05 Nov 08 Alfred Hitchcock
Saboteur is one of his more popular, later films that you might recognize him from. Perhaps you’re even indirectly familiar with his films through spoofs like High Anxiety. You owe a debt of gratitude to Alfred Hitchcock, however, if you enjoy films fillled with drama.
The great director, Alfred Hitchock, began his career as an advertising designer and a draftsman. Due to his aptitude and interest in movies, he was a success designing title cards for silent movies.
Before becoming a director, Alfred Hitchcock was a writer of silent films such as Three Live Ghosts and Love’s Boomerang in Great Britain and Germany. In 1925, he made his mark with the film, The Pleasure Garden, where he finally got the chance to act as director. He continued directing other silent movies. It was immediately evident he was skilled at story telling with unique camera work.
Some of his earlier works, unfortunately, have been lost completely or there are only parts of them known to remain.
Sound made it possible for him to enrich his film making. Many of his earlier films were produced in Britain. His success with these early ‘talkies’ gave him the resources to perfect his art.
Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock is known best to the current generation for the remakes of his films. There have been several box office hits as a result of his later films being remade.
If you get the chance to watch one of Hitchcock’s films, be sure to watch for him. He often made cameo appearances of some type in his films. Here are a few examples:
* Foreign Correspondent made in 1940 where he is seen after Joel McCrea leaves his hotel, wearing a coat and hat and reading a newspaper
* The Wrong Man made in 1956 where he is seen in silhouette narrating the film’s prologue
* Stage Fright made in 1950 where he is seen turning to look back at Jane Wyman in her disguise as Marlene Dietrich’s maid
* Shadow of a Doubt made in 1943 where he is seen on the train to Santa Rosa, playing cards
17 Oct 08 Video sharing sites using ffmpeg servers
The FFmpeg servers allows you to add you logo or resize the video using the tools available with the FFmpeg hosting. This gives a personal touch and will permit you a chance to test your ingenuity. This will permit the visitors of your website to enjoy a streamed video content.
Most of the FFmpeg hosting servers provide tools which make the work simple and undisturbed. Before you select the host, decide whether you want an ffmpeg dedicated server or a semi-dedicated or to say shared server. VHP can also be one of the options.
10 Oct 08 Why There Are Free Podcasts
Podcasting, unlike other media forms, almost never has charges for services, and the vast majority of feed producers distribute free podcasts. This puts at odds with, say, online radio stations, news sites that offer media to subscribers, or the online music industry general. Even though podcasting has very direct correlations with industries like news and music that have strong business models, podcasting differs. Podcasting does not really have a business model, and hardly anyone is podcasting in order to profit from it. There are some businesses and news sites that podcast, but they do it as a way to supplement their companies and to gain technological geek credibility, not to make money. This is an odd thing, but explainable in light of what podcasting is.
The free podcast problem is not difficult, and podcasting differs in several key ways from other media areas. First, podcasting involves the physical transfer of a file from the host to the users computer. An online radio station does not do this; all that they provide to their listeners is a streaming sound file that cannot be saved without difficulty and work. If someone did manage to do so, the station would have strong grounds for suing them since they were never given the rights to keep and store the files. By podcasting the complete file to the users computer, express permission is granted the user to copy and use as they wish. Second, the podcasts are, for the most part, made by individuals who have low costs involved in creating and distributing the files, as opposed to a news broadcast or song by a music company. These individuals have little reason to charge for their work since there is little cost to them to do so. Because the files are distributed in a way allows their copying and does not control the media, and since podcasting is a very low cost media outlet, feed producers have little reason or ability to charge for their work.
