Posts Tagged "film"

Joanne Harris: Changing The World One Story at a Time

Posted by on Jul 12, 2014

  “You don’t write because

someone sets assignments!

You write because you need to write,

or because you hope someone will listen

or because writing will mend something

broken inside you or

bring something back to life.” 

— JOANNE HARRIS —
Blackberry Wine

Author Joanne Harris describes the Butterfly Effect of a story she once read in a dentist’s waiting room, which would help save lives decades later, half way across the world.

She  has always had a particular interest in the power of words, having been brought up with French as a first language among a Yorkshire family who spoke no French and a Breton family who spoke no English.  

She considers the inconsistencies in the ways we are taught to regard the power of words, and the power of story telling in our lives. She also shares shares the wisest thing she has ever been told.

Joanne achieved world wide recognition with her third novel, the award-winning Chocolat which translated into the hugely popular film starting Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Since then, all her books have been best sellers in the UK.

Joanne Harris is a patron of the charities Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and Plan UK, and has travelled to Togo and to the Congo to report on their work. An account of her visit to the Congo was published in Writing on the Edge, a collection of essays by noted literary figures, with photographs by Tom Craig, in 2010. She has also donated short stories to a number of charity anthologies, notably Piggybank Kids, the Woodland Trust, the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition and Breast Cancer UK.

In 2013 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/ 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stories featured in the following anthologies:

  • Magic (2002)A collection of stories in aid of Piggybank Kids.
  • Bosom Buddies (2003)A collection of stories in aid of Breast Cancer UK.
  • Journey to the Sea (2005)A collection of stories in aid of Piggybank Kids.
  • Mums – a Celebration of Motherhood (2006)A collection of stories in aid of Piggybank Kids.
  • Dads – a Celebration of Fatherhood (2007)A collection in aid of Piggybank Kids.
  • In Bed With… (2009)A collection of erotic stories by well-known female writers.
  • Because I am A Girl (2010)Charity anthology in aid of Plan UK.
  • Stories (2010) A collection of fantasy tales, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio.
  • Writing on the Edge (2010): A collection of eyewitness

Awards and Honours

Harris’ books are now published in over fifty countries and have won a number of UK and international awards, including:

  • Chocolat: Creative Freedom Award (2000); Whittaker Gold Award (2001). Shortlisted: Whitbread Novel of the Year Award (2000), Scripter Award (2001); film version nominated for 8 BAFTAs and 5 Oscars.[7] Whittaker Platinum Award(2012).
  • Blackberry Wine: 2000 Winner of both the Foreign and International categories of the Salon du Livre Gourmand (France).
  • Five Quarters of the Orange: Shortlisted: 2002 RNA Novel of the Year; Author of the Year 2002; WHSmith Award 2002 (UK).
  • The French Kitchen: (a cookbook with Fran Warde): 2005 Winner of the Golden Ladle for Best Recipe Book (softcover) in the World Food Media Awards.[8]
  • Gentlemen & Players: Shortlisted for the Edgar Award, 2007 (USA)[7] and the Grand Prix du Polar de Cognac (France).[9]
  • Flavours of Childhood: (a piece co-written for the Radio 4 series First Taste with poet Sean o’Brien) Winner of the Glenfiddich Award, 2006.[10]

In 2004, she was a judge for the Whitbread Prize (now the Costa), and in 2005, was a judge for the Orange Prize.[11]

In 2013 she was on the judging panel of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science [12] and chaired the Desmond Elliott Prize.[13]

She is the holder of honorary doctorates in literature from the University of Huddersfield and the University of Sheffield, and is an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

 

She works from a shed in her back garden [15] and is active on Twitter, where she is known as @joannechocolat, and tumblr, ( http://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/ ) which she uses, along with her website’s message board, to answer questions from her fans. She is married, and lives in Yorkshire with her husband Kevin and daughter Anouchka.

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Why is it Always Four in the Morning?

Posted by on Jun 25, 2014

If Aliens were to float around examining our culture for a while, they may well decide that four in the morning has a special significance in our culture. It might take them longer to figure out why.

Rives - Four o Clock in the Morning - Calvin and Hobbes exampleWhich is what American performance poet, storyteller and author, John G. Rives discovered after reading a poem which he couldn’t get out of his head.

Most of us have had that experience but this one was so convincing that what began as a minor obsession ended up as the creation of the Museum of Four in the Morning…

If you doubt the significance, watch the TED Talk presentation.

If you know why this phenomenon exists, please post your wisdom on the forums.

Museum of four in the Morning

http://mofitm.tumblr.com/

 

 Rives - Four o Clock in the Morning - Comic book examples

In an earlier appearance at TED Talks, Rives performed one of his poems, sharing what it would be like…

If I Controlled the Internet

If I controlled the internet
You could auction your broken heart
on Ebay…

Presentations by Rives at TED  include

  • “If I controlled the Internet”
  • “A mockingbird remix of TED2006”
  • “The 4 a.m. mystery”
  • “A story of mixed emoticons”
  • “Reinventing the encyclopedia game”
  • “The Museum of Four in the Morning”
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Judge Rules on Matrix Copyright

Posted by on Apr 30, 2014

It is the world that has been pulled

over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

– Morpheus –
A judge has ruled that the Matrix film trilogy did not plagiarize the work of  Thomas Althouse.

MatrixAlthouse claimed he had submitted a screenplay “The Immortals” to Warner Bros in 1993, and the Matrix Trilogy produced by the studio had infringed his copyright by incorporating ideas from his screenplay into the Matrix films.

He listed 118 alleged similarities in the Matrix to his own work.

Judge R Gary Klausner stated that the areas referred to were “too general for copyright protection.. or are commonly used, unoriginal ideas.”

The Matrix, written and directed by the Wachowskis is a science fiction action film set in a dystopian future with a storyline in which computer hacker “Neo” (Keanu Reeves)  discovers the world experienced by most humans is a dream world of simulated reality – “the Matrix”, created by sentient machines in order to subdue the human race, while machines harness electrical energy and body heat from them as an energy source.

 Other humans who have been freed from the illusionary world are involved in a rebellion against machines  – a rebellion into which Neo finds himself drawn.

Althouse claimed that his screenplay, set in the year 2235, in which CIA agent attempts to stop  a cryogenically reanimated Adolf Hitler from destroying non-immortals, was the inspiration for the Matrix films.

Judge Klausner ruled:
 “the only similarity in plot [was] that both stories portray a protagonist attempting to prevent a dominant group from oppressing and annihilating a subservient group”.

“The basic premises of The Matrix Trilogy and The Immortals are so different that it would be unreasonable to find their plots substantially similar,”

“Examining the protectable details in the two works, no jury could reasonably conclude that The Immortals has substantially similar expressions of ideas to The Matrix Trilogy.”

 

Other projects by the Wachowskis (formerly the Wachowski Brothers) since the success of “The Matrix”,  have included writing and directing its two sequels -” The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” (2003),  “V for Vendetta” (adapted from the Alan Moore comic), “Speed Racer” a live adaptation of the Japanese anime series and “Cloud Atlas” based on the David Mitchell novel and co-directed by Tom Tykwer.

 The next Wachowski film “Jupiter Ascending” and their television series “Sense8” are both due for release in 2014.

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The Day of the Doctor: Dr Who 50th Anniversary

Posted by on Nov 23, 2013

 Exactly 50 years after Dr Who was first broadcast on BBC One, at 5.15 pm on 23 November 1963, the special 50th Anniversary episode went out – this time to a few more viewers than in 1963.

 The BBC broadcast the episode simultaneously to 75 countries as well as organising screenings of it at cinemas and big screens around the world.

 In its 50th year the series is watched by an estimated 80 million viewers in 206 countries and has been honoured by the Guiness World Records as both the longest running and the most successful science-fiction series in the world

 

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Ted Chung: A Thousand Words

Posted by on Nov 13, 2013

 

Ted Chung is a talented film director who grew up in the Chicago suburbs and went on to UCLA Film School, where he received the UCLA Directors Spotlight Award.

Chung demonstrates what excellent directing can achieve in a short film of less than five minutes. Simply using the camera, well integrated music, very well chosen actors and a fine understanding of visual communication, timing and nuances he is able to convey the character, feelings and emotions of the protagonists without the use of a single spoken word. 

“A Thousand Words” and his film “Mike” are both shot very effectively in black and white. He elaborates:

” B&W is an immediate way of creating a style – especially when you’re shooting without many resources and can’t control the color scheme as much as you’d like.  After shooting Mike’s and A Thousand Words in B&W, it was great being able to do On Time where everything was built or carefully sourced to align with an established color palette”

 In an interview he explains the importance of music in his work:

“Music has a direct line to the subconscious, to emotion.  Even a baby who doesn’t fully understand language yet can be emotionally influenced by a piece of music.  It’s a very powerful tool in conveying feelings and ideas, but I think it’s important to have some restraint in how you deploy music.  It’s often stronger to be more suggestive and give the audience space to fill with their own feelings. “

He was also selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus, where he directed On Time, a magical realism tale that premiered at the 58th Berlin Film Festival.

He is currently at work on his newest film, the sci-fi thriller I D.

 

“Ted Chung is one of my top five filmmakers on the web because he understands how to tell stories with or without words. The picture quality is irrelevant to his work. He uses screen direction and movement only when it is necessary to tell his story. He shows emotion and feeling in his characters, in his direction, and in the wonderful actors he casts. Most of the situations in his previous film involved lost chances and that’s some thing we all can intensely relate to.  It is the moment that you are afraid, but you find the courage to take either the chance or not.  Ted understands storytelling and that makes him a real filmmaker- Hollywood style,” says Director Steve Weiss.

Also directed by Ted Chung: “On Time“: http://vimeo.com/12947399
“Mike’s”: http://vimeo.com/16509726
tribecafilm.com/news-features/super_shorts/Super_Shorts_A_Thousand_Words.html
zacuto.blogspot.com/2009/12/steves-top-picks-for-2009.html
vimeo.com/album/159627/page:2 berlinale-talentcampus.de/campus/talent/ted-chung zacuto.com/featured-filmmaker-ted-chung 

“An elegant and very affecting portrait of big-city loneliness and the instant connections that go “ping” and are gone seconds later. The emotions are halting, delicate, true.” -Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere

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