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TECHNE from NHK

I just stumbled into this show, and it is excellent! TECHNE: The Visual Workshop Special on NHK Premium is an experiential creative education TV show. In each episode they focus on one one visual technique and shows a whole lot of short video pieces made using that technique. The reason they have all those pieces is they challenge people to create their own new films using it, and then submit it to them. While the show is in Japanese, it runs English as its SAP or Second Audio Program. A lot of the entries are folks using the TECHNE logo in their pieces.

The first video is from NHK Online, and is a bunch of those short logo videos by a boatload of people strung together. The music video I am including is by Masashi Kawamura, one of the shows creators, and it gives you a feel for the kinds of things the program is doing.

SOUR / 日々の音色 (Hibi no Neiro) MV from Magico Nakamura on Vimeo.

Rurouni Kenshin trailer

Rurouni Kenshin looks like it should be quite a tasty story; an assassin who is now just a humble wanderer, seeking the life he would have chosen had the option been his. When his past hunts him down, he is forced to return to his old ways to protect his friends and family, as best he can. I suspect the hunters are going to regret their actions. While far from the only variation on this plot line, this is one of the better done. Check it out and let me know what you think, and if what you are thinking is it should have been an Anime, it was, back in the 90s. It was a Manga before that, and quite an enjoyable story in any format.

Le Voyage Dans La Lune

After watching the Smashing Pumpkins Steampunk song back in 2009 (the link has been removed or I would have it here), I had to track down the original 1902 French movie that inspired the video segment. Based on the 1865 story From The Earth To The Moon by Jules Verne, the movie was created by Georges Méliès. It was cutting-edge film making, with never-before seen special effects and production values, and was one of a handful that earned Méliès recognition as the inventor of science fiction movies. You can download the book to read on your computer or portable device, or read it online. You can also listen to the story online or download it for your portable media player (or burn it to CD) thanks to the good folks at Librivox. They remade the movie in 1958, but the original is the best. You can download your own copy for your permanent collection or just watch it online at Archive.Org.

By the way, Méliès also invented both the horror movie (in 1896) and the fantasy film (in 1898), as well as another dozen genres I don’t happen to watch. He was a world class pioneer in film making, the central character in the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and was played by Ben Kingsly in the Martin Scorsese film tribute to his genius in Hugo in 2011.

Something to Do: Movies, 4Oct13

Gravity is the Sci-Fi film of choice this week, but there are several other options. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is hitting theaters for an extremely short lived run, but this time it will be in IMAX 3D. This is not a trend that will end anytime soon; all the company owning the movie has to pay for is the 3D and/or IMAX upgrade processing, and they get a product they can stick in theaters and on 3D Blue Ray that they already know people will pay for, based on sales the first time around. I think my favorite to get this treatment so far was the original 1939 The Wizard Of Oz, which was quite amazing to see on the big screen. I am not a horror fan, so I would have forgotten Dracula 3D right away if it weren’t for Rutger Hauer being in the movie. Finally, Metallica: Through the Never is a truly surreal experience with a world-class selection of camera work. It is basically a concert interspersed with an epic journey undertaken by a roadie through a Mad Max-like environment.