So after approximately a day and a half in the air and cooling our heels at airports, Mel and I arrived in Cairo yesterday in the wee hours of the morning. After sleeping until mid-afternoon, we awoke to chaos outside our downtown hotel. Chaos to us, everyday life to the average Cairene. After wandering around our neighourhood for a while, we decided to call it an early night, but jet lag had other plans and we spent most of our time vainly trying to sleep whiel our bodies insisted we were still in Vancouver.
Today, however, we made our way downtown to check out true chaos. After a bit of wandering around the Corniche (the walkway on the Nile) and being harassed by boat and taxi hucksters the whole way, we gradually forged onward to Abu Tarek, a famous cafe that specializes in koshary, which is a blend of spaghetti, garlic, lentils, and spiciness. It’s a big hit with locals and is often crowded (as seen in Anthony Bourdain’s show, No Reservations) but we lucked out and got to tuck in in relative peace.
We then made our way to Coptic Cairo, the old Christian section of the city. Some of the churches date from the last millenium, and the Roman gates at the front are from 98 AD. We also got to see a goat getting its neck cut open, a definite first for Mel and myself.
Tomorrow we hope to check out Islamic Cairo, and after that our tour begins.
The Three Who Rule were all back on terra firma (ie. North America) this week, and the usual Who-ish banter of course centred around the imminent showing of “The Next Doctor”, due December 25th on UK TVs and computers worldwide. But that didn’t stop the jaunty (and in the case of Chris, jet-lagged) japemeisters from venturing forth on the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (conclusion: crap), along with an altogether too long talk about the merits of various Star Trek series, before sauntering back to the matter at hand. Next week, Chris and Steven are left to their own devices, as Warren wanders to Egypt to battle Sutekh and save 1980 from armageddon, seen through the TARDIS doors as terrible model photography and CSO.
So it appears that indie filmmaking in 2008 is in dire straits. The technology to make a film has spread far and wide and the cost of making a film has plummeted, but according to Mike Curtis of HD for Indies, distribution is still next to impossible and the math doesn’t work in favor of people being able to make a living off of making movies. But…where’s the surprise here? Hasn’t that always been the way indie films have been? Kent Nichols, of Ask a Ninja fame, certainly thinks so, and states in his blog that the next generation of creators and stars will emerge from Youtube and other online venues. The Observer also has an interesting article about how web series have come of age since the early days of LonelyGirl15.
Personally, as someone who creates content for a living I don’t even think it’s worth it to create an independent feature film for anything other than as a calling card to showcase your skills. Sure, there’s lots of street cred, but that doesn’t pay the bills. Web series are an ideal platform in which to not only hone your craft but also pre-build an audience, should you ever decided to damn the torpedoes and go the feature route. And unlike the frankly byzantine procedures needed to make content with a studio or (here in Canada) a government agency, all a web series requires is a hosting service and the ability to click “upload.”
For the first time in a long time, the Three Who Rule went sans commentary and digressed, postulated, and even went off topic (twice!) in the middle of a sentence. The hygiene of certain Sex in the City characters, Steve Coogan, Big Finish audios, and oh yes, the latest Doctor Who news headlines were hashed over, giggled at, and finally shunted aside as your gallant crew went completely off the rails. Hoo-ray!
In addition to our usual podcasting shenanigans, two of the Three Who Rule also appeared on Doctor Who: Podshock for a live discussion of Series Four. Technical problems kept Steven from putting in his two bits in anything other than text, but Warren and Chris were able to denounce “The Doctor’s Daughter” and otherwise act like the scifi gadflies they are. You can download the episode here, or click below to listen.
And so it’s come to this. At long last the RFS crew reaches “Journey’s End,” the final episode of Series Four, and a story that nicely sums up Who scribe Gareth Roberts term of “anticipointment.” So much potential, frittered away in a fruitless wasting of the Rose story arc and Benny Hill-esque dispatchment of the Daleks. Still, Julian Bleach’s Davros and the sad fate of Donna Noble rescued the episode from the Trash-Bin of Utter Contempt (next door neighbour to the Gun of Spite) and gave our three heroes much gristle to chew over, spit out, and look at askance.
Not so long ago, it was an accepted truism that “no-one wants to watch TV on their computer.” But the profusion of streaming video, podcasts and web series has changed attitudes dramatically in the last couple of years. According to a recent article in the New York Times, more and more people are getting rid of their television and watching their programs online.
To me, this move makes sense. Online gives viewers more options in more locations, and with a wider choice of programs, not all of which are the product of Hollywood. A reasonable analogy would be the trend away from land-lines towards using mobile phones exclusively. There will also be room for living-room content; I for one still have my television, though it’s rapidly becoming more of a peripheral for my Xbox and a dvd-playback device than anything I’d watch actual TV programs on. Especially now that Ive discovered Livestation, which streams BBC World News, Al Jazeera and many other news channels right to my computer.
RED, the creators of the RED ONE camera that’s revolutionized digital filmmaking, recently announced two new cameras, the RED Scarlet and Epic. Essentially these two cameras operate as a modular “brain”, with an almost infinite choice of attachments that extend the camera from a fixed-lens shooter to a IMAX level behemoth capable of shooting 28k pictures.
The only problem with this panacea is that the original Scarlet, announced last year and them shelved, was a planned “3k for 3k” wonder camera that would have taken the prosumer and DV Rebel world by storm. Instead, low end users would have to shell out something on the order of $7,000 or more to build a suitable camera for their needs. That figure simply isn’t in the budget of many indie filmmakers.
Even more mysteriously, RED has announced that even more info will be released on December 3rd. It remains to be seen if lofi auteurs will be elated or disappointed in a few days time.