Bladerunner (1982) Convention Reel Found on Vimeo

A 1982 “convention reel” for the movie Bladerunner (1982) has appeared on Vimeo. It is very low quality, probably a transfer from the 16 mm but has some interesting material in it. In fact it contains some of the first efforts of Hollywood producers to destroy the noble art of visual effects by revealing the secrets of the arcane technology which is better held by a trusted elite and not just thrown out to the great unwashed of the filmgoing public.

https://vimeo.com/38950113

This was still in the early days of “convention reels”, when film producers would pander to attendees of science fiction, fantasy and comic conventions. The success of the marketing of Star Wars (1977) could not be ignored and so studios and filmmakers started allocating money for short films describing the film in progress and sending those films along with a marketing assistant and possibly a star or two to the various conventions around the country.

Ridley Scott in front of a Bladerunner miniature

1982 would have been very early in this trend, before the directors and stars started routinely showing up at the convention.

Highlights of this reel include

-- A discussion by Syd Mead of the philosophy behind much of the production design, which is to say, a layered approach on the lower levels of accretions of technology on top of previous, no longer working, artifacts. I am not sure, but it looks to me as though they were building the set to Bladerunner on top of an urban back lot of existing facades, such as the Universal Back Lot, although I am not sure which one this might be.

-- A discussion by Ridley about why he did not want to use the word Android and instead made up their own word, replicant.

-- A discussion by Douglas Trumbull on the elements required to simulate the interior of one of the Spinners (flying police vehicles).

It is the latter that is the most disturbing as this is one of the earliest cases of the use of arcane technology of visual effects used to sell a film.  What a self-destructive behavior this is!  By revealing how the magic is done, the magic is itself undone, and the audience begins to become jaded and critical.  This process which took 30 years is one of the biggest problems the filmmaker has today.  But it is our own damn fault, or perhaps the fault of the producers who encouraged this kind of behavior out of a desire to market their film, in other words, out of short term greed.

The Candidate for Michael

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Now that it is almost certain that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, we are all being requested to fall in behind the standard bearer. And I expect that I will because the threat of another Republican administration, whether Trump or otherwise, is too horrible to contemplate. But I do resent it, because I do not like Hillary's policies, not even a little bit, its just that she is the lessor of two evils.

So to be specific, here are some positions I would like any candidate I support to have:

1. I would want any candidate I supported be in favor of canceling all H1B visas and that companies in this country should hire the many qualified Americans instead.

2. I would want any candidate I supported be in favor of a salary and compensation cap on executives, perhaps limiting them to some multiple of the lowest salary they pay, perhaps 35 (*) times the lowest salary.

3. I would want any candidate I support to be vocal about his or her desire to change the unemployment metric to include those who are long-term unemployed or underemployed.

4. I would want any candidate I support to be vocal about change to the poverty threshold to make it a more reasonable measure of those who are very poor in this country.

5. I would want any candidate I support to change the way we do loans for education, higher, lower or middle, to make it more along the lines of the Australian system.

6. I would want any candidate I support to be vocal about seeing that globalization is not artificially encouraged by lowering or destroying standards for environmental control, as has happened at the Port of Los Angeles.

7. I would want any candidate I support to be vocal about seeing that that those who encouraged and executed torture in our name to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

8. I would want any candidate I support to work to end the grossly unfair difference between criminal sentences for black people vs white and white collar crime. How can it be just for a black man who stole a stapler in Alabama go to jail for life while John Ehrlichman went to jail for 18 months?

9. I would want any candidate I support to be vocal about seeing to it that local police forces obey the letter and intent of the law, and that those who do not have criminal prosecution brought against them.

10. I would want any candidate I support to be especially vocal about ending the kinds of abuse that one finds in the Orange County Attorney General's office with its illegal use of informants and its perjury regarding the use of databases, and its use of such information to get convictions against innocent citizens.

11. I would want to know why the DOJ did not bring criminal prosecution against the DEA in San Diego.

12. I would want to know why the DOJ did not bring criminal prosecution against the many people in the savings and loan industry for their criminal malfeasance in the 2008 bailout.

13. I would want to change the capital gains taxes to exempt those with under a million dollars in capital, but greatly increase the rate as the capital went above 10 or 20 million dollars worth. In other words, no capital gains taxes for the poor or middle class, but much larger taxes against the very rich. And maybe even a tax on capital itself for those with over 250 M or some other suitably chosen number. In other words, I am not interested in hearing that we do not have the money for education when rich people fly around in their 100 million dollar jets. Just not interested.

14. I would want my candidate to attempt to restore many tax breaks to the middle class, such as the tax exemption for education which Reagan took away.

15. I would want to change our justice system so that the poor really do have access to good legal counsel instead of just paying lip service to it.

16. I would expect any candidate I support to be vocal about seeing that public education was as good as private education.

17. I would expect any candidate I support to work to bring a sense of justice and proportion to our corrupt medical system. I would expect doctors be required to work some percentage of the time in a clinic for the poor, that their salaries would be limited to that which a public servant makes, say, for example, teachers. I would want to evaluate what pharmaceutical companies charge for their medications. For example, I regularly do an off patent generic which sells for over 180 times its cost of production.

Of course, I would not expect any candidate to support all of these, but I might want him or her to support some of them. And I would not expect that he or she could get all or maybe even any of these through Congress, but I would expect them to try.

As Senator Bulworth said in the fabulous movie of the same name, to the black congregation of a church where he is speaking, “What are you going to do, vote Republican?”

I have no doubt I will vote for whoever the Democratic Party nominates.

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(*) Any numbers suggested here are examples only and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Kinky Sex and the Dream of a Regional Film Community in SF Fulfilled

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Will Sex Workers Rush to Silicon Valley to be Sodomized?

Concerns have been expressed that one result of the law suit against Michael Goguen of Sequoia Capital may be a glut in the availability of aspiring sex workers and entrepreneurs trying to cash in on the extravagant prices paid by senior executives in Silicon Valley for sexual services. As the news of the $10M fee received by litigant Amber Baptiste for sodomic services has spread worldwide it has resulted in many new and current sex workers announcing their intent to move to the area. Ms Babtiste is suing Mr Goguen for failure to pay the remaining $30M of her agreed upon fee of $40M.

Sex workers both self-employed and those held in slavery expressed admiration for Ms Baptiste for her lawsuit and for actually receiving the first $10M. “People all over the world get butt fucked for a dollar but Amber got 10 million! She is my hero” said one sex worker who wants to remain anonymous because she is currently an underage sex slave in a middle-eastern country.

Others expressed concern that a sudden influx of sex workers from all over the world to Silicon Valley offering to be sodomized might depress the market. “We dont want them here, they should stay home and get fucked there” said Gloria Standfast, a prominent Silicon Valley sex worker and industry advocate.

Although controversy surrounds the lawsuit everyone that this reporter talked to seemed of the opinion that Ms. Baptiste got a pretty good deal. “Lots of people get fucked up the butt by venture capitalists, but not all of them get as well paid as Ms Baptiste” said one entrepreneur at the Game Developer Conference.

“This is the kind of behavior that made America great and it shows how the free market works to help ordinary workers” said Rep Nelson Freeport (R-CA).

For more information on the relationship between Mr. Goguen and Ms. Babtiste, click here.

Depression, Unemployment, Health, Memory, Stress and so Forth

If you are unemployed then you probably already knew how fucked you are. But those of you interested in the details may wish to review the following links.

1. Long term stress erodes memory. I keep forgetting to post this one, ha ha.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/osu-lse022916.php

2. Accepting a job below one's skill level can adversely affect future employment prospects.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/uota-aaj030316.php

3. Depression is more than a mental disorder, it affects the entire organism. Well, who said it was a mental disorder anyway, and what does that mean. Nevertheless, you may read this study here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160301075102.htm

Los Angeles and Architecture in Die Hard (1988)

Many years ago, I was driving down Santa Monica Blvd late at night and ahead of me in Century City was a new building that created a fabulous National Socialist light sculpture on top of one of the new buildings that seemed to extend the building into the sky at each corner.

The night was particularly foggy which no doubt enhanced the effect.

It looked fabulous and yet I never saw it again.

Then I heard it was for the movie Die Hard (1988) which I had never seen.

So I downloaded this seminal and important film and I still did not see what I saw that night.

Oh the building was there just fine. And there were even clearly lights on the top of the building for certain important scenes near the end. But that transcendent and inspiring architectural idea that I had seen and been so impressed by was not there. It did not exist. It was an artifact, no doubt, of shooting some of the movie at night and the atmospheric conditions and not intended by the filmmakers, or the architects, at all.

Yes, one more time, I had given Los Angeles and Hollywood, each in their own way, too much credit. This building was and is intended for studio executives, lawyers and accountants. No inspirational pillars of light needed here. No striking architectural innovation. Nothing controversial at all. Just a well-made building for rich people and former presidents.

Once again, Los Angeles is true to its values.

Die Hard (1988) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/

Scientists Stunned as They Are Handed Supoenas as Part of DOJ Investigation

The World Economic Forum (21 Sept 2015) in Davos, Switzerland took an unexpected turn when US Marshalls from the Department of Justice issued supoenas to attending Computer Scientists as part of a larger investigation into alleged fraud at the very highest levels of Academia. The scientists had been attending the conference as part of an effort calling for a ban on the research and development of autonomous weapons.

Giddyup ya lazy war doggies !  Time to go kill !

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said that the government was finding it difficult to believe that scientists had been taking grants from the Department of Defense into Machine Intelligence and related fields without understanding what the research was for. “It seems to us that this is mighty late in the day to suddenly announce that they thought it was a bad idea to pursue this technology. What were they thinking when they took all that money for the last five decades?”

Scientists replied that they had no idea that when they did projects for the Department of Defense on Artificial Intelligence in the Combat Zone that it had anything to do with weapons.  "How could we possibly have guessed that was what on their mind?", asked one scientist.

Many scientists appeared stunned when supoenas were handed them as they left the session. One scientist was heard to mutter “Dont they know who we are?”

Shall We All Return The "Occupied Territories" ?

I have to concede to the far-left and academic politically correct pundits at least one thing.  I do not know any other group that combines totally sincere and heartfelt ignorance with absolute and unthinking arrogance. I am not sure if it qualifies as hypocrisy when one is so ignorant as to not even be aware of what they are saying and how it could easily apply to them, only more so, but whether it is true hypocrisy or just seeming hypocrisy, they have it in spades.

They say that Israel should "return the occupied territories" which, depending on who you are talking to can mean one of several things.  But it probably refers to territory that was occupied by Israel outside the 1967 borders when in 1973 various neighbors attacked Israel and tried to kill everyone.  But they failed and Israel ended up (very controversially) with a variety of contested territories.

I am not going to pass judgement on what Israel should or should not do without much more research and at least one site visit.  But I have no trouble observing just how self-serving and hypocritical those who tell Israel what to do here really are.

Let's review a few examples of "occupied territories".

1. Are you from Australia and you criticize Israel on this topic?  Please have the decency to first return the occupied territories to the indigenous people of Australia that you stole them from.

A review of the occupied territories of Australia and who they were stolen from

2. Are you from Great Britain?  How dare you criticize another nation given your amazing history and the current occupation of Northern Ireland?

3. Are you from or living in the United States?  We have occupied territories here on so many different levels, it might make one laugh if it were at all funny.  The USA was involved in a war with Mexico and claimed as a result Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.  Then of course there is the whole story of California. Puerto Rico?  Guantanamo?  Hawaii?  Guam?

4. Are you from Colorado? The Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenme, Ute, Shoshone and Pueblo people would like it back, if that is all right with you.

5. Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia?  Return the occupied territories.

6. Perhaps the Japanese will want to return Hokkaido to the Ainu?

7. Perhaps the People's Republic of China would like to free Tibet or Uigher?

8. Perhaps the Turks would like to stop their war against the Kurds and allow a free Kurdistan to come into existence?

9. Perhaps Russia would like to return great chunks of Siberia to their indigenous people?

And on and on.

Whether Israel should or should not return the West Bank is debatable.  But before you go around telling other countries what to do, I think it would reasonable to expect you to clean up your own act first.

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Ainu People on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people

Why I Always Say Nice Things About My Clients

Could it be that American business is so terrified of having their crimes exposed that they would refuse to hire someone who wrote a blog?

A highly respected colleague from long ago who will remain nameless here has advised me to be aware that by writing a blog I have condemned myself to a life of poverty. There is absolutely no way, he avers, that any *real* company could take the chance that their dirty laundry would appear one day in my blog, there for all to see, exposed naked as it were to the whole world.

How very, very pathetic. How sad that a hypothetical business that would be terrified of a little blog, or even worse, that people would go around and live their lives scared that they might say something that would offend the corporation.

Sorry, but I just don't buy it.  I refuse to believe that companies and people are so terrified of a little blog. I sincerely hope my friend is wrong.

But they really have nothing to worry about on my account.  Assuming that they have paid me and people are not jerking each other around, I am incredibly discreet.

Here is some of my philosophy on the subject.

1. I believe in the “mutual appreciation society”. That means that I say good things about you and you say good things about me. It cuts both ways and it is to everyone's advantage.

2. In general, nothing bad about someone is put in writing (and email is writing).  

3. I sincerely adore my clients for the most part and want them to think that hiring me is one of the best things they have ever done. Therefore I do everything in my power to help them be successful and obviously dissing them in public would not be helpful.

4. In the long run, I believe that we live in a very small world, and whenever possible I try to remember this and say nice things. I may not be perfect, no one or company is perfect, and I try not to spread malicious gossip or be the subject of same.  Of course this can be difficult to do in this world given the tendency of people to say nasty things about each other and nuke their bridges, but I try to take the high road whenever possible and that has been my policy for over 20 years.

5. Finally and perhaps most important, I respect the confidentiality of my sources and when requested I keep sensitive information out of my blog, respect the request to be anonymous, and also respect that some information can only be for background only. Unlike the sensationalist press, we are in this for the long run. Besides lets face reality here, who exactly reads my blog that anyone would care what I published in it anyway?

But one does have to wonder if people are not being a little paranoid here in their concern.

Why are people so worried?

Could it be, could my friend be suggesting, (oh my god) that most companies are cesspools of crime and work every day to violate the law and work with government to hide their misdeeds? That in fact they are guilty of the worst offenses and desperate to keep their vile crimes out of the public eye? Is that what my friend is actually saying?

No, that could not be!  Not in the free market system!  Not in America!

Folklore Motifs and "Mary Sue" in The Force Awakens

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NB Of course there are spoilers for The Force Awakens (2016) below.

[Add V. Propp Russian folklore motifs.]

[This post is still being written and may appear somewhat incoherent at times until it settles down]

When the original Star Wars (1977) came out there were a variety of reasons proposed for its amazing success, most of which focused, unfortunately, on the visual effects and the space locale. Those who knew their science fiction, or their comparative religion, knew at once that this was wrong. The real reason for the success was, Gods forbid, the story. The folklore motifs were obvious to even the most dim, which sadly did not include most Hollywood executives who can not read the comics without assistance.

Now that the “The Force Awakes” has done so well and is considered the first real sequel of the series since perhaps Empire Strikes Back (1980), it is reasonable to ask what folklore motifs may exist in the plot. There are at least two obvious motifs that reach out and whack one over the head with a broadsword, if I may say so, and one other motif that is more modern.

[Insert references to Propp's compartive folklore.... ]

The three motifs are “the sword in the stone”, “the kind in the mountain” and the more modern Mary Sue character.

Please excuse the bad image quality.

The light saber is embedded in the snow.  Ren tries to get it using the Force but fails, but suddenly the saber jumps out of the snow and into the hand of Rey who also seems a bit surprised.

In the Sword in the Stone, a pretender to the throne attempts to withdraw a magic sword from a stone in which it has been embedded which will confer the legitimacy of the kingship. It is said that no one will rule the land until the true king appears and withdraws this sword from the stone. In the film, our Darth wannabe, Ren, the very spoiled only child of Han and Leia, in a fight with Finn and Rey in the snow knocks Finn unconscious and the lightsaber embeds in the snow. He uses his force powers to try and withdraw the sword from the snow, but he can not. Then suddenly the sword leaps from the snow and nearly knocks Ren down as it travels to Rey who looks a bit surprised. The sword has chosen Rey. It must be noted here that “rey” is Spanish for “king”. There are of course some links of this motif to the Arthurian legends.

The King on his Mountain?

In the "King in the Mountain" motif, a great king from the past who has disappeared is secretly hidden in a mountain, often with a retinue of armed warriors, and he will return one day to save the country from destruction. Of course at the end of the film, Rey uses the map to travel to an island world where Luke Skywalker has retreated and hands him his old light saber. Will the King return to lead his people to freedom?

But what about modern fiction whether written or broadcast? Are there new classifications? Should we start having a regular addendum to the classic Propp folklore classifications?

If so, one of those classifications might be called "the Mary Sue character".

In fan literature, that is, stories written by non-professionals who are fans of a story or story universe, there is a type of character called a “Mary Sue”.  This character is generally the author of the story him or herself who has inserted herself in the story and exhibits fabulous wish fulfillment characteristics such as, in the classic case, fixing the warp drive, defeating the Klingons and Romulans, and sleeping with either Kirk or Spock or both (hopefully not at the same time, but I could not guarantee that)

It is alledged by some that Rey in The Force Awakens is a Mary Sue character. She comes out of nowhere, she can fly the Millenium Falcon, saves Finn from the monsters, defeats Ren, saves the map, finds Luke Skywalker who is probably her father, and so forth.

I think that Rey is certainly a Mary Sue character although it is not clear if she gets to sleep with Spock.  This topic (whether Rey is a Mary Sue) is very controversial on the Internet.

Of course, being a Mary Sue is not a classic folkloric motif, at least not yet.

But perhaps she will be one day. Perhaps academic folkloric analysis should elevate the Mary Sue motif to the level of "the evil villain stops to describe his vile plot to take over the world" and other standards of the current cinema, such as the fight between giant robots, and recognize that a whole new set of motifs has been created to serve the collective unconsciousness of our folk.

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Folklore on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore

Excalibur in the Sword in the Stone on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur#Excalibur_and_the_Sword_in_the_Stone

The King in the Mountain motif on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_in_the_mountain

Here is an article in Forbes Magazine about the Mary Sue controversy.