Marvel teased us with the release of this film near the end of various previously released super hero flicks like Captain America and Iron Man 2. This would be the movie that unites all the super heroes from the Marvel universe. Well actually, only those that had not been previously licensed to other studios. Hence, you will not find characters from X-Men, Spiderman, or the Fantastic Four in this movie. Director Joss Whedon brings back fond memories of creative television series like Firefly and Dollhouse, but what does he make of a 220 million blockbuster production?

The Avengers was released in the UK as `Avengers Assemble’ to avoid confusion with the 1960′s television series with the same name. The main protagonists in this flick have all had movies of their own: Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. If I had to pick any of those movies that would be good to watch before The Avengers it would be Thor as it introduces the most important characters, including the antagonist. However, The Avengers can also easily be watched by itself.

This film does not fall in the trap of taking its subject matter overly serious, which I think is key for movies in the superhero genre. The Hulk, not a very talkative character to begin with, in particular has some good `moments’ in this movie. The chemistry among the main cast is excellent, and even supporting characters, like Agent Phil Coulson, deliver memorable performances. Robert Downey Jr. gives an excellent performance as the ever arrogant Tony Stark, and Mark Ruffalo is easily the best Hulk so far.

The Avengers is a special effects extravaganza where no expense has been spared to produce excellent looking computer generated imagery. The 3D is subject to mild strobing effects, particularly during quick pans. It was added in post-production. There were very few scenes in which it actually made any difference, so it might as well have been left out.

Overall the filmmakers do a good job of keeping the fights both interesting and easy to follow. It does not become an unwatchable mess typical of poorly choreographed fight scenes. One scene in which the camera floats by all the heroes fully engaged in combat in the middle of a city-wide attack is particularly impressive for it manages to actually keep the audience engaged instead of invoking disorientation. The music and sound effects were excellent, and combined with the spectacular visuals certainly warrant a visit to the cinema.

If I had to pick on anything: the plot is a little thin with respect to the drive of the main villain. The interactions between him and his allies could have used some more screen time. Whilst shrouding a villain in a cloud of mystery makes sense to some extent, what actually drives him sometimes eluded me.

This movie should be skipped only if you really do not like superheroes, everyone else should go and watch this as it surely lives up to the expectations. So: stop reading, and go see it!

Rating:  

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Trailer hosted by YouTube. Copyright © 2012 Marvel Studios

Another Earth is a drama film with a science fiction backdrop. The story revolves around a girl named Rhoda, portrayed by Brit Marling, who has recently been accepted to study at MIT. Unfortunately, while driving home from a party she slams her car into that of a famous composer, killing his family and throwing him in a coma.

The rest of the film is mostly about the consequences for both the composer and Rhoda, as well as one of the causes of the accident: Rhoda looking out of the window of her car because she sees another earth in the sky. This visual cue is revisited many times in the movie as we slowly learn what the other earth really is. However, more central to the story is the relation between Rhoda and the composer, a fascinating role by William Mapother. The fact that the audience and Rhoda share a secret together from the outset of the movie makes for some particularly gripping moments.

Another Earth is recommended for people who like well crafted art house films. While it borrows elements from other movies, like Moon and Crash, it’s hard to really compare to existing work, which makes that it has a unique signature: a good thing. Another Earth is slowly paced, but consistently throws enough at you to hold your attention. To what extent you will like this movie probably depends mainly on whether you sympathize with the faith of the two main characters. The cinematographic execution is rough in some places, but not a distraction. Finally, the abrupt ending may be a disappointment to some, but I couldn’t think of a more appropriate one.

Rating:  

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Trailer hosted by YouTube. Copyright © 2011 Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Many of the differences between the United States and the Netherlands are surprisingly small. After all: both are “western” nations. However, careful observation does reveal a number of them both small and large. Here’s a handful which are true at least in the Pittsburgh area and some of which likely extend to the rest of the United States.

Eating Habits
I’ve already discussed some food aspects at length. However, let’s take a look at habitual differences with respect to eating. When given a meal Dutch people usually wait till everyone has a plate and only then start eating: there’s a ‘synchronization’ point. In contrast: Americans start eating as soon as something is put in front of them. Furthermore, Americans generally eat with only one utensil: spoon or fork, unless they are cutting, and rest their other hand in their lap, something which is considered rude in Dutch culture. People in the Netherlands commonly use both knife and fork while eating and keep both of their hands above the table at all times.

Conveyor-belt Style Food
The American contribution to the world cuisine is “fast food”. It is amazing, but also depressing to see how many fast food chains there actually are, many more than in continental Europe, it’s truly a Fast Food Nation. Most of these fast food restaurants transform traditional cooking into a conveyor-belt style chain where either each person completes some part of the task of preparing the final meal, or where one person prepares your food item while moving along bins with ingredients.

Recycling
Pittsburgh has a curb-side recycling program and encourages its citizens to split their waste in non-recyclable and recyclable stuff. The latter includes everything that can be recycled, including leaf waste for which we have a separate bin in the Netherlands. There is no separation of different types of waste in public waste bins as is common in for example Germany. However, on the University terrain bins of this type can be found in some places.

You can get money back for recycling plastic bottles. However, I’ve not yet come across the automated bottle processing systems prolific in the Netherlands. Furthermore, there’s a lot of plastic waste being generated as a result of coated cups, take-out cutlery and bags. While many systems are in place which enable recycling. It’s not consistent and overall Americans don’t really seem to care about recycling at all. If you’re European: there’s certainly no need to feel environmentally guilty compared to what is happening here in the United States.

Banking
You probably won’t find cheques in the Netherlands unless you are at an archaeological excavation, but they are one of the primary means of payment here after cash and credit card. Interestingly, even debit cards are made so that you can use them as a credit card. Internet banking is available and works fairly well. However, an “on-line” bank transfer boils down to the bank mailing a cheque to the recipient on your behalf. Again: the American banking system doesn’t exactly sparkle modernity.

Buses and Public Transport
The bus system in Pittsburgh is decent, although not exactly reliable or punctual. Unless you have a pass, you pay cash to the driver and you have to pay exact. There’s a machine that collects your bills and coins in front of the bus. Although I am not a big proponent of the OV Chip Card, the cash payment system here is inefficient and cumbersome. People enter and exit buses using the front door, rarely does the back door get used. This doesn’t really make sense to me either. Many of the buses are also equipped with bike carrying racks, located at the front of the bus, on which one or two bikes can be mounted. Although this is a nice service, I would not quickly put my bike at the front of a bus.

Trains are not a very popular mode of transport, since they take very long to get anywhere. The reason being that passenger trains don’t have a high priority on the rail network in contrast to freight trains. Most people resort to either airplanes or cars for any type of travel. Car usage has historically been heavily promoted, since a large part of the American economy used to rely on it.

Streets and Cars
The streets are somewhat wider, but that’s also because there are no separate parking bays: cars are almost always parked on both sides of the road on nearly all streets. Whilst this occurs in the Netherlands too, parking bays are probably more common.

Traffic lights in the United States are consistently on the opposite side of the street, while in most of Europe they are more commonly on the same side. I feel that opposite placement is actually better since this makes the light easier to see when it’s high up.

The cars are bigger: you will not see many compact cars driving around here. This is also caused by the fact that the driving distances are generally longer and the fact that gasoline is somewhere between two and two-and-a-half times cheaper here compared to the Netherlands. As far as I could find there’s no vehicle excise tax based on the weight or pollution of vehicles which would also explain why Americans prefer large cars: there’s no disincentive for owning one. However, there’s a road and fuel tax system.

As far as brand names are concerned, it seems French cars are not popular. There are very few cars that carry the Peugot or Citroen brand: I haven’t actually seen any. However, German and Japanese cars are prolific: BMW, Volkwagen, Audi, Honda, Toyota, and of course American car brands like Chevrolet, GMC, Ford and Jeep. Of these American brands only Ford is popular in Europe.

Bikes
Bikes are not very common: I have had people take pictures of me because I was riding a bike. Nevertheless, I have been told that their popularity is rising. Many bikers are of the “sports” kind and not of the “commute” kind. Bikes are a bit more common among the student population, but nowhere near as common as in the Netherlands. Furthermore, there are no separate traffic lights for bikes and there are only occasional bike lanes. On some streets it is certainly safer to use the sidewalk for biking, even if it sometimes annoys pedestrians

Finally, they do not have Saint Nicholas here. I guess the United States is just a bit too far from Spain. Can’t have it all.

Clint Eastwood has sharpened his directing skills in the past decade, showing that he can make high quality drama films such as Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. In his newest feature he takes on the life of J. Edgar Hoover, the former long-time director and founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The script was penned by Dustin Lance Black best known for the award-winning movie Milk.

J. Edgar tells the life of its subject through flashbacks while an elderly Hoover dictates about his past. A lot of this revolves around the Lindbergh kidnapping. Hoover’s personal life throughout the years is highlighted, particularly his relationship with his deputy Clyde Tolson. Controversial subject matter surrounding his persona is not swept under the carpet, like his alleged homosexuality and self-glorification.

Although inter-cutting between past and present is an effective storytelling device, it is sometimes disorienting in J. Edgar. The cinematography is decent, and most of the make-up used to make actors look older is convincing. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers an excellent performance as J. Edgar Hoover and whilst certainly intended as a deep drama movie, it is not shy of amusing dialogue.

J. Edgar is not particularly gripping, at times a bit too slow, and occasionally hard to follow due to some flashbacks problems. Nevertheless, it is overall a well crafted movie that gives insight into a person who was instrumental in establishing some of today’s established forensic practices. If you’re into biopics, and can oversee some minor flaws in execution, this is for you.

Note: J. Edgar will be released outside the United States in January, and in the Netherlands on January fifth twenty twelve.

Rating:  

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Trailer hosted by YouTube. Copyright © 2011 Warner Brothers.

Margin Call is a film about risk taking in the financial market and the consequences for people working in that sector. Not a very popular topic for filmmakers and moviegoers alike. Nevertheless, it features an all-star cast, but do they deliver?

First of all: don’t expect a lot of excitement and explosions. Although marketed as a thriller, Margin Call really is a drama. The financial system is not easy to understand, not even for insiders as is suggested in the movie – Jeremy Irons’s character, the head honcho, remarks: “I don’t get any of this stuff.” – Nevertheless, the filmmakers do succeed in making things understandable even for people without a degree in finance, but whether a financial melt-down excites you is a matter of personal taste.

Most of Margin Call isn’t really about money at all. It’s more about how people treat each other when the going gets though. The movie starts out with massive lay-offs at an investment firm, with cold and clinical severances, and then progresses towards an even bleaker scenario once it becomes obvious that a complete collapse is imminent. The situation is complicated by the fact that a key employee, with insights into the cause of this foreshaded collapse, was fired during the initial lay-off.

The movie believably portrays how problems bubble up from the bottom to the upper echelons of such companies, to what tricks they resort to motivate their people, and how little they really value their human capital. It contains a lot of subtle criticism on Wall Street, such as the fact that they employ talented engineers and scientists, who could have otherwise made a more concrete contribution to society.

Margin Call is made believable by its excellent cast with impressive roles in particular by Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons. Despite its relatively slow pace, the movie doesn’t drag. Nevertheless, some characters would have benefited from a richer depiction of their background.

Overall, Margin Call is recommended if you are either working in, or have some interest in, financial markets. For others the subject matter might be too dry to be exciting. Despite its fairly narrow appeal, Margin Call is a good drama in its own right.

Rating:  

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Trailer hosted by YouTube. Copyright © 2011 Before the Door Pictures.

I don’t watch a lot of comedies, but I am willing to make an exception for Rowan Atkinson. There probably isn’t a soul who isn’t familiar with Mr. Bean. Atkinson’s non-verbal acting skills are simply amazing. However, he has to rely on more than that to play a secret agent. Is this follow-up to the “so, so” 2003 Johnny English, any good?

The movie starts off with humorous scenes of Johnny English in a Tibetan Monastery, followed by his re-entry into MI7. He’s assigned the mission of uncovering an assassination attempt on the Chinese head of state, and has to reluctantly accept the presence of a sidekick. From there the film kicks into high gear, with numerous parodies of cliché moments in more serious action and spy films. This never gets old thanks to Atkinson, who is often doing something totally inappropriate in the background of a “serious scene”.

British director Oliver Parker isn’t known for box office hits, but does a decent job here. The unbelievable plot isn’t really a distraction, as most of the movie leans on Atkinson’s scene-to-scene performance and his sidekick excellently portrayed Daniel Kaluuya. However, not everyone acts very well: although Gillian Anderson, of X-Files fame, is billed as one of the top cast she gives a surprisingly poor and plastic performance.

This movie is certainly no gem, and people have likely become accustomed to better performances from Atkinson. However, all in all Johnny English Reborn offers good value. It’s better than the original Johnny English and good as a light “popcorn” movie. If you’re into that, or a die hard fan of Rowan Atkinsons, you should go see this movie.

Rating:  

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Trailer hosted by YouTube. Copyright © 2011 Universal Studios.

Someone knocked on the door of my apartment.
“Almer?”
“Yes?”
The door opened with a shriek.
“Do you have classes?”, Sophie shouted.
“I don’t, what’s up?”
I walked down the stairwell to the landing so I could see her.
“Can you help me with something?”, she asked while looking up at me.
“A friend of mine got her phone stolen, and she traced it to some pawn shop,” she paused briefly, “so she asked me to go with her to pick it up.”
“Uhm, oh, really?” I replied in surprise. “Did she report it to the police? Did she ask them for help?” I added.
“Yes, they made a file, but said they can’t do much about it. It’s not a priority for them.”
“Okay. So, how can I help?”
“Well, it’s not really in a safe part of town and we’re just two girls …”

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in the back of a Hummer-like car. Sophie, in the front passenger seat, discussed strategies with her friend Mithra behind the wheel. This was going to be more than simply picking something up …
“So, what will we tell them?”
“We can say we’re Pitt students”, Mithra replied to Sophie.
“Where are you studying?”, she briefly turned her head towards me, then fixed her eyes on the road again.
“CMU”
“Oh, don’t tell them you’re from CMU, they’ll know you’ve money, they’ll raise the price you know, we’re all just from Pitt, okay?”
“Sure”, I replied, but I was still a bit puzzled about the whole thing and only half awake. Just half an hour ago, I was engaged in my daily morning routine, specifically: having breakfast.
“I was wondering: how did you track the phone?” I continued.
“With some remote tracking app you can see where it is,” she replied hesitantly. “After I found out where it was I called the phone.”
“You called your stolen phone? Did someone pick up?”
“Yes, a man answered and he was willing to give me the phone for hundred bucks.”
I blinked, frowned and repositioned myself after Mithra’s car hit a pothole.
“So, what was the catch?”
“We arranged an exchange, but he backed out and asked me to come to his shop.”
“So, that’s the shop we’re going to?”
“No, no, it’s a different one.”
“So, you tracked it to this shop?”
“No, I did a remote wipe and then could not track the phone anymore,” she paused, “I didn’t know the wipe would do that.”
Uh? I decided to end my cross-examination. I inferred she had probably frantically called pawn shops around town, trying to locate those with iPhones, after she lost the tracking signal.

We crossed a huge bridge across the Monongahela river.
“So, where’s the shop?” Sophie asked.
“Just across the bridge, in one of the side streets”, Mithra replied.
She turned left onto the street where the shop was supposed to be. We passed an intersection and were supposedly almost there. Since no cars were behind us, Mithra slowly let her car roll forward.
“That’s the place, that’s it”, she said.

We parked the car somewhere around the corner and walked up to the shop. With every step closer the atmosphere became grimmer. A tall black guy with a black cap was leaning against the shop front, arms crossed, while discussing something with an older woman. Some other people were standing around waiting. We reluctantly joined them. Two people could be seen scurrying around inside the shop: one with a ring beard and dreadlocks resembled Wyclef Jean, the other, in the back, was harder to see.

After several minutes “Wyclef Jean” came to the front door and opened it. The other person, apparently the shop owner, followed him at a distance. Black cap moved inside, as well as all other people that were waiting, including us. The large store was full of “second-hand” stuff: flat screens, stereo receivers, and phones.

Mithra walked to the back of the store and addressed the shop owner. I fixed my gaze on his face, it was scarred. He seemed to be in his late thirties, the girls thought he was of Iranian descend.
“I called about an iPhone? For about hundred-fifty dollars?”, Mithra asked.
He smirked.
“Oh yes, yes, we have three or so,” he assured, “but there are lots of people interested in these phones, so the price will be higher, you know.”
Great.

Although the shop was quite large, Sophie, Mithra and me stood huddled together in the back. The atmosphere was grim. Two girls came in, one of them holding something small. Wyclef Jean shoved them dollar bills in, what was intended to be, a concealed way. Some other guy came in with a host of items that he wanted to sell and bantered with the shop owner.

Finally, the owner gave us two phones to try and yanked out a third one after Mithra insisted. Not all of them were charged, so we had to wait for a while. Sophie walked around looking at various gadgets. She contemplated buying something, before deciding that it probably was a bad idea to buy anything here, despite the shop owner reassuring here that she would get a “full week warranty”.

One of the three phones was obviously not Mithra’s, as it turned out to be an older model. After one of the remaining two was charged, Mithra handed it to me.
“Is this one mine?”, she asked nervously.
I looked at the palm of my left hand where I had written the serial number of her phone that she told me in the car. Unfortunately, this phone was somehow locked and I could not get into the right menu to actually check it. Mithra asked the shop owner to unlock the phone. After hooking the device up to a MacBook we could see the name of the original owner: it wasn’t hers.

We examined the last phone and established it could not have been hers either. The owner tried to sell us some other “wares”. After repeatedly asking him about other iPhones, Mithra gave up. We walked out the shop and back to the car, crossing our fingers that it’d not been vandalized.

It wasn’t, and in a matter of minutes we were back on the road. Mithra called other pawn shops to try and locate more iPhones, she seemed to obsess over it.
“You want me to tell you the obvious?”, I asked. “Let it go, it’s just a phone and your data is no longer on it, just buy a new one, and … I mean, how did you lose it in the first place?” I continued. My brain had fully awakened.
“I left it on the counter at Target, the next moment it was gone.”
I sighed audibly. “Always leave your phone either in your pocket, bag or in a secure place”
“I know,” Mithra replied, “but we girls don’t always have enough pocket space for a phone.”

After ten minutes we were home. Sophie and I got out of the car.
“Thanks for coming,” Mithra said. She drove off.
“That was weird,” I concluded as we went back inside the house.
Sophie nodded in agreement.

Truth be told, I wasn’t really aware of Ryan Gosling before Drive, although I vaguely recalled him from Remember the Titans. Shame on me, as he delivers a convincing performance in Drive as a man of few words. Other cast members deliver good acting as well, notably Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks. This movie is not permeated with slick dialogue like Fast Five and it doesn’t have the cliché Michael Bay look, but instead stylistically resembles an early eighties film. All the better since it is exactly these elements that give Drive a unique feel.

The movie heavily relies on non-verbal behaviour: glances, smiles and awkward pauses. This builds excellent tension between the main characters. Rosling plays the nameless driver who seems somewhat of a lone ranger. His genuine care for a woman results in him getting caught up in a violent plot.

The cinematography is excellent and makes up for the film being a little bit slow in some spots. Although the music used is fitting, the soundtrack is very minimal and large portions of movie are without any music at all. This is quite effective and sets Drive apart from a pack of over-the-top action films that rely too heavily on constant pumping audio to move the audience along. Nevertheless, because the film is so silent, the moments where gunfire and other types of violence are used, are all the more shocking and gruesome.

The amount of violence in Drive is also my primary point of criticism. I don’t mind this when it is essential for advancing the plot, and some parts of Drive rely on it to bring forward the violent nature of the main character. However, I think there’s a bit too much visceral violence. Drive is often compared with Tarantino’s films. However, in his work violence is often so over the top that it becomes light-hearted and almost humorous besides also serving a plot wise purpose. In contrast Drive has a much darker tone than most of Tarantino’s work, making it even more essential to strike the right visual balance.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is an overall good movie with an interesting storyline and memorable characters. The style and overall atmosphere is reminiscent of movies like American History X, Pulp Fiction and No Country for Old Men. Even though it is too blunt to actually belong among those classics. Nevertheless, Drive is recommended if you liked those movies.

Rating:  

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Trailer Hosted by YouTube. Copyright © FilmDistrict

Sixty-one days went by, sixty-one days to go before traveling back to the Netherlands. After a relatively rough start I am pretty settled now in Pittsburgh. I’ve made some friends and have gotten used to some of the American peculiarities. Although, I can’t appreciate everything about the United States, there are certainly things we Dutch can learn from. As someone on a bus remarked to me: “people keep coming here, so we must be doing something right …”

Carnegie Mellon University is pretty nice, in terms of bright people, decent facilities and the overall atmosphere. There always seem to be things to do and there are also always people around, even during the weekends. They aren’t kidding when they say the American work ethos is “all work and no play”, although the two aren’t, and shouldn’t, be mutually exclusive in my view.

I didn’t expect Pittsburgh to be quite as big as it is. Although it is a medium-sized city for American standards, the distances are huge and places to go to are spread out. People here are generally friendly, also service personnel. For example, people in banks and shops tend to be warm and helpful without their behaviour feeling contrived. I can’t put my finger on it, but they have perfected the art of making you feel good and special.

Do I still feel nostalgic? Well somewhat, I still miss my friends and family, quality Dutch cheese, and normal sized food portions. But as mentioned before: I’ve also grown to appreciate some of the American ways. As predicted experiences like this change you in profound ways. And while the clock might be ticking, I am not done changing just yet.

Being an avid reader, I find it inconvenient to carry around heaps of books. Luckily, there is a solution for this: an e-reader. These devices have both improved in quality and steadily dropped in price over the last couple of years. I decided to bite the bullet and buy one.

There are plenty of options, some major product lines are: Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Sony’s Reader. After some careful deliberation I choose Sony’s newest offering: the PRS-T1, known by the friendlier name “Sony Reader WiFi”.

Sony had a plethora of different Readers before, but decided to consolidate everything into this one new model, which is the first in the Reader line to offer WiFi. The PRS-T1 uses a six inch e-ink Pearl screen which offers excellent contrast and makes for easy reading in both natural and artificial light. The device is extremely light and conveniently sized for easy holding. Although, the cover with built-in light makes it quite a bit heavier. Nevertheless, there’s also a cover without light, and of course: if you want a cover you’d have to buy it separately: it’s not included in the package. The stylus can not be placed in the device, so it’s nice to have a cover to clip it on.

My main gripe with the device is the glossy border of the front panel which is somewhat annoying when reading under a bright light source. Additionally, the Sony Reader WiFi has a tendency to do full screen refreshes, which makes the e-ink screen flicker quite often. When reading books or navigating through the interface this is not really a problem. However, when browsing the web the screen often flickers two to four times when loading a page, which is distracting. On the bright side, the screen itself looks extremely crisp, the infrared touch screen is fairly responsive, and the pinch & zoom is a welcome feature especially when reading PDF files.

The Reader uses a stripped down version of Android under the hood, which is noticeable when navigating menus. The interface is well thought out: putting books on the device, or downloading them via Sony’s Reader store, is quick and effortless. Some of the options that are offered are quite nice, such as a choice between built-in dictionaries, quick search and hand-written note taking capabilities. The 2GB of built-in memory can be expanded with a micro-SD card, which is probably only useful if you want to use the device’s MP3 playback capabilities or if you store huge collections of books on there.

If it isn’t obvious yet, I am quite sold on this gadget. It’s affordable, quick, light and perfect for a polyreader like me. The Sony Reader is already widely available in the United States and will be available in the Netherlands in the coming week. This will likely become a popular holiday season gadget, and rightly so. Nevertheless, when I walked through a Barnes & Noble store yesterday, I felt both preemptive nostalgia and despair: am I walking through what will one day be a museum? There’s definitely value in holding a real book. Hence, I am feeling ambivalent towards the replacement of my beloved physical books with electronic “equivalents”.

The Graphic Novels section in Barnes & Noble

A quick final note on Amazon:
Amazon’s e-readers are quite popular in the United States. They come with free worldwide 3G, good quality screens and are very affordable. Until recently these models lacked touch screens. However, that has changed with the Kindle Touch. Amazon also recently launched the Kindle Fire which lacks 3G support. The Fire looks to me more like a tablet, not an e-reader. Amazon cites its broad selection of content as the Fire’s unique selling point. However, I have my doubts about whether that will convince anyone outside of the US. Amazon’s lack of support for the open ePub standard, dubious history with remote book deletions, and the recent controversy with their Silk web browsing acceleration, have convinced me not to buy their products.

Turn on your speakers or headphones – although this is a silent movie, some of the audio is essential – then sit back and watch it:

This video is the result of a collaboration among many people, see the ending credits for details. A brief history: during the first CMU Filmmaking Club meeting a representative of every group had to draw a random profession from a bag as well as a prop. The profession we picked was “coroner” and our prop was a set of “dog bones”. Admittedly, we stretched the profession a bit when developing our story The entire thing had to be without any dialogue, the end result would have to be a silent movie.

The excellent initial script created by our writer was a lot more ambitious than what we ended up actually filming. Nevertheless, it was interesting to cut back so that we could complete this in the short time frame alloted. We had a lot of fun making this together. Special thanks goes to the CMU Filmmaking club for their guidance and the CFA Cluster for providing equipment.