If you're in any way familiar with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, you'll have heard of Weta Workshop, the Wellington-based and Academy Award-winning effects facility. Weta were commissioned by Wellington City Council to create a sculptural tribute to the New Zealand screen production industry. The resulting film camera look-alike mounted on an imposing "recycled" tripod is installed in Courtenay Place, not far from The Embassy theatre which premiered the LoTR films.
Continue reading 'IOTW: Tripod'
Tag archive for 'film'
When we moved to New Zealand I brought my UK-purchased Mac mini with us. In the world of DVD region codes, the UK is "2" but New Zealand is "4". When I rented Utu, an 80's film about revenge set during the New Zealand Wars (fought over land) between various Maori tribes and the Colonial Government, I ran into this obstacle to the "fair use" of my Mac as a DVD player. Should I change the region code of my DVD drive? Were there alternatives?
Continue reading 'Changing DVD regions'
I previously blogged a solution to playing anamorphic DVD recordings under Mac OS X using VLC. VLC is not yet a Universal Binary and seems unstable on my Intel-based Mac, which is also capable of reading the DVD+RW disks that my Philips DVD Recorder uses. On my previous (DVD "minus" only) Mac, getting .VOB (MPEG-2) video of such disks was complicated and involved using a PC (shudder!). Thankfully there is a way to watch recorded anamorphic TV broadcasts on the Mac in the correct aspect ratio using none other than the DVD Player software included with Tiger.
Continue reading 'Anamorphic DVD playback revisited'
I finally got around to renting Super Size Me, an amateur documentary about the impact of McDonald's on the waistline and health of America. You should see it too.
Continue reading 'USA: United Supersized America'
To be human is to be aware of your own fragility.
Continue reading 'Human = fragile'
