Django Django – WOR
from Jim Demuth on Vimeo.
A well told, well edited short documentary about the people who drive the wall of death.
from Jim Demuth on Vimeo.
A well told, well edited short documentary about the people who drive the wall of death.
Two days ago I watched Nanook of the North, a documentary about an Inuit man and his family. This isn’t a documentary in the conventional sense. This documentary dates back to 1922 when the Documentary film was a brand new genre. This is one of the first documentaries, if not the first. I read about it for years, until, when I was watching Northern Exposure I did a search and came across the documentary on Filmin.
The documentary has no voice over because it’s a silent film. You get intertitles instead that explain what you’re seeing. For many decades the documentary genre existed hand in hand with anthropolgy, the idea that the documentary could be used to document old ways of life, fascets of life and more. Nanook of the North was an early experiment
At first Robert Flaherty filmed when he had time during an expedition. He would take the free time he had to document the lives of the Inuit. Eventually, the rushes burned due to a fire. He had shot 70,000 feet of film, almost twelve hours of 35 mm film. Hee was left with just the edit print. He showed it around before deciding that he didn’t like it, so he reshot Nanook of the North. (source: A New History of Documentary film, Jack C. Ellis and Betsy A. McLane, p12, 2005)
Nanook of the north is a series of static shots that show an inuit family living their lives. We see them at a trading post, discovering the gramophone tasting it and more. We read about the children enjoying some sweets, to excess, and then taking castor oil, and smiling. We also see a seal hunt, a walrus hunt and the trapping of a fox, among other scenes. We see some traditional forms of doing these various activities.
At the start of the documentary there is an amusing moment where the Kayak comes to shore, and you see the entire family climb out of it, including a dog.
If not for Nannok of the North then such a scene would be read or heard about, but never seen.
Nanook of the North did some controversy because it was seen as setup, as not really illustrating inuit life, especially the igloo scene. It’s interessting to see how clear ice was used as a window, with the adding of a block of snow as a reflector to get more light inside. I mention this because at least two or three times we see scenes that are supposed to happen within the iglood.
Due to how cramped an igloo is, and due to the lack of light, and film stock of the time, it would have been impossible to film within the igloo, so they faked it, outdoors. It illustrates the morning ritual. At one point we read, and see, the wife chewing a shoe, to defrost it in the morning, due to the cold night freezing it over. If the Igloo scene had not been faked outdoors, then the interior layout of an igloo would have been lost. By taking a small liberty we preserve history.
Although the film is 101 years old, at the time of the writing of this post it is still easy to watch today, and it is pleasant. It shows various moments of inuit life, without being boring. At moments it even feels more like a home video than a documentary. I found myself thinking that anyone with a family could watch it and enjoy it. It has survived the test of time.
For historical context, the Man with the Movie Camera would be shot seven years later, in 1929.
One of the luxuries of the Digital Age is that many of these films have been digitised, and in so doing they have been made easier to access. When I was reading about these documentaries I had to imagine them. I had to rely on frames of the film and descriptions. Now with a quick Google or other search we can find and watch these documentaries. They may be old, and they may be part of history, but students of the genre don’t need to search through university libraries to find VHS copies of old films like I did. Within seconds you can find content that took me years, or even decades to find. Nanook of the North is a key film, so to understand documentary we must watch it.
I am using the Trevolution Ultralight Daypack at the moment. It weighs 120 grams and folds small enough to fit in a jeans or jacket pocket for when you’re not using it. It also has a volume of 21 litres but I would not use it to carry 20 litres or kilos. It has no zips or moving parts. It has two side pockets, one for a water container, and the second for the phone charger. The main pocket is accessed through the top and uses a folding system. You fold at least three times and then cloes the clips.
It also has zip cord at the front for a helmet or other voluminous object you might want to carry. I walk every day so it’s nice to have a light bag that you can forget you’re carrying. It’s also nice to have the flexibility to fold it away and forget about it until you need it.
Your first thought when you see the image is that it was taken at an angle, clumsily, and without any attention. In reality it’s the hay bale that was placed in the wrong place and rolled down to hit a pole.
The weather was good today. It was warm, it was dry. It felt like a summer’s afternoon or evening, as is clearly evidenced by how many people are out doing things in the evenings. It is a great day to spend time outdoors.
Today I experimented with the Camelbak chute system to see how it differed from the Eddy+. The two differences are that
A)It’s half the price
B)It’s a very quick system for drinking
If water is plentiful then the chute is good, but if you’re trying to conserve water try the Chute system.
I wanted to write about Social Media and the Lizard brain. My experience of information technology and Social Media is that it is a great tool for people from different backgrounds to come together and have a calm and logical conversation. Some people believe that “we need a social media with heart that gives us time to think.” I strongly believe that the culprit is not social media but rather the way people are taught to think in general and how the stigmatisation of online interactions has led people to feel negative when using social media.
With a smartphone in your hand, System 1 thinking becomes the dominant mode of thought. Nobody can handle the volume of data in 2016 without relying on ifeelings to come up with instantaneous responses, often triggered by how you see others reacting. There is less scope for deliberation and discussion – the pressure is to make a snap judgment and move on. I love this film, this article is deplorable/fantastic or politician X is a welcome breath of fresh air/duplicitous bastard.
This is an erroneous view. The World Wide Web is a powerful social tool because it allows us to think for a week or two before posting a reaction. Imagine that you are reading a printed newspaper article and you are offended. You write a letter the same day in the hope that it will be published as a reaction to the article. You react without the time to think. Once you send the letter it cannot be edited.
Social media and the World Wide Web allow two things. They allow you to read around the subject. Rather than write based on anger and emotion you can study the topic you are responding to. You can write on reaction, you can rewrite it. You can share that reaction. You can change your mind and you can delete it.
I find it an interesting paradox that articles are written about how Social media require us to use the lizard brain rather than reflect when I personally find the opposite to be the case.
System 2 thinking is slower and more deliberative. You marshal evidence, you exercise judgment, you discuss with others and you try to arrive at conclusions
When I am unfamiliar with a topic I go to Wikipedia to familiarise myself with a topic and there is a good chance that I will read articles on the subject. I really appreciate that in modern life when we find interest in a new topic we can either buy e-books or audiobooks in order to study topics in depth. We start the day with limited knowledge about a specific topic and by the end of that same day, we have enough background information to join the conversation.
To use a cliché social media is not the villain that people are making it out to be. Social media is a conversational tool and a democratising opportunity. When people are taught to think independently, when people are taught to reason, and when people are taught to research topics before writing a response they are productive.
I have a rule. If my response takes more than 140 characters I will drop by Facebook or Google Plus. If it is longer than a paragraph I will write a blog post. By following this logic, emotion is taken out of the post.
Marshall McLuhan talked about hot and cold media decades ago. Social media is a cold medium. The audience needs to do the work. The audience needs to fill in the gaps. Parents, Schools and Universities need to teach people to understand the limitations of the media they are using whilst at the same time teaching them to be critical, to find more than one source before forming an opinion. The problem is not with the medium but with the way in which people are prepared for the new medium.
When people write about friends should they post their twitter profile page or the websites their friends are working on. I’m asking this question because whilst reading a post today I was interested in the ability to follow these friends and see what they’re up to rather than read the website.
Reading a twitterstream is quick. 140 Characters are read almost instantly and adding someone that sounds interesting is instantaneous. As a result I’m far more likely to follow and read a person’s blog if there’s a consistant reminder both of what they’re doing and who they are as a person.
It’s about time. I’m a scanner. I scan through content rather than trudge through it. If you’re linking to twenty people and you link to twenty blogs then there’s no way I’m going to have the time to read all this content. I’d saturate extraordinarily quickly. Following another person on twitter takes seconds to do and I’ll track these people. Point me to a blog and there’s a chance I won’t take the time to look.
Has anyone had a similar reaction to twitter vs. blogs? Do you write about a group of friends, all of whom have twitter accounts? If so have you linked to their blogs or to their twitter profiles?
And in great style twitter is broken again and yet again they’ve found a new way in which for this to be evident. Today they’ve devided to block all ingoing tweets, no more posting for the next few hours I guess. They really should get a prize for this.
No warning, no status.twitter.com message, nothing.
There is a hill that is steep. You often see people struggle up it, trying to beat their own records and in so doing get knackered by the top. Yesterday I went up such a hill and I felt low on energy so I didn’t bother to sprint. I just focued on getting up to the top. As I went I saw a group of runners running down towards me and I wanted to take a picture but I was too slow so I took a picture of my shadow as I cycled instead.
I showed the bison road to someone else. I think it would be a good place to walk or cycle, if people have the motivation, and the range.