Jimmy Zhang

kaajoo: World’s Most Beautiful Abandoned Places Italian product...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:23:04 -0400

World’s Most Beautiful Abandoned Places

Italian product manager and web designer Francesco Mugnai recently added a collection of images to his blog touting some of the most beautiful images of abandoned spots and modern ruins that he’d ever seen. The images Mugnai has captured come from empty castles, shuttered power plants, and dilapidated churches around the world. From a sunken yacht in Antarctica to a forever-closed amusement park in Japan, these images all make up a sort of anti-phoenix; rather than rising as new from the ashes, these husks remain preserved in decomposition, forcing viewers to confront the strange beauty of ruination.

A Letter to Brian McDonald About Joseph Campbell

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:16:00 -0400

Brian,

The genius of Joseph Campbell—you would know much more about the subject than I do. But I love how he broke down stories from every culture and looked at what’s in common.

What I learned about stories from his interviews with Bill Moyers is that symbols and imagery plays a huge role in stories from all cultures. And that certain imagery is universal, they can just have different names. Sometimes an image is universal because its natural properties are universal and commonly observed by people. Take water for instance.

There’s a clip of him talking about the symbolic significance of water—it represents the subconscious or the unconscious. I thought about it and it made sense. If you submerge yourself in water you become unconscious. So the image of water is built from an observation of the natural world.

Therefore you can’t use it whenever you feel like as some writers will have you believe. A story about a girl who drinks water is very different from a story where a girl drinks sulfuric acid.

I used to be confused by when it’s supposed to rain vs when its supposed to be sunny in my stories. Or at what time of day something should take place, or what the general atmosphere should be like. Now I’m clueing in on it, all thanks to Campbell.

Happy writing,

Jimmy

neurosciencestuff: Love of musical harmony is not nature but...

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:15:02 -0500

neurosciencestuff:

Love of musical harmony is not nature but nurture

Our love of music and appreciation of musical harmony is learnt and not based on natural ability – a new study by University of Melbourne researchers has found.

Associate Professor Neil McLachlan from the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences said previous theories about how we appreciate music were based on the physical properties of sound, the ear itself and an innate ability to hear harmony. 

“Our study shows that musical harmony can be learnt and it is a matter of training the brain to hear the sounds,” Associate Professor McLachlan said.  “So if you thought that the music of some exotic culture (or Jazz) sounded like the wailing of cats, it’s simply because you haven’t learnt to listen by their rules.” 

The researchers used 66 volunteers with a range of musical training and tested their ability to hear combinations of notes to determine if they found the combinations familiar or pleasing. 

“What we found was that people needed to be familiar with sounds created by combinations of notes before they could hear the individual notes. If they couldn’t find the notes they found the sound dissonant or unpleasant,” he said.  “This finding overturns centuries of theories that physical properties of the ear determine what we find appealing.” 

Coauthor on the study Associate Professor Sarah Wilson also from the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences said the study found that trained musicians were much more sensitive to dissonance than non-musicians. 

“When they couldn’t find the note, the musicians reported that the sounds were unpleasant, whereas non-musicians were much less sensitive,” Assoc. Prof Wilson said.  “This highlights the importance of training the brain to like particular variations of combinations of sounds like those found in jazz or rock.”  

Depending on their training, a strange chord or a gong sound was accurately pitched and pleasant to some musicians, but impossible to pitch and very unpleasant to others. “This showed us that even the ability to hear a musical pitch (or note) is learnt,” Assoc. Prof Wilson said. 

To confirm this finding they trained 19 non-musicians to find the pitches of a random selection of western chords. Not only did the participants ability to hear notes improve rapidly over ten short sessions, afterward they reported that the chords they had learnt sounded more pleasant – regardless of how the chords were tuned.

The question of why some combinations of musical notes are heard as pleasant or unpleasant has long been debated. “We have shown in this study that for music, beauty is in the brain of the beholder,” Assoc. Prof McLachlan said. The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

headlikeanorange: Aurora australis in Antarctica. (Planet Earth...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 00:21:02 -0400

headlikeanorange:

Aurora australis in Antarctica. (Planet Earth - BBC)

Lessons Learned

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:53:32 -0400

Wow, the last couple weeks have been pretty crazy. From making my first live action production to trying to get folks to vote on it, I definitely had lots of fun, but it wasn’t without lessons learned on the way. Several things I learned by producing my first live action video:

- Learn to Trust your DP. That’s easy because Sun Kim killed it. Check out his other works on the Widescreen Eye Films Vimeo page or his personal YouTube page.

- Talk quicker. That’s one piece of consistent feedback I got on set. In high school I had a civics teacher who marked people down whenever they said ‘um’ in a presentation. But lo and behold, did you know that in the real world, stall words are said to let people know that you’re thinking?

- Have a Get Out the Vote Campaign. Either have an organized way to get out the vote, or don’t enter your videos in a voting contest. Getting people to vote daily is cumbersome at best and an annoyance at worst. It’s selfish and slimy and a good way for Expedia to get their name out there at young filmmakers’ expense. It also strains relationships.

- Have a story. Make people care about your video. People can be doing anything in the world at the moment, why do they have to stop and watch your video? Nobody is obligated to give you anything—views, likes, favorites—you have to earn it. Create something compelling emotionally.

- Coverage. Have more coverage and B Rolls. You’ll thank yourself in the edit.

- Chill out more. I definitely had a hard time relaxing on set—for obvious reasons—but definitely stay loose and cool. The loose and cool version of me is definitely more fun to be around than the anxiety-stricken panic-ridden version of me, which is what I was to some extent at certain times.

So, I lost the vote campaign and didn’t get to Top Ten, and I’m not sure where my life is headed after this—but it was definitely fun to make the Find Your Love video. Once again, here it is: https://vimeo.com/44617663

Just imagine it as a love story, without the Expedia branding :)

Find Your Love Expedia, feat We Could Happen by AJ...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 08:36:08 -0400

Find Your Love Expedia, feat We Could Happen by AJ Rafael!

Please check out this short film I made for Expedia’s contest, featuring “We Could Happen” by AJ Rafael!

When I figured out that I had a concrete story to tell for Expedia’s contest, I immediately thought of We Could Happen—I approached AJ through mutual acquaintances, showed him the storyboards, and got his ok. Through three days of rigorous shooting and a tight budget, we finally got the finished product after a make-or-break editing session.

Now my video is done and we just need votes!

We need a top ten finish to be considered by judges. Unfortunately, we are currently hanging around 10th - 11th place. Please support AJ’s music & vote for it here: http://tinyurl.com/86dxwap

Voting happens daily til the 9th!

Win or lose, I know that this is just another stepping stone in my film career. But now that it’s made, we might as well take it all the way, right? So please vote daily & share! Thanks so so much! We could happen!

-Jimmy Zhang

aworthyendeavor: sci-fact: Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ...

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 23:12:35 -0400

aworthyendeavor:

sci-fact:

Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) was published 325 years ago today, July 5th, 1687. It is justly regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science, laying down the foundations of classical mechanics and revolutionizing applied mathematics.

One of the most important single works in human history.

Attention everyone, AJ Rafael’s music could be used as...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 23:08:00 -0400

Attention everyone, AJ Rafael’s music could be used as Expedia’s web commercial!

Please check out this short film I made for Expedia’s contest, featuring “We Could Happen” by AJ Rafael!

We need a top ten finish to be considered by judges. Unfortunately, we are currently hanging around 10th - 11th place. Please support AJ’s music & vote for it here: http://tinyurl.com/86dxwap

Voting happens daily til the 9th!

-Jimmy Zhang

weandthecolor: Hands in Hand - Drawing The illustration by...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 05:10:19 -0400

weandthecolor:

Hands in Hand - Drawing

The illustration by Julien Poisson started as a little hand study, but after a while it was getting to a hand made out of other hands.

via: WE AND THE COLOR
Facebook // Twitter // Google+ // Pinterest

The Godfather : A Story Breakdown From Brian McDonald

Mon, 28 May 2012 01:16:08 -0400

Brian McDonald, “The Godfather,” and how to find the Theme

Brian McDonald is the author of Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate, and The Golden Theme: How to make your writing appeal to the highest common denominator.

   He is an award winning screenwriter who has taught his craft at several major studios, including Pixar, Disneyand Industrial Light & Magic. His award-winning short filmWhite Face has been shown all over the USA.
   I had the privilege of asking him some questions back in January. That interview will be published here shortly. Today we’re focusing on a question I asked him about Theme and everybody’s favourite movie, The Godfather. Is the theme of that movie, Family is all?
   Instead of simply answering my question, he went one better and answered a question I’ve been asking for years: How can you know what is the theme of any given movie? _______________________________________________________________________

The way to find a story’s theme is to look for clues as to what the story is proving. Think of the three acts this way:

Act One: The Proposal

The proposal is where the theme of the piece is first introduced in some way. For instance you might introduce a pacifist character who believes there is never a cause for violence. Or you may have a character who strongly disbelieves in anything supernatural.
In The Godfather we are introduced right away to the idea of Justice-versus-Revenge. It’s the very first thing that happens in the film. We learn that even in this world of gangsters and crime, there is a sense of what is just. Marlon Brando, the Godfather, tells us explicitly the difference between justice and revenge when a man, whose daughter was nearly raped and was beaten so bad that she was hospitalized, asks the Godfather to kill the men who did this. The Godfather refuses to kill the men because the girl did not die—that would not be justice, he says. But he will hurt these men as much as the girl was hurt.

That is not justice. Your daughter is still alive.

Then we are introduced to the rest of the gangster family—the Corleone family. We meet Michael Corleone, one of the sons. He is not part of the family business. He must be squeaky clean for the story to work, so when we meet him, he is in uniform—he is a war hero—and he is with his girlfriend, who is beyond squeaky clean.
Michael tells her a story about his father and a violent threat he made to get a man to sign a contract. Michael says, “My father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.” The girlfriend almost can’t believe what she’s heard. Then Michael says, “That’s my family, Kay, it’s not me.”

That’s my family, Kay. It’s not me.

So we know who Michael is, we know who his family is, we know the rules for this world, and we have an idea that this piece will explore the idea of Justice-versus-Revenge. And we know that this family is close—they love each other.

More things happen in Act One of this film, but you get the idea.

Act Two: The Argument or Proof

In Act Two, you set out to explore the thematic premise of the first act. You argue—prove or disprove—that theme. The very first thing we learned in the story isthat revenge is not good. That’s one aspect of the theme. But there is also Michael’s statement, “That’s my family, Kay, it’s not me.” Now Michael must be forced, by the story, to confront that idea. Is it him?

Michael’s father is shot in a gang hit. He does not die, though he is badly hurt and is hospitalized. Michael goes to see his father and finds out that some men are coming to finish him off. To save his father’s life, he moves his bed into another room to hide him from the would-be killers.

Just lie here, Pop. I’ll take care of you now. I’m with you now.

This is the beginning of Michael becoming more like the rest of his family. It starts off innocently enough. Most of us would do the same thing. This is his father and he loves him.
Then, at the hospital, Michael is roughed up pretty good by a dirty cop who works with the rival gangsters.

Take a hold of him. Stand him up. Stand ’im up straight.

Michael is angry and decides he wants to kill these guys who did this to his father. Notice, how like the girl in the opening of the story, the Godfather is alive, but badly hurt and hospitalized. These two characters are in the very same condition. But what does Michael do—seek justice? No, he seeks revenge. He kills the men responsible and sets off a violent gang war.

… a guarantee: No more attempts on my father’s life.

He flees to Sicily to avoid being killed himself, but the retaliatory violence reaches him even there and kills his young wife.
There was something wrong in seeking revenge rather than justice—it brought even more violence.

Act Three: Conclusion

This is where we see what the other acts have added up to. What the third act of this film asks about Michael is, Who is he now? Does he learn the lesson that revenge isn’t worth it, or not?

No, he doesn’t. He orders a ruthless killing spree of his enemies.

Do you renounce Satan? I do renounce him.

In the end, Michael is corrupted. His statement, “That’s my family, Kay, it’s not me,” is no longer true.
So you ask yourself, what does the story prove? Does it prove Family is all? I don’t think it does.
You can express a theme in many ways, even with the same story. The purpose of drama is to prove a point through the use of emotion, so sometimes themes can be hard to put into exact words. But a few ways to state this theme might be:

It is better to seek justice than revenge.
Revenge corrupts.
Revenge brings pain to the avenger.

Or, if you word it in character terms, you might say something like:

Anyone can be corrupted.
No one knows what he is capable of becoming, given the right circumstances.

I’m sure there are more ways to word it, but whatever you think the theme is, it has to be something that the characters and events prove, through the movement of the story.

Source: Adelaide Screenwriter

Asian American Underachievers?

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:37:00 -0400

Asian American Underachievers?

"Oh, God, Tommy, isn’t it pathetic—isn’t it awful? That these poor people should..."

Sat, 12 May 2012 19:21:05 -0400

“Oh, God, Tommy, isn’t it pathetic—isn’t it awful? That these poor people should hang round me and shout “God bless you, Charlie,” and want to touch my overcoat, and laugh, and even shed tears—I’ve seen ‘em do it—if they can touch my hand. And why? Why? Because I made ‘em laugh. Because I cheered ‘em up. Cheered ‘em up! Ugh! Say, Tommy, what kind of filthy world is this—that makes people lead such wretched lives that if anybody makes ‘em laugh they want to kiss his overcoat, as though he were Jesus Christ raising ‘em from the dead? Eh? There’s a comment on life.”

- Charlie Chaplin’s Letter to his friend Thomas Burke, from Chaplin by Stephen Weissman, M.D.

hitrecordjoe: CALLING ALL VIDEO EDITORS / VISUAL...

Sun, 06 May 2012 20:22:51 -0400

hitrecordjoe:

CALLING ALL VIDEO EDITORS / VISUAL ARTISTS!

==

THE REGULARITY #69 (05/05/12)

==

EXCITING NEWS!: Marke, our Creative Director, has some big news regarding the expansion of The Made Shop and what it means for hitRECord. You can expect all kinds of new updates to the site as well as some killer new designs! Also, please give a warm welcome to Kimberly and Adam of The Made Shop!

VIDEO EDITORS: Your Fall Formal Live Edits are coming out great. Dr. Gory, our Editor, has some direction for how we can take these foundational edits to the next level by adding more footage and turning these cuts into short films!

VISUAL ARTISTS: With our Tiny Book of Tiny Stories Vol. 2 collaboration well underway, we want to know what your favorite contributions are. Make an album of the stories and illustrations you think should go in our book and contribute your selections to the collab.

==

Thanks Again!

<3

J

Your inspirational quote of the day.

Thu, 03 May 2012 14:42:32 -0400

Your inspirational quote of the day.

NFFTY, Working with ISA, Other Cool Stuff

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:30:20 -0400

NFFTY 2012

My short film, The Boy and The Tree, will be screening at NFFTY. I will also be there, shaking hands, talking about cinema, and networking.

You can catch my film here:

https://vimeo.com/39474454

ISA - International Secret Agents

ISA is a concert performance group put together by Far East Movement, KevJumba, Wong Fu Productions, etc.

I’ve recently worked on a video for them, check it out: http://youtu.be/fmAIJCvNs_I

SIS Productions

SIS Productions is the longest running Asian American theater act in the country. I recently edited two videos for them:

http://youtu.be/7zWtP1E3b1E

http://youtu.be/22qykRH71Ig

My goal was to edit their interviews in a funny way while conveying what SIS is all about.

Busy busy!

"Lazaridis, who shifted from circuit boards to pagers to BlackBerrys, continually reexamined the..."

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:02:19 -0400

“Lazaridis, who shifted from circuit boards to pagers to BlackBerrys, continually reexamined the original mystery and sought out new mysteries as well. “In a business,” he says, “no matter how good the process is, no matter how much you’ve got it down pat, no matter how much money you’re making, how efficient, you have to always go back and say `Is there something fundamentally wrong with the way we’re seeing the market? Are we dealing with incomplete information?’ Because that’s what’s going to get you: it’s not necessarily that some young whippersnapper’s going to come up with some better idea than you. They’re going to start from a different premise and they’re going to come to a different conclusion that makes you irrelevant””

- Amazon Kindle: The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage (via ninakix)

“Finally, you’re thinking like a real director”

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 04:49:23 -0400

ICG: As a director, what has your relationship been with the DPs you’ve worked with?

Steven Zaillian: To say that working with Conrad Hall was a great experience is an understatement. I know how lucky I was to have had that opportunity. He was very special, and so was our working relationship, which was certainly a partnership. He was not someone who liked predetermination. Having a storyboard in hand wasn’t something that would please him. He loved discovering things – even a film’s overall style – as he went along. He often talked about the magic of “happy accidents,” and we had many of those. I’m the same way. I always have a plan – both overall and scene-to-scene – but it’s more of a backup plan, because more often than not, I would discover exactly how a scene should be shot after its rehearsal in the morning. Of course, Conrad was so accomplished he could get away with such creative improvisation. Not everyone can.

ICG: Can you give us an example?

Steven Zaillian: A few weeks into Searching for Bobby Fischer we had to shoot a scene in a large auditorium. Presuming it would be covered somewhat traditionally, Conrad spent the morning lighting what would be the master. It took hours, and, as I waited out in the hallway, crew members would come and go out the door allowing me a slight glimpse of all the work going on inside. Conrad eventually came out and said, “Okay, we’re ready.” I said, “You’re going to hate me for this since you just spent three hours lighting it, but we don’t need to shoot in there, we can do the whole scene in one shot from right here, seeing only a sliver of the action in the auditorium as the boy and his father come out that door. That and the sound of what’s going on in there will tell the story.” He stared at me, and after a few moments smiled and said, “Finally, you’re thinking like a real director.”

SIS Productions: An Exercise In Cutting

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:36:00 -0400

Recently I had the fortune of working with Sis Productions, one of the longest running Asian American theater acts in the country. Here’s a quick little video I cut for them to promote their last episode of Sex in Seattle:

Not sure if I can say anything more about this. Obviously my goal was to communicate to my audience how vital SIS Productions is to Asian American theater without being boring. Hopefully I did that.

One of the videos I used for reference was Flickering Images, by my mentor Brian McDonald.

Hopefully we can all spot the resemblance, despite the different moods between my clip and Brian’s short film.

"Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because..."

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:29:30 -0400

““Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.”
-Dave Eggers”

- (via wsefilms)

the-star-stuff: Saturn’s Glorious Rings Up Close

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:27:28 -0400

the-star-stuff:

Saturn’s Glorious Rings Up Close