Light Experimentation

I was experimenting with some old christmas lights I found in this box the other night. Snapped two quick photos of them with my 5D and decided to touch them up, then put them up for everyone to see. They look way cooler in video form but photos are still pretty sweet too.

Random Movie Fact: In the 1982 film The Dark Crystal, early drafts of the script featured Jen and Kira traveling through the underworld where they encountered a race of underground mining creatures. This concept was later integrated by Jim Henson into Fraggle Rock and served as the partial basis for the story of The Power of the Dark Crystal.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Editing Photos

So today I am going to be editing photos from the second photoshoot I have done with Mary. It was another fun and productive photoshoot last night, which even had me scaling walls to get cool shots. My biggest worry was the photos themselves were going to look too different from the last one but they have a completely different vibe to them which is great. I think these photos will come accross much warmer and have an overall more approachable look to them. After lunch I am going to be going through all 23 approved pics and clean them up for Mary and the blog. Should be up and ready to go by tomorrow!

Random Movie Fact: In the 2008 film The Dark Knight, once she knew Heath Ledger had been cast as The Joker, costume designer Lindy Hemming based the character's attire off of an eclectic line-up of clothing styles, ranging from Vivienne Westwood to John Lydon to Iggy Pop to Pete Doherty to Alexander McQueen. Hemming's aim was to modify The Joker's familiar appearance with "a younger, trendier look", in order to represent Ledger's generation.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Racing Towards the Finish

As of right now I am working on my friends final student film project. It is freaking intense and crazy. They have only a few minutes to get the project done and then turn it in, after all that the screening of the film is tonight. I am going to it and can't wait to see the finished film since I have not seen much of anything from it. I am excited and hoping they can get it all done.

Besides that I have to finish up my own film project Voicebox and turn that in by next Tuesday and also turn in a final paper for my English class. After that I am all free and ready to go! I am so excited to graduate and get everything done!

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

The Avengers Review

So last night I went out to the movies with a friend of mine and saw The Avengers finally just to see if it was any good. I will start by saying this...it is a solid film that being said I present to you my review of the film.

This is one of those films that you enjoy and it is worth a watch once and only once. To me The Avengers did not live up to any expectations I had for it going in. Director Joss Whedon took an approach that many will see is similar to his style especially in his television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Around every scene there is a touch of humor and farce which kept me from really getting into the film. The humor at times was nice but it all seemed unnecessary and actually detracted from the story. A film as goofy as this one did not make me feel something emotional, it hid behind the veil of humor. The main villain in the film is Loki who many will remember from the Thor film that came out last summer...and this was to me a great choice, although he was not used to the potential he could have been. The character could have been scary, and impending, and seemed like he was in control but there was at no point a time where I thought he was going to win. His staff of impending doom was cool at the beginning of the film and the mind control element could have been awesome but he quickly just felt week even against just a few of the superheroes from The Avengers. He even gave himself up for a strange bit of reasoning which as soon as you really started to understand it, that plan was already given up. The only time he seemed scary was at the beginning of the film like I said earlier.

As far as the film itself the cinematography was ok, a lot of it being high key lighting and the only cool lighting parts was when Black Widow fought Hawkeye and that was it. The scene where Hawkeye finally came too and was normal again had a really strange bit of color correction to it that just was bizaare and felt like the opening to a television show that the editor decided to play around with the look of the first scene. That being said I come to my next point of this working much like a television show. Joss Whedon seems to have had a little bit too much television story structure on his mind when he made this film, a lot of it felt just like that, a series of tv episodes strung together. The editing had a lot of weird jumps that felt like they were expecting end credits for the tv show to go. Even some of the shot selection felt like something from a lost big budget episode of Buffy. Mr. Whedon did a solid job don't get me wrong but The Avengers felt too much like his shows and not enough like a genuine superhero action film and I hope due to the large success of the film other superhero movies do not take a page and emulate this style because it just doesn't work.

If you want to watch a great superhero film pop in the old dvd of The Dark Knight or wait for the sequel coming out in July. If you must go see The Avengers you will probably like it but it fails to pack the punch of a smart and amazing superhero film. It could have been so much more than what it was...maybe the sequel will have more of an emotional presence about it but if not I will be highly disappointed.

I give it a 7 out of 10.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess