Is Zoot Black?

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Racial ambiguity in entertainment is interesting to me, for what might be obvious reasons if you have met me in person….

One of the things that made the characters in Daria (cartoon on MTV and then Noggin) so compelling was their racial diversity, and in some cases their racial ambiguity. Everyone knew Mack and Jodie were black, and Kevin and Brittany were white… but what the heck were Jane Lane and Trent Lane?

White viewers might say “they are white!” – well, sure! Why not? People project themselves into characters, and if the “actor” (in this case cartoon characters) let a larger percentage of the audience see themselves, then the story can be more successful.

Then again, white viewers as well as non-whites might well say “who cares!” or never have thought about it. That the Lane’s race is not a big deal is a good thing, I think. Maybe through pop television we can inch a little closer to a color-blind society. How many high school kids realize that Michelle Branch and Kristen Kreuk are part asian? Or Keanu Reeves? How many care? (Notice White-Asian mixes “pass” a lot easier than other combinations!)

Anyway, I always thought the Lanes were part-Asian (projection ?). They could also credibly be Latino. We actually do see their parents at one point, and both these options are still possibilities.

Almost inevitably, this whole train of thought led me to the Muppets.

If you think I’m going to guess whether Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy had an inter-racial relationship, I will tell you- Of course they did! He was a frog and she was a pig! Are you mental?

No, for some reason this question only seems relevant for the “human” muppets. Kermit the Frog isn’t black, white, east asian, latino, indian or anything else – he’s a FROG.

Dr Teeth, the lead vocalist and keyboardist of The Electric Mayhem, has got to be black. It just makes so much more sense. If he was white, in another age he would be called a Beatnik, whose jazz-inspired jargon definitely came from African-American slang. He’s got the giant gold tooth, and the shaded sunglasses, rings on every finger, and a PIMP HAT. Look at it! Duh!

As for the rest of The Electric Mayhem:

It used to be that Janice, with her airheaded blondeness, would have to be white. She could theoretically be any race nowadays though (airhead “Tiffany” from Daria is Asian)… but she’d probably still be from California. Is she just a vocalist? I guess she plays the tambourine! Her original creators probably designed this lame role for her on purpose… at the time there were a lot of bands with a member or two who did little more than “shake it!” More recently I think The Prodigy had a guy who just was there to dance.

Animal – everyone knows someone kind of like Animal – probably someone who parties a little too hard and seems to be on drugs most of the time. Animal has a habit of chasing the female human co-stars around the stage- if he was black this would be more threatening to the white audience. Black men and white women! Oh no! They want our women!!! etc… it’s not pretty, but it is an attitude that is still around today. So since the Muppets are not supposed to be threatening, perhaps Animal is a scruffy, drug-abusing, white 20 something, vs a scruffy, drug-abusing, black 20 something.

Zoot – pretty much has to be black. He could be a vague stoned white sax player, but come on, he’s a blues guy- it’s more natural if he’s a vague black blues guy. Not “vaguely black,” I mean “a person of color whose brain has been cooked away from years of living a jazz player lifestyle.” Although- if he really is a “zoot” that would make him a snappy dresser from 1940’s-1950’s chicano Los Angeles. In the seventies he would be a burned out jazz player, which could work.

What about Floyd, the guitar player? I sort of saw him as a shaggy white guy. I guess he could be either… it seems like he talks like a burnt-out thirtysomething white musician to me.

“Burnt out” surfaces a lot in this analysis doesn’t it? Maybe I’ve known too many jazz musicians!

NDN – Bush song

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Restoring the Promise of America – the New Democrat Network has this flash movie with a song about Bush II, which rules.

Does this mean these “New Democrats” are an actual faction with some actual testicles? That might be interesting!

America and the world are facing new and daunting challenges to global peace, prosperity and freedom. The New Democrat Network (NDN) is guided by the belief that there is a better set of solutions to our challenges then what is being offered in Washington today. It is the fundamental premise of NDN that we can and must do better -– as a political movement, as a political party, and as a nation.

As a national network of citizens and institutions committed to the great promise of America, it is our intent to not accept what is being offered by the Republicans in Washington today as the best course for our great country. It is our intent to build a better America, and ensure that all of our children are given even greater opportunities than those remarkable opportunities that have been offered to us.

It is in this spirit that NDN is dramatically stepping up its role in American politics. In the years ahead we intend to offer up new strategies for ensuring the long-term vitality of progressive politics, prepare the very best of a new generation of elected officials for leadership, and fight to make sure that the positive, optimistic and modern voice of the New Democrats is heard loud and clear in the great back and forth of today’s political debate.

Web link of note: NDN – Bush song
(At http://www.newdem.org/flashmovie.php)

Piccolo

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A revolutionary way to create robust, full-featured graphical applications in Java and C#, with striking visual effects such as zooming, animation and multiple representations.

Piccolo is a toolkit that supports the development of 2D structured graphics programs, in general, and Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs),
in particular.

Web link of note: Piccolo
(At http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/piccolo/learn/)

Keeping Track of Footage pt.2

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Ok, I’ve finally come up with a working framework for recording all my documentary footage information. It’s still evolving, but here is what I’ve got now.

My existing method requires the creation of the following files:

  1. Most basically, the tape log for each tape, a single summary-level document recording:
    1. title – actually more of an identifier, like “13J.2” for “2nd tape of footage shot on Oct 13th with the J camera”, the ID designed to sort properly on the file system. The name of the file will be based on this ID.
    2. summary – like “13 min – interview with John Doe; 25 min – interview with John’s mom”

    3. spreadsheet which is an excerpt from the footage summary file, below

    Since some tapes were used on several different days, or different locations, they have multiple names- one tape represents several “reels.” This is also handy if someone reset the timecode on accident.

    What this means is one file is one tape, but it will have a longer filename, like “13J.2-14J.1” – this will be aliased to look like two other files, “13J.2” and “14J.1”

  2. footage summary spreadsheet file. This is the giant overview of every tape- every soundbite, every notable shot, every time someone defines something is recorded in this spreadsheet. Each row represents a single shot, and records:
    1. reel ID as described above
    2. timecode
    3. take description
    4. good? meaning, “this is a notable shot which should definitely be sampled”
    5. soundbite? meaning, “this is a self-contained phrase or shot”
    6. definition? meaning, “this is a straight-up definition of something that appears elsewhere in the footage
    7. anecdote? meaning, “this is a longer take whose value depends on its entire content”

  3. tape-summary is another spreadsheet which condenses the footage summaries in each individual tape file into a spreadsheet. This is used for a reference when you can’t remember what tape a given interview was on- it’s much shorter than the footage summary, and you don’t have to open a million individual tape files

  4. list of tapes is for data on the physical tapes. Actually after I reviewed everything this list wasn’t so useful

  5. diagrams list is a list of all the diagrams and other graphics I realize I need for the final product, while I am editing.

  6. transistions list is for jotting down obvious transitions while reviewing. Like I’ll be watching something and think “wow that sounds really familiar- didn’t someone else say that?” and then look back in the log, and sure enough! In the final product those two clips can be edited to be close to each other.

  7. outline is the outline… duh. Actually I am not quite to this stage yet; I may end up using another system to write the outline.

That’s it!

You know what would be really nice? Management software tailored for documentary editing. Because unlike a narrative film editing process, where you have the script as a guideline, the documentary’s structure is potentially in flux the entire time you are editing. Since you don’t know what subjects will be discussed until after you finish filming, you can’t very well write a definitive outline before the shoot.

And lots of new material emerges during the shoot itself which you couldn’t possibly have predicted. So, simple editing software, and even screenwriting software is inadequate, and doesn’t really let you see the emergent themes that come out of the footage.

I was thinking something that records entries on reel, timecode, location, speaker, clip length, and a list of subjects that have come up in the footage. Each clip could record any number of subjects or themes, and then you would be able to sort on those themes so all the similar clips would be grouped together. Probably you’d also want to define shot attributes as well so you could edit clips together with a similar look.

ANTHONY: Use FileMaker!

In many ways, FileMaker would be ideal- it’s a database with multiple display options where you can lay out multiple forms and templates populated by the same database of data. There is probably some way to serve all this data too… the only problems would be


  1. setting up and maintaining a FileMaker server

  2. every client would presumably need FileMaker- not so bad if there is only one (local) client

Anyway, in the spirit of “not invented hereism”, how about this:

Features

  • Clip data recording:

    1. reel ID as described above… note that I should have started a new reel every time the timecode got broken. Even if it was a gap of 10 seconds because a battery died!
    2. timecode as above
    3. date and time shot with multiple cameras, you really need this to keep the different shots on different tapes in order. Unfortunately we didn’t keep reliable notes during the shoot- maybe if we had the tapes with the chips in them, or if we just hit the “display” button at the beginning of every take.
    4. take description
    5. take location – I didn’t separate this from “themes” but really, it is a completely different attribute.
    6. themes, the “value add” in this application, a list of existing themes defined in previous entries, as well as the option to define new themes for this clip. Unlike in spreadsheets, this is potentially a list of multiple values.
    7. good? meaning, “this is a notable shot which should definitely be sampled”
    8. soundbite? meaning, “this is a self-contained phrase or shot”
    9. definition? meaning, “this is a straight-up definition of something that appears elsewhere in the footage
    10. anecdote? meaning, “this is a longer take whose value depends on its entire content”

  • Maybe a separate Theme editor, which would let you append notes and analysis to a given Theme (attached to and defined in the Clip, above)

  • Reel entity, representing the “reel” notion described above, basically being a collection of Clips

  • Tape entity, representing the physical tape (as above), containing Reels and displaying Clips, and also recording information pertaining to the physical tape.

  • Footage List – a browser of all these clips, sortable by various fields, including “show all clips with theme X”
  • A Sequence would be a list of clips – this is where the magic comes in. This Sequence is the core of the tape review process; you could drag the clips into a new sequence or an existing sequence, either as a placeholder to stage like-themed clips or to arrange them into their final order

  • Outline would have a bunch of line-entries which are either plain text (notes), or a Sequence or Clip. The Notes could be replaced by Clips or Sequences of Clips as footage review continued. Ideally, by the time you’d reviewed all your footage, you will have filled in all the entries, and you’ll have a rough cut outlined before sampling any footage!

Implementation Technology

  • Since it’s fast, easy to install, and free, the database would be MySQL
  • PHP forms the basis of the server end, as well as the presentation layer for web clients. PHPMyAdmin makes creating and maintaining the database easy, and dbForm/ADOdb is a good framework for fast deployment of forms which populate a database
  • PHP has a few SOAP / WSDL frameworks, to make this a bona fide web service.
  • Safari or Mozilla web browser for the front end to view, edit, and create data

  • To be extra slick, and since I still have yet to implement this two-headed system for any of my software, a Sherlock or Cocoa-friendly client. Given the requirement of low latency and the “drag” device for the better user experience, a dedicated client is preferable to a web browser.

Well great. I’ve succeeded in generating yet another project for myself which will probably never get done.

Okay, back to editing!

Disinfopedia

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A collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. Sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy, the Disinfopedia was started in February 2003

Web link of note: Disinfopedia
(At http://www.disinfopedia.org)

Wolf at the Door

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Everyday in the news, we hear of the threat of climate change. There are international conferences, television documentaries, books galore. Leaders meet regularly to discuss the issues and define programs. Yet, while climate change is undoubtedly a serious problem, the most dangerous aspects are not likely to threaten us for several decades and even then will be ambiguous in their results, bringing benefits for some, hazards for others and little effect for a few.

But there is a danger whose consequences will be far more destructive and which will hit us much sooner. It is a danger that will effect everybody, rich or poor, wherever they live in the world. It will require enormous financial and scientific strides to defeat, strides which the world’s governments show few signs of taking. It is a danger which, quite feasibly, could lead to the end of our industrial civilisation. It is the danger of oil depletion.

Web link of note: Wolf at the Door
(At http://www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk/)