Haliburton awarded oil drilling contacts in Southern China Sea, but by whom?

I don't usually post about corporate dealings but this press release caught my eye because the way it's worded, makes me ask questions.

Halliburton Awarded Contracts for First Ultra-HP/HT Oil and Gas Drilling Project in Asia

Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) has been awarded several contracts for the provision of equipment and services on two offshore blocks in the South China Sea. This is the first ultra-high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT) oil and gas drilling project in Asia.

The exploration campaign calls for two firm wells and one potential well. Halliburton will provide directional drilling, measurement-while-drilling and logging-while-drilling (M/LWD) services; well completion equipment and services; surface well testing and downhole drillstem testing (DST) equipment and services; and cementing equipment, fluids and pumping services. Drilling is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2011.

You can read the rest of the release here.

Three things I found interesting in this innocuous press release' wording:

1. Haliburton was AWARDED the contracts
2. The releases never mentions WHO awarded the contracts
3. The drilling takes places in SOUTHERN CHINA SEA

Who do you think awarded these contracts to Dick Cheney's company to drill in China's seawaters? And why aren't they telling us?

Injustice

Injustice:
Whatever Gaddafi is doing to his people; or whatever Obama is doing to the American people (that is, starting another non-defensive military attack without consulting the will of the people who live in this ransacked country known as the United States of America).

Why didn'we do anything in Myanmar
or Sudan, Darfur?
Let's see
maybe it's because Libya's got shit tons of Petroleum reserves
but those aforementioned countries are stuck in poor geographical locations who have been victims of colonialist abuse for ages, that the western countries today simply don't give a fuck. Let those savages die in their desert and their jungles, say the leaders of the G7.

A romantic traditionalist's view on today's photojournalism

Here is an article by a Russian photojournalist, whom I have never heard of before, that is his views on today's 'winning' photojournalism. His lamentations and critique sum up quite well how I feel about much of today's popular photojournalism as well (including, but limited to, the over usage of a Canon 5D and 24mm 1.4 wide angle lens).

Obviously our Russian man here is a lover of art, and he speaks like Tolstoy in his authoritative, and bemoaning tone. This is purely an article of emotions, not of facts. You should not try to debate with him on photography. Either you agree with him, or you don't. I agree with him.

Some memorable lines

The unifying theme [of winning World Press Photo] is the monotony of photographic forms, most of which are in a style of unconscious naivety and primitivism, series without beginning or end, lacking any generalization and categorizing but with a focus on exotic images from distant third world countries untouched by 21^st century civilisation...Classic culture and art have been replaced by tawdry mystifications, exotic rites and vacation photos.

Happy Valentine's Day, for all interspecie introverts

The end of Nostalgia

Childhood is only beautiful for those adults who can't remember.  
--Francois Truffaut

Ever since the first time I went back to Beijing in 2003, I have my head wrapped in a never ending stream of nostalgic inflections. The things I was most nostalgic for were: Hutongs, Slow Beijing buses, Empty Subways, Oddly placed, but landmark buildings that served as knowledge bank for my childhood's many curiosities.  At least, these were the things I thought I was nostalgic for, and as a result, I took many pictures of them when I visited China.  At a well known Art School interview, I event professed that my main interest was in "Culture in Transition."  Meaning an old country shedding its old architecture and culture to be absorbed into a profit-driven, capitalist culture with a plethora of shiny buildings and cars that replace the traditional, undeveloped methods of living and moving around. 

However, this time when I was in Beijing, I found myself no longer enchanted by the objects and places driven by nostalgia.  I still went to the first apartment my family lived in, walked around the streets that my parents used to bike me through in the 80s, and snapped pictures of brick walls and blankets hanging on strings, as such.  But the pictures came out crappy, and from them I could only see a reflection of my personal disinterest, in these so-called 'nostalgic' locales.  The bare fact as it surfaces now, is that I no longer have any interest in the Beijing of my childhood.  I was not in love with the city when I lived there, I only began to love it when I left, after I had gained a comparative knowledge of urban and suburban life. 

Beijing is an old city becoming very new due to the people who have moved there and the buildings that have sprouted up.  Life in old Beijing was cramped, dirty, moist with human waste.  Life in new Beijing is cramped, sweaty, dusty, but if you can afford it, a nice secluded, high-rise apartment that offers tranquility not before possible.  In essence, Beijing is more Western now, and it has matured to a point that one can enjoy a Western-style living in Beijing without experiencing any clumsiness customary in the painful transition from a third-world to a first-world.  All that happened while I was gong and in the first half of last decade (hence the last two times I visited I deeply craved a nostalgic Beijing). Of course this is not to say all of the city enjoys this convenient, comfortable and protected Western style of life, but I can unashamedly say that I enjoyed it, and this is how I intend to live if I do move back to Beijing.

The effervescent world that exists at the end of a person's nostalgic vision, is it really paradise?  Or is it just a mis-colored blotch of what we call 'unsophisticated youth' where the adult, mature thinker substitutes the memories of his youthful ignorance with more pleasing, but also more theoretical terms such as 'innocence,' 'simplicity,' 'spirituality,' and the worst of all, 'purity?' 

I am not an expert on purity and I dare not claim so because there is something impure in everything I do. As progressive as I am I take a lot of the privileges of a developed world for granted and indulge in its excesses.  Maybe this is why my father's life seems happy, because he is doing the exact same.  There is no need to hold back on one's enjoyment of life's pleasures if one's economic situations allow for a status upgrade.  Beijing has become a city where if you have money, you can live a wonderful life, and if you don't have money, life is not very different from fifteen years ago.  There is no need to be 'nostalgic' when one is in Beijing. That is only non-existent for the rich who have allowed themselves to live accordingly to their wealth, or for those who use 'nostalgia' as an excuse for their failures to ride the changes to get ahead.   

Nostalgia is easy to summon when the person is not burdened by the actualities of the imagined, nostalgic past.

Happy year of the Rabbit! 兔年了。。。

Video courtesy of Edwin Li.

Let The Bullets Fly (让子弹飞) Review

Jiang Wen is an acknowledged genius of Chinese cinema, if not for all of cinema.  Anyone who has seen Devils at the Doorstep should attest to that.  There had been no other film like it, and there very well may not be another film like it either.  The greatness of that film has solidified Jiang Wen’s stature, even if he has not been very prolific since then (partly due to government restrictions, no doubt) His latest blockbuster, Let The Bullets Fly, has broken all sorts of Chinese box office records.  But despite its success, I feel with certain regret that the idiosyncrasies of a genius ended up proving to be hindrances in the construction of this film. I simply left the theater, feeling that it was a fun movie with many mis-directed attempts at genius.

Jiang Wens brilliance is exuberant, and he may have become a filmmaker very much aware of his brilliance, and he makes a conscious effort to emulate and duplicate that brilliance. In this sense, he has become a Tarantino instead of Jiang Wen. And the very film he decides to do that in, is a mix-genre film. Mix-genre blockbuster is a new territory for Chinese cinema.  The film encapsulates American western, Chinese martial art, slapstick, and contemporary action.  However, I don't believe Chinese cinema has acquired the right filmic language or culture, to imitate a multifaceted Western production successfully in a Chinese manner.  Even for American filmmakers this is a difficult task, and only a few directors can successfully manage the creation of such a film. 

Jiang Wen’s obsession with Tarantino is apparent in many aspects of Let The Bullets Fly.  Story has it that Jiang has a picture of him and Tarantino in his office, no doubt serving as cinematic inspiration for what can be achieved as top entertainment in today’s film world.  This obsession has produced some good results.  Case it point, the film’s perfect casting: every supporting character brings a unique set of looks, physical ability, and cunning to his role.  All together the set of characters brim with a whimsical perfection that rivals Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds.  In a way, this is the Chinese Inglorious Basterds. There is masculine ruggedness, there is cinematic self-reference, urban wit, and there is Tarantino-like vibrancy and exaggeration, abruptness, and all the while, top-notch intensity in every act.

A high production value, glossy, ostensibly Western art direction is sure to please Chinese audiences spoiled likewise by Hollywood imports. When it comes to looks, you can trust that Jiang Wen assembles the best in the Chinese film industry (although the CGI work is a bit shoddy). However, much of the wit is superficial, and his normally biting, satirical gags here come of only half as successful as those from Devils. With the material at hand, the film feels to be lacking simply, a soul. A style similar to Devil at the Doorstep, more down and dirty instead of the too-pretty-to-get-dirty, could have created a deeper resonance with both thinking and non-thinking audiences.  China is not a bright sunny place like the American West. Jiang Wen is  naturally a more sensitive and political figure than Tarantino, but I feel that in the creation of this film, he watched too much Kill Bill, but too little of his previous work.

The convoluted politics is handled by too much exposition, the more charismatic characters are killed too fast, choreography of gun fights seem abrupt and inadequate. Fast paced, but shoddy editing doesn't negate the problem completely, and finally, Jiang Wen seems to have become a director who believes that repetition of his favorite shots is a gift to the audience. Tarantino knows when he has pushed a scene to the edge of intolerance, while Jiang Wen marches on. One get the feeling that he is in too much of a rush to say too much, but couldn't find an eloquent way to tell all the stories and ends up sputtering.  There’s plenty of spits and grunts, but not a lot of articulate words. A clumsy but energetic lover is this film.

First Solo photo exhibit at Inter Gallery inside 798 in Beijing

By now, some of you may know that I had my first solo show, titled "Accidental Square" at Inter Gallery in Beijing. The opening was held on Saturday the 22nd and it was quite a fun time. A number of people came, even if they were mostly friends of the family and my parents. Surprisingly, even the Gao Brothers dropped by as well (apparently they are friends with the gallery owner and he told them). I emailed Jia Zhangke, but of course, he did not show up or insofar as respond.

Also heard some interesting feedback from people, the most helpful one being that the collection of photos at hand was a bit disorganized and could have benefited from further editing, as some of the more 'mainstream' photos took away from the emotional impact of the ones that represented more purely "Ian Wang's" vision. Very helpful indeed, even if I still can't quite articulate what my vision is, except what my eyes tell my mind to tell my finger to click the shutter.

The Gao Brothers were kind enough to drop by and hear me blabber a bit about "shadow and light."

To see the photos on display at the exhibit, you can view them in this Flickr gallery I set up.

Some thoughts on Coppola's Tetro

Tetro is a film that no one would have made. And I am glad someone made it. Coppola did. Maybe only he can get away with material that young or even mature filmmakers wouldn't touch, or find plausible to even imagine.

Tetro is a movie about art, the making of art, and the struggle of those who pursue art. Every character in the film is an artist, either with words, music, lights, or love. Unfortunately the end product doesn't quite reach the level of art itself. It is artsy and even gutsy with its ambition to create art, and there are very successful moments, and there are some moments in which the melodrama could not hide itself more playfully.  However, the moving force of the film comes from the visible effort with which the film is put together. Its experiments (black and white photography, its static placement of the camera, and the leisurely editing that allow an actor to perform and perform) are put together with pain and visible deliberation, and from this, I can see a director letting a film breathe and find its own life through the process of making it.

Other reviewers have called this film unashamedly theatrical. Maybe this is a technical comment, as surely most of the scenes are staged in small dimensioned spaces.  Rooms are often spottily lit, shadows fall on the actors faces as if there are spotlights from above, cluttered interiors, and transitions are not accompanied by the usual cinematic devices nor exposition, but simply, by straight forward, chronological shifts that heed no telegraphing or foreshadowing. And from a story perspective...well I am not going to say much about the story, except that I find Tetro a film that beautifies choices but is not concerned with consequences. Similar to the filmmaker's sentiment, I assume. Things will happen inevitably. Maybe it is this inevitability of resolution that makes the film theatrical?

By now we all know about the films black and white photography, and in my eyes, the monochrome palette adds gives the film a novelistic, lore like effect. It dilutes the harshness of reality and everyday burden, and places the viewer in a part of the brain that only concerns itself with making art of memories.  Quite fitting for a movie about making art.

Finally, I'm happy to see that the film has a very positive user response on IMDB. 

If You Are The One 2 (非誠勿擾2) Review

In Feng Xiaogang's new film, the wealthy in urban China are modern, emotional, sentimental, desirous of goods which lots money can buy, and are fully in grasp of the irony and paradoxes of contemporary China and its effects on personal relationships on a society that merely 15 years ago, still seemed to exist in a naive and restrained age.

This is why the main supporting character has a daughter with an ex-wife from a previous, seemingly more innocent age, while his latest one, after he has made his money, ends in halfhearted discontent and self deprecating dismissal.

The Chinese are changing, and most importantly the mature, pre-

midlife crisis generation urbanites who are seeing reflections of a lost time in the money they are making. It is as if the stack of RMBs they pull out of their pockets with indifference have become mirrors, mirrors that only reflect hard truth. And they want out, either free from it all, or find protection in the form of stable marriages that makes money a secondary concern in the belief that love gives money a comforting purpose. To serve love, that's money purpose.

Much of the humor and laughs of this film come from understanding the subtext in the conversations, which are both smart and playful, often filled with traditional idioms and misdirection. No surprise that this is very Beijingnese sounding film is written by Wang Shuo and Feng himself, and you can't find better people at using Chinese to its wittiest.

One can sense than Feng Xiaogang has a great relationship with his actors because the film's strongest scenes usually involve the actors at their most naturalistic, speaking as if they are truly at home. No doubt the fact that this is a sequel-Ge You and Shu Qi already have great chemistry helps, but their feisty and combative exchanges go up a few decibels compared to the first one. Stakes are higher, and there's even genuine anger in these characters, because getting to know another person always raises unexpected challenges, and it is usually at home where one drops the carefully constructed grace that one carries out on a date or a trip (the idea of grace is not standard but exists in all). Feng allows his actors to play out this dynamic exchange perfectly, and the tension in the movie is always centered around how the two lovers over come each others imperfections as they are discovered one by one.

We all know about Ge You, but Shu Qi is now quickly rising to be someone who I think can challenge Gong Li as the queen of Chinese cinema. She has the face of a beautiful woman

constantly in distress. Confident of her beauty but always needy of further flattering, a perfect woman for a man of longing ready to offer his life and love. She has certainly matured more in this film, and stand up to Ge Yous charming non-chalance with strength and fragility at all the right moments. Best of all, she is perfectly self-conscious and not at all pretentious, like Gong Li in most of her recent outings...

Finally, I wouldn't call Feng Xiaogang a man of subtlety but he

is a man of unexpected observations and usually carries out his sharpest observations in the actions of minor characters--pilots, military, cashiers, TV hosts. They are the one showing the

change in Chinese people as their country grows toward a consumer, service based economy.

On a technical level, Feng has proved himself to be a master of

genres of the highest level, and in a year in which he has two major film releases (the other one being Aftershock), I would proclaim him now a major force in world cinema with a perfect sense of the ironic construction of melodramatic moments that's been rarely seen since Douglas Sirk. For the mainstream audience, they are brought to tears, for the critic in me, I'm stunned at his carefully orchestrated mise-en-scene that's full of depth and sophistication.

If You Are The One 2 doing well in the U.S.

Seems like the idea by China Lion Entertainment to release If You Are The One 2 concurrently in the U.S. and China is a smart (and brave) one, and has paid off well. Earlier today, I saw this press release come through:

On only 13 screens in NY, LA, SFO , DC and Boston, [If You Are the One 2] was the 26h biggest picture in the US over the weekend and achieved the #8 Per Screen Average nationally of some $7475 per screen. At AMC site Atlantic Times Square in LA the film was # 1 for the weekend and was a top weekend film at AMC locations in New York & San Francisco. Most LA locations sold out for prime night sessions each night.

In Canada on just 7 screens the pic finished # 15 pic nationally for the weekend and was # 2 Per Screen Average with a whopping $12,160 per screen, with AMC site Kennedy Commons in Toronto and Cineplex site Station Square in Vancouver recording the pic as the # 1 film for the weekend.

Read more

Obviously this is a sign that the Chinese living in the U.S. are thirsty for more home produced cultural products. I personally feel that there has always been a restless sense of longing in the minds of well to-do Chinese immigrants as they look across the Pacific from the comfort of their garaged houses and see China shining with glamorous lights they'd never before seen in their adopted country. Expect more big Chinese-produced blockbuster releases to come state-side, but only from established directors (Feng, Zhang, etc). Will there ever be a market for indie Chinese films beyond the Western art-house crowd? Now that's a fascinating question. (Probable answer: never)

Thoughts on recent developments in the Chinese film industry

Seems like two things are happening in the Chinese film industry.

1. Established directors are making blockbusters and more blockbusters. The budgets are rising accordingly, and it was just announced today that Zhang Yimou has cast Christian Bale in his upcoming film on the Nanjing massacre. Budget is supposed to be 80 million US dollars. Now that's quite a budget for a Chinese film. Only thing left to wonder is if I can somehow get a job on that production, ah ha! Interestingly enough, this is Bale's second film in China, and also about WWII (first one is Spielberg's Empire of The Sun, which I'm sure needs no introductions).

Some examples: Every film by Zhang Yimou in the last 10 years, Aftershocks by Feng Xiaogang, Let The Bullets Fly by Jiang Wen, Red Cliff by John Woo. All these directors have taken certain periods of Chinese history and found stories worth retelling in the cinema. Even Jia Zhangke is embarking on a period-martial art production set in the late Qing dynasty. The idea that "We have the money, and we are gonna make big movies" is certainly welcome, because I don't see any other country's film industry staging a commercial fight against Hollywood like China is doing. Yet what Chinese still lacks, is a commercial film identity. There is too much imitation in terms of production design, and too much borrowing when it comes to stories (all the blockbusters are based on historic episodes). But this is not a problem to be solved by pontification. Only more productions can help pave the way for a distinct, national commercial cinema. Maybe in 3-5 years.

2. Upcoming young directors, many of them with American educations in filmmaking, are finding creative ways to churn out money making romantic comedies. This seems to fill an urgent need for a society much deprived of contemporary, urban love stories. Maybe it's a sign of the growing spending power of a restless young consumer class, who are not interested in art or social studies, but instead have a desire to see their favorite Asian celebrity faces placed into catchy, Hollywood-esque productions, with the requisite wide angles, camera movements, and thrilling sound editing. This is all fine because where ever there is a demand, there is a supply. The goal? An enjoyable theater going experience for people who want enjoyable experiences as a middle class young citizen, and going out to a theater (instead of watching pirated movies on a small screen) is one of these essential experiences. I certainly enjoy it. It's a life style change and the growing movie industry in China is supplying that cinematic night-life element hitherto missing in many Chinese cities.

Some examples of these films: Waiting Alone, Sophie's Revenge, If You Are The One (This is by Feng Xiaogang though, not really a young ex-pat), Au Revoir Taipei (although it's not a mainland film, one can't deny that mainland youth would be attracted to its minor, situational comedic bits). I'm sure there are many more to come. The Chinese are a voracious bunch when it comes to taking in things-food, stories, music, pretty faces, laughs, sex. Romantic comedy is the perfect genre for this society right now.

After the game

I'm not normally a fan of sentimental photos, but somehow, I like one a lot.

Fake movie posters

The definition of my vocation

A great photo shows the relationship between the photographer and the object being photographed, so great that the viewer is immediately transported into the emotions that took place during the moment of the shutter-click.

A master photo not only shows the relationship between the photographer and the object, it takes the viewer to the emotion of that moment, and of that specific time, culture and society that made the photo happen.

A mediocre photo, is one that shows none of the photographic process, that is laden with expository context, and full of artistry.

A few photo blogs I like to read

Figure I'd share this with the world.  Here are some of the photography related blogs I read on a daily basis (or just have in my RSS reader):

• Watch Impress Digicam Watch.  All in Japanese.  Great for shots of the latest products, and more
• A Photo Editor.  Intelligent, well-thought out posts and essays on the career of a photographer. Great source for hearing some ins and outs of the industry. 
• DPReview.  No explanation needed, although nowadays I'm getting really sick of their nit-picky criticisms and cliched review keywords
• PhotographyBlog.  Once again, just for product reviews.  However, I don't think these guys are photographers in any sense.  I read them simply because of my need for camera-porn
• Shanghai Street Stories.  I really cannot stand this girls' photos.  If she's gonna shoot in black and white, use fucking film.  I don't need your corny compositions and post-produced with a sentimental filter.  But why do I still keep visiting it?  It's always interesting to know what people with worse taste than you enjoy.  
• .one too many.  Frank Canepari's blog.  Sometimes I think this guy is a genius, sometimes I think he's full of shit.  But most geniuses are full of shit, so I give him a pass.  
• Street Level Japan.  Just started following this blog.  Not quite sure what he's about, but the last few posts have featured a report on an Araki opening, a Herzog quote on images, and a half-hearted defense of Daido Moriyama.  Guess this guy is good in my book. 
• Wired Raw Files.  Geeks with money who love photos of crazy shit.

Don't blame the economy. Corporations are not patriotic

The economy is bad, American jobs are shifting overseas, American middle class life is disappearing. Then why aren't the teapartiers doing anything about it?

Instead, they want to restore American values (aka blind faith in Christianity), and champion slogans such as low taxes, pro business, smaller government.

The fundamental problem is that corporations are not patriotic. They want everything configured for them to turn a bigger profit, while ignoring the will, or the well being or their workers, who in this case, used to be mostly Americans. These are American capitalists who are hell bent on destroying American lives, not because they hate America, but because it is expensive to feed American lives, and the expenses should be conserved for bigger profit margins on their annual reports instead. This is why corporations are shifting jobs overseas. They have no allegiance to America or to any Americans, even though their mode of communication is in a fundamental American concept--the Dollar.

This following NY Times article brings up nothing new, but it angers me that the writer is not pointing fingers at the real culprit of the problem, and that the victim is not voicing her anger at the real culprit as well, which I'm sure anyone with her brain, can easily see:

The chief hurdles to more robust technology hiring appear to be increasing automation and the addition of highly skilled labor overseas. The result is a mismatch of skill levels here at home: not enough workers with the cutting-edge skills coveted by tech firms, and too many people with abilities that can be duplicated offshore at lower cost.

And more, including the naming of HP in this massacre of jobs for Americans:

Corvallis was once a hotbed for tech start-ups. But Ms. Mann said that with layoffs from other tech companies in the area, including Hewlett-Packard, the city now has a glut of people like herself: unemployed engineers with multiple degrees. “I apply for everything I can find, but there are just not that many jobs out there,” she said.

And there are people who actually want to vote for Fiorina?

Here's the real evil, but veiled behind flowery language and the words of an analyst in the pocket of the big corporations, so he won't speak the truth:

But economists who follow highly skilled employment say that some of the most prominent companies that laid off workers during the recession, like I.B.M., are expanding their work forces abroad.

“Certainly a lot of these I.T. services firms plus the core software firms like Oracle are globalizing their work, or, as they put it, ‘rebalancing’ their work forces,” says Ronil Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

'Rebalancing' work force can be roughly translated into expanding a workforce while distributing the salary across the workforce so there are more workers, but the overall payroll remains the same, further deducing this complex trend, what we see is that (American) corporations are adding workers to help them make money, but are paying less to these workers because they take advantage of the low-cost of living of IT hotbeds such as India and China. Meanwhile, American students take out massive amount of loans, but because they are not significantly better than foreign workers, but still require a relatively high salary, are being eschewed by American corporations. Because American corporations don't exist to serve Americans, they exist to serve the amounts in their oversea bank accounts.

Face it, most Republicans are too stupid to realize what is going on, yet they shout the loudest when it comes to 'restoring' American values. Why not take a machete, and chop some heads off their corporate friends first. How do we restore American value? By giving jobs back to Americans, a generous gestures that friends of the Republican party are all too unwilling to make.

A Tropical Love Story

The sublime blue of the ocean shimmers teasingly in the low resolution pictures scoured to my eyes via Google. Where does my next lazy ambition take me to?
A tropical love story.

Championed by Wong Kar-Wai.

Continued by no one.

But should exist, in a form, in perpetual

A dearth of shyness,
lovers who love and sweat
why mention what happened
three years ago in the heat
of our petulance, I bit
as well as kissed the scar
between your mouth, vanquishing
source of little promises.

Tell me,
for the lack of better caresses.
If it means lying, a ballad of
fear, coughs, I love you so-s.

From news to narrative, defining the convergence of multimedia journalism and documentary filmmaking

What exactly are multimedia journalists accomplishing, or aiming to become? Recently, as I plug myself into the Bay Area blogosphere, I’m also seeing more and more video projects, taken upon by multimedia journalists, some of them trained from the highly-respected Berkeley graduate program in Journalism, that has such a huge focus on digital media.

Yet to me, as I watch these videos, I have an uneasy feeling that these often amount to no more than an aural slideshow. Not to be offensive, but some of these have neither the penetrating insights of the best documentaries (it doesn’t even have to be the best, we can just take the first half of Errol Morris’ Gates of Heaven as an example), or the artistry of a dramatic production. I don’t know why this is, but I feel the aesthetic values of these productions are overly kitsch in its hi-tech, ubitiquous web pretensions.

The reason I’m having these responses can be attributed to my training and my interest in film. When I view anything in video form, it is the painterly visuals, the compositions, the very filmic elements that I scrutinize first. This does not mean that I don’t understand what a video newscast is. I perfectly do and I know what their purposes are. However, when we have videos that appear on the hyperlocal blogs, and whose stated purposes seem to be rather a profile than a purely news segment, the film critic in me naturally awakened as these images enter my eyes. And here, is where I find these productions problematic and I will try to define my apprehension through the following points:

If you think I am looking at these from too much of an art perspective, then feel free to correct me. But I am. The underlying aesthetic value of these productions are undermined by the following:

A lack of fluency with the medium of video. HD, 24fps, 60fps, progressive scan--these are not the technique of a film or videomaker. These are just specs that camera makers put to make one think one can achieve what is sold in theaters.

Just like how in journalism class students spend tons of time perfecting the opening line to entice the reader into a story, most of these videos have not found quite a way to visually engross the viewer. Too much of the same is being churned out, but with the editorial pressure of news, I guess this is expected. I don’t think, and I don’t propose ever, that one can just place a camera in front of a subject and expect the subsequent video to generate any kind of visual excitement. If we are using video, why not really use it? But if we really use it, then do impromptu effects spring up based on how we receive videos and derail the journalistic intent of a production? Sure, because visuals and sounds are very much evocative arts, sometimes, more so and immediate than words, and this leads to my next point:

Message, agenda, theme. These are the questions we ask of every film. Yet you can't not not ask these questions for multimedia productions as well. The convergence of media production means the available critical inquiry needs to be consolidated and expanded.

Then again, if we keep trying what I've suggested, then are we training journalists or filmmakers? Are multimedia journalists following the traditional of a documentarian, say Charles Ferguson, or a nowadays video artist like Godard in his 70s?
All these doesn't matter. What we have to find is an answer, that which profession has a greater capacity to influence, inform, and engage us intellectually and emotionally? Well, one can say that a well made video will engage us no matter what. Sure.

Lastly, these videos, I feel, seem to be inheriting souls from the art of photojournalism, but I believe it is the wrong approach. Contemporary photojournalism, the most popular (note 'popular') ones, always seem overly melodramatic and sentimental to me. Dramatizing triviality to the point of numbing our senses to all but the most cruel, violent, and graphic events. Almost anyone with a wide angle lens today is equipped to produce usable photos. But the permanence of these photos? Very much debatable.

So how can videojournalists that's graduating from Journalism programs, not film schools today, equipped with their video capable dSLR, produce focused, penetrating, and aesthetically valuable work, without falling to the excesses of present day photojournalism? And produce effective work that match written reportage? I believes these videos, and their makers, need to define a creative identity and purpose. I don't think we can do that yet, with the great number of videos populating youtube today. Look at the reportage videos on 60 minutes, is this what our journalists aim to make? Internet TV?

Load, Tag and Go...not!

I hate to be a jerk, but if you want to give a shout out to FUCK CLIPPER CARD FOR EVER AND EVER, please leave a comment below