Tron: A Review.

15th December, 2018.

No, really: I’m semi-serious in this post’s introduction video.

Has anyone got any free or blue dye, some old, preferable clean, spare bedsheets, and some sort of upright frame I and nail seem bright blue or bright green bedsheets, to?

The reason I ask … ?

Whilst I was job-hunting, earlier, I had YouTube on: when this video came up.





Explaining how to  use a free app to give your videos a twist: by using compositing.

A technique that’s occasionally called Green Screen, or Colour Separation Overlay, or CSO, or Chromakey.

Basically?   You film something in front of a green or blue screen.

Then, in post-production, the green — or blue — parts of the video, are replaced with something else: usually an image, but occasionally, moving backgrounds.

That tutorial interested me: it’s a technique that was used on Dr Who back in the 1970s, on Star Wars, Max Headroom, your average news studio, and Star Trek.

And it’s something I felt I could use for some of the videos on Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar.

While Photo Booth’s nice, its background effects aren’t perfect.



You’ll have probably noticed the bleed over effect in the intro?   That’s from Photo Booth.

So hearing about a piece of software apparently powerful enough to let me improve on that?

That caught my attention.

Then, of course, inspiration hit me.

I could download something would only take up the limited room on my hard drive …

Or I could maybe poke around through the user manual on the various bits of software on my Mac.

It seems I can — given a green or blue screen — do basic compositing with my current version of iMovie.

It has to be said, thirty years ago?   I’d’ve needed a TV studio to make composite video.



Now all I need is some bedsheets.

~≈§≈~

Right now?

That possibly matters a lot less than … several other things.

Frankly, I started planning this post earlier tonight.

I’d seen Brainstorm, many years ago: and associated it with both WarGames and the original Tron.

I’d watched WarGames, last night.

Tonight?

I thought I should catch Tron … 

~≈§≈~

51 — A Review

14th March, 2013

You know, it has to be said, sometimes, I’m a film fan.

Hmm … that sounds remarkable ambiguous, doesn’t it … ?

What I mean to say, simply, is that I like watching movies.

Sci-fi and horror, for the most part: although I will make an exception, occasionally, if you’re VERY persuasive about a given film.

At ANY rate … ?

At any rate, I know what I like, and head straight for it when I can.

Occasionally, though, I manage to dig up a clunker or two.

I think the worst film I’ve managed to catch, recently, was Orcs: and even though I gave it a star and a half, it was a film was a certain sense of irony to it.

Or, at least, had its tongue stuck in its cheek.

But then … ?

~~≈≈~~

THEN there’s the film I managed to catch, last night.

Or not, to be perfectly frank.

The film in question was the 2011 film, 51: one I’d rented from iTunes, after I’d seen its trailer and felt it was worth a punt.

I think I can safely say this.

I was wrong.

It WASNT one capable of holding my attention for more than about twenty minutes: and that’s maybe 15 minutes more than it was worth.

I’ll leave 51: with 0 stars.

51         

☆☆☆☆

And tell you one thing: 51 is a waste of money.