Flying a Toy Plane 22 Miles
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Flying a Toy Plane 22 Miles

Byrichard

James May is interesting. People like me know him from Top Gear and Grand Tour with Clarkson and Hammond but his side projects are interesting. Instead of farming like Clarkson, or driving cars with his daughter Clarkson plays with grown up toys. When I say toys I don’t mean adult cars, planes and more. I mean actual toys. In the video below James May sets himself the project of building a model plane that can fly 22 miles.

The video shows footage of him as a child playing with a model plane, and then as an adult playing with a slightly bigger model plane, then a prototype and then the finished project. In the episode I watched he built and played with a model plane but in others he tries to build other things and succeeds.

What I like about Naked Science, produced by Pioneer TV, is that they produce proper documentaries, rather than breathless crap like so many others do. This is television production quality content, rather than youtube content. I recently noticed that youtube content creactors use the same sound effects, the same music, the same editing, the same chaotic jumble, that makes their content tiring to watch.

In contrast when you watch James May play with model airplanes you get a well produced, well edited, well paced documentary that is interesting to watch. This is a fifty three minute video where you don’t stare at your phone, or get distracted. You watch it from the start to the end without being distracted, or fatigued.

There was a time when I would watch every documentary in the morning, and then do something else on satellite TV. I don’t do this anymore. Too many programs are designed to distract people from adverts so they’re constantly repeating themselves.

I loved watching Mythbusters but that was the decline of Discovery Channel Documentary making.

What makes James May’s Naked Science shows stand out is that they are watchable by a “dinosaur” like me. When a documentary is well paced, and edited to be watched without commercial breaks it becomes engaging. YouTubers should strive to make content that is equal to television rather than scrape the barrel of throwaway culture.

And Finally

The premise of my post is simple. We live under the illusion that content has to be sensationalist to be worth watching, and we live under the illusion that youtube content needs to be sensationalist to stand out but that notion is wrong. Television quality content should be edited and produced to be shared on YouTube. In this day and age the notion that something has to be two minutes is wrong. The notion that something has to be in “YouTube style” to be noticed on YouTube is wrong. In my eyes we should produce long form content that is well produuced, for YouTube and social media.

YouTube is big enough for content that appeals to my generation and others to be produced and thrived. Algorithms should take this onboard. I want YouTube’s algorithms to provide me with content that is relevant to my age group and interests. I want more content recommendations such as the video above.

AI, Film, and Social Media

AI, Film, and Social Media

Byrichard

I like to experiment with Bard and chatGPT. I like to see what their limits are, but with time and effort I like to get beyond their limits and get them to do what I want, without failing too often.


DJI and other brands have had self-editing options for years now, so the idea that software would edit the footage taken by the brand’s devices is not new. What is new is the desire people have to let AI replace their own creativity, and inspiration, to give the AI’s creative vision rather than their own.


The lazy Editor


Film and television are art forms, as should social media, but the problem with social media is that it is made by amateurs with no background in film or television. They break plenty of rules, which is what creative people are meant to do, but not because they want to go against cultural movements. They break the rules out of ignorance, out of amateurism, and out of laziness. It isn’t that social media has democratised video content, but rather than social media has destroyed film and television. Now we’re stuck with what I like to call User Generated Crap, but we’re also left with YouTube being a shadow of its former self.


In the days when it was going to be sued for unauthorised use of copyrighted material it was interesting, because it was about creative people being creative, before the social frameworks were in place for that creativity to be legal. I filmed the LakeParade more than once, and then spent hours editing my footage. I posted it to YouTube and the sound was removed due to copyright violation.


Today people are doing absolute crap on TikTok with music, and yet it’s legal, because copyright rules have changed, but when it’s too late for conventional editors to bother. If we invest hours filming, and then more hours editing, then YouTube will just mute the videos.


Algorithms and the Feed


I would love to enjoy using YouTube but I don’t. I don’t enjoy YouTube because it’s focused on the lowest common denominator, rather than topics and themes. The videos that are promoted have sensationalist headings, that are clickbait, rather than solid content. The wrong content is being promoted. The wrong things are being valued.


The result is that even without adverts YouTube has become unusable for me. “But you can block and dislike what you don’t like”. Sure, but I’m fighting against a gaggle of people with different audiovisiual values. I will lose.


If I don’t pay for Premium, I need to watch awful ads, but if I pay for Premium I have to sort through a jumble of crap before getting to something interesting. More than once I have spent an hour looking for something to watch, and found nothing.


The Film Industry


Studios Quietly Go on Hiring Spree for AI Specialist Jobs Amid Picket Line Anxiety


Even AI Filmmakers Think Hollywood’s AI Proposal Is Dangerous


Around 2002 I lived in Weymouth and going to the cinema cost 2 GBP so I would go to the cinema, once or twice a week. In the process I saw at least 90 films, but in that same process I learned of the formulas the US film industry use, and I have never enjoyed American films since. The problem with the US film industry is that it’s based on formulas, rather than humanity. It’s based on set plot lines, where names and locations are changed, but the story is the same.


As I said a few years ago, I prefer to watch television series, to films, because television series are still creative. Each television series is different from the other, so we still want to know what happens. With films I lose interest within ten to fifteen minutes. if not sooner. I love the film medium, but I hate what Hollywood produces.


More CGI Than Story


One of the weaknesses of almost new hollywood films is that they forget that they are a story telling medium. They forget that we go to the cinema to be told a story, not to see computer graphics. As I have said more than once, if I want to see computer graphics I can watch gamers play GTA V and other games on YouTube. If I watch films it’s because I want to be told a story that has depth and value.


BrotherHood – A Korean Film


One of the films that most impressed me when I was going to the cinema two or more times a week was Brotherhood because it had a real story, about real people in a real situation where we felt real emotions about the situation. Of course I mean a genuine story, rather than real. It’s a fictional film on what could have been real. It’s a powerful film, without too much CG, just good story telling.


AI and Special Effects


In one of the articles I shared I read about how they want AI to replace all extras. In the other article they show how kitsch is simplified by AI. In the scenarios described by those articles AI would be used to replace humans by AI, replace locations by AI, and replace everything else. Just one actor, acting by himself, surrounded by virtual people.


AI, Media Asset Management and Restoration


I do think that AI has a place in film, for media asset management, for film restoration and for tasks that are time consuming and boring for humans, but good for machines. I enjoy Media Asset management but I believe that as a person works through digital assets machine learning tools should pay attention and learn from humans. Rather than transcribing by hand, AI can transcribe and then humans double check the accuracy of what was transcribed, as with Project Gutenberg.


And Finally


From factories to film sets, AI has a simple goal: Making things cheaper


Although the title of the article quoted about is to make things cheaper, it isn’t. It’s about cutting corners to maximise profit. It isn’t about making films cheaper to see at the cinema. It isn’t about making films more cost effective. It’s about not paying human beings because AI is “good enough”. It’s about dehumanising the film industry and making it even more uninteresting than it is. If you replace humans with AI, then you lose that humanity, that makes humans relevant.


if you over-use CG and forget about story, then you might as well be making computer games rather than films, because, at the end, a lot of modern films are just computer games, that you watch as films.


I lost interest in Hollywood decades ago, so AI doesn’t change the unlikeliness of me watching Hollywood films. It just confirms the reasons for which I lost interest in the first place. The story being told isn’t interesting, and AI driven CG are a distraction, rather than justified.


Netflix – Browse By Language
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Netflix – Browse By Language

Byrichard

Recently Netflix added a Browse by Language option which means that you can browse for content by original language. Yesterday I saw that I can browse for content in French, Italian, Polish,, Korean, German and many more languages. I could list more but that’s dull. Instead I want to focus on the opportunities it opens up. 



With YouTube, Apple Films and other platforms you can search for films but they are either in French, German or Italian in Switzerland and it’s hard to find content that is in its original language. 


For English speaking YouTube creators they always say with “frogspawn VPN you can pretend you’re in country A to watch content from there” etc. This does appeal to me in rare situations. What appeals more is the freedom to search for French, Italian or Korean content. By watching a film made in French, Italian, Korean or any other language you are entering a different culture. 


One of my favourite films, when I watched 90 films in the span of 9 months or so was that I saw films I would not otherwise see. Brotherhood, the Korean film is excellent. I also really enjoyed Hong Kong martial arts films. 


It is for this reason that last night I watched the King’s Affection, episode 1.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4zM7jHdVFc


With Netflix and Amazon Prime it is was to get stuck watching US and UK content without thinking of watching content in other languages. Netflix has now made it possible to explore the world of film and television, on an international, cross-cultural scale. You have thirty two languages to choose from. Now you see why I didn’t list them all earlier. 


Last night Netflix removed Young Sheldon from Netflix Switzerland so I was angry. I cancelled my subscription until I noticed the browse by language feature, and then Netflix became as rich and diverse as a film festival. By selecting Russian, Romanian, Telugu or another language you travel through space and time to other cultures, other values, and different ways of seeing the world. 


I had skimmed over Netflix France and noticed that they had a lot of extreme sports content. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_86DhJsW2w


And Finally


Film and Television is a great way to discover new languages, new cultures, and new ways of seeing the world. By making Netflix more international they are helping to bring more people into contact with more cultures. This is good. 

Northern Exposure and Blowing Bubbles
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Northern Exposure and Blowing Bubbles

Byrichard

Northern Exposure is a series about a doctor who finds himself sent to Alaska to be a doctor for a few years. He thinks that it is the middle of nowhere and he has to adapt from enjoying life as a New Yorker to life as a frontier town doctor.  


Early colza in the Canton of Vaud
Early colza in the Canton of Vaud


Although the series is thirty plus years old it still remains relevant today with its exploration of global warming, pollution and more. The characters have existential conversations and in a few episodes we meet the man living in a geodesic dome. He lives in the dome to avoid pollution. He is allergic to aluminium, methane gas and more. 


It’s an interesting episode to watch within the context of the pandemic. People, including me, continue to wear masks when we are indoors. People think that we are strange for doing this. The pandemic isn’t over. We hear all the time about how Long COVID lies dormant, whether people are symptomatic for weeks, months of years after primary infection. It makes sense to wear masks, given that a mask takes a second to wear and take off, but long COVID can be for life. 


Cars coming from Geneva on Easter Friday
Cars coming from Geneva on Easter Friday


The idea of being allergic to the modern world, to various forms of pollution is an interesting one. We read about forever minerals and plastics in drinking water, more and more often, and about air pollution. We have CO2 monitors to keep an eye on pollution. We have maps of pollution around cities, motorways and more. The topic is still relevant today. 


This television isn’t on Netflix or Amazon Prime. It is on Filmin, a film network for experimental films. The content is niche, more diverse and more interesting. as long as you understand Spanish. It has films like Nano of the North, which I find interesting. I know this because when I typed North for Northern Exposure it suggested Nanook of the North, a documentary film I read about regularly when I was studying documentary. 


Modern television series should have people wearing masks to socialise. “Lunatics” like me, who still wear masks, should be normalised in modern television series, to show that being cautious should not be worthy of stigmatisation and prejudice. Northern Explored pollutants in the air. Modern series should explore the reasons for still masking despite the gas lighting of politicians, stating that the pandemic is over, despite the death rate telling a different story. 

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On Film and Television

Byrichard

I like that I can watch days of television series and that I can’t spend 90 minutes watching films. Television series are about people, places and situations and the characters are realistic. In contrast films are superficial, shallow and too full of special effects for a story to be told. The cinema loses out because it is too superficial, too pretentious without offering something contrast at the end of the donated time.

We do donate time to the media we appreciate and gain from.

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Digital television in the UK

Byrichard

1.1 The three months to the end of December 2006 (Q4) saw over 1,000,000 net household conversions to digital television (DTV) in the UK, following on from 800,000 additions in the previous Q3. Growth was driven by another strong quarter for digital terrestrial television (DTT), with total sales of DTT equipment reaching 2.4 million.

1.2 The digital cable and satellite platforms also added over 300,000 households between them during the quarter. This means that 77.2% of households now receive digital television services on their primary set, up 3.9 percentage points from the previous quarter.

1.3 With a further 1.4% of households subscribing to analogue cable, the total number of homes receiving multi-channel television at the end of Q4 2006 stood at 78.6%.

Source

What this means is that narrowcasting is no longer within the grasp of early adopters but slowly getting into the hands of the everyday public. As more people have more choice so their viewing habits and choices will be different.

At the same time television is getting a lot of competition from online resources, especially for programs that are aired in territory months earlier than in others.

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An impressive personality

Byrichard

How many people have the ability to walk out in front of a crowd of hundreds and a televisual audience of several thousand? I don’t think that many, especially not with the confidence of this young girl. If I understood her correctly her name is Johanna and she is from Romania.

I was watching the footage of the Youth Eurovision song contest and when she came on stage I was surprised by the strength of character she displayed at such a young age. Of course, other people were on stage afterward to help with the show. I’ve only watched small fragments of the show but it’s amusing to see young people perform. They have such ease and freedom.

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Television Series

Byrichard

I love watching television series on DVD and straight from the hard disk. You never understand the complexity of the storyline until you spend 12 hours or more watching entire seasons of series like Scrubs or House.

If you look at the series scrubs you’ll get to know the characters very well and they’ll become far more interesting than if you were to watch only an episode a week. That’s probably why they have channels where you run a series every day for a number of days before going back to the beginning again. The best example of that is the Simpsons and Mash. How many times have you seen certain episodes?

Recently I enjoyed watching the series House because it’s analytical nature. You’ve got a patient and you run tests, and lot’s of lumbar punctures. For some reason that seems to be one of the favourites… probably because it’s the most interesting.

When I finished watching a few episodes I saw how greatly I enjoyed the series but more than that how diagnostic you think you become. I don’t mind that you can cure diseases or anything of the sort. I mean that the series is exploring how reason and empirical knowledge can accumulate so that when you see something out of the ordinary you try to understand it. You start to notice smaller things. It’s great for students, It’ll encourage you to diagnose various situations and find solutions.

The most recent series I’ve been watching is Dexter. After I came back from New York I was curious about the program. The adverts had peaked my curiosity therefore I had to find a way by which to access the series. I’ve been watching the series and I’m enjoying it. I watched the first episode on my video iPod, to see just how watchable series were on an i-pod. It’s not that bad. I watched the next two or three episodes on my laptop since that’s more comfortable.

The beauty of holidays is staying in a quiet place and doing what you want, driving around and more. It’s just over a week until I go back to England and the fun starts again.