Category — JVC

I was thinking of buying my mom a camcorder for Mother’s Day, but wasn’t sure what to get. Through my research online, I discovered JVC’s mother’s day contest!!

“One winner will receive a Grand Prize package of two new Everio GZ-MG330 hard disk camcorders. In addition, judges will award five First Prizes ($75 gift certificate for flowers and a set of JVC Gumy Ear Bud Headphones) and 10 Second Prizes (JVC Gumy Ear Bud Headphones). JVC will announce the prize winners on May 12, 2008.”

So I guess you win a camcorder for yourself and your mom. Pretty cool, but in the meantime, I better send my mom a card. =)

Source: Marketwire

It took me awhile, but I finally got around to watching Disturbia on HBO. It’s very slow at first, like really slow actually.

For like the first 30 minutes, you just watch Kale (Shia LaBeouf) become more and more frustrated while under house arrest. This boredom supposedly drives him to spy on his neighbors, including the hot girl next door and oh a psycho serial killer! Kale enlists his friend and said hot girl to help him figure out if the neighbor is Ted Bundy or whatever.

Kale apparently becomes MacGuyer overnight and modifies wireless home security receivers to transmit camcorder footage to his computer. No relying on binoculars in this day and age like in Rear Window. Now you got to get hard evidence! Kale can’t do it himself since he’s got the house arrest ankle bracelet problem. Thus, he talks his friend into sneaking into the neighbor’s garage to find a supposed dead body. He monitors his friend in the garage via the JVC camcorder footage being transmitted.

David Morse who plays said neighbor catches winds to all this activity and of course isn’t too pleased. At first, he’s just borderline creepy by mysteriously appearing inside Kale’s house and hitting on his mom. Then, he barges into the hot girl’s car and gives her a not so friendly and unsettling warning that he likes his privacy. But soon enough, he pulls off the mask and tries to kill everyone.

Suffice it to say, it was okay, like a grade B-. I do have to admit that there is something to the LaBeouf charm. It simply wears you down. It’s no wonder it did so well at the box office. Here’s hoping he can get the young-ins to the theater for Indiana Jones 4.

The actor video diary of the shoot has become a popular dvd extra or online feature for television and movies.

“Heroes”, which already had a strong online community of fans, has youtube videos shot by members of the cast. The videos don’t necessarily reveal how the show is made, and more often than not are a way for the actors to kill time between takes. Nevertheless, the videos enhance the overall buzz for the tv show.

By giving an actor a JVC camcorder, you can get a non-technical point of view of the filmmaking process, which can prove to be more appealing to the average viewers than a standard behind-the-scenes featurette. I’d love to watch the film or show from the actor’s personal point of view. The more open ended the diary, the more interesting it seems to me. I like seeing how they keep the make-up continuity or one of the cast members goof off.

Blooper reels or outtakes at the end of the program have been around for some time. I feel like the video diary is simply an extension of this idea, especially since camcorders are so easily accessible.

Congrats to Marty! It was finally his time to get one of those statuettes. I thoroughly enjoyed The Departed so it’s pretty cool that an Oscar finally went to a movie I actually liked. I don’t think it was the best movie of 2006, but it was the most fun I’ve had at the movie theater in a long time. And that’s because Scorsese is the Man.

Babel was a good, but seriously flawed movie. At the end, I felt like we were left with nothing. The nanny got deported, the mom lived, that Morrocan family was totally f-ed, and that deaf-mute girl finally cried. I think it was ultimately too depressing and that’s why it lost. Hey, at least it got a Golden Globe, right? It definitely had something to say.

I wish instead of cutting to that goddamn, awful hack Chris Connelly, they had a real person with just a mini dv camera do the segues to commercial. That would be truly groundbreaking and I totally bet Ellen would had gone for it. They could do a brand tie-in by using a jvc camcorder or something. It’s a win-win situation.

That shadow puppet thing kind of freaked me out at first, but when they did the snakes…comedy genius! And what was with all the comedians showing up this year like Seinfeld and even Larry David? I guess it’s the place to be. I had fun watching the ceremony with a few friends. My crew couldn’t believe Pan’s Labyrinth lost to The Lives of Others. Robbed, but maybe that german movie was better. I guess I’ll have to finally see the movie to tell. It just got released this month in the US. Then, I can decide whether Del Toro was truly snubbed.

I love independent cinema. One of my favorites is Clerks, which I watched again last night. I really like the movie, but I realized that there isn’t a ton of plot. Mostly it’s the two clerks talking about events and their hilarious hi-jinks with various patrons. You can pick up at any scene and get sucked into the movie (i.e. their conversation). The way the day plays out is pure black comedy. It’s so ridiculous when you look at it on paper (an old man dead in the bathroom or a 6 year being sold cigarettes on accident). On screen, the rapport between Randal & Dante is what makes it all work. Plus, the director, Kevin Smith, really stretched the meaning of low budget. He financed the entire film on credit cards.

Smith used 16mm black/white film, but if it was made today, he might have used camcorders instead. A first time filmmaker could use a JVC everio to capture similar events at a convenience or retail store. I know at retail stores that weird things do actually happen. I’ve seen cats dressed up in pink dresses in the grocery store. Or people with gloves examining every product, which is similar to the egg-checking freak in the movie. What would be key for me to re-create Clerks is the acting. I would need an on-screen duo that can bounce off dialogue naturally. It’s all about the commentary on the strange events that you need to nail the entertainment factor. Once you have that, doesn’t matter if it’s shot on film or a dvd camcorder.