Y. Karp? Why Not!

A few days ago I found myself sitting in a cinema, wearing ridiculous 3D glasses over my regular specs, getting ready to see Gravity. I'd heard that the film is excellent, but I wasn't prepared for the amazing special effects, breathtaking scenery, and riveting story. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock were very believable in their roles, and the 3D effects mercilessly drew me in to each scene. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but something odd came to mind as I was sitting there, gripping the arm-rests of my chair, trying to catch my breath: internationally recognized symbols in space station documentation is really handy. The character could not read the text, but had no trouble deciphering the diagrams. As the credits rolled and the cinema slowly emptied, I suddenly realized that I really need a break. Anyone who can watch a movie as heart-stopping as Gravity and think of nothing else but Technical Writing issues probably spends too much time at work....

You might have noticed that my blog posts are much shorter than they used to be. I received feedback that, despite the riveting content, people don't have the time or inclination to read long blog posts. We live in an age of fast communication. Not everything has to be 140 characters, but the general rule is to give over the information quickly so the reader can move on to the next thing. Which is why I love shortoftheweek.com . This website provides plenty of free, quality, content. The videos can be as short as only a few minutes. The longest film I've seen on this site is about 20 minutes. SHORT OF THE WEEK HAS BEEN SERVING UP EPIC BITE-SIZED FILMS TO MILLIONS OF FILMMAKERS AND FANS SINCE 2007. WE SEEK TO DISCOVER AND PROMOTE THE GREATEST AND MOST INNOVATIVE STORYTELLERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD. Each film is categorized for easy searching, and is preceded by a sometimes lengthy introduction, which I never read before watching the film. I don't like spoilers. Animati...

In 1927, Warner Bros produced the first talkie, The Jazz Singer , on a rather large budget of $422,000 ( about $22 million in 2012 terms) - approximately 1.5 times what most silent films had cost to make until then. In 1995, the Los Angeles Times reported that the average cost of making and marketing a feature film was approximately $50.4 million . In 2011 it cost around $65 million to produce the film plus another $35 million to market it - that's a cool $100 million. 3D movie production company, False Creek Productions , calculates that 3D movie production will set you back an additional 19% ( PDF ). Mega-3D-blockbusters, like Avatar , reportedly cost somewhere between $280 million and $500 million to produce (plus marketing costs). In stark contrast to this, according to NuWire Investor : The cost of producing indie [independent] films varies widely depending on the project, anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $20 million or more. Some indie films, while not usua...

I am writing a blog-post about home movies. Send me a link to your home-made videos and I may include them. The deadline is Sunday 26 August, 2012. Send all links to yossi at ykarp dot com. So be part of it and don't delay! Follow on Twitter: @ykarp Subscribe to Y. Karp? Why Not! or follow on Facebook (see the side-bar). Add this blog to your RSS feed reader.

I do not recall in which of the Superman movies it was, but one of the characters took a special pen, drew a butterfly on the floor and watched as it instantly came to life, took off and flew away. In Star trek one would simply instruct the computer to provide a cup of "Early Grey. Hot", and the beverage would instantly materialize for your drinking pleasure. I once saw an ingenious invention where the user would input a diagram or digital image of a mechanism into the machine and it would build a 3D representation of it using sand and glue. For example, you could feed the machine a diagram of a ball and socket. The machine would start whizzing away and build a working 3D model of it for you. Naturally, it took a really long time to produce such a thing, layer by layer. Also, the accuracy was not perfect and it was limited in its complexity. The 3D model was also not particularly sturdy, given the materials it was made from, but the idea that you can draw a two-dimensiona...

One of the most often used opening scenes in movies is when the camera follows a man walking along a street. The man inevitably crosses the road, enters a shop or gets into his car just as the main characters appear. The camera stops moving so that it can concentrate on the main characters, leaving the man in the opening scene to move off camera, never to be heard from again. He was merely an excuse for the camera to get from its starting position to where the main characters are located. I wonder what the "opening scene man" is thinking as he plays his part. Is he measuring his strides? Is he trying desperately to walk the route without tripping over? Well, he certainly isn't trying to remember his lines. After all, the "opening scene man" never talks. It could be that the "opening scene man" is not thinking anything in particular. Perhaps he is a professional "opening scene man" who has done this opening scene many times and just wants to f...