Exhibition "L'attimo neorelista"

From January 19 '08 to February 24 '08 you can visit the exhibition "L'attimo neorealista" which is being held in Mestre, near Venice, at the Centro Culturale Candiani. It's a selection of 84 frames from 32 neorealist films. We can't show you the entire exhibition, but the Centro Culturale Candiani has allowed us to show you the following photos:

Roma città aperta by Roberto Rossellini 1945

Paisà by Roberto Rossellini 1946

The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette) by Vittorio De Sica 1948

Bitter Rice (Riso amaro) by Giuseppe De Santis 1949

Path of Hope (Cammino della speranza) by Pietro Germi 1950

If you want buy the catalogue, please click here.

Wim Wenders visits Palermo to promote new film (and eat Italian ices)

On Monday January 21st, in front of an assembly of nearly 300 afficionados, Wim Wenders delighted Palermo's Golden Theater audience with jokes and anecdotes about Shooting Palermo, his new film which will be ready in about four months' time. The brilliant German director, playwright and photographer who is already renowned for such films as Don't Come Knocking (Viva Butte, Montana!), Paris, Texas and Buena Vista Social Club, just to mention a few of his masterpieces, has fallen in love with Palermo's gourmet Italian ices and has decided to shoot a film in Sicily's capital city in order to stock up on lemon sorbets.

The Palermo Shooting stars Andreas Frege, "Campino", the lead singer of the German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen ( The Dead Trousers) [a photograph by Andreas Gursky of one of their concerts is on display at The Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.] in the role of a German photographer who comes to Palermo in order to make a break with his past and finds... Sorry you'll have to see the movie for yourself when it comes out, spoilers verboten!!!

The cast, for now, subject to change without notice, includes the following: Campino, Dennis Hopper, Patti Smith, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Jana Pallaske, Lou Reed, Inga Busch, Udo Samel, Sebastian Blomberg, Melika Foroutan, Alessandro Dieli, Francesco Guzzo, Giovanni Sollima, Wolfgang Michael, Harry Blain, Axel Sichrovsky, Irina Gerdt and Gerhard Gutberlet.

(Lorraine Eda Rolla)

Phonogram: Rue Britannia

You open this comic book, and suddenly you're getting people talking about bands you've never even heard of. It could be alienating, but although they're talking about specific bands, the ideas they are expressing are universal. You don't have to worry about the specifics and can roll with what's in the story. In fact, everything that's actually important in Phonogram can be deduced from the context in which it’s used.
A long search for himself, for the meaning of his existence, in which Kieron Gillen tells us the answer to life is music. Phonogram explores the idea that music truly is magic. "'Phonogram is based on people who realise that metaphor is actually the true foundation of the universe, and so actively manipulate it to achieve their desires", declares the comics writer publically.
This book contains a lot of passion for Britpop but it's more of a struggle about the memories of the music rather than an expression of Gillen's love for it. It analyses the music and the movement with a passion only available to those who really loved it. It also takes the whole thing apart with the venom of those who’ve come out to the other side. The motif of music as a spiritual or magical force is something musicians return to time and time again.
David Kohl is a mage who uses the medium of Britpop music to interpret his magic. He has been tricked by The Goddess into visiting one of her temples. While in the temple, she curses him for the misuse of his powers and then sends him to investigate what is happening to one of her aspects. The aspect in question is Britannia, Goddess of Britpop, who baptised Kohl, was the original source of his abilities and is at least ten years dead. While investigating, he discovers the ghost of a girl who used to have a crush on him. The next day he wakes up to find that his memories have altered.
We realize that our world can begin to change by simply changing our perceptions.
In the end, Phongram is about non-literal ways of seeing the world, alternative perspectives, and so forth.
Now we can turn to the editorial details: the comic book is written by Kieron Gillien and drawn by James McKelvie. It is published by Image Comics.
A run of at least two mini-series is planned. The first volume was a six issue run, collected under the title "Rue Britannia". In keeping with the Britpop theme, the six individual issues had cover art based on album artwork from that era.The first volume began in August 2006.

Future Film Festival Awards '08

The Lancia Platinum Grand Prize, the prize for best long animation film or best special effects, was awarded to Makoto Shinkai's Byousoku 5 Centimeters (5 Centimeters per Second: A Chain of Short Stories about Their Distance) . A special prize was awarded to Michael Arias' Tekkonkinkreet.
The members of the jury were the Italian filmaker Enzo d’Alò, the screenwriter Giorgia Cecere and the head of animation of Lumiq Studios, Carlo Alfano.
The public has voted the short films selected for Future Film Short. The winners of Premio del Pubblico Groupama were Attentiòn al cliente by Marcos Valìd and David Alonso (first prize of 1000 euro) and Scaramuccia of Federico Guidi (second prize 500 euro).
The Autodesk Digital Award was awarded to Alibi by Anthony Lamolinara (Direct2Brain) and Making of “Carnera” by Renzo Martinelli (EDI Effetti Digitali Italiani).

Halas and Batchelor part two

In the 1950s, Halas and Batchelor were able to expand their work yet further, producing films on purely artistic subjects. Experimental work as early as the 1950's included stereoscopy (with Norman McLaren) and advanced forms of film puppetry, combining the multi-projection of film in close synchronization with the live player on the stage and the production in the 1960's of about 200 8mm cassettes to illustrate through brief animation loops important points in scientific and technological instruction linked directly to the textbook. The 1950's represented the true birth of the studio as a recognised source of high quality animated films. It continued to make public information films for governmental offices. These high quality films, especially their shorts for the Marshal Plan, The Shoemaker and The Hatter (1949) and, for the Ministry of Health, Fly About the House (1949 ) were instrumental in attracting funding for the studio's future development. Its UK profile was further enhanced with the production of the Charley series (1946-47) for the Central Office of Information.
They are best known, however, for their adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm (1954). Rumors persist that the film was funded by a CIA covert operation, but Halas insisted that it was humanist and anti-totalitarian rather than anti-Communist, and the film is a considerable achievement: a feature length work of poignancy and deep emotion which revises our expectations of animal characters as comic or sentimental figures. The sombre satire of Orwell's novel is muted by a controversially upbeat ending in which the animals once again mobilize in resistance to authoritarian leadership but the film's highly politicised viewpoint still seems a bold and unusual one, particularly within the context of the British film industry of 1950s.


During the production of Animal Farm Halas & Batchelor employed over seventy people based in different offices in London, including a studio in Stroud. In texts held in their archive, the number of staff employed during the production series varies from author to author: figures range between 70 to 100. At the start of production in 1951, the studio experienced a large increase in personnel: some of these were former employees from Anson Dyer's studio. To support the production of Animal Farm, Halas & Batchelor established Animation Stroud Ltd. in 1951 under the management of Harold Whitaker. The Stroud department became an established part of Halas & Batchelor and became the training base for new staff and new generation of animators. In order to sustain its high level of output and development, the studio was proactive and flexible in identifying and exploiting new markets. It achieved this by recruiting talented staff and advisors whose skills and knowledge helped to achieve these results. The company actively promoted this aspect of its work in promotional leaflets and in the trade press. Due to the high demands that making these films put on the studio, they were forced to divide the studio space into different units and different production areas. This also led to setting up divisions dedicated to key commercial areas of the studio. Much of the structure has not changed from that of the 1950's, except for the creation of additional units aligned to different commercial areas that the studio oversees.
Even with production centered on Animal Farm, the studio was able to continue making commercials, information and educational films. A survey made during current research of the creative output of the studio during this period gives an indication of the range of films they produced. At the proposed launching of the new television channel ITV in the UK in 1955, Halas & Batchelor were already investigating the impact the launch of commercial television would have on animation studios. The most significant effect of the new station was the increased number of commissioned commercials, and in particular animated commercials, by advertising agencies. By 1955 the number of studios producing animation increased as a response to this demand.
By 1955, Halas & Batchelor was promoted as the largest cartoon studio in Europe. The economics of animation have always been precarious, and Halas and Batchelor primarily supported their unit by the mass production of commercials for television, the production of sponsored public relations films, films made in association with other production companies, and by sponsored entertainment series undertaken for television, such as the Foo-Foo cartoon series and the Snip and Snap series. The latter introduced paper sculpture animals, and both series, made in association with ABC-TV, enjoyed worldwide distribution.

Other articles which might interest you:

Halas & Batchelor chronological filmography

Halas & Batchelor at Future Film Festival

Halas and Bachelor part one

Six Little Jungle Boys

Tromsø International Film Festival - '08 award

The '08 award winners at Tromsø International Film Festival are now official. Five films have received awards, two have gotten received mentions. The festival's main prize, the AURORA, was given to the French film WATER LILIES directed by Cèline Sciamma. The prize money guarantees the film full cinema distribution in Norway. This year's opening film, THE KAUTOKEINO REBELLION, won the FICC jury's Don Quijote prize.

The AURORA prize is given by the Tromsø International Film Festival committee. The prize is 100.000 NOK sponsored by FILM&KINO, and ensures the film's distribution at Norwegian cinemas.

The prize goes to: WATER LILIES. Directed by: Cèline Sciamma, France 2007.

The jury: Vigdis Lian (leader of the Norwegian Film Institute), Bent Hamer (Film director), Petter Benestad (cinema director at Kristiansand Cinema og leader in The Norwegian Association of Cinema Directors).


The Don Quijote award is given out by the FICC jury – the international federation of film societies and non-profit cinemas.

The prize goes to: THE KAUTOKEINO REBELLION. Directed by: Nils Gaup, Norway 2008.

The jury: Hege Kristin Widnes (Tromsø Film Society), Ada Guilà Puig (Fed. Catalana de Cineclubs, Barcelona), David Miller (British Federation of Film Societies).

The FIPRESCI award is the international film critic award.

The prize goes to: THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN. Directed by: Abdellatif Kechiche, France 2007.

The jury: Katharina Dockhorn (Filmwoche, Welt, Blickpunkt. Germany), Eero Tammi (Filmihullu, Finland), Øyvor Dalan Vik (Dagens Næringsliv, Norway).


The Norwegian Peace Film Award is given out by Tromsø International Film Festival, Center for Peace Studies at the University of Tromsø and the Student Peace Network.

The prize goes to: LITTLE MOTH. Directed by: Peng Tao, China 2007.

Honourable mentions: WHAT REMAINS OF US. Directed by: Hugo Latulippe, Francoise Prèvost, France 2004 and THE BAND’s VISIT. Directed by: Eran Kolirin, Israel, France, USA 2007.

The jury: Efrat Ben-Ze (Ruppin Academic Center and Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem), Unni A.B. Sørensen (Student Network for Peace, Tromsø), Hisham Zaman (film director, Oslo).


THE TROMSØ PALM is given to the best short or documentary from the “Films from the North’ program.

The prize goes to: KESÄN LAPSI (Summerchild). Directed by: Iris Olsson, Finland 2007.

The jury: Mika Ronkainen (filmregissør og produsent, Klaffi Productions, Finland), Endre Lund Eriksen (director and director, Tromsø), Torunn Nyen (Festival Director of the Norwegian Short Film Festival).

Laws of seeing

Many art students in college don't like studying Arnheim's Art and Visual Perception. I like Arnheim's books, especially Art and Visual Perception; I'm interested in art psychology and I believe that anyone who wishes to study modern art, should study this branch of knowledge and thus take advantage of the fact that non objective or abstract art doesn't offer us the distraction of a specific narrative. This, in fact, is what give such works of art their extreme opticality.

I guess Gestalt theory offers us a useful tool towards an understanding of the laws of seeing: proximity, similarity, closure and continuity.
A viewer's mind tends to group visual forms in order to achieve simplicity or stability. This organizing principle in the way we see forms is a natural tendency of mankind for not only do we tend to detect symmetry: but we prefer to find symmetry in art.
Painters have an innate knowledge of how these systems influence and fascinate their assumed target viewers. Painters use the concept of object recognition to develop figure-ground relationships. They do their best to manipulate the viewer's attention so that a specified part of the painted suface is perceived as the object of interest or "figure" while other areas are seen as background. In fact, because the viewer's attention is focused on the object, the ground becomes of secondary importance.
Modern painters have been concerned with making every part of a painting's surface vital. Composition is one of several ways that painters can undo or subvert the figure-ground ways of seeing. This involves a vast amount of mental organizing .
Our acceptance of abstract art can be seen as the product of an evolving visual sophistication: our culture has invented new ways of seeing paintings. Abstract painting demonstrates the significant development of a new visual paradigm.

Six little jungle boys (1945)

'Six Little Jungle Boys' was part of 'The Joy of Sex Education'





Other articles which might interest you:


Halas & Batchelor chronological filmography


Halas & Batchelor at Future Film Festival

Halas and Bachelor part one

What's abstract art?

When I was younger I preferred classical art to abstract art because as I told people "it's more real". Now that I'm a bit older and have more experience, I can tell you that this was a mistake. Abstract art is more real than classical art is.
Let me ask you "Isn't color real in an abstract painting? And what about texture?" I'm sure you don't have to think about the answer. Yes, color and texture are just as real in abstract paintings as they are in classical art. The term abstract refers to form only.
The term non-objective art would probably be more appropriate than abstract art. Abstract art can be ambiguous in a way that realist paintings aren't. Abstract painters have some intuition about the kind of dialogues that a painting will engender because of its difference in volume and direction. Their paintings come from something in the real world.
If we really want to get to know abstract art we should ask ourselves how it began. I don't like the Marxist approach which is a sort of cliché after Peter Burger's talk about avant-garde origins. I don't have any thing against the theory of the influence of socio-economic revolution on abstract art, but I think the true forces at work here are the invention of photography and the search for purity.
It's true that economic independence allows artists to gain artistic independence and freedom from the dictates of style. But I doubt this is enough to explain the artistic revolution.
Who would desire a portait if he had the possibility of using the new technological tools? Many artists feared this would be the end of art. Painters were, in fact, forced to search for new subject matters which could embody their internalized ideals. Many artists found a solution in eliminating details and the illusion of space.

Halas & Batchelor Part one

Your Very Good Health

In 1932 John Halas (János Halász) formed his first film studio with Gyula Macskássy in Budapest. His involvement with animation evolved from his work with George Pal (György Pál Marczincsak). While working and studying in Budapest Halas became acquainted with László Moholy-Nagy. This encounter was later developed when both were working in London. Due to the lack of business at the studio, Halas left Hungary for a job in Paris where he also continued studies he had begun in Budapest. During this period, Joy Batchelor was an established illustrator producing work for fashion magazines and newspapers in London. After living in Paris, Halas moved to London in 1936 to complete the production of Music Man (1938). It was during this production period that he met Joy Batchelor, who also worked on the film.
John Halas and Joy Batchelor began their graphic design partnership during the pre-war period and then were married in 1940. Halas & Batchelor Cartoon Films Ltd was established in 1940 as a formally registered company. They hired a small room in Bush House, Aldwych, on the 18th May 1940, which was the headquarters for the J Walter Thompson advertising agency.
Their work was immediately identifiable by its combination of Disney-style characters and Eastern European aesthetics. The Ministry of Information invited the couple to make wartime public information and propaganda shorts.
Promotional and instructional films made by the studio led to an acceptance of animation as a mode of expression which could engage with mature subjects and serious themes. From 1940 to the late 1950's the studio was firmly associated with the production of propaganda and public information films. Most of these were shorts and represented a maturity of aesthetic style and imaginative visualisation. The films, usually about 5 minutes long, were written by Alexander McKendrick and fully animated by John Halas and Joy Batchelor with Vera Linnecar, Katherine Houston, Harold Mack and Wall Crook assisting.

Charlie Junior's School Day





Other articles which might interest you:
Halas & Batchelor chronological filmography

Halas & Batchelor at Future Film Festival

The Cartoonist and The Cat 3

Here's another Davide Zamberlan's strip.



If you want to read the The Cartoonist and The Cat 1 and 2, please click here.
The Cartoonist and the Cat 4

Halas & Batchelor cronological filmography

We're continuing our selection of Halas & Batchelor's short films.





Here's a cronological list of their non-commercial works:
1938 Music Man
1938/39 The Brave ‘Little’ Tin Solider (uncompleted project)
1940 Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard
1941 Pocket Cartoon
1941 Filling the Gap
1941 Dustbin Parade
1942 Digging for Victory
1943 Compost Heaps (Pathé trailers)
I Stopped, I Looked (trailer)
Model Sorter
War Bonds (Pathé trailers)
Look out in the Black Out (Pathé trailers)
Early Digging (Pathé trailers)
Nine Men (animation effects for Ealing Studios)
Jungle Warfare
1943/45 Abu series
1944 Cold Comfort (newsreel trailer)
From Rags to Stitches (Pathé trailers)
Christmas Wishes (Pathé trailers)
Blitz on Bugs (Pathé trailers)
Careless Talk (Pathé trailers)
Spending Money (Pathé trailers)
Anti-Personnel Bomb (Pathé trailers)
Early April (Pathé trailers)
Domestic Workers (Pathé trailers)
Mrs. Sew and Sew (Pathé trailers)
1945 The Big Top
1944/45 Handling Ships
Export! Export! Export!
Export or Die
Six Little Jungle Boy’s
Tommy’s Double Trouble
Britain Must Export!
Dead of Night (animation effects for Ealing Studios)
Road Safety
1946 Immunize Against Diphtheria
Old Wives’ Tale
The Keys of Heaven
Modern Guide to Health
1946/47 Charley series
1949 Farmer Charley
1947 Pattern for Progress (animation Inserts for Technic Films)
First Line of Defense
This is the Air Force
1948 Magic Canvas
Water for Fire Fighting
Heave Away My Johnny
1949 Tracing the Spread of Infection
A Better Spirit (Part 1 of series Start With What is Under Your Nose)
A Little Forethought (Part 2 of series Start With What is Under Your Nose)
A Well Kept Machine (Part 3 of series Start With What is Under Your
Nose)
The Shoemaker and the Hatter
Submarine Control
Fly about the House
Mortal Shock
Think to the Future
Television Opening
Passport to Pimlico (animation effects for Ealing Studios)
1950 Dollar Gaf (animated inserts for Crown Film Unit)
As Old as the Hills
1950/51 The Earth in Labour
1950 Fowl Play
Fowl Play
British Army at Your Service
1951 Catalysis
Moving Spirit
1951 Poet and Painter Series
1951/4 Animal Farm
1952 We’ve Come a Long Way
The Owl and the Pussycat
Linear Accelerator
Service: Garage Handling
Changing Face of Europe (animated titles)
Cinerama Holiday (Continuity sequences)
Power to Fly
Coastal Navigation and Pilotage
The Figurehead
1954 Martin Luther
Down a Long Way
Refinery at Work
Early Days of Communication
Know your Allies (animated titles)
Pilgrims Progress (not produced)
Conquest of Everest (animation effects)
1954/5 The Sea of Winslow Homer
1955 The World that Nature Forgot
Animal Vegetable Mineral
Basic Fleetwork
Sniffles and Sneezes (animation inserts)
Refinery at Work
POPEYE series
Private’s Progress (Animated titles)
1955/56 The Aluminum Story
1955 Mr. Finley’s Feelings (animated inserts)
1956 The World of Little
The Candlemaker
To Your Health
Speed the Plough
1956/7 History of the Cinema
1956 Think of the Future
To Open the Worlds to the Nations – Suez Canal
Some Diseases of the heart and Circulatory System (animation insert)
Invisible Exchange
1957 Midsummer Nightmare (uncompleted project)
Open Window (animated titles)
Legend of the Lost (animated effects)
Granada Television Symbol
All Lit
1958 The First 99 (animated inserts)
The Christmas Visitor
Dam the Delta
Speed the Plough
Follow that Car
Best Seller (for Shell Petroleum Company)
Paying Bay
Early Days of Communication
1959 Rude on the Road
ABC Television Symbol
Armchair Theatre Titles
How to be a Hostess (live action)
Man in Silence
Charlotte’s Web (not produced)
Piping Hot
The Energy Picture
For Better for Worse
1959-60 Foo Foo (series)
1960 SNIP AND SNAP (series)
History of Inventions
The Brides of March
Road Hog – Don’t Be Rude On The Road
Wonder of Wool
Once More with Feeling (animated titles)
Guns of Navarone (excerpts, map effects)
1960-61 The Thief of Baghdad (animation effects for Titanus Film)
1961 The Monster of Highgate Pond (live action)
Lees Bar
Hamilton the Musical Elephant
Hamilton in the Music Festival
1961/69 8mm CONCEPT FILMS: BIOLOGY (series)
1961/69 8mm CONCEPT FILMS: MATHS (series)
1962 Barnaby – Father Dear Father (1962) 5min
Barnaby – Overdue Dues Blue (1962) 11min
The Showing Up of Larry the Lamb
The Romance of the Juke Box
1963 Weave me a Rainbow
Automania 2000
The Axe and the Lamp
Red Spotted Ball
1964 The Tale of the Magician
Ruddigore (feature)
Living Screen: Is there Intelligent Life on Earth
Paying Bay (for Shell)
Follow That Car
THE TALES OF HOFFNUNG (series)
MARTIAN IN MOSCOW (series)
DODO (series)
1966 ICOGRADA Congress (live action)
CLASSIC FAIRY TALES series
Matrices
Dying for a Smoke
Deadlock
Flow Diagram
Linear Programming
1966/67 LONE RANGER (37 episodes)
1967 The Question
What is a Computer?
Girls Growing Up
Mothers and Father
Colombo Plan
The Commonwealth
1968 Bolly: A Space Adventure
Functions and Relations
1969 Small World: Henry & Henriette
Henry & Henriette in The Seven Stages of Marriage
Measure of Man
To Our Children’s Children’s Children
1970 Short Tall Story
The Five
Wot Dot
Flurina
TOMFOOLERY (17 episodes)
This Love Thing
The Five
1971 Children and Cars
Football Freaks
The Condition of Man (series)
1972 THE ADAMS FAMILY (17 episodes)
THE JACKSON FIVE (17 episodes)
THE OSMONDS (17 episodes)
1973 Children Making Cartoons (live action)
BRITAIN NOW (series) (live action)
Contact
Making Music Together
1973-74 Kitchen Think
EUROPEAN FOLK TALES (series of 33 films from different countries)
1973 The Glorious Musketeers
The Twelve Tasks of Asterix
1974 Carry on Milkmaids
Butterfly Ball
1975 How Not to Succeed in Business
Life Insurance Training Film
1976/78 Max and Moritz (feature and separate episodes)
1976 Skyrider
1977 Making it Move (live action)
Noah’s Ark (project not completed)
The Three Musketeers
1978 WILHELM BUSCH ALBUM (series)
1979 Bravo for Billy (Sport Billy)
Ten for Survival
Autobahn
Dream Doll (directed by Bob Godfrey)
1980 Instant Sex (directed by Bob Godfrey)
BioWoman (directed by BobGodfrey)
Bible Stories
1981 Heavy Metal (“Grimaldi” and “So Beautiful and So Dangerous” stories in feature film)
A Cat is A Cat
Dilemma
First Steps: Caring For the Very Young
1982 The Adventures of Blip: Mechanical Dog
1983 King Rubic: The King’s Cold
1984 Growing Up: A Guide to Puberty
Doctor in the Sky
Great Masters: A New Vision: Botticelli
1986 Great Masters: A New Vision: Leonardo da Vinci
Great Masters: A New Vision: Toulouse-Lautrec
1987 The Players
Masters of Animation (series)
1990 A Memory of L. Moholy-Nagy
1996 Know your Europeans project
1996 Know your Europeans UK (directed by Bob Godfrey)
1996 Know your Europeans Germany (directed by Christoph Simon)
Quartet
Up
Let it Bleed
It Furthers One to Have Somewhere to Go
Xeroscopy
Discovery of America
This Love Thing (includes Pilot version)
Together for Children
Tide Tables
The Big Sneeze (project not produced)
Elementary Physics: The Action of
the Lever I, II, III., The Inclined Plane, The Screw
Animal Behaviour series (film loops)
The Mussel
The Sea Urchin
The Kittiwake
Animal Conference
Captain Cook’s Travels
The Choice
First Aid: Bleeding, Scalds
The Way to Security
Think of the Future
Alice in Chinaland (not produced)
Water Safety
Seagram

65th Golden Globe Award Winners

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

Atonement

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

JULIE CHRISTIE

Away from Her

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

There Will be Blood

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

MARION COTILLARD

La Vie en Rose

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

JOHNNY DEPP

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Ratatouille

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
– FRANCE AND USA

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

CATE BLANCHETT

I'm Not There

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

JAVIER BARDEM

No Country for Old Men

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE

JULIAN SCHNABEL

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE

ETHAN COEN & JOEL COEN

No Country for Old Men

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE

DARIO MARIANELLI

Atonement

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE

“GUARANTEED” — Into The Wild

Music & Lyrics by: Eddie Vedder

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

MAD MEN

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

GLENN CLOSE

Damages: The Complete First Season

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

JON HAMM

Mad Men

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Extras

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

TINA FEY

30 Rock

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

DAVID DUCHOVNY

Californication

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Longford

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

QUEEN LATIFAH

Life Support

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

JIM BROADBENT

Longford

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

SAMANTHA MORTON

Longford

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

JEREMY PIVEN

Entourage

Halas & Batchelor at Future Film Festival

Tomorrow the 10th edition of Future Film Festival begins. If you can't watch the screening dedicated to John Halas and Joy Batchelor, don't worry!
In these days I'll show you some of their best short films!




Here 's the list of Halas & Batchelor's short films you can watch at Future Film Festival:
The Owl and the Pussycat by John Halas, Brian Borthwick, 1952; Figurehead by John Halas, Joy Batchelor, 1953; The History of the Cinema by John Halas, 1957; FooFoo The Stowaway by Harold Whitaker, John Smith, Tony Guy, Terry Harrison, Regno Unito, 1960; Cultured Ape by John Halas, Harold Whitaker, Tony Guy, 1960; Snip and Snap, Top Dogs by John Halas, Tock, 1960; Snip and Snap, Snap Shots by John Halas, Tock, 1960; Hamilton in the Music Festival by John Halas, 1961; The Symphony Orchestra by Harold Whitaker, 1964; Autobahn by Roger Mainwood, 1979; Butterfly Ball by Lee Mishkin, 1974; Dilemma by John Halas, 1981.

Online film critics' society award 2007

On December 24, 2007 the Online film critics' society announced the 2007 nominees. The final ballots of OFCS awards go out on January 1-7, 2008. The winners should be anoounced on January 8, 2008, instead the ceremony was held on January 11, 2008:

Best Film: No Country for Old Men

Best foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Best Documentary: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters by Seth Gordon

Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will be Blood

Best Actress: Ellen Page, Juno

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There

Best Ensemble: No Country for Old Men

Actor of the Year: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Charlie Wilson's War, The Savages

Breakthrough Film Artist: Sarah Polley, Away from Her

Best Screenplay - Original: Diablo Cody, Juno

Best Screenplay - Adapted: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men

Best Animated Film: Ratatouille by Brad Bird

Best Cinematography: Óscar Faura, The Orphanage

Best Score: Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, Once

Best Overlooked film: Air Guitar Nation by Alexandra Lipsitz

Who I Am and What I Want (2005)

Who I Am and What I Want is a 7 minute animated short directed by Chris Shepherd and David Shrigley in 2005. It's based on the David Shrigley book of the same title.

The quirky funny black and white animation was commissioned in 2004 by the Animate! project. It was co-directed by David Shrigley and Chris Shepherd and animated by Alan Andrews, Siren Halvorsen, Ellen Kleiven.

David Shrigley's book of the same title had a story which featured a narrative and a fictional autobiography. No aspect of his insignificant life, as he deems it, is spared: Pete shares his deepest and darkest wishes, fears and thoughts. It is the story of a man who bares his emotions, history, hang ups and desires in all of their dysfunctional absurdity and then leaves us to assemble not only his identity but to question our own. Despite his eccentricities, a very strange paternal relationship and a spell in the nuthouse, Pete’s really one of us.

A psychoanalitical story which won more than ten short film awards.

It's a unique, weird and short film.Who I Am and What I Want will surprise you, because you're not sure what's going to happen: you could be scared of it, or you could really connect with it!

Critics' choice awards 2007

On December 11, 2007 the BFCA members announced the Critics’ Choice Awards nominees. The final ballots go out to the BFCA members on January 3, 2008. The 13th annual Critics’ Choice Awards ceremony was held on January 7, 2008, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium:

Best Picture
No Country for Old Men

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will be Blood

Best Actress
Julie Christie - Away from Her

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone

Best Acting Ensemble
Hairspray

Best Director
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men

Best Writer
Diablo Cody - Juno Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille

Best Young Actor
Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada - The Kite Runner

Best Young Actress
Nikki Blonsky - Hairspray

Best Comedy Movie
Juno

Best Family Film
Enchanted

Best Picture Made for Television
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Best Documentary
Sicko

Best Foreign Language Film
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Song
"Falling Slowly", Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - Once

Best Composer
Jonny Greenwood - There Will Be Blood

The Cartoonist and the Cat

Davide Zamberlan is an Italian cartoonist. So far he has issued the graphic novel Intermezzi (Tumuè, 2005) and the collected issues of his strip Il vecio della montagna: Bhè... sempre meglio che lavorare... (Lilliput, 2004), Fumettisti si diventa... fumettari si nasce! (Lilliput, 2005) and Fumettista sull'orlo di una crisi di nervi... (Lilliput, 2005). He won the Italian comics competition Otto tavole per Mondo Naif with the short comic Il viaggio, which revealed his classic and soft style to the world.

The cartoonist and the cat 3

The Cartoonist and the Cat 4

Un dimanche après-midi à l'Ile de la Grande Jatte

One of the most famous of Seraut's paintings. It's very important because it's the first experiment which invokes opticals principles in support of his technique: the dotted brushwork. This technique creates a visual shimmer through partial optical mixture while the border of this canvas creates a contrast to the scene

What's a pixilation?

The Bolex Brothers' The Secret Adventures Of Tom Thumb and Norman McLaren's Neighbours are famous pixilations. I showed you a pixilation right in this blog, then a friend of mine asked me "What's a pixilation?". I answered him, then I browsed on the web where I found Wikipedia's definition of pixilation which I don't like. According to Wikipedia "pixilation" is a stop motion technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in a film, repeatedly posing while one or more frames are taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. The actor becomes a kind of living stop motion."

I'd like to clarify that time lapse, pixilation and stop motion are different techniques!

While it's true that pixilation is a form of stop-motion, pixilation has its origins in the "trick films" famous for their use of special effects (George Meliés) which marked the early years of film-making. Pixilation is often used to save time, instead of making a series of drawings, humans are placed in a series of postures by repeating each frame three times.
In this technique the interaction of actors and objects in a three-dimensional setting which introduces a series of references to reality is very important . This has an influence on the choice of subjects dealt with in films that use this technique. The final effect is that of an unnatural movement like in an old movie.
While a stop-motion object usually doesn't alter our film perception, pixilation and time lapse do. The difference between the last two techniques is that while in pixilation the filmmaker records occasional frames, in time lapse, instead, every frame is exposed at predetermined intervals. The last technique alters our perception of time by collapsing it.

The Hat Squad

I'm not a big fan of Jay Faerber. He's a good writer, but I can't stand his Noble Causes, another super-hero comic where the focus is on character interaction rather than fight scenes, and it's got murder, betrayal, intrigue, humor, and sex. I begin to think that many comics writers imitate Busiek, Miller and Moore only to sell more copies. There are so many new stories out there to narrate!
I read The Hat Squad only because my girlfriend gave it to me as a gift. It was a good idea!
The Hat Squad reminds me of the Bendis' Torso Graphic Novel. Like the characters of Torso, The Hat Squad exist in real life too. They were a group of four policemen who went to great, often illegal lengths to keep the mob out of L.A., as in Chandler's LA romances.
A 1950s B-movie starlet approaches the Hat Squad and asks for their help, but they dismiss her concerns. But when she turns up dead not long after their encounter, the case gets personal, and Sgt. Jake Thurman and his men tear through Hollywood looking for the killer. They'll break bones and split lips to find the truth. They're the kind of police officers, who though honest to a fault, may arreste someone out of principle like Elliot Ness (one of the real characters of Torso) did.
Jay Faerber is very good at characterizing the personalities of the characters, from the guilt-ridden leader Jake to the new guy Danny. The mystery of who killed Sheila provides an interesting plot.
The influence of Curt Swan is evident on Yonge's work. The art is presented in black and white with a attention to detail and anatomy, Yonge tends not to use heavy inks to achieve the atmosphere. Each panel is perfect.

Prepare to read hardboiled dialogue!

About film theory

Usually people tend to confuse film theory with film interpretation. They 're making a big mistake!
The use of technical language doesn't transform the interpretation of individual films into theory. "Theory involves evolving categories and hypothesizing the existence of general patterns" (Noell Carroll).
Film theory should be a comprehensive instrument that is able to answer virtually every legitimate question about film. I doubt we have a legitimate instrument to study film. We have had so many different film theories, that we might come to think of film theory as a field of activity where many different projects at different levels of generality and abstraction coexist without being subsumed under a singular general theory.
Theories are framed today in specific historical contexts for the purpose of answering certain questions. In the 1970's we saw the emergence of film-based semiotics, psychoanalisis, textual analysis and feminism; in the 1980's post-structuralism, post-modernism, multiculturalism and the so called "identity politics" (gay/lesbian/queer studies). If we have so many approaches to film studies I would like to know why an inter-theoretical debate is so rare in the history of film theory !
How many film theorists can you name, who are noteworthy for their careful consideration of previous research? I can think only of Christian Metz. I hope you can prove me wrong soon!

Yellow-Red-Blue

I think many critics have talked about Wassily Kandinsky's Yellow-Red-Blue. Look at it!



Do you know why I enjoy this painting? Because Kandinsky, with this painting, exemplified an aspect of color theory: the creation of red from the "augmentation" of yellow and blue as described in Goethe's Theory of Colours

Comic belief

A documentary about Dan Pirraro's life.is a digital production company based in New York City, specializing in narrative and documentary.

They completed a documentary profile of the cartoonist Dan Piraro. I think it's interesting, I hope you enjoy watching it!

NFPF need your support!

The NFPF is a grant-giving public charity, affiliated with the Library of Congress's National Film Preservation Board.
It was created by Congress in 1996 at the recommendation of the Library of Congress.
Congress asked the Library to find a fresh approach to preserve motion pictures most at-risk, such as documentaries, silent-era films, avant-garde works, ethnic films, newsreels, home movies, and independent works, for future generations.

Their top priority is saving American films that would be unlikely to survive without public support. Over the past ten years, they' ve developed grant programs to help libraries, museums and archives to preserve films and to make them available for study and research.
They also organize, obtain funding, and manage cooperative projects that enable film archives to work together on national preservation initiatives. Published through these collaborations are the first-ever DVD set of film treasures preserved by American archives (2000), a new critically acclaimed 3-DVD box set of films from the first four decades of the motion picture, The Film Preservation Guide: The Basics for Archives, Libraries, and Museums (2004), and the international database for locating silent films.

Today the NFPF needs your help. The NFPF depends on contributions from individuals, foundations and corporations to support film preservation activities across the United States.
You can support the national film preservation work of the NFPF by sending donations to:

National Film Preservation Foundation
870 Market Street, Suite 768
San Francisco, CA 94102


You can also support them, by buying their dvd collections: Treasures From American Film Archives, More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894-1931 and Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934.

Cerebus, and after? Glamourpuss!

Don't trust everything you read in the vanity publishing world!
Dave Sim is still active, Dave Sim continues to write comics and he'll continue to write for a long time.
After the 300th number of Cerebus was published, the comic author continues to produce occasional guest work, goes to conventions and regularly attends city council meetings and provides interviews and art for a Texas-based magazine called Following Cerebus. Many thought he would never issue new comics again, but, at the beginning of 2006, Dave Sim began publishing an on-line comic book biography of the Canadian actress Siu Ta titled "Siu Ta, So Far".
Last week, Dave Sim announced an upcoming women's-fashion-related comic called
glamourpuss.
What can we expect by an author who sparked one of the major controversies in the comic book industry? He had, in fact, expressed views contrary to feminism in issue No. 186 of Cerebus.

One Hundred Years

Max Andersson is a Swedish comic artist who emerged in the mid-1980’s and made his mark originally as a talented film animator.

Max Andersson's debut animation film won 1st Prize at Melbourne's International Film Festival, 2nd Prize at Los Angeles' Animation Celebration and a special prize at Berlin's Film Festival.

Writer/Director/Camera/Animation: Max Andersson
Producer: Lisbet Gabrielsson
Music: The Cure



I like this video very much . The emptiness of life, a society of "zombie" people who don't allow to be yourself.
Happy New Year to everyone!

Las Vegas Film Critics Society 2007 Awards

Last week the Las Vegas Film Critics Society announced their annual Sierra awards for the best films of 2007.

"Old Men" proves to be alive and kicking as the Las Vegas Film Critics Society announces its winners for it's 11th Annual 'Sierra Awards.' The Coen Bros' No Country for Old Men received three prize including Best Picture and Best Director.

Best Actor is Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will be Blood.

Both films are widely predicted to go up against each other at the Academy Awards.

Ellen Page won Best Actress for playing a 16-year-old pregnant girl in Juno. Diablo Cody, the stripper turned screenwriter, wrote the screenplay and also won for Best Screenplay.

Best Supporting Actor is Javier Bardem, playing the oxygen tank killer with a penchant for making his victims decide their fate on the toss of a coin in No Country for Old Men.

Best Supporting Actress is Cate Blanchett


Best Director
Joel & Ethan Coen, “No Country for Old Men

Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted)
Diablo Cody, “Juno”

Best Cinematography
Robert Elswit, “There Will Be Blood”

Best Film Editing
Christopher Rouse, “The Bourne Ultimatum”

Best Costume Design
Colleen Atwood, “Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street”

Best Art Direction
“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”

Best Visual Effects
“Transformers”

Best Score
Jonny Greenwood, “There Will Be Blood”

Best Song
“Walk Hard” by Marshall Crenshaw, John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan
Performed by John C. Reilly

Best Animated Film
“Ratatouille”

Best Family Film
“Ratatouille”

Best Documentary
“Sicko”

Best Foreign Film
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

Youth in Film Award (Male)
Ed Sanders, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Youth in Film Award (Female)
Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"

Best DVD (Packaging, Design and Content)
Blade Runner Ultima edition(Warner Home Entertainment)

William Holden Lifetime Achievement Award
James Hong

Tales from the Farm

Jeff Lemire’s first book in his three book trilogy, Tales From The Farm (Essex County), is one of the best comics I read last month. I waited a long time to buy it because my comic book store usually discounts only less recents comic books.

Lester, a young boy without a father, is taken in by his uncle Ken following his mother’s early death from cancer. At every attempt of contact from Ken, Lester retreats to his fantasy world of comic books: fighting aliens, building forts, and generally living in a make believe world. Both of their lives, although they share the same house, are spent in isolation and sadness, being affected by the death of a loved one in different ways. Even so, when Lester first reaches out for a father figure, he does not look to Ken, but to Jimmy Lebeuf, a one time professional hockey player who is now a gas attendant after a career ending injury.

The story is all set in a fictionalized version of Jeff Lemire's hometown. The character of Lester is not directly based on the author's childhood , but the themes are the same. Jeff Lemire grew up on a farm just like the character did, but was raised by parents. He added the death of character's mother only to heighten the character’s isolation.

The flashbacks show Lester’s mother in the hospital and reveal the conflict between Ken who didn’t want to become a father and Lester who has been ripped from all he knows and thrust into life on a farm. Lemire doesn’t make any obvious judgments when it comes to the decisions that Lester makes about love and friendship. His narrative is more about Lester’s well being and self-discovery.

The artwork of Tales From the Farm is distinctive black and white. Jeff Lemire’s style is straightforward and stark.

A touching story about self-discovery, growing up and loss.

How does cinematic fiction render the ordinary world intelligible?

Narrative is one of the fundamental ways in which we organnize the world. In recent years the study of narrative has acquired a new and prominent role in theorizing film theory.
How do you study narratology?

• You should study theories about the nature of those patterns and structures, which are created while consciuonsly reading a text;
• You should look at the concept of causality, space and time and how they have been perceived as data in an imagined story world;
• You should ask yourself how to represent a particular event within a narrative schema;
• You should also expand the concept of the spectator's knowledge beyond immediate seeing to include other influences: cultural expectations, memory of previous scenes and the sound track;
• You should create a hierarchy of roles or levels which describes the typical ways in which a reader participates in a novel.

It isn't a simple task, but Edward Branigan has done it in his Narrative Comprehension and Film. His principal references are Todorov's causal-transformation theory of narrative and Stephen Heath's theory of displacement.
Edward Branigan offers us a great deal of substance and a range of attractive speculative insights. The book explain us how to relate the double argument about narrative in film and human perception as interpretive construals.

Echo, Terry Moore's new creator owned series

Terry Moore has won the prestigious Will Eisner Award for “Best Continuing Series” and the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Award for “Best Comic Book” with his graphic novel series, Strangers In Paradise . He' s currently under contract with Marvel Comics, where he writes Runaways, and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. I wouldn't think he had any free time, but instead he's working on a new creator-owned series, Echo, which will come out in March 2008.
Echo is a black humor thriller comedy drama which narrates the story of Julie Martin, a photographer taking pictures in the desert who finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seems that Julie lives in the same world and time of the SIP characters. The setting of the story takes place in Yosemite National Park, near Lake Mono. Her marriage is going bad and her credit has been cut off.
Echo #1 will be in stores March 5th. It will be 24 pages long and in B&W. The first printing of issue one, and only the first printing, will feature a silver foil cover.
It should be about the lenght of three trade paperbacks.
If you want to read a preview, click here.

Pulsazioni (Beats, 2006)

Original editing, the use of close-ups, great photography. Antonio Ansalone, a virtually unknown filmaker has directed this obsessive short film about headache pain and the abuse of medication. Ansalone entered his film in an Italian film competition but it didn't win any prize.

Is art dead?

Since Hegel, the idea of the end of art has become a staple of aesthetic theory. Will postart be the end of art?

The concept of “postart” was developed by the happening artist Allan Kaprow, based on his idea that life is much more interesting than art, at the expense of art. Postart is not a point of no return and in fact there are many fine artists who continue to make important art. But it was perhaps inevitable that “postart” would be attacked as non-elitist (aristocratic). Marcel Duchamp called it “intellectual expression” over “animal expression”. This can be seen in art with the split between minimal-conceptual art and expressionism.

In his book The End of Art, Donald Kuspit promotes the idea that fear and ignorance of the unconscious have created a climate of creative superficiality in which artists are unwilling to break trhough the surface of their minds to the uncomfortable waters that lie beneath. Militarism and materialism, authoritarianism and capitalism, are more devastating than anything in the unconscious, even though they have roots in unconscious.
Artists are scared of the inner truth about themselves, more particularly, about acknowledging psychic conflict and trauma as well as the primary creativity evidenced by fantasy (especially dreams).
Kuspit traces the genealogy of the postart aesthetic from Duchamp through Warhol’s commercialism to Hirst’s installations (and his preoccupation with banal objects and everyday life situations).
Whereas modern art consist of revolutionary experiments motivated by a desire to express aspects of the newly-discovered “unconscious mind,” postart, Kuspit argues, is shallow, unreflective banality motivated by the desire to become institutionalized.
The End of Art will appeal to anyone who has ever felt bamboozled by the productions of the postmodern establishment.

Kim Duchateau wins Bronzen Adhemar 2007!

Kim Duchateau is one of the most inventive and most productive Flemish strip-makers of the moment. He's also active as a painter and musician, and makes animated films .
He combines an efficient, accurate story line with an absurdist, sometimes painfully sharp feeling for humor. His style reminds one of Tex Avery and Jan Svankmajer.


Duchateau won the ` Stripschappenning 2006 ' award in the adventure and recreation category for the third part from the ` Esther Verkest ' range. He has made comics for the small-press magazines Incognito, Zone 5300 and Beeldstorm. He has created one panel cartoons for severals newspapers. His comics 'Verhaaltjes voor het Slapengaan', parts 1 & 2, and 'Unne' were self-published. In 2000, his POCKET was chosen as daily strip for a morning newspaper. His` Esther Verkest ' was issued in p-Magazine, his ` Aldegonne ' in Stripgids and other illustrations were published in Knack. Other works also appear in the popular French booklet L'Echo of the Savanes and in Dutch newspapers and illustrated magazines. Five albums of ` Esther Verkest ' were realeased, the last (`Verschwunden ') in 2006. His new character 'Aldegonne' is published in the Zipp-addition of the newspaper De Standaard.

Blinding light

The Blinding Light Cinema existed as North America's only full time underground cinema, operating 6 nights a week for five years from 1998 to 2003. An archive of these years can be found on their website.
Blinding light helped underground cinema grow more and more. Now the foundation needs your help. As a non-profit society its financial status has always been rather shaky even though they did pretty well with what they had. Still, they do have an ongoing debt which needs to be shaken off. It runs around $4000.00. If you can give them a financial donation of $30, they'll send you a special "grab bag" of goods from their archive of materials.
Visit http://www.blindinglight.com/ or contact info@blindinglight.com them for more information!

To be a photographer

Many people think that photography isn't an art because things are depicted as they are. This simply isn't true! The work of a
photographer also entails choosing what he shall describe.

Photographers shoot all they see. It seems an easy and cheap task. How can a mechanical process be made to produce artistic pictures?
This has been one of the aesthetic questions of the eighteenth century. Photography is the product of knowledge and sensibility, trial and error and empirical experiment.
"Will the industry invade the territory of art?" Baudelaire asked himself. Today we could answer him "No, it won't. Look at some photographs. The variety of their imagery is prodigious: the light, the viewpoint, the change in print tonality."
Shooting a photo is less simple than it seems. You can study photo, you can learn as a photographer does. Photographers learn in two ways: from an intimate understanding of their tools and materials and from other photographs. If you can't go to a photography exhibition, you can study John Szarkowski's The Photographer's Eye, a visual history of photography.