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An arrest has been made in connection with the investigation of actor Corey Haim's death, a
spokesman for California's attorney general said Wednesday.
Sequoia Capital partner Mark Kvamme, citing examples from campaigns run on Funny or Die and
AdMob, told an audience of marketers at OMMA Global in San
Francisco today, “If you can harness social media marketing, you don’t have to pay
for advertising any more.”
Kvamme, whose
experience in advertising dates back to the 1980s, when he led advertising agency CKS Group,
justified his argument using Neil Borden’s “Marketing Mix” theory. He said Borden’s
elements of promotion — advertising, direct marketing, PR, point of sale and word of mouth
— are still valid for marketers today, just in different ways.
The biggest difference can be found in the word of mouth category, said Kvamme, who subsequently
called it a tremendous — and cheap — opportunity. “If you take what’s
going on on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Digg, the masses are starting to make their own
media, and it’s basically free,” he noted. “So if you can figure out how to
work in this world, you can get your message out very quickly.”
Funny or Die’s (one of Kvamme’s Sequoia
investments) recent Presidential
Reunion, which brought together actors who’d portrayed U.S. presidents throughout the
years on “Saturday Night Live” at a cost of $20,000 (primarily flying all the
participants in), according to Kvamme, yielded some 3 million views.
Presidential Reunion was a bit of a passion project for Funny or Die co-founder Will Ferrell, but
Kvamme also pointed to last summer’s relatively unsuccessful movie “The Goods”
starring Jeremy Piven (and produced by Funny or Die co-founder Adam McKay), the expected box
office returns for which were lifted 15 percent through a Funny or Die campaign including prizes
for retweets on Twitter (which led to the movie becoming a Twitter trending topic), featuring on
the front page of Funny or Die and its Facebook fan page, two appearances on the front-page of
Digg for custom Funny or Die content, live-tweeting from the premiere and a live conversation
with McKay on Ustream. It generated “several million dollars in sales for something [the
studio] probably didn’t pay Funny or Die enough for,” said Kvamme.
But the next big opportunity is in mobile, said Kvamme, using AdMob to illustrate (again, another Sequoia company, but at least one
that’s had a successful exit, with Google beating out Apple to buy it for $750 million). With
more than twice the global penetration of the Internet, mobile — especially smartphones
— represent an opportunity to harken back to that “Marketing Mix” theory,
because they can encapsulate all the elements of promotion from one single screen that’s
attached to its owner at all times. An AdMob campaign for the movie “Wolfman” had ads
on mobile media sites ad within applications that users could click on in order to get more
information, share it with their friends, buy tickets directly and set up a mobile calendar
alert.
Sure, Kvamme is pitching his own investments here, but to his credit he said that one of his
favorite and most-visited sites is search.twitter.com, for keeping up with what people are
talking about online. He also talked about Facebook’s opportunity to become the new mass
media — with half its 400 million users logging in every day, “that’s almost
like what broadcast television was 20 or 30 years ago” — and to dominate and grow the
market if it ever does launch its own payment platform inside its trusted environment, just as
PayPal revolutionized eBay.
On this week's clip joint, Spoom does a double take on the best film clips featuring identical
twins
Identical twins or "multiples" as I believe they're more correctly termed, in a slightly
unsettling, Minority Report sort of way, hold – for me, at least
– a unique fascination. Can you imagine having someone who looks exactly like
you hanging around all the time?
Actors probably wouldn't mind though. Any actor who loves themselves – and, if
we're being honest, that's probably the majority – would give their right arm
to play identical twins. What better way is there to show your range, your sheer, awards-worth
versatility, than appearing as two different people in the same movie? Plus: double screen time!
You do the maths.
No wonder they've proved popular fodder for the cinema, then – as Matt Lucas's
Tweedledum and Tweedledee double-act in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland reminds us. So in honour
of identical twins everywhere here are my top five onscreen siblings with the same face. Some are
controlling, some are sweet and some are ... well, some are something else.
Here are my picks, please give us yours below. And feel free to shout "Snap!" to any double post
...
1) Boris Karloff (with great hair) plays the De Berghman brothers in The Black Room, a sinister
tale with a strikingly good tagline: "Embraced by the Devil Monster ... his kiss the
password to oblivion!"
2) Warring sisters battle for the love of Glenn Ford in Curtis Bernhardt's 1946 melodrama A
Stolen Life. Bette Davis does all manner of strange and clever tricks with her face in this
amazing scene.
3) Ever wondered what two slightly fat, Nic Cages with afros would look like? Adaptation revealed
all. Here, cocksure Donald gives socially stunted Charlie some life advice in a swamp while
hiding from Meryl Streep.
4) Jeremy Irons creeps everybody out twice in David Cronenberg's classic Dead Ringers. Here we
have double trouble as the twins discuss another set of twins.
5) "Come and play with us, Danny!" An untempting offer in an endlessly-referenced scene from The
Shining.
On last
week's Clip joint, Becky Carroll dished our her own personal awards for the best film clips
featuring the Oscars. Here are her top prizewinners from your suggestions.
1) An Oscar-winning Matt Dillon takes his lead from Tom Hanks by inadvertently outing his
mentor in the 90s comedy In and Out.
2) Mike Myers makes a blatant Oscar
pitch with his tearful tour-de-force in Wayne's World. And in French, no less.
3) Does Myers have a monopoly on Oscar-themed comedy? Here he is again, getting shot
down by an award-wielding Steven Spielberg on the film of the the film of Austin Powers.
4) Veering off-topic but impossible to ignore: your foolproof guide to making the perfect
Oscar-bait blockbuster.
5) And the Oscar goes to ... Mr Wormold for reminding us that Robert Downey Jr
really was nominated for an Oscar for
playing a dude who was playing a dude who was playing for an Oscar. Here's Kirk Lazarus out of
Tropic Thunder.
Thanks to nodule, rossvross, windupbirdchronicles and steenbeck for taking the role of
gallant nominees.
Fancy writing Clip joint? Email Catherine
Shoard for more details.
Screw all those late night shows, I would watch Zach
Galifiankis'Between Two Ferns religiously if it somehow made its way to my cable
channel lineup. And that's not a completely absurd pipe-dream of mine considering Funny
or Die does have a new HBO show, though seeing as Mr. Galifiankis is busy caressing his
newfound movie stardom, as of now we can only look forward to the occasional online segment where
Zach sits down with an actor or actress promoting an upcoming film and absolutely trashes them --
to their face -- in every conceivable way.
And, sure, both parties are in on the joke, but it's still hilarious to watch nonetheless. Zach's
latest victim is Ben
Stiller, who's out promoting Noah Baumbach's Greenberg. Aside from
immediately suggesting Stiller change his last name to There Done That, Galifianakis refers to
Zoolander as Jewlander and cautions Stiller not to make fun of people from the
South because "they're stupid enough to go see your f**king movies." If this is the first thing you
watch today, you're off to a great start.
Watch the latest episode of Between Two Ferns after the jump ...
Just
in case you thought Ben Heck was being
caught up by his acolytes, our favorite superhero modder has come back today with the completed
Bill Paxton Pinball machine. You might remember the rough version of this glorious homage to one of
the world's most mediocre actors from that time we
visited Ben at his home / lair. It has now been fully fleshed out, painted, spit-shined,
tested, and slapped with a badge of completion. You want to see it in action? We've got video of
that. You want to see how it was built? We've got video of that too. You'll find the moving
pictures after the break, but don't neglect the source as it also contains photo galleries and a
walkthrough of the design process.
The Guardian's Games blog explores the tendency of modern video games to suffer from poor voice
acting, a flaw made all the more glaring by increasingly precise and impressive graphics. Quoting:
"Due to the interactive nature of games, actors can't be given a standard film script from which
they're able to gauge the throughline of their character and a feel for the dramatic development of
the narrative. Instead, lines of dialogue need to be isolated into chunks so they can be accessed
and triggered within the game in line with the actions of each individual player. Consequently, the
performer will usually be presented with a spreadsheet jammed with hundreds of single lines of
dialogue, with little sense of context or interaction. ... But according to David Sobolov, one of
the most experienced videogame voice actors in the world (just check out his website), the
significant time pressures mean that close, in-depth direction is not always possible. 'Often,
there's a need to record a great number of lines, so to keep the session moving, once we've
established the tone of the character we're performing, the director will silently direct us using
the spreadsheet on the screen by simply moving the cursor down the page to indicate if he/she liked
what we did. Or they'll make up a code, like typing an 'x' to ask us to give them another take.' It
sounds, in effect, like a sort of acting battery farm, a grinding, dehumanizing production line of
disembodied phrases, delivered for hours on end. Hardly conducive to Oscar-winning performances."
The Guardian's Games blog explores the tendency of modern video games to suffer from poor voice
acting, a flaw made all the more glaring by increasingly precise and impressive graphics. Quoting:
"Due to the interactive nature of games, actors can't be given a standard film script from which
they're able to gauge the throughline of their character and a feel for the dramatic development of
the narrative. Instead, lines of dialogue need to be isolated into chunks so they can be accessed
and triggered within the game in line with the actions of each individual player. Consequently, the
performer will usually be presented with a spreadsheet jammed with hundreds of single lines of
dialogue, with little sense of context or interaction. ... But according to David Sobolov, one of
the most experienced videogame voice actors in the world (just check out his website), the
significant time pressures mean that close, in-depth direction is not always possible. 'Often,
there's a need to record a great number of lines, so to keep the session moving, once we've
established the tone of the character we're performing, the director will silently direct us using
the spreadsheet on the screen by simply moving the cursor down the page to indicate if he/she liked
what we did. Or they'll make up a code, like typing an 'x' to ask us to give them another take.' It
sounds, in effect, like a sort of acting battery farm, a grinding, dehumanizing production line of
disembodied phrases, delivered for hours on end. Hardly conducive to Oscar-winning performances."
Bogie and Bacall, Hepburn and Tracy, Loy and Powell. Heck, even Chase and Hawn. Cinema is full of
memorable actor/actress duos who regularly worked together. Yet in recent years there hasn't been
anything like these classic pairings. I've been wanting to do a list or discussion post related to
this issue for awhile now, but after hearing what
Catherine Zeta-Jones said on Rachel Ray about wanting to star in a remake of The War
of the Roses with husband Michael Douglas, I just had to get something out there. The
War of the Roses was originally a movie that reunited Douglas and Kathleen Turner (and Danny
DeVito) for their third film together. And boy do I really wish they'd done more. They had great
chemistry, whether they were falling in love romance-novel style or trying to kill each other in a
messy divorce.
I guess it hasn't been as easy or necessary for these kinds of consistent pairs (and really, Bogart
and Bacall only did four together, but their marriage makes it seem like more) since the studio
system collapsed. Stars aren't contracted to studios and regularly working with the same
also-contracted performers. They don't shoot as many films in a single year, either. And really,
stars aren't that big a draw anymore on their own, let alone with a partner. Still, there are at
least seven onscreen pairs I'd like to see reunited on a regular basis. And you probably have some
of your own ideas for who could or should be a modern day Loy and Powell, who appeared in 14 films
together, six of them as part of the Thin Man
franchise. Basically, what actor and actress do you think had enough chemistry onscreen together to
last for many more films?
Nearly 30 years ago, Dustin Hoffman played a
trouble-making actor who had to pretend to be a woman to get a job. Tootsie played on Hoffman's
reputation as an extremely precise professional (AKA a pain in the butt), insisting to his agent
that he set a new standard in playing real-life vegetables. My memory's a bit hazy on the
details, but you get the idea. Hoffman has been a hero to many in the acting profession for
insisting on such verisimilitude, for walking the extra mile in worn shoes to capture the
peculiar gait of a particular character.
And now he'll get to tell other actors what to do.
The Daily Mail reports that Hoffman is in advanced negotiations to direct
Quartet, based on a stage play by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist). The comedy
revolves around a trio of elderly opera singers, now living in a retirement home. Maggie Smith,
Tom Courtenay, and Albert Finney are set to play the singers.
Now 72 years of age (?!), Hoffman has never officially directed before, though he intended to
direct Straight
Time in 1978. The burden of being both star and director proved to be more than he
wanted to take on, so he brought on Ulu Grosbard to handle directing duties on short notice, and
the result is one of Hoffman's best performances. By the way, rest assured that
Quartet is not a prequel to Robert Altman's disastrous sci-fi drama
Quintet, starring Paul
Newman. We'll see Hoffman what does with opera singers; filming is scheduled to begin later this
year.
En cultura “lostiana”, hablar de Benjamin Linus significa hablar de
un grande; un grande venido a menos, eso sí, pero siempre nos asegura un
buen capítulo y, sobre todo, una interpretación magistral del actor que le da vida, el
“gigante” Michael Emerson. Un capítulo muy simbólico que,
por el contrario, avanza muy poco en la trama de la isla, salvo por ciertas revelaciones de
Richard e Ilana y un cliffhanger final de absoluto infarto.
Continúan avanzando los capítulos, pero no con ello la historia. ‘Lost’ me
está decepcionando, y mucho, en esta sexta temporada. No obstante, es de suponer que
conforme se vayan acercando los capítulos finales, la serie irá tomando otro color, y
lo que ahora es decepción se transformará en emoción y admiración…o al
menos eso espero. De momento aquí estamos una semana más, para traeros lo
más destacado de “Dr. Linus”.
“En realidad, es Dr. Linus”
El flash-sideway de este capítulo nos enseña a Ben Linus en su papel de profesor de
Historia, a quien ya vimos en el capítulo 6×04 (The Substitute) cuando John entra a
formar parte del profesorado de la escuela en que trabaja Linus. La realidad alternativa nos
enseña que las ansias de Ben por llegar al poder son muy grandes, y que es
capaz de hacer cualquier cosa por conseguirlo.
¿Cualquier cosa? No. En la realidad alternativa vemos que Ãlex (su otrora hija
adoptada/robada en la isla) es alumna suya, pertenece al club de Historia y e incluso requiere la
ayuda personal de Ben para superar un test y conseguir entrar en la Universidad de Yale. A pesar
de no ser su hija, Linus siente verdadero afecto por la joven, e incluso es capaz de tirar por
tierra sus planes más ambiciosos para llegar a ser el director de la escuela (el poder)
sólo para que Ãlex consiga una carta de recomendación a la
Universidad.
Esto choca demasiado con lo ocurrido en la isla en la cuarta temporada, cuando fue capaz de
dejarla morir simplemente por seguir las órdenes de Jacob, por lo que podemos deducir que
fue la isla la que convirtió a Ben en un ser despiadado capaz de todo por
seguir manteniendo su poder. En este sentido, son muy interesantes las palabras que pronuncia
mientras explica una lección a sus alumnos, donde la metáfora de Napoleón y su
poder son aplicables al propio Benjamin.
Y fue en esta isla donde todo cambió, donde todo se aclaró por fin. Elba, es donde
Napoleón se enfrentó a su mayor reto. Porque el exilio no fue lo peor de su destino; lo
que realmente fue devastador para él fue la pérdida de su poder. Es cierto que le
permitieron quedarse con el título de Emperador, pero sin ningún poder, carecía de
sentido. Le habría dado lo mismo estar muerto
Descubrimos también que en la realidad alternativa Ben vive con su padre enfermo y que ambos
fueron a la isla pero no duraron allí mucho tiempo. No hubo purga, y por tanto Roger
Linus sigue vivo. No deja de ser curioso que el propio Ben matara a su padre con un gas,
y que ahora consiga mantenerle vivo cambiándole la botella de oxígeno. Ironías de
‘Perdidos’.
Cavando su propia tumba
De vuelta en la isla, Ben se reencuentra con Lapidus, Ilana, Sun y Miles, y entre todos deciden
que lo más seguro es volver a la playa donde todo comenzó. Allí Sun pide
explicaciones a Ilana, y ésta confirma que su cometido en la isla es proteger a los
seis candidatos que quedan. Si se refiere a los que corresponden a los seis
números, ¿Incluye a John Locke como candidato aun a pesar de estar muerto? ¿Y a
Sayid a pesar de estar “infectado”? Si no los incluye, ¿Quiénes ocupan esos
lugares?
Además de ello, Ilana, muy reticente, pide a Miles que confirme cómo fue la muerte de
Jacob utilizando sus poderes psíquicos y las cenizas que recogió en la estatua. Miles
confirma que fue Linus quien lo mató y la reacción de Ilana no se hace esperar,
encadenando a Ben a un árbol y ordenándole que cave su propia tumba,
ante la agonía de Linus que no encuentra salida alguna a su muerte inminente.
Mientras cava, el ruido eléctrico y de cadenas nos confirma que John
Locke/AntiJacob/Némesis está cerca. Éste se postra delante de Ben,
liberándolo de las cadenas y ofreciéndole hacerse cargo de la isla una vez que
Némesis la abandone junto con el resto del grupo. La oferta es demasiado suculenta para
Linus, quien sale corriendo de su propia tumba para coger un arma y apuntar a Ilana. El
“pobre” Ben sólo quiere explicar a Ilana por qué mató a Jacob,
diciendo que entendía perfectamente sus sentimientos, ya que él perdió a su propia
hija por seguir sus directrices. Ilana afirma entonces que no tiene por qué irse con John y
que ella le aceptaría en el grupo, por lo que Ben, sintiéndose
integrado y apreciado por primera vez, decide quedarse en la playa con el resto
del grupo.
La Roca Negra
La otra trama de la isla se desarrolla de la mano de Jack y Hugo quienes, guiados por Richard,
van a parar a La Roca Negra. Richard revela que el secreto de su eterna juventud es que
Jacob le concedió un don, un don que se concede cuando Jacob te toca, y que
por mucho que lo intente, no puede suicidarse. Siguiendo esta regla de tres, es
muy probable que Locke, Kate o Sawyer también hayan recibido ese don, pero…Locke
está muerto. ¿Alguna teoría?
Richard pide a Jack que lo mate utilizando la dinamita que contiene el barco, pero Jack, tras
encender la mecha, se sienta junto a Richard, convencido de que si Jacob ha estado
observándole a través del faro desde que era pequeño y le trajo a la isla por una
razón, no va a dejar que vuele por los aires. Y efectivamente, como era de esperar,
la mecha se apaga poco antes de alcanzar el cartucho. Todos vivos…y de
vuelta a la playa.
El cliffhanger final
El reencuentro de los supervivientes en la playa constituye una de las escenas más bonitas
de este capítulo. Un reencuentro muy esperado, pero no el que más; y es que parece que
los guionistas de la serie están empecinados en no reunir a Sun y Jin hasta bien avanzada la
sexta temporada. Vamos a tener que esperar un poco más.
Finalmente, vemos cómo un submarino se acerca a la playa, y dentro de él viaja
ni más ni menos que…¡Charles Widmore! Enemigo natural de Ben,
parece que ahora en la isla vamos a tener enfrentamiento no sólo entre Jacob y Némesis,
sino también entre Linus y Widmore. Preguntas que se me vienen a la cabeza: ¿Cómo
ha llegado Widmore a la Isla? ¿Con quién? ¿Para qué? ¿Es Widmore
a quien esperaba Jacob?
En definitiva, un capítulo aceptable, no demasiado revelador pero magistralmente llevado por
la figura de Benjamin Linus. Antes de cerrar este repaso, hay una cosa que me gustaría
resaltar más allá de este episodio. La ABC ha publicado un vídeo homenaje
al “ojos saltones”, donde en menos de dos minutos repasa sus escenas
más destacadas a lo largo de la serie; imprescindible para todos los fans de este personaje,
pero que me hace pensar por qué la cadena lanza este tributo, si por adoración a
Benjamin Linus o porque su futuro en la serie está teñido de negro. Juzguen ustedes
mismos.
Staff at IslamOnline have gone on strike. But is it about workers' rights, religious principles
or national rivalries?
Islamic advice websites aren't the first thing that spring to mind when talking of strikes,
sit-ins and workers' occupations, but if there's any proof needed that Egypt's extraordinary wave
of industrial action is every corner of the nation, then today's drama at IslamOnline.net fits the bill.
With more than 120,000 hits a day and a global reach that extends through several languages,
IslamOnline is one of the biggest and most influential Muslim websites. From Baghdad to Basildon,
Muslims use it as a key source of scholarly advice on everything from impotency to the insurgency
in Iraq.
So the question of who owns and controls the site is a vitally important one. And that's the
question being wrestled over today, after hundreds of staff walked out in protest over what they say is an attempt
by conservatives in the Gulf to hijack the site and force it to pursue a more traditional and
hardline agenda.
Tension had been simmering for months between the website's Cairo-based editorial offices and the
managers in Doha, whose plan this week to fire many of the 350 employees in Egypt led to an
all-night occupation of the company's offices, which was still continuing at the time of writing.
"We're all resigning," Fathi Abu Hatab, a former IslamOnline journalist and one of the strike
leaders, told me over the phone from inside the building. "If we lose this battle then
IslamOnline as we know it will be dead. We were an exception – in our
professionalism, in our moderation, in our refusal to be bound by hidden agendas. And like all
exceptions in the Arab World, we've come to the end of the line."
So what is the battle, exactly? There's not a lot of agreement on this point, with a host of
competing explanations trickling out of the IslamOnline offices on to Twitter, Facebook and even a live online video stream
that the workers set-up to show their grievances to the world. Some of the staff believe this is
primarily a business dispute over pay, conditions and company management but others are reading
more into it, placing the tussle over editorial control at IslamOnline into a wider political
rivalry between Egypt and Qatar, and an even broader context of cultural warfare between Egypt
and the Gulf.
As detailed in the news reports, there's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that a new board
of directors in Doha has been throwing its weight around in debates over the site's content.
Analysts have argued that the site's relatively open and inclusive nature (where discussions over
homosexuality sit side by side with
the latest fatwas on vegetarianism, martyrdom and T-shirts) has unnerved some
of IslamOnline's more conservative financial backers in the Gulf. At this stage it's hard to
verify that one way or another, but if true it would only be the latest salvo in a long-running
campaign by the Gulf to wrest cultural ascendancy in the Arab World away from Egypt.
In the often febrile Middle Eastern media market, domination of the cultural landscape has tended
to go hand in hand with political ascendancy. Historically the biggest centres of cultural
production were Beirut and Cairo; the latter's singers, film-makers, actors and writers were
untouchable in the 1950s and 1960s.
Egypt's status as the capital of Arab culture mirrored its political fortunes under Gamal Abdel
Nasser; Umm Kolthoum sang, Youssef Chahine directed, and Nasser was the all-singing, all-dancing
leader of the "Arab street" who faced down western colonialism at Suez in 1956 and swaggered
across the world stage.
Then came the oil explosion of the 1970s, and the Gulf states suddenly found themselves with a
load of petro-dollars at their disposal. Over the next couple of decades, with Lebanon mired in
civil war and Egypt rocked by the assassination of Sadat and the beginning of the moribund,
bureaucratic rule of Mubarak, Saudi Arabia (and to a lesser extent the UAE) embarked on an
ambitious and eye-wateringly expensive programme to force control of the region's culture away
from their rivals.
The Arab culture wars are open on a number of different fronts, but all involve Egypt losing its
grip on the Middle East's cultural tiller. On television, for example, Egyptian soaps and serials
have long dominated prime-time schedules, but now the UAE is fighting back with multimillion
dollar productions like Million's Poet, an insanely popular
reality TV show that commands 70m viewers from across the Arab World, yet is based around an
obscure form of Gulf Arabian poetry. The result has been a hitherto unknown appreciation for the
Gulf dialect across the Middle East.
The whole show is funded by the Abu Dhabi Authority of Culture and Heritage, and forms part of a
much wider push to make Abu Dhabi the capital of culture in the Middle East, with local versions of
the Louvre and Guggenheim under construction.
It's not just a matter of the Gulf producing new cultural products to rival Egypt's; investors
are actively taking over Egyptian cultural institutions and reshaping them to reflect more
conservative Gulf values. Egypt's film studios were managing to produce only about five or six
films a year in the early 1990s; now, almost solely because of Saudi investment, they're churning
out around 40, some of which now have to conform to the "35 rules" of piety laid down by the
Saudi backers – a huge shift away from Egypt's traditionally more pluralistic
Islamic values to the much more austere form of Wahhabi Islam prevalent in the Gulf.
This "Saudisation" has left some Egyptians, such as the billionaire communications tycoon Naguib
Sawiris, feeling like a foreigner in their own land. "As far as I'm concerned, this is the
biggest problem in the Middle East right now," he says. "Egypt was always very liberal, very
secular and very modern. Now ... I'm looking at my country, and it's not my country any longer. I
feel like an alien here."
As the IslamOnline workers prepare themselves for a second night of occupation in an attempt to
assert their editorial independence over those that bankroll them, a broader upheaval is under
way in every corner of the Arab media world, one that could prove dangerous for cultural
pluralism.
"There is an Egyptian taste to IslamOnline at the moment which is very discernible; if the site
packs up and moves to Qatar the spirit and attitude of the site will change," says Khalil
al-Anani, an expert on political Islam at Durham University.
"That would be a big loss to the Muslim community globally, because we are facing a wave of
Salafist media at the moment – on the internet, on satellite TV, and elsewhere
– and IslamOnline was one of the key outlets resisting that trend."
Telecinco ha decidido recurrir a la serie ‘Aída‘ para
remontar los pésimos datos que hasta ahora venía consiguiendo en el prime time de
los domingos. El reality ‘I love Escassi‘ marcó mínimo
de temporada en su última emisión (6,6%) tras cambiar de presentador, lo que ha
sido definitivo para decidir su traslado al late night del jueves (comenzando
esta misma semana) donde, casi con toda seguridad, desaparecerá sin hacer ruido.
De nada ha servido la remodelación de este show de citas para convertirlo en un debate,
que parece ser la única forma que tiene Telecinco para sacar adelante sus programas, y
mucho peor ha resultado el cambio de presentador, perdiendo casi tres puntos de
audiencia tras la incorporación de Joaquín Prat. Con renovaciones o sin ellas,
el programa sigue siendo igual de patético.
De esta manera, Aída vuelve a la noche de los domingos tras el fin de la sexta temporada
en junio del año pasado. Sin embargo, no lo hará con capítulos
nuevos, sino con reposiciones; realmente no sé a qué esperan para estrenar
los nuevos capítulos, ya que es algo que se viene esperando desde hace meses y que en la
cadena han postergado en repetidas ocasiones. El cualquier caso, parece evidente que las
repeticiones de antiguos capítulos tienen potencial suficiente para recuperar esa
franja, a la espera de que se decida finalmente estrenar la séptima temporada con nuevos
episodios que, salvo sorpresa, dispararán los audímetros.
Una temporada que promete, y mucho. Lorena entrará en ‘Gran
Hermano’, Luisma y Paz deberán buscar piso y Fidel iniciará una
relación con un novillero, que será interpretado por Bernabé
Fernández, un actor de quien tengo gratos recuerdos por su papel en ‘Al
salir de clase’, donde también mantuvo una relación homosexual con Santi,
personaje interpretado por Alejo Sauras.
¿Y Aida? Sigue en la cárcel. Y por lo que ya pudimos ver en la
pasada temporada, no parece que vayamos a echarla mucho de menos.
Why are modern video games still having problems with voice acting? And what can be done to solve
them? Gamesblog investigates...
Most admirers of Quantic Dreams' interactive drama Heavy
Rain will readily agree on the game's most glaring fault – the
inconsistent voice acting. The visuals are astonishingly atmospheric, the plot (though choppy at
times) is compelling, and the lush orchestral score is wonderfully resonant... But... Well, some
of the acting performances are wooden to the point of somnambulism.
The thing is, Heavy Rain is far from alone. Although the videogame industry loves to compare
itself with the movie business, and clearly has ambitions to become the story-telling medium of
the 21st century, poor vocal performances are common, even among Triple A titles. In the last few
months Aliens vs Predator, Army of Two: 40th Day and even Final Fantasy XIII have drawn criticism
in the areas of scripting and performance. So what's going on?
"Although improving all the time, there is still a lack of focus on story and character in
games," says Andy Emery creative director at Side, a leading
provider of casting, directing and recording services to the videogame and movie sectors. "This
has to be an integral part of the project from start to finish. We see problems with poor scripts
all the time. A professional scriptwriter is an essential part of modern game development but
still we get 'developer written' scripts with alarming regularity. Even with the best Hollywood
actors on board, a poor script can result in poor voice acting."
A sometimes mediocre script certainly contributes to the problems in Heavy Rain, where key
snippets of dialogue are so laboured and cliché-ridden, they more or less eject you
straight out of the experience. But then, actors work with dodgy scripts all the time, and can
still put together a reasonably compelling performance (just ask anyone who's appeared in a
romantic comedy in the last decade). Experienced direction helps, too.
Clearly, there are deeper problems, involving the whole process of recording voice performances.
And it starts with timetabling.
Traditionally, voice acting has been recorded toward the end of the cycle, when the over-arching
structure of the game and its narrative are safely locked down. There are compelling reasons for
this. Games tend to evolve enormously over the standard two-year process, with whole missions
often culled at a late stage, as playtesting reveals unforeseen fault lines and design issues.
Having to recall actors and record chunks of new dialogue to reflect story changes is perceived
as an expensive, time-consuming chore – the last thing a hassled studio needs
in the generally hellish run up to a major delivery deadline.
But while those justifications made sense in the old days, when voice performances tended to be
restricted to skippable cut-scenes there for decoration only, they begin to look less convincing
in the modern era. With titles like Heavy Rain and the forthcoming psychological thriller Alan
Wake, where cinematic fidelity is a cornerstone of the experience, voice recording can't just be
something jammed in at the end ostensibly to cut costs. But more on that later.
There are also fundamental differences between voice acting in a videogame and voice acting in
linear artforms such as radio plays and animated movies. Due to the interactive nature of games,
actors can't be given a standard film script from which they're able to gauge the throughline of
their character and a feel for the dramatic development of the narrative. Instead, lines of
dialogue need to be isolated into chunks so they can be accessed and triggered within the game in
line with the actions of each individual player. Consequently, the performer will usually be
presented with a spreadsheet jammed with hundreds of single lines of dialogue, with little sense
of context or interaction.
As Emery argues, there's really not a lot of alternative. "For large complex RPG and MMO games,
with dialogue that could add up to over 30hrs of play time, it's simply not practical to give the
actors the whole script. You also risk information overload, with the actor struggling to focus
on the areas of importance for their character. Star Wars: The Old Republic, the new MMO being
developed by Bioware is a great example, as the project contains over 40 novels worth of scripted
dialogue. The key is to give the actors the information they need for their scenes and ensure
they are well directed by a professional and well-briefed director."
But according to David Sobolov, one of the most experienced videogame voice actors in the world
(just check out his website), the significant time
pressures mean that close, in-depth direction is not always possible. "Often, there's a need to
record a great number of lines, so to keep the session moving, once we've established the tone of
the character we're performing, the director will silently direct us using the spreadsheet on the
screen by simply moving the cursor down the page to indicate if he/she liked what we did. Or
they'll make up a code, like typing an 'x' to ask us to give them another take..." It sounds, in
effect, like a sort of acting battery farm, a grinding, dehumanising production line of
disembodied phrases, delivered for hours on end. Hardly condusive to Oscar-winning performances.
Yet the establishment of a fully-rounded character is a vital element of the acting process. Most
western drama schools conform to the model of acting developed by Russian Theatre practitioner
Constantin Stanislavsy. His works on the development of character - An Actor Prepares, Building a
Character and Creating a Role - remain essential reference texts, even though his methods have
been superseded and remixed by dozens of acting luminaries ever since – most
notably perhaps, Lee Strasberg, at The Actors Studio. Stanislavski placed enormous emphasis on
the ability of the actor to understand and inhabit the character's life, not just the two hours
of it presented on screen or stage, but everything that took place beforehand. This takes time
and imagination – elements seemingly absent from the factory-line schedules of
many recording sessions.
It's clear, however, that some studios have grasped this vital element. "The actors always have
the opportunity to learn about the character before the session," says Emery of the work
undertaken at Side. "For most leading roles the actor would have had a full audition, with a
director present to brief them about the character and their motivations. Prior to a session they
are sent their script and character bios, and where possible, an overview of the general story
arc. This allows them to better understand the character they are to play and how they should be
played."
But then there's an added inhibitive element in the videogame voice recording session
– actors usually perform in isolation. This is, of course, a necessary evil as
in-game dialogue will need to be chopped up, mixed and played in a variety of contexts. But this
isn't much consolation to the actor. "I've only worked on one game where that wasn't the case,"
says Sobolov. "When I played The Arbiter in Halo Wars, they recorded cut scene dialogue with all
the principal performers in the same room together much as they do in television animation. Most
times we have to silently skip over the other character's lines (if they're shown to us at all)
then deliver our dialogue as if we were having a conversation in real time." Again, this runs
counter to drama training where the art of reacting to other performers is an intrinsic element.
Little wonder, then, that without a full script, a character chronology to study or other
performers to interact with, voice acting can be both stilted and lacking in nuance. It's an
intrinsic problem that the key voice over studios are really looking in to. Mark Estdale,
director at casting and voice recording agency, Outsource
Media, has been working for ten years on a system to provide voice over actors with a
quick-n-dirty frame of reference for their characterisations.
"What the actor needs is something at the point of performance that they can react to," he
explains. "To provide that, you need to throw away all previous script models. What we've done is
build a database that can actually emulate game engine behaviours and recalls for the actor any
kind of pertinent information - visuals from the game, audio, other actors' lines
– and it's all instant recall. So you get the actor in the studio and when
they're in the zone you hit them with this radical system – it's all on screen
in front of them, and they're getting all the cues they'd get in the theatre or on a film
production, they're not reliant on trying to figure out what the heck's going on."
Added to this, there's a very simple way to improve the quality of acting in most videogames:
start early. "To achieve a cinematic level of quality that so many titles demand now, the voice
acting can't be left to the end of the development cycle," maintains Emery. "Making character
performances an integral part of the pre- and main production stages opens up a whole range of
opportunities to improve the final quality." Mark Estdale wholeheartedly concurs. "Actors need to
be cast when the developer is starting the design process. I'm working on one production now
where we're there really early in development, and the whole cast is involved - they're giving
voices to the characters as they're being designed."
Not only does this create a sense of ownership of the character, it also means that the director,
writer, cast and game designers get to spark off each other – schlocky lumps
of leaden dialogue, implausible character volte-faces and rampant cliché may all be
avoided in a truly collaborative and respectful environment. In some ways, what developers need
to do it stop drawing all their cinematic reference points from the big CGI-stuffed blockbusters
and start looking at the likes of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh who employ improvisation and
collaboration to build drama.
Ultimately, Emery pinpoints an evolving role within the game development process; instead of
script writers, what is needed now are 'narrative designers', experts in the creation of plot and
dialogue for an interactive medium. "Good narrative designers can work with game designers to
ensure the story and dialogue becomes a fully integrated element of the game design, rather than
a hindrance to pure interactivity. A lot of game players do not like to be stopped while a cut
scene delivers story elements and clever Narrative design can ensure the story is delivered in a
less obtrusive way.
"As narrative designers become more adept at delivering a compelling story in ways less obtrusive
to game play, the distinction between 'Story' dialogue and 'World Filling' dialogue will continue
to blur. The challenge will be to ensure ALL acting in games is believable, from in-game
greetings, to death cries, to the epic monologue."
And Emery also highlights other vital elements of convincing non-linear narrative. "Good audio
implementation ensures that individual files, separated for reasons of interactivity, can sound
like fluid, natural, overlapping dialogue once triggered in the game. Using a professional
director who is involved in casting, rehearsal and dialogue recordings makes a huge difference.
It's essential to have someone who knows the project inside out, has been on board from the
start, can talk to actors in their language and translate that into a performance."
The ultimate solution for Emery, however, is the emerging field of full performance capture, in
which one actor provides motion and facial capture, as well as the voice. "For full performance
capture sessions, it is more like a film shoot with script table reads, rehearsals and further
familiarisation with the project all prior to an actual shoot," he says. "On the actual shoot the
director will rehearse each scene with the actors together so they can get a feel of what will be
going on in each scene and how they will interact and then have multiple live takes to get the
required performance.
"On Dead Space: Extraction it was clear from the outset that the team was taking character
performances in the game very seriously. They looked for actors to provide not only a vocal and
facial performance but also facial likeness to be used in the game. Although the actors needed to
have the right voice and the right look, the team were happy to be flexible about accent. The
most important thing was to cast a group of distinct, believable characters and I think we really
hit the mark, and the gaming press agreed with us."
The weird thing is, this is exactly the avenue Quantic Dream chose. Of the four principle
characters in Heavy Rain, three were played by actors who provided the voice, motion and
facial capture data.
According to Madison Paige's body actor, Jacqui Ainsley, all the actors were given full
scripts, and they spent three years on the project – ample time to inhabit
their roles. Throughout the process, the game's creator and writer David Cage also provided
oodles of background detail regarding the moral choices at the heart of the drama. They did
everything right.
And certainly there are moments of profundity in the game, moments when the dialogue and
performances click into place with spinetingling effect. It could be that the actors were
inexperienced in games, that the audio implementation, with so many branching dialogue elements
to cope with, could not always call up exactly the right vocal intonations for the moment.
Perhaps it is down to the ambition of the project, the fact that it has effectively created its
own genre, that a few inherent weaknesses are cruelly magnified. The sheer size of the script
(apparently 16 movies worth of text) may have contributed, though this scale is becoming more
common these days. According to a preview of Rockstar's forthcoming adventure, LA Noire, in this month's Edge, the script weighs in
at 22,000 pages. Yet still, the interactive drama, a genre at the forefront of narrative
development, is in its infancy.
Most titles, however, sit in well-defined game types, developed by experienced studios. For them,
there is no excuse anymore. David Sobolov is predictably passionate on the subject. "We're moving
into a time where games are attempting to create an emotional experience rather than simply a
visceral one. If developers intend to tell more complex stories they're going to need to hire the
best talent they can find to complete that journey.
"A game can't be successful anymore if it's developed as a piece of software. It has to evoke
emotional reactions and create a reality a gamer wants to buy into to be successful. In the best
titles, good voice acting can be the glue that keeps a gamer immersed in the world that the
developer is creating, often subconsciously. The human voice is the one thing in a game that's
100% real..."
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