vision is respected and then complain that Galadriel is too powerful or skilled.

 

On the subject of changes being made from Tolkien, if the Stranger who landed with the Harfoots is either meant to be Gandalf or one of the Blue Wizards, then that would mean they are messing majorly with the time line there too.

 

[Cult Icon]

1 hour ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

Predator II was rather poorly received by critics. I thought it was okay at the time, but not nearly as good as the original film.

 

Anyway, they changed Galadriel's backstory to fit her into their narrative. I can see Tolkien purists hating that.

 

Galadriel has barely any story anyway.  There are a ton of Tolkien superfans that want all the film and tv to be like the books.  I read all the main books and TBH I find Tolkien's work, outside of the hobbits/gandalf to be not very character driven. Tolkien focuses mostly about world building and atmosphere.  Most of his characters tend to be shallow and not how modern writers would make them.  If this was any other franchise, I don't think there would be a fanbase that wanted the characters to be just like those in the books.

 

Critics were harsher in the late 90s/early 2000s (when I used to read a lot of reviews).  Now even an above-middling film is classified as very good.

[Cult Icon]

13 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

I was referring to Stromboli's link about CD Projekt and the new witcher games.

 

I'm not watching the new American fantasy shows (neither HOD nor the RoP). I love fantasy (particularly Tolkien and GRR Martin's) and I'm sure the visuals are great, but I came up to increasingly dislike American movie/shows in the past few years (probably since the last jedi). There are exceptions, but Hollywood is mostly filed with political nutcases today. And I watch movies/series for escapism, not for a reminder of how dilapidated things are in 2022.

 

 

Oh, my mistake.  Yea, W4 is a real wildcard.  Nobody knows anything.  I just know that the man in charge of the Gwent lore is playing a leading role.  The expanded witcher lore by CPDR is actually pretty impressive but it is really rather political, like Witcher 2.   It will be hard to replace the great characters of W1/W3/novels with new ones.  I don't think much of it, I find that W3 is so massive and rich that when I have time I could go through it a 3rd time..if W4 turns out to be forgettable, W3 is timeless to me anyway.

 

I don't think Rings of Power and HOD episodes 1 are particularly woke.  They are a lot less woke than the Witcher.  If they used an entirely white cast the show would have the same writing.  HOD episode 1 was genuinely quite good, I recommend it.  Rings of Power is worth watching for the visuals imho, and to learn a bit about the Silmarillion. 

[Cult Icon]

13 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

Me neither, because it doesn't look realistic. These fantasy stories are supposed to be based off European medieval type environment. But these actors are put here like tokens which isn't my cup if tea.

 

The Witcher's Northern Kingdoms are supposed to be a Polish /  Central & Eastern European environment.

 

In GoT,  Northern Westeros people look like Northern Europeans, Southern like Southern, Essos' ppl like Middle East / North Africa and actors are cast this way. It looks more realistic IMO. Anyway...

 

Yea, the race swapping is still awkward looking to me even if the actor is good.  If the races match the place they are from than it makes more sense. Otherwise it looks like they were just casted to make a quota.  One of the aspects that I don't like about the cast for the Witcher is that they come across as stage actors that played a lot of shakespeare but don't know anything about the Witcher (besides Henry Cavill).  The black Mother Nenneke sticks out to me.  She was black, charismatic, and talented but played this character more like a voodoo witch doctor than a conservative auntie that the character is.

 

In general I think the American film industry nose-dived in quality after the late 2000s.  It coincided with the Superhero craze and the rise of streaming services.  

 

Films prior to this time, and especially prior to the early 2000s were not made in such a rushed manner.  Got back to the 1980s-1990s and you can see how much more meticulous films were (often with unique directing styles).  There is a 'factory floor'/generic feel with a lot of the stuff being produced now.  Also CGI is very frequently overused and the practical effects industry started declining in capability in the 2000s.

[Cult Icon]

I finished Rings episode 2.  My conclusion is that this show is also aimed at a younger demographic (while retaining Adult interest), like a Disney/Pixar film.  That might explain the way the dialogue is.

 

Rings 3 dropped. Overall HOD is more my type of show, it is much more adult.

 

 

Numeanor in Episode 3 looks great.

[Cult Icon]

Some more things I learned when filming: 1. lighting is vital.

 

I bought a cheap but effective 4k webcam and light holder and it worked excellently.  The warm yellow ring light has given much better visual quality.  I was considering on going out to buy an expensive camera but this is enough for now.

 

I caved in and bought a 7 ft x 5.5 ft green screen.  I film in my study, which is covered in wooden panel and bookcases.  I couldn't get an acceptable visual output with the real bookcases (too many shadows).  The wooden panel is much better but I would like to have more control over the backgrounds I can use.

 

The backgrounds can be adjusted in various programs, the free one is OBS.

[Prettyphile]

Shrooms soon

and.... 1 more gift, maybe 2 for Pheno, 1 more for my mom, 1 more for my brother, and I'm totally done with Christmas shopping.

[Enrico_sw]

On 9/9/2022 at 12:07 PM, SympathysSilhouette said:

Predator II was rather poorly received by critics. I thought it was okay at the time, but not nearly as good as the original film.

 

 

Predator 2 is a great movie. What critics say don't really matter to me, I never really trusted them, but I definitely stopped after the Last Jedi. Most critics are paid by newspapers that are owned by mother companies of movie studios.......... and the collusion is not a "suspicion", there are many cases in which it can be easily proved. And the opposite is sometimes true, I can see instances where critics destroy a foreign movie to protect their mother companies' baby.

 

It was probably less the case in the 90s when Predator 2 was released, but it's another illustration that they are often wrong

 

Anyway, I prefer the original Predator, but Predator 2 is still a great movie. All of the actors are brilliant. The setup is very interesting and Los Angeles can clearly be seen as an hybrid between a jungle and a city.

[Enrico_sw]

On 9/9/2022 at 2:27 PM, Cult Icon said:

Yea, the race swapping is still awkward looking to me even if the actor is good.  If the races match the place they are from than it makes more sense. Otherwise it looks like they were just casted to make a quota.  One of the aspects that I don't like about the cast for the Witcher is that they come across as stage actors that played a lot of shakespeare but don't know anything about the Witcher (besides Henry Cavill).  The black Mother Nenneke sticks out to me.  She was black, charismatic, and talented but played this character more like a voodoo witch doctor than a conservative auntie that the character is.

 

Yep, exactly.

[Enrico_sw]

These articles/backlash/events are exactly why I dislike Hollywood.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/08/rings-of-power-racism-elijah-wood-tolkien/

 

All of these articles were probably ready months in advance. PR at Amazon planned to shoot them as soon as one critic would hit their product: "Reeeee, you don't like our product, so it means you're reeecist".

 

It's a never-ending broken record.

[Enrico_sw]

BTW, in Predator 2, you have women, black, latinos, etc. and nobody made it a selling point to the viewer. You didn't hear people saying "Watch our movie, it's the first time we employed a wahmen or a black guy".

 

We loved Danny Glover as the hero, because he was an awesome cop, not because of his skin colour. That was called being civilized. Now Hollywood is a jungle obsessed with race, gender and "the current thing".

 

--

Remember how the Predator was a villain, but a civilized villain that wouldn't harm a pregnant woman? Awesome movie.

 

 

[Enrico_sw]

Awesome team too

[Enrico_sw]

I love the cast of this movie