DON'T Read The Book!

As many of you may know a lot of movies and shows are based off of books. Some of the most well known movies such as the Harry Potter series is taken from the original books. For years though people always told me that you should read the book before seeing the movie. However I've found that this is not always the best course of action. This week I'll establish the times when it may or may not be best to read the book first.

Let's start with stand alone movies. These would be movies based off one book and are a single movie and not a series. Such examples are The Great Gatsby or Forrest Gump. In a movie where the plot is self contained and there are no prequels, or sequels to the book, I feel it is ok to read the book first. This gives you more insight into the characters that you may not get because of things that must be cut out for time purposes. So when a character makes a decision you have that prior supporting knowledge on why that choice was made. Now what about Harry Potter or The Chronicles Of Narnia? These are more of the opinion of the viewer. Because one book follows into the next one but doesn't leave you at a huge cliff hanger I feel reading the book first is ok. Their individual stories are always wrapped, sure you may want to know what they do next but you basically know how the next one will be or the story is wrapped so well you don't know what will happen next but its not a cliff hanger. 

Then there is a series like The Hunger Games. With this is advise NOT to read the book first. There are two qualities to a series like this. First of all the main plot is a competition. Whats the point of watching a competition if you know what's going to happen? Would you pay to go to the Super Bowl already knowing who wins and every play that will be made? Reading the book in this case takes away from the dramatics of it. Also they leave their books with cliff hangers, the end of the second book and movie specifically ends in a cliff hanger full of questions. This adds a lot more to the experience in my opinion and makes it worth watching. So those are just my opinions on when you should and shouldn't read the book before seeing the movie and of course this is all up to your personal preference this is just my advisory on it. 

Music Makes The Movie

Everyone likes music. It's a way to pass time, have a conversation or add feeling to something. This traslates in to how we use music in television and in movies. The job of music is to make the audience feel a certain way through the emotional power music has. For instance when you have a scene thats building up to a climatic part, the music should build on top of itself as more instruments and such are added in and it gets louder or more powerful. Also it's important that when you want to add music you think about the end result you want it to have and what will help you achieve that. For instance if you want a love sequence to make people feel emotional you wouldn't want a metal guitar blaring in the background. Also most people probably want to throw in professional music from your favorite bands. While this may seem cool you need to first make sure you have the ability to legally do this and even if you can does it add more than a custom track made yourself would? Also while making your film or show you should allow your music to take a feel of it's own. This means that your music should have a sound to it no matter what kind of feel it's supposed to give off. This will make it easy for your audience to relate hearing that music to your film or show.  

Getting Into Character

When you're acting it's important to LEARN YOUR CHARACTER. Yes you need to make the character your own but you need to analyze the character so that you can do it correctly. Whenever I receive a role there are a few things I've learned you should always do to learn your character. First of all you need to know the time period. Obviously someone in the 1920's isn't going to have their hand on their hips or other quirks we have in our modern society. Time period is also important because people behaved different within families, schools and every day life. This brings me to my next tip that you need to learn character interaction. Look at the other people your character will be in contact and interact with. If you're doing a reenactment or a show previously done or if there is a movie use those past performances to see how your character should talk, behave and act towards the other characters. If this is an original work, ask the director or writer how they imagined your character acting towards the others and the kind of relationships they have. Finally ALWAYS learn your character's history. Learn their backstory, what they are driven to do, and who they are, as if doing a history report. If you don't know who they are, how can you pretend to be them? And also make sure to enjoy it. It should be fun getting to be in another person's shoes for the sake of entertainment.

Lions and tigers and animals movies OH MY!

Ahhh animal movies, we've all seen them. Beethoven, Shiloh, Shaggy Dog and so on. There are a lot of extra steps in making movies like these, the biggest being the animals. You need to get the animals, the trainers, pay for their special food and needs. Also unlike humans you need to be more patient with them during scenes because they don't function like human beings do. But what really drives people to make these movies? I mean sure some like the Air Bud series has TONS of movies and probably made the recurring actors a lot of money but how much could it really be making for the film maker. It seems to me that the cost of making these movies should highly outweigh the profits especially since they are geared to a younger audience who now in days want more mature content. Anyway thats just my thoughts on theses movies and hope this provoked some thought for you as well.

What Is Slow Motion?

Hello internet, this week we're talking about something most people have seen. SLOW MOTION! Everybody love's watching some good slow motion, but how is real slow motion done? Some would say that you just run slow and slur your voice. Others would say you just take your video and slow down the playback rate. Now people could even say you shoot something on the new iPhone. But real slow motion is much more than that. For real slow motion you shoot with specially designed cameras. One of the most common brand names for slow motion cameras is called the Phantom cameras. Cameras like these record slow motion by recording tens of thousands of frames per seconds (differing from each model). At normal playback of 30 frames per second you could have only a few seconds of video play back at a duration of a couple of minutes. However this isn't something just anyone can do. It costs a lot of money to purchase one of these cameras and special training to operate them. So creates a special career field for camera operators who'd like to invest in doing slow motion as their job. For a great example of slow motion in use for fun ways you can check out www.youtube.com/theslowmoguys. It's a channel where a professional slow motion camera operator uses his phantom to shoot really cool entertaining things in slow motion. Until next week I'll leave you with their newest video you wouldn't wanna miss.

Music Sways The Scene

Music is a big component in television in movies. A lot of things in television in movies can trigger emotions like acting, visuals, but nothing does it better than music. For some reason well composed music can trigger the proper emotions. Music power doesn’t just lie with itself. Music helps to aid whatever scene is currently playing on screen. It may not even support the current action but if the music does something like start to sound creepy it preludes to what’s about to happen next. Its all about timing though. Trying to push a love song in the middle of an argument won’t do anything but confuse the audience. You need to have the feel for when and where music belongs to properly execute it to its fullest use. This takes time and reviewing past uses of music. So this has just been a quick idea that been running through my mind recently. See you guys next week and take care.

Let's Backtrack

Continuing on with last week's theme of debatable decisions for TV and movies this week we'll be taking a look at a device used in many. It's that thing a lot of people hate, when they know the end from the beginning. Ever watch a show or movie and it starts with a lot of stuff going on and you have no idea what happening. Then suddenly it cuts to black says something like "12 hours earlier". The audience now knows what will be happening later or in the end of the episode.

But is this a good idea? For instance I've noticed that this has been done in a lot of crime or investigation shows. When I'm watching one of those I'd rather try to figure out what's going to happen myself, I don't want something like that spoiling my fun. The worst is when they have an opening like that who reveals who the antagonist is in the show or movie because when you're watching it and the character is acting like a good guy still (because obviously he isn't going to give himself away) it just annoys me and takes away what's generally a good reveal and plot point of the plot. So once again this is an open ended thought provoking post to see what you think about this type of thing that is done in TV and movies.

Is Change A Good Thing?

Hello everyone I have a question for you, have you ever sat down to watch a show and when it comes on you're really confused. That's how I felt watching this season's premiere of Parenthood which is our topic of today, changes. The season premiere obviously takes place a good month or two after the last season's finale so you'd expect changes to have occurred, however there were a ton of changes. Characters were doing different things completely, in different locations, with different people and I was so busy just trying to comprehend what was going on that I barely could stay focused on the show.

For instance a character who was leaving was abruptly back with no explanation as to why until halfway through the show. And a lot of other questions I have still haven't been answered even after watching it multiple times. So what I want to put out is what is the amount of changes a series should make between seasons. Is it worth the time viewers spend thinking about what has changed as apposed to whats happening then just to not make changes. Just a little food for thought for your minds readers.

Anime Vs. Cartoons, What Is The True Difference?

If any of you readers grew up as a teenager between the late 90's and early 2000's then you have to know what anime is. You were one of the many people in what is known as the Otaku generation. A generation of people who were exposed wholly to anime. Fast forward to now, anime is starting to get a little more back into the public spotlight after it was long forgotten and left the public eye. Now must of you who watch anime must have this situation happen all the time. You're sitting down watching anime on your computer (much as I do in my free time in school and sometimes when I shouldn't) and you hear that comment. "Why you watching some stupid cartoons?" Yes to the untrained eye they mite seem like some little kid's cartoons, but what is it that truly separates anime from just some cartoon. Today I'll be talking about the things that in my opinion stand out. 

Now first and most obvious, anime is originally made in Japan which is it's most distinct quality. But it isn't what makes anime, anime. For instance people confuse Avatar The Last Air Bender for being an anime all the time. This is because it shares the other qualities most commonly seen in anime. To start the art style of an anime is always very high quality. Because it has become such a big part of their culture all anime is put together with such high art talent that everything looks amazing. The bigger the production time and project the even better it will look. On the topic of art, anime always has its own great line up of music tracks. The compositions even lead a lot of us to pull them up on our computer to listen to as we do work. 

Some of the biggest qualities come in the story though. Most anime is made from manga. A manga is a Japanese graphic novel. This is important because it means most anime already have established stories lines that are well fleshed out, meaning is all about bringing those details out in the video form. Which brings up another good point that characterization is a huge part of all animes. Every character no matter how big or small is usually given some way to emotionally connect to the audience to wear you care about them. I've seen an entire episode dedicated to one character who showed up at the beginning gained and emotional connect to the plot and audience and then dies at the end of that episode. Animes also share great, broad genres. There are comedies, sports, slice of life, action, adventure, mystery, if its a genre then there is a hit anime to cover it. 

Now focusing more on the story you see a huge difference in types of stories shown in american animated programs (and even live action) and that of animes. This is because Japan does not share the same sort of censorship that we do. Meaning a lot of radical and new ideas can be created and made over there that couldn't be done here. Usually this translates to seeing more mature themed stories or more complicated story lines, but this is not always true. Also in most cases when an anime is made the idea is pitched to a board of investors from different animation companies, they then decide whether to pick it up or not and who will fund and take the roles of this anime. This group of collaborators is most commonly seen in credits as the project group for the anime. For instance for Sword Art Online (shortened to SAO) they are credited as SAO Project. This highly differs from the American way of creating cartoons especially in the sense that they pull in more resources and talent from different place. 

So this is just a brief description on the differences I see between cartoons and anime. I hope that you enjoyed this article and for those of you reading who may have had a different mind set about anime before or didn't watch it then I hope to have convinced you to give it a try.

Fall TV Lineup Part 2

Last week I began telling you about some of the TV shows starting up again this fall that you should watch out for. This week I've got even more for you.

To start things off lets take a look into Arrow. Going into its 2nd season, Arrow is the television series based off the DC Comics hero Green Arrow. Oliver Queen, after being stranded on a seemingly deserted island, returns to civilization after bing presumed dead. Upon returning he swears that he will find the people who caused him to loose his father and the last five years of his life. To do this he plans to use a list left to him in his father's journal that names all the people who are corrupting his city. Threw this adventures he makes allies and enemies as he digs deeper into the conspiracy and more of his life on the island is revealed. It is a great take on a classic super hero and the 2nd season is primed to be as explosive as ever.

Next is everyone's favorite singing and dancing stars Glee. In case you have been living under a rock the last couple of years let me fill you in. Glee is a show all about high school students who all come from different backgrounds but join together in their school's show choir club, Glee Club. With the 5th season about to begin there are a lot of questions being raised. The biggest being how will they be adapting to the loss of their most beloved and lead male character who's actor died this past summer. Also their are a lot of great cliff hangers like will Blaine and Kurt get married, what's going to happen to Jake and will they be able to take home another Nationals with their club's current condition? You'll just have to watch to find out.

Then we got another super hero show coming out, Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Based on the secret FBI like society from the Marvel's Avenger universe. The story will focus on agent Phil Coulson from who will be taking on the duty of leading a small team in strange cases. Not to many details have been revealed yet but they plan on having super hero cameos as well as villain cameos and that it will serve to help bridge time gaps in the Marvel movie universe. If it's anywhere near as good as Arrow, then I personally can't wait.

So that will do it for this week's blog. I'm sure I've now given you plenty of shows to watch on your week nights after work this fall. And as for me I hope that you learn to love these shows as much as I have grown to love them.

Fall TV Lineup Part 1

Fall is starting up and television is about to kick into high gear. Many great shows are getting ready to start their new seasons and some new shows are ready to start up. So I thought I’d give a quick rundown of some of the shows you should be watching.

First let’s start with Revolution season 2! Starting from where we left off Miles, Charlie, Rachel and Aaron are trying to stop the missiles from hitting the capital of both the Georgia Federation and The Monroe Republic. But will this mean they have to once again turn off the power? Is the world not ready to go back yet? And what is the plan of the president who we saw a quick shot of at the end of season 1? Revolution brings a great action series to the line up with great production value from the mind of J.J. Abrams

Next is Parenthood, a show about the Braverman family living life in the modern world. It’s a really heartwarming show that focuses on the problems of growing up in the modern age and critically acclaimed for its focus on raising a child with Asperger's syndrome. The series is going into it’s 5th season with the hopeful return of Ray Romano again. Anyone who hasn’t seen this I suggest to watch it because theres always a character in this huge family you can relate to and problems you’ve faced as a teenager or parent.

Now how about we take a nice vacation to Hawaii. Hawaii Five 0 season 4 will be kicking into the high gear coming off of it’s own cliff hanger. What’s going to happen to Steve McGarret as he’s forced to chose whether or not to save his arch rival from this new unknown enemy. And what will happen throughout this exciting season. Hawaii Five 0 brings a great mix of action and comedy with production value that makes it all worth wild.

Well that’s all for this week but come back next week for the continuation of the TV lineup. Just remember how to get back to this page, all you gotta do is “Book Em Danno”.

Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters...... Why?

Recently released into box offices was the 2nd iteration of the Percy Jackson Series, “Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters”. This movie is very questionable however for many reasons which I’ll be discussing today. But to start here’s a trailer for those of you who haven’t seen it.

So the first issue with this is this film is that the time between the first movie, “Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief”, is a whopping three and a half years. Now this may not seem like a big gap of time for a sequel however this is for a movie that in while it was very anticipated ended up as a huge flop in the public’s eyes. It currently holds a 5.2 rating on iMDb and the sequel currently only holds a 6.2 rating.

On top of that this sequel has a lot of errors both in it’s writing and shooting. First of all there is a huge plot hole error that while the story revolves around the Golden Fleece and it’s power to “heal anyone and anything” Polyphemus still has poor eyesight even though he wears it over his shoulder. There are also very strange changes to the original story that don’t add to the story or help make filming this movie any easier so they don’t really make sense (I will refrain from giving such examples for the sake of spoilers).

Also there are continuity errors throughout the film. First of all during a taxi scene Percy is seen putting his seat belt on but when it is cut open he is holding onto both sides of the cab no longer with his seat belt with no logical time or reasoning for it, just a plain continuity error. Also in a scene where Annabeth runs to Percy to show him something on her tablet you can see the tablet is completely blank. Plus in the D.C. scene there are skyscrapers in the background which are obviously not found in D.C. On top of all of this these are just things found in the short time it’s been released.

So it seems that this movie was done in a complete sense of let’s make money. Not nearly enough thought process was put into this for being a book turn movie and to help revive a series whose launch movie flopped.

History Of Toonami Part 3 #ToonamisBackBitches

It had been about 3 years since toonami had ended. Anime fans had been deprived of their content. Companies like Funimation who dubbed animes tried running their own independent channels for their anime, but to no avail. Even online television channels made by fans with anime playing 24/7 and a library of thousands of episodes of hundred of animes. Still nothing came close to the glory days of Toonami.

Then one night on April 1^st people tuned in for their Saturday night adult swim cartoons. And rite as the clock struck midnight the channel went dark. Suddenly the opening to The Room began to play. And then after going to black again it began. T.O.M. was seen again in all his glory. Tonight after 3 years everyone would get back a taste of their childhood.

Now this is originally intended as a April Fools joke, according to Cartoon Network and Adult Swim on a post they made as it started airing. But as if it had been advertised for months, word started spreading around the internet and people everywhere were tuning in and tweeting. It was as if Toonami never went anywhere. At the end of the stream Adult Swim asked its audiencek, “Want it back? Let us know. #BringBackToonami” And so for weeks people would tweet begging for it to come back and Adult Swim would run friendly updates every night between commercial breaks.

They had set the internet ablaze once again. Everywhere you looked their were youtube vides, tributes, blog posts, even a rap song about bringing it back, which would be endorsed by Adult Swim. And after almost a month, on May 16^th it happened. Adult Swim had a press conference and announced on social media the official revival on Toonami as of May 26^th. And thus throughout the internet screams of joy were heard from every corner and as the official hash tag stated by Adult Swim was seen everywhere #ToonamisBackBitches.

 

Toonami would relaunch in full succession. Originally with a smaller lineup but would expand to add everyone’s favorite classics and new hits that Toonami faithful enjoyed. In only a few months Toonami would return to it’s original midnight run status. And almost year later they’re running stronger then ever. Toonami’s look as been redesigned once again, it has a great programming line up and is set to launch English dubs of extremely popular and long awaited shows such as the English dub of Sword Art Online. This news came recently out a Anime Boston and is sure to boast Toonami viewership even more with the exclusivity to air one of the most popular animes in years.

And so after reading all these posts, I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about Toonami and may be watching it yourself now. As for me I’ll continue to support it as long as it exists. All I got to say is to all you Toonami faithful reading this. Stay Gold.

History Of Toonami Part 2 The Golden Years

Hello and welcome back to the History of Toonami part 2. Today we’ll be picking up rite from where we left off last week.

Between the time of the year 2000 to 2003 the creators would expand upon T.O.M.’s universe by introducing TIEs (Total Immersion Events) used to both promote Cartoon Network related events and add more original content to the programming. They would consists of mini episodes that would air each week beginning in September of 2000 and would further the development of Toonami. The first one The Intruder would both introduce T.O.M.’s companion AI S.A.R.A. and further T.O.M. to T.O.M. 2.0 who would be voiced by Steven Blum from this iteration forward.

The next TIE would be called Lockdown and began in September of 2001.  It would help launch Cartoon Network’s first MORPG and also set a record-breaking number of page views and ratings. This TIE focused on T.O.M. fighting to save the ship from an attack by a giant trash compactor gone haywire.

click here for playlist of all the episodes

The third TIE event would be called Trapped in Hyperspace and took place in September of 2002. During this TIE  a computer virus takes over the ship setting it on a crash course with earth. During this time S.A.R.A. is down and T.O.M. has to plug into the ship’s database to save her.

The final TIE event that occurred in September of 2003 did not go along with the usual plot. This time instead of an adventure involving T.O.M. they used it to air a mini series called Immortal Grand Prix. It was an anime mini series created and launched by the Producers of the Toonami as a way to pilot their series they dreamed of making into their own anime series. The rating went well and made it’s American debut in 2005 on Toonami is a full series. The original mini series would become a stand alone based on the universe.

On April 17th 2004 Toonami would be moved to Saturday evenings. This was because of some of the more violent and adult themed animes beginning to be aired on it.  It would run this way all the way up to March 16th 2007. On March 17th Toonami celebrated it’s milestone achievement, 10 years in the business.  It was celebrated with a revamping of the universe introducing a new (and less well received) T.O.M. and companions in an all new location. 

On Saturday September 20, 2008, Cartoon Network ended Toonami. Employees who worked on the block moved to other parts of the channel. Toonami Jetstream (The online anime streaming site) remained with the Toonami name until January 30, 2009. At the end of Toonami's final airing, the host, T.O.M. ended the block with a brief, final monologue, backed by the song "Cascade" by Tycho as shown in this video.

Join us next week when we talk about how Toonami would come to rise gain from it’s ashes.

History Of Toonami Part 1 The Inception

Today I’m going to talk to all of you about the history of one of my favorite programming blocks of all time Toonami. For those of you that don’t know, Toonami is a timeblock most known for its run time on Saturday nights from 12 midnight until 6 in the morning, also code named The Midnight Run. It focuses on showing mostly anime but also has American animated television shows as well and usually consists of a video game review. Anyway let’s get into the history of this awesome programming block.

Originally it was launched as Cartoon Network’s primary action block and was hosted by Moltar, a villain from the show Space Ghost turned producer who would host  the program block from fictional Ghost Planet Industries. It would air in the afternoon ours of weekdays from 1997 to July 9^th, 1999. The original Toonami would pale in comparison to the rest of it’s lifespan.

On July 10^th 1999 Toonami was relaunched and started on its road to becoming the modern day Toonami. It introduced a new Broadcast station, The Ghost Planet Spaceship Absolution and it’s new host T.O.M. originally voiced by Sonny Strait. It then introduced the midnight run. The midnight run was the new programin gblock that it would run on. It would consist of a Saturday night/Sunday morning air time from 12 midnight to 5 a.m. It would remain this way until March of 2000 where it would become a weeknight 1 hour long format until January 2003. 

Come Back next week as we continue on the history of Toonami!

Cartoon Potluck Episode 1 Spongebob

Hey everybody here's the first installment of the new podcast series, Cartoon Potluck. A series dedicated to talking about all types of cartoons. CLICK HERE to listen to Cartoon Potluck Episode 1

Garret Brown

Today I’d like to take the time to go over the achievement that Garret Brown has made in the movie industry. If you don’t know who he is you may be able recognize his work in this clip.

Still don’t know? He was the man operating the fantastic camera work in these shots, the steady cam. Inventor and original operator, this device was made to allow great and smooth action shots that did not require the use of a rail system to operate the camera. His first big use of this technology he invented was in Star Wars Episode VI : Return of The Jedi where he filmed the footage that would be used as the blue screen footage for the speeder bike scene on Endor. He would then work on the set of Rocky where the fast paced action shots needed to be filmed in locations, during time periods, and on a budget that couldn’t afford to use rails.

Over the years he has created many patents in the related field, 50 to be exact. This includes things like Steadycam junior which is generally used in consumer cameras and cell phones as well as the Skycam used to record stadium events such as Football. He has now recently been accepted into The National Inventors Hall of Fame. In a recent interview, Brown recollected back to his time spent inventing the stabilizer for it and recalled his time he spent locking himself in a motel room to focus on his work. So I salute you Mr. Brown for all the achievements you’ve made and how much you and your technology has contributed to the industry.