Happy 32nd, John Boyega.
On the set of Juel Taylor’s They Cloned Tyrone (2023).
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Getting into silent film history is frustrating bc first you'll learn that around mid-century, when history of silent film began, they had access to relatively few films, and so a lot of misconceptions resulted from that ignorance. They only had D.W. Griffith and few other early films, so they assigned him Great Man relevance over all basic filmmaking. Even things like "everyone assumed Marion Davies was a talentless hack propped up by William Randolph Hearst bc they wrongfully thought a character in Citizen Kane was based on her, and had none of her films to go off of" (Orson Welles hated that one and repeatedly tried to correct it, btw)
But now, with more access to silent film than any time since the silent era, literally all the misconceptions still exist and are widespread bc no one bothers to watch all those films. We can increase access, but we can't make film teachers not just show Birth of a Nation (or, let's be honest, clips from Birth of a Nation) in utter isolation from the rest of early film and call it a day, oh and next we'll cover Intolerance, which is an apology for the racism our class downplayed, dontchaknow (it isn't)
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The First Slam Dunk fansub
Proud to release my very first fansub for the return of Animation Night.
So what is this movie? The short version is that The First Slam Dunk is the best sports movie I've ever seen.
A slightly longer version: it's an incredibly intense, sharply choreographed game of basketball - intercut with the story of our boy Ryota, who struggles to live up to the shadow of his dead brother Sota, not helped by the fact that his mother is not dealing with it well. Growing up a taciturn outcast, Ryota at last finds solace in basketball, where he finds a new purpose as he and his comrades in the no-name Shohoku basketball team find their way to unexpected success. Now, he stands to achieve his brother's dream - to beat the as-yet undefeated Sannoh team. But the Sannoh boys want that win just as badly, and they live for basketball.
After seeing this movie you'll get why.
Slam Dunk is a wildly popular and long-running sports manga, previously adapted to anime by Toei in the 90s. The original story followed delinquent yankii goofball Sakuragi, who finds a new life in basketball. This movie aims to open it to a new audience - it retells the story from a different perspective, changing the emotional beats as it moves our view from goofy Sakuragi to troubled Ryota. The original mangaka Takehiko Inoue directed it after he was impressed by Toei's efforts to bring the characters to life with CG. It sports (haha) a unique look in anime, blending 2D and 3D animation with a really gorgeous manga-like shading style and effects.
The result is a film with the tight cinematography of manga panelling, the complex 3D motion of CGI and mocap, and also the clarity and snappy timing of animation. The result is, above all, readable. I honestly don't know a thing about basketball, and yet, I could follow every move - even in French.
Then add an absolutely killer soundtrack and masterful pacing and you end up with something truly special. It was one of my favourite movies at Annecy last year, and now it's finally out on BD.
So, in the interest of letting more people enjoy this movie, and also because I really wanted to try my hand at it, I made a fansub! It ended up an incredibly involved project - I retimed every line of dialogue, tracked dozens of signs in Blender, and generally went just completely all out on this one. Couple of all nighters may have been involved.
Here's some screenshots of some of the more complex typesetting:
If you'd like to watch it together, I'll be staging a group watch at 7pm UK time (three and a half hours from now). Tune in to twitch.tv/canmom - I'd love to see you there! And if not, well, the torrent is above, enjoy <3
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