30 mei 2016

First professional sportsfilm




Triumph of the Will was released in 1935 and became a prominent example of propaganda in film history. Riefenstahl's techniques—such as moving cameras, aerial photography, the use of long focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, and the revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography—have earned Triumph of the Will recognition as one of the greatest propaganda films in history. Riefenstahl helped to stage the scenes, directing and rehearsing some of them at least fifty times. Riefenstahl won several awards, not only in Germany but also in the United States, France, Sweden, and other countries. The film was popular in the Third Reich, and has continued to influence movies, documentaries, and commercials to this day. However, it is banned from being shown in Germany owing to its support for Nazism and its numerous portrayals of the swastika.



 

Amsterdam: Flevopark




In cinematography, the Dutch angle is one of many cinematic techniques often used to portray psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed.

A Dutch angle is a camera shot in which the camera has been rotated relative to the horizon or vertical lines in the shot. The primary use of such angles is to cause a sense of unease or disorientation for the viewer.

 Many Dutch angles are static shots, but in a moving Dutch angle shot the camera can pivot, pan or track along the established diagonal axis for the shot.


26 mei 2016

Durgerdam next to Amsterdam




Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques used to reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure. Generally, it compensates for pan and tilt (angular movement, equivalent to yaw and pitch) of the imaging device, although electronic image stabilization can also be used to compensate for rotation. It is used in image-stabilized binoculars, still and video cameras, astronomical telescopes, and also smartphones, mainly the high-end. With still cameras, camera shake is particularly problematic at slow shutter speeds or with long focal length (telephoto or zoom) lenses. With video cameras, camera shake causes visible frame-to-frame jitter in the recorded video. In astronomy, the problem of lens-shake is added to by variations in the atmosphere over time, which will cause the apparent positions of objects to change.




25 mei 2016

Corfu city




A home movie is a short amateur film or video typically made just to preserve a visual record of family activities, a vacation, or a special event, and intended for viewing at home by family and friends. Originally, home movies were made on photographic film in formats that usually limited the movie-maker to about three minutes per roll of costly camera film. The advent of camcorders that could record an hour or two of video on one relatively inexpensive videocassette, followed by digital video cameras that recorded to flash memory, and most recently smartphones with video recording capability, made the creation of home movies easier and much more affordable to the average person.

The technological boundaries between home-movie-making and professional movie-making are becoming increasingly blurred as prosumer equipment often offers features previously only available on professional equipment.


24 mei 2016

The Pijp area




;The Albert Cuypmarkt is arguably the best-known and busiest outdoor market in Europe. It attracts thousands of visitors every day, and is especially popular on Saturdays. There are over 300 stalls and goods range from fresh produce to clothes and household goods. Prices are among the lowest in Amsterdam. If you like middle eastern food, check out the Bazar, a very spacey lunch café and diner. It's located halfway down the market in an old building and features stunning decorations.


Just a minute away from the Albert Cuyp market, the Sarphati park is the perfect place to relax
>The Sarphati Park is named after the Jewish doctor and philanthropist Samuel Sarphati (1813-1866), whose marvelous 19th century monument dominates the park. This small (it stretches for only two blocks) rectangle of green in the middle of trendy De Pijp area is one of the nicest in Amsterdam.


 


23 mei 2016

Amsterdam riverside




Amateur films were usually shot on 16 mm film or on 8 mm film (either Double-8 or Super-8) until the advent of cheap video cameras or digital equipment. The advent of digital video and computer based editing programs greatly expanded the technical quality achievable by the amateur and low-budget filmmaker. Amateur video has become the choice for the low-budget filmmaker and has boomed into a very watched and even produced industry with the use of VHS and digital video camcorders


Corfu 2016




Camcorders are used in the production of low-budget TV shows if the production crew does not have access to more expensive equipment. Movies have been shot entirely on consumer camcorder equipment (such as The Blair Witch Project, 28 Days Later and Paranormal Activity). Academic filmmaking programs have also switched from 16mm film to digital video in early 2010s, due to the reduced expense and ease of editing of digital media and the increasing scarcity of film stock and equipment. Some camcorder manufacturers cater to this market; Canon and Panasonic support 24p (24 fps, progressive scan—the same frame rate as cinema film) video in some high-end models for easy film conversion.


13 mei 2016

Under water photography




The primary difficulty in underwater camera usage is sealing the camera from water at high pressure, while maintaining the ability to operate it. The diving mask also inhibits the ability to view the camera image and to see the monitoring screen clearly through the camera housing. Previously the size of the video camera was also a limiting factor, necessitating large housings to enclose the separate camera and record deck.. Early video cameras also needed large batteries because of the high power consumption of the system. Current Lithium-ion batteries have long run times with relatively light weight and low volume.

Another problem is the lower level of light underwater. Early cameras had problems with low light levels, were grainy, and did not record much color underwater without auxiliary lighting. Large unwieldy lighting systems were problematic to early underwater videography. And last, underwater objects viewed from an airspace with a flat window, such as the eye inside a mask or the camera inside a housing, appear to be about 25% larger than they are. The photographer needs to move farther back to get the subject into the field of view. Unfortunately that puts more water between the lens and the subject resulting in less clarity and reduced color and light.




Making land



Natuurmonumenten (Dutch Society for Nature Conservation) is going to restore one of the largest freshwater lakes in western Europe by constructing islands, marshes and mud flats from the sediments that have accumulated in the lake in recent decades. These 'Marker Wadden' will form a unique ecosystem that will boost biodiversity in the Netherlands.

Lake Markermeer (700 km2) used to be part of the Dutch Zuiderzee, but is now cut off from the North Sea and rivers by dams, dikes and reclaimed land. The lake has barely any natural shores, and its waters are often extremely turbid as wind and waves churn up the accumulated sediments from the relatively shallow lake floor (2-4 m deep). As a result, fish and bird populations have declined dramatically.



11 mei 2016

Early colourising




Abroad, PathĂ© in particular was working on a colour system – PathĂ©color – that made use of stencilling and/or manual colouring. This was a method that was already known in the field of picture postcards and wallpaper, whereby a stunning colour effect could be achieved by using different templates for each colour.

An example of this kind of colouring can be seen in the first part of the film Hollandse tulpen en klompen. This film is a compilation that consists of two short recordings. The first part is about the Dutch fields of flower bulbs. The first part is in colour, and was almost certainly made by Pathé Frères, most likely by its Dutch subsidiary Kinematograaf Pathé Frères.

This method of colouring was unique in the Netherlands, as the Dutch film companies only used the techniques of tinting and toning; the few film recordings made in the Netherlands that used colour stencilling are all of foreign (probably French) manufacture.

stencils

06 mei 2016

Radiosilence Amsterdam Airport.





During Commemoration Day on the 4th of May, Holland grieves for the people killed in wars with two minutes of silence.

The visual components of a movie are obviously integral to filmmaking; the images that are the hallmark of our medium allow us to see the narrative unfold. However, cinema is also a medium of sound, and how we use the audible elements can drastically change how our audiences respond to our stories.
Since filmmakers essentially build a film out of nothing, compiling raw footage, sound effects, dialog, and music to form a visual story, it might be difficult to recognize that what we don't put in a film is just as important (if not more) as what we do put in.
Silence can actually speak louder to your viewers than a cacophony of sound effects, dialog, and music ever could.



 

05 mei 2016

Fall of rebel angels




Virtual reality or virtual realities (VR), also known as immersive multimedia or computer-simulated reality, is a computer technology that replicates an environment, real or imagined, and simulates a user's physical presence and environment in a way that allows the user to interact with it. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experience, which can include sight, touch, hearing, and smell.

Most up-to-date virtual realities are displayed either on a computer screen or with a special virtual reality headset (also called head mounted display. Furthermore, virtual reality covers remote communication environments which provide virtual presence of users with the concepts of telepresence and telexistence or a virtual artifact (VA) either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse. The immersive environment can be similar to the real world in order to create a lifelike experience.

03 mei 2016

On top off



As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. Allegory has been used widely throughout history in all forms of art, largely because it can readily illustrate complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners.

Writers or speakers typically use allegories as literary devices or as rhetorical devices that convey hidden meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey.

Allegory has an ability to freeze the temporality of a story, while infusing it with a spiritual context. Mediaeval thinking accepted allegory as having a reality underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as the facts of surface appearances

Since meaningful stories are nearly always applicable to larger issues, allegories may be read into many stories which the author may not have recognised. This is allegoresis, or the act of reading a story as an allegory. For instance, many people have suggested that The Lord of the Rings is an allegory for the World Wars, although Tolkien has dismissed this.

01 mei 2016

The next Rembrandt




Virtual artifacts in digital environments


Humans have expanded the existing environment to the virtual domain. Virtual artifacts can be seen as an essential cultural phenomenon in modern society. Virtual artifacts bear meanings and functions and since they are part of the world they affect real world events and people’s lives.

Virtual artifacts have certain similarities to real-life artifacts even though they do not have physical properties in the traditional sense. Simulated virtual objects (photorealistic VA) and environments have a model in the real world; however, depending on the context, an abstract virtual artifact isn’t necessarily dependent on the laws of physics or causality.

Some virtual artifacts are purely abstract in their nature, therefore they can't model real-life objects or phenomena. For example, computer programs or digital user interfaces, while often containing representative components of real-life objects, can't exist in physical terms. These virtual artifacts do not have to be comprehensible to humans at all; they can be created and understood solely by artificial intelligence.

Virtual artifacts can have physical properties (for example color, length) depending on the environment they exist in. These physical properties can be presented and perceived using a certain medium such as a computer screen. On the other hand, virtual artifacts can also contain properties that aren’t perceptible. Due to their immaterial nature they can be flexibly accessed, reproduced and archived — even simultaneously by multiple users.