South African Cinema

South African cinema dates back right down to the 1930’s. In 1931 the first ever South African film was made that incorporated sound, it was an Afrikaans film called Sarie Marais directed by Joseph Albrecht. After that point in time many more films followed, most of which were Afrikaans films. However after the 1994 elections and the oblishment of the apartheid many African and fully featured apartheid films and documentaries were released.

Nowadays many of our local productions make it to the big screen, allowing us as South Africans to enjoy and support our local producers and movie houses. The ‘new’ South Africa has the resources to both make films and market international films. The black population is potentially an important new audience in South African Cinema, due to the past decades of censorship and the selection of films that were available at the cinema.

There are 3 major South African Film Distributors-namely Nu Metro Productions, Ster-Kinekor Pictures and United International Pictures. These are the 3 most famous film houses and distributors in South Africa.

South Africa is not just a wonderful destination to shoot a film, but rather is becoming a fully-fledged production destination. Studious are being built in order to support the South African film industry and to promote young producers.
Tsotsi was the first South African film to receive an Oscar award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was made in 2006 and the writer-director of the film was Gavin Hood. This movie saw South Africa break into international ground, and finally get recognized in the international scene.

Just like the Oscars, South Africa also has awards ceremonies to salute and honor our local talent. The inaugural South African Film and Television Academy (SAFTA) Awards celebrates and promotes the talent and accomplishments of the South film industry.

Local Broadcasters, filmmakers, students, producers and local film and television industries all submit their entries to SAFTA, and the judging process than takes place. Entries include feature films, short films, documentaries, television dramas, soapies, sitcoms, news, wildlife, children’s shows, reality programs and magazine productions. Although most of the entries are judged by the chosen panel, the audience was able to express their favorite soapie by voting via a phone-in and SMS competition. This allowed the audience to share in the voting experience and to be directly involved in the chosen winners.

South African Cinema is continuously developing and improving. Hopefully one day our local South African productions will be more appreciated as Hollywood and American productions are. As South Africans we should take an interest and support our local productions.


done by
NIRVANA DOODLA

The wonders of ANIMATION

Animation is a beautiful part of cinema that covers all the illusions of life, from fairytale's to the real world. It is an interesting type of film making that incorporates camera, frames, projections,screens, laser beams, computers and even artists. Animation has really evolved over time, from free hand drawing of a story board, to computer generated animation.
Animation has evolved from FANTASIA, the 1940 production to SHREK the 2001 production. We can clearly notice the difference in animation and how it has evolved and changed. In 1914 Windso McCay produced the first ever proper animated film for cinema entertainment called Gertie the Dinosaur, and it was a silent black and white film. In the 1920's sound was integrated into silent animations, and in the 1930's colour was added into animation and the feature movie was Snow White.

In 2000 Fantasia was the first full-lenght animation film made by computer to be shown on the huge IMAX cinema screen, and in 2004 Shrek followed as the first technical software movie which allowed characters to naturally bounce from surface to surface. Animation is still evovling, and will continue to surprise us.


Animation brings drawings to life and creates motion within puppets. Computer animation is growing rapidly especially in our technology driven world. Computer graphics allows the producer to create extraordinary animated movies such as Cars a 2006 production. Computer animation is essentially the digital successor to the art of drawing storyboards and frame-by-frame pictures.




Disney's 2007 ENCHANTED, is an excellent animated and part real movie. It incorporates both animation and real figures within one movie. A real fairytale movie, and it begins in the true fairytale setting, the beautiful animated princess surrounded by dozens of cute animals singing ENCHANTED melodies. But not long after, the animated fantasy is gone and live-action pictures begin. Very clearly the first 10minutes of the film evoke feelings of a classic fairytale movie, and then the fairytale ends an live-action begins. We get a happy feeling that fairytale's do come true, even in the furthest of places such as New York. Amy Adams whom plays the peppy and charming Giselle in ENCHANTED, can be reasonably compared to Julie Andrews in the movie MARY POPPINS.



Cinema and especially animation has evolved over time, and now producers and animation artists create a hyper-reality for the consumer to enjoy and be entertained by. A man-made world of fantacy.



BY: NIRVANA DOODLA

Musical Dialoge

Music is one of the purest art forms therefore it is not surprising that true poets seek to express the universe in terms of music.The singer has everything within him , he uses his present and past experiences to determine the content of his song. He chooses from a variety of musical instruments each with its own unique sound ,which stirs up different emotions in the listener.

Musical instruments give the lyrics of the song an added bonus, which slowly whispers into the listeners ears. The most simplest of instruments add the final touches; such instruments include: the drums , triangle , flute and maracas.They each have their own history and cultures attached to them.They are the inspiration for today's digital instruments. Music is not only heard but also represented in its own language . Musical notes are used to record beats and narratives , this enables humans to correctly copy and understand musical scripts. Whereas a computer is able to understand musical language through analog as mentioned in the previous posting.

Musical instruments can be created very easily and most musicians opt to personalize them . Rock bands are famous for doing this. For a musician his musical instrument acts as an extension to his/her body. A musician loses track of time while spending hours on end fine tuning,cleaning and practicing. Thus musical instruments play a ever growing part in our societies and cultures.

Digital musical instruments Sounds and Analogs

Digital musical instruments make sounds by generating streams of audio .
we often want to know , what and how digital audio is created and controlled.



Digital auto is represented by audio waveforms as a series of numbers, these numbers represent amplitude waveforms at different times. kind of like waves that clash against the sea shore at different time intervals.These wave forms are measured by sampling rating.


Sampling rating is able to determine the different frequency's that are present in an audio text.
The highest audio frequency that can be coded is half of a sampling rate.


Another name for audio signals is analog. Theses analogs can be converted to and from their digital representation.This is done by using digital-to analog converts(DAC) and Analog To digital converters (ADC).


below is a picture of such a device.

Which would we normally consider better?

I would say digital analog because it is easier and has much more benefits than analog.
Some of these benefits include:

1. making very accurate copies of an original very simply.


2. when it comes to music and electronic instruments, it has a large capacity and is flexible so it can easily be manipulated.


3. analog recordings of tape has a hissing sound , in digital you don't get this


4. allows editing to be done easily

Digital analog enables digital signaling processing(DSP). This technology is now used in Mobile phones, multimedia computers, video recorders , CD player, hard disc drives and modems. It is said that it will soon replace analog circuity both in TV sets and telephones. DSP allows for both compression and decompression of signals which is used in mp3 encoding.

it is therefore no wonder why Many musicians who build digital instruments use DSP synthesis and processing to create a unique sound.

NEGATIVE EFFECT OF MUSIC TECHNOLOGY

We as consumers can never believe the negative effects a device might cause, we are always to willing to conduct research but never willing to put our findings into practice.

We only look for the present. If a device enables to satisfy our need we don't give them a second thought.

Take for example the negative effect of the tiny Ear bud style head phones.

These tiny ear bud style music technology devices are used to enable us to listen to music from our iPods, mp3 players and Cellphones. However the damage from this tiny ear bud style headphones are greater than that caused by the muff-type headphones that are used on Walkmans and portable Cd Players. This is due to the fact that these tiny devices don't block out sound as effectively as the muff-type thus leading the hearer to increase the volume of the device. Even if you listen to music on your iPod at low levels, the ear phones still have a higher output level of volume.

According to a study done by Australian research group a quoter of iPod users between18 and 54 years of age listen at volumes enough to cause hearing damage.

Keep in mind that Continuous use of these tiny earphones will cause permanent damage to your eye drums.

Other devices add to the effects these tiny earphones have on us.

The longer-lasting batteries and more storage capacity on iPods and mp3 players encourage users to listen longer, thus not giving the ear drums a break to recover.

We should be careful of how long we listen to music and not exceeding long periods of time. We should allow our eardrums to recover.

Photography

“EVERY PICTURE HAS A STORY TO TELL . . .”
Photography is the capturing of reality. It captures everyday life experiences, special moments, classical, dreamy, romantic, serious, dramatic, erotic and several other precious and exciting moments. The camera does not lie; it freezes moments, and presents the truth.

Photography is a method of constructing and creating permanent images by means of capturing light on a light -sensitive medium. Photography constitutes to an essential part of our life as a source of information, it enables the preservation of memories, it is adopted as a hobby, and used as a form contemporary entertainment. It also plays a major role at every level of business and industry, being used in advertising, surveillance, photojournalism, in documents (for example, crime scenes), as fashion photography and editorial photography.

It is amazing how photography has developed from the early years of the 20th century, and from the use of roll film and the box camera to the current use of digital cameras. Initially photography was monochrome, however with the advancement of technology color photography was made possible. A black and white photograph is not out dated it is a current trend, created to provide a classic look. The 21st century presents professional photographers with a large variety of cameras and accessories due to the technological boom of this century.

Have you ever considered what the world would be like if photography did not exist?
Certainly, photography enhances our perception of the world. If photographs did not exist, life would be dull, monotonous and boring. Photography influences our everyday life experiences and has contributed towards shaping our identity. Photography enables us to keep up with the latest trends, which occur around the world. This influences us as individuals and unknowingly we relate to a particular style and a trend that appeals to us and we begin to adopt it into our lifestyle. A typical example would be fashion photography as well as advertisements. Photography also serves as a means of communication. We are able to communicate with people in different countries via the Internet, due to the availability of new technology we are able to view a photograph of the person that we are chatting to, this makes communication easier and enables us to meet new people from around the world.

Photography also makes it possible for us to be enlightened about events, which occur all around the world, increasing our general knowledge. It is therefore evident that photography plays an extremely important role in contributing towards our identity as individuals.

Varishma Hariparsad

Music in a Ever Changing / Ever Evolving Digital Age

The way we create,listen and absorb music today has changed. This change is due to the evolution of musical technology. From the simple days of live music, to the creation of sheet music which was transported to numerous destinations, to the invention of the radio and to the first ever record composed . The creation of the caste ,caste player together with TV brought about changes which are visible today. With the invention of the computer just like its predecessor created, has improved the way we listen to music and changed it diverse branches, which spread into our cultures and societies.

With regards to the computer (which brought about the digital age) is known it to be a tool which is regard to have logical malleability. These programs/ applications are ever changing and evolving, thus evolving the digital age. There are many musical programs which enable us to listen to music on our computers namely Windows media player, Nero player and each can be set to the listeners preferences. Music is stored in file formats as either Cda , mp3/mp4 and wav formats. These formats make it easier of music player software to read music and it store. These programs often come with help menus.

The best way to store music on your computers hard drive would be in mp3/ mp4 / wav format because they allow for the compression of files thus leading to storage space minimization. these formats of music can also be downloaded quickly and easily.

Computers make it easier for record labels to compose music as well as advertise both their artists and their music as well as with invention of the Internet, we are able to listen to music from around the world by numerous artists and well as visit websites. there are many websites which teach us how to create music with regards to creation of lyrics, how to play musical instruments eg. piano, etc. They also teach us how to read musical notes such web sites would http://www.musictechteacher.com/ this leads numerous people being exposed to music. This eventually creates an evolution in music in terms of composition and understanding.

thus the digital age has evolved music as a whole