Des Temps

Author: raafi

  • Black Nerds: The Revolution No One Could Have Predicted

    doth halo>sex?
    On a late weekend night, two days before the release of the much-anticipated Microsoft video game Halo 3, a group of 8-to-10 black nerds in their late teens walks down the Bowery, their conversation animated. The leader of the pack, his Ben Wallace afro in full bloom, turns to the others, “Master Chief is… the Jack Bauer of… the Halo universe!” The pack, each member clamoring to respond in the affirmative before the others, turns into a burger joint.

    The rise of the black nerd has been a blustery and uneven process characterized by large gains and deep swoons. Presaged by Clarence Gilyard Jr.’s portrayal of Theo, the computer ace who hacks into the building vault in the classic film Die Hard, the nerd who is possessed wholly of a black American masculinity is a specific character that enjoys a renaissance today even as the hip-hop world continues to project a cartoonishly grotesque opposite. The broadening media landscape, however, allows us greater access to the pulse of black America even as the mainstream media seems to be stuck on stupid infatuated with the images of black males that (used to) sell records.

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  • Unused Locations

    double entendre

    hanging around

    Occasionally, an unused idea for a location or shot will be called into service for another production — a tracking shot of the New York skyline, say — but the ones that are temporally dependent like construction sites fritter away slowly on the vine. We hope that somewhere, in that great location graveyard in the sky, all the shot ideas that never quite made it onto film or tape loop endlessly to their heart’s content.

  • Checking In With Bill

    Everybody knows the content game is where it’s at these days. The big guys, the little guys… heck, Desedo Films. So it’s nice to see Bill Murray deadpanning his way through his cameo in a moxie-produced internet-only short film. Of course Funny or Die is no ordinary internet video portal given its founders. (Love the name, hate the website, btw). Still, none of that was a factor in the snuffled laughter heard emanating from locus-Raafman a few minutes ago. Writing still counts, and spot-on performances. Them’s the facts.

    FCU with Bill Murray

     
    The deeper questions: streams, ad revenue, portability across platforms… oh and that significant step up in production value from where these guys started out … it looks like a few poeple are guessing that those things will shake themselves out over time. I think I’ll have a glass of milk now.

    link via arc90.

  • Helping The Iraq

    WALIARHHLII

    If Desedo were a country, I’d bet that very few U.S. Americans could find it on a map. But then, they could always get help from South Africa and the Asian countries. Thank you very much.

  • In Red Ink

    markup

    Writing, which has been romanticized as a solitary pursuit, is often undertaken by teams in the case of filmed entertainment. There is a tug of war inherent to any collaborative process. In order for the process to work, however, neither side can be dragged through the mud pit in the middle.

    The collaborative process can work in many ways. Earlier this year I spent time interviewing a number of rock bands. Some wrote all music collaboratively. Others depended on one member to write the songs while other members focused on their individual instruments and play. Still, inherent in all of those conversations was the recognition that some mysterious element was also necessarily at stake for all parties in order to keep the process engaged. One musician described band practice as, “where we all go into a room together to hate each other for three hours so we can come out again and be friends.” At its best, creative work is both difficult and rewarding.

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  • Hard To Kill the Mojo Priest

    Seagal does Blues. He even uses one of those BK voice over guy accents. You can’t make this stuff up.

    Qmo-ro7eRMQ

    (link via make the logo bigger).

  • The Clouds My Sofa

    prelight

    burning

    For as much time as I have spent waxing on about flat, graphic compositions, vast depth is also deeply compelling. The thought crossed my mind as I flew home last weekend that sunset, as seen from above the clouds, will make a pious man out of a sinner — at least for the duration of an east-bound flight from Las Vegas. It begs mention that any non-trivial shift in perspective provokes contemplation not of the nectar that we sip daily, but of the whole fruit itself. Boom-shots!

    The camera cranes up at the end of any classically structured movie. As it does, our grip on the details loosens. If the film has had any affect, we drift into the dreamy darkness of music and credits for just a second before we hear seats snap back into place and the velcro sound of sneakers on a sticky floor. In flight, this moment can glow for some time as the camera continuously cranes above the action — particularly when the drama is comprised of the sun’s final bow.

    “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”