Tag: Film

Bootlegging: Knocking it up & knocking it off in Quito, Ecuador Part 2 of 2 and a case study with Windows XP for software as a service (SaaS)

Posted by J Roland Kelly – September 11, 2008

Internet Cafes. They have always been a mixed bag, but I noticed something on my trip here to Quito.

Windows XP, which powers these places, has been turned into a mess.

It’s an old operating system; yes. The problem is that its been pirated at different evolutions of its development, and then it can’t be properly updated.

Microsoft has released certain high profile security fixes to anyone, even if the OS can’t be proven to be genuine, but where do you commonly go to get those updates? That’s right, and that isn’t happening.

So, it’s common that some of the OSs are five years old.

When I go to an internet café, it’s a crap shoot as to if the computer will run anything. Come on.

I have WordPress set to use Google Gears, but anything of any complexity, a good deal of the time just causes everything to come crashing down.

I don’t like to take my laptop out of my room, so I write these posts, put them on a USB thumb drive and take them to the internet café.

Which means I can’t avoid these versions of XP, and it doesn’t stop there. I have seen many versions of XP where the Microsoft logo as been removed and replaced by another, or some hacker’s gang sign, or nothing at all.

Is this really how it is? Is XP so old and hacked that it can be de-branded or re-branded.

The other thing about all of this is viruses. Quito must have been hit hard a while back, because everyone is paranoid. There are all of these anti-virus programs running, that do no good.

First no one pays for an OS, so they are not paying for an anti-virus program. The result is that they have multiple shareware anti-virus programs running eating up resources, and the only thing that the programs do is make up viruses to try and get you to buy the program.

I bought the USB thumb drive here, took it out of the package and the first time I plugged it in, I was told there was a virus on it. Most anti-virus programs are themselves mal-ware.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind of guy to move from Silicon Valley where I had a T1 connection, a 30” monitor, a completely Mac environment, to Quito only to bit*h about the internet.

I’m not one of those particular kinds of as*holes.

There are many positive developments here. The entire Amazon River basin has better wireless Internet coverage then my university hometown in the United States at the end of 2006. I’ll write about it sometime.

If I paid $80 bucks a month, all this bi*thing would be for not. That just kind of violates my living on ten dollars a day rule.

But when it comes to Windows XP, I think this is an excellent case study for Software as a Service (SaaS).

-J Roland Kelly

  • Share/Bookmark

Bootlegging: Knocking it up & knocking it off in Quito, Ecuador Part 1 of 2

Posted by J Roland Kelly – September 5, 2008

The last time I left the United States was 2004 and it was to Asia, not South America. Things change and one thing I notice is how music and movies are pirated.

For as long as I have been traveling I have seen developing countries violating copyright, no reason to get upset it is just how things work.

In the late 1990s, in the Middle East, I remember seeing music stores where you would pick out whatever you wanted and then the guy running the place would dub it onto a cassette for you while you waited.

I doubt, that many cassettes are being bootlegged now.

Later on when CD-Rs and CD writers where cheap and commonplace, you could buy an album or movie on one CD, in the case of the movie it would have to be rendered down badly to fit on only one CD, this format being called VCD.

The quality was bad, but the format was the standard and it was possible to buy a stand-alone VCD player. Understand? Not a CD player, not a DVD player that could play VCDs, but just a VCD player. Later on it would all come together.

Enter 2008.

DVD writers have replaced CD writers. How has this changed pirating? Well, as my friend Dennis would say the future is where they have the bigger and better guns.

You won’t hear anything more true, than from Dennis.

Okay, so you get more bang for your buck. I’m used to being able to buy an album or movie in low quality on a CD for a buck, but now you can buy five VCD films or the complete Stones or Beatles discography on a DVD for a buck.

What is this noise about inflation?

All the Rocky films for $1, or the Rambo films; for a dollar f*ck it.

When it comes to bootlegging I want to say something about Windows XP but I think that will have to wait until next time.

-J Roland Kelly

  • Share/Bookmark

Filmmaking: Yes, Chan Is Missing, I’ll give you that.

Posted by J Roland Kelly – July 8, 2008


A couple of days ago I mentioned that I went to a screenwriting workshop taught by Terrel Seltzer who worked on the screenplay for Chan Is Missing. I was thinking about it. I dig this film. I like it because it is shot Dinosaur! style, and I like everything shot Dinosaur! style.

I think it’s an inspiration to all of us what you can do with a single camera and a good-looking city for a backdrop. Forget permits, just move to a city long enough to know how to get away with it.

With this film, and because it is low budget, you get to see real 1982 San Francisco.  No closed off streets, no one is holding the crowd back during shooting, none of that, just a small group of people with a camera trying not to get noticed in a larger group of people.

Also, the film has some significance for me. I first saw it on a 30 inch flat-screen monitor, when I thought 30 inch flat-screen monitors were unbelievable large. I had just moved to the Bay Area and I was living in a closet in San Mateo, and it was the first Indie San Francisco type film that I saw. 

The film was made by this guy.

-J Roland Kelly

  • Share/Bookmark

Great Screenwriting – M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening – Reviewed

Posted by J Roland Kelly – June 25, 2008

So, this is my first real blog post. I thought I might create some way to enter with a bang, but I think I’m just going to get into this. And with a movie review no less, something I didn’t even think to optim*ze the site for, but boom: The Happening.

I saw this last night in the theater near my office. And this film was great. I expected to be disappointed because I read the reviews first, which by all accounts are terrible.

Really, people went out of their way to give this film a bad review, one said it was a turkey, the acting sucked, the interaction between the characters was childish and without point.

I went to see it because I’ll see anything from a single writer/director/producer, a rare thing in Hollywood filmmaking. The guy of course is M. Night Shyamalan of Sixth Sense fame.

Here is what I think of this guy. I dig the writer/director/producer thing. Second, I dig that he is an all-American guy of Indian decent who refuses to change his name to something that I can pronounce. Exactly the kind of filmmakers America needs (and more of).

This is what I don’t like. He made a killing off the Sixth Sense – which is a bad film. Everyone liked it but me. Every screenwriter was like “yeah, did you see that classic use of misdirection… ‘two years later’ genius.” 

Please do not put me in the same town as those people.

It terms of writing that was a common lie, and the classic pitfall of writing for the suspense genre. I concede that it gave him money to make other good films including The Happening.

Enough with my jealously.

The thing I liked about The Happening is that the suspension of disbelief was very low. I mean, it could happen (you know if plants started killing people and all that). But not since Unbreakable, has he set a film in the real world, I thought.

What I liked about Unbreakable is that it could be viewed two ways, the story could be about people with super hero powers, or about normal people in normal real life. But it’s the same story, and that is awesome and meaningful.

The storytelling in The Happening was consistent and true, you don’t have to believe in any religious dogma going into the film, and you don’t find out that it really takes place in the future. No cheap dates.

It references Night of the Living Dead, with which I’m a big fan. It feels very similar to that film.

Anyway no big budget, just good storytelling, it is well grounded in the long history of horror films, and I dug it. It was really the best story I had seen in a long time. I recommend it.

If I had any parting words for M. Night Shyamalan it would be: people really didn’t like this film, I saw people that for myself in the theater. Live by the Sixth Sense audience die by the Sixth Sense audience. And also, dude, M. Night Shyamalan, sir, please make another film because this one rocked.

I don’t know why an audience doesn’t always recognize a good story when they see one.

I rank The Happening as Shyamalan’s second best film under Unbreakable as number one. Go see it.

-J Roland Kelly

P.S. I think it was the Night of the Living Dead (1968) style pacing that the audience didn’t like.

  • Share/Bookmark

Filmmaking: Last Thoughts – Dinosaur! (a lot of people’s been missin’)

Posted by J Roland Kelly – April 15, 2008

So, I made this film when I was nine years old. I watch it from time to time, and make other people watch it from time to time.

I remember the making of this film in great detail.

We never asked our father to borrow the video camera. The gun was real, and at nine years old I had enough foresight to make sure the gun was unloaded before I handed it to my eight year old brother to point at me and the camera for that perfect shot. The parent people were not around.

I remember knowing already that there was some kind of fake speech on T.V. that did not allow for cursing, so I arranged ridicules things (fake cursing) for my brother to say.

My brother was the most arrogant actor that I have ever worked with… and lets be honest, it hurt the project.

But basically I remember just talking to my brother about how the next scene was going to go down, shooting it, and then if we didn’t like that take we would just rewind the type and shoot it again.

The filming took place over the Christmas holiday break in 1989.

More than a decade later I tried to preserve the film from its decaying VHS-C format and digitalized the whole thing. The next logical step of course being to enter it into the small student film festival at my university, where it didn’t win anything, and was poorly received by the few people in the audience.

But the guy running that festival said it was his favorite and asked if he could show it in this college childhood development class (I think he was some kind of T.A.). I left him the festival copy and a few months later he emailed me a said that he had shown it to a few classes.

I felt better. In the end, this film found a larger audience than the winning films from that festival.

I like to think of it this way… I was nine years old. I had a Nintendo and a baseball glove, but I chose to pick up a video camera and work out scenes with my brother and a plastic dinosaur.

You know that question that guidance counselors ask when confronted by indifferent teenagers that don’t know what to do with their life; what would you do if you had a million dollars? …start a death country & western band… well that’s exactly what you should do my friend, start a death country & western band.

Anyway I picked up a camera and started ordering other people around. So, whenever I have any doubt about my calling I think about that.

If I had a million dollars I would pick up a camera, get back in touch with my brother, and start to work out scenes for another film. But wait, then I would immediately fire my brother because I would remember what a little starlet he was to work with, he didn’t follow my stage directions, and he didn’t hang up the phone when I told him repeatedly. Punk.

Here it is then. A film that ended the genre: Dinosaur! (a lot of people’s been missin’) 

 - J Roland Kelly

  • Share/Bookmark

© 2007-2010 J ROLAND KELLY All Rights Reserved