Mattradfordmultimedia's Blog

Carl Montgomery

Templar — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:13:51 +0000

I usually don’t subscribe to blogs, I find most of them inane and uninteresting, harping on about the latest fashions in pop culture or the latest turns in politics, but this one by Carl Montgomery writing about his travels in war torn regions really sparked my interest. I have to admire the sheer courage of the man travelling into the war torn areas around the globe, having grown up in a war torn region myself and serving in the military I maybe appreciate this more than most would. One of the main things I like about Carl Montgomery’s blog is he doesn’t write with the platitudes of a peace activist or the gung ho attitude of a soldier but just tells it as it is.

I also find the layout of his blog site very good. The site navigation is very easy to use and you can home in on your point of interest with just the click of a mouse rather than having to read through reams of posts to find what you are interested in as you do in a lot of blogs. Another point I like is that you have to click on a button on the page to read other peoples comments rather than having them cluttering up the web page and detracting from the main content.

Carl Montgomery’s use of photography and video helps to accent his stories rather than just using them for the sake of filling a page. The fact that you have to start a video yourself rather than having it blearing out as soon as you open the page is also another plus along with a caption on the video length and probable download times. Another feature that I like is that you can enlarge the photographs with a mouse click so that you can get the full import.

Aristotle’s Poetics in Modern Films

Templar — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 08:31:50 +0000

Blade Runner a science fiction film and also a modern film noir shows a good example of the influence of Aristotle’s Poetics in the narrative of modern films. The lead male character Decker is a futuristic police officer in a time where Replicants to humans have been designed and constructed to do the more dangerous and physically demanding tasks on off world colonies, Decker’s main role as a police officer is as an executioner of escaped Replicants.

During an investigation into escaped Replicants Decker meets a beautiful woman who he is highly attracted to. Recognition occurs when the Replicants designer informs him that the woman he has met is a Replicant and again occurs later in the plot when he informs the woman she is a Replicant with implanted memory’s and longevity that other Replicants don’t have when she has believed she is a human. Decker who up to now has had complete moral indignation for Replicants undergoes a complete Reversal when he falls in love with the Replicant woman. This is further emphasised when he harbours the Replicant woman when she escapes and helps her escape the city when the other Replicants have been executed.

Moment in Time

Templar — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:50:29 +0000

I walk the forest track viewing the scenes with a photographer’s eye for a composition, the forest gets denser with every step and the only sounds are the occasional staccato machine gun beat of a busy woodpecker echoing through the trees and my own footfalls. The track leads on like a tunnel through the forest, a play of shadow and light with sunlight bursting through as if from holes in the roof. An old wooden bridge leaps a stream, its movement captured in rivulets of ice caught in its cascade over the rocks, with a faint rumbling and gurgling as the water still rushes below the ice. Suddenly the track bursts out on to the shores of a lake, frozen thick with ice and a backdrop of ancient snow laden trees. A strange sight comes into view, an old man and his dog shuffling along out on the ice. This is it, a photographer’s dream, to catch that ever elusive, classic moment in time. I hurriedly set up the tripod, cursing my heavy winter gloves as I fumble with the catches, mounting the camera to the tripod plate comes next, then look through the viewfinder, check the angle, meter the light.The photographer’s catechism drums through my mind. Have they seen me? No still shambling along. Set the aperture, more depth of field, set the shutter speed, all is ready. A moment of guilt enters my thoughts, should I steal this private moment from the old man and his dog, immortalise it forever, or lock it away in my memory like an old forgotten treasure? I turn the focus ring as they come into frame, finger hovering in anticipation on the button, like the finger of a sniper on his trigger in a long forgotten war. Almost without thought I depress the button, the shutter snapping open, capturing the light, freezing it like ice in the sliver halides on my film.