The Alternative Broadcasting Online News Station

Advances in digital cameras and computer hardware and software technology are democratizing filmmaking. Every year, digital video cameras are getting sharper, faster, and more complex, while computers with super-fast operating systems and phenomenal storage capacity are putting advanced editing tools in the hands of aspiring filmmakers at record-low costs.

Single-chip digital cameras, available for under $1000, can produce sharp, high-quality images and are perfect for creating home movies, documentaries and training films suitable for local distribution. Videos of exceptional quality can be transferred directly to CDs or DVDs and, if used solely for viewing on a TV screen, produce beautiful, crisp video. For producing a film with more versatility, for instance for projection onto a large screen in a theater or for broadcast purposes, entry-level professional three-chip cameras offer more control over color balance and broadcast quality beginning at around $3000.

Editing software allows the filmmaker to take raw digital images and process them into a final product. For years the Avid editing system was the standard in video editing, and has been used extensively in Hollywood to edit motion pictures: raw 35 mm film footage was transferred to video and edited, then the final cuts were made to the film footage. Now there are several computer based software programs giving Avid a run for its money. Anyone who has Windows XP on their PC, for instance, has MovieMaker, a simple digital editing system with some powerful capabilities. Beyond that, Adobe Premiere and Final Cut both offer professional level video and audio editing tools, Premiere for PCs and Final Cut for Mac computers. Many other editing software systems also offer digital editing capability.

With powerful editing software comes the need for more operating memory and lots of storage capacity; audio and video data require a tremendous amount of memory. While computers, both desktops and laptops, come with more storage capacity all the time - some systems routinely provide 60 to 80 gigabytes of storage memory - it’s wise, at the very least, to back up your raw footage and your edited product elsewhere, on CD Roms, DVDs, or on an external drive. A better arrangement might be to store both raw data and final edited movies on an external drive, backed up by DVDs, and import your work as you need it only for the purpose of editing.

Make sure you take into consideration the rest of the filmmaking process when you choose your software; Final Cut, for instance, is compatible with Final Draft, a screenwriting program which makes screenwriting easy and can generate all kinds of production lists which make organization a movie project easier. So if you think you’ve decided on an editing software program, see what else the software company creates and how it interfaces with the program you’ve chosen.

So if you’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, take the plunge! With all the digital video equipment and software available these days, the only limitation is your creativity.

Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire. She has written numerous articles for local and regional newspapers and for a number of Internet websites, including Tips and Topics. She expresses her opinions periodically on her blog, http://beyondagendas.blogspot.com She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com

Drama, drama, drama, that is pretty much the only thing that is broadcast on television, along with reality television shows. A s more of those types of television shows come along, less sitcoms are show. In the eighties and nineties sitcoms where all the rage with many sitcoms running from 6 to 10 years. Shows like Growing Pains, Family Matters, Full House and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air were high in the ratings and shows that people would go to school or work talking about the next day.

Currently dramas like The O.C., 24, CSI, and Prison Break, and reality shows like Survivor and The Apprentice are the show that are discusses in school and at work. Sitcoms are no longer a hot topic. The main reason for that may be writers block. A lot of sitcoms that have come on in the last few years have been very predictable. It seems to be difficult to put a new spin on a sitcom. Proof of that can be seen in the numerous failed spin-offs of popular shows like Seinfeld and Friends, as well as the failed That 80’s Show.

With the lack of unique idea and creativity presented in sitcoms, reality and drama show will continue to dominate primetime television spots.

Andre Bias is the owner of http://www.kidfriendlyentertainment.com, and online source for top notch DVD’s for children 10 years old and younger. He is also the owner of the websites http://www.pokergreed.com and http://www.mustseeauctions.com

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom; written by Stuart Beattie; photographed by Peter Biziou; edited by Peter Boyle; production designed by Andrew Laws; produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura. Rated R for strong disturbing violence, language and some sexuality.

Charles Schine - Clive Owen
Lucinda Harris - Jennifer Aniston

Charles Schine (played by Clive Owen) is a Chicago ad man in this new version of “Fatal Attraction” for the year 2005. He is a guy who neglects his wife and daughter. But more troubles wait for him at the office. That’s the setup.

Then Plot Point 1: here comes the gorgeous Lucinda Harris (Jennifer Aniston) who lends him the money he needs for train ticket. Then the train ride. Followed by an intimate lunch and we have a love affair running on all cylinders.

But as it happens in the movies, Charles is threatened by the blackmailer Philippe Laroche (played by Vincent Cassel). It’s pay up 100-Gs or else. That’s Plot Point 2.

After so many plots twists and turns, at the end everybody with a gun directs it at everybody else in a true pulp-fiction way.

The somewhat implausible flick leaves us with one message - if you play, baby you’re gonna pay!

Go see it if you enjoy cheap thrillers and Jen Aniston.

—————————————————–

Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases and hi-tech documentation.

He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 companies for the last 7 years.

You can reach him at writer111@gmail.com for a FREE consultation on all your copywriting needs.

Please visit his official web site http://www.writer111.com for customer testimonials and more information on his multidisciplinary background and career.

The last book he has edited: http://www.lulu.com/content/263630

Topkapi, the movie, is a heist film which takes place at the Topkapi Palace, now a museum, in Istanbul, Turkey. It was directed by Jules Dassin and features his wife Melina Mercouri (recently Minister of Culture in Greece) of ‘Never on Sunday’ fame, which he also directed and acted in.

The museum contains a remarkable dagger encrusted with huge emeralds and many diamonds. This was the object of the heist. Peter Ustinov plays a kind of fool who is recruited to help with the heist. The movie is funny and suspenseful and features the museum as a building of unusual form and design.

One of the great attractions in the museum is The Apartment of the Holy Mantle and Sacred Relics which contains the mantle of Muhammed. If you go to Istanbul, be sure to see Topkapi and the Hagia Sophia Cathedral.

For more information, try this site:

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/print-narrative.cfm?destID=350&catID=0350020332

Or type in Topkapi in a search engine.

Here is part of a review of the movie by Daniel Fienberg:

“It’s amusing how nearly every second of Jules Dassin’s Topkapi feels familiar even if you’ve never seen the movie. To begin with, Dassin was, to some degree, parodying his own grand theft classic Rififi, which came out in 1955. But since Topkapi’s release, it has become something of a blueprint for films in the heist genre. From Brian DePalma’s explicit references in Mission: Impossible to John Woo’s gentle allusions in Once a Thief to Frank Oz’s debt of gratitude on The Score, any time a master criminal gets a gang together to steal that which can’t possibly be stolen, it’s hard not to tip your hat to Topkapi. Even Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 seems to owe as much to Dassin as to the Brat Pack original. Surely all of this idolatry has to mean something.

What it means is that *nobody* stages a robbery set-piece like Dassin. So you can rent Topkapi and sit through over an hour of stale planning and clumsy attempts at humor, but when the film has ended, somehow all of the earlier stuff has faded away and all you remember is the masterful robbery.

The opening credits of Topkapi are shot through an emerald, playing tricks with light and perspective. These tricks of the eye become a visual theme in Dassin’s film. The first character we meet calls herself Elizabeth (Melina Mercouri) and she takes us on a tour around a museum in Istanbul, pointing out the treasures of the Turkish Empire, before arriving at a bust of a sultan wearing a dagger in a shoulder holster. The dagger is studded with diamonds, but also contains the four Topkapi emeralds, flawless stones, each priceless. And Elizabeth has a plan to get that dagger.

It starts with the suave Swiss Walter (Maximilian Schell), an ultra-successful robber who insists on only one thing — the job must be done entirely be amateurs, people without police records. The first amateur brought on board is Cedric Page (Robert Morley), a Brit with a love of elaborate toys and an appreciation for complex electrical systems. Page explains that the challenge in getting the dagger comes from the ultra-sensitive alarm keyed to the floor of the museum. Even a ping pong ball is enough to set off the alarm. They set up a plan for circumventing the alarm and for no reason that I fully understood, they decide to smuggle their materials from Greece to Turkey in a fancy convertible. And then, even more confounding, they decide to get a heel to drive the car across. That heal is Arthur Simpson (Peter Ustinov), an academic now living in exile in Greece, offering tours of the local nightlife in desperation.”

You can read all of it here

http://www.epinions.com/content_77023841924

Enjoy the movie if you can find it.

Jack Wilson is a writer, artist, movie fan and traveler. http://www.geocities.com/galimatio/jackwilson.html

MP4 movies to download is an excellent choice for getting the latest movies quickly and without the hassles of traveling to the store. There are many locations right on the web that can provide you with the best of the best for much less. There are several locations that do offer a wide range of choice when it comes to mp4 movies to download. Some offer more than others or they offer a better quality product. It will take a little looking to find the most affordable choice that is also the one that has what you would like to download.

Once you find the right location for your mp4 movies to download , you can easily and quickly (it seems almost instantly) download them to your PC, hand held, notebook, or you can check out mp4 movies to download as well. There are specific services that are available to provide you with the ability to get great quality movies, games and music on your mp4 player or pc. If you choose mp4 movies to download, you can find the right location to download from on the web to your player, take the movies with you wherever you decide to go.

No matter if you choose mp4 movies or find a few great movies to download to your PC, there are many services that are providing this ability to you. If you are skilled, you can even find a few free mp4 movies to download. Of course, to get the best products available, you may want to go with a paid service. It also pays for you to take your time in checking out a few of the services for their fees and their membership details. With so much competition out there, you are sure to find a great deal being offered to new members.

Please visit some of my web sites
MP3 Movies and MP3
Player Movies

For more info please visit my web site at mp4-movies.blogspot.com” title=”MP4 Movies”>MP4 Movies

There’s a book written by Stephen King called The Running Man He wrote the book in 1982, and in 1987 it was made into a rather good film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. I remember the first time I watched that film I thought it was an interesting piece of science fiction. The thought of people being hunted down and eliminated/killed for national TV was very unique, and a bit far fetched.

But that was then and this is now. And what was entertaining fantasy is almost a reality today.

The fantasy that was The Running Man was followed by the reality show Big Brother. I remember watching South Africa’s first ever Big Brother show. It was a unique, albeit voyeuristic concept. Nobody I knew would admit to watching it, but we knew the names of all the housemates, and we would discuss the previous day’s antics every morning at work. It was a novel concept – watching the behaviour of a crowd of 12 strangers in a house. I remember the shower being turned on at 9.00 am and 9 pm – and the age restriction being raised to 16 at those times so youngsters couldn’t watch the housemates showering!

There have been more Big Brother series in South Africa, but the interest has not been as intense as it was with the first one. I think the same is true for the other Big Brother series all over the world. At first it’s a big issue – almost like spying on someone without their consent! It’s like being a legal voyeur. Eventually the novelty wears off, and the initial attraction is boring. How long does it take before the average viewer gets tired of watching people eating, drinking and sleeping? So the producers have to do something to improve ratings/viewership/advertising. So now we have extra cameras in the bedrooms and bathrooms. And the producers punish the housemates by withholding food if they cannot complete a task successfully. So they get uptight and pick fights with each other. That makes things interesting, for a few weeks at least.

Big Brother was the start of the dreadful phenomenon that is Reality Television. Idols, Survival, Meet My Folks, I’m A Celebrity… take your pick. Almost all of these shows are notable for the one unpleasant thread that winds its way through each one – ridicule. In Idols people who believe they have a singing talent are humiliated by opinionated, rude judges. Viewers can watch the hopeful contestants burst into tears of anger or humiliation at Simon Cowell’s caustic comments. Their dreams are shattered in the most unpleasant way, and many viewers sadistically watch each show, enjoying the sight of lifelong hopes and dreams being shattered in a really ugly way. In Meet My Folks prospective dates for a couple’s child are subjected to intrusive, personal questions; in the one episode I watched a girl forced to face up an ex-boyfriend she’d dumped under terrible circumstances two years prior to the show! Is there anyone out there who hasn’t had a horrible break up with someone from years gone by? I’m A Celebrity takes many washed up “stars” and forces them to eat bugs and other do unmentionable things in a jungle. The audience apparently votes off the most useless celebrity… well I guess these people ask for it! They apparently take part in the show hoping to revive their flagging careers.

I admit – I’ve watched some episodes of these shows. But these are nothing compared to Ultimate Makeover.

Viewers can now watch a person – woman or man, but usually the former – having plastic surgery and professional advice of how to make the most of him/herself. I’ve watched one or two episodes of Ultimate Makeover, and none of The Swan. It saddens me that some of these girls think the only way they can be great, successful women is if they change their faces and their body shape.

Then they go through what looks like absolute hell. A facelift… I almost passed out watching the surgeon using a metal rod to free the flesh and skin from a woman’s forehead so he could LIFT the skin up and stitch it into her hairline. The probe went down as far as her eyebrow, its outline visible as the skin was freed from the bone. All in the name of beauty.

Liposuction… shoving a thick pipe in and out of her stomach as her “fat” (combined with rather copious amounts of blood) is sucked down a tube into a beaker.

Breast enhancement… shoving a silicon bag underneath someone’s breast with the force of a Mike Tyson punch???

Would we have watched these procedures on television 17 years ago? The answer is no. It was consider invasive and intrusive. In those days Dallas was considered raunchy!

I’m not condemning those who chose to undergo surgical procedures. Discovery Channel shows documentaries about people who desperately need plastic surgery. I recall one show featuring a policeman whose face was burned off when her car caught fire following an accident while on duty. Anothr case told of a woman who lost her entire eye socket to cancer. She wept after the plastic surgeon replaced the missing bone so she could wear an artificial eye. But is reality TV taking the world’s obsession with beauty and youth a little too far? Or is it the media again – taking our tolerance levels to the max? After all, viewer figures and show ratings mean greater advertising and hefty profits! Perhaps they want to see how much we can take before it becomes boring and we start flipping channels. Are they preying on insecure, desperate people in the hope that ratings will jump?

It started in a house. We observed people like laboratory rats, watching them in a controlled environment. We held the key to whether they stayed or whether they left. It evolved into a talent show, where again we had the power to vote for the winner, and vote out the losers.

Today we can sit with an insecure young woman while she has her appearance changed to meet what she believes is society’s criteria. We watch every pain filled moment – whether she weeps with physical pain from her nose job, or cries because she realises she will never look the same again. We suffer with her, but don’t have to endure the reality she’s experiencing. Many times one of the “victim’s” friends or a family member has contacted the programme because he/she feels this person needs plastic surgery. Sometimes the person’s partner has contacted the show! Yes, I know that often the “victim” herself wants the makeover, but the thought that someone who is supposed to care about this person just the way he or she is puts a partner’s name forward is sad. To me anyway… what happened to loving someone for him or herself, despite a few extra pounds or some wrinkles?

So where does reality TV go from here? And how close are we to shows like The Running Man?

I think we’re almost there.

The writer was born in Africa, and lived there for the first 38 years of her life. She worked in the world of public relations for over five years, running her own PR company and dealing extensively with the world of journalism and the print media. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com, a site for Writers. Her blog can be visited at: http://www.writing.com/authors/zwisis/blog

Starring John Cusack and Ray Liotta, Identity is a film which opened to little of the commercial fanfare associated with a typical blockbuster movie. But this is a film that packs all of the suspense and entertainment value of The Sixth Sense into an original screenplay about a serial killer on the loose. Haunting in its presentation, yet far from a traditional horror film, Identity follows the exploits of ten strangers who become stranded at a Nevada hotel in the midst of a massive rainstorm. One-by-one, they are being killed off, but no one knows the true identity of the killer…

A number of seemingly unrelated people gather at a small roadside motel in a Nevada desert location. Strangers to each other, the people descend from all different types of professions and lifestyles - a limousine driver and his movie star client, a policeman (Ray Liotta) transporting a convict, two parents with their young son, a prostitute (Amanda Peet), a young couple, and the motel’s manager (John Hawkes). All of them are trapped on the grounds of the motel due to a record rainstorm that’s made the roads impassable. Beset by darkness, each of the motel guests resigns to his fate and settles down to ride out the storm. The guests even make an attempt to socialize with one another.

But when one motel guest turns up dead, suspicions are raised. When it’s revealed that an escaped convict, (Jake Busey), is on the loose, the guests become panicked. Ed (John Cusack) becomes de facto leader of the small group of strangers who begin suspect each other when the convict is captured and the killings continue. Is the true killer among them? Or is someone else (or something else) on the motel grounds with them? Far away, in an undisclosed location, a psychiatrist is feverishly attempting to prove the innocence of a man accused of murder, and the answer lies right before him…

Although it’s a decent film, Identity falls into the teenage horror film device of having each character wander off alone - despite the fact that people who wander off alone continually turn up dead. However, I’m usually willing to overlook such things if the rest of the film is decent because a movie’s objective is to entertain, and Identity does that…

The darkness of the setting, coupled with intermittent thunder and the pattering of rain, create an all-encompassing sense of suspense bordering on fear. Rain muffles sound, so how can you hear if someone’s sneaking up behind you? Identity is a unique and original film most movie lovers will enjoy. The plot device is employed with the utmost efficiency, keeping the audience guessing until the very end. Who is the real killer? You’ll have to watch Identity to find out…

Presenting a knockout performance by John Cusack, Identity is one of the surprise films of 2003. The dialogue is fresh, not stiff, and the characters are well-rounded considering many of them do not live through most of the scenes. With a surprise ending reminiscent of 1990s smash hits, The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects, Identity (although nowhere near as good as those films) is a film you won’t want to miss. Due to its well-written storyline and crescendo of suspense, Identity is a definite must-see movie…

About the Author

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the Identity (DVD).

If you’re a fan of the reality TV show “Big Brother”, you undoubtedly already know that this season is one of the ultimate reality TV ratings boosters : the All Star cast. What does that mean? It means they’re bringing back America’s favorite cast members from seasons past in an effort to draw more existing viewers back, and to create enough buzz to also draw new fans.

Not only that, they’re letting America pick their favorite “characters”, and when I say that, I mean that literally and figuratively, by an online vote. They’ve put 20 past cast members up for the picking, and America gets to vote on their favorite twelve to become the cast for the newest season of Big Brother.

My personal top picks will be three people from the last season, my personal favorite. The first choice is the bitchy byt savvy and cunning Janelle, outrageously goofy Howie the “Jedi Master”, and the dark but cute and witty Kaysar. The three battled it out last season with the “Nerd Herd” who repeatedly stabbed them in the back, but who ultimately ended up ousting the close pack from the house.

BB, as Big Brother is affectionately known, was also smart in their nominations, since they picked the most nominees from the highest rated seasons, virtually guaranteeing those return viewers. So, that leaves one question. Who will America pick, and will the producers at BB add a twist this season?

Some of the previous twists included bringing in “the exes” in the Ex Factor season, where several of the player’s ex boyfriends and girlfriends were brought in to play and to throw the obligatory wrench in the original player’s gameplans, and of course cause more drama and ratings.

Then there was the season of undercover twins playing as one player, with other unbeknownst players having family members they didn’t know they had in the house. Oh, and who could forget last seasons twist where all players came into the game with secret partners who were previously acquainted?

What will the Big Brother twist be this year with the All Star cast, if anything? Will Julie Chen, the host of BB, continue to loosen up and have a good time hosting the show? Will eye candy win over the entertainment factor? This season should be interesting, to say the least, and if you aren’t already a Big Brother fan, you may want to start this season!