The Motion Pictures of 2011 by Kidnin

STATS:

• 266 Films
• 2 months of editing
• 4 songs
• The full list of movies and music used, including timecodes!

The 2011 Portfolio by hatinhand

STATS:

• 166 films
•  6 songs
• over a month of uploading and editing
• 40 Untitled Sequences in Avid
• Full list of clips used

2011: The Cinescape by Matt Shapiro

I’ve posted about Matt Shapiro’s work before. This is his sixth year creating these ‘end of the year’ film compilations and I feel his work is still the best but judge for yourself.

STATS:

• 251 films
• 4 songs
• Full list of clips used

We have Erik Bana playing Erik Heller, an Ex-CIA agent raising his daughter, Hanna in a North Finland forest after her mother was murdered by Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). also with the CIA. Hanna who’s played by Saoirse Ronan, is trained by Erik to be a killing machine to prepare her for her next phase … kill Marissa Wiegler. After 16 years of isolation, its time to let her loose into the real world to avenge her mother’s death. Pretty simplistic plot I know but Jim Wright (director) pulls off a phenomenal action thriller despite having a paper thin story.

The film is also a coming of age film for Hanna since she was home schooled all her life, taught multiple languages, and trained to have no fear.  Hanna is a force to be reckoned with but also very much out of her element in the outside world. Slashing throats with a toothpick, she can do. Talking to boys and anyone else for that matter, all brand new. As Harry Knowles points out in his review, “This is Borne Identity as a 16 year old girl story.”

The acting from the three leads: Bana, Blanchett and Ronan are all top notch. They all seem to have their game faces on for this movie. Jim Wright brings style and panache with his choice of camera angles and pacing that keep the audience entertained and on their toes. The whole experience is complete with the addition of the Chemical Brothers electronic beats which have a way of bringing each scene to its natural center. Like Daft Punk did for Tron: Legacy or Trent Reznor did for The Social Network. The Chemical Brothers’ beats just have a way of punctuating every scene and enhancing them. In fact in a recent interview, Jim Wright points out that:

The Chemicals finished the score before shooting began so whenever possible, speakers were set up on the shoot so that the action or movement by the actors could match the rhythm of the score. [Buzzfocus.com]

Action scenes choreographed with purpose, stellar acting from lead and supporting cast, and cinematography shot to keep the audience entertained. This movie is definite must see and already has a place on my Top 10 for 2011. Such a relief from the disappointment that was Sucker Punch. More about that later in the week.

“As the new layout gradually rolls out, current users of Google Profiles will notice that their existing profile will automatically update to the new style.”

If you don’t see the new design changes yet on your profile, check back later. The new Google profiles are much cleaner and all the information is consolidated to one page. In the previous profile page, you had a different tab for the “About Me” section and a separate tab for the ”Contact Info” section. Those have been consolidated to the main column.

Photos

In the previous profile, you could choose between displaying images from Picasa, Flickr or other photo service feed. When you selected one of these options, you had the ability to select a particular album or your most recent photos. The photos would then show up like a slideshow under your name that you could scroll through and click on to view. When you clicked on one of these images, it would take you to the respective site for that image.

In the new profile, you only have the choice of selecting 5 images total from either your picasa web album or your hard drive. We essentially lost some functionality in this update since we have to now manually pick each picture. The nice thing for Google though is when you someone clicks on one of these images, they stay on the profile page and a lightbox appears with the enlarged image.

I see people in the comments on the google blog comparing this 5 picture display to the new facebook profiles and aesthetically this looks just like the 5 picture display on facebook. The major difference being on facebook when you add new facebook pictures, your display will change. For google profiles, you have to manually change the pictures when you want to refresh the look.

Editing Information

The previous screens for editing information was much more cluttered and busy with way too many boxes to look at. The new interface is more user friendly. Now to edit a section, you simply click that section and a edit box appears for just that section. Simple and elegant.

Conclusion

The new design changes were well deserved as far as consolidating the different sections into one and putting the most important information at the forefront. Visually the profiles look more in line with google’s minimalist view that we all love. The one change I’m not so happy about is the static scrapbook area for pictures. I liked the previous functionality where you could choose flickr or other web services as long as it had a feed. This way when you add new pictures to these services, they will show up on your profile. Maybe it’s something google will revisit. Who knows. With these new changes, I might have to reconsider whether I send people to my google profile or my about.me page.

Can you believe it? I couldn’t at first. Now we are getting ever so close to the age of the Jetsons! I tested it out for myself. I tried listening to a wide variety of shows to try and stump the software but all attempts failed. It event detected when I was trying to listen to a commercial. The only thing that stumped IntoNow was a local news broadcast. The app also can not detect movies that have not been broadcasted on TV yet. I tried testing it with Paranormal Activity 2 and it could not detect it.

So what is magic juice for IntoNow? The software uses their own patented indexing technology called soundprint. They can identify what’s being watched down to the invidual episode.  They have an index that covers 140 million minutes of previously aired shows, equivalent to 266 years of video! I have played with the app a couple of times now and the transitions between screens is super smooth. The is also able to find shows within a few seconds which is impressive. Once its found a show, all you have to click is share, post a comment if you want, and click done. The one feature that is lacking that Miso and GetGlue both have is a gaming system. Miso and GetGlue awards you points and badges based on the number of times you checkin to a type of show or some other criteria. I do not see that as an option with IntoNow. They could add it later.

I love the app so far and I’m gonna try playing around with it some more but right now its my goto app for TV Checkins. More screenshots below showcasing more of the features.

What keeps you busy?

I’ve kept myself quite busy since I last posted. I have been working on a couple of local volunteer projects in my town of Beaumont, Texas. I started the Beaumont Chapter of the Social Media Club with a friend of mine named Justin McCullough. This is a club for people in my local area to meet and discuss social media topics like “how to best utilize facebook for my business”, “What is foursquare?”, etc. The club has been going strong and we have monthly lunch meetings every third wednesday.

The other local project I’m working with is the Boomtown Film & Music Festival. I’m helping as a volunteer and also update and maintain their website. Its basically an independent film festival and music festival combined. The festival takes place on February 25-26 and we’ve been hard at work preparing for all the activities. I just did an interview yesterday with a local news station trying to promote the festival.

The last project I’m working on is with my buddy Corey Charette from the Average Joe Show. We are starting a new podcast called SciFi Watcher. Its starts on March 3rd. Corey and I will be discussing the latest scifi news, trailers, and movies. One of the more interesting aspects of the show is our movie and tv “Re-Watch” segment where we will take a movie or show from the past and give our review of it. Make sure and subscribe to our podcast on itunes so you won’t miss an episode.

That pretty much sums up my time sucks for the past few months, that and some console gaming here and there. I hope to keep posting new content weekly. If I slip up be sure to harp on me like my buddy, Larry. Everybody needs a good kick in the butt to jumpstart to action sometimes. By the way, what do you think of the main post image of me? Too creepy? Leave me a comment.

My About.Me Page

My About.Me page is about.me/bryanlee from here you can see all the social networks I belong to, plus a slick interface that I customize to list a biography about me and links to any additional sites as well. You can customize a ton of stuff about the page. The background image, site colors, fonts, and more can all be changed easily through their WYSIWYG editor.

I recorded a video of me walking through all the features of the service. You can see it below.

Sign up and create your own splash page with the service and let me know what you think. Once you have your profile built, post a link to it in the comments below.

I did a guest post today for my buddy, Larry Henry who runs LEHSYS.COM over the Cinchcast or cinch service. The service is an audio-based one that allows you to record audio via a phone number, computer, iPhone or Android phone and share it with all your social networks. Check out the article and let me know what you think:

http://www.lehsys.com/2010/10/social-network-audio-cinch/

A few weeks ago my wife deciding to try cleaning your laptop keyboard without me around. A simple enough task, we have canned air in my office to get dust and dirt out of the keyboard. Well she had one key, the N key that had some dirt she couldn’t get to without taking it off. So she took the key off but ended up breaking in plastic hinges when she tried putting it back on. I came home to a “Babe I think I broke a key on my laptop.” So I was thinking , “Great do I need to buy a know keyboard now?”

A quick google search brought me to LaptopKey.com where they will sell you any key for any laptop (I’m not sure about any but they have a lot). Just did a search on their site for Acer Aspire 5536 and TADA yes we have that keyboard. You just specify which key you need and its $4.99 per key. It ended up being $7.67 total with shipping. Hooray!

So I decided to do a little video of my experience putting the new key in place. It was relatively easy and LaptopKey.com has a video tutorial for every type of keyboard they carry.

Back from my month long hiatus. I’m here with Lee Benoit in this episode to kick it talking about Minecraft. Our latest digital obsession and apparently the internet’s obsession too. We each give our points on what we like most about the game, what can be improved, what’s coming out in the future, and general tips and tricks. Lee tells us about his rap song that he put together about Minecraft and his kick-ass multiplayer server that I’m on the time. Go get the game and come hang out with us on our server. You’ll see me playing as curs0r and Lee is on as Skettalee.

Episode Links

Main Minecraft Site
Crafting Recipes
Update List  for Halloween Release
Avatar Skin Editor – SkinEdit
Someone built a computer!
Crazy stuff people have made in minecraft
Lee’s Minecraft Rap
Lee’s Minecraft Server

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends and have proper rest. Value has a value only if its value is valued.”