Hypocrates, shot last June, is now finally near completion, after the cans of film were lost in a Post Office warehouse during a strike and only arrived at the lab in November. It was shot in 16mm but we had it telecined so it could be edited in DV by yours truly. There are a few more images at the imagelog (image collection), I included a couple of images from an alternative title sequence I designed which I like better than my first effort and I hope the director will approve. Once the soundtrack is done it'll be ready for showing.···

Via the ever-present Boing Boing, a short post in someone's blog about the Kulechov Effect and remix culture. I did go into film college alert, obviously. Lev Kuleshov was one of the first Russian filmmakers, and the founder of the USSR's first film college. There are interesting stories about his teaching (apparentely his students simulated film shootings without cameras or film, hard to get during the Civil War), but he became best known for his Experiments. The Wikipedia link does explain the most famous Kuleshov Experiment quite well, others included the creation of a fictional woman through the juxtaposition of detail shots of various women, or the creation of a rendezvous at Capitol Hill, Washington DC just by using one shot of archive footage — the rest was shot on the steps of a Moscow building. The Kuleshov Experiment — which demonstrates that editing creates something which is bigger than the sum of its parts — is in fact just good old Gestalt, just in a larger scale.

That to say Zephoria's comment on remix culture is an obvious one. In fact, it's analogue to what I call 'the Hotel Situation'. Imagine you ask a five-star hotel for permission to shoot a film in one of their suites for free, in exchange for some product placement (eg. a shot of the façade where the hotel name can be easily read). They might be more than happy to make a deal if it is a romantic movie, but what about if you're doing a gangster film where people get shot in the corridors? I know someone who had to pay for the rooms — and was lucky to be able to proceed — after the hotel staff saw the replica pistols...···

Just what a man needs, the ability to score a few goals while getting rid of processed beer. I once read clubs in the Netherlands improved the hygiene in the men's room by painting little flies in the urinols (come on, you know it makes sense), and shortly afterwards I did see some painted flies in the receptacles at a Brazilian restaurant's toilet. I guess we should expect a few more piss-games, I wonder how long until we get piss-on arcade machines. (via Kottke)···