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Archive for the 'Internet life' Category
The end of Theatoriums, too
Moving Picture World (February 1908), 135.
DB here:
Vis-à-vis the last post, all of three hours ago, Alert Reader and arthouse impresario Martin McCaffery sends the above.
Actually, it's much in the spirit of current jeremiads: Movies and their theatoriums better shape up, or they'll be finished–like bicycles and Ping-Pong.
History is so cool. Full text here and below. There's also a 1908 rebuttal, in the spirit of movies-are-doing-just-fine-thanks, here. Both courtesy the prodigious Lantern.
Good, old-fashioned love (i.e., close analysis) of film
Kristin here:
On April 10, I received a message from Tracy Cox-Stanton, the editor of a new online journal, The Cine-Files. This journal is run out of the Cinema Studies department of the Savannah College of Art and Design. The message was an invitation to contribute to the fourth issue of the journal, of which, I must admit, I had been unaware until that time.
The invitation included two options. One was: "Offer a brief (1000-2000 word) reading of a film "moment" that considers how some particular detail of a film's mise-en-scène (a prop, an actor's gesture, an aspect of costume, a camera movement, etc.) illuminates the film as a whole, helping us understand the relationship between a film's details and the overall "work" of cinema. We encourage the use of film stills."
Having lived for decades in an academic publishing world which tended to discourage the use of film stills, I found this a cordial invitation indeed. Still, my initial thought was, if I had an idea for a study of a film "moment," I should put it on our blog. We bloggers tend to become selfish about ideas for compact, easy-to-write analyses.
The other option, however, seemed more feasible: to respond to three questions as an online interview. It seemed a simple way of encouraging a promising new journal, and I accepted.
The Cine-Files is an appealing project. In place of the recent focus on cinephilia , which has often encouraged self-absorbed pieces in which film-lovers ponder the nature of their own love of film, "Cine-Files" implies good, hard study, with research resulting in files full of data that can result in informative, meaningful history and analysis.
It reminds me of The Velvet Light Trap in its heyday, though its format is quite different. In 1973, when David and I first arrived at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, graduate students in the young cinema-studies program and coordinators of film societies (showing 16mm prints by the dozen each night) published this extraordinary magazine. It was a combination of auteur worship, studies of studios, and genre analysis. The Velvet Light Trap was a film journal in an era when such things were rare and graduate students could be tastemakers.
The Cine-Files is similarly focused on films in their historical context. It is semi-annual and alternates open-topic and themed issues. Its first themed issue was on the French New Wave. Remarkably for a new journal, it attracted comments from experts such as Dudley Andrew, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and Richard Neupert. The newest issue, to which I contributed, is on Mise-en-scène. The topic for interviews, however, was a bit broader: "close readings." The new issue, #4, has recently been posted, and my interview is here. There is also a call for papers for the fifth issue, an open-topic one, here.
Tracy has kindly agreed to our re-posting my responses to the three questions about close readings here. We have slightly modified the original post to suit this venue. We thank Tracy for a set of questions that provoked what we hope are interesting responses.
What is at stake in close reading?
To begin with, I don't use the phrase "close reading." I prefer "close analysis." The notion of close reading is presumably a holdover from the 1970s and 1980s, when semiotics was a popular approach in film studies. Cinematic technique was thought to be closely comparable to a language, with coded units and grammar. Although there are some comparisons to be made between the techniques of cinema and a language, I don't think the similarities can be taken very far.
"Reading" to me implies that interpretation is one's main goal in looking closely at a film. I usually use interpretation as part of analysis, but it is seldom my main goal. Analysis, loosely speaking, to me means noting patterns in the relationship of the individual devices in a film (devices being techniques of style and form) to each other and figuring out why those patterns are there. What purposes do they serve?
What is at stake in close analysis depends on what sort of analysis one is doing. I'm assuming here that the subject is scholarly or semi-scholarly analysis intended for publication. My own purposes for analysis fall into at least these categories:
1. The simplest reason to analyze a film would be to find out more about it because it's appealing or intriguing.
I've written essays on Jacques Tati's Les Vacances de M. Hulot and Play Time, in both cases because I admired them and wanted to be able to understand and appreciate them better. I go on the simple assumption that we can only be entertained and moved by films to the degree that we notice things in them. Complex films can't be thoroughly comprehended on a single viewing or even several viewings. Sometimes you may need to watch them more closely, not in a screening but on a machine, like a flatbed editor or a DVD player, that lets you pause and slow down the image.
2. One might analyze a film in order to answer a question, often to do with the nature of cinema in general.
My essay on "Duplicitous Narration and Stage Fright," as the title suggests, arose more from my interest in a particular, unusual device, the "lying flashback," than from a particular admiration for the film.
3. You might want to make a case that a film is significant and suggest why others should pay attention to it.
One example would be the rediscovery over the past few years of Alberto Capellani's French and Hollywood silent films. On this blog site, I posted two entries, "Capellani ritrovato" and "Capellani trionfante," analyzing some scenes to support the claim that Capellani was one of the most important stylists and innovators of the era from 1905 to 1914.
A very different case came with The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Peter Jackson. I had written a book, The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (University of California Press, 2007), primarily on the marketing and merchandising surrounding the film and on its many influences. I would not claim Jackson's film to be a masterpiece, but there was such a great backlash against it, mostly by literary scholars of Tolkien, that I thought it might be worth counterbalancing their opinions. I wanted to make a modest defense of the film as containing some excellent passages and effective decisions concerning the adaptation process. So I wrote two essays based on that argument. (See the codicil to this entry for references.)
4. Close analysis can be vital for writing about film history.
For example, David and I have studied films closely to determine the stylistic and narrative norms of specific times and places. We're also interested in finding films that were innovative in relation to those norms. Rather than examining a single film closely, such an approach involves analyzing many films to find commonalities and divergences. For example, David has studied the norms and innovations of modern Hong Kong cinema (Planet Hong Kong, Harvard University Press, 2000; second edition available online at Observations on Film Art).
Another such project was my Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique (Harvard University Press, 1999). There had been many claims in academic and journalistic writings that the norms of Hollywood storytelling had declined after the end of the studio era and that we were now in a post-classical era. Such claims didn't tally with what I was seeing in the best Hollywood films, the ones held up as models within the industry. I did case studies of ten such films, dating from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, going through each scene by scene. I showed how classical techniques like protagonists' goals, dangling causes, dialogue hooks, redundant motivation, and other traditional norms were still pervasive in modern Hollywood. I chose the ten films because I liked them, but others would have made my point equally well.
Please tell us about something that couldn't be understood without a frame-by-frame attention to detail.
I don't think most close analysis goes to the minute detail of examining a film frame by frame. Sometimes it's necessary, especially with French and Soviet films of the 1920s or with some experimental work. There can be lots of ways of looking closely at the parts of a film and relating them to other parts.
Take a simple example, in my essay on Late Spring, I reproduced eleven shots across the length of the film that include a sewing machine off to one side of the frame–or, in one case, the space where the machine had been. No two of these shots are the same, though they often are only small variations on each other, with the machine closer or further from the camera, sometimes on the left, sometimes the right, and so on. I even missed a couple, the second and third shots immediately below, so there are actually thirteen variants. (DVDs do have their advantages. It's not so easy going back and forth across a film looking for such repetitions in a 35mm print.)
The series culminates late in the film, after the daughter has married and left her widowed father living alone. We see a similar framing along a corridor, and the space formerly occupied by the sewing machine is empty. (See below.)
The daughter doesn't use this sewing machine in the course of the action, and no one mentions it. Many viewers probably vaguely notice that there is a sewing machine in the house. A few may notice its eventual absence late in the film. But even someone who watches the film over and over and at some point notices that there is a meaningful pattern of the sewing-machine shots would not be able to describe it. I suspected that the sewing-machine shots were small variations on each other, but were there some repetitions? How many were there? I was only able to get a good understanding of how the motif worked by photographing all the shots (or so I thought at the time) and comparing them side by side—and having the luxury to reproduce all eleven frame enlargements in my book.
What point is there in analyzing such a motif in detail? If we admire Claude Monet for taking infinite trouble to capture tiny changes of light on haystacks or lily-ponds, why not devote the same respect to one of the cinema's greatest directors? To go back to my point at the beginning, we can only appreciate a film to the extent that we notice things about it. I take it that the critic's job is to notice such things and point them out for the enrichment of others who don't have the time or inclination to do close analysis.
How do digital technologies allow us to engage in "direct" criticism that bypasses traditional written criticism?
One obvious answer is that digital technologies allow anything that could be published in printed form to be offered online. Whether written for consumption via the internet or already published and then scanned to be posted, online criticism offers some obvious advantages. There is no lag in publication time and no need to hunt for a press. Of course there are disadvantages too: no real guarantee of long-term survival, often no academic reward for publishing through a non-refereed process. David and I have posted many entries involving close analysis on this blog. (I discuss the history and approach of Observations on Film Art in an essay for the first issue of the online journal, Frames Cinema Journal: "Not in Print: Two Film Scholars on the Internet.")
Perhaps more interesting is the question of what critical tools digital technologies offer for analysis itself. In past decades, David and I had to rig up elaborate camera-and-bellows systems to photograph frames from prints of films—as well as to travel far and depend on the hospitality of archivists to gain access to those prints. Nowadays DVDs and Blu-rays bring hitherto rare films to the critic, and readily available players and apps allow for easy capture of frames for illustration purposes. If the essay or book based on close analysis using such tools is to go online, it also becomes practical to reproduce a great many more frames as illustrations than would be possible in a print publication. David's e-book edition of Planet Hong Kong permitted him to publish most of the illustrations in color, an option that would have been prohibitive in a university press volume.
The possibility of using short clips as illustrations in an article or book is very promising, especially once electronic textbooks get past the trial stages. I made a modest contribution to the use of clips as examples for introductory students with "Elliptical Editing in Vagabond"; this was done with the cooperation of the Criterion Collection and posted by them on YouTube in 2012. Other extracts appear as proprietary supplements for Film Art: An Introduction. Since then, David has offered three online lectures analyzing editing, the history of film style, and the aesthetics of CinemaScope; see our Videos listing on the left.
Video essays analyzing films are still a new format but show great potential. Their usefulness will depend on how the issue of copyright plays out. At this point, I'm hopeful that showing clips as part of an analytical study will become established as fair use, as clearly it should be. Being able to use moving images complete with sound as well as still frames from films will be an extraordinarily useful tool.
I hope that critics using digital tools will take the trouble to create analyses as complex as one can achieve through description in printed prose. This would mean editing together stills and short segments from across a film, recording voiceover comments, adding graphics where useful, and so on. Close analysis of this type will always be a labor-intensive process.
The analyses mentioned in this article have been published in collections. "Boredom on the Beach: Triviality and Humor in Les vacances de M. Hulot," "Duplicitous Narration and Stage Fright," "Play Time: Comedy on the Edge of Perception," and "Late Spring and Ozu's Unreasonable Style" appear in Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (Princeton University Press, 1988). "Stepping out of Blockbuster Mode: The Lighting of the Beacons in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)," was published in Tom Brown and James Walters, eds., Film Moments (British Film Institute, 2010), and "Gollum Talks to Himself: Problems and Solutions in Peter Jackson's Film Adaptation of The Lord of the Rings" appeared in Janice M. Bogstad and Philip E. Kaveny, eds. Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy (McFarland, 2011).
Late Spring (1949).
Jack and the Bean-counters
Kristin here:
I don't know about you, but back on January 16 about the last thing on my mind was the release, still six weeks away, of Jack the Giant Slayer. It wasn't a film I was planning to see. Not many people were, as it predictably turned out. I was more concerned with a recent release, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and whether the decision to turn a two-part film into a trilogy had adversely affected the narrative. I posted my some-good-news-some-bad-news entry that day.
Not as giant as they might think
It turned out on that same day there were some fans of fantasy films and/or Bryan Singer, the director of Jack, who were exercised about the recently released poster for the film (reproduced above). I discovered this from a Hollywood Reporter story published in the wake of Jack's disappointing opening weekend, when it grossed $27.2 million domestically. The story led off with an anecdote about the poster kerfuffle:
When Bryan Singer sat down at his computer in mid-January and read Internet comments criticizing a new Warner Bros. poster for his big-budget epic Jack the Giant Slayer, he fumed. He didn't care for the cartoonish image of the film's stars brandishing swords and standing around a swirling beanstalk. So Singer complained on Twitter. "Sorry for these crappy airbrushed images," he wrote Jan. 16, irking Warners' powerful marketing head Sue Kroll. "They do the film no justice. I'm proud of the film & our great test scores." An insider confesses, "Bryan felt like he had to apologize to his fans."
This gesture annoyed studio executives, who demanded that Singer take it down. He hasn't. The apology won him some points with the fans, as some sample tweets in response show:
Do any current Warner Bros. executives know who Saul Bass was? More to the point, do the studios have any idea how much fan devotion is gained by directors like Singer, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro, who try to communicate directly with the fans as often as they are allowed to, and even sometimes when they aren't? If the studios did have any idea, they would encourage directors to hold question-and-answer sessions on fan sites and communicate via social media far much more than they do now. I suspect studios give up tens of millions of dollars in free publicity by treating fans as potential spies, spoiler-mongers, and authors of vicious reviews based on trailers.
Ring? What Ring?
This disappointment with Jack's poster reminded me of an incident that happened late in the filming of The Lord of the Rings. I describe it in The Frodo Franchise:
On 16 Dcember 2000, New Line's president of domestic theatrical marketing, Joe Nimziki, met with the director concerning the Rings publicity campaign. One of his purposes in visiting Wellington was to meet the cast, who would be involved in the upcoming press junkets, parties, and premieres. The occasion soured when the filmmakers and actors saw the proposed poster design. Based on its audience research, New Line had concluded that Rings would appeal primarily to teenage boys, and the design was busy and garish. The actors backed Jackson up, threatening not to participate in the marketing campaign if it proceeded along those lines. Jackson had a mock-up poster made, featuring muted tones and a simply design centered on an image of the One Ring. The design was not used, but it gave New Line a sense of what the filmmakers considered appropriate. (p. 81)
When I made my first research trip to Wellington in 2003, I had no idea that this incident had occurred. Someone high in the production mentioned it to me out of the blue during an interview, which led me to think that this person considered it important and wanted me to mention it. After nearly three years, it obviously had remained a sore point. (I did describe the incident, but in general I portrayed the few mistakes I mentioned in my book as part of a learning curve that the studio benefited from.) Unfortunately I have never seen the offending poster design. I have seen one of what were apparently two mock-up copies of Jackson's version made, on the basis of which I wrote the brief description above. The design was too muted in color and minimalist in layout to be useable, but it evidently served its purpose.
Obviously there's a big difference between the handling of these two offending poster designs. New Line, which produced The Lord of the Rings, took the trouble to show the cast and crew the planned poster and acceded to their wishes about replacing it. As a result, the cast participated in the many press junkets and other publicity events. I'm not sure which poster design for The Fellowship of the Ring convinced the cast, but the one at the bottom of this entry was the main one used. Definitely better than the one for Jack at the top.
Warner Bros. presumably did not bother to show Singer the poster, or test it on fans, or do anything to make sure that it would boost rather than dampen potential moviegoers' enthusiasm. It is as conventional a poster as one could imagine for such an expensive film.
The irony in all this is that New Line also produced Jack the Giant Slayer. Due to various post-Lord of the Rings failures, primarily The Golden Compass, New Line is now a production unit within Warner Bros. It doesn't handle its own distribution or marketing, having been downsized by about 80 percent. Warners takes care of everything except the production itself.
Doesn't amount to a hill of beans
Jack's opening weekend's gross was followed by a nearly 64 percent drop during its second weekend. It just went into second run last week, so its theatrical life is rapidly tapering off. In the same Hollywood Reporter story that alerted us to the poster tweets, author Pamela McClintock called Jack "the latest in a string of dismal 2013 domestic releases." She added,
Revenue and attendance are both down a steep 15 percent from the same period in 2012, wiping away gains made last year. Jack may have cost far more than any of the other misses, but in assessing the carnage, there's a collective sense that Hollywood is misjudging the moviegoing audience and piling too many of the same types of movies on top of one another.
I think that collective sense is shared by almost every ordinary viewer. Jack the Giant Slayer. Really? For that matter, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters? Upon merely hearing these titles, I didn't expect them to be hits. In the wake of The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series, Hollywood has been pushing fantasy harder and harder, but there is a limit. I think that has been reached with the mini-trend toward adapting fairy tales with adults in the lead child roles. Making Jack a "giant slayer" (grammar-police note: this should be "giant-slayer") doesn't hide the fact that this is really "Jack and the Beanstalk" re-titled by committee.
Recently Variety reported that the success of Alice in Wonderland early in the year (it was released in March, 2010) has led studios to release films of the summer-tentpole type well before the traditional Memorial Day weekend opening of the summer season: "Warner Bros. started this year's March madness with the pricey Jack the Giant Slayer, which never sprouted." Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful opened one week later.
Now there's a film I wanted to see, and many others did, too. It's currently still in first run and pushing toward the $500 million mark worldwide. With a reported $215 million budget plus publicity costs, that's not a big hit (it'll probably become profitable in Blu-ray, streaming, etc.), but it's doing a lot better than Jack. Jack's budget is reported at slightly under $200 million, with marketing costs of over $100 million. As of now it has grossed a little under $200 million worldwide. A week after Oz, The Croods appeared, aimed to some extent at the same audience as the two films that preceded it. In short, Hollywood is not only making a lot of children's fantasies, adapted to a broader audiences including adults, but it is releasing them opposite each other.
Fans? what fans?
This is not to say that all such films fail. I found Oz a clever film, better than most critics have given it credit for. It presents an imaginative riff on the 1939 The Wizard of Oz as if it had been made using classical storytelling techniques but with digital technology.
But back to that claim that "Hollywood is misjudging the moviegoing audience." It's hard to imagine a group of executives sitting around a big table and seriously thinking that an expensive digital extravaganza based on "Jack and the Beanstalk" would bring people flocking to theaters, yet they did. Why? Possibly because they are out of touch with the fandoms they depend on.
Back when I was researching the Lord of the Rings online fandom and its relationship to New Line's publicity department, it seemed that Hollywood was beginning to understand fans. It was a hard learning process, but New Line's executives reluctantly gave some big websites occasional access to sets and once in a while sent them news exclusives. Such openness, grudging though it was, generated free publicity and goodwill. The studio also allowed Peter Jackson to interact with fans, though in strictly controlled circumstances.
Warner Bros. is a different animal altogether, and it has squandered much of what goodwill New Line gained in those days. The Jack the Giant Slayer poster controversy provides perhaps one clue as to how indifferent studios now are to their public and how much their insularity can damage their bottom lines.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, made by New Line under the tight control of Warner Bros., has of course done very well financially. It grossed over a billion dollars worldwide–though just barely, at $1,017,003,568. If we could adjust worldwide figures for inflation (impossible due to different inflation rates in different countries), each installment of The Lord of the Rings would undoubtedly turn out to have earned more. This despite all the surcharges for the many 3D screenings of The Hobbit.
Why didn't it do quite as well as the previous entries in the franchise? Perhaps some people who had liked Rings were put off by their perception of The Hobbit as more of a children's film. Perhaps it was partly the reviews, which were considerably less enthusiastic than for any of the three parts of Rings.
I wonder, though, if Warner Bros.'s lack of interest in the fans might have had something to do with it. Consider what New Line had done for fans in the marketing of Rings as compared to what Warner Bros. has done with The Hobbit. New Line started a pioneering website, managed by Gordon Paddison, that drew millions of fans long before The Fellowship of the Ring appeared. Gordon Paddison, now running his own publicity firm, has created a Hobbit website as well, but it's primarily a large ad for the Blu-ray and DVD, with none of the free wallpapers and other items that were so popular on the Rings site. Even a live online event from March 24, during which Peter Jackson answered fan questions, was re-posted there without the brief preview footage from The Desolation of Smaug–an unkind cut that annoyed fans greatly. This was especially unfair because to log in to the live event, one needed a code enclosed in the Blu-ray/DVD package, and the Blu-ray release hadn't occurred in many part of the world by March 24. Not good public relations.
The main online publicity venue for The Hobbit has been Jackson's own Facebook page, where ten production vlog entries were posted at wide intervals. These later became the main supplements for the theatrical DVD release. Given the breezy, open tone of these vlog entries, it seems possible that they can be credited more to Jackson's initiative than Warner Bros.'s.
New Line also licensed a company to create a fan club for The Lord of the Rings, complete with an excellent bimonthly magazine. A considerable amount of effort was put into the eighteen issues that appeared, including interviews not only with the filmmakers but with the makers of licensed tie-in products. Fans were encouraged to send in questions for the interviewees, and some of these got included. The names of the charter members of the club were run in a crawl after the credits of the extended-edition versions of the DVDs, a process that, even at a rather fast clip, ran for about twenty minutes. This won huge loyalty from fans, even those who joined later and didn't get into that crawl-title.
For The Hobbit, there was no fan club and no magazine. I can imagine that the Rings fan club generated a relatively small income for New Line compared to the many other licensed items, but it created much enthusiasm among fans. The film's official Facebook page is a feeble substitute.
For decades people have been saying that Hollywood executives are out of touch with their audiences, make too many movies, spend too much on their movies–especially in age of special-effects-based blockbusters. It's an old complaint but one that may be a genuine and growing problem as executives with no personal film production experience control the output of studios owned by huge corporations.
The Hollywood Reporter story that began with the anecdote about Singer's apologetic tweet ends with some insight:
Privately, studio executives concede that Jack was a feathered fish, neither a straight fanboy tentpole that Singer (X-Men, Superman Returns) is famous for nor a pure family play. "Sometimes you simply have a movie that is rejected," laments one Warner executive, a common refrain these days in Hollywood. "You can spend as much as you want, market it a zillion different ways, and it still doesn't work."
Someone might point out that Jack and Rings are not comparable projects. Rings was adapted from a beloved classic and already had a significant fan base. Jack was not based on a novel and had no such fan base. But I believe that the big studios view fantasy as a genre with a broad, somewhat unified fan base consisting of people who will go to see just about any fantasy film. The failures of not only Jack and Hansel and Gretel but also of others like Mirror, Mirror show that that's not the case.
The answer is out there
One solution to the studios' isolation could be to get on the Internet, keep tabs of the huge amount of fan opinion already there and appearing every day, and get a sense of what the real audience wants.
For a start, there is no "fantasy" fandom. There are fandoms around specific stories or series or movies or games. They create websites and Facebook pages and videos. Many fans are quite smart and understand the conventions of the fantasy genre. They know how the industry markets things to them. (Witness all the accusations that fly when a studio repackages a film yet again as a DVD/Blu-ray with only minimal changes in the supplements.) They know exactly what they want marketed to them and what they don't want. Richard Taylor, the head of Weta Workshop, which designed many of the collectibles as well as the Rings and Hobbit films, is a hero to fans. Affluent Rings fans who get married can commission Daniel Reeves, the calligrapher for the franchise, to design their wedding invitations. Denny's Hobbit meals, on the other hand, are viewed variously as merely amusing to downright offensive.
There are also rivalries among fandoms. Ask a Ringer and a Harry Potter fan who is the greater wizard, Gandalf or Dumbledore, and watch the feathers fly.
There was a vivid example of this just last month. The MTV Awards nominations for 2012 were posted for fans to vote on. In the Best Hero category there were Snow White (the Snow White and the Huntsman version), Batman, Catwoman, Iron Man, Hulk. and Bilbo Baggins. Shortly into the voting, Snow White was at first place with 13,556, with Bilbo dead last with 226 (left).
Snow White beating Iron Man and Batman? Ringers realized at once that this was not an overwhelming vote for Snow White but for Kristen Stewart, and it was happening because of the Twihards–the devotees of the Twilight series.
Rallying around, Ringers began trying to get people to Vote Bilbo. Fans created memes for tweeting and re-tweeting. TheOneRing.net, the biggest Tolkien website, got involved in helping coordinate individual efforts into a unified campaign to spread the word. Spiegel Ei posted a amusing video on Vimeo, "put a ring on it #VoteBilbo," in which Bella Swan (Stewart's character in the series) meets several Rings characters, reads Tolkien's novel, researches it on the Internet, and abandons her world for Middle-earth. The short film was so clever that MTV's website even featured a news story , linking to it–a strange case of bias that may have helped sway the voters. (The # symbol in the title comes from the fact that fans could vote only by tweeting for one of the six nominees.)
Even so, during the final exciting week, the MTV vote seesawed back and forth between Snow White and Bilbo, but the Ringers' campaign won out, with Bilbo attaining a margin of just over 100 thousand:
Measured by the box-office records of all the films, Snow White would seem to be least popular. Yet it wasn't the ticket-buying audience as a whole voting. It was the hardcore fans–and mostly fans from a different fandom at that.
Cliff "Quickbeam" Broadway has posted an excellent rundown of the campaign on TheOneRing.net, "When Fandom Comes Together: How #VoteBilbo Rallied the Ringers." It conveys how a large number of devotees worked very hard for free to create an almost professional-level campaign for a character and film they loved. All this within the space of a few weeks.
I'm not saying that a studio marketer could go onto the Internet and find hard facts on fans' likes and dislikes. It's something one gets a feel for by looking at the message boards on TheOneRing.net or checking out The Leaky Cauldron (the biggest Harry Potter fansite) or liking a bunch of directors' and films' Facebook pages. By the way, it's odd that Peter Jackson has a FB page that, with its nearly 800 thousand Likes, has become the main online publicity site for The Hobbit, while Bryan Singer doesn't even have a FB page. Does that suggest any systematic approach in WB's publicity campaigns? True, Jack has a FB page, but these days every film does.
What sorts of things can you learn by looking at such sites and pages? It's interesting, for example, that Cliff's fandom story includes one of many images that were devised by fans for the twitter campaign for Bilbo, one not from Rings or The Hobbit, but from Game of Thrones (right). Ringers would instinctively know that Lord of the Rings fans would be far more likely to read George R.. R. Martin's book series or watch the TV adaptation than would Twihards. Not only would they recognize the image shown (the character played by Sean Bean, who was Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring), but they would know that "Snowwhite is coming" is a riff on a portentous line from Game of Thrones, "Winter is coming."
It is also interesting that TheOneRing.net catered to the slightly older-skewing demographic that is far more important in Rings fandom than in Twilight fandom. As Cliff says: "We have an audience that included older-generation folks who had never used Twitter, so we gave quick and easy instructions to help guide our friends toward their goal." New Line's audience research, which originally convinced them that teenaged boys were their primary audience, didn't reveal that other big audience–which most Ringers would know about.
These little details may not be important in themselves, but picking up many of them from fan discussion adds up to an overall view of characteristics and attitudes. Fans are also quite clear on their likes and dislikes as far as directors and stars go. Just the other day on a thread on TheOneRing.net, Lusitano gave his opinion concerning future possible adaptations of material from Tolkien's The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales: "If in the future they end up being adapted, it is only sensible to give them to someone else [other than Peter Jackson]. Tim Burton, perhaps? " Such an adaptation would, I think, be unwise, but a producer who went down that road ought to be interested in that opinion.
Clearly from the way most studios treat most fan sites, they aren't particularly grateful for any of this. They also don't seem to recognize that the most devoted fans working for such sites or posting on their own FB pages, YouTube, and Vimeo, have an extraordinary expertise concerning one fandom and often several.
Possibly the studios do closely monitor fansites. Certainly some people in the Rings filmmaking team read TheOneRing.net. When Guillermo del Toro was slated to direct The Hobbit, he even joined the Message Boards and participated in discussions fairly frequently. Naturally the fans adored him for it. If he had stayed on as director, would WB have allowed him to keep up that practice? Probably not unless he cleared every contribution with the studio publicity department.
I'm not saying that cruising online fan outlets would guarantee that the studios would get such a feel for their public that all the films they greenlight would be successes. There are always inexplicable flops. Why did audiences who flocked to Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's Alice in Wonderland reject the same team when Dark Shadows appeared? Was it just the difference between the sources: a universally known classic book vs. an old TV show with a devoted but small cult following?
Still, when I hear about such incidents as the ones I've described here, I can't help but feel that the fans are a far more valuable source about potential audiences than the studios realize. Why do studios not identify certain particularly knowledgeable and devoted fans as experts and hire them as consultants? Or at least quietly study what they say and do and benefit from it? Maybe then they would know what many of us already know: that the impending failure of some films, like Jack and Hansel and Gretel, is bone obvious from the start.
All this is not to say that Jack the Giant Slayer is a bad film and not worth seeing. It has gotten some surprisingly good, if not rave reviews, though its score on Rotten Tomatoes is only 52% (and 61% among fans). It's just that WB should have known what they were getting into.
TIFF: More than movies
Audiences gather for screenings at the Bell Lightbox, hub of the Toronto International Film Festival.
DB here:
Around midnight tonight, the crowds packing the Toronto International Film Festival will disperse, leaving the city full of memories of another extraordinary year. I've been back in Madison for this last week, but my few days at TIFF remain on my mind. This is partly because along with the films came a lot of ideas, opinions, and information. At any festival, fraternizing with audiences, critics, and programmers is one fine way to get that stimulation. It happened after some of the Wavelengths section's short-film programs. Here are Raymond Phatanavirangoon and Bob Koehler outside the Art Gallery of Toronto, where their Devo retro-stylings raised our conversation to a new level.
More structured sessions delivered too. Out of my 4-plus days at the Toronto International Film Festival, I set aside about one and a half for industry panels and filmmaker Q & A's. Let me tell you a little of what I learned.
From Assayas to Asia
TIFF: Where programmers meet stardom.
The talkfests I attended shed light on both film artistry and film business-making. Central to the first area was the master class with Olivier Assayas, hosted by Brad Deane.
Assayas, a charming fellow, talked fluently about how Something in the Air (discussed here) bears traces of his youth. During the 1970s, high-school kids were "footsoldiers of the cultural war of the time." He recalled his affinities with the artistic side of the counterculture, as opposed to the extremes of the political activists, some of whom, being aligned with Maoism, refused to recognize the Cultural Revolution as "disaster on a demented level." Yet this shouldn't be taken as apolitical aestheticism; Assayas has been a vigorous advocate for the work of Situationist Guy Debord.
Assayas was refreshingly detailed about his working methods. He writes only one draft of his screenplay, partly because he wants to protect the "digressive" aspects of his story. (This tendency is apparent, and enjoyable, in Something in the Air.) Since his films are difficult to classify within standard genres, he needs to cobble together creative financing for each project. But the script becomes obsolete when he casts the film and visits locations. By embodying the characters, the actors create beings "more powerful than what I've written." Working with them, he refuses to supply background on the characters' psychology. "I look to them to understand the characters." This hands-off approach yields striking results in the new film, where nearly all the cast is non-professional.
Assayas doesn't undertake elaborate rehearsals, instead coming to the set each morning and describing the shots they'll make. He wants to take account of the evolution of the film as it's been developing. He doesn't fully block the shots. He sketches each one in longish takes that, as the actors expand on the action, "add layers" to what he'd initially planned. Alternatively, he cuts up the long takes and combines pieces of them. For Something in the Air, he relied on stable and wide framings, partly in reaction to trends toward handheld shots and close-ups, partly because he used the crane to create a "floating," more lyrical circulation through the space.
Artistry, mixed with business sense, was apparent in one of the panels at the Asian Film Summit's day of meetings. Colin Geddes hosted a session on Asian genre cinema, and several producers and directors shared thoughts on action cinema as an international genre. Fanboy blood pulsed high.
Eli Roth (left), another kid who grew up with Kung-Fu Theatre on TV, was bowled over years later by Korean and Japanese thrillers like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Now Roth is producer and co-writer of The Man with the Iron Fist, directed by RZA–who is, according to Roth, letter-perfect on his kung-fu film knowledge. "We wanted to do a movie like we saw as kids on Saturday afternoon." But production values in the genre have swollen since the old days. The project is using the Hengtian studio's vast replica of the Forbidden City. RZA, Roth says, expected The Last Emperor to be a kung-fu movie, so this is his attempt to make things right.
Tom Quinn, Co-President of the Weinstein Company's RADiUS division, had similar affinities. As he pointed out, East Asian countries have strong local markets and so can build a base in genre cinema. With quantity comes quality. While working at Goldwyn and Magnolia, Quinn handled US distribution for The Host, Pulse, Tears of the Black Tiger, and most recently 13 Assassins, along with many other titles. Ong-Bak, on view at TIFF in 2004, was a particular triumph for him, yielding over a million dollars in its first weekend of release and eventually garnering $4.5 million in the US. Even the heavy piracy of Ong-Bak Quinn takes as a positive sign, "a validation of the film's value."
Bill Kong, a legendary Hong Kong producer and a force behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, along with Stephen Fung, director of Tai Chi 0 (above), filled out the panel. Overall, the discussion ranged widely, but one question kept cropping up. Why is it that Western films are widely popular in Asia, but Asian cinema is almost completely a niche market in the West? I didn't hear a clear answer (though I'd start an answer with Western racial prejudice).
Kong noted that Asian filmmakers don't have high expectations about penetrating the US market, but other panelists were more hopeful about crossover projects. Quinn pointed out that the festival circuit built an audience, and Roth thinks that Tarantino has been a major player in making Asian film more popular, especially with the Kill Bill duet. The fact that Russell Crowe plays a major part in The Man with the Iron Fist suggests that things may be changing.
Bigger than Bollywood
Mira Nair.
The East/West dynamic was also the focus of two other panels. "India: Lessons from Bollywood and the Independents" brought together a nearly all-female group of experts to discuss local financing and wider distribution. All were agreed that it was necessary to convince the world that Indian cinema was bigger than Bollywood. As director Dibakar Banarjee put it: "We need to open the third eye."
The local industry has a certain comfortable inertia. A film might cost only $150,000, but it can collect 90% of its production costs upon its opening run, said Shailja Gupta, who has been both a director and production executive. Foreign distribution is a major risk at this budget level. So how does a project, particularly an independent film, get international traction?
Coproductions are an obvious path, and while they are still rare, the trend is emerging. The Indian government's National Film Development Corporation Ltd. has helped with coproductions since 2006, says Nina Lath Gupta, NDFC Managing Director. Such enterprises are rare and mostly involve France or Germany. By establishing the Film Bazaar in 2007, the NDFC acknowledged the importance of marketing as well as financing, and this is getting local filmmakers acquainted with the need to think more globally.
Another path to the overseas market was suggested by Guneet Monga (right). She is a producer on the network narrative Peddlers and the two-part gangster saga Gangs of Wasseypur; both earned very good buzz at TIFF. Monga pointed out that sales agents can help shape projects for international distribution.Working with Elle Driver, she was able to generate three versions of Gangs, targeted for different regions. Moreover, sales agents can help a film by avoiding the old practice of selling it as a single package. Instead, the agent can pre-sell it with a minimum guarantee and negotiate territorial rights further down the line.
Mira Nair, distinguished director of Salaam Bombay and Monsoon Wedding, has long enjoyed worldwide exposure, of course. She shared her thoughts on how filmmakers could follow their visions and still, as she put it, "put bums on seats." That's accomplished by not worrying about distribution but devoting energies to creative choices–such as she undertook in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, her first foray into the thriller genre.
During the India panel, moderator Meenakshi Shedde asked if China might become a coproduction partner for local films. This is currently not happening, but the question reflects the significance of the People's Republic on the global film scene. Earlier in the day, a panel on "Financing Between Asia and the West," moderated by Patrick Frater, concentrated mostly on China as the leading edge of the region. Once more, the question of coproductions was central.
"Coproduction is a reality now for global filmmaking," declared Peter Shiao, CEO of Orb Media Group. But the power of China in the new media landscape has created a false optimism among Western entrepreneurs. Shiao warned newcomers that coproductions can't be fulfilled in good faith with perfunctory gestures, such as including a Chinese actor in a secondary role. (The Expendables 2 was mentioned in this connection.) Aspiring filmmakers need to grasp and follow the China Coproduction Film Office regulations straightforwardly.
Solid coproductions are rare, agreed Bruno Wu, founder and chair of many top Chinese media groups. He pointed out that what works in China won't necessarily work in the rest of the world, but what works in the rest of the world is likely to work in China. So the Chinese investor needs to look at projects that will play internationally. He gave as examples his firms' deals with Justin Lin and John Woo, who have reliably won global audiences. Along similar lines, Stuart Ford, founder and CEO of IM Global, suggested that a good alternative to coproduction involves soliciting equity investment from China for Western films. For example, Chinese investors in Paranoia, a $40 million production, acquired mainland distribution rights as part of the deal.
The soundness of investing in Western films seems borne out by local box-office figures. Seventy percent of China's market receipts come from English-language imports; the several hundred domestic films produced earn only twenty percent. And theatrical receipts provide, according to Peter Shiao, ninety percent of a film's earnings. Windows in the Western sense don't exist, and there's no legitimate home video market. Gradually local filmmakers are experimenting with Western ancillary tactics; Painted Skin: The Resurrection recently tried out apps and games.
China-based Video on Demand is more promising. In a few years, Wu expects there to be several million addressable HD cable homes, and providing entertainment on demand might provide a way around the national quota system for film import. There is no quota restraining VOD distribution, and as it takes hold, it might reduce piracy.
A killer app? (as in killing off business?)
Jonathan Sehring and Winnie Lau at the VOD panel at TIFF, 9 September 2012.
Speaking of VOD, in early September I signed up. I did it partly because there was one title I needed to see immediately: Keanu Reeves' Side by Side, the documentary about the digital vs. film controversy. More abstractly, I had been learning a little about VOD when I recast and expanded my blogs on digital exhibition for Pandora's Digital Box, and I was curious about how VOD worked in practice.
After a period of turmoil, the US film industry has integrated VOD into its system of non-theatrical ancillaries. Before, we had DVD and Blu-ray, both rental and retail, along with movie channels like HBO and Sundance available on subscription cable. Eventually movies would show up on basic-cable channels. There was also "pay per view" via cable, a one-off transaction now known as Pay TV VOD.
Now, the internet has expanded the options.
*Electronic Sell-Through (EST) allows the consumer to download a film and own it. This service is available through iTunes, Amazon, and other outlets.
*iVOD (internet VOD) is a one-off rental, to be run immediately or within a specified time period. To check the 1.77 aspect ratio on Dial M for Murder, I rented it for 24 hours on iTunes.
*Subscription VOD (SVOD), which you get with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other providers. This option provides a library of titles available at any time for a monthly fee. SVOD is comparable to cable-television subscriptions, and it's becoming very popular, as all-you-can-eat options tend to be.
In addition, another option hovers over the business:
*Premium VOD (PVOD) consists of a one-off rental available sooner than the traditional home-video window. The transmission would be via cable or satellite, not the Net, and the price point has typically been $30 for one viewing. The studios tried out PVOD with DirecTV in 2011, with apparently unencouraging results. Worse, last year's Tower Heist fracas, during which Universal planned to put the film on PVOD 30 days after theatrical release, triggered threats of boycotts from exhibitors. PVOD, however, is likely to reappear at some point because it can offset losses from the declining DVD market.
No surprise, then, that one industry panel was called "VOD Killed the DVD Star." The session assembled major players in that domain to discuss the present situation and the prospects for the future.
Much of the panel's time was devoted to explaining why filmmakers needed to be flexible about accepting VOD as a legitimate complement to or substitute for theatrical release. VOD, they insisted, shouldn't be seen as a dumping ground for weak or narrow-interest films. The reason: The consumer is king, and consumers want everything on demand.
Winnie Lau, Executive Vice-President for Sales and Acquisitions at Fortissimo, said that companies now recognized that consumers should be able to see a film on whatever platform they want. Given the high costs of a theatrical release, that option isn't justifiable for many films. Philip Knatchbull, CEO of Curzon Artificial Eye, put the case more strongly, declaring that with the consumer in control, notions like windows and "on demand" are losing their usefulness. His view suits a company that, like IFC, has integrated video and theatrical distribution with theatre ownership and HD delivery. There are, he suggested, only home cinema and public cinema, and everyone in the film value chain should be aiming to reach millions of screens.
Tom Quinn of RADiUS was working for Magnolia when in 2005 Mark Cuban experimented with a multiple-platform release of Bubble. "His vision," Quinn recalled, "was to make films available whenever people liked." The Bubble experiment was problematic because it came out on film and on DVD simultaneously, but Quinn said that "the hotel VOD numbers were through the roof." This summer, after twelve months of preparation, RADiUS has issued its first VOD titles, and Bachelorette, released earlier in September, won notice for earning about half a million dollars in its first weekend.
The prototype of longer-term VOD success is the later career of Edward Burns. Burns, who had his first success with the breakout indie movie The Brothers McMullen (1995), was lively and articulate. "VOD helped me stay in business." He knew firsthand the slow rollout that characterized 35mm platform release in the 1990s, along with the months of press tours. In the years that followed, he realized that his movies–basically, as he put it, people bullshitting with one another around a kitchen table–had shrinking theatrical prospects. In 2007, he offered Purple Violets exclusively on iTunes. This came around the time that IFC and Magnolia were experimenting with day-and-date releasing on different platforms.
Burns was satisfied with the results and built a production model around VOD. The cast and crew work for free and collectively own the film. Budgets can be low; he claimed last year that Newlyweds cost only $100,000. Payments are deferred, and if a film breaks through, everyone makes money. His last three films, he reported, did. He compared the business model to that of an indie band. VOD gets his work to the people who watch HBO, Showtime, AMC. "That's our audience."
Burns is an unusual instance, since as one panelist pointed out, he has established his own brand. Still, other VOD releases can break out. The most widely publicized example is Margin Call, with about $4.5 million on VOD. Jonathan Sehring, President of IFC and Sundance Selects, was a pioneer of alternative platforms, and he remarked that 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days did better on VOD than in theatrical release (where it grossed $1.2 million). In a recent interview, Sehring indicates that the recent IFC release About Cherry as doing as well as Bachelorette on VOD and other revenue streams.
It seems, then, that these and other industry decision-makers see VOD as offering two avenues, depending on the film. VOD can provide a new window, to be added before or after or during theatrical release. Alternatively, VOD can replace theatrical, as it has done for Burns (who will still occasionally give a film like the upcoming Fitzgerald Family Christmas brief theatrical play). With this option, many films, both domestic and imported, will never see a theatrical release but they might make money on the less costly VOD platform.
The problem for the second strategy is finding a way to make the film stand out from the thousands of titles available in cable and VOD libraries. A theatrical release provides the "shop window," as Knatchbull called it, but without that, the film needs other salient features–big stars or cult buzz–to attract the home viewer.
Despite the panel's title, the guests didn't predict that VOD would displace discs. In fact a couple of panelists agreed that DVD and Blu-ray would be around quite a while. Quinn (left) confessed that as someone who grew up with VHS he would always be collecting his favorite films on physical media.
There's something else to consider: some dramatic disparities between VOD and DVD consumption. The differences are spelled out in a recent IHS Screen Digest report.
On one hand, the VOD audience has grown rapidly. The report counted transactions–buying a movie in any form–and came up with striking figures for the world's top five regions.
2007: DVD retail and rental: 2.7 billion transactions; online VOD in all forms: 14.8 million transactions.
2011: DVD retail and rental: 2.58 billion transactions; online VOD in all forms: 1.4 billion transactions (nearly all SVOD).
The Screen Digest team estimates that 2012 will see an even bigger burst in online VOD, totaling 3.4 billion transactions, with nearly all that via subscription. (I'm in there somewhere.) By contrast, physical media sales and rentals are predicted to fall further, to 2.4 billion transactions.
The disparity lies in "monetization." We have some access to weekend box office grosses, but almost none to income from DVD and VOD, so comparison is difficult. Still, everyone knows that DVD purchase and rental, along with pay TV licensing, yield the bulk of film revenues. In another research report, Screen Digest estimates that in the US the 2012 surge in VOD will yield only $1.72 billion. DVD will yield $11.1 billion, nearly ten times the VOD transactions. Even with the declining retail and rental prices of discs, VOD yields much less per transaction than DVD does, especially with subscription services leveling out the cost to consumers.
So did VOD kill, or at least wound, the DVD star? When measured in transactions, yes. In revenues, no. Moguls pay off their Ferraris in dollars, not transactions, so it seems that VOD would have to expand colossally, or raise prices, or both, to come close to achieving the returns of DVD.
It's conceivable that VOD will cannibalize other windows, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor. DVD transactions were going downhill before the rise of VOD, but perhaps VOD will accelerate that plunge. iTunes already charges up to $20 for EST downloads of a new release. As consumers become used to storing their movie and TV collections digitally, the convenience of EST could hurt DVD sales.
Moreover, VOD has always threatened the theatrical market. That's why exhibitors cried foul when Premium VOD was tried. But box-office grosses overall remain robust because ticket prices are constantly rising and 3D and Imax rely on upcharges. These revenues offer studios a good reason to maintain strict windows, at least for their most successful releases. Still, studios are very likely to continue to press for PVOD. And indie distributors have embraced VOD release exuberantly. Foreign and indie titles released on VOD before or during the theatrical run may steal business from art houses.
In sum, VOD might shake up the other platforms quite a bit. If your analogy is the music business, theatrical and DVD formats stand in for albums, while VOD is the online force that lowers consumers' sense of a fair price point. There's some discussion of raising prices for some iVOD and Pay TV VOD offerings to parity with theatrical ticket prices. I wonder if consumers will sit still for that. As a novice VOD'er who likes going out to see movies big, I probably wouldn't. Unless Hulu's Criterion library discovered a lost Mizoguchi.
Assayas' autobiography A Post-May Adolescence has just been published in English translation. It includes two essays on Debord. At the same time, an anthology of critical essays on Assayas, edited by Kent Jones, has appeared in the sterling Austrian Film Museum series.
Patrick Frater reports on the TIFF Asian Film Summit at Film Business Asia.
My statistics on the progress of VOD come from "Movie Consumption Stabilizes," IHS Screen Digest (April 2012): 95-98, and "Online Movie Consumption in the US," IHS Screen Digest (May 2012): 116. See also Andrew Wallenstein's Variety story, where we learn that Netflix's subscription model is beating the pants off the competition. Thanks to David Hancock of IHS Screen Digest for further information.
As before, thanks to my Toronto hosts Cameron Bailey, Brad Deane, Christoph Straub, Andrew McIntosh, Andrea Picard, and all their colleagues.
TIFF leaves an indelible mark: The ankle of Crystal Decker, Marketing Manager of Well Go USA Entertainment, US distributor of Tai Chi 0.
P.S. 17 September: Thanks to Anuj Mehta for correction of a misspelled name.


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Ubuntu news
Full Circle – the independent magazine for the Ubuntu Linux community
are proud to announce the release of our seventy seventh issue.
This month:
* Ubuntu News
* Command & Conquer
* How-To : Python, LibreOffice, and Lazarus.
* Graphics : Blender, and Inkscape.
* Review: Elementary OS
* Book Review: Instant XBMC
plus: Q&A, Linux Labs, Ask The New Guy, My Story, and soooo much more!
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I've figured out how Syracuse can solve its inside problems. Find another year of eligibility for John Wallace.
Wallace, the former SU star who led the 1996 team to the NCAA championship game, is at today's game. Right now, he's sitting on the scorer's table next to the SU bench as the Orange and Seton Hall players go through their pre-game warmups. Wallace is chatting with SU assistant Bernie Fine.
Good to see J-Dub. Maybe his presence will rub off on Terrence Roberts today.
Mike Waters


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ADRIAN - The men's tennis team dropped its third consecutive 5-4 decision to a conference opponent on Wednesday, falling 5-4 at Adrian. The Knights are now 5-10 overall and 0-4 in the MIAA.
Doubles play proved to be a pivotal point in the match as the Bulldogs took two of the three points. Junior Tom Griffin (Elmhurst, IL/Timothy Christian HS) and senior Stephen Healey (Twin Lakes, IN/Twin Lakes HS) came up with Calvin's lone doubles point, winning 8-6 at three doubles.
Calvin then split the six singles matches, allowing Adrian to pull out the win.
Senior Loukas Peterson (Brentwood, TN/Brentwood HS) pulled out a tough three-set win at number-one singles while sophomore Matt Buesing (Hoffman Estates, IL/Fremnd HS) won at four singles and senior John Strikwerda (Holland/Holland Christian HS) won at five singles.
Strikwerda hit the double-digit mark in singles victories for the first time in his collegiate career, upping his season record to 10-6.
Calvin returns to action on Friday when it hosts Albion at 4 p.m. at the Strikwerda Tennis Courts.


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Sound Transit seeks best light rail route through Kent
Sound Transit officials are trying to figure out in the next few years where to build light rail tracks when they extend the line along Kent's West Hill by 2023.
After numerous studies and public input, Sound Transit has narrowed the options to five potential routes, mainly along Pacific Highway South or Interstate 5, as it aims for a decision on a preferred route by 2015 with a final selection in 2016.
Light rail is funded to be built from South 200th Street in SeaTac to Kent/Des Moines near Highline Community College, just north of South 240th Street.
But transit officials are designing a route to South 272nd Street in Federal Way, including $8 million in the 2013 budget for project development. Officials want the route designed to Federal Way in case money becomes available to build the line that far.
Cathal Ridge, South Corridor development manager of Sound Transit, presented an update about the project July 2 to the Kent City Council at a workshop.
"By late 2016 the board will select a project (route) to build," Ridge said to the council.
Here are the options:
• Interstate 5 westside
This route along the west side of I-5 could cause problems because the state Department of Transportation (DOT) has limited right-of-way north of 240th Street. The DOT also may want to use the right-of-way to add toll lanes, Ridge said.
• I-5 mix
Part of the route along the west side of the freeway and part of it down the freeway median. Sound Transit is uncertain if the median is available if DOT wants to expand freeway lanes.
• State Route 99 (Pacific Highway)
Tracks could be elevated and go down the median of SR 99, also known as Pacific Highway South. This would cause minimal impact to existing vehicle lanes and businesses but would be an issue at crossing intersections and where the highway doesn't have a median.
• 30th Avenue South
Elevated along the west side of the street that runs east of Pacific Highway South. Could be difficult to transition the track from Pacific Highway to 30th Avenue.
• State Route 99 (Pacific Highway) hybrid
Track would run along west side of street in some areas; down the median in some areas and along the east side in other areas. Track would be elevated in most areas, at-grade in others.
"I've been tracking this for a couple of years and the hybrid (option) looks like the more elegant solution I've seen," said Councilwoman Elizabeth Albertson in response to the proposals listed by Ridge.
"We looked at all of the configurations and screened out a lot," Ridge said. "It was not good to go all on the east side or all on the west side. It (the hybrid) is kind of the best of all worlds. But this is out there for consideration, it's not how it has to be. There may be questions about why it's on the east side or the west side (at certain spots)."
Sound Transit also needs to determine where to put stations and how many stations to have. Right now the primary stations are expected to be at Kent/Des Moines near Highline Community College and at South 272nd Street (either along I-5 or SR 99).
Light rail currently runs from Sea-Tac Airport to downtown Seattle. Sound Transit has started construction on a new 1.6-mile line from the airport south to South 200th Street in SeaTac that is expected to open in 2016. That route will run on an elevated guideway primarily along 28th Avenue South and is budgeted for $72 million this year.
Sound Transit gets the majority of its funding through sales taxes, vehicle licensing fees, federal grants and fare box revenue.
Voters initially approved funding light rail in 1996 and approved a sales tax increase in 2008 to fund expansion projects through 2023 to Southwest King County, Overlake and Lynnwood.
Ridge said once a route is picked, it will take until 2014 to compile a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and until 2016 to get a final EIS. Design of the project takes another two to three years. Construction takes three to four years, with a projected start of construction in 2019. That pushes the project completion date to 2023.
Councilman Bill Boyce asked Ridge if Sound Transit had heard any strong opposition to the project.
"No, not yet," Ridge said. "I don't know if that's good or bad. Maybe people don't know about the project. But we sent mailings to everyone in or near the corridors."
For more information and to comment about Sound Transit's light rail plans, go to www.soundtransit.org/Projects-and-Plans/Federal-Way-Transit-Extension.
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Hi Charles, welcome! if you need anything then just ask!
Hi everybody! I just got my Wii system about 4 months back and I am loving it so far. Anyway, just wanted to say hello.
Hi Charles, welcome! if you need anything then just ask!
PM me and add me to ur address book...
Hey welcome to the forum Charles. Hope you enjoy your stay here at Wii Chat. If you have any questions regarding the site feel free to ask.
Hi!! Welcome to WiiChat. Remember to read the forum rules, and follow them. ^_^ Thankles, and I'll see you around! hehe ♥/Steph
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♥_December 19th, o8`_♥
My amazing Games
CounterStrike || Left 4 Dead || World of Warcraft: Lich King.
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Wanna play CounterStrike/Left4Dead? Hit me up (:
WoW - Realm/Vashj || Character/Zaduka || Horde, ftw!
Status - O_o Just got back guys. Nice to see you all again!
Welcome aboard. Enjoy yourself
Rend. Slaughter. Devour your enemies.There is no escape from your hunger, warriors of purgatory.PM me if you want to add me to your Wii friends!
PS3 now, sorry Wii. You gather dust.
-evil laugh-.....im wario.....welcome to wiichat
hide ur shinys before i take them......-flees-........-trips-
Guitar hero 3= 283602180394
Strikers FC= 236458-134911
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need help with anything, pm me
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yo yo yo wat is up and welcome to the forums
If the Wii is a sport then i'm an athlete.
Having trouble??? Please PM me and i will help out when ever i can
hey if you have strikers pm you code to me!
formerly known as wii-fi


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26 March 2012
Message Line:
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Audria M. Edwards Scholarship Applications Available
Applications for the Audra M. Edwards Scholarships are due by May 1st. Applicants are eligible if the will be pursuing undergraduate education in 2012-13, are LGBT or have an LGBT parent, and have lived for at least 1 year in Oregon or in Clark, Cowlitz, Skamania, or Wahkiakum Counties in SW Washington. For more information wisit www.amefund.com.
Awards will be presented at the 5th annual Peacock After Dark at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts on September 5th, 2012. Tickets are available at www.ticketmaster.com.
Jay Michaelson and "God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality" - April 25, 2012
Jay Michaelson is a writer, scholar, and activist whose work addresses the intersections of religion, sexuality, spirituality, and law. His newest book is God vs. Gay? The s Case for Equality. 7-9 PM at the Q Center, PDX..
A CLASS ACT 2012: Classic Blues with The Norman Sylvester Band- April 27, 2012
Norman "The Boogie Cat" Sylvester brings his award-winning brand of blues to A Class Act, the 18th Annual Benefit for the Bill & Ann Shepherd Legal Scholarship Fund of Equity Foundation on Friday, April 27, 2012 at The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave; Portland, Oregon (Corner of 11th & SW Clay) (Google Map). Doors open at 6:30PM, Show starts at 7:30PM.
Tickets are $40.00 online, $50.00 at the door, $350.00 to sponsor a pew (10 Seats).
For more information and to purchase tickts, visit www.ogalla.org/aclassact.html .
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Thank you for your continued support in these very difficult economic times. PFLAG is an all volunteer organization which receives no operating money from PFLAG National. Your membership is critical to keeping PFLAG Portland a strong and growing presence in the Portland Metro area.
This Month's Chapter Meetings...
April PFLAG Portland Chapter Meeting
Join us to hear from Reid Vanderburgh, MA, LMFT, author of Transition and Beyond: Observations on Gender Identity.
Reid's book, now in its 2nd printing, has already been widely accepted among trans people and their families. Reid will read from his book and answer questions on a variety of topics related to the transgender experience: the issues trans folk face, spouses/mates/family members, religion, addiction, transition, workplace disclosure, how young is too young?, what "support" looks like, and what "post-transition" means.
Tuesday, 4/10/12, 7:00PM, 1st Methodist Church, Portland, OR.
April PFLAG Portland Black Chapter Meeting
Our monthly meeting is a chance to meet others from the African-American LGBTQ community and to find out what events are on the horizon for this very active group. Support group offered during meeting. Please NOTE: March's meeting will remain at its normal location at the John Garlington Center (former home of SMYRC).
Saturday, 4/21/12, 12-2:30 PM at 3024 MLK Blvd, PDX.
PFLAG East County Chapter Meeting
East County Chapter is rebuilding. Meetings have been temporarily suspended. If you'd like get involved with the East County leadership team, contact us at email@example.com. Check our Facebook page for latest news!
Quick Info
PFLAG Portland meets on the 2nd Tuesday of every month.
PFLAG Portland maintains an extensive lending library. Browse it at our 2nd Tuesday Chapter Meetings. Download the library catalog here: Updated Library.pdf
PFLAG has 4 other chapters in the Portland Metro Area:
-PFLAG Portland Black Chapter
(Meets on 3rd Saturdays, 12-2PM) at SMYRC, 3024 MLK Blvd, Portland).
-PFLAG Portland East County Chapter
(meetings suspended effective 9/28/2011. Contact PFLAG Porltand Chapter for more information)


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About this recipe:
An easy and quick but delicious tomato and basil soup. Perfect for a cold night. This is easy to make vegetarian with vegetable stock.
Use some basil leaves to garnish.
This is very easy and I hope you enjoy it.
- 08 Jan 2012
This was a very easy but very delicious soup.
- 08 Jan 2012
Really good, just made some for lunch. Didn't have cream but it didn't make a huge difference. Great for a quick, healthy, delicious meal.
- 26 May 2014
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text: By Alfred Rinaldi, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Apart from being Rio's most vibrant nightspot, Lapa also has the sad reputation of being riddled by crime recently, with three people having been attacked in one week alone last month (December 2013). In a renewed push to meet this challenge and make the neighborhood safe for the World Cup and beyond, the authorities have launched Operação Lapa Presente (Operation Today's Lapa). Rio's famous weekend party destination Lapa, on a quiet night, photo by Alfred Rinaldi. The operation's task force consists of 123 officers who patrol the area by car, bike and on foot every day between 9:30 PM and 5:30 AM, with the Polícia Militar and a team of social workers providing further assistance to the open-ended effort. In its first night, officers made 35 arrests and put 26 homeless people into shelters. Both residents and businesses, who have been watching recent developments with concern, likely will welcome the new initiative. If successful, it will enable the area to capitalize on its many strengths. Due to its location between the Centro and Santa Teresa as well as its architecture, Lapa has been attracting increasing interest and from locals and foreigners looking for a convenient pied-a-terre in town. Another draw to the area for those new to Rio are its many antique shops, which are centered around the Rua Lavradio, as well as its first-rate entertainment, the neighborhood is very much on the radar of celebrities and trendsetters: Alicia Keys, Morgan Freeman, Spike Lee and Gaetano Veloso have all been spotted here. Heather Watson, a Canadian teacher dividing her time between Brazil and Argentina, sees parallels to Buenos Aires: "I like Lapa's decadent vibe – the ancient and the modern, the excessive and the minimalist, the sublime and the debauched. It reminds me of San Telmo in Buenos Aires, a formerly very wealthy enclave that has become a bohemian haven." New Lapa policing effort is set to drive drug sales out, photo by Alfred Rinaldi. Venues of note include Rio Scenarium, voted one of the world's best ten bars by the UK's Guardian newspaper. Located close to the Centro in Rua do Lavradio 20, this is a stylish venue for a glamorous crowd looking for samba in a high-end setting. At the other end of the scale and no less enjoyable is A Vaca Atolada (Literally, "The Bogged-down Cow" – a popular Brazilian beef stew) in the Avenida Gomes Freira 533. Firmly in the hand of ordinary Cariocas, this authentic neighborhood botequim always features a live band and offers an enchanting glimpse of samba in a simple, working-class setting. Those in search of rock will feel at home at Lapa's Irish Pub in the Rua Evaristo de Veiga 147, directly next to Lapa's iconic Arcos (arches). Here, party-goers oil their vocal chords with imported beers such as Guinness or Pilsener Urquell on Wednesday's – the karaoke night – or listen to live acts on the weekends. Best of all, owner manage Bob Fetterman operates the Bohemia Hostel directly on top of the pub, delivering entertainment and accommodation in one handy package. African drumming has its home at Cultura Afro-Brasileira on Avenida Mem de Sá 69 – impossible to miss, it provides an acoustic signature to this part of the bairro. Right next door is FEBARJ – Rio's top spot for hip-hop beats and thugged-out fashion, the music and crowd an incongruous match with the venue's crumbling historic façade. Particularly rewarding is a visit to the balcony, which offers an atmospheric view of the bustle on the sidewalk below. For those interested in living in Lapa, a recent search found studio-sized boltholes starting at R$265,000, while a one-bedroom can be had for R$495,000. The same search found one-bedroom apartments to rent from R$1,200 per month, with the most luxurious one-bedroom offering, furnished and "accommodating five people", listed at R$4,500. 6 Responses to "New Efforts to Increase Security on Lapa Streets" Pingback: Tourist Arrested for Bribery: Daily | The Rio Times | Brazil News Alex August 12, 2014 at 5:59 PM I was in Lapa recently as a tourist with my girlfriend who is originally from Brasilia. Lapa, like Hackney in London and Williamsburg in New York seems to have come upon a resurgence of interest from bohemians and artists, who often, despite their spurning of money for 'higher cultural aims' attract in their footsteps wealthy individuals who are looking to buy up cheap property and make a fortune when the area becomes popular. Prices in this area will probably increase by 100% or more in the next few years and such a sudden increase will bring investment to the area, but also alienate local people who will be excluded from the gains and also attract criminals preying on the new wealth in the area. I have seen this same process first hand in London. Granted, the U.K and Brazil are very different places as the U.K has a functioning welfare system that Brazil doesn't have, but the basic premise is the same. I hope the authorities manage to keep a balance between security and also opening up channels of new employment opportunities to poorer locals who would also like to benefit from the changes in the area. Pingback: Gunman Takes Hostage in Church in Ipanema: Daily Update | The Rio Times | Brazil News Pingback: Rio de Janeiro Police Presence in Lapa Increased for Carnival | The Rio Times | Brazil News Pingback: Rio's Operation Lapa Presente Deemed Success After 1.5 Years | The Rio Times | Brazil News Pingback: Operaçao Lapa Presente Model to be Expanded to Three More Neighborhoods | The Rio Times | Brazil News Leave a Reply Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. Please enter an answer in digits:twenty − thirteen =


text: On Sun, 10 Nov 2002, Reuven M. Lerner wrote: > >>>>> "Shlomo" == Shlomo Yona <shlomo at cs.haifa.ac.il> writes: > > Shlomo> I wonder if experienced users can suggest a preferable way > Shlomo> of sending mail from Perl scripts. > > I generally use Mail::Sendmail, available on CPAN.I'm not sure how > efficient it is, but the API is ridiculously simple. This one uses SMTP to send the message. > > Shlomo> I need to be able to specify sender, recipient, > Shlomo> attachments, and of course message body and a subject. > > If you want to send attachments, then you might want to look into > Mail::Sender.This seems to be the module that many people use to > send attachments and other complex documents.Unfortunately, I've > found the documentation for Mail::Sender to be very hard to > understand.In particular, the code samples are written in a very > weird syntax. > > But hey, it's still better than invoking the command-line "mail" > program via system()... Is it? http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisories/2002/MDKSA-2002-076.php -- Tzafrir Cohen mailto:tzafrir at technion.ac.il http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir


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James' attorney, Adam C. Reddick, previously said his client's minimum sentence likely won't exceed 75 months, as indicated in a Cobbs hearing. During a Cobbs hearing, a judge outlines the likely sentence a defendant will face if convicted of certain charges.
Prosecutors alleged that James on the evening of Nov. 11 was driving a 1999 Pontiac Bonneville on North Shore Road in Pinconning Township when he crossed the center line and collided head-on with a Chevrolet Impala driven by Elbert H. Nelson, 56. Emergency responders pronounced Nelson dead at the scene.
Nelson's wife, Jamette J. Nelson, and friend Barbara White were injured in the crash. Jamette Nelson testified during an April preliminary examination that she saw another car's headlights cross into their lane and initially thought the vehicle was attempting to avoid a deer that had jumped into the road.
"I remember saying, 'What the hell?' because they never went back over to their side of the road," Nelson testified.
Police officers testified at the April hearing that when they arrived at the scene, James was not there, though his damaged car remained. Officers recovered James' driver's license at the scene and went to his house, where they found him.
James initially denied being drunk and said his car had been stolen, police testified. He later said he had been drinking, officers said.
Police took James to McLaren Bay Region hospital, where staff took a blood sample from him. His blood alcohol level registered 0.15, police testified. In Michigan, a person is legally intoxicated when their blood alcohol level is at 0.08.
James on May 23 was released from the Bay County Jail on a $150,000 personal recognizance bond, with the stipulation he not consume alcohol. Gill on Sept. 24 revoked James' bond after the SCRAM tether attached to his ankle indicated he had alcohol in his system.
Rebecca Grice, Nelson's daughter, has filed a lawsuit against James and his mother, Carrie A. Mondeau, in Bay County Circuit Court. The suit is seeking $25,000 from the pair, alleging James was grossly negligent and that his actions "violated his duty to the public in general and to the Plaintiffs in particular," according to the suit.
Mondeau is named in the suit as it is alleged she owned the Pontiac James was driving and is "vicariously liable for the aforesaid negligence and/or gross negligence" of her son.
The suit states Jamette Nelson and Barbara White continue to suffer from the crash's effects.
The suit is scheduled for a settlement conference before Chief Circuit Judge Kenneth W. Schmidt in July 2014.


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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Each week, Branson Wright will discuss ways the Cleveland Browns can win in their upcoming game.
On Sunday, the Browns host the Chicago Bears in the final home game of the season.
In the latest "Audible" video, Branson says the Bears did the Browns a favor by replacing the hot Josh McCown with Jay Cutler, who's coming back from injury. Cutler will certainly be rusty in his return and the Browns can take advantage of his probable slow start.
It also doesn't hurt that the Bears have the worst run defense in the league. An established running game will only aid wide receiver Josh Gordon.
And that could mean more trouble for the Bears.


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R. J. Nistler and A. Maiers
Education and Urban Society, vol. 32, no. 1. 1999, p. 108-126.
The article describes a family literacy program established by A. Maiers. The purpose of the program was to help parents understand how important their role is in their child's literacy development.
The article shares the findings of what occurred in the classroom setting when parents and children engaged in literacy activities during the school day with emphasis on combining the strengths of home literacy with school.
H. Müller - Solger
European Journal for Education Law and Policy, vol. 3, 1999, 111-115.
EU education programmes include the following four types of action:
Author suggest that exchanges of students and teachers and information exchange can eventually be organised into permanent European structures.
D. Glendenning
European Journal for Education Law and Policy, vol. 3, 1999, p. 141-143.
Describes the provisions of the Education (Welfare) Bill 1999, which addresses the issues of school attendance, truancy, State supervision of home education and related matters from a child welfare perspective.
V. Reding
Education and Training Review, vol. 2, Winter 1999, p. 9-10.
Describes the new generation of EU education initiatives proposed by the Commission. They are Socrates IJ for education, Leonardo da Vinci II for vocational training, and Youth, based on a combination of Youth for Europe and the European Voluntary Service scheme. It is envisaged that these will lead up to the creation of a European learning area in which unnecessary barriers to mobility are removed.
G. Gori
European Journal for Education Law and Policy, vol. 3, 1999, p. 145-149.
Granting universities curricular autonomy through the abolition of centrally set curricula should help to reduce student dropout rates, raise the number of graduates and reduce the average duration of studies. Centrally set curricula are rigid and impossible to change quickly in the light of advances in knowledge. Their difficulty makes the dropout rate very high, and extends the time required to complete the course.
J. Lumbye
International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 14, 2000, p. 16-22.
The reversion of Hong Kong to mainland China has led to swift and major changes in the economic base, and a consequent change in the vocational education and training needed to support economic prosperity. To meet the requirements of the new environment, the Vocational Training Council is leading a restructuring of the seven technical institutes and two technical colleges of Hong Kong to become a new single organisation, the Institute of Vocational Education, with a revised structure, management culture and curriculum.


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text:
But the lawyers got paid. The buried lede is how Napoli Bern coerced its client into settling.
Zero for Ground Zero worker
Related Entries:
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- Joe Nocera nails it
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|Isaac Gorodetski
Project Manager,
Center for Legal Policy at the
Manhattan Institute
|Katherine Lazarski
Press Officer,
Manhattan Institute


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COMSTOCK PARK -- Alfredo Figaro doesn't think being the Midwest League's winningest pitcher is a big deal.
Not when you compare it to things such as improving control, knowing the Detroit Tigers have an eye on you and waiting anxiously to see if a promotion to Lakeland is in the cards.
The West Michigan Whitecaps right-hander won his 10th game in Tuesday's 9-4 decision over Fort Wayne.
Not only did he become the league's first 10-game winner, he's one victory shy of becoming just the fourth pitcher in all of minor league baseball to win 11 games this season.
Only Jhoulys Chacin of Modesto, Dunedin's Kyle Ginley and Sam Narron of Nashville have won one more game than Figaro, who turns 24 on July 7.
While Figaro takes pride in that accomplishment, he also admits it's hard for him not to look at the bigger picture.
"It makes me feel better, but it's no big deal," Figaro said after Wednesday's rainout against Fort Wayne. "It's nice, but my 10th win doesn't make me feel like it's a big deal."
What would be a big deal, said Figaro, who now is 10-2, is continuing to improve his control.
Three years ago, he walked 31 batters in 77 innings. He improved that to 22 walks in 76 innings between Lakeland and Oneonta last season. This year, Figaro has walked 26 batters in 99 innings. When you factor in 76 strikeouts, it's a decent strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Figaro also ranks second in the Midwest League with a 1.73 ERA. He trails Kane County's Craig Italiano (1.16) in that department, but Figaro has pitched 29 more innings than Italiano.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Figaro said he has more to worry about than who leads the Midwest League in wins.
"I'm thinking of winning my 11th, 12th games," he said. "That's what I think about, my next win. I don't like losing."
Figaro said he hasn't had any inkling whether a promotion to Lakeland of the Florida State League is a possibility or whether he'll spend the entire season with the Whitecaps.
"Sometimes I think about it," he said. "But not too much. If I finished my season here, that would be OK."
Tigers roving pitcher instructor Jon Matlack said the big league club is well aware of the strides made by Figaro, whose baseball resume would indicate a promotion is at least a possibility.
Signed as a free agent in 2005 after pitching in the Los Angeles Dodgers' system, Figaro was selected to the 2006 Gulf Coast League All-Star team. He was a combined 4-4 at Lakeland and Oneonta last year. His career record in 4 1/2 professional seasons is 25-9 with an ERA of less than three runs per game.
"He's throwing good," Matlack said. "We've seen maturity and consistency in him this year. He still tries to do so much, but those times are becoming fewer and farther between."


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The seventh annual Staten Island Cinco de Mayo Celebration is free and open to the public and goes from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Port Richmond's waterfront Faber Park.
The St. Philip's Baptist Church Drum Corps will begin the festivities at 11:30 a.m.
Mariachis Mexico International, one of New York City's top mariachi bands, will cap the afternoon of free entertainment, which also includes performances by the New World Preparatory Charter School Chorus, pre-Hispanic cultural dance, Mexican Folkloric Dances from St. Mary's of the Assumption Church among other entertainers.
All day, kids and adults can enjoy the antics of clowns, payasos, admire Mexican artisan crafts and sample tidbits from local restaurants serving cuisine typical of Mexican regions ranging from Puebla to Oaxaca.
The students of PS 20 created hand-crafted decorations for the celebration, which will bedeck the park in the colors of spring, celebration and pride.
The event is sponsored by Health Plus, Americorp and El Centro del Inmigrante with local sponsorship for Make the Road New York, Eye Openers Youth Against Violence, Staten Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Port Richmond Improvement Association , Port Richmond Community Task Force and the Staten Island Immigrants Council.
The Consul General of Mexico will be the keynote speaker at the afternoon event.


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DOTHAN, Alabama -- A Dothan man who pleaded guilty to breaking the jaw of a Dothan police officer was sentenced to serve seven years in prison.
Roderiquez Rambeau, 27, reportedly assaulted a Dothan police officer who attempted to arrest him after responding to a fight at a home in the 1000 block of Eugene Street on Dec. 31, 2011, according to the Dothan Eagle.
Rambeau was charged with second-degree assault after punching the police officer multiple times in the face, breaking his jaw and knocking out a tooth.


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Located just 13 miles from Charing Cross, Cheshunt is a leafy dormitory town in the Borough of Broxborne, Hertfordshire. It is part of the Greater London Urban Area and London commuter belt served by Cheshunt railway station.
Situated just to the west of the River Lea and Lee Valley Park – Greater London's largest, at four times the size of Richmond Park – Cheshunt is a pleasing mix of modern and historical. The buildings of Dewhurst Charity School, founded by Robert Dewhurst in 1640, and the nearby houses in Churchgate are both protected by a conservation area. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth I lived in the town during her younger life?
Cheshunt is far enough away from London to retain a more rural, 'villagey' feel – rolling countryside is often within walking distance, offering hassled commuters the perfect respite from their busy working lives – but it is also a largely modern place with all the usual amenities associated with 21st Century living.
There is an eclectic mix of property on offer in Cheshunt, with conventional two and three bed terraced houses and various new build homes and flats providing good accommodation for young families and professional couples. Further out, swanky barn conversions and large detached houses offering views of the countryside are commonplace. There is something to suit every taste and budget, and you are likely to get more bang for your buck than you would in the capital, although this is slightly offset by the higher travel costs that come with commuting longer distances.
The high street has a good range of shops, both branded and independent, and the town is also home to a number of interesting pubs and bars. The Laura Trott Leisure Centre, named in honour of the Double Olympic Champion cyclist who grew up in Cheshunt, offers a wide range of facilities including a floodlit 5-a-side football pitch, a multi-purpose sports hall, a swimming pool and a crèche.
Cheshunt is known as a bit of a 'walker's paradise'. Due to its abundance of green space, the area is an ideal location for countryside walks, with Lee Valley Park right on its doorstep. Water sports enthusiasts are also well catered for, with white water rafting, kayaking, canoeing and various other water activities all available in the local area.
As part of London Oyster Zone 8, trains from Cheshunt Station run to Liverpool Street and Stratford, getting you to the capital in around 20 minutes. There are also connections to the Victoria Line at Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters. Cockfosters and Oakwood, both on the Piccadilly Line, are a little further afield. National Rail services operate from nearby Waltham Cross, Theobalds Grove, Cuffley and Enfield Lock. London's Crossrail 2, if approved, would also stop at Cheshunt. The town is also well-connected by road and bus, and the Sustrans National Cycle Route 1 passes through Cheshunt as part of its route connecting Dover to Shetland.
Eating and Drinking
Described as Hertfordshire's best-kept secret, Sub Xpress dishes up unbeatable, freshly-made pizzas at very reasonable prices. The Coach & Horses gastropub is the place to go for tapas and cocktails, whilst Emmi offers authentic Turkish cuisine with a smile. For Indian food, Mahek, De Ja Vu and Raj Vogue all serve up excellent value curries in intimate, family-friendly surroundings. For a relatively small town, there is a remarkable amount of choice when it comes to eating and drinking establishments.
Nurseries: Brookland Infant and Nursery School, Monkey Puzzle Day Nurseries, Rafles Day Nursery
Primary: Millbrook School, Andrews Lane Primary School, Bonney Grove Primary School
Secondary: Cheshunt School, Goffs School, St Mary's Church of England High School
9 Lynton Parade,
Turners Hill,
Tel: 01992 635735 • Fax: 01707 878942
Branch Manager: Ben Coss • firstname.lastname@example.com


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Concurrent (CCUR) on Sunday at IBC 2013 unveiled its breakthrough cloud-based multi-screen Network DVR (nDVR) technology that will soon replace today's DVRs that are in 1/2 of the world's TV households. Early this morning, CCUR became the world's first pay-TV tech vendor to announce a major nDVR deployment! It's a multi-screen nDVR deployment with Portugal's largest pay-TV operator - and it is now being utilized to record/playback content on TVs, PCs, tablets, and smartphones!
CCUR's deal is with ZON Multimedia. CCUR has allowed ZON to enhance its Iris multi-screen service offering with advanced nDVR features! It is being branded as Timewarp and allows consumers to record any live TV program on more than 70 channels and view it up to seven days after airing. Users can record multiple channels simultaneously and playback recorded programs on-demand using any device. This is the world's first service of its kind! CCUR is pioneering nDVR just like it pioneered VOD back in 1999.
After launching the world's first VOD service in 1999, CCUR rose from $31.25 in April/1999 to a high of $240.63 in January/2000 for a gain of 670% in 9 months and a market cap of $1 billion+. CCUR fell to a low of $40 in December/2000 due to the tech bubble bursting. Over the following 13 months, CCUR bounced by 325% to a high of $170 in January/2002 and again had a market cap of $1 billion+.
CCUR recently reported its first profitable full fiscal year since 2002 when the stock was $170 per share with an EV/revenue ratio of 12.80. Today, CCUR is only $7.83 per share with an EV/revenue ratio of 0.64. CCUR has stronger fundamentals than the other pay-TV tech vendor pure play Seachange (SEAC), yet SEAC currently has an EV/revenue ratio of 1.66. From 1999-2002, CCUR spent 46 out of 48 months with a higher EV/revenue ratio than SEAC. Today's news will send CCUR soaring very rapidly to SEAC's EV/revenue ratio of 1.66, which will value CCUR at $15.20 per share! CCUR pays a HUGE 6.1% dividend yield!
ccur is down ever since you started hyping it
on every yahoo board there is