Severin Blanchet, 66, was a French documentary filmmaker who had been training young, aspiring Afghan filmmakers.

Severin Blanchet.

Blanchet died on Friday during an attack by Afghan rebels on a hotel for foreigners in Kabul, where he was staying. He had been teaching in Afghanistan since 2006 and created filmmaking courses in many other countries.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said this in a statement on Friday.”I salute the memory of our compatriot Severin Blanchet,” In the attack at least 18 people were killed and 36 more were injured.

Freedom is created through knowledge and it is a shame to hear that a documentary filmmaker has been killed doing a job that helps to set the Afghan people free from the Taliban. I send my condolences out to his family.

Ram Gopal Varma, a Bollywood Filmmaker, has offered 500,000 rupees (about $10,000/£7,000) to watch his new film, Phoonk 2.

Phoonk 2 poster.

Phoonk 2 is a sequel to his 2008 film of the same name and is about an evil spirit that traumatises a family. The lucky person to take up this challenge will have to watch the film in a dark cinema all by his/her self. As well has being in an empty cinema the victim … “Ahem”… I mean participant will also be hooked up to heart monitoring machine and have a camera pointing at them to make sure they don’t close their eyes.

To add more pressure the heart monitor will be displayed on a screen outside of the cinema so that people can see how scared they are.

The director offered a similar challenge upon the release of the first film, he said that ‘the contest winner ran out 30 minutes after the film started’

Watch the trailer below and tell me what you think?

Personally, I watched the trailer and thought the film looked mediocre, it looked like it would be a cliché horror/thriller movie that we’ve all seen before. Perhaps the reason I think this is because western audiences are de-sensualised to horror films and we’ve seen hundreds of these before. Maybe is would scare a Bollywood audience but as for me I’m not impressed.

I am extremely proud to say our film ‘Take Only Photographs, Leave Nothing But Footprints’ has been chosen to be exhibited at the Ikon Eastside as part of the Flatpack Festival.

Flatpack Festival.

Each year, Flatpack Festival celebrates the wild frontier of film culture. Presenting work in an eclectic array of unexpected spaces and places, the festival centres on the shared experience of watching great work that you might not otherwise get to see. Flatpack provides a platform for new filmmakers and moving image creativity together with a playful and original programme of cult classics re-imagined, silent cinema re-scored and archive material re-invented.

The show is called ‘More Films about Buildings’ and features other films such as: Pollphail (dir: Matt Lloyd), Eva Weber’s Steel Homes, Synchronisation (dir: Rimas Sakalauskas), Beat 13 and the other a collaboration between Blu and David Ellis.

For more information please visit www.flatpackfestival.org You can also buy tickets from there. Help support us and other film makers by coming along.

Tim Burtons new ‘sequel’, Alice in Wonderland, will not be screened at Odeon cinemas in the UK, Ireland and Italy.

An Arthur Rackham illustration from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

This comes after Disney’s plan to reduce the amount of time it can only be shown in cinemas from the standard 17 weeks to 12 weeks. Odeon currently have 107 sites with 834 screens in the UK and Ireland.

Vue and Cineworld cinema chains have come to their own agreements with Disney to show the film.

Previous Controversy

Disney are also facing opposition in Belgium, the Netherlands and the US with it’s similar plans. It is also not the first time Disney have caused controversy, they attempted to do the same for animated film ‘UP’ but dropped it plans after UK cinemas threatened not to screen another of its titles, A Christmas Carol, later in the year.

Disney are not the only studio to have faced opposition over shorten theatrical exclusivity, Odeon and Vue removed Ben Stiller’s ‘Night at the Museum’ after 20th Century Fox shortened it’s exclusivity to 13 weeks.

Copyright

Disney claim this is a move to prevent people from downloading the film illegally stating that ‘if cinemas stop showing the film before the 17 week exclusivity period, audiences do not have legitimate way of watching it’

This month BBC iPlayer has doubled it’s requests from 61.5 million in January 2009 to 120.3 million in January 2010.

Graph showing iPlayer viewing figures. (Click image for more info)

iPlayer is the BBC’s on demand television service available to license fee payers. It went live on the 25th December 2007 after having been in open beta for over a year. The BBC had hoped programmes would be watched half a million times in the first six months. This turned out to be a gross underestimate, as 3.5 million programmes were streamed or downloaded in the first three weeks alone.

The wii and PS3 iPlayer application account for 4% and 8% of the views,respectively, while PC is dominant with 79% and Mac being 9%.

People watching television over the internet, and especially BBC iPlayer, show no signs of slowing down. With all the UK terrestrial channels having their own catch up services and Ch 4 and FIVE releasing it’s content on Youtube, I can see the introduction on ‘web only’ content on all catch up services in the near future.

How often do you use it? Is it easy to search and find the programmes you’re looking for?

I have to be honest and say I have only seen one film in 3D so far, and it was the hugely popular Avatar. I would take a guess and say it may have been a lot of people’s first time experience with 3D in a cinema.

RealD glasses with circularly polarised lenses.

I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people would remember getting, when they were younger, a pair of anaglyph glasses (the one with Red and Cyan filters) in some sort of comic or magazine, it’s also safe to say that the majority of the time the results were terrible. In November 2009 Channel 4 started a week of broadcasting using similar anaglyph glasses, this time amber and blue filters to “allow full colour viewing”, again it semi worked but was largely disappointing.

3D Glasses

3D in the cinema works in a slightly different way, they use a circularly polarised projection and glasses system and this allows the viewer to see the film in its full colour beauty.

Avatar’s 3D was perfectly done, it wasn’t to ‘in your face’ and was easy to watch. The 3D enhances the illusion of depth perception and allows you to emerge yourself in the film.

Result

To answer “Is 3D worth the extra money?” I paid £10.10 for two tickets to see Avatar 3D and according to Empire Cinemas website it’s £1.50 extra per seat for a 3D film. I think the additional £1.50 to see a exceptional film like Avatar is well worth it, whether I will see every film that has a 3D option is up for debate, but in the case of Avatar is was well worth the money.

Question

What do you think of 3D?, what have you seen and what did you think of it?

Heavy Rain is an Action adventure/ interactive drama game developed by French video game developers Quantic Dream.

The game revolves around four main characters; an FBI profiler named Norman Jayden, a retired private detective – Scott Shelby, an architect – Ethan Mars, and a photo journalist named Madison Paige. All playable characters are said to be looking for a serial killer known as “The Origami Killer”.

The demo consists of a tutorial with two in-game levels where you play as two of the four main characters. You follow both Private Detective Scott Shelby and FBI Special Agent Norman Jayden as they individually try to track down the Origami Killer.

Now down to the nitty gritty;

Presentation 9/10 – From only playing the demo you get a sense that the story is going to be epic, and vast array of outcomes leads you to believe that your actions will determine the overall feeling of the game. One thing I really like is FBI Special Agent Norman Jayden’s evidence finding glasses/glove, it adds that certain uniqueness.

Graphics 9/10 – The graphics in this game, for the most part, are stunning. The facial complexity is awe inspiring. There are, however, some low res textures present but it certainly doesn’t detract from the overall look of the game.

Sound 9/10 – The voice acting is very good, the characters are believable with the voices they’ve been given.

Gameplay 7.5/10 – From previously playing Fahrenheit it is evident there has been vast improvements but the unusual and unnatural way of controlling the character often leaves you frustrated (Holding R2 to walk just doesn’t work). The action scenes, on the other hand, are thrilling, they keep you engrossed in the game and a part of the action.

Overall 8.6/10 – I will certainly consider buying this game, the graphics, presentation and action scenes are a definite HIT! Heavy Rain looks to be a game that is going to challenge the norm.

See More Heavy Rain Various at IGN.com

Today, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced that Google will be donating $2 Million to the Wikimedia foundation, the foundation that runs Wikipedia.

The money donated by google matched that of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and brings Wikimedia well past it’s $10.6 million revenue target for the fiscal year. Wikimedia, the non-profit organisation, has received 240,000 donations this fiscal year, mainly in small amounts from Wikipedia users.

Wikipedia have stated that “as an unrestricted gift we’ll be able to support operations for Wikipedia and our other free knowledge projects across multiple priorities.” Google co-founder Sergey Brin called Wikipedia “one of the greatest triumphs of the internet,” which goes to show the special relationship Google and Wikipedia have.

In other Google news, Thursday will be the day Google get their day in court, as they ask a US judge to approve their plan to scan millions of books and sell them online. This comes after a 2005 lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers (AAP) against Google claiming copyright infringement.

Image by – keso

One World, One Photo is a project put  together by Connar O’Keeffe.

It aims at gathering Photo, Painting, Sketch and Sculptures from people all over the world, to be used in a book as part of a Uni project. It doesn’t matter whether the submitters are artists or non-artists, all submitted work is welcome.

The idea of the project is to “bring together the talents of those recognised artists and non artists. Art today is controlled mainly by those that have had a formal education, based in an art school. Yet it is apparent that there are incredibly talented people who aren’t trained artists that take photographs, paint, sketch and make sculptures. I want to put these people side to side with those who are ‘ARTISTS’.”

This is a fantastic project that brings together like minded people from all over the world into a Global community.

So Visit oneworldonephoto.co.uk and submit you piece today!

(Just a disclaimer from OneWorldOnePhoto website,

“All the rights to the images will remain with the person who provided the image.  By agreeing to let One World One Photo use your image for this project you are providing consent for the use of the image and not the sale of the image. One World One Photo is strictly non-profit. Your images or copyrights will not be used at any point to create profits for myself or others.” )

My Date with Drew is a 2004 documentary film starring Brian Herzlinger.

The film follows Brian Herzlinger, a man who has been crazy about actress Drew Barrymore since he was 8 and also part of her fan club since that age. Brian, while appearing on a game show, won $1100 with the winning answer being Drew Barrymore. This was Brian’s light bulb moment, he decided to combine his two passions Film Making and Drew Barrymore to try and get a date with Drew.

Brian uses his $1100 to buy the most expensive camera he can find and with Circuit Cities 30 day return policy, it allowed him 30 days, until he had to return the camera, and $1100 budget to make the film. We follow Brian as he tries to get a date with Drew by following the “Six Degrees of Separation” rule, using friends of friends to achieve the ultimate goal.

This is an extremely good hearted film and follows Drew’s own saying “If you don’t take risks, you’ll have a wasted soul.” The film had me laughing all the way through, partly because of Brian’s Geeky persona and partly the situations he gets himself in. One memorial part is where he is speaking to his ex-girlfriend, who has called him out of the blue, and he tells her of his plan to go out on a date with Drew Barrymore. The subsistent phone calls had me in stitches.

I would certainly recommend this film to everyone, but if you’re into documentary film making then this is must watch. As it shows you what you can achieve on a small budget.

I give this film 4.5 Drew heads out of 5