30 minutes of Ambient Soundscape Music, that has synths, sound effects, and metal guitar as a YouTube video.
Shows a still image of Starships in a landscape, and it is raining. Visually nothing happens for the 30minutes of the video, the music does.
This is a very extended variation of the themes we have put in our Spirograph Album. The Reaper Project looks like this:
Being 30 minutes, rather than 3 minutes needs a change of perspective on "something new should happen now" in the music. This is the first time I have done this, so I am not a seasoned professional of long Ambient music tracks. Or is that Soundscape? Unlike the Tangerine Dreams Zeit album, where absolutely nothing happens, this has little melodic fragments that keep coming back. So maybe I should say it is Melodic Ambient rather than just Ambient. Is that a thing? or did I just invent that? Closer to music than just a changing background soundscape.
The starships on the landscape was something I modelled and rendered in Animation Master in the 1990. I did this HD image when I rebuilt this PC a year ago. I used MOHO Pro 12 Animation system to render out 8000 frames of the still adding a particle system rain.
Three of the 10 minute raining starship clips, the music, and Megacurve logo and text were put together in Movie Studio and rendered as the 29minute 59 second movie that I uploaded to YouTube.
Will anyone see it? A couple of friends will.
Have put the sound track in our Spirograph album on Bandcamp, but had to break it up into NotZeitish - Part A and NotZeitish - Part B as there is a filesize limit per individual file, and a single 30minute file is over that.
What is NotZeitish? Zeit, is German for time, and the name of one of the first Ambient albums. An album where absolutely nothing happens. Huge held chords, electronic noises and soundscape. No melodies to mention. An album that changes the ambience of a room you play it in, but you don't actually listen to it, but rather a background sound. So Not Zeit-ish, is that these things, even if large parts are soundscapes, they do have melody fragments and some things do happen sometimes, even heavy metal guitar power chord riffs and lead licks.
That Hollywood Hype Machine was in over drive hyping up the Barbie and Oppenheimer releases.
Suspiciously so.
Recent releases don't seem to have done too well, so I guess a Nolan film, even though Tenet didn't do well, was what they set their hopes on. The subject matter also has a YOU ES AY, YOU ES AY, YOU ES AY, aspect to it for that additional tribalism push. Americans may have a different drive to see these films.
Having seen all the documentaries about the Manhattan Project many years ago, I found the hype strange and actually inappropriate. So the head guy may have been conflicted, but really, many others got it worse from the results.
So I haven't seen the film, and if/when it is released in Japan is unknown, due to the subject matter, which is a very real issue in Japan. And rightly so.
But the pre-release reviews were too vague and gushing and all included YOU MUST SEE THIS! Maybe a condition of seeing the film early to include that, and keep their status as a critic in this new world of streaming? They refer to IMAX, in camera effects and the brilliance of the director.
The Oppenheimer Trailer makes the movie look like it is actually about a certain aspect of the story. In reality, the movie isn't about that at all, but the reviews didn't mention any of that. It is more:
A character study of the man, his relationships and security clearance. The IMAX makes those close ups and the acting especially obvious. Academy Awards expected for many actors in the film.
Wasn't expecting much from Barbie, but from all accounts, that may have the more significant cultural impact. Barbie went to the moon before women were allowed to have credit cards. Very cleaver, funny and has a bigger box office than Oppenheimer.
Not planning on seeing any of these films at the moment. But the more I hear about them, the more that will change. Probably Barbie first, it start August 11th here.
I haven't seen Nolan's Dunkirk, critics call his best film. I have issues with his films I have seen though. Rewatched Interstellar again just a couple of weeks ago. It looks great, but plot/ story/ emotion issues annoy me about it. Inception, looked great with the bending city and all, but the dream, within a dream, within a dream didn't get me on board, and kicked me out of the world he made for being just random rules and illogical. Nolan may be brilliant, but there seem to be more than a few that see "non-linear time" or "big science" and that automagically makes the films more highly rated than they should be. But hey, they are just Hollywood Entertainment, and not important.
The RED SCARE still seems very much a thing in America, where even what is actually universally available in the rest of the world, HEALTH CARE FOR ALL, is considered by many in America to be Communism,,,
But having said all that, the crowds have flocked to these films, so That Hollywood Hype Machine has done its job.
Update Aug 9: After the initial Hype blitz, there ARE other views now. This guy is also Australian, and I have a feeling that has something to do with the different viewpoint. I've had Americans living in Japan, where I do, tell me American POV == Western POV, and I just know that isn't true much of the time. He states his issues with all of Nolan films, and I have the same issues. He also still recommends you go see it, though even though it is overrated, as it is still better than most films Hollywood makes.
Watched this documentary called Hans Zimmer: Hollywood Rebel a few weeks ago. I recorded it from the TV broadcast. Watched it a few times since.
A segment from it:
I knew of Hans Zimmer quite early, as he was a customer of the Fairlight Instruments CMI I was involved in manufacturing then designing, but I see I really hadn't followed or seen all the movies he has done. I did see DUNE Part 1 in the cinema here, but all I remember was how loud some of it was! Re-watching the DVD has been a different experience.
One of the reasons he became one of "the" Hollywood composers is that producers and directors like talking to him. His manner/personality is very relatable. If he had been withdrawn, he would not have had the same success, no matter how great a composer he was.
Have found his documentary quite inspiring. Play is important. The techniques he came up with, the rather "simple" approaches. A pulse for time, using only 2 or 3 notes, building by adding layers and repeating, octave notes rather than chords and sound design. He won an Academy Award for a soundtrack that is obviously Heavy Metal Guitars, Bagpipes and a women screaming at you, and that is really something.
He started very early with the "do it all with synthesizers myself" , of the home music producer. He gave the directors his "quick synth demos", and they didn't have to wait for it to be recorded with an orchestra, like most other composers did. All very normal for us home recording people in 2023.
Han's success didn't come without a cost though. This part was particularly unexpected.
Hans soundtracks are said to be more textural than melodic. Been listening to the DUNE Part 1 soundtrack. Not the music only soundtrack, but the DVD with the sound effects and dialog. Does all suite the movie, no doubt about it, but I do like a John Williams melody.
I use much of the same techniques myself compositionally for my few soundtracks. Everything is ad libbed play. Nice to know it really works, and isn't just an unsophisticated hack I stumbled across by myself.
Have made an album of 11 (at the time of writing this blog post) very short soundtrack like themes, and put it on Bandcamp.
I have also made a few animations using these, such as this one.
All for my own entertainment of course. Not world changing in anyway, but I like them and that is all that really matters.
Concept art is a long held interest of mine. The pen and dry marker designs in the first draft page of the comic are my own originals. I learnt the standard techniques in the late 1980s and have often found them very useful.
Concept design that is just pen, or with pen and marker is what I expect to focus on, so it will be mostly for older films and TV, rather than the more modern computer based movie or game concept design, that is all finished to a high (unnecessarily so?) standard.
Starting with designers like Ron Cobb, Syd Mead and Moebius. But there are many, such as Derek Meddings and Mike Trim ( doing all those SUPERCAR, FIREBALL XL5, THUNDERBIRDS, CAPTAIN SCARLET, UFO designs in the 1960s), Harry Lange for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Walter Jefferies for original Star Trek.
Planning to cartoon the artists too, but many Japanese mangaka and designers have gone to a lot of trouble to remain anonymous. The GHOST IN THE SHELL mangaka kept his real name secret for the longest time, but still getting a reference image of Masanori Oda is difficult. Some that haven`t:
I have a fare collection of books on the subject, just a few shown here:
But I am very aware scanning and using artwork is a copyright violation (even if my comic is likely to be only seen by 12 people total, ever), so I am thinking along the lines of my HEAVY METAL GARAGE comic, and do my own drawings of the works, "in the style of"...
Like my other comics, I will make a .cbr comic file for it and make it a free download. Comics are just something I want to do, at the moment at least.
So what is the narrative thread through out it that will want you to keep reading it? Just the history of those times? We will see.
ブラタモリ(BURATAMORI) is an NHK program where sunglass wearing ,TV celebrity, TAMORI and his assistant (who changes every couple of years, and is a young lady announcer) walk around towns in Japan discussing what part it played in history and how it may have geologically formed, and other pertinent information. I see it as a domestic tourism boaster for the towns mentioned. I usually find it interesting.
Many towns were formed by a Daimyo, a powerful local ruler, Shogun or such significant figures. They always talk about the figure, but I find it difficult to keep in my mind the point in history they are talking about, as they say start of Edo, rather than 1603. To make it easier to follow, I have started studying the relevant Japanese history, as this is taught at school here, and without it, you miss cultural references everyone else knows. Who the main powerful figures were, in what era.
A recent episode about the Japanese JAXA Rocket Base on the island Tanegashima, went on about 1543, when Portuguese introduced guns to Japan there, and later, their manufacture, and of course, another domestic battle, or two.
Last weekends BURATAMORI #239 was at the location of 関ヶ原の戦い (Sekigahara no tatakai) , the Sekigahara Battle. Unsurprisingly it was at Sekigahara in Gifu.
This was the biggest battle in Feudal Japan with around 7,500 soldiers each side, in the middle of the country, as the Tokugawa army from the east, clashed with the Ishaida western army. Each army was composed of various helping clans.
The battle field was in a valley on a main route east to west, and the show looked at all the significant locations, conveniently marked with flags for tourists.
The battle was over in a few hours, with one of Ishaida's support clans swapping to the Tokugawa side part way. The Ishaida family and supporting clans were mostly executed in the period following and the resulting Tokugawa Shogun started the Edo period of history and ruled for 260 years, 1603 till 1868.
This book has helped a bit, but when you need details, I end up in Wikipedia. It isn't consistent with dates and the many many figures mentioned need additional info. I write additional notes with dates in my copy. So, Siege of Osaka was June 1615, when Tokugawa attacked Osaka Castle to destroy the remaining Toyotomi clan.
