"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Standard hypocrisy, lesbians are "hot". Thats why you can get away with breasts and even bush in PG-13 (as long ad it's fast), but a penis is an automatic R. It's also why Brokeback, amazing film that it is has more hetero sex and female nudity than gay/male.

Yes, but we're talking about Cannes, where you wouldn't expect such prudishness. But, yeah, there you are...

(and, remember, we're all in tuxes... )

Still a hell of a film, by the way. Got it on Criterion LD. Completely underrated, and DC does an exemplary job of making the dialogue as trite as most sex scenes, and the sex scenes as integral to the character development as the most celebrated drama. Audacious, indeed.

I admit when I saw it I had no idea the same guy that wrote Crash wrote Empire of the Sun - I'm not sure there's much thematic connection left in either film, but I also can't think of any other writer that would have a work filmed by the likes of both SS and DC.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Not at all.
Wake him up, he's sleeping on the job again.

Cool.

Jorge Lorenzo has spoken the most important words of his career. He now understands that the points from second place, third, or even fourth during a single race are more valuable to the World Championship than wreckless attempts to win the race at any cost. The light bulb has finally come on and now the young man is a complete package, physical skill, natural talent, determination, and most importantly, patience. Someone (Wilco Zeelenberg) has finally been able to get the message through, and it shows.

The show will be better for it as well.

Whats up with Stoner?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

For animal lovers out there (as it’s a multi-species sport, Peter THX )…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEXOS...eature=related

I prefer the one with the hot Latina/Lebanese from Colombia...

The video reminds me of this nugget I wave at the vegans:



And when Bobby was talking about Maya, anyone else wonder for a sec if he was referring to the CG application or the coyote?

[Penton-Man]

^
Hmm, so you’re feelin pretty good about yourself?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIRQf0S3oD0

Okay, one moment.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

The video reminds me of this nugget I wave at the vegans:

Careful now Peter.
Talk like that just excites the parrot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vf...layer_embedded

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

I prefer the one with the hot Latina/Lebanese from Colombia...

That reminds me. I had better post an English version “with papers” for some politicians in Arizona…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCyA-...eature=related

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Yeah, that's pretty bad. If possible color correction should take place only once. That's especially true for still graphics meant for print publishing. Having two or more color managing adjustments (via embedded profiles) applied to an image is often worse than having no color management at all.

Speaking of color management, one very important factor with getting the right look to video or still imagery is having a computer user who is not color blind or affected with some sort of color vision deficiency.

Wait till the screenshot scientists find out that you can select for a specific color and just de-grain that particular color.

That will really blow their minds when they're trying to analyze the grain structure in those screenshots.

[Bobby Henderson]

You can select on basis of specific color and even do so in different color spaces (CMY, RGB, L*a*b) and bit depths. Heh heh.

Originally Posted by sharkshark

Curious, Bobby, you on a mac? Wonder if that notched up Gamma would also make the test easier or harder.

Actually, I do my work on WinXP based PCs due to needs of running sign industry specific software, software for LED-based electronic message centers and to continue using (gasp!) CorelDRAW! Ack! Corel? Yep. Despite all my fanboy-ism for Adobe, Corel is a very useful application for technical drawing. The 100' X 100' artboard is handy for designing big things at full scale. I take a lot of artwork back and forth between Illustrator and CorelDRAW, but the finished, print ready art is usually some form of Illustrator or Photoshop file. Roland VersaWorks (large format RIP printing software) is very Adobe-oriented. Corel X5 is supposed to be quite a lot better on the color handling front, but I guess we'll see on that.

I used a Samsung LCD computer monitor for the test. I wasn't expecting to score zero/perfect with it. But I figured I would try that monitor first since it wouldn't get in the way of my real work on an adjacent CRT-based monitor.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

You can select on basis of specific color and even do so in different color spaces (CMY, RGB, L*a*b) and bit depths. Heh heh.



Actually, I do my work on WinXP based PCs due to needs of running sign industry specific software, software for LED-based electronic message centers and to continue using (gasp!) CorelDRAW! Ack! Corel? Yep. Despite all my fanboy-ism for Adobe, Corel is a very useful application for technical drawing. The 100' X 100' artboard is handy for designing big things at full scale. I take a lot of artwork back and forth between Illustrator and CorelDRAW, but the finished, print ready art is usually some form of Illustrator or Photoshop file. Roland VersaWorks (large format RIP printing software) is very Adobe-oriented. Corel X5 is supposed to be quite a lot better on the color handling front, but I guess we'll see on that.

I used a Samsung LCD computer monitor for the test. I wasn't expecting to score zero/perfect with it. But I figured I would try that monitor first since it wouldn't get in the way of my real work on an adjacent CRT-based monitor.

My friend, I always knew you had good taste... I used to actually teach CorelDraw, shockingly. It's still my go-to vector app of choice (yeah, I've got AI, but there's a very few times I bother with it).

For 99% of what I do Vector based, it's CDraw all the way... On Vista/Win7, not XP, but the point remains. My test was on my 30" LG, but I should try it again on the 27" Samsung. Looking at the graph my "errors" were all in the same shades of blue, I think I got one pair out of order which resulted in the score of 4. It was clear that there was an issue there, with one swatch leaning towards the blue, but it looked worse in a number of other locations, so I figured I was overthinking it (moi? shocking, I know...)

The only cruddy part, as always, is CMYK colour handling (final PDFs are often from AI for that reason) - I know there are betas of X5 out there, have yet to delve.

Plus, you know, Corel... It's Canadian...

[sharkshark]

Speaking of Canada (know for its mighty peaks)
https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4655

P, you should see the flick, it's not bad, and I know you don't mind AE (unless you only see his SPC films )

[sharkshark]

well, I finally got through that WW II in HD doc I was talking about forever ago (ended up being a pretty good accompaniment to Pacific, review here: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/WWII-in-HD-Blu-ray/7595/), and there's a small little extra called "preserving the footage"

They show the filmmakers projecting this 8 and 16mm footage on a screen, and shooting the projected image with a RED at 4K straight to disc.

I guess that's one way of getting around using a dedicated 4K Telecine rig.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

The only cruddy part, as always, is CMYK colour handling (final PDFs are often from AI for that reason) - I know there are betas of X5 out there, have yet to delve.

CorelDRAW has a more user-friendly vector object building toolset, while Illustrator's similar functions are scattered across the interface in different menus and tool bars. It took Adobe until just a couple versions ago to include anchor point alignment functions (and they're still badly implemented). Corel was able to do that back in 1994.

Some of Illustrator's strengths over Corel, aside from its superior color handling: greater precision with certain effects, superior gradient effects, full OpenType support, superior integration with Photoshop -including AICB vector path support on the clipboard. That's very handy for pasting vector paths into Photoshop. CorelDRAW can't do that. Illustrator's vectors are better supported by After Effects -very important for motion graphics work. It isn't very difficult bringing Corel-generated artwork into Illustrator.

A few years ago I had no less than four vector drawing applications on my computer: CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, Deneba Canvas (all legal BTW). Flash is also a vector-based application, but its own drawing tools kind of suck. Today, I just go back and forth between CorelDRAW and Illustrator, use Flash when I have to and keep Inkscape handy for reference whenever a casual user I know is trying to create his own vector art without having to spend hundreds of dollars on software (phone call: "Bobby, help!"). Inkscape is free, but it's frustrating compared to Corel or Illustrator.

[sharkshark]

here's an updated discussion about that space opera thingy RAH and I were going on about a couple days back:

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/05/star-wars.ars

It does discuss the nefarious (and certainly not condoned) practice of bootlegging, but also touches on issues of grain (and, naturally, the continued belief by some that such things would not be necessary if official versions were to be released).

At any rate, an interesting read.

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

here's an updated discussion about that space opera thingy RAH and I were going on about a couple days back:

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/05/star-wars.ars

It does discuss the nefarious (and certainly not condoned) practice of bootlegging, but also touches on issues of grain (and, naturally, the continued belief by some that such things would not be necessary if official versions were to be released).

At any rate, an interesting read.

Great article....thanks Shark.

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

well, I finally got through that WW II in HD doc I was talking about forever ago (ended up being a pretty good accompaniment to Pacific, review here: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/WWII-in-HD-Blu-ray/7595/), and there's a small little extra called "preserving the footage"

They show the filmmakers projecting this 8 and 16mm footage on a screen, and shooting the projected image with a RED at 4K straight to disc.

I guess that's one way of getting around using a dedicated 4K Telecine rig.

No reason to use 4k at all for that purpose. It adds nothing to the equation.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

Great article....thanks Shark.

You need to read the book that the article is based on. It was fantastic and it basically proves that Lucas is a man who loves to live in a world of revisionist history.

I read the book back when it was free and really gained some insight into the history of Star Wars.

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by merrick97

You need to read the book that the article is based on. It was fantastic and it basically mentions that Lucas is a man who loves to live in a world of revisionist history.

I read the book back when it was free and really gained some insight into the history of Star Wars.

I met Lucas a few years ago in a Subway sandwich shop in San Rafael, CA. He's much shorter than I imagined and also much thinner. He's overweight for sure, but doesn't look like Jabba the Hutt like he does in interviews.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

I met Lucas a few years ago in a Subway sandwich shop in San Rafael, CA. He's much shorter than I imagined and also much thinner. He's overweight for sure, but doesn't look like Jabba the Hutt like he does in interviews.

Im curious if you had the guts to ask him if he was ever going to release the original trilogy on bluray (or HD-DVD given the timeframe you mentioned).

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

I met Lucas a few years ago in a Subway sandwich shop

That must have been a nutty encounter.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

That must have been a nutty encounter.

And your thoughts on Le Mans?