Video: 07/03/08 -6am Top Stories.
2008-07-03 09:00:00Video: AP Campaign Minute
Here are the top AP campaign stories for July 2nd: McCain campaign shakeup; Obama calls for more service: Did McCain rough up aide to Nicaragua's president; Poll rates candidates' wives.
2008-07-03 03:17:45Year In and Year Out...
For six years - even before broadband's surge - online viewing of FRONTLINE's "The Merchants of Cool," has ranked at the top for our online audience. Watch it here, explore its related stories.
2008-07-02 18:29:39Bruni not to attend G8 summit
Tokyo, July 2: A top Japanese official voiced disappointment on Wednesday that French supermodel-turned-First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy will not accompany her husband Nicolas Sarkozy to next week’s Group of Eight summit."As one Japanese citizen, I am disappointed that the popular First Lady won’t be able to visit," chief Cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura, the government’s spokesman, told reporters. —AFP***Indian helps face abuse in BritainLondon, July 2: There are several cases of migrant domestic workers from India facing abuse from employers many of them Indian in Britain, according to a report by Oxfam and campaign group Kalayaan.The two charity organisations found that 10 per cent of 312 people surveyed had reported sexual abuse, 26 per cent physical and 72 per cent psychological abuse from employers.Many such Indian domestic workers face considerable hardships during and after losing their jobs after they arrive in Britain.—PTI***UK town to revive 1947 memoriesLondon, July 2: The mists and memories of India’s bloody partition are being resurrected in a major exhibition supported by the local council in Leicester, a town in the east Midlands with a large minority of Indian origin.Called "The Legacy of Partition, 1947-1948", the project invites people affected by the partition living in Leicester to contribute stories, photographs and memories. Leicester’s multicultural population includes people who moved to Britain after being affected by the partition and its aftermath.—PTI***Man blows govt office to avenge lossBeijing, July 2: A man, angered over the demolition of his property, on Wednesday drove a vehicle with gas cylinders and blew up a government office in a central province in China, local authorities said.The man surnamed Tian set the gas cylinders alight and crashed into the sub-district office at Zhangjiajie city in Hunan province, injuring 12 people, five of them seriously, the police said. The injured were hospitalised.Tian was quickly overpowered, state-run Xinhua news agency said.—PTI
2008-07-02 17:26:35Exodus of Aussies, Kiwis to affect IPL
Cricket | R. MohanIn May, IPL teams may hardly resemble those that played in the last two weeks of April. The exodus of the Australians, West Indians and New Zealanders, to do national duty in the Cari-bbean and in England, would mean that the team composition would change dramatically. Considering the impact the Australians have made in the opening phase with three of four centuries coming from them, the very nature of a team's cricket could change too.The latecomers and the reinforcements have arrived, some may even have sneaked in much to the consternation of franchises, which are questioning the norms for foreign player signings outside the auction. Frankly speaking, the flavour of the first IPL has been mostly of the imported variety despite so many success stories of local players who on occasion have outperformed themselves.Chennai Super Kings who have established themselves at the top of the table with four wins in as many outings may have to change their whole batting order as well as their approach because they are losing three key men to the exodus - Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey and Jaocb Oram. Other teams are also similarly affected with Kolkata Knight Riders certain to feel the pinch as McCullum was providing them with so much thrust.The question is bound to come up about how open should the competition be. Should the IPL throw open its doors and raise the cap on foreign players from the existing four It can be argued that if the English Premier League format is to be followed, it should then be an open house with teams free to choose how much of their playing XI they would wish to be filled by imported stars.If market forces are allowed their freedom, which will probably happen after the first season when transfers become possible, it is on the cards that some IPL teams will aspire to be the Arsenal FC of the IPL. The London club that boasts of 13 League titles and 10 FA Cups now has far more French-speaking players than English footballers. If the existing cap of four players is raised because of pressure from teams, the composition of IPL teams could change drastically once again.It would be nice if the IPL teams were to follow the examples of the other giants of EPL, like Manchester United and Chelsea who believe in keeping their backbone English. There is a certain pride in them when an English footballer like Paul Scholes scores the goal as he did to take ManU to the final of the Champions League.When it comes to a one-club star like Scholes, who having been with United for 14 years has risen through the Old Trafford ranks, the English tend to go gaga.There is, however, no denying the pride in seeing home grown talent reach the pinnacle even in a club with an international outlook like ManU, one of the leading brands in pro sport franchises.The Delhi Daredevils, with a batting star cast that is virtually all Indian will probably argue that national is the way to go. That might, however, be a minority view. IPL cricket is bound to face the dilemma over the cap on foreign players soon as franchises try to go for the best combinations possible.The effect of having the big hitters who belt the new ball from the top order is already evident, with openers McCullum, Hayden and Gilchrist making three spectacular centuries. The other century came from the uberbat Symonds.It must have been galling for youth like Abhishek Nayar and Palani Amarnath to have to go out and play in front of huge crowds, with millions more watching on television. Many young Indians have begun to shed their stage fright and are standing up to be counted.Still, when it comes to providing momentum at the top of the innings, only the world's best, which of course includes Dhoni and Sehwag, have done it so far. The clamour will be for more ammunition from abroad. One of the founding principles of the IPL was to promote Indian talent.This is where the issue will get ticklish because franchises that have put up considerable sums will demand greater flexibility. They do pay huge amounts for foreign players to sit on the benches because only four are allowed.Curiously, Chennai dropped Muralitaharan to play Morkel against Bangalore, which was a poor tactical decision considering how Murali is a spinner for all conditions and pitches.In any case, the cap of four will certainly prove irksome and the arguments will break out. It would be interesting to see what shape the administrators give the league in the future when the debate over foreigners opens up.Â
2008-07-02 11:43:18A novel plot
Nawaid AnjumDateline: August 17, 1988. A C-130 Hercules carrying Pakistan’s military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, crashes. Twenty years after that mysterious crash, Pakistan-born and London-based journalist and playwright Mohammed Hanif reimagines the "conspiracies and coincidences" that sprang up on Zia’s death in his brilliant debut, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, published by Random House.A powerful story of love, betrayal, tyranny and revenge, the novel spins a dark, humorous tale out of one of the subcontinent’s most enduring mysteries which has been critically acclaimed for having shades of Sara Suleri Meatless Days, Joseph Heller Catch 22 and Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five. After Pakistan Air Force pilot Ali Shigri’s father, one of Zia’s colonels, commits suicide under suspicious circumstances, Shigri sets out to avenge his father’s death.While the novel is ostensibly bold in its narration ISI is referred to by a character as "Inter Bloody Services Bloody Intelligence", Hanif is far from agreeing that it will "unruffle feathers" in Pakistan. "It is a little love and adventure story with some jokes in it and I think it will be read in that spirit," says Hanif, who heads the BBC Urdu Service.As for the conspiracy theories shrouding General Zia’s death, the author says he "loves" all those theories. "I took some, added some of my own and wrote this book. And after I had finished, this 80-year-old American dude who was the US ambassador in India at the time, came up with a completely new theory. He says the Israelis did it and the state department declared him an almost-loony for bringing up the subject. I think it must be true. And I am hoping another one, an even better one will come along soon," says Hanif, who holds that while Pakistan may still be struggling with Zia’s ghost, August 17 is not a big day on anyone’s calendar.Hanif, who graduated from the Pakistan Air Force Academy, knew the setting of his novel only too well. "It’s personal in the sense that I came of age in that period. But I must say I probably learnt more about the Air Force watching Top Gun than I did being in the Air Force. So, I would say that fiction doesn’t always need to get fixated on personal. There is always other fiction to get inspiration from," he says.Having moved to London a decade back, Hanif last visited the country of his birth in April this year. "I was in Karachi when suddenly riots erupted in downtown Karachi. I felt immediately at home. The only new thing is that when robbers stop you at gunpoint in Karachi they ask for your cellphone. But then we didn’t have cellphones when I moved to London," says Hanif in a lighter vein.In the last few years, there have been some nice novels from Pakistani authors settled abroad Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam, Moni Mohsin et al. Have they helped in building Pakistan’s literary character as nations are defined by their narrations Hanif holds that Pakistanis like a good story, just like anyone else. "And probably more so because there are not enough good stories about them. There are one hundred and sixty million Pakistanis and very few writers. All the writers you mention come from very different backgrounds and write about diverse subjects. There are obviously many more who write in Urdu, Sindhi and Punjabi as well who have a wider readership. But I am not sure Pakistan has a literary character as such. TV character, may be, or pop music character, but sadly no literary character as such," he explains.As for Mohsin Hamid, whose The Reluctant Fundamentalist was shortlisted for the 2007 Booker Prize, Hanif says, "It’s a very striking book. And the only debate that I have heard about this book is that whether it’s better than Moth Smoke, which again was a very striking book. So, Mohsin is competing against himself. His books have always started conversations, debates. And there are not very many books anywhere which can accomplish that."What does Hanif think of the baggage of identities in a world that has shrunk to become a global village "I think of it as just that: baggage. Whenever my baggage is opened at customs, they usually find laundry, unread books and Indian DVDs," says Hanif, who has written plays for the stage and screen, including a critically acclaimed BBC drama and the feature film The Long Night, an urban "dystopia of drugs, sex and dislocation" produced and directed by Hasan Zaidi. Hanif holds that a bi-cultural experience is not of any great importance for a writer as people become bi-cultural for "mundane" reasons like jobs and children’s education."I have read very fine writers who died in the very house they were born in. I think Nayyar Masud, who is probably the finest post-Partition Urdu writer, was born in Lucknow and still lives there. And if you read his short stories, you’ll never mention the word bi-cultural. He can create these incredible worlds for you. And I think that’s what writers do, conjure up worlds," says Hanif.Â
2008-07-02 11:50:41Video: AP Top Stories
Here's the latest news for Tuesday, July 1: Illinois police search for a murderer; General Motors tops sales chart; Political unrest in Mongolia; Jolie heads to the hospital.
2008-07-02 03:18:55Alt Text: Con Men Lose Their Cool in the E-Mail Era
The online world has improved many things. Classified ads are simpler to search, obscure books are easy to get your hands on for the right price, and if you wish to see any two cartoon characters having sex with each other, you have only to ask.However, I think even the most forward-looking technophile would have to admit that there's one area in which we have gone too far, sucking the humanity out of what once was a vibrant, personal endeavor: the realm of the con man.Alt Text PodcastDownload audio files and subscribe to the <ahref="http://rss.sonibyte.com/rssfeed/wired/20.xml">Alt Text podcast.In the Golden Age of Hucksterism, an unsavory gent might try to sell you a bridge, or a large area of swampland, or perhaps a simple faux-Stradivarius violin. The first step, though, would always be to gain your confidence -- the "con" in "con man."They did this the old-fashioned way, gaining your trust and even becoming your friend through an elaborate set of lies set one on top of another like Roman architecture. And when they departed, taking your money and your ability to trust your fellow man with them, you could take solace in knowing that this was your con, specially concocted for you and nobody else.What do you get now Form letters from deposed African royalty, handed out impartially like advertisements for prostitutes on the Vegas strip. Dry, clinical warnings of fictional eBay disputes. Mindless, soulless pop-up ads for "antivirus programs" that merely throw up more mindless, soulless ads. The soul of yesteryear's con man may have been shriveled and caustic with disdain for humanity, but at least he had one. Can a computer cackle with glee as it fans its face with a stack of bills taken from your nest-egg account Well, yes it can, but only if you build it especially for that purpose. Most of today's swindlers won't even take the time to do that.And the stories! It used to be that a con man would leave you with a tale to tell passers-by as you held out your hand for a few meager coins: the Spanish princess in need of a young man to do double duty as her rescuer and her husband ... the briefcase that held thousands of dollars when it was shown to you, but somehow contained only newspaper once it was yours ... the betting store, bustling with gamblers, all of whom turned out to be in on the scam. The story itself might be worth maybe one-twentieth of the money you lost in your naive ignorance.Today, of course, you're lucky if you get a few run-on sentences about Nigerian royalty. More likely, if you fall for a modern scam, the only tale you'll have to tell is some boring sob story about trying to sell a laptop and getting paid with a cashier's check. How many sympathy drinks can you get out of, "Well, this website asked for my login and password, so I gave it to them" There's no epic sweep there, no sense of gravitas or adventure.I call upon the grifters, schemers and flim-flam artists of this brave new age to step up their game! Don't just throw a form in my face -- get to know me! Befriend me, then let me in on the opportunity of a lifetime, something so juicy that I'd run off to tell my friends if I weren't concerned that they'd beat me to it. Then finally, with flair and grace, rip my heart out, take my money and tip your hat to me as you depart.Anyone can cheat me, but only you can truly con me.- - -Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a rube, a mark and occasionally a dupe.
2008-07-02 01:37:42Dark Knight Director Shuns Digital Effects For the Real Thing
<!--pageType= magazinewide slug= ff_darknightsection= entertainmentsubsection= hollywoodheadline= Gotham Thriller: Batman Does His Own Stunts in Nitty Gritty Dark KnightauthorName= Scott BrowncreditType= photocredit= Robert Maxwellcaption= Nolan drew inspiration for the mood in Dark Knight from crime dramas like Heat and The French Connection.-->The Bat-plan was simple: Base-jump off one Hong Kong skyscraper, smash through the window of another, grab the Chinese crime boss, then hitch a drag chute to a passing C-130 cargo plane for a daring aerial escape. And on to Gotham! An instant, no-fuss extradition in the best tradition of American vigilantism. Just another working day for Batman and, presumably, just another feat of digital wizardry for the visual effects team. Except for one thing: Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight, wanted to do it for real.Which is a funny thing to want when you're making a lavish superhero sequel here in the heyday of the greenscreen. And certainly not an easy thing to get, 88 stories above a juddering megacity on the other side of the world. "They spent weeks in preproduction working out a way to hang the stuntman from one helicopter and have a second helicopter following him with the camera," says Wally Pfister, the movie's director of photography. Two choppers and a stuntman on a string — all to make a comic- book hero seem as credible on film as Frank Serpico or The French Connection's Popeye Doyle. All to make a comic-book movie speak the cinematic language of crime thrillers.And not a moment too soon. While today's action heroes routinely come dressed in shades of the giddy synthetic à la Spider-Man and Iron Man, movie fans have gorged on digital eye candy — and, perhaps fearing retinal diabetes, now they're cutting back Speed Racer, anyone. Still, gritty naturalism is no small leap for the spandex genre. It's a mood more identified with art noir and the prestige pic, the kind of cinema built to attract Oscars, not mass audiences. The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan. Photo: Robert Maxwell Nolan wants to clothe that grim aesthetic in a cape and cowl — and then project it onto an enormous wraparound screen. He's the first Hollywood director to shoot key sequences of a major feature in Imax, the giant-screen film format still known mainly for whopping nature documentaries. For Nolan, reality beats the hell out of gee-whiz special effects. But keeping it real doesn't come cheap: The $180 million flick is Warner Bros.' biggest summer tent pole, and after Speed Racer's flameout, its only box-office hope.The studio should take heart. Nolan has a cogent Theory of Applied Batmatics: Insist on reality — no effects, no tricks — up to the point where insisting on reality becomes unrealistic. Then, in postproduction, make what is necessarily unreal as real as possible. "Anything you notice as technology reminds you that you're in a movie theater," Nolan explains. "Even if you're trying to portray something fantastical and otherworldly, it's always about trying to achieve invisible manipulation." Especially, he adds, with Batman, "the most real of all the superheroes, who has no superpowers."How "real" are we talking here When Nolan unveiled a six-minute Knight prologue on Imax screens last December a twisty bank heist with a jarring Joker reveal, it was clear that his cinematic vision owes more to director Sidney Lumet than golden-age DC comics. You can feel the tension of Lumet's 1975 Dog Day Afternoon and Michael Mann's 1995 drama, Heat.Nolan had an ally in Pfister, his collaborator on every film since the 2000 sleeper hit Memento. "When I was a kid, that bank heist scene in Dog Day Afternoon was real," Pfister recalls. "It was that whole time around The French Connection and Bullitt and The Seven-Ups. That's what Chris was going for. Only we were shooting in Imax, this format where you're used to seeing beautiful sunsets and helicopter shots of gazelles running across mountainsides. Instead, we've got machine-gun fire and Heath Ledger."Nolan's use of Imax is the natural fulfillment of an experiment he launched with Batman Begins in 2005. That film depicted Batman's dogged, bruising rise from angry rich kid to driven crime fighter, and it hinted at the consequences of embracing one's inner demon, even in the service of good. Begins ended with a warning: Batman has escalated the war. His presence ensures the rise of equally quixotic, equally obsessed adversaries. One of these leaves a calling card at murder scenes: a joker. Batman promises the police he'll look into it. In The Dark Knight, he does, and it looks right back at him, with the leering, paint-smeared face of the late Heath Ledger. Eight stories tall. Cruel reality mashed up with the comic-book carnivalesque — unvarnished, without the comforting buffer of f/x. In an Imax theater, your eyes can't wander off Nolan's enveloping canvas and can't easily dismiss what they're seeing as trickery. Maybe that's the most special effect of all.The man who revived the Bat-franchise and saved it from nipple-suited frippery receives visitors in the Garage, his filmmaking sanctum. It's where he shot the first Imax test footage for Knight and began what his wife and producer, Emma Thomas, calls "the biggest home movie ever made." Technically, she's right: The Garage sits across from the couple's large but unpretentious Hollywood manse, where Nolan and Thomas are raising four young children. Heath Ledger as the Joker.Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures When I arrive, Nolan has just finished editing a Joker scene. Ledger is frozen in a blur on three monitors. The actor, who accidentally overdosed on prescription medications in January at age 28, haunts The Dark Knight. The full effect on the film of his shocking death has yet to be gauged, but ever since news of the tragedy hit the wires, there's been reverent yet inescapably ghoulish chatter about a posthumous Oscar.But all that is far from Nolan's mind today. Right now, it's about the work in front of him. "Ask Emma to look at the scene and make sure I didn't fuck it up," he tells his editor, Lee Smith, in a gentle English accent that suggests, to Yank ears, that Everything Is Under Control. As we step out into the toy-strewn, sun-striped courtyard separating Nolan's house from his workshop, I nearly trip over a battered effigy of the Tumbler, the tanklike Batmobile unveiled in Batman Begins. "At one point, that was remote control," Nolan sniffs. "Then it got left out in the rain." I detect a trace of disdain: A real Tumbler wouldn't fritz out after a little LA sprinkle.Because these aren't toys, after all — not in Nolan's world: For the new movie, his designers built a full-size, working motorbike called the Batpod, which zips around on two fat spheroid wheels. According to star Christian Bale, it's a cruel mistress; only one stuntman managed to stay in the saddle. "If you ride it like a bike, you won't be riding it very long," the actor says, speaking from painful experience. But spills aside, Bale definitely caught Nolan's naturalism bug: When he heard that his stunt double, Buster Reeves, was prepping for an aerial shot atop the Sears Tower, he pulled rank. "I said to Buster, 'No you're not. You get to do a lot of fantastic stunts. You're not taking that one away from me.'""So we got an Imax shot of Christian Bale as Batman standing on top of the Sears Tower," Pfister says. "Here we are with our principal actor standing on the edge of one of the tallest buildings in the world. I think a lot of people will assume that's CGI." Perhaps, but when you see the shot featured in the first trailer, your eye instinctively detects something different, something thrilling and rare: photographic reality.Settling for anything less, Nolan feared, would send the Batman franchise back into camp and mummery. That's why he transported his hero to the very real city of Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the real world has its drawbacks. "The Chinese government was a nightmare in terms of filming stuff," Pfister sighs. "They wanted to limit the amount of helicopter activity over the city."And Nolan needed helicopters. He especially wanted to minimize digital meddling in those high-altitude Imax sequences. His reasons were both aesthetic and practical: Imax film stock is enormous, roughly 10 times the size of 35-mm celluloid, and it soaks up a vast amount of visual information. Those dimensions are what make the image so rich and sharp, even spread over a screen the size of a blimp hangar. While conventional films are digitized at 2K resolution 2,000 pixels across, or 4K at most, adding visual effects to Imax footage requires digitizing each frame at up to 8K. In other words, the difficulty and expense of doing f/x rise exponentially with the size of the negative.But even superheroes and movie directors sometimes have to compromise: In the end, Chinese authorities refused to budge, and the skyscraper jump was digitized. But the C-130 preparing to snatch Batman into the sky That's real. "Sometimes you do end up replacing a filmed shot with visual effects," Nolan says. "And there's kind of a see-I-told-you-so among the effects guys. But if we had started out with that, it wouldn't have looked the same. Because we photographed something, we have a benchmark standard to hold to, even if we change things. Even the film's CG shots are rooted in some kind of photographic reality." For instance, Nolan adds a layer of actual human-generated camera-operating motions to digital effects shots — kind of like deliberately scratching the negative. He says it restores "the human element of choice: the little corrections, little imperfections. Certain uncertainties."Certain uncertainties have always pocked Nolan's relationship with the Bat-franchise. Even in 2005, after his revisionist reboot proved successful, the director wasn't sure he was up for a sequel. He was making The Prestige, an art-house thriller about rival magicians in 19th-century London which, significantly, pits technology against old-fashioned sleight of hand. He was moving on. But there was one small problem with leaving Batman behind: He knew how he wanted it all to end. He had something Godfather-ish in mind, a saga of dark doubles and transfiguration — big, dense, and novelistic. Christian Bale as Batman.Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures It would involve not only Batman's archnemesis, the Joker, but also Harvey Dent Thank You For Smoking's Aaron Eckhart as a crusading Gotham City DA destined to become scarred, schizoid villain Two-Face. Nominal allies, Wayne and Dent would vie for the affections of Wayne's longtime love, assistant DA Rachel Dawes Maggie Gyllenhaal, who replaces Batman Begins' Katie Holmes. And Dent's tragic transmogrification into criminal half-man would mirror Wayne's disappearance into his Batman persona. The director wasn't interested in plumbing the murky origins of the Joker himself — the Clown Prince is more a Loki-like force of chaos. "He's like the shark in Jaws," Nolan explains. "The Joker cuts through the film, he's incredibly important, but he's not a guy with a backstory. He's a wild card."It was an ambitious tale, and Nolan needed a canvas to match, a format that could sweep fans off their feet. Imax was his best bet. Since the late 1960s, the Canadian company has specialized in large-format filmmaking and projection. Its screens are the biggest on offer, and their vertiginous 1.43:1 aspect ratio is uniquely suited to tales set on dizzying rooftops. "It's like replicating that childhood experience of moviegoing," Thomas says. "It's harder to be taken out of your own world as a grown-up. You need an even bigger screen."Of course, most people will ultimately see Knight on ordinary multiplex screens. The scenes shot in Imax — the bank heist and Hong Kong escape, all the aerial shots, a bang-up armored car chase, and the final confrontation with the Joker — will have to be adjusted to the usual 2.40:1 aspect ratio. But because they're compressed from the sumptuous Imax negative, those sequences will still retain a special visual richness.Pfister admits that even in an Imax theater, many viewers, wowed by the sheer size, might miss the finer photographic distinctions. But they'll feel them. "It's more of a visceral thing," he explains, adding that Nolan's longer, calmer cuts are designed to let viewers scan the huge Imax screen for detail — a refreshing change after years of synapse-snapping action-movie flash-cuts. "You can see something way off on the horizon," Pfister says. "You can see a little glint of light, a reflection in Batman's eye. You can't see it in a conventional theater. And you definitely can't see it on a plasma screen at home."Which is good news for studios trying to lure viewers back to the box office. Without a crane or David Copperfield, it's impossible to pirate "the Imax experience" for private viewing. It also bodes well for the Imax Corporation, which two years ago saw its stock plummet after an SEC inquiry into its accounting practices. The company has since bounced back, signing deals with theater chains AMC and Regal to expand beyond its current network of 300 theaters in 40 countries. On July 18, Warner Bros. will roll out Knight on almost 100 of those screens and on some 4,000 traditional ones. The studio has shown plenty of blockbusters on Imax screens before, but those films were shot conventionally and later digitally adapted for the format.Of course, shooting on the biggest negative in town isn't easy. The cameras, which Pfister's crew had to lug up to rooftops and onto helicopters, weighed over 60 pounds each, and their bulk made them awkward to maneuver. One crushed its mount. "On a fast tilt-down, the camera just takes you with it," Pfister says. Add to that the fact that Imax film is more than three times as expensive as 35-mm, that there's only one lab in the world able to process it, and that the cameras have to be reloaded after three minutes of shooting. "Chris said, 'It's just like when we were kids and shooting on Super 8!'" Pfister recalls. "You get a three-minute load, and then it takes five days to get your film back.'"Imax cameras are also considerably louder than traditional 35-mm cameras, making it difficult to harvest the environmental, on-set sound Nolan prefers. Movies and television shows often dub dialog after principal photography is over, since the sound recorded by the boom and body mics can prove unusable. Nolan would rather fix it while everyone's still on the set. He hates to loop. "I just think separating the voice from the face and the body is very tricky," he explains. It is, after all, blatantly unreal.To the MaxDigital and 3-D may be the future of cinema, but the Imax viewing experience still packs a punch.70-mm projection left vs. 2-D Imax projection rightPhotos: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesThe ker-pow! of Imax rests on the simple rule that bigger and brighter is better. And the negative used by Imax cameras is huge: 65 mm across, or about the width of an iPod. The additional surface area allows more data to be recorded, resulting in lush, detailed, hi-def images that loom large onscreen. That hi-def effect is expensive, though: Imax film costs more than three times as much as regular film, and the cameras are gluttons with it, slurping up 6 feet of stock per second. Better still, in 2-D Imax theaters, two xenon bulbs outshine the standard single projection light. The result is a brighter image, with angelic whites that make the other colors pop. And don't forget the giant 76- by 98-foot screen — two billboards long and eight stories high. Because it runs wall to wall and floor to ceiling, the image fills viewers' peripheral vision, immersing them in the onscreen action. — Allison RoeserSo did the director get everything he needed from Ledger before his death He says yes: Ledger nailed it in principal photography. Thomas adds, "Everything you see onscreen is his performance." In other words, there'll be no clunky digital resurrection, aural or visual, no morbid echoes of Oliver Reed's posthumous performance in Gladiator. Besides, Nolan doesn't believe in bringing an actor back six months later and expecting him to re-create the nuances of a character, any more than he believes a computer can re-create the quality of human camera work on its own."Anything that's even vaguely funny you just can't reproduce. When there's a hint of irony or comedy ... Well, I don't make comedies, per se, but" — he chuckles — "at least I think my films are funny. Nobody else seems to think so, though." Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures It's a problem Nolan shares with Batman's greasepainted nemesis — and perhaps a harbinger of marketing challenges to come. Naturally, no one's expected to laugh at the Joker's pranks, but will audiences even be able to look at him How will they react to these frightening final images of Ledger-the-actor His death is, in a way, the ultimate case of reality intruding on fantasy. Even before tragedy struck, Nolan was spooked by the character Ledger created. "I remember Heath calling up while I was working on the script and talking about ventriloquist's dummies, about having a voice that was high and low, and I'm on the other end going, 'Uh ... yeah.' It sounded insane, and not necessarily in the right way. But when he performed it, I was like, 'OK, I see.'"Nolan could be describing The Dark Knight itself, this rough comic-book beast he's conjured into our workaday world. "I don't know what this thing is, exactly," he says, "but I know it's what I wanted." He pauses. "Be careful what you wish for!" He laughs again — perhaps a little nervously. It's the first, tiny hint I've seen of a certain uncertainty.Contributing editor scott brown scott_brown@wired.com wrote about Transformers in issue 15.07.
2008-07-01 15:52:34Top stories
The most-read BBC Scotland news website stories
2008-07-01 13:39:16
Explore the Worldviewer.com Network Sites
Vehicle donation - donationsiworld.com | Xe.com - currencyiworld.com | online credit card - creditcardiworld.com | professional services - servicesiworld.com | Florida share time - sharesiworld.com | Online credit card processing - merchantcreditcardiworld.com | Japan economy - economyiworld.com | Shopping mall - virtualmalliworld.com | sports leisure - leisureiworld.com | Auto loan florida - autofinanceiworld.com | Statistics - welfareiworld.com | Candy vending machines - vendingmachinesiworld.com | Irs forms - taxreturnpreparationiworld.com | Real estate broker - brokersiworld.com | Windpipe - lungsiworld.com
