Whoah! Not sure what happened there… I stumbled across the Helium web site earlier – a site I hadn’t visited for a long time – and before I knew it, I’d submitted a three page discourse on how to edit a more compelling film.

Heaven knows what came over me! Still, it was an enjoyable process. I figured I do it to try to corral my thoughts on what I’d learnt from editing Greetings. It didn’t quite turn out that way, but I was quite pleased with the results. You can read it here…

One thing that is slightly annoying it that it’s corrupted some of the formatting, so if you read a sentence and it doesn’t make sense, try throwing a hyphen or ellipsis in there.

Feel free to rip it to pieces…

After a week away on holiday with the Family in sunny Dorset, I’m back and raring for action.

Not much has happened while I’ve been away. Ken has acquired the services a guy to do a final polish up job on Greetings on his Flame system and I’ve been slowly working my way through the Trimes.

Been catching up on a few movies too…

Transformers: I was pleasantly surprised by this one, I didn’t expect a lot from it and apart from some annoyance at the very dodgy plotting, I quite enjoyed it. Much more watchable than Bay’s previous films in terms of cutting.

The Machinist: Wasn’t sure whether to feel cheated or what by this film. Sure, Christian Bale went far more than the extra mile, and there is some sterling performances and some solid directing, but by the time I got to the end I just felt a bit… empty. My immediate thought was that it was just a glorified short film. Interestly, the ‘book-end’ plotting is very similar to the change Chris has suggested for Tolerance, which is good as I think it worked well in the Machinist.

The Double Life of Veronique: Kieslowski really is the master, but I must be honest and say I didn’t really get it, not in the same way I got the Three Colours trilogy. Some of the character motivations felt a bit contrived at times, especially the puppeteer, and the whole thing was never really satisfactorily explained (or did I miss something – I was really tired when I watched it?).

Alien and Kingdom of God: I’m really into Ridley Scott now. I’m starting to get where he’s coming from as a director and I really like it. I’d read a lot of bad press about Kingdom of God when it first came out, and having been stung by Troy I’d given it a miss until now, which is a shame as I really liked it. Orlando Bloom almost acts for once and although it’s not quite up there with Gladiator, it’s not half bad. I think more than anything I liked it as Orlando’s character really summed up my attitude towards religion quite nicely. As for Alien, that just gets better with every watching. It’s head and shoulders above the other three.

Got a couple of classics lined up next, North By Northwest and Citizen Kane… been waiting on these for a while now.