• Film

    Game of Thrones Digital Effects

    SlashFilm posted two videos today showing the digital effects that take place in the Game of Thrones television series. I’m usually not one to get too excited for digital effects in movies. If it’s not done flawlessly, it completely removes me from the story. Particularily with CGI characters. These videos are neat, though. I always forget just how much is done digitally these days and how seemless it is. The first video is from SSVFX, and it focuses more on inserting items and crowds into scenes. The second video, which includes some spoilers, is from BlueBolt and focuses on scene backdrops. If you haven’t been watching Game of Thrones and…

  • Music

    What Song Are You Listening To?

    Someone named Ty Cullen on YouTube asked random New Yorkers on the street what they were listening to: Inspired by that, someone in London did the same: These reminded me of those Fifty People, One Question videos: And that’s how you lose an hour to YouTube…

  • Literature

    Ian Fleming Interviewing Raymond Chandler

    Here’s a cool interview someone dug up from from 1958. It’s Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond novels) interviewing Raymond Chandler (author of the Philip Marlowe novels), and it’s apparently the only recording of Raymond Chandler’s voice. It takes place one year before Chandler’s death and six years before Fleming’s death. It’s fun listening to two friends and authors, who will both still be widely read over fifty years later, discuss their insecurities and disect their protaganists. They mainly praise each other, but Chandler does tease Fleming a bit on a couple decisions he made with Bond. It’s especially interesting to hear them reference future works when we now…

  • Film

    The Hobbit

    Peter Jackson has released the first of a series of video logs chronicling the shooting of The Hobbit. I have very fond memories of this book from my childhood, even more than The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m looking forward to seeing the final product, even if it has to be in 3D. [via]

  • Brain Food

    The Importance of Silliness

    Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones did an interview for Rock Paper Shotgun a few months back to promote the release of a Monty Python Facebook game, but they spent the time discussing imagination, history, and consumerism. Note: this post contains a video that appears to be a bit shy of RSS readers…

  • Literature

    An Evening with Ray Bradbury

    Not to turn this into a Bradbury fan site, but here’s his 2001 keynote address at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea. Great stories from a writer’s life. I love listening to someone who takes no shame in their enthusiasm and passion for a topic. It’s also healthy to listen to adorable, old people talk about their lives sometimes.