BBC Countdowns Compilation [UPDATED]

UPDATED DECEMBER 2020
Once again, just as with the original compilation, a shadowy corporation has claimed the copyright of the video, and had it completely removed from YouTube. This time it’s WDMedia / MA Alliance, and once again I have no idea how they claimthe rights to do this, as BBC Studios had already rightfully claimed the copyright, and allowed the video to stay on YouTube, while they collected advertising revenue. Attempts to contact them via the details provided by YouTube were ignored, and of course YouTube doesn’t care and refused to stand in. Luckily the video is still live on Vimeo.

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“Previously On Mad Men” Episode Summary Music Recreation [UPDATED]

Previously on Mad Men Episode Summary Music - Mad Men's Don Draper with Headphones

As pointed out by YouTube user Gladvillainy, the music that plays under the “Previously on Mad Men” episode summaries at the top of the show use a sample from Liquefaction by Four Tet.

Unable to find what this music was, or any kind of clean recording, my obsessive side took over, and I decided to recreate it from scratch, just using that little sample from Liquefaction as a starting point.

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First impressions of Dolby Atmos [UPDATED]

Village Crown Vmax

Village Cinemas Crown VMax auditorium (Cinemas 5 & 6)

Well I finally got to see a film in Dolby’s new positional audio format Dolby Atmos. Village Cinemas have installed it into screens 5 & 6 at Crown Casino, which as far as the company’s VMax branded cinemas go must be amongst their smallest. VMax at Crown equals a pretty standard auditorium size at other complexes. And considering Atmos seems ideally suited to large auditorium, I was curious if this would compromise the impact. I’ve never really been a fan of Village Crown Casino cinemas, and have usually avoided going to them because of various problems with their presentation. When I ran a website reviewing Melbourne cinemas for technical performance, my overall view of the complex was pretty scathing.

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Remastering past albums

I’ve currently started remastering my past film scores, to get them up on several streaming / online services including iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. It’s raised a number of questions about the changing nature of music production and creativity. When I originally created these albums, they were primarily mastered for CDs. Now when I’m revisiting these mixes, I’m thinking of them more as being played back from lossy sources. It’s not a new revelation that as technology has increased, our music libraries have actually gone down in quality. But what has been more significant is that I now have to think about these as individual tracks, rather than as an entire album experience.

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Remembering SBS World News’ Best Brand Package

SBS World News Brand

Screen cap courtesy of Media Spy

From 2002 – 2005, Australia’s SBS World News had what must rank as one of the best pieces of news branding this country has seen. And as much as I am a fan of ABC News 24’s brand package, this one really was better.

Overseen by Box TM, the motion graphics were created by Engine. But the best part of the whole package was the music by Australian composer Nigel Westlake.

I have the full brand music here, which includes the idents and various beds assembled into a continuous piece of music, as used on the overnight breakfiller.

SBS World News 2002-2005 Music Package

      SBSOriginalWorldNewsTheme

Very listenable, whilst still maintaining the ‘authority’ of a news service, as well as the ‘world’ overtones consistent with SBS.

 

The Baraka Trailer Matchframe Project

Baraka Trailer TitleOn the recently released BluRay disc of Samsara, one of the special features is the original theatrical trailer for Samsara’s precursor: Baraka. However, this trailer is a horrible old transfer from what looks like a dupe of a dupe print, with grimy inky blacks, plenty of print damage, and the sides cut off to render it in 16:9 resolution.

This is hardly a fitting tribute for a film whose recent 8k restoration as been singled out by many as the best BluRay available. For whatever reason, the filmmakers didn’t re cut the trailer with their glorious new master of the footage. As it stands, it doesn’t offer any hint of the film’s visual spledor.

There was only one solution – I had to sit down and do the matchframe edit myself, as a free bit of post production gift to the filmmakers of a film that has probably had more of an effect on my life than any other.

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Titanic in 3D

First up, full disclaimer – I was a guest of the sneak peek media event with producer Jon Landau a couple of weeks ago, and then last night attended a media preview screening of the new remastered 3D version of Titanic.

That being said, I have to say that this is easily the most impressive conversion of a 2D film I’ve ever seen. As someone who knows a bit about post production and VFX, I can honestly say I have next to no idea how on earth they manage to so successfully separate the various elements in the frame, to allow them to create Z-depth information.

Having said that, there were a few things I noted which I’d encourage you to look out for if you choose to go and see this re-release. (more…)

YouTube, Kontor New Media and their bogus Content ID Claims [Updated]

So I recently had a video of mine flagged for containing the music of another artist, which was surprising for me, considering I wrote the original music featured in the video.

It’s the video of the ‘countdown’ from Straight to the ‘Art, the installation I created with Olivia Ilic back in 2009. The automatic Content ID thought it sounded like “I Know You Are, But What Am I?” by Mogwai, which actually sounds like this:

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Aircraft Safety

Airline Tray Suggestion I’ve always wondered, considering all the research into survivability of plane crashes, why commercial jets don’t have this printed on your tray table.

From David E Kelly to David Fincher to Michael Jackson to C+C Music Factory

So recently I’ve been watching a crapload of The Practice – you know, that turn of the century TV series that spun off into Boston Legal.

Anyway, basically I’ve been watching through the seasons in order to get to the moment when the Alan Shore character appears, and the writers completely lose interest in their main characters and begin shutting the show down.

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