John August

Video

Movie titles in movies

Big Fish, Video

[This supercut](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V1sYNvKZt8) by honsco tracks characters saying the title of the movie they’re in.

Of my films, only Big Fish shows up, and it’s hard to hear. Amos Calloway (Danny DeVito) says it at the circus scene:

AMOS

Face it, kid. You were a big fish in a small pond. This here’s the ocean, and you’re drowning.

Both The Nines and Go have their titles spoken in dialogue repeatedly. I had to check the script to be sure, but yes, Corpse Bride does speak its title:

VICTORIA

Please, Pastor Galswells! It’s Victor! He needs our help! He’s married to a corpse! He has a Corpse Bride!

To my recollection, you won’t find any examples in the two Charlie’s Angels movies, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

2010, the year in film

Film Industry, Video

I’m perpetually amazed by mega-edits like this one from [@genrocks](http://twitter.com/#!/genrocks), which combines pieces of [270 movies](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wv-PfzG8aGp43ZF-vARPbcJaRRSJWJ8FXlMcQIrOiOo/preview?hl=en&pli=1&sle=true#) from this past year. Who has the time to do this? Are there pharmaceuticals involved?

One thing to consider: These are almost entirely American movies. You can look at this as a recap of the American film industry’s output for the year.

We make a lot of movies.

(/via [kottke](http://kottke.org/10/12/the-year-in-film-2010))

Notes on the DV Expo

Geek Alert, Indie, Video

Matt and I visited the [DV Expo in Pasadena](http://dvexpo.com/) this afternoon. We didn’t sit in on any sessions, but spoke to a number of vendors on the main floor, mostly scouting out rigs and rental houses that might make sense for a microbudget feature Matt’s planning to make.

Overall, this was a smaller shindig than when I visited a few years ago, when it was held at the LA Convention Center. Back then, a lot of hubbub surrounded Panasonic’s HVX-200 and the transition to a tapeless workflow. The 2010 equivalents are the HD-DSLRs such as the 5D and 7D, still-format cameras which provide an amazing video image but a lot of trade-offs given their shape.

At least a third of the booths were demoing either these cameras or rigs designed to make them more usable, such as shoulder mounts, audio recorders and follow-focus units. I already have (and love) Zacuto’s Z-Finder for the 7D, but I’ll definitely want some sort of shoulder support. Without it, you can’t handhold one very long.

Other observations:

* No Apple. Earlier expos had a large Apple presence centered around Final Cut Pro and Motion. This time, nothing. They probably didn’t want to have to answer a thousand questions about when the next version of FCP will come.

* No Adobe or Avid, either. Both have better native support for the formats a lot these cameras use, like AVCHD and MPEG-4. I’m really sick of converting to ProRes.

* Good-looking 3D. Several manufacturers were showing off 3D monitors. This was the first time I’d ever considered getting one.

* Lots of panel lights. Everywhere I used to see Kino-Flos, I saw LEDs.

* My favorite gizmo was probably a Wi-Fi video tap by Teradek that lets you broadcast to nearby laptops, iPads and iPhones. That would be a godsend for a virtual video village. (On Go, we used a somewhat-illegal TV transmitter for the same purpose.)

The Expo continues tomorrow if you’re in town and eager to check out some gear.