Toronto's Film School

Students that go to the Toronto Film School (University) learn to do everything on their own, learn the technical aspects first, and then hands-on. In front of the camera, behind the camera, editing, they learn it all. TFS (Toronto Film Festival) is considered to be "Canada’s finest film school". Students prepare for the competitive industry that they are going to have to face after graduating.
http://torontofilmschool.ca/

Film Production
This course is a five terms school programs in which you learn everything there is to know about screenplays, storyboards, lighting...

TV production
TFS has the best equipment possible for the technical aspect of learning TV production. During the first term, students learn the business aspect. Dealing with the pressure and learn to predict eventual problems. TV production has 6 terms and graduates can find employment in stations and/or networks.

Recording Arts technology
This course is a 5 term study made for students who love music, recordings... Students can find employment in movies, television commercials...

Computer Animation
This course is to learn everything about Graphic Art and is perfect for people who love Visual Arts. The student's final project is a video of one to two minutes, showing what they can do best. They learn 3D animation, Figure Sculpture, Special Effects to create on software and many many other interesting things.

Post Production
This is another great opening for Film and television students who are looking forward to produce. As a project, they produce a short film all on their own, to have a good training before employment.
Acting for Film, Television, and theatre
This class is very handy, you learn to get in the skin of a character, learn to imitate accents, anything that could be helpful for an actor in the future.

2D Animation and Comic Art
This is a course where you learn to make your own professional portfolio. You also learn helpful things such has "life Drawing" and "Character Design".

This is avideo from TFS called "the robbery"

Another really reputated school would be the Vancouver Film school, where they release a DVD of students work every years.
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A movie lover's best friend

Search no further. The website I recommend for anybody who needs information on a movie is IMDB (Internet Movie Database). What you can find in there is beyond imagination. Statistically, fifty seven million of people go on IMDB every month. Not only can you find the cast and crew of a movie, photos, movies in box office, and DVD releases, but you can find lots and lots more. You can have updates about every movie released on DVD, Blu Ray and HD DVD's. You can have news and updates on actors and movies. There is also a feature that allows you to have a list of all your favorite movies.

Are you wondering if you will like a movie? IMDB offers tag lines of the movie, trailers, the genre, the actors, the plot, quotes and best of all; user comments. A really cool thing about this website is the "spoiler button". If you don't really want to know what it’s about, but you only want to know the cast in the movie, the button says scroll over for details, so as long as you don't scroll over, you can be kept in the dark, until viewing the movie.

You can find a movie's official site through the movie database, parental recommendations, synopsis and even the release date of the movie. What happens when you go see a movie, and you hear a song that you like but you don't know the name of the song? On IMDB, you search the name of the movie and then find the soundtrack listing. You can find the runtime of a movie, the language and the country it was made in.

Let's say you don't remember the exact name of an actor, in search, there is an option called "Approx matches". As a test, I tried to type in Matt Diamond, instead of Matt Damon. The system found the proper spelling for me! IMDB has fun features like a different poll question every day, a daily trivia, who was born on today's date and a daily quote from someone famous (actor, producer...). IMDB is in three different languages: English, Italian and Dutch. This website has been up since 18 years, they are constantly hiring new staff. Users rank movies all the time and you get to see the top 250 movies from their perspective. I worship this website!

http://www.imdb.com

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America's Great Loss

This blog is all about Bernie Mac. For all of you who didn’t know, he died recently, on august 9 2008. Bernie Mac or Bernard Jeffrey McCullough was an actor, writer and producer as well. He was born in Chicago and became a "stand-up comedian". He gained his last name "Mac" from being the host of a TV show named Midnight Mac. He began to be popular late in his life. In 2000, Bernie Mac was missing his career as a stage comedian and he toured as part of the "original Kings of Comedy". A year later, Bernie was signed for his own show that became a huge hit. The "Bernie Mac Show" aired for five years. The show won an Emmy and the show was rated number forty-seven out of fifty as the "greatest TV dads of all time".

One of his stand-ups was number seventy-two in "100 greatest stand-ups of all time". Bernie Mac had a daughter in 1978 named Je'Niece. In 2005, Bernie was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis but that was not his cause of death. On July 24th this year, he went to the hospital and the doctors told him he had pneumonia. He died from a "Complication" of this pneumonia. At fifty years old, he died. Six thousand people assisted at his funeral. Samuel L. Jackson was there as well. For those of you who wonder where you might have seen him, here are some movies he played in.


Mini Filmography
*Booty Call - 1997
*Ocean's Eleven - 2001
*Bad Santa - 2003
*Ocean's twelve - 2004
*Guess Who - 2005
*Ocean's thirteen - 2007



Uncensored, lots and lots of swear words, you've been warned.

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Golden Popcorn

The MTV Movie Awards is another type of awards to congratulate actors and producers for their hard work in a movie. The good thing about this award is that the viewers of the show get to decide who wins by voting in different categories. The movie awards were not broadcast live before 2007. The host used to do all his monologues at once, and then all the groups would play their song. This was is easier to control things such as profanities. This changed in 2007 when they played it live for the first time ever. They have unique categories such as: Best Villain, best summer movie so far, best fight, sexiest performance, and my personal favorite; Best kiss.

MTV Movie Award's official website : http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2008/


2007 and 2008 best kiss
(Hey, I'm a girl after all!)
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The best picture possible

Digital cinema or D-cinema is the most advanced picture quality so far. HD DVD and Blu Ray started to put pressure on the theatres, because the picture quality was better at home, than at the theatres, something they couldn't let happen. To have a great "theatre experience", a movie needs a good quality image and sound. To make a movie in digital, you must follow the DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative Standards. DCI is collaboration with the 6 "major studios" which are MGM, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Lions gate Entertainment, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. 2K and 4K high definition images are used in those movies.

In 1996, 400 theatres started using 2K projectors. Digital movies are more expensive than the normal projection, so they will usually make 3D movies and Blockbuster hits on Digital. Inside Man was the first digital movie released.
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Film Producers

A producer has many important jobs, they are really busy persons. They basically have to negotiate the creation of a movie, hire important crew and manage money raising. In the 1950's, the job of a Film Producer wasn't as important as it is now. The power they now have used to belong to the directors. But the "Film distribution" changed in the 1970's and the responsibilities began to switch back to the producers. They have a lot of control over the making of a movie, and they can fire personnel such as the Director himself.

An executive producer is a CEO of a film studio such as MGM. A Co-producer reports to the executive and is involved more on the field and on the set.

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Scene 1, Take 101, Action!

The Clapperboard is a tool used to help putting scenes together. If an action takes place in a park then at a house, and then at the park again, chances are instead of doing the scenes in order, they will film all the scenes in one place at the same time. The Clapper helps sort the scenes. Thy used to be made like a chalkboard, but nowadays, we see more and more electronic ones called Smart Slates. To make sure that the clapboard is seen under any lighting, the clapper has black and white stripes. Someone also usually repeat what is on the clapboard too, like "Scene 5, take 2, Action". Some movies put the clapboard put the clapboard upside down at the first and last scene, so they are easier to spot.
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ROAR!

MGM's history
MGM stands for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM is an American company and his primary source of revenue is movies and TV shows of all kind. MGM was created in 1924, and has been the result of purchasing Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.

During the end of the silent films, and World War two, MGM was the wealthiest film company, playing about one new movie a week. During the great depression, it’s been said that MGM was the only movie company unaffected monetarily by the great depression. Its founder Louis B. Mayer died 1957. His death created a lot of problems, and the company suffered from its lost. The company started to lose money for the first time in 34 years.

In 2005, MGM sold his rights to the blue ray discs for 5 billion dollars, and two of them were used to pay MGM's fine. In 2006, MGM announced a comeback in the movie industry, because for many years after Mayer's death, MGM's revenues were mostly from MGM's Grand hotel. One of their big recent movies is most definitely Casino Royale.

MGM's lions
Before becoming "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer", Goldwyn Pictures Corporation’s mascot was a parrot. Since 1924, the lion became Metro's official symbol. There have been 5 different lions used over the years.The first lion's name was "Slats". He was used during 4 years, from 1924 to 1928. Jackie was the lion number two and looked almost exactly like Slats. She was in the beginning of every movie from 1928 to 1956.Tanner was the third lion, used from 1934 to 1956, ands was the new era of films, in the Technicolor films.The fourth lion had an unknown name and was used for about two years.The fifth and last one so far is named Leo (like the lion constellation) and he is still used today.

MGM Grand
I got the privilege of visiting the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas. It’s a beautiful hotel, with an enormous lion's glass cage where visitors can see them all day long. How many hotels can say that they have living lions in it??? This hotel has a total of 9 lions living together. That hotel is also the permanent home of the "Cirque du Soleil's KA", an amazingly well done show.

The hotel MGM is situated on the famous Las Vegas Strip and is listed as the second largest hotel all around the world. It has been purchased by Kirk Kerkorian and is one of the few hotels with a floor number thirteen. The hotel has 30 floors, five outdoor pools and a soothing waterfall.The construction was finalized in 1993. To celebrate the last of the construction, MGM had a ceremony and let go of 5000 balloons, each one of them with a gift certificate in it for a free night in the hotel.

The hotel had the wizard of Oz theme back then. There were statues of Dorothy, the scarecrow, Tin man and the Lion. In Las Vegas, big hotels are somewhat called cities. They are calling themselves "the city of entertainment". In the hotel, there was even a yellow brick path road. In 1996, after three years, they changed the style of the hotel: The "Oz Buffet" got his name changed for the "Grand Buffet". Also, the hotel's entrance was a lion's mouth, but superstitious Chinese tourists wouldn't go to the hotel or would choose another entrance because it’s been said that "entering the mouth of a lion is bad luck".

They changed the main entrance to satisfy as much customers as possible. Now the hotel has a more sophisticated look and still has a great success Below is the link to tyhe official MGM Grand Website.
http://www.mgmgrand.com/

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The five lions over the years.

Travel in the past

Silent films or Age of Silver Screen are a really important part of entertainment history. A silent presentation doesn't have dialogues, spoken by the actors. The first film was made in 1888, which started the silent era. Movies were the new thing and they presented many flaws. They were easily destroyable and the speed of the show presented was often too slow, or too fast. If a movie is presented too slowly, the film would set on fire. If the movie would be presented too fast, people would get dizzy and complain. To get information on what's going on, subtitles would appear between scenes.

Music was as important as the acting; it gave an emotion to the public. The movie wasn't recorded on the feature, but played on the spot. Usually theatres would hire an orchestra, but in small towns, they had one pianist playing. Many musicians, relying on the silent films got monetary problems after the appearance of "talkies". Some movies were played fast on purpose, in comedies, to make a style. The movie in the silent era that made the most benefits made 10 000 000$ It was called "The birth of a Nation". Because of the product used in that time, it’s been said that about 75% of those movies got destroyed. It’s really to show an emotion without words, and it’s inspiring.
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This a silent film of the popular Charlie Chaplin.

Bollywood?

"Bollywood" is a term used to talk about the film industry of India. Although its not the whole Indian industry, it possesses most of it. Bollywood is an independent movie company, so they have their own way of doing things.

The first Bollywood movie was made in 1931. In the 1950s, the company started its first color motion picture. In the years 200, Bollywood really started to set its place into the movie industry. Places all around the world started to notice Indian made movies. Movies from Bollywood are mostly musicals. They specialise in many movie genres, like romance, action and musicals all in one. The singing is usually made by professional singers rather than the actors. They used to prohibit kissing in their movies. Bollywood reflects India's beliefs, because now the world is more open minded the show "dating movies", and used to show only "arranged marriages movies".

To be an actor/actress is as hard in Bollywood as anywhere else. It's very rare that actors with no Indian background get hired.

The talking in those movies is almost always recorded in the studios. The actors speak over their lines in studio. That's because they had low budget equipment and the sound wasn't great. That causes problems because actors have to reproduce an emotion and other problems would be the technicality of repeating lip movements and script lines. Now they have better equipment but they keep pursuing the tradition.

Indians have their own awards: The Stardust awards and the Star Screen awards. They can also learn Indian's cinema background in "Film and television institute of India".
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Trailer of a Bollywood movie

The play called "The Lottery"

In class we read the script of the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. This story has a really unexpected ending. A little confusing at first, but very enlightening in the end. I was shocked to the brutality of the community, even though it is fictional.

What I personally think was the messages sent from the author was people always think that certain things won't happen to them, but to others. They feel safe because they are numbered. The villagers together will do things that they wouldn’t do on their own. In other words, they have mob mentalities. They also have a great expectation from the other members of the community, and also, I think the more that you lose at THAT lottery, the more you believe in a higher power and feel grateful for what you have. It could also be as simple as traditions or values: your ancestors and your whole family do it, so will you. Weakness can be a part of participating to this kind of lottery, since you are allowing a group to think for you. You can learn a lot from such stories; you just have to dig in a little bit.
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Part one of the movie: The Lottery


Part two of the movie: The Lottery

Winning the lottery

Wow, if I could win 30 million dollars, I would plan myself a one month trip in Hollywood and New York City! I would go to lots and lots of plays on Broadway Street such has wicked and other less famous ones. I would go back to school, to learn business and finances, because I would get myself a restaurant company: Planet Hollywood. I would be the manager, and basically completely change my lifestyle. I would also have the basement plans I talked about in an earlier post. I would buy myself some collectibles too, like objects used in a famous (swords in Troy by example). That would definitely be amazing to win the lottery, but the odds are, I have more chances to get struck by lightning.

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And the nominees are:

I’ve seen the Academy Awards once last year, and I can guarantee you it won’t be the last time! The Academy award or Oscars started on May 16th 1929 at the hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood. So far, 80 Academy awards have been showed. The 81st will play on February 22nd 2009 at the famous Kodak Theatre. The Award itself is made of gold plated and the rest is made of other metals. The show played on these two networks: ABC and NBC, constantly fighting to broadcast the Academy Awards. What I like about these awards is that they are environmentally friendly; since 2002, actors, producers and more have been Oscars in hybrids. Kodak Theatre is now the official theatre for the Academy Awards. Some people dislike the awards because think comedies have fewer nominations compared to drama or action movies. Here are some categories at the Academy Awards:
-Best Picture
-Best Director
-Best Cinematography
-Best Visual Effects
-Best Foreign Language Film

Here is a video of Steve Carrell on the red carpet on the Awards!
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The battle between Book and Movie

It’s a great challenge to transform a book into a movie. You basically have to turn into an action a description and try your best to show an emotion through a feeling in a book. Mostly I think everybody that likes reading will agree that usually a book is better than the movie. That is because the reader visualizes everything in his mind, the characters and the location. A joke can seem funny on paper, but once acted, not funny at all. I really like that they make movies interpretation of books, because not everybody likes reading. It gives them the opportunity of seeing very good stories. Also, when they release the movie, it makes me want to read the book. There are some amazing books that never get turned into movies. I love comparing the two though. I liked the book better for Misery (Stephen King) but I liked the movies better for Stardust (Neil Gaiman). I guess it depends on many aspects such as the writer, the author the cast and many more.

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