Joi and Virtual John

I saw "Blade Runner: 2049" last week. The character Joi reminded me of a story idea I had many years ago that I called "Virtual John". It was a story about the virtual resurrection of John Lennon.

Joi

In "Blade Runner: 2049", Joi is a holographic artificial intelligence who acts as the protagonist's girlfriend. While she acts like she has emotions, and shows some evidence of thought, some people have suggested that the film later tries to call into question the reality of her personality.

I didn't see it that way when I watched the movie. I felt that, like the replicants in the first "Blade Runner", she is there to raise the question of what it means to be human. She is to the replicants what the replicants are to humans. They don't accept her as an equal.

Nevertheless, her character reminded me of a story idea I had years ago.

Origin

I don't remember exactly when I had the idea. I know it came to me as I woke up one morning while visiting my parents. I believe it was some time in the early 1980s. It would have been after John Lennon died and before I got my first home computer.

Basic Idea

The basic idea is that some one has a created a virtual/holographic reproduction of John Lennon. I think I must have come across the idea that the technology to do this would some day become available. In the story I would have whoever created it use film, video, and audio of Lennon to build up the simulation. The virtual John would be capable of behaving like the real John, not just as a musician but as a person.

Major Limitation

What I saw as the main limitation of Virtual John would be that he could only do and say things that the original John had done and said. The result would be that Virtual John would not have the ability to create anything new. For example: Virtual John could write songs, but only songs the original John had already written.

More recently I've read that researchers have been able to create computer systems that appear to develop new creative ideas, so maybe this might not be a real limitation. It does need to be a limitation for the purposes of the story.

Other People's Reactions

Most of the story would have dwelt on how other people reacted to Virtual John. In my imagination, the other Beatles, his friends, and his fans would be very enthusiastic at first. They would welcome Virtual John with open arms.

Over time, they would come to realize that a Virtual John would couldn't create anything new was not like the real John. They would drift away from him or reject him outright.

Virtual John's Reactions

Although Virtual John has no ability to create anything new, he does have feelings. I think the core of the story would be about how he would feel. I think this gives the story the opportunity to explore many different issues related to creativity and what it means to be human.

I think that he would be very hurt by the rejection of his friends and colleagues. No man is an island, and this would also be true of a virtual man.

I think that he would be angry that he is unable to create anything new. A John Lennon who could not create would feel constraints that he could not accept, but could not over come.

I never came up with an ending for the story. Maybe he gets someone to turn him off. Maybe in the depth of his despair he builds a new self and develops the ability to create.

Why Haven't I Done Anything With This Idea

I like this idea, but I have never made a serious attempt to develop it further. I doubt that I ever will.

The primary barrier is that it would require the approval of John's family and the other Beatles. I didn't think they would be interested. I rather doubt that I'd ever have the stature to get them to pay any attention to me or my ideas. In any event, as time passed, reality made the story less viable.

I gave some thought to adapting the idea to a fictional person. This would  be something I could actually do. However, a virtual reproduction of a fictional person would not have the same impact.

I felt that I just don't have the ability to fully realize the potential of the idea. A poor execution would be worse than not doing it at all.

The idea that you could resurrect a loved one with AI technology resonates with me because of the recent death of my wife. While I would like my wife back, I feel it is morbid to even consider AI resurrection, even if it were possible.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

A Big Endorsement

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

"My Most Difficult Case" Posted on YouTube

When I went to fix some minor problems on my website, I realized that the video for "My Most Difficult Case" was not working. I uploaded a new copy of the movie to YouTube.

I fixed some problems with my website this week. Years ago, when I moved my website from html and php files to WordPress, I created some php files to forward the old page addresses to the new WordPress addresses. I realised that several of the forwarding files didn't work.

While I was reediting these files, I noticed that the video on my page for "My Most Difficult Case" did not work. It just showed a black box. http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-most-difficult-case/

When I uploaded it, I put it on a website called daily motion. At the time they had a feature that allowed you to charge people to watch, rather than rely on advertising. I thought that approach would make more money for my films. That didn't work out for me. I don't think anyone ever paid to watch it.

A few months back they gave me notice that they would drop the pay per view feature. Since it wasn't doing anything for me anyway, I just let them switch the video over to private. I didn't think until this week that meant the link on my web site page wouldn't work.

I also had an e-mail a while ago that asked me to consider publishing it on Amazon Video. That would have paid. I hadn't bothered to follow up on that yet, and wasn't sure if I would. Maybe I'll do that later, but for now, I decided to upload "My Most Difficult Case" to YouTube, and use that on my web page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL3CIsWY0pE

While I did that, I decided to modify the description of "The Barrier" as well. I didn't think it was clear that I still planned to make a new version of it. I didn't want people to think it was a final product.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Sunset #6” and Relaxation Video

I made some progress on my “Sunset #6” video and worked on a little side project for my personal use.

“Sunset #6”

I recorded the sounds outside one evening when it was quite windy out. I added that to the sound track of the sunset video I shot earlier. It turned out OK.

One of the problems with the sound was the extraneous background noises, like buses going by and some hot shot in a sports car speeding down Crowchild Trail. I had cut out some of the more obvious disruptive sounds, but didn't really notice the others. I may go back and cut them out, or I may try a new recording on another windy night.

I usually put my videos on a USB stick. I can plug that into my TV. With the sunset video after it plays for a while, maybe an hour, it hangs up. I have to unplug the TV to get it to work again. I use Premiere Pro CS4 for my editing. It is getting long in the tooth, so I wonder if it uses an outdated CODEC. I have been experimenting with ffmpeg lately, so I used it to reformat the mp4 file. The file was about half the size, and it worked just fine on the TV.

All the same, I wonder if I should upgrade my editor. I installed the free version of Lightworks, but found it difficult to understand. I'm not sure I would use Premiere Pro enough to justify the annual fee.

My new microphone comes on a stand with hand tightened screws on it. Some how I managed to screw one side so tight I couldn't move it. I had to get out my pliers to loosen it up.

Relaxation Video

I worked on another little project – mainly for myself. I had a video of water ripples I shot in Jasper back in 2009. I had recut it earlier to make it longer by cycling the video. Because I've been so tense and that was affecting my sleep, I wanted to add a relaxation exercise to it. I had a recording I got at a relaxation seminar about 30 years ago. I've used it off and on for many years. I added that to the video. I tried it out last night and I nearly went to sleep. I still was a bit tense when I went to bed, but I know that you need to practice it for quite a while before it real becomes effective.

I am not that happy with the video itself. Although I like the image and sound, the image quality is poor. It was in Standard Definition and I had to zoom in so I could move the image to eliminate my hand jitters. The resulting image is very fuzzy. I would like to reshoot it some time. My hand jitters have not improved, but I know better than to try to do these things hand held, and I do have a tripod. Three tripods actually.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Sunset Movie Update 2017 August 20

I made a few more steps forward on my Sunset video. I've run into a few issues I'll have to over come.

A short time ago I posted about my idea to do a video of a sunset. http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/sunset-2/

Since then I've tried to get a good video several times. I'm on “Sunset #6” now. I am not all that happy with the video I got so far. For the most part, the sunsets were not as impressive as I would have liked.

This week I noticed we had some much more visually interesting sunsets. The Sun has been a bit dimmer and red in colour when it nears the horizon these days. There has also been just the right amount of cloud cover to produce a pleasing image. Not too much and not too little. Sometimes the Sun gives an almost golden colour to the clouds.

Unfortunately, as we more inexorably toward fall,  the Sun sets further south every day. When I started, back in mid June, the view from my study window was just what I wanted. Now the Sun is blocked by big tree long before sunset. That makes for a rather dull sunset video.

I was out for a walk a couple days ago, and there are some other places where I could get a better view. However, when I can shoot from my study, I can set up the camera and go do something else. At another location, I would need to stay and babysit the camera until the sun was down. On the other hand, if I don't try a different location, I'll have to wait until next June before I get another shot at it.

I worked on the audio for the video too. The sound I got from the camera really wasn't useful.  I used a microphone I got recently to get some ambient sound. I matched it to the video I had. It is better; the microphone gives much cleaner sound.

Unfortunately, there wasn't very much interesting sound. Over the hour and a half I recorded, there was one bird that squawked a bit, one car drove down the lane, and a couple of planes flew over. I think I will need to construct an artificial “natural” sound. Many of the so called natural soundscapes you can get are done with a lot of creative intervention.

 I think I'd need to collect sound for many days, and pick out the interesting stuff. I missed an opportunity to get some good wind sounds a couple nights ago.


This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Why Do I think “Line of Taxis” is my Best Movie?

I think that “Line of Taxis” is the best movie I've made. If I want to improve as a filmmaker, I need to understand why.

Just before I made “Line of Taxis”, I went through a bad period in my life. Initially, I didn't want to make a movie about it. It was still too close for me. There were also the possibility that a movie could reignite the situation.

I wanted to make a more challenging movie, but was stuck for an idea. One day I over heard someone talking about the mass layoffs we had in Calgary in the early 1980s. His phrase, “line of taxis”, stuck in my mind.

What I realized quickly was that in a movie about layoffs, I could draw on my own experience. Not in the sense of a story line, but in the emotions I felt. I could create a situation where the character would feel the same emotions I had.

There were several advantages to going this way.

It was a way I could deal with the residual emotions I felt. A way to exorcise them. I felt it would help me distance myself from the emotions that were still gnawing at me.

It would allow me to avoid the specifics of the situation. I was still afraid of the consequences if I made it too close to what actually happened.

It would shift the focus of the film from the story to the emotions of the character. This is something I realized later. It wasn't something I was aware of at the time.

I began work on the movie with a focus on the emotions of the main character. Then I developed situations and events that would bring out the same emotions I had felt. A relentless drip drip drip of minor events, that would force the main character to give in to the emotions.

In retrospect, I think that it was this focus on the emotions rather than the story is what made the movie as good as it was.

In the movies I made since then, I really have not had that focus on emotions. I think this has undercut the effectiveness of these movies. I know that I should focus on the character's emotional journey before I dive too deep into the story. I find that hard to do.

People often assume that writer's stories are autobiographical. “Line of Taxis” is, in a way, but in another way it isn't. While the emotional journey of the character is based on my own journey, none of the events in the movie reflect anything that happened to me in real life. I feel that I need to use the emotions from my experience but not the specific events.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Revealing Comments About Character Development

As I contemplate some new projects, I've thought about how to develop characters. I've thought about this before, but it never hurts to revisit my approach.

Character Tags

I've found Lester Dent's formula helped me a lot with my writing. I added his article to one of my earlier posts: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-lester-dent-master-fiction-plot-test-drive/

In his article, Lester Dent talks about giving characters tags so people can recognize them when they show up. Tags can be based on appearance, disposition, mannerisms and so on. I thought this would create superficial characters, although I also thought they would create the impression of more depth to the character than there actually is. I've found it much easier to write dialogue for more fully developed characters. At times it almost feels like they dictate their own lines.

My thoughts on this has evolved somewhat though. While the tags can be superficial, as you develop them, you look for tags that will define the characters. The exercise of developing the tags, causes you to get into the mind of the character.

Verbal Catch Phrases

To be more specific, I feel that a character's unique verbal catch phases give clues to who the character is. For example, it is common to say “hello” when you meet someone, but people use a wide variety of variations. Some examples include: hi, hey, howdy, top o' the morning, give a silent nod, or say the person's name. Which word a person chooses to use tells you something about their personality and mood at the time.

In my own case, I usually just smile and nod, but say nothing when I meet someone. The reason I do that is that I don't have a lot of confidence in my memory for names and I worry I'll get their name wrong. That would embarrass myself and might insult the other person. I wouldn't want to do either. The word, phrase, or action a character adopts would reflect a similar thought process.

People tend to associate certain expressions with types of people, and you need to be aware of that when you choose. An example of this is the word “howdy”. This is usually associated with a “folksy” or rustic person. Or, someone who wants to appear that way. Of course some people make their choice based on what people around them use. Of course that tells you something about the people they associate with, which tells you something about them.

The verbal catch phases people use can include how they say “yes”, “no”, “goodbye”, “but”, “thank you”, “I think”, and of course, the expletives they use when surprised or angry. Some catch phrases have no meaning and are used just to make a noise; an alternative throat clearing.

At the end of a conversation, I usually said, “I should let you go”. Recently, I realized that it was way for me to end the conversation and make it seem it was the other person's idea. Now I try to say something where I accept that I want to end the conversation. I haven't a standard phase yet, but I would use something like, “I have some things I should do.”

Expletives can very often reflect a person's character very explicitly. Some examples of words and phrases can include: damn, drat, golly, holy characterization batman, and the wide variety of four letter words that are available. For myself, I usually don't say anything out loud. When I do, it is usually something like darn, or damn, depending on the intensity of my feeling. I don't verbalize anything stronger than that. These choices reflect my desire to remain calm, or at least appear to be calm.

What comes first, the catch phase or the character?

In my, limited, experience, it can happen both ways. When I used Xtranormal to make “The Barrier”, I had to choose the voices and appearances of the characters before I began to write. I also had some preliminary ideas for dialogue. As I wrote and rewrote the scenes, the voices, the appearance and the words they said began to define their character. As the characters developed, they generated ideas for dialogue, which further developed the characters.

Character Traits and Tags List

Some writers have developed lists of words that can be used to describe emotions. I'd like to have a similar list that linked character traits to verbal catch phrases and other types of character tags. While I have found that I can sometimes get a sense of the links without a formal process, I think a list and a process would make it go faster. I haven't come across that kind of list, but maybe there is one out there I don't know about.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Why do People Visit My Website?

After a long period away from my blog, I was somewhat surprised to see a rather big jump in visits over the last three months. I wonder why my website gets more views now. WordPress says I get much more views than Google Analytics says. I like what WordPress says better.

Part of the discrepancy between WordPress and Google was that the Google script wasn't working. I fixed that, but Google still doesn't record as many visits. I wondered if WordPress was in error. Despite an increase in views, there was no increase in comments.

The pages viewed according to WordPress seemed reasonable. The top three pages (Home, Blog and Archive) remain the same.

There are a few long term favourites that are always in the top 20 pages viewed. Over the last few months, they have remained in the top 20.

• “2001: A Space Odyssey” and H. P. Lovecraft http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/2001-a-space-odyssey-and-h-p-lovecraft/
• “My Most Difficult Case” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-most-difficult-case/
• “Contingency” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/contingency/
• How Would Proportional Representation Change Canadian Politics? http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/how-would-proportional-representation-change-canadian-politics/
• Experiments With the Trial Version of nawmalMAKE http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/experiments-with-the-trial-version-of-nawmalmake/
• “The 89th Key” (my Doc Savage story) http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/
• “My Most Difficult Case” – Cast and Crew http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-most-difficult-case/my-most-difficult-case-cast-and-crew/

These pages and posts have been quite popular for some time, so it is no great surprise to see that they are still popular. “2001: A Space Odyssey” and H. P. Lovecraft have been popular topics elsewhere on the Internet for a long time. Proportional Representation, nawmalMAKE and Doc Savage have become popular topics recently. I don't really understand why the Cast and Crew page for “My Most Difficult Case” is popular.

A few of my older posts and pages have become more popular recently.

• “Make ’em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/make-em-squirm-the-sharkbiter-way/
• The History of the $100 Film Festival http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/the-history-of-the-100-film-festival/
• “The 89th Key” – ePub Version http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-epub-version/
• “Our Wedding Vow” http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/our-wedding-vow/
• “The 89th Key” – HTML Version http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-html-version/
• “My Next Film” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-next-film/

The $100 Dollar Film Festival recently celebrated its 25^th year, which is likely why my history of the festival would become more popular recently. The increased popularity of our wedding vow is linked to the recent death of my wife. I think about her often and our vow is very important to me.

I haven't posted much on my blog recently, but two of the posts did make it to the top 20.

• Back to Writing and Filmmaking http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/back-to-writing-and-filmmaking/
• Could Automation Replace the One Percent? http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/could-automation-replace-the-one-percent/

The popularity of my first post after my hiatus shows the kind of support I get from my friends and family. The fear of automation replacing people has become a hot topic recent, as has the one percent.

Over all, I don't see any clear reason why I had the increase of views on my website. There is no one post or page that stands out as drawing in more readers. Many of the same pages and posts remain at the top, but have gotten more views. The indications are that most of the visitors are not people who know me personally, so they wouldn't visit just to support me. While the relative popularity of some pages and posts can be explained for the most part, that doesn't explain why the number of views increased.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Sunset #2

I started to work on a small movie project this week. I've not done much work on any of my other, higher priority, projects, but I thought this one might get the ball rolling.

Recently I've watched a lot of the relaxation / autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos on YouTube. They helped me cope when my wife was sick.

I also noticed that they are quite popular; some have millions of views. So I thought I'd like to make my own.

One thing that I noticed about some of the ASMR videos, after my brother pointed it out, was that while it appears to be a “live” video, it is actually a still photo. They've added in some animated bits to make it seem more real. My brother pointed out that the clouds in one video didn't move, even after a couple of hours. I've seen several 4 hour video where the angle of the Sun doesn't change. I'd like to do one where things do change.

I tried twice to do a video of the sunset from my office window. The second one turned out better, so I decided to work with it. I got about 1 hour and 50 minutes of usable video. Unfortunately, as it gets darker outside, the image starts to get noisy. I've noticed that other cameras do the same thing when I shoot in low light conditions. Maybe I should do videos where it doesn't get dark out.

I used a Kodak video camera I got for our visit to China in 2009. It was a simple fixed focus, auto exposure camera with only 4 buttons to control it. Not exactly a professional camera. I was worried that pointing the camera at the sun would destroy the image sensor, which is why I decided to use my old camera. While I didn't want to emulate Alan Bean, if it did get damaged, that would give me an excuse to buy a new camera. As it turned out, the image sensor seems to be just fine. All the same, I think I should look into newer cameras to see if it makes sense to get one.

The camera will only record for an hour or so and then stop. That is a bit of a hassle, but checked on the camera every 10 minutes or so, then stop and restart the recording just before the hour was up. The camera shut down completely after a little over 2 hours. I think it over heated.

I ended up with three segments of video. There was a slight jar each time I stopped and restarted the camera, which I needed to cut out. With the stuff I had to cut out and the time it took to stop and restart the camera, there is a slight gap in the time line. Although the gap is only a second or so, it produced a noticeable jump. I used a cross fade and it looks much better. The movement seems to speed up for a second or two. I could likely fix that too, but I am not sure it is really necessary.

Another problem, which I should have caught when I set up to record, was that you can see the reflection of the camera in the window in the corner of the screen. I got around that with a zoom in. That isn't an ideal solution. I will need to avoid that problem the next time.

To finish it off, I added some simple titles. I've played the video on my TV several times and I think it looks OK.

What I still need to do is develop the soundscape. In a proper ASMR video, you need to have some sort of white noise run through out the video. This is usually wind or rain or water falls. None of those sounds make sense in my video. While I did record sound, because the camera was inside, the sound is very quiet. You can hear me walking around. There is also a slight hum. I think that is the computer. That really won't do. I will need to record some typical outdoors sounds in my neighbor hood: people walking, people walking down the gravel lane, some wind, some birds, dogs, cats, and maybe the occasional car or bus passing in the distance.

This is a good first try, and I do plan to finish it up. However, I want to try it again. I know we get some much more beautiful sunsets now and then and would like to catch one of those. I also would like to get some day time videos at other locations, like along the river or maybe in the woods or mountains.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Slow Progress on the "The Barrier"

I did a little on "The Barrier" this week. My wife's illness has progressed and that is a higher priority for me than this project, so I don't expect to have much time for "The Barrier".

It's been at least a month since I did any work on "The Barrier". This week I got back on to it. Mostly I planned out what I need to do, and I didn't do any actual writing.

My main objective was to see how to fit the new scene I developed into the story. I had to rework the outline to fit it in. I had to delete one scene, add a new scene, and modify another scene to make it all work.

I also wanted to shift the focus of the story to give more emphasis to the storyline about the traffic barrier and less on the traffic impact study.

I deleted four scenes about the traffic impact study. I will have to revise one other scene to patch up the problems caused when I cut the other scenes. It was hard to delete the scenes because I thought they were good. I had revised two of the scenes earlier and lost that material too.

That said, I think it improves the movie as a whole. They do say that often you need to cut your favourite scene to make a movie work. Fortunately, my favourite scene survived. At least so far.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Film to Video Transfer

A few weeks ago I bought an 8mm/super 8 film to video transfer unit made by Wolverine. I wanted to use it to transfer some old home movies. It has been a bit of a struggle.

Old Home Movies

Many years ago, about 1983 or 1984, I used an old projector and a rented video camera to transfer all of our families home movies to VHS tape. As I recall, it took me about a day. Later, in 2004, I converted the VHS tape to a DVD. The image quality after a couple of transfers is not nearly as good as the original film. There was some loss of colour quality in the initial transfers and I didn't do a really great job of focusing.

For quite some time now, I've wanted to do a new transfer from the original film to digital files. Our old super 8 projector isn't very reliable and I'm reluctant to use it. I did some video transfers for “Contingency” using a 16mm projector and a digital camera. The quality was poor, but good enough for what I wanted to do.

Film Transfer Options

I looked into what it would cost to get the film transferred by a professional outfit. It looked as if I'd need to spend in excess of $1,000 at least. I couldn't justify that kind of money to myself.

I came across an 8mm/Super 8 film to video transfer unit made by a company called Wolverine. It cost about $450 Canadian, so a lot less than what it would cost to get some one else to do the transfer. I figured that it would be cheaper to do the transfers myself, then I could resell or even give away the unit.

There were quite a few videos posted on YouTube by people who have used the unit, so I watched those before I decided to buy. People seemed to be quite happy with the image quality, so I decided to go ahead.

I got the unit a couple weeks ago and tried it out with the original version of “Weekend in Calgary”. I was disappointed with the image quality. It looked very noisy. Because I had paid for it, I decided I would experiment with it before I gave up on it.

Image Settings

The unit allows you to adjust the framing, exposure and sharpness. Sharpness appears to be the same as contrast. I adjusted the framing a bit, but it doesn't affect the image quality I am concerned about. The exposure can cause the image to look too dark or too light, but it didn't apear to affect the noise much.

The sharpness did make a difference though. With high sharpness, the noise is worse than with low sharpness. The low sharpness setting didn't eliminate the noise entirely. However, with low sharpness the image tends to look fuzzy.

Video Compression

One of the videos I watched earlier suggested that the video compression may be a factor in image quality. I contacted Wolverine to asked if I could adjust the compression. They got back to me quite quickly. They said the compression cannot be changed. They added that the unit is set to the lowest level of compression that the chip allowed.

Bypassing the Video Recording

After considering the reply from Wolverine, I felt that either this was as good as the unit could produce, or that I had a defective unit. The unit does have a line out to a TV monitor, so I decided to try that so I could record the video with my computer. I wouldn't get a usable video because the computer would record continuously and not just the still frames. It did allow me to isolate individual frames and compare.

I could see very little difference in quality that I could see. The frames from the computer recording seemed a little fuzzier. If the unit is defective, it isn't because of the video recording.

Next Steps

As I worked with the unit, I started to feel more comfortable with the image quality. It may be that because I have paid for professional quality transfers for my films in the past, that my standard may be higher than I need for our family home movies. I used one of my own films as a basis for the tests, so it may not give me a clear indication of what the home movies would look like.

I plan to transfer some of our home movies and then compare the image quality against the images from the earlier transfer. As long as the quality is better, it makes sense to go ahead with the transfers.

Wolverine did suggest that the image could be improved with some professional video editing software. I have Premiere Pro and Lightworks, so I plan to use those to experiment with them.

Lessons Learned

One of the difficulties I had was that I didn't set aside the time needed to properly test the transfers. Partly this was due to my other commitments, but I am also struggling with motivation these days. In future I should ensure I have the time to follow up before I buy new equipment.

I also feel that I didn't do enough research before I decided to buy this unit. There are many video reviews available on-line, and I only watched a few of them before I decided to go ahead. I am not sure if I would have gone with this unit if I were more aware of the limitations.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Could Automation Replace the One Percent?

A while ago I read a report about a fast food company owner who suggested that he could replace most, if not all, of his staff through automation. I thought, “how would he feel if he could be replaced by automation”. Is their work really that much more complicated that cooking hamburgers. My original idea was that this could be a concept for a story, but I also wondered if it were possible.

Who Are the One Percent?

At the outset I want to define who I have in mind. My view is that the elite of society can be divided into two groups, the financial elite and the intellectual elite. I believe most people think of the financial elite when they hear the term one percent. That is who I have in mind.

What is the Role the One Percent Play in Society?

I believe that the one percent plays a useful role in society. Their role is to decide where money is invested. This is necessary for any economic system to function. By way of contrast, the intellectual elite provide ideas and innovations for society. Of course there are a few individuals that will fit into both groups.

Can Artificial Intelligence(AI) Systems Perform the Role of the One Percent?

I strongly suspect that the role of the one percent can be automated. A large part of their work is clerical in nature, which we know can be automated. A great deal of work has already been done to automate the financial system.

Consider a couple examples:

• Investment firms use computer based systems to manage their stock trades;
• Banks use automated systems to evaluate loan applications.

These systems have been controversial because of undesirable side effects. However, I think they do show that a well designed AI could very well be able to play the same role as the one percent.

What Would AI Investors be Like?

I imagine that these AI investors would not be mobile robots, but would be accessed through the Internet. I expect that there would be some kind of central system to monitor the AI investors and facilitate their inter communication. However, there would be many individual AI investors, no two exactly alike. Possibly every person would have their own. This would make the financial system more of a free market.

Advantage: AI Systems Are Not Greedy

Some people say that “greed is good”, but I don't agree. The basis of free markets is that people work in their own self interest. Deciding on your self interest is an intellectual process. In contrast, greed is an emotional process.

My late wife had a story that illustrates this point.

A monkey was travelling through a forest and came across a banana tree. He climbed up and took a banana from the tree in one hand. Then he took a second banana in his other hand. He was greedy and wanted more bananas. He put one banana under his armpit and held it there will his arm. He then took a third banana. He was still greedy and wanted more bananas. He did the same thing with the banana in his other hand.

He now had four bananas. That still wasn't enough for him. He held up his arm to put another banana under his arm pit. When he did that, the banana there fell to the ground. He then grabbed another banana, which left him with four bananas. This continued for hours. He had picked hundreds of bananas, but still only had four. The rest littered the forest floor below, of no use to him or anyone else.

A monkey who was concerned with their self interest would have stopped after four bananas, or maybe even two.

Advantage: AI Systems Do Not Need to Make a Profit

Profit would have no meaning to an AI investor. Its only goal would be to stay solvent. It would tend to remain about the same size and would not grow to the point where it could exert control over the market.

Advantage: AI Systems Would Not Exert Political Influence

One of the complaints about the one percent is the influence they have in politics. AI investors would have no political interests, and therefore, would have no influence.

Disadvantage: AI Systems Could Malfunction or be Hacked

Anyone who has worked with computers knows that bugs can arise in any system. This would be a real problem with AI investors. It would require methods to monitor and correct problems as they develop. If, as I suggested earlier, there are large numbers of independent AI investors, individual bugs would be less likely to cause systematic problems.

Hacking could be a more serious problem. There are many people who would try to hack into AI investors, or even the central system, to turn things to their advantage. This is a problem with current computers systems. Large scale efforts are under way to address hacking, and will likely continue in the future. Again, monitoring systems and having large numbers of AI investors would help mitigate the impact of hacking.

Could This Happen?

While I think this approach is technically feasible in the longer term, it would need to overcome substantial barriers. Not the least of which would be that the current members of the one percent would be reluctant to give up their positions to an AI system.

I still think it might make a good premise for a story though.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Retrospective and Tranquility

I've been working on two projects, although it is really a piece of work I need to do for both of them. It isn't going well.

My primary project is a retrospective of my late wife to show family and friends. The other project is called “Brief Moments of Tranquility”. Both of these use videos I've shot over many years. Over the last few weeks I have gone through my videos to log them to help me select which shots to use.

Once I get started, the logging goes smoothly enough. I find it difficult to set my mind to it though and keep putting off to another day. Partly that is because logging video is not especially exciting work. I think that another issue is that I often find it difficult to deal with strong emotions. In the past I've had to find ways for me to distance myself from emotions that my films touch on. That isn't something that I can do with a video about my late wife.

When I do work on the videos, I generally don't feel strong negative emotions though. Often, it is the opposite. When I watch a video where she is happy, I find myself smiling and I feel some sense of happiness. Often that side tracks me from my logging.

The idea for my other project, “Brief Moments of Tranquility”, is to compile shots I've taken of things that make me feel calmer. I have video of rivers, snow falling, and various quiet places. Or at least I thought I had. I haven't found as many as I thought I had. Many of them are also quite short, and may not really work the way I intend. Maybe, as I log more videos, I will find others. I have started to think that I may need to go out and collect more of these moments of tranquility.

I don't have any kind of target date to complete these videos. Unfortunately, that allows me to procrastinate indefinitely. I can't put off the retrospective on my wife too long. It is hard for me to commit to a specific time line though.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Vocal Recording for “The Barrier”

One of the issues I have with recording a lot of voice work for “The Barrier” is the cost of renting a studio and recording engineer. I wonder if I can do that on my own.

I did my own voice over recording for “Who Shot the President”, “My Next Film”, and the original version of “My Most Difficult Case”. I was happy with what I got, but I know that I am not really a professional sound person. I don't have professional quality equipment either. Nevertheless, I think I might be able to put together something that will give me what I want.

I have a small room in the basement, that I think I could modify to use as a sound booth. A previous owner built it as a cold storage room, but I never used it as such. It has insulated walls to keep the heat out. While mainly intended as heat insulation, it also does work as sound insulation.

Now, I think it would need to be modified. Two of the walls are concrete. I would need to add some kind of sound absorbing material to reduce echos. My current thought is to get some old drapes and hang them along the walls. I use the room to store some of my film gear and files. I don't think I would need to remove them, especially if I do use drapes to control the sound.

As far as recording equipment goes, I have a laptop computer that is very quiet. I think that might work out OK. I have some old microphones, but none of them work very well. I will need to get a good microphone. I am not sure what kind of microphone I should get. I tend to go for a cheap one, but that may not be of adequate quality.

Up until now I've assumed that I would work with one person at a time. The more I think of it though, it may be better for the voice actors if I have several record at the same time. The interaction with other characters would bring out better performances. At the least, it would help to have some one read the other character's lines to help with timing. I've tried to do that myself in the past, and I was terrible at it. Besides not being an actor, I am not good at multitasking.

If I do work with more than one actor at a time, would I need to have a separate microphone for each. I might need to have a microphone mixer as well. The room could get very crowded if I have more than a couple of actors.

I need to investigate more before I commit myself to this route. Maybe I need to try some tests.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

The Mundane Things Come First

While I would like to just dive into one or another of my projects, I need to get some rather mundane pieces of work out of the way. It isn't very inspiring work and some days I just want to rest and relax.

This week I   got started on a catalogue of all my videos. I've collected quite a lot of video over the last 14 or so years, but I don't have a very good idea what I have.

There are two projects I need the catalogue for. The first is a retrospective of my wife's life and our time together. This would just be for family and friends.

The other is a project I call "Brief Moments of Tranquility". Over the years I collected shots of quiet places: snow falling, rain, flowers and lakes and rivers. I think I can put them together in an interesting way.

The cataloguing went smoothly enough. I was often side tracked by clips of my wife that I would watch over again. I think this could be quite a challenge for me.

Another mundane task that sits in wait for me is some filing. When I searched for my print of "Contingency", I moved all my film making files from the basement storeroom into our living room. A total of 16 bankers boxes of stuff.

I felt I should try to organize the files a bit better before I put them back. It one of those things I'll tend to leave to another day.

I have people coming over Monday, which does not give me much time to get this done. I better stop here and go try to get it done.

I noticed that I had huge increase in page views on my website starting about 2 weeks ago. The views are spread across several different categories that I don't think are related. I would have expected that a big jump in views would be in one category, or even one page.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Back to Writing and Filmmaking

During the last part of my wife's illness I dropped all my writing and filmmaking projects. I want to get back to them now. It isn't just that I want to work on them; I feel that I need something to focus on now that she is gone.

Retrospective

One project I want to do is make a retrospective video about my wife. I shot a lot of video and pictures of her during our life together. I want to share that with our friends and family. I expect that will be a difficult task emotionally for me.

"The Barrier"

I want to finish "The Barrier" (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/). I started to rewrite it last year before I stopped work on my projects. My intention is to finish the rewrite and then get some actors in to redo the dialogue. Then I can use Nawmal to redo the visuals.

I don't expect that the movie will find a very large audience; there does not seem to be a huge demand for films about transportation planning. In any event, I saw it as an exercise in how to create a feature movie. I have learnt a lot form the work I've done, and expect to learn more. I would like to have a finished version before I move onto other film projects.

I have thought of building a small recording booth in my. I do have a small room that I think I can set up as a booth. I'll need to do something to dampen the sound and get a decent microphone. I think I can use one of my computers to do the recording. The room could use some ventilation; I don't want to asphyxiate the actors.

"The Disruptors"

I want to write a novella/novelette based on my disruptor's idea. How to deal with terrorism is still a big issue these days. I have bits and pieces of material I have developed. They need to be organized before I can start on an outline. I want to follow the approach that I used to write "The 89th Key" (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/).

"Brief Moments of Tranquility"

Over the years and travels I've collected many video clips of what I thought of as tranquil places. I've wanted to do something with those for a long while.

Recently I stumbled upon some ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) videos on YouTube. I found they helped me relax a little during my recent stressful times. I also noticed that some of them have as much as a million views.

I think that there would be some value if I created and shared a video composed of the brief moments of tranquility that I have collected. I need to catalogue the videos so I know what I have to work with. I need to do that anyway for the retrospective of my wife.

Short Films

A couple weeks ago, I took my film "Contingency" into the CSIF so they could show it at the $100 Film Festival retrospective. They encouraged me to get involved with short films again. I think I may do that. One project I have in mind is to make a copy of "Contingency". There is only a single copy now because I just did a work print because I had no intention to screen it more than once. I think it may just make sense to do that now.

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/contingency/

http://www.csif.org/

http://www.100dollarfilmfestival.org/festival/retrospective/

Now: To Set Priorities

I know I can't do all of these projects at once. In the past I have found that I am most productive when I devote the bulk of my time to a single project. At the moment I'm inclined to split my efforts into two projects: the retrospective of my wife and "The Barrier". I think the retrospective is the more important of the two, but will likely be very emotionally draining. I need to have a second project that I can escape to.

film, writing, $100 Film Festival, transportation planning, ASMR, terrorism, Nawmal

"Contingency" To Be Shown at the $100 Film Festival 25th Anniversary Retrospective

My movie "Contingency" (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/contingency/) is to be shown at the $100 Film Festival 25th Anniversary Retrospective next Wednesday, March 22, 2017. http://www.100dollarfilmfestival.org/festival/retrospective/

I made "Contingency" as a retrospective on the festival for the 20th festival in 2012. It looks back at the festival and the films I made for the festival over the years.

I did the film in 16mm the same way I would have done a film in 8mm, so I ended up with only one copy of the film. When it came time to give it to the festival for screening, I had to provide that one copy. The only problem: I couldn't find it.

On a personal note; my wife passed away recently after a long illness. During the late part of her illness I devoted all my time and energy to supporting her. Finding a film for the festival was a low priority for me.

The loss of my wife drained away much of my energy. It is important for me to find a new focus for my life. However, it wasn't until a few days ago that I felt up to a search for my film. It didn't take long to find the film. Naturally, it was in a place I never thought to look before. I delivered the film to the festival in time for the screening.

Without my wife to share it with, the screening isn't as enjoyable as it used to be.

$100 Film Festival, Retrospective

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog