Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Craig, I reckon shaky hand held is legit in a horror / action situation. It's the 'camera randomly zooming around the place becuase the 19 year old director is still high from last nights' Halo3 session' technique as seen on the CSIs etc that do my head in. Nightline is not entirely blame-free in this area either.
I'm not saying it's an illegitimate film-making technique, and Gods know it's a damn cool trailer - 'cause if a teaser doesn't... well, tease someone's wasted a lot of time and effort. I guess the brief was 'get people interested enough they're going to front up on January 18th, but don't give away any of the plot we're been trying hard to keep secret." (And I've been geeking out like a good little virally marketed consumerist drone. I confess.)
But I don't know how I'm going to handle Cloverfield if it's 90 minutes plus of footage that feels like 'Leave Britney Alone' Guy shot the whole thing on his IPhone.
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And how on earth do we reconcile the difference?!
Unleash the dogs of law! And if you don't have the money to keep 'em fed - something I doubt will apply to any politician, political party, union or big corporate, MSM media outlet or lobbyist -, err on the side of caution and STFU. And while I'll still working through the select committee report, that's what I'm more and more worried about: That the status quo ante if you've got the means and the connections to test the limits of a strategically ambiguous piece of legislation, well and good. If, OTOH, you have equal resources and connections to push back, even better. If you have none of the above - or someone doesn't like what you're saying and tries to silence you with the threat of complex and ruinously expensive litigation? Bugger.
OK, I know all of the above sounds like total wingnut territory and I truly hope I'm wrong. But still, I'm not sure the EFB - whatever form it ultimately takes - isn't going to cause more problems than it solves, and still be wide open to abuse.
BTW, I share Idiot/Savant's confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the Electoral Commission. But, boy, haven't we seen rather blatant evidence that its not really much use without real enforcement powers? And I'm just cynical enough to believe Parliament isn't going to do that any time soon...
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I'm a big fan of Cloverfield's hand held approach - I'm calling it 'The Blair Godzilla Project' from here on in.
Shaky-cam? Well, I'm the last person to complain about high-functioning alcoholics in the workplace but Gads man... if you can't hold that camera level, perhaps you need a new career. Or a nap. Whatever - anything that doesn't give me a migraine is A-OK.
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Actually, I'm sure Hamish would agree with you. But his social history via visual art is still a good use of the television.
And to be fair, <i>The Shock of the New</i> and <i>Civilization</i> are, IMNSHO, great documentaries - so even mentioning Hamish in that company is a compliment in my book. And while I quite liked Simon Schama's series, those bloody re-enactments had me grinding my teeth. Do hope we're going to spared the sight of an actor 'doing' McCahon or Rita Angus.
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It's true that most of these things will be honoured in the breach anyway -- as Graeme's COG colleague Steven Price noted this morning, no one's actually going to be prosecuted for not having their name and address on a placard -- but that's hardly the point. And the legislators have created this problem for themselves with their approach.
Well, I never thought anyone would be charged with sedition -- let alone convicted and sentenced to prison -- in my lifetime... but here we are. If Graeme and Steven ruled the word (or this particular corner of it), I imagine there would be a fair amount of obsolete, strategically ambiguous, poorly drafted or downright dodgy legislation off the books in short order. But they're not, and I think it's a reasonably sound notion that they best way to prevent abuses of power is not to give it to anyone in the first place.
I'm not one of these people given to much paranoid frothing about 'judicial activism' nowadays - instead I feel a hell of a lot of sympathy for judges who have to try and make sense of bugger's muddles like this. And I feel sorry for the judge who is going to have to make a call in what will be, by its very nature, an intensely political and politicised context.
Isn't it brilliant? I really like how the works of art are just presented square on, on your screen. There's not a lot of hand-holding, just gentle nudges along the way. It's inspiring.
Yes, but I think you have the problem Robert Hughes identified about presenting art on television - what you can't convey on television is the scale of an artwork. And television is not a contemplative medium either, something Hughes considers essential to the experience of art.
I've seen reproductions of Jackson Pollock's __Blue Poles__ hundreds of times, but standing before the physical object in the NGA is over-whelming. I spent over half an hour sitting in front of it, peering at details, stepping back to catch the whole sweep... What was valuable about the experience is precisely what television doesn't, even cannot do, while you're being hurried through a narrative.
Having said that, I do The Big Picture is valuable as a reminder that art is a human activity. And while I wouldn't put Hamish Keith in quite the same class as Hughes, Simon Schama or 'Lord Clark of Civilization' (as Alan Clark facetiously nicknamed his father in his diaries), he still conveys an informed enthusiasm I find attractive.
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The practice of having to have your real name and address on your political blog would have a very definite chilling effect, particularly on those who maintain pseudonyms now because of possible consequences such as impact on their employment or stalking.
Well, there's the other side of that equation Margaret. I don't think it's entirely coincidental that some of the worse toxic waste on the blogisphere - including the lefty troll over at Farrar's place who repeatedly accused me of giving 'support' to a 'pedophile' recently - do so behind the cloak of anonymity. OTOH, I can shrug that kind of crap off, but definitely don't want to publicise my home and/or snail mail address any more than it already is.
It seems to me what might be necessary here is a set of guidelines for how the law is intended to be interpreted. Something like the fact sheets that some of those organisations (like the organisation Deborah Morris heads these days, sorry I can't remember the name) put out during the s59 debate.
Intentions and three bucks fifty will buy you a cup of coffee, and a fact sheet doesn't mean shit if you find yourself in the middle of a test case that goes against you. I'm about half way through the select committee report - and noting reports of more amendments to come - and while I'm sure political parties, lobbyists, MSM outlets and big NGOs are going to have access to the best legal advice money can buy... I'm still hellishly confused. And I can't quite shake the suspicion that there's a lot of *cough* carefully designed strategic ambiguity laid into the bill.
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I'm not sure how effective this would be in New Zealand though, its more likely to alienate voters than persuade them.
Well, yes... just as I see no need to change during campaign season my SOP that unsolicited mail is thrown out unread. If political parties have such a poor understanding of their (for want of a better term) target market they spend a fortune of communications strategies that just piss people off, then more fool them. Personally, I'd be quite happy if Labour took the Bungy Baby billboards out for another spin, 'cause I don't know anyone who didn't find them confusing and a bit creepy. :)
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Shep:
I don't really want to go back and forth on this, but I suggest you actually listen to the interview he gave to Public Address Radio. Yes, I'd find it rather plausible that Bomber has rather more extensive - and certainly more credible - contacts in the 'activist community' than I do. I'm sure Russ will weigh in if my paraphrase is inaccurate or misleading, but I sure didn't get the impression that he was 'accusing' anyone of any thing. merely saying that perhaps some of the more vocal defenders were being a teeny tad disingenuous in their public statements, and perhaps the Police (who you could hardly describe as Bomber's favourite people on Earth) weren't absolutely out of line.
And I'm getting a little of having to repeat this, but I agree with Bomber that the day anyone in this country who picks up a gun or starts talking about murdering their political enemies has given up any political or moral authority they ever had.
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It's not a good idea to tie up the time an attention of someone employed to rescue or give medical attention to people who actually need it, and anyone irresponsible to do such a thing whether as a civil threat, a prank or to gain some kind of commercial advantage should have the book thrown at them.
Personally, I don't think the 'commercial' element is at all relevant. But I am a huge believer - perhaps predictably, being a filthy right-winger and all - that folks who punk emergency services should be billed for it. It might just serve as a wake up call to some people who just don't have a clue that emergency services don't run on moonbeams and warm fuzzies. Since Dyan mentioned his brother, I suspect the bill for aviation fuel alone was not paid out of petty cash. Nor would securing the services of a pilot with a pretty specific skill set.
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Oh, well... I guess we will just leave the courts to sort it all out. Then depending on which way it all goes, someone will have years to froth about what a gang of partisan hacks the judiciary are.
I'm only being slightly facetious in saying we might have had a marginally more serious piece of campaign finance reform legislation, if the Prime Minister had just declared the Exclusive Brethren a terrorist organisation and been done with it...
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