#and while the video had an eyesore of a filter over it

[ganondoodle]

so i didnt watch the game awards (bc i dont care really, also it was at 1am for me)

but i went back to see the bit where they talked about totk bc it did win an award (sadly bc i frankly dont thik it deserved that) and heard how totk was about "the player making their own story" which is.... ???

like it very much HAS, undenialbly, a story, its pretty clear about that, and its a bland and boring and also illogical one at that, you as the player influence what? how many sages or tears you get and that doesnt change fuck all?? building a hoverbike is making a story ??? huh?? do mean reenacting king kong with toys and glue?? i guess i CAN do that now but i dont play ZELDA for that????

it honestly, looking at the game as a whole too, sounds like "make one up yourself" bc they didnt care enough to write a good one themselves, much less give you any ground to work with bc they treated botws lore like it never happened

but its also so very much contradictory "making your own story" with WHAT, WITH WHAT?? there are no choices that matter and again, there IS a boring ass story, i literally cannot make it my own bc theres no option to do that bc it very much is dictated what happens?? you destroy the good groundwork from botw and old titles that you COULD work with and now tell me "we didnt bother writing a good story bc you should make your own" what the hell am i playing the game for then?? why make it a zelda?? why should i bother playing through a game for its story that you didnt bother to write?????? and you also DID?? but a bad one bc you didnt actually care??? why make one at all??? i could have worked better with an actual sandbox game

"lol i wanted to fuck around with game physics, if you want a story make it up yourself despite there being absolutely one as much in your face as it can be and everythign the previous title was discarded so nothing actually matters, do what you want lol nothing matters" really huh, this is were we are at now

why the fuck did you not make it an actual sandbox spin off then, at least we wouldnt have to deal with this missmatched cocktail of stuff you didnt bother to care about

just please, make your dream sandbox game, just make it, you know you want to, just do it, but dont pretend its a canon story focused zelda title, a sequel to one of the most -full of potential to be elaborated on- zelda games no less

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #totk #ganondoodles rants #am i overhating it? maybe #i dont care #this is the one zelda game i actively hate #and i think its paitnign a grim picture of the future #i saw a video of someone actually comparing botw and totk in detail #and while the video had an eyesore of a filter over it #it was pretty interesting #bc wouldnt you know #where several of the sheikah towers where is no evidence there ever was any #like ones that broke mountains in huge chunks #all sanded off like it was never there #a cave right where a tower was where its impossible to have gone through #and couldnt possibly be changed so much in such little time either #the giant pillars around the castle? #not even a hole #just dirt #also how there are -new- old ruins on top of the akkala fortress #huh??? #it really does feel like nothing ever mattered #and we are dumbos that got tricked into caring #i will never buy a zelda on release again lol #id rather see whats up and then decide #waste of money

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Spiral: From the Book of Saw (Bousman, 2021)

This is the first of these I've watched since the original, which I thought was downright terrible, so I suppose against that low, low standard, this is an improvement. Like that movie this is a hybrid of psychological thriller and torture scenes. But where that movie had the premise of two guys trapped in a room repeatedly undermined by cutting away to some dogshit police procedural scenes, this puts the cop thriller stuff first and punctuates it with the torture scenes, so it's a dramatically sturdier piece of work. And while these days I tend to be lenient towards anything shot on film, the fact is that the original movie was a total eyesore, the scenes in the room having the ambience of a dirty public bathroom with blinding fluorescent lights, and that was before we got to the piss filter cop scenes. This movie has that same urinary colour scheme, but the higher production values made this more tolerable to look at. That being said, the editing rhythms here feel amusingly akin to the nu metal style of the early 2000s, and if you didn't know the release date, you'd be forgiven for thinking it came out a decade and a half earlier than it actually did. So I guess it's a throwback of sorts.

The big selling point here, aside from the usual trappings of these movies, is that stars and is based on a story idea by Chris Rock, something which sounds like a hacky SNL sketch from two decades ago. Rock's touch is apparent from the dialogue, although I must note that none of the jokes here would make the cut in any of his specials. (Exhibit A: Rock's character complaining about Jenny from Forrest Gump in the opening scene.) on his routines in Selective Outrage, he's still in fine comedic form, but you wouldn't know it from this movie. But I suppose Rock's hand is also apparent in the social commentary, which tries to examine the issues of police misconduct and accountability through the lens of a Saw movie. Rock's character is the sole honest cop in a corrupt department, whose members are being targeted for their misconduct. The movie goes much softer on this subject than one might hope, as it leaves the obvious racial angles largely unexamined, and for all its ideas, the execution is very much akin to a hacky cop show. But in any case, it offers an alternative to the currently in vogue elevated mode of horror for movies in the genre seeking to traffic in social commentary.

For what it's worth, Rock's performance and story ideas seem to respect the material, or at least don't condescend to it, although one wishes the movie were less interested in maintaining any sense of dignity about itself. The moral equivalences presented by the killer are all bullshit, so rather than trying to examine them with any seriousness, it might have been more fun to go full bozo mode, like the speechifying in the much more fun Law Abiding Citizen. The only time it does so is right at the end, when it keeps cutting between a character suspended in a trap with the puppet the killer used for a creepy video message during a climactic moment. This is easily the most fun part of the movie, which is otherwise a mixture of middling procedural scenes and the kind of ugly torture scenes that I'm glad went out of vogue over a decade ago.

Anyway, I'm very obviously not the target audience, although I should note that the performances are respectable and the runtime of an hour of a half makes this relatively painless.

#film #movie review #spiral: from the book of saw #darren lynn bousman

[bryonysimcox]

Cutting, calling, sticking, sitting, subtitling: Week 15, Spain

With future certainty and concrete plans nowhere in sight, this week’s blog post is in praise of the mundane. Seven days of everyday life.

When prepping for this blog entry, I started panicking. What’s the overarching message? The big-picture mood of the week or the lesson I’ve learnt? Well this week, there isn’t one. It’s been seven days of everyday life and I reckon that’s worth celebrating too.

We’ve been pitching for some exciting work this week.

I can’t talk about the specifics, but it’s heartening to be actually planning and quoting for real-life projects that could bring in real-life money and real-life experience. We pretty much work on Broaden as a full-time venture anyway (regardless of if it makes us money), so when prospective clients reach out to Broaden to ask us to do more of what we love, then that’s a bonus.

I guess that’s the beauty of filmmaking, it’s so broad and its potential is so great that it can be valuable for a whole lot of people. I also think in the coming ‘new normal’ as countries, cities and communities come to adapt life around Covid-19, that the role of video and online streaming will shift, and perhaps become a more central element in our lives.

I’ve also been working away at editing the video we started filming last week about Economics for a more just and equitable world. It’s starting to take shape, though there is a lot of refinement needed (I’ve cut 150 minutes down to 30 minutes but still have a fair way to go!). Working on this video is also bringing about a newfound challenge of how we make videos like this visually stimulating, when they predominantly feature digital interviews and we can’t film footage out and about due to lockdown. It’s forcing us to get more creative with motion graphics, which is no bad thing.

In what is the culmination of a longstanding project, we also interviewed Rich Evans about The Foundations in New South Wales this week.

‘The Foundations’ is a truly extraordinary project/place in Portland, a tiny town about two-hours inland from Sydney. I first discovered the project when I worked in Australia, and the company I worked for, RobertsDay, was involved in a masterplanning process. Portland was established around a cementworks which went on to not only be the driving economic force behind the town, but also the backbone of the community. It was a source of civic pride (cement from Portland famously went to Sydney amid the building boom, coining it the phrase ‘The Town That Built Sydney’), and also helped establish social infrastructure like the swimming pool that is still a celebrated destination in the little town today. Sadly, as the cementworks decreased in scale and eventually closed in the nineties, it had a huge impact on the town.

(images) Scenes from January 2019 when we started filming at The Foundations, Portland NSW.

Back at RobertsDay, I had the pleasure of working on the masterplan and placemaking work for the next chapter of the cementworks, and I immediately fell in love with the place. Not only was it this incredible place of industrial heritage, but the owners actually wanted to transform the site into something really special - a tourist destination, an asset to the community, and a revitalised part of the town. From its current state - fenced-off, closed, and perhaps even an eyesore, the owners wanted to introduce artwork, markets, community gardens, museum collections, fishing and camping, weddings, concerts and a whole host of other things.

It was obvious that there was a story about The Foundations that deserved to be told, and so in January 2019 George and I spent a weekend there, filming local residents, business owners, and the wonderful Rich Evans, ‘Chief Reactivation Officer’ from The Foundations. This was before we’d even launched Broaden, but we were passionate to use filmmaking to document the transformation that was taking place there. However, over the course of 2019, other things took centre stage in our lives and we never got around to editing the final film.

And so, in lockdown here in Spain, we decided it was finally time to close off this story. Just this week,we called Rich over Zoom and asked him all about how things have progressed since we last visited Portland. Rich is a larger-than-life character who had so much good stuff to report (an artist in residence, growing market attendee numbers, new custom-designed public furniture, and the renovation of a central historic building which involved the removal of 1000s of bees!).

In a strange way, I’d originally thought of this hiatus as a weakness for our film, but it now has added another facet to the story: giving Rich a chance to reflect on progress at The Foundations and show viewers how much is possible in the space of a year.

Making collages serves as respite for the mind.

I return to my collage practice as a meditative practice, and a restorative one too. It’s something I do when I want to clear my mind, and use a different part of my brain from the video-editing-zoom-calling-analytical-planning side of my brain.

That said, the last few paper collages I’ve made have felt like a bit of struggle, and I’ve felt rather uninspired. The collages are never meant to be a forced thing, but instead something visceral and playful, but in recent times they’d stopped being that.

Until this week! This week, inspired to make a collage for my mum’s birthday, I started getting my boxes of magazines and compiled sheets out, stuck my ‘Making Collage’ playlist on, and somehow just found my groove. Shapes and forms shouted out to me, and I was more preoccupied with the mood of the pieces than perfection and precision. I was drawn to more ambiguous textures and the way that they could be layered, and what started as one collage ended up being a series of three (the other two of which I’ll later publish this week).

(image) The collage I made for my mum’s birthday, ‘Flirtatious Textures’.

Whilst I’ve feel as though I’ve found my swing with collage-making again (and have been also considering embarking on some critical writing about my creative process using academic texts for reference), this week I had a piece rejected. I’d made it to enter into a competition, and when the rejection email landed in my inbox this week, the usual heart-racing pangs of inadequacy entered my mind. Not only had I lost money on the entry fee, but my work was ‘unwanted’. I’ve spent some time facing those demons these last couple of days and reminding myself that I make my work for ME.

So if that’s the cutting and sticking, and the zoom interviews were the calling, what’s the sitting and subtitling this week’s post refers to?

We’ve been doing a lot of sitting. Sitting and staring, sitting and watching the sun set, sitting and reading books, sitting and checking Instagram, sitting and feeling guilt for sitting, sitting and swatting mosquitoes away (it’s rather hot all of a sudden), sitting and eating crisps, sitting and calling friends, sitting and laughing, smiling, frowning, thinking.

(images, left to right) Everyday scenes from the cottage, cutting and sticking, and a lot of sitting (as demonstrated by George!)

It feels totally bonkers that as we face a global health pandemic, all I’m drawn to do (or able to do) is sit. And George and I have certainly discussed the guilt, lack of motivation, boredom and soul-searching that’s grown (and comes along with sitting!) in recent weeks. I’m not sure if there’s some grand benefit to all this sitting, but it has called for the enjoyment of many a good book, and also a good phonecall.

One of the most joyful moments (spent sitting!) this week was surely the video call I had for my Granny’s 80th birthday, between my mum, my brother, my aunt and my Granny herself. There were laughs and cheers, ridiculous filters used and lots of talk of birthday booze and plentiful cake. But after the call, there were also moments of reflection and of gratitude; that we are able to celebrate together (albeit digitally) for the momentous milestone that is my wonderful Granny’s eightieth birthday, as she sits alone in her house in Scotland, is a blessing. Of course, I would have loved to have seen her in person, but I am so bloody grateful that we can connect to her even if just through the airwaves.

Birthdays in May seem to be a common occurrence in my family, and this week saw my Mum’s birthday too. Again, there was a sense of loss that unsurprisingly, I couldn’t be with her due to coronavirus (a fact made worse by the fact I don’t think I’ve been with my Mum on her birthday for about five years), but we were also able to chat and videocall. And I was also able to go back through my photos, reflecting on wonderful times shared across the years.

(images, left to right) Looking back at memories with mum - as a child in a sling, on our trip to Sri Lanka in 2018, and at the exhibition opening of ‘Talking Sense’ where one of her sculptures was displayed at the Portico Library last year.

Access to computers and the internet, free time to sit and chill, and family who are safe and sound is not a privilege everyone shares. And I am so aware of that.

I continue to think of the inequalities this pandemic is highlighting, and the gaps it is widening. Access to the fundamental elements for a just and equitable life are basic human rights, and yet as BBC newsnight’s Emily Maitlis reminded us, 'The disease is not a great leveller'. If while I’m sitting this week, I can at least read, watch, learn and share ideas about how we can tackle these gaping inequalities, my sitting was perhaps not in vain.

As our fifteenth week on the road drew to a close, and looked ever less like life actually ‘on the road’, I decided to take on the task of subtitling The Hundred Miler.

Initially, the only motivation to create comprehensive subtitles for Broaden’s thirty minute documentary was so that we could enter foreign film fests. And even then, we’d have had it professionally subtitled if we weren’t looking for ways to save money!

And so I naively embarked on what was to become a two-day odyssey involving Artificial Intelligence transcript detection, manually correcting the script, learning about timecodes, downloading .srt files and working to integrate them with YouTube.

The long and short of it is that The Hundred Miler (which also hit a whopping 100,000 views this week) now has complete ‘closed caption’ subtitles which you can use and enjoy on YouTube! But more than that, through conversations with others I realised the importance of subtitles from an accessibility perspective, as a critical tool to help deaf and hard-of-hearing people, as well as those for whom English isn’t their mother tongue. It was a refreshing reminder that we exclude people without meaning to, but that we can also actively include them if we take certain measures.

So that’s it, Week 15 in all its mundane glory. To those of you who are still here, reading my reflections on these strange and tumultuous times, thank you. Maybe this week you’ve been cutting, calling, sticking, sitting and subtitling too, and for that, I salute you. 

#COVID-19 #coronavirus #estadodealarma #lifeinlockdown #hiacevan #toyotahiace #broaden #digitalnomads #vanlife #traveldiaries

[rkmiya]

☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ READY FOR DEBUT ˎˊ˗

sunmi grew up watching rain performances. she would spend all day learning his choreographies. despite being around the age to fawn over him in his prime, she was more interested in the dances and choreographies he did to his songs. it was one of the factors to push her into wanting to learn to dance and become a better dancer. it was a little surreal to meet one of her inspirations growing up in her face. a part of her really wanted to freak out and gush to him how much he influenced her growing up. now that she was an idol she couldn't really do all that at the risk of looking ridiculous but she did give him the deepest bow possible without looking weird.

she respected him so much. a part of her immediately swooned hearing that he choreographed a "new version" of the dance for them. though she knows this was most likely orchestrated by nova and not really him doing this just because he truly wanted to, sunmi takes this as a win regardless. should they go on any variety, it would be a good talking point to bring up to make their debut sound more interesting and possibly trend.

this meant learning a new choreography on top of the one they already knew. it would have been better if the dances were entirely different but they weren't. it made it that much more difficult to separate the two. it was easy to confuse which moves to do because there was only minor changes in the "new" choreography. sunmi found herself messing up more than once during filming. the worst part was the minute she gets used to the music video choreography version, she'd mess up the music show performance version. it was frustrating.

both choreographies captured the song well. in her opinion she wasn't truly partial to either or. the choreographies were so similar that the changes made weren't big enough to change the feel of the dances in essence. either way they were doing a kinda-cute, kinda-sassy song and both choreographies gave off the same vibes because of the shared move set between them.

this also meant that sunmi had to severely filter herself when being presented with the "new" dance. because they were so similar, she immediately asked what the point of learning really minor changes like this. it ultimately wouldn't make a difference in the end. but she knows she couldn't. and she damn sure would never insult rain for his efforts (whatever they may be).

what really frustrated her was seeing her pink head in the mirror no matter what. it was incredibly distracting. it contrasted harshly not only against her other members' very normal hair colours but also because the concept as well. despite pepe being a "cutesy" kind of song, the style and colour of her hair seemed to harsh. like it was forcing her to be softer than she actually was. (did they give her this damn pink hair to contrast her personality? those bitches). it makes sunmi feel ridiculous. like an eyesore. she's not sure what they were hoping to achievement but they definitely missed the mark. unless the mark was to make her look like a fucking eye sore amongst their members. in that case, they succeeded.

the hair definitely didn't suit deja vu which was more of a hip-hop vibe. it was also a more girl crush kind of concept so a pink like this didn't fit either. especially when the set and their clothes were dark colours: blacks, grey, reds, and deep oranges. pink didn't have any business being there. if they make her hair anymore flamingo pink she might actually strangle someone.

but for the sake of saving face, she merely smiled and cooperated the entire time and tried not to get frustrated with how she looked any time she looked in a mirror.

had it been a deep red she would have preferred it. or even an ash brown. something that was different but didn't stand out so dramatically as her current hair did. it was a harsh blow to her confidence and how she carried herself when she performed. she didn't notice it until she was reviewing their dance. sunmi had unintentionally started to draw back because her hair made her stick out so much. she made a mental note to nip that habit in the bud before they could even film the music video. she'd be damned if a shitty haircut was going to ruin her debut.

many idols get hair colours or cuts they don't want. there's idols forced to do blonde hair for years and destroy their hair to the point of being brittle. if they could take it while keeping a smile on their face then sunmi could deal with a hair colour that didn't suit the concept for one cycle. now if they tried this bullshit again she wouldn't be too happy but she knew she would have to suck it up.

(at least until wendy rises to the ceo chair and heads their concepts herself. heh.)

focusing on what she needs to fix in her own performances is what keeps her going while they prep for debut. although she wanted so badly to be perfect (anyone does), she knows it was better that she found more things that she could improve of than not. having something to fix only meant there was improvement to her performances. she was getting better. as a result, she was that much closer to being perfect for their debut. sunmi swore to herself that by the time they're filming the music video and by the time they're doing music shows, she wouldn't focus so much on her stupid hair.

it was a work in progress but it was coming along.

there was no need for sunmi to stress the little things. they couldn't start getting to her early on. self-sabotaging herself like this would only set herself up for failure and sunmi was better than that. she didn't train for five and half fucking years for her to not shine through and show the potential that has been wasted for years. it makes no sense for her to start doubting herself over something so stupid as her hair. she knew what she was signing up for when she signed that contract. now it was time for her to own it. regardless of styles she didn't like, regardless of her feelings to choreography and regardless if she liked the concept or not. sunmi would have to accept whatever it was that she was given and make it work for her. that was her life now. those were the cards that she was dealt with.

so sunmi just had to keep on going.

#word count: 1134 #solo #and*roma:octeval #a✧r⁑solo