The Concept of the "Perfect" Sequence in Film

[in progress and being revised]

The "Perfect" Sequence

I believe that there is a small subset of the filmmaking oeuvre, a tiny portion of the total amount of finished film that is created, that could be classified "as perfect, or nearly so". By perfect, I mean, that it is inspired, that it rises above whatever limitations the filmmakers may have experienced in their lives or this project and the sequence that results is among their best work, that achieves as it were whatever goals they may have had for that sequence in the context of the larger project.

A "perfect" sequence by this definition is of limited length, it is part of a larger film but it can usually stand on its own. If this is part of a low budget film, then the fact that it is low budget is made to be an asset and not a limitation, at least for the length of the sequence, the filmmakers have transcended the issue and having more money would not have made it any better. It might have even made it worse. A "perfect" sequence may be found in a film that is overall far from perfect, although usually the sequence does make everything better, somehow. A "perfect" sequence must be judged in context, but usually can also stand by itself as a short film.

It is, in essence, a "peak" filmmaking and audience experience, one that is rarely sustained throughout the film, and may be part of a film that is overall successful or not, in other words, both "good" and "bad" films may have these "perfect" sequences. In the genre of the short film, it is generally the entire short film that is "perfect" or nearly so, several music videos by Michel Gondry come to mind. 

When the audience first sees a "perfect" sequence they know it because they are astounded, captivated and it makes them think that it is possible to do good work in this far-from-perfect world.

Generally speaking, ones first impressions of a "perfect" sequence does not change with time. When you see that sequence again you still think that it is an amazing piece of work. But the perception of "perfection" is a subjective one, not an objective one. One persons' "perfect" sequence may be another person's merely enjoyable or well-made scene. There is no absolute perfection that is suggested here, but that it is filtered through the perceptions of the audience, whose response may vary.

Suggested Examples

Consider the following sequences from films as potential "perfect" sequences. At least, they have that affect on me. In a few cases, I am able to point you to a version online.

-- Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), dir by Henry Selick

    The inspired opening number of Nightmare Before Christmas which introduces us to Jack,
    the town of Halloween, its Mayor, the female lead,  and the other characters of the film.

-- Last of the Mohicans (1992), dir by Michael Mann

    The chase through the forest sequence near the end of the film where Hawkeye is running

    to save the life of his friend

-- The Princess Bride (1987), dir by Rob Reiner

    Few movies have even one good sword fight, this movie has two. In the first fight, the

    set is obviously a set, with a painted background, it doesn't matter.

    For a discussion of the aesthetics of sword fights using one of these scenes as an example,
    see http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-sword-fight-in-princess-bride.html

-- Goodfellas (1990), dir by Martin Scorsese

    The continuous steadicam shot where we enter the Copacabana from outside, through the
    kitchen, are seated and see Henny Youngman begin his act.  According to the cinematographer
    in the documentary below, they had 8 takes (which is not that many) and it took less than a
    day to shoot.

    See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBMKyNJvNV8

-- Apocalypse Now (1979), dir by Francis Coppola

    The 16 minute sequence of the attack of the village, starting with Robert Duvall signalling

    the division bugler to call "charge", through the flight of the Valkyries, the napalm attack,

    and ending with the famous napalm speech.

-- Borat (2006), dir by Larry Charles, National Anthem of Kasakhstan

    This is a very strange movie, with good and bad parts to it, I think. It ends with a fake

    National Anthem of Kazhakstan, which doubles as end credits for the film. Sadly, Fox will
    not permit me to post this piece.  So you will have to see it another way.  Some of the lyrics
    are in note 1, below.

-- Gunga Din (1939), dir by George Stevens

    Considered by many to be one of the great films of a certain era, the sequence where

    Gunga Din climbs to the top of a monument, though wounded, signals "call to arms" at

    the cost of his life is pretty great, as long as you can look beyond the issues of British

    Imperialism.

They wait to ambush the unsuspecting British... 

The noble and wounded Gunga Din climbs to the top of a monument to issue the bugle call "Alert! To Arms!"

The British are alerted in the nick of time !  They fall back, then the Sikhs charge ! 

-- Orpheus (1950), dir by Jean Cocteau

    One of the great uses of optical printing for non-realistic purposes, the hero, Orpheus, is

    taken to the afterworld by a guide who is part of the afterworld bueaucracy through a

    landscape that looks eerily like post-WW2 europe (the film was made right after the war)

-- The Godfather (1972), dir by Francis Coppola

    The baptism sequence near the end of the film

-- Dr. Strangelove (1964), dir by Stanley Kubrick

    This film has many "perfect" sequences, but one in particular is "the bomb run", from when

    the B52 approaches the alternate target through the opening of the bomb bay doors and the

    dropping of the bombs.   Most of this sequence is at the following URL, unfortunately do
    technical problems, the last 20 seconds or so are missing, but you get the idea.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSbPqin3L6E

    For a different discussion on this and related scenes in the movie, see
    http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-psychological-effects-of-flare.html

-- Let Forever Be (1999), The Chemical Bros, dir by Michel Gondry

    Our token short film / music video. The fabulous sendup of video synthesis in a modern

    context, all faked with sets and real dancers. Genius can be so annoying.

A Greater Significance ?

There may be a further significance of such sequences beyond merely being entertaining and a proof of virtuoso skill on the part of the filmmaker. I wonder if such sequences might not serve to encourage us, to help make better the dreadful reality of our pointless lives and degraded civilization.

After all, it is our lot in life to see corruption and fraud masquerading as government, theft and oppression described as employment, obvious privilege for the elites pretending to be a system of justice. Endless lies and self-satisfied ignorance rewarded while poverty and misery is ignored. The undeserving elevated and the good oppressed.

This is the world we live in and it is, I am told, the best of all possible worlds.

Thus, the argument might go, something that rose above the obvious failure of our society, such a thing would be even more valuable because it would serve as an existence proof that something was worth doing and perhaps encourage us to believe that there was hope for making things better, as unrealistic as those hopes may be.

But I may be investing this concept with too much significance here, it may be nothing more than just good filmmaking.

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1. The lyrics of Kazakhstan National Anthem are a little hard to make out, so here is my best translation of the lyrics.

Kazakhstan greatest country in the world
All other countries are run by little girls

Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium!
Other countries have inferior potassium.

Kazakhstan home of Tinshein swimming pool
Its length 30 meter and length 6 meter

Filtration system a marvel to behold
It removes 80 percent of human solid waste

Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, you very nice place!
From plains of Tarashenk to Northern Fence of Jewtown!

Some Background on the History of the 4th of July

Its the 4th of July here in Rancho Rincon del Diablo, the Devil's Place. Hell. A white, right-wing Republican stronghold that complains bitterly of the influx of Hispanics and hates Obama even when he does their bidding, as Obama indeed does most of the time.

At various times, I read in foreign journals, or hear from international friends, or read in books, that Americans can not truly relate to Europe, or understand foreign policy, or any number of things because they are too naive, their history has been too short, they are enthusiastic and youth oriented, this argument goes, but do not have the depth to really understand history and work on the world stage.   Now, it may be that Americans are so ignorant of their own history that this might be true.  In fact, I think so myself most of the time.  But I disagree that America, the United States of America, does not have enough historical depth to understand some of the complicated situations in the world.  I think that it is the case that we are merely lazy and ignorant of our own history.  And I cite as case in point some background here on the 4th of July to support my argument.  

I had believed for many years that the 4th of July was a day to remember and celebrate the American War of Independence from Great Britain. And of course, that famous artillery barrage immortalized in our national anthem: "The rockets red glare, the bombs were fucking bursting in air! Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there". In other words, communications were cut off, but we knew that the fort had not yet been destroyed or surrendered because the artillery bursts illuminated the flag flying over the fort.

Unfortunately, the battle the song commemorates did not take place during the American War of Independence, it took place during the War of 1812.

Nor does the 4th of July celebrate the Declaration of Independence per se.   The 4th of July is actually the date of something that happened before the Declaration of Independence as we know it was written, and before the war that followed it.

Here are some things to know about 4th of July with a spin from someone who grew up in Virginia.

1. The 4th of July celebrates the approval by the 2nd Continental Congress of the Resolution of Independence also known as the Lee Resolution.   This resolution was proposed by a delegate to the Continental Congress named  Richard Henry Lee from Virginia.  It was proposed on June 7, 1776.  The first clause was approved on July 2, 1776 and the other clauses approved in the following months.

Immediately after the approval of the first clause of the Lee resolution, the Continental Congress took up the matter of the text of a Declaration of Independence, which became the document we normally think of when we think of the Declaration of Independence and the 4th of July.

This is the text of the Lee Resolution.

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.

Its quite concise isn't it?

There is debate among historians about when the text of the resolution that we think of as our Declaration of Independence was actually written. But those dates all lie within the July 4 - August range. What we actually celebrate on July 4th is the approval of the first third of the Lee Resolution.

2. As mentioned above, the Resolution of Independence had been proposed by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Lee was a member of one of the leading families of Virginia and many other Virginians were involved in the both the Declaration of Independence and the War of Independence.   It goes without saying, this being America, that the delegates to the Continental Congress were white, male, and generally well off which usually meant landowners.   There were others involved in the revolution who were less well off, and were, for example, craftsmen, but I am not sure if there were any of those who were members of the Continental Congress.   

3. Less than 70 years later, within the living memory of people who were alive when the Lee Resolution was approved, Virginia again tried to escape a government that they found oppressive, whether we like that or not, or whether we understand their reasons or not, or whether those reasons were just by our standards today or not.  The result was about what you would expect for a war that was lost, you know, the usual dead men (over 10 percent of men killed), raped women, starving children, and cities burned to the ground. (3)

4. But beyond this general destruction and misery, there was also a very specific desire to personally punish the losers in order to teach them a lesson and that is where our little story continues.  In retribution against one of the leading families of Virginia, Lincoln's Secretary of War seized without due process, in other words, illegally, the ancestral home of that family in an attempt to punish and impoverish this particular family that, in Stanton's opinion, was guilty of holding true to their values of freedom. Stanton could not abide that and went out of his way to destroy them.   He did this by seizing their land and then ordering the creation of a cemetery on that land, his reasoning being that when the courts or Congress reversed his illegal seizure of property that it would do no good because there would be thousands of bodies on it and those bodies would not be exhumed. His actions were vindictive, illegal, abusive, and he got away with it without any problems.  In America, the law is for the rich and powerful, otherwise the law does not exist.  (1) 

5. In case you had not figured out the punchline of our heartwarming story of patriotism and our devotion to the law in America, the cemetery became known as Arlington National Cemetery, as Arlington had been the ancestral home of the Lee family for generations.

6. Yes, that Lee family, the descendants and members of the family of Richard Henry Lee, whose resolution of independence we celebrate this day.  (2)

_______________________________________

The Facebook Page for Arlington House
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arlington-House-The-Robert-E-Lee-Memorial-US-National-Park-Service/172540179425529?directed_target_id=0
_______________________________________

1. Congress later voted some compensation for the illegal seizure of the land.   Whether or not that compensation was in any way just compensation for the act is debatable.   If you ever visit Arlington National Cemetery, be sure to visit the Lee / Arlington House.

2. Richard Henry Lee was the great uncle of Robert E. Lee.

3. War is hell.   Generally speaking, when a victorious army enters a civilian area, women are raped. Some armies rape more than others, some make a point of it, some try to discourage the practice.  But I doubt that there has ever been a victorious army that didn't rape the women of the defeated as they entered the territory of the enemy.  As for burning churches and schools, the answer is that they do not burn churches and schools.  They burn buildings that happen to be in the line of fire when people are fighting.  As for starving children, well, you see, when you burn the fields that means there is no food around and any food needs to be brought in.  Generally food is made available to defeated populations, eventually, when they get around to it.  As for burning cities, when a retreating army leaves, one of the last things they do is to dispose of ammunition that for one reason or another they can not take with them.  In the case of Richmond, Va. the fire at the armory got out of control and burned the city down.   Whose fault was that?  Hard to say, really.  But the point is, when the war was over, the men were dead, the cities burned, the women raped and the children starving.  As I say, war is hell.

The Vicious and Unfair Attacks on Cap'n Crunch

America loves a scandal and the best scandals of all are when we can drag a respected public figure through the mud. Throughout history people have inflated their resume, have snuck around to have sex with someone they should probably not be having sex with, or otherwise have a skeleton in the closet.  Then at the proper moment, this dirt can be dragged out to destroy an otherwise virtuous scumbag and drag them down to his or her proper level.   This is as American as apple pie.

But sometimes an innocent cartoon figure is accused of villainry that we would otherwise only expect from a public servant.   Such is the case with the esteemed marketeer of sugary breakfast foods, Cap'n Crunch, whose character and background is being slandered by self-appointed guardians of public decency.

A fallen icon sacrificed to the bloodlust of a fickle American public?

The controversy has apparently been raging for some time, and it involves whether or not Cap'n Crunch is a real captain. The Wall Street Journal in a recent article, included below, has a discussion of anomalies in the Captain's uniform, the issue of Crunch's naval record, and the affectation of the Napoleonic-era hat.

When will America stop this self-destructive attacks on their cartoon characters? Cap'n Crunch is an icon of everything that is great about America: sugary breakfast foods, great animated commercials (by Jay Ward), appropriation of other culture's insignia, the use of the name by an underground phone phreak hero, and nostalgia for a happier time in our youth.

What could be more American than that?

I call on all Americans to stop this senseless and immoral attacks on a great animated public figure and support Cap'n Crunch.

_____________________________________________

The Wall Street Journal article can be found here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/19/u-s-navy-no-record-of-capn-crunch-service/

WASHINGTON – A new scandal is consuming the U.S. Navy and one of the world’s most venerated captains: Cap’n Crunch.

The legendary cereal icon’s status as a captain has come under fire after eagle-eyed writers noticed that Cap’n Crunch only wears the bars of a Navy commander, not those of a captain. In the U.S. Navy, captains wear four bars on their uniforms, while commanders — one rank below captain – have three bars.

“The cheery Santa Claus in blue Napoleon hat is really just a big, fat LIAR,” wrote Charisma Madarang on Foodbeast, an online food news site.Gawker and other sites reported on the scandal as well.

Cap’n Crunch took to Twitter to defend his honor.

“All hearsay and misunderstandings!,” @realcapncrunch wrote.”I captain the S.S. Guppy with my crew – which makes an official Cap’n in any book!” And: “Of course I’m a Cap’n!” he wrote to anguished supporters searching for answers. “It’s the Crunch – not the clothes – that make a man. #PaidMyDues”

But his protests failed to tamp down the sense of betrayal and anger.

The controversy deepened on Wednesday when the Pentagon said it had no record of a Cap’n Crunch ever serving in the U.S. Navy.

“We have no Cap’n Crunch in the personnel records – and we checked,” said Lt. Commander Chris Servello, director of the U.S. Navy’s news desk at the Pentagon. “We have notified NCIS and we’re looking into whether or not he’s impersonating a naval officer – and that’s a serious offense.”

The Navy’s repudiation is fueling speculation the Cap’n Crunch, who wears a Napoleon-style hat, may actually be French.

According to official lore, Cap’n Crunch first set sail in 1963 when Quaker Oats Co. introduced the sweet children’s cereal.

According to his official biography, Cap’n Crunch, whose full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch, was born on Crunch Island in the Sea of Milk – “a magical place with talking trees, crazy creatures and a whole mountain (Mt. Crunchmore) made out of Cap’n Crunch cereal.”

It remains unclear if Crunch Island is part of the United States.

He took command of the S.S. Guppy and spent decades battling his arch-nemesis, the pirate known as Jean LaFoote.

The captain came to rule over a small empire of sugary cereals, from the original Cap’n Crunch to Mystery Volcano Crunch.

In 2011, Cap’n Crunch had to fend of rumors that he was being forced into retirement by health-conscious commanders at Quaker. “Food police kill Cap’n Crunch,” one headline proclaimed.

Cap’n Crunch survived. But the latest scandal – and a potential Navy investigation – could prove to be a bigger challenge. If tried and convicted of impersonating a military officer, he could face six months in jail.

A Cap’n Crunch publicist said she was “shocked” by the Navy’s allegations and she is investigating the matter.

“The Cap’n doing hard time? Gasp,” she said.

Encouraging Free Expression by Users

I am having a phone meltdown and going through the hell of figuring out which provider, phone, etc, has minimal acceptable service for a price I can afford.

Here at Global Wahrman, we want to encourage the oppressed user to stand up for their rights, and along those lines, I pass on to you a first class review of Virgin Mobile that brings forth I think some important ideas.

From Ebony M on Yelp:

At first, I was IN LOVE with Virgin. I thought, "AT&T, you can kiss my big, black shiny hiney!" However, now that our relationship with each other has left the honeymoon phase, I see my chaste little Virgin for what it REALLY is: a greedy, no account whore.

WHY, am I constantly being billed for minutes I don't use? I just topped up. I have a boyfriend and a friend name Gerard whom I talked with last night only this billing cycle. My boyfriend and I talk for a few minutes, then we're off the phone. Where my minutes at, bitches????!!!!

Next, your "broadband-speed" internet is ass. It's slower than my mom's dial-up, and that fool's still using AOL. AOL, people. I didn't even know that company still existed. Can't watch Netflix. Got a faster computer but still can't watch hulu. And you KNOW I loves me some "Top Model."

So, now I'm back to f*cking around with whores: At&T, Verizon, Time Warner, come and get me, you skanks. Screw me and then rob me blind. I'll bend over and take it, just as long as the service is better than with Virgin.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/virgin-mobile-usa-walnut-creek#hrid:P8xHfZaT_Y9lBRXgjr5PLQ

The Fate of Giant Robots in Cinema

[in progress 7/1/2013]

There is some real content here: and it is the following.  First, that Pacific Rim is an example of a video game character / voice makes the transition from games to film.  In this case, its the voice of the computer in Portal and it is also the voice of the computer in the giant robot, I think.  It is usually the other way around (e.g. from movie to game).   Second, that water in visual effects is hard, very hard.  And big water, e.g. water that is scaled up is even harder.  I don't care how fast your computers are, although that helps, it is a very tough problem for reasons we can go into later.  Third, the plot device of the "neural bridge" has amusing psychosexual implications, I hope they make good use of it.  Fourth, its been a long time since we destroyed Tokyo in cinema, I hope the filmmakers are up to the task.

__________

Minor Spoiler Alert, but nothing you would not learn from any trailer.

__________

The very future of Giant Robots, the apex of sophistication of all cinematic art, is at risk.

This important subgenre, pioneered by the Japanese and others in the far east, was created and nurtured in the field of Anime. But then it jumped out of that subgenre and into the world of mainstream filmmaking through the genius of Michael Bay, that underrated director of robotic conflict, whose Transformers can be said to have changed the very face of the cinema, transforming, as it were, the worn and old-fashioned ideas of story, character, mere plot and nuance into a vigorous and renewed art form of the clash of giant robot on giant robot.

Whereas previous narrative was limited to "person vs nature", "nature vs nature" and so forth, we can now add "robot vs robot" and "robot vs alien" greatly expanding the range of narrative possibilities.

No more weak cop buddy movies for Hollywood, or High Noon in space, or a repeat of Halloween XIII, all were swept away by the magnificence of the Transformers films. But as geniuses are wont to do, Michael Bay became bored with the genre he had helped to create and lost his way. And the genre of giant robots itself fell into decay, fallen from its former glory.

Now the entire field of Giant Robots in the hands of a tyro, a beginner to the art form, Guillermo del Toro, who is an esteemed but imperfect filmmaker. His first Hellboy was a triumph, and so were some of his earlier low budget films to a varying degree, but Hellboy II was a disappointment for reasons that were entirely under his command.  He recouped some ground with Labyrinth of Pan, but one could hardly call Labyrinth a giant blockbuster hit and, as we all know so well, in American all that really matters is money.

Thus the fate of this important genre may ride on the box office performance of Pacific Rim. Hollywood being what it is, were Pacific Rim not a "monster" at the box office, and failed, it would impose a chill on the financing of other giant robot projects, no matter how worthy. That is the normal craven behavior of Hollywood and is just a fact of our lives.

The premise of Pacific Rim is sophisticated and rich in nuance. Giant aliens menace the earth from under the seas, not from outer space, and proceed to destroy civilization and small children while we are powerless to stop them. Perhaps we have a homage here to Godzilla, even though of course Godzilla was not an alien, but an earth creature mutated into its cinematic form through the plot device of nuclear mutations. So the first thing we know is that the plot premise "aliens attack and try to destroy earth" is totally original.

From out of the alien rift comes this aquatic menace to destroy Tokyo

The second important element of Pacific Rim is that all our weapons fail to stop this menace, and we are reduced to one last chance, one last resort, a vintage, early-model Jaeger, which is a giant robotic device controlled by not one, but two, humans in concert.

Is there any science in this fiction? Well, there might be. It is generally believed by those who study such things that a large part of the brain mass of different creatures is proportional to the size of the creature. In other words, whether or not an elephant or a gorilla is intelligent (which they certainly are), a certain amount of their very large brains is used up by the sheer mechanics of controlling their large bodies. The larger the body, the larger the brain, so this argument goes.

The two buddy giant robot controller team

Thus in Pacific Rim, we need not one, but two, humans whose combined brain mass, roughly divided left and right, is necessary to control the Jaeger in its sophisticated war against the sea aliens. The two humans are brought together in "neural fusion" which is a privacy destroying mechanism in which all their dreams, mistakes, fears, emotions and memories are fused. Anyone who agreed to neural fusion must be a very brave person indeed, who would want to be fused with their girl or boy friend? You would break up at once.

The incredibly hot Japanese martial artist teenage lust object robot controller

So through this plot device we actually have a nice undercurrent of sex/relationship politics. Do we have two beefy guys in a homosexual neural fusion, or do we go the heterosexual route, particularly with a hot oriental martial arts master. We do go the heterosexual route, indeed, and it could be fun. Will the neurally fused couple be able to stay together long enough to beat up the giant sea aliens, or will their relationship break apart, will they start throwing things at each other instead of the deadly Kaifu, leading to the defeat of all humanity?

For those of you who are interested in mere visual effects, there are a number of interesting challenges to this film and they generally have the word "water" in them, lots of water.  Water in scale.  Very hard to do.  Very expensive, very annoying.

Pacific Rim has another first to the best of my knowledge.  A voice character from video games has made the transition to feature films.  You may recognize the voice of "Portal" in key places in Pacific Rim as the voice of (what I think is) the computer that helps manage the Jaegers.  If you listen carefully near the beginning of this trailer, you will hear a very recognizable voice say "Pilot to Pilot connection: engaged".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6irOTZ0WskU#at=16

So much is riding on this one film, I hope Guillermo doesn't "fuck it up" as they say.

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Pacific Rim on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/

The Rich Make Sacrifices Too

Although it seems as though America has just in the last few years gone into a structural collapse, sending its manufacturing to an enemy who has vowed to destroy us, impoverishing vast numbers of Americans, it is not only the lower and middle classes which have suffered.   Not only do the rich care deeply about the poor and middle classes as has been shown by their creation of the right wing of the Republican party and their economic policies, but the rich themselves have suffered, terribly suffered, more than most people know.

I am here to testify to you that I have personally witnessed some of the ways that the rich have suffered. These sacrifices have been made behind the scenes and hidden out of shame.  Yes, the cold wind of poverty has blown on the faces of the rich as well as the poor, and yes even the owners of the biggest corporations who laugh at the misery of the poor, even they have had to cut back on essential services.

I got to witness this firsthand when my brother was by accident elevated to the upper classes on a trip to NY.   

Many years ago, my brother, the famous film editor, came to NY to show the movie he was working on at a preview screening. The way this works is that the film editor flies out with a print of the film, works with the projectionist and makes sure that everything is done right, and then returns home with the film. These days of course, there is no film, and the film editor just loads the work print up on his thumb drive and flies to NY.   But back then, the editor flew with the film and kept it under his or her control.   In this case, I think the screening was for World War II submariners as part of a documentary being made for the History Channel, sometimes called the Hitler Channel, and the film was U571 (2000).

Although my brother is certainly not rich, his hotel reservations were made on the director's credit card, and when there was some sort of confusion, they did a complementary upgrade to a suite. And I visited him in this suite and got to see how far down the ladder the rich have been forced to descend.

The suite was a pretty good size, it seemed to be about one quarter of a floor of the 4 Seasons Hotel with a nice view of the Chrysler Building. There were several large bedrooms, and the main living room was of modest but acceptable size, you could have a party for perhaps 200 people in it.   Off on the side, there was a nice room which served as a library / study with built in bookcases. There was a goofy but expensive and large tube television (yes, must have been just before flat panels took over) that sank into a concealed space and then would automatically raise itself on command and other televisions, less ostentatious perhaps, in various rooms.  There was a kitchen for entertaining and a bar or two of course.   There were windows on three sides of the 4 Seasons and at least two entrances.   A sensible hotel room, with the basic amenities.

But you could see, you could tell, that already people were counting pennies and cutting back on essential services.

The suite only had four bathrooms, that I recall. The first three, the master bath and two others had all the normal features, with shower, bath, sauna, a telephone and a television. But the fourth bathroom, although it did have a telephone, did not have its own television.

Its shocking, isn't it, how far down we have come so quickly? One of the bathrooms does not have its own television, so its come to this? When I finally asssured myself that this was indeed true, despite my disbelief, when I figured out what this meant, I had to sit down I was so shaken.

That our rich should have to suffer so cruelly was a shock to me. America was such a great country once.

U571 on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141926/

Did Space Aliens Fix my Scion XB ? Mercury Retrograde and Other Issues

Mercury has just gone Retrograde again and it will stay that way for approximately three weeks.  I know that some of you do not believe that there is a lattice of causality that underlies the apparent coincidences of the material world, what Jung called "synchronicity", but he was a fool ! He never listened !   

Anyway, I have a story here which should convince even the most doubtful of you that cosmic energy forces must be at work, even if we do not completely understand them.  (I am joking of course, see note 1)

In a previous post we discussed the mystery of Reverse Mercury Retrograde Syndrome which says that the victim will spend most of the year unable to communicate or get much done but that when Mercury goes Retrograde, he / she will suddenly be able to communicate and get things done, things will start working and so forth.   And in this example, we described a case where cosmic energy forces manipulated me into a meeting with the relatives of a very colorful friend.   

You laugh at this superstitious belief, but just wait.

The following is a true story.

Understanding this story requires that you accept that I am *reverse* mercury retrograde, e.g. in this time period is when things go *right*.   

In the last Mercury Retrograde, I was at UCSD to file my paperwork to get a new passport as UCSD is by far the most convenient place for me to get this piece of official business done.  So I am on this beautiful campus, far away in a corner where some outlying administrative buildings are kept. As I come out of the passport office and approach my car I see a person in a pickup truck examining it. He asks me, am I the person with the Scion XB who needs his windshield replaced?

Well, in fact, I do have a Scion XB and it does have a cracked windshield, which I have not gotten fixed for a year because I simply do not have any money for it (sure I have the money, but one of the features of poverty is that you do not deal with problems that are easily solved because you do not know where the next check is coming from). Yes, I say, but I didn't order a new windshield. He looks at his form, he shows it to me, it is not my name, but it is someone else with a Scion XB who ordered a replacement for his windshield and he works in one of these out-of-the-way admin buildings in an obscure corner of the UCSD campus and had made an appointment for this nice person to order the part from Scion and come by at this time to fix his Scion.

In other words, a nice car repair person just happens to order a part for my car, the exact part I need, and delivers it to UCSD in the exact 2 hour period that I am on the UCSD campus (the second time in my entire life that I have ever been on that campus), at the exact place and moment that I am walking to my car (otherwise I would never have even known about this), but it is not for me.

Could this be just a coincidence or did space aliens arrange for the windshield to be there?

Carl Jung's Astrological Chart which must be relevant to this whole discussion in some mysterious way

I would not know how to even begin to calculate the odds of this happening.   People do not just drive around at random with replacement windshields for my car just in case I happen to need one.

Thats the sort of thing that happens to me when Mercury goes Retrograde: cameras start working mysteriously, a friend offers me a project, people appear out of nowhere with spare parts for my car that somehow they knew that I needed.

When the lattice of causality is on your side, any door can be opened, any windshield replaced, any obstacle overcome.

But when the lattice is against you, well, its best not to think too much about that.

______________________________________

1.  The funny thing about this, is that in fact it probably *is* just a coincidence.  But what are the odds and how would we calculate them?  What this really means is actually something more interesting but explainable/rational than Mercury Retrograde, something along the lines of:  our lives contain examples of "miracles"  (as defined by extremely small chances of occurring) but they probably occur because we are constantly rolling the dice, we just don't notice it.  This is not a new idea, but it probably needs more discussion than I have done here to make it comprehensible.  I admit it, cosmic energy forces or conspiracy would be the more amusing explanation.

2. In a Facebook discussion with Ken Cope, Ken pointed out that many people do not realize that Mercury does not go backwards, that this is apparent motion which is a result of the elliptical orbits of the planets around the sun.   But what is also interesting (to me at least) is that in the 3rd Century BC, if you observed the sky and did not realize about elliptical orbits, and just reported what you saw, you would describe a dot of light that appears to regularly move in a path in the sky, but then from time to time reverses direction, then resumes its original path.  That part was not superstition, that is what they observed, and you could observe it too, and predict when it would happen.   Astrology may be wrong as an explanation of phenomena, but in general it is based on real observations made as best they could at the time.

How Mazewar Escaped from a Lab at MIT in 1977

[6/28/2013 See comments at end from MIT Alumni that fill in some details here]

This is the story of how an early multiperson computer game, way ahead of its time, escaped from a lab at MIT and ended up on networked computers on the West coast and from there out to the rest of the world.

This is also an example of how difficult it is to understand events that happened in another time, another period of history, when the technology was different than we are used to. When this story took place, people used minicomputers or ran batch on mainframes, there was very little graphics, local area networks were research projects, and on and on.

I was taking a break from college and worked at the RAND Corporation and had been on the ARPANET since 1973 which is about as early as you can be on the ARPANET. I had made a lot of friends at MIT at the AI Lab and what we then called the Architecture Machine Group.

RAND sent me on a trip to Cambridge and I stayed a few extra days and slept on Lee Parks' couch at the Architecture Machine. It was on one of these tours that I saw the Spatial Data Management System at the Architecture Machine, or "Put that There". Seth Steinberg was working with Bob Frankston and working on their product after Visicalc, something called TK Solver! which was spectacular.

For some reason, Charles Frankston, who was at the AI Lab then, took the time late at night to show me a multiperson game called Mazewar. Mazewar ran on a PDP 10 computer that had a bunch of graphics computers attached, something called an Imlac. An Imlac was a 16 bit computer all its own that could do dozens of vectors a second, barely. I remember a room with a dozen or so Imlac's against a wall, so I am guessing that this was a graphics lab at MIT of some sort.

The basic game was this: you were in a maze. You can see whatever direction you were facing, down the maze, at a wall, whatever. If you saw another player, you could see them as well, represented as an eye and the eye had a direction so you could see which way the player was facing. If they were facing away from you or at right angles it was quite possible they had not seen you. Using the keyboard (there were no mice), you could navigate (forward, backwards, to the sides), or turn right or left, or stop, or fire straight ahead. If the bad guy was ahead of you, and you fired first, you won. The other player would be reincarnated somewhere else in the maze. In modern terms, it was an early 1st person shooter.

This was probably 1977.

I return to LA and go back to school to get my degree, and my friends leave RAND and move to Xerox where they are working on a secret project. I get a demo of some of their technology, called the Alto, and I am blown away. This is the future. It is the Alto that Steve Jobs was shown when he came up with the idea for the Macintosh, so they say.

The Alto was perfect for Mazewar. It had the screen, the user interface (keyboard/mouse), the network to communicate. It did not have a central computer like the PDP 10 so we came up with a distributed architecture for the game played over the network. Jim Guyton at Xerox did most of the programming. I described the game (Jim had never seen it) and figured out how to make the graphics efficient. Jim releases the game inside Xerox.

My friend Marc Cantor, founder of Macromind aka Macromedia, sees it and does a Mac implementation. Jim is asked to write an article about the Alto implementation for Byte magazine and he does in 1980. This turns out to be one of the first, if not the first, network distributed multi-person game with various points of view, in the public literature.

I am sure we were not the first. But apparently we were close to the first to talk about the ideas in print. Jim now becomes an expert witness to break weird patents on networked games. So do I.

Anyway, Mazewar has a loyal following, it even had a 30 year reunion that I did not know about.

The point is, that back then, people helped you, you shared ideas, it wasn't about making a fast buck, it was about showing these ideas would work when no one but us believed it would.

Now of course, things are different.
________________________________________

We got the following comments from MIT Alumni:

From Tom Knight on 6/24

That would have been in the Dynamic Modeling group Imlac installation, on the second floor of 545 Technology Square.The Imlacs were connected by serial lines to the Dynamic Modeling PDP-10, running ITS, one of three KA-10 ITS systems on the 9th floor of Tech Square at the time. JCR Licklider, who ran DM, didn't like those new fangled bitmaps. In my opinion (and that of many others) the Imlacs were a programming and support nightmare. The epitome (with the possible exception of the similar GT-11) of the catch phrase "There is a special name for a little bit of intelligence. It is stupidity." Cleverness in the console program led to unending complexity and failure in the mainframe.

From Ed Schwalenberg on 6/24

Fascinating!
Here are a few things I remember:
The Imlacs were owned by the Dynamic Modeling group of MIT LCS, headed by Al Vezza.  Vezza was not fond of Maze, because randoms like you would come in at midnight, pound on the keyboards and break them.  So the installed version of Maze was typically neutered; you had to have a guide like CBF to know where to find a good copy.  Also, there was a screensaver for idle Imlacs; one of the images was a Maze playing position where user AV (Vezza) was directly in front of you, his eyes directly on you.
The cognoscenti also knew how to activate various cheat modes. A regular shot had a propagation delay to the target; control-mumble-cokebottle eliminated that delay.  Another patch activated keystrokes that would let you remove walls in your copy of the maze.  A third would show you the positions of others in the overview.
SAIL had some Imlacs, notably one at John McCarthy's home; I wonder if that was the first "home computer"?  I also wonder whether he ever played Maze on it.
Dynamic Modeling or Dynamod was located in what was then NE43 aka 545 Technology Square. I well remember (from midnight tours led by KLH) the room with a bunch of Imlacs, but I don't remember the room number.  That building has been engulfed (the east wall is now the west side of an enormous atrium) and renumbered 200 Tech Square; it's now Novartis.
Dynamod the research group, and DM the machine, played another role in gaming history, employing the hackers who wrote the original Zork.

Kris Karas adds

Imlacs not withstanding, DM was also home to MDL, a wonderfully cuspy
language, if anybody remembers it.  (I still have my MDL software
reference, forlornly gathering dust on a bookshelf.)  I probably owe
some personal success in the field of software to MDL, MACLISP, and DM.
I taught myself elements of good software structure and design from that.

Bill York adds

I remember that as an early MIT student, getting in to the 2nd floor of 545 TS to play Maze was one of the rarest of privileges, and as others have said I owed my access and my Maze training to Charles.
As Ed mentioned, the key gameplay difference between the standard Maze game and most FPS games was that you weren't so much firing a gun as dropping a time-delay grenade in the hallway. This made for very challenging game play, allowing you time to avoid getting killed if you could manage to duck into a side passage in time, or to doom an opponent by baiting him into chasing you into a corridor where you had left a nasty present waiting.
In addition to Zork (which I lost much more time to than Maze) the DM group (or at least individuals) also produced one of the first wide-area multi-player games, an ongoing trivia contest based on user-submitted content. I believe that there were players from all over the ARPAnet-connected world. I think that Peter David Lebling (part of the Zork creation team with Tim Anderson and Mark Blank) wrote and maintained it. He also perpetually occupied the top ranking slot with a commanding lead over the rest of us peons, though I held down 2nd place for a while. Anyone else remember this?

________________________________________

Mazewar page on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_War

Xerox Alto on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto

Imlac PDS-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imlac_PDS-1

Should SIGGRAPH Encourage People to Go Into Computer Animation ?

This essay is an editorial on the role I see SIGGRAPH playing over the years to encourage people to go into the field of computer animation in spite of very serious employment issues in the field.  Let me be clear that I am not referring here to the technical part of SIGGRAPH and the role they have played to publish research in this area, nor am I referring in any negative way to SIGGRAPH as an institution in some greater sense, I am however trying to get people aware that people attending SIGGRAPH are making life decisions based in part on the impressions given at SIGGRAPH and that they are being given what I think is a false impression of the likelihood that this field will be able to support them economically.   

I hear a lot of people say "Computer Animation has changed so quickly in the last few years!!". I hear some people say "The business model of visual effects is broken!!"

That is what I hear them say.

Its true that in the last six months over 1,000 people have been laid off of work.  At least 500 at Dreamworks, an unknown number at R&H but well over 500, an unknown number by Sony in Vancouver and an unknown number by Cinesite in London.   And those are just the ones I know about.  1,000 at least.

But I disagree that there is anything surprising about this.   Everything that is happening today was obvious 10 years ago or more, modulo a few details of this corporate takeover or that merger and acquisition. And the business model of visual effects is not broken, not in the least, it never worked to begin with. Nothing has changed, not for a long time. People just didn't want to know. They were too busy selling a vision that they wanted to be true. And many still are selling that vision.

Computer animators lining up for SIGGRAPH

But now one hears that there is a crisis and so people say "What can we do about it?" There are a number of things that people can do about it, but they probably won't because it will violate every bone of their rah-rah, marketing positive body.   Ok, that is not entirely fair.  But the writing has been on the wall for over a decade or more, and people / groups have not taken action until recently, and even then I am not sure that the actions that they are taking are going to help.

The first thing that SIGGRAPH could do that would be responsible here is for them to stop encouraging people to bet their careers and their lives on this field without first understanding what the likelihood of success will be. To encourage people to choose computer animation as a career, whether in technical, research or production, without a clear understanding of what the actual opportunity is would be irresponsible on SIGGRAPH's part, and yet year after year I see SIGGRAPH doing the same thing.   Which is to say, pushing the field and making it appear glamourous and rewarding in spite of the hardship, the collapse of employment, the nature of the companies and business in this field, the failure to establish computer animation outside of a few niches in entertainment, and most of all, ignoring the genuine hardship and poverty of people who have gone into this field, helped to create it, and now struggle to make a living, or fail to make a living, as the case may be.

How many black kids want to grow up and be professional basketball players? A lot, I hear. But in fact there are a very limited number of positions for basketball players even if most of them do turn out to be black. Basketball is a good way to get some exercise, and some fun if you are into that sort of thing, and work off some aggression. I used to play basketball badly, and I went to UCLA for part of my so-called higher education, so I take (college) basketball very seriously.

But as much as I think it is great to encourage kids to play sports, I would consider it irresponsible for people to go around and tell a bunch of ghetto kids that playing basketball is going to be their ticket out of poverty. It isnt, not for all but a tiny percentage of them. Hard work, education, learning skills that people want to pay for, becoming a lawyer or a computer programmer or something else that is practical will get them out of the ghetto, more likely than not.

I bet that pretty much anyone who wants to be a poet when they grow up, or a writer of american musical theatre, or a photojournalist, or a film editor or a contemporary artist of some sort, is well aware that they have a hard road to travel. In general, I would not advise anyone to try to become a professional writer of the sonnet if that is how they expect to make a living. If they can make a living another way, and then spend all their time being the best writer of sonnets that they can be, well that is a different matter. If they are independently wealthy and do not actually have to make a living when they grow up, then indeed it is a reasonable strategy to spend all your time writing sonnets.

But what if you are not independently wealthy, and you have a family to support, and you are expected to be self-supporting, and you discover that in fact there are very few real jobs in this business and you, unfairly or not, do not happen to have one of them? And you are 35 or so years old or older? And you went to SIGGRAPH for 15 years and never is heard a discouraging word? What are you going to do then?  Well, whatever it is they or you are going to do, SIGGRAPH is not going to be there to help you.  They do not even recognize the problem exists.   At the very least, new people should have expectations set correctly, and then they can perhaps make their own choices and take their own chances.

The University of Oxford Graduate Program in Archaeology is arguably the best program for archaeology in the world (or at least it is up at the top of the list) and it used to have a notice on their website that I thought was completely remarkable. I think it said something like

"We hope you will apply to our program and that you will attend. We would love to have you. But you should know that there are very few jobs for Archaeologists in this world and it might be better if you also had some other way to make a living."

I have looked recently and I have not been able to find this notice, maybe they took it down, maybe I don't remember correctly where it was. But I thought to myself, what a classy thing to do. Wouldn't it be great if SIGGRAPH would start doing the same thing?

But they won't, not in a million years.

So what I am saying here, in case it was not clear, is that SIGGRAPH could do a lot better job of letting people know how risky this field is to be in and give people fair warning.

One panel after all these years is not enough.   A Keynote speech that presents successful animation directors is unlikely to be a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred, analysis of where we came from and where we need to go.   Its much more likely to be another in a series of Hollywood promotion events: "See how glamourous and rewarding it is to be a director of computer animation? "

I wonder, did anyone at SIGGRAPH stop to think how this Keynote might appear to someone who has been laid off again and again, whose various companies have gone bankrupt around them, who has to work 80 plus hours a week for people who are not fit to be their assistants or who has been unemployed for years?  "Here are the successful ones, they became directors," SIGGRAPH seems to be saying,  "Too bad you are not one of them, you must be a failure."

Until we as a community come to an understanding of who can be supported economically by this field, I think it is ethically wrong to let people think that they can have a career here.   And if they can not have a career here, then I think that SIGGRAPH ought to try at least to help those who have an investment in this field to find another way.  We, as a community, and SIGGRAPH as our leading professional organization, needs to get on solid ethical ground.

I have some suggestions on how we, SIGGRAPH, can do that, but whether you like my suggestions or not is beside the point.   First, we have to agree that we have a problem here.

Reviewed 3/7/2014

I Am The Most Guilty (Administrative Notes 06/21/2013)

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.

I am guilty, I am the most guilty.  It has been hard, very hard, to face reality of another summer here and another SIGGRAPH approaching.   Although I am starting to work and having a little money is an amazing change in my situation, even so the real problems, the 800 lb chickens, are all still coming home to roost, and I am powerless to stop them.

There are about 10 blog posts in progress, each of which needs a solid dose of energy, focus and courage to finish.

The topics include:  when design and story combine with visual effects (an example from television), why the current changes in computer animation are not at all a surprise or even really a change, comments by real people as drawn from the internet about the bankruptcy of computer graphics in film, why and how SIGGRAPH lures children to their doom, why the recently announced Keynote speakers for SIGGRAPH is unbelievably cruel and uncaring, what it is exactly that I think SIGGRAPH should be doing that they are not, whether or not I have had some impact on a recent policy change at SIGGRAPH, the current dismal state of film in cinema.  Not to mention some of the history of computer puppeteering or at least my small part in it, as well as a discussion of the origins of the .obj file format, and other trivia.

I am not entirely sure who is reading this blog, but apparently people are so, thank you, whoever you may be.