Kasblah

Hard to get a crab to sit still…

Spacey hibiscus

Jellyfishes visit every summer. The angel hair threads burn like poison ivy..

Wild strawberry sort of looks like melting sorbet close up… (click to view full size)

And this sure looks like a heap of potatoes ..  a clump of lichen it is..

A future cloudberry

Finally offloaded a collection of movies recorded with the iPhone, timeperiod 12/09 – 06/10

Visit to grandpa in France:

Liv attacks Ida’s plastic dog:

Jumping in puddles:

Liv’s first visit to a pet store:

Working hard in the kitchen with granny:

Helping ward off the sluginvasion:

If you look at early film and television it’s primarily studio-based. Secondary shots were captured on location but primary shots with actors were mainly filmed in a controlled studio environment, with a combination of props, staging, projections, etc used to recreate the exterior location. Early audiences were ok with this but today we scoff at the sometimes crude look of these productions.

Over time directors also took their productions outside, facilitated by innovations in technology. More flexible equipment with higher reliability allowed productions to move outside the studio while still maintaining a large degree of control of the process. Audiences also became accustomed to believing what they saw on the screen. Clearly if the location was fantastical (say the planet Pandora ) this doesn’t apply, but if the character is walking down the street of a typical US neighborhood you kind of expect they filmed in some typical US neighborhood… or…?

Enter technology again. For years our visits to places like the planet Pandora have been made possible by big budgets and pioneering visual trickery on a large scale: greenscreens, motion tracking, and CG all have played parts. But this technology has now trickled down to a level where it’s being used to replace the mundane. Enter Ugly Betty, a sitcom about a New York network assistant. I’ve never actually watched the show but apparently they prefer to film it in California because it’s cheaper. Watch the clip below:

The producers of this video market their services as a “Virtual Backlot”. This is an interesting name because the backlot was (and still is) the halfway-house for productions, a controlled outside environment in the backyard of the studio. But the backlot is a physical structure and it cannot be reconstructed for every production, and it is limited in size/scale/scope. The “Virtual Backlot” however opens up the world, the production can travel to any location immediately, and multiple productions can share the same studio because a new backlot can be “loaded up” at any time. The cost savings are substantial, and the technology will only get better, more carefully matching the athmosphere of the original location with the “set”.

So it appears everything we see on television or film anymore, no matter how normal or mundane, is potentially shot in a big green studio somewhere. The production industry is coming full circle, on-location realism is now available in the controlled environment of the studio.

Made this movie after our trip last fall but never got around to posting it. Various locations in and around Roquebrune-sur-Argens.

I’ve had a PVR for almost 2 years now and after mostly sitting idle, taping a rare late night movie (which we still haven’t watched), it’s all if sudden being used all the time! What happened? For one we are parents now, and bedtime is not what it used to be anymore,

Liv likes IKEA ! And papa loves the new WordPress app on his iPhone

End of August I went on a fishing trip to a place called Espevær. It’s about 1 1/2 hrs south of Bergen, right out in the North Sea and consists of a larger island with many small islands surrounding it. The open sea is rarely tranquil and storms are frequent. But thanks to a sheltered harbor its been home to fishermen for many years and about 150 people still live there. The main island has a relatively lush interior, but you are never far from the sea.

Taking a stroll around the village only takes a few minutes and another 20 minutes takes you around the main island. The village signpost conveniently points to all the main attractions: the store, the cableferry that crosses the harbor, the old lobsterfarm (a big hangar where they raised lobsters), and the famous UFO ring. This mysterious print in the ground appeared one stormy night in the 70′s and is still visible on the field where a UFO may have landed, no other explanation has been found (yet).

This was not my first visit here, I had also been in here some 20 years ago with my family on a boat trip, but this time I went with a group from my neigborhood association. We stayed in an old cafe, recently converted to a large apartment. A  boat was also provided and it was a real no-frills workhorse. So off we went to catch some fish. The catch was mostly lyr (pollock), but also a few makrell and a weird thin fish. The weather was not the best and it alternated rapidly between rain and sun all weekend, thanks to strong winds. Same winds contributed to rough seas and we were limited to  fish in the shelter of the smaller islands. We had a local in the group so navigating the treacherous waters was not a problem. But I  have never fished under such conditions before and  got a taste of the real risk and hardship fishermen face in the North Sea. I am not sure the picture really conveys how rough the sea was, unfortunately I was using the iPhone and it doesn’t do movies. But I had to keep my arm around a pole to avoid falling over while taking this shot!

All in all an exciting trip.

A new video of Liv finally, from around 14 months to 16 months. She really started to walk in this period and the video shows this progression, from first small steps to confident stride.