Placeholder Content Image

Readers respond: What film do you think is a cinematic masterpiece and why?

<p dir="ltr">With hundreds of new movies coming out each and every year, it takes a real standout to capture hearts and captivate minds, rising above the rest to claim the title of masterpiece. </p> <p dir="ltr">We all have those movies we pick up time and time again, placing them on a pedestal high above all others, eagerly telling anyone who’ll listen “no, this is the best one!” </p> <p dir="ltr">So, we asked our readers which ones they consider to be a cinematic masterpiece, and the variety of enthusiastic responses certainly make for quite the weekend watchlist! </p> <p dir="ltr">Here’s what they came up with:</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Nika Muir - </strong><em>Children of a lesser God</em> (1986), a credit to bring awareness to the world of deaf people. A drama/romance.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Paul Clissold -</strong> <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em>. In my view, still the best space movie ever - minimalist approach, fitting music and superb visual effects considering the technology at the time.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Gary Sturdy - </strong><em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</em>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Margie Buckingham - </strong><em>The Piano</em> - beautiful, strong imagery reflecting the sentiment of the deep messaging.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Bo Whitten - </strong><em>Empress Ki </em>(Korean). Brilliant in every way! Epic historic masterpiece. Brilliant setting, costume, story line, acting, sound track.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Gail Brewer - </strong><em>Gone with the Wind</em>, back then they didn't have computer technology etc.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Evie-and Keith Brown - </strong><em>Out of Africa</em>, amazing scenery, true story, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, SO WONDERFUL, acting is superb.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Sandy Rogers -</strong> <em>Star Wars </em>- best ever, [the] whole cinema stamping their feet at the end does it for me.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Paul Davis - </strong><em>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</em>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Janette Blake -</strong> <em>Titanic</em>. Great movie.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Hentie Jacobs -</strong> <em>Avatar</em> … the overall using of colour and storyline is excellent … imagination at its best … there are so many more …<em> Bambi </em>also comes to mind.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Rosanna Every -</strong> <em>Ben Hur</em>! As a child, the first time I saw God!</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Beverley Murphy - </strong><em>Dances with Wolves</em>. The scenery &amp; music is magical.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Leslie Clinch -</strong> <em>Easy Rider</em> … rebellious ... but nonaggressive … striking a chord with views of the sixties … and great music from Dennis Hopper’s personal vinyl collection … plus I love <em>The Sound of Music</em> with Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews … there are so many great movies.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Peter Saunders - </strong><em>The Shawshank Redemption</em> / <em>The Green Mile</em>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Chris Martin -</strong> <em>Dr Shivago</em> … music, scenery, and a great love story.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Valerie Discombe -</strong> <em>Pretty Woman</em>. Because I wanted to put myself in Julia Roberts place. Richard Gere is my idol.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Sue Young - </strong><em>Yankee Doodle Dandy</em>. The tap dancing was just great &amp; James Carney was awesome!!!!</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Getty</em></p>

Movies

Placeholder Content Image

The Dark Side of the Moon at 50: how Marx, trauma and compassion all influenced Pink Floyd’s masterpiece

<p><em>Dixi et salvavi animam meam.</em></p> <p>This Latin phrase – I have spoken and saved my soul – sits at the end of Karl Marx’s <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/">Critique of the Gotha Programme</a>. </p> <p>Written in 1875, this text imagines a communist society that will come about “after the enslaving of the individual to the division of labour, and thereby also the antithesis between mental and physical labour has vanished”. </p> <p>Only then, Marx argues, “can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be completely transcended and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!”</p> <p>Roger Waters – bassist, lyricist and conceptual mastermind behind Pink Floyd’s 1973 album <em>The Dark Side of the Moon</em>, released 50 years ago today – knows Marx’s Critique. Indeed, he quotes it when discussing the record with music journalist John Harris. </p> <p>“Making <em>The Dark Side of the Moon</em>, we were all trying to do as much as we possibly could,” Waters <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/301401">told</a> Harris.</p> <p>"It was a very communal thing. What’s that old Marxist maxim? ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ That’s sort of the way the band worked at that point."</p> <p>Assertions about solidarity, cooperation and shared “unity of purpose” – as Waters says – situate <em>Dark Side</em> in the context of Pink Floyd’s <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/pink-floyd-roger-waters-david-gilmour-feud/">notoriously fractious</a> recording career and helps us understand the album’s enduring appeal.</p> <h2>Shine on you crazy diamond</h2> <p>Pink Floyd formed in London in 1965. Led by the charismatic songwriter, guitarist and lead vocalist Syd Barrett, the group established itself as a leader in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_underground">London underground music scene</a>. They released their debut album <em>The Piper at the Gates of Dawn</em> in 1967.</p> <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_Machine">Soft Machine</a> member Kevin Ayers <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/pink-floyds-the-piper-at-the-gates-of-dawn-9781441185174/">described</a> <em>The Piper at the Gates of Dawn</em> as “something magical, but it was in Syd Barrett”. </p> <p>Not long after the record’s release, Barrett suffered a catastrophic, LSD-induced breakdown. In response, the band recruited David Gilmour on guitar and recorded a second album, <em>A Saucerful of Secrets</em>, as a five-piece in 1968. Around this time, the increasingly unstable Barrett was unceremoniously ousted by the rest of the band. </p> <p>After Barrett left, says Ayers, “Pink Floyd became something else totally”. </p> <p>There are different versions of Pink Floyd. The recordings released after Barrett left the band in 1968 bear little resemblance to the first. </p> <p><em>Dark Side</em> sounds nothing like the whimsical Piper. But it is obvious the record is in large part preoccupied with the loss of Barrett.</p> <p>This preoccupation comes to the fore in the album’s penultimate track.</p> <p><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1OOQP1-wOE&amp;ab_channel=HDPinkFloyd">Brain Damage</a></em>, written and sung by Waters, references Barrett’s adolescence (“Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs”), alludes to his illness (“And if the dam breaks open many years too soon”), and acknowledges his leaving the group (“And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes; I’ll see you on the dark side of the Moon”). </p> <p>Drummer Nick Mason confirms the group didn’t want to lose Barrett.</p> <p>In his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/265734.Inside_Out">autobiography</a>, he writes, "He was our songwriter, singer, guitarist, and – although you might not have known from our less than sympathetic treatment of him – he was our friend."</p> <h2>If the dam breaks open many years too soon</h2> <p>What we hear on <em>The Dark Side of the Moon</em> is a band dealing with trauma. </p> <p>In this sense, Dark Side represents the start of a reckoning with the past – a process that culminated with the band’s next record, 1975’s elegiac <em><a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/wish-you-were-here-pink-floyd-seminal-ode-to-the-tragic-life-of-syd-barrett/">Wish You Were Here</a></em>.</p> <p>Culmination is a useful term when it comes to <em>Dark Side</em> more generally. On this record, all the avant-garde techniques and tendencies the band had toyed with in the post-Barrett period – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_concr%C3%A8te">musique concrète</a>, sonic manipulation, extended improvisation, analogue tape manipulation – come together to spectacular effect. </p> <p><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ">Money</a> –</em> with its anti-capitalist lyrics penned by Waters (“Money, it’s a crime; share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie”), odd time signature, and handmade tape-loops mimicking the sounds of cash tills, bags of coins being dropped from great height and bank notes being torn up – is one of the stranger hit singles in pop music history. </p> <p>Be that as it may, Money and the album from which it is taken, of which <a href="https://www.pinkfloyd.com/tdsotm50/">more than 50 million copies</a> have been sold, continue to resonate with listeners worldwide, five decades on from its initial release.</p> <h2>The enormous risk of being truly banal</h2> <p>“I made a conscious effort when I was writing the lyrics for <em>Dark Side of the Moon</em> to take the enormous risk of being truly banal about a lot of it,” Waters told John Harris, “in order that the ideas should be expressed as simply and plainly as possible.”</p> <p>On this point, <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/news/david-gilmour-says-its-pretty-unlikely-he-and-roger-waters-will-resolve-pink-floyd-feud">if nothing else</a>, David Gilmour agrees. He told Harris, "There was definitely a feeling that the words were going to be very clear and specific. That was a leap forward. Things would mean what they meant. That was a distinct step away from what we had done before."</p> <p>Mortality, insanity, conflict, affluence, poverty and, in another nod to Marx, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation">alienation</a> are some of the themes presented on the record. The need – and this brings us full circle – for compassion, if not outright solidarity, is another. </p> <p>This is an album about the importance of understanding, as Waters <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/301401">insists, "T</a>he potential that human beings have for recognising each other’s humanity and responding to it, with empathy rather than antipathy."</p> <p>Given the sorry state of the world in 2023, about which Roger Waters has many <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64580688">contentious</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/feb/07/pink-floyd-lyricist-calls-roger-waters-an-antisemite-and-putin-apologist">problematic</a> things to say, I wager Pink Floyd’s masterwork will continue to resonate with listeners for a while yet.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-dark-side-of-the-moon-at-50-how-marx-trauma-and-compassion-all-influenced-pink-floyds-masterpiece-198400" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Music

Placeholder Content Image

Why a renowned artist is burning his own masterpieces

<p dir="ltr">Artist Damien Hirst has begun burning hundreds of his own artworks after his latest collection prompted the buyer to either choose the physical work or the NFT representing it. </p> <p dir="ltr">Those who chose to buy the NFT, or virtual version, of the artwork were told their corresponding physical piece would be destroyed. </p> <p dir="ltr">Asked how he felt about burning the works, Hirst said, "It feels good, better than I expected."</p> <p dir="ltr">The artist himself burned each work individually, with the estimated cost of the works being burned equated to almost $18 million (AUD). </p> <p dir="ltr">Live-streaming the event, the Turner Prize winner and assistants used tongs to deposit individual pieces stacked in piles into fireplaces in the gallery as onlookers watched.</p> <p dir="ltr">"A lot of people think I'm burning millions of dollars of art but I'm not," Hirst said. "I'm completing the transformation of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the physical versions.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The value of art, digital or physical, which is hard to define at the best of times will not be lost; it will be transferred to the NFT as soon as they are burnt."</p> <p dir="ltr">Hirst launched his first NFT collection last year, called <em>The Currency</em>, which was made up of 10,000 NFTs, corresponding to 10,000 original pieces of art, forcing buyers to choose what medium they would receive. </p> <p dir="ltr">According to London’s Newport Street Gallery, 5,149 buyers opted for the physical works while 4,851 chose the NFTs. </p> <p dir="ltr">Hirst’s works will continue to be burned until <em>The Currency</em> exhibition closes on October 30th. </p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

Art

Placeholder Content Image

How to create an eggless choc-caramel masterpiece

<p dir="ltr">This choc cake with creamy choc icing is topped with choc-caramel flakes and, when you cut into it, choc sauce oozes out. Here’s how to create this delicious treat.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Ingredients</h2> <p dir="ltr">1¾ cups plain flour</p> <p dir="ltr">1 cup caster sugar</p> <p dir="ltr">¼ cup Dutch cocoa powder</p> <p dir="ltr">1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda</p> <p dir="ltr">½ tsp fine salt</p> <p dir="ltr">½ cup vegetable oil</p> <p dir="ltr">2 tsp vanilla extract</p> <p dir="ltr">1½ tsp white vinegar</p> <p dir="ltr">1 cup water</p> <p dir="ltr">Cadbury Flake and Flake Caramilk bars, roughly broken, to serve</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Icing</h3> <p dir="ltr">75g unsalted butter, at room temperature</p> <p dir="ltr">1 cup pure icing sugar</p> <p dir="ltr">¼ cup Dutch cocoa powder</p> <p dir="ltr">1 tsp vanilla extract</p> <p dir="ltr">1 Tbsp milk</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Chocolate sauce</h3> <p dir="ltr">200g dark chocolate, chopped</p> <p dir="ltr">300ml thickened cream</p> <p dir="ltr">2 Tbsp honey</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Method</h2> <ol> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced (180°C conventional). Grease and line a 22cm round cake pan with baking paper.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Sift flour, caster sugar, cocoa, bicarb and salt into a bowl. Whisk the oil, vanilla, vinegar and water in a second bowl, then stir into the flour mixture. Spoon into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, until a skewer can be inserted into the centre and removed cleanly. Stand in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert cake onto rack to cool completely.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">For icing, combine butter, icing sugar, cocoa and vanilla in a bowl and beat well. Add milk and beat until very smooth. Set aside for 5 minutes.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Meanwhile, to make the chocolate sauce, melt chocolate gently in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Bring cream and honey to the boil in a small saucepan, whisking until smooth. Whisk into melted chocolate.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Use a melon baller to make holes in the top of the cake (reserving cake balls for another use), then pipe or spoon in the chocolate sauce, reserving leftover sauce. Top cake with icing and scatter with roughly broken Flakes. Served with reserved chocolate sauce.</p> </li> </ol> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-f8252476-7fff-50f5-3908-096f90a982e7"><br /></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-f8252476-7fff-50f5-3908-096f90a982e7"><em>Image: Better Homes &amp; Gardens</em><br /></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-f8252476-7fff-50f5-3908-096f90a982e7"></p> <p></span></p>

Food & Wine

Placeholder Content Image

5 and a half ways to make movie masterpieces at home

<p>Isolation is a common theme in cinema: stranded on an island (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/">Cast Away</a>), in space (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Gravity</a> or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Martian</a>), on a boat (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454876/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Life of Pi</a>), stuck in the desert (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1542344/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">127 hours</a>), or simply confined to an apartment (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Rear Window</a>). But what about when the filmmakers themselves are stranded?</p> <p>Luckily, most of us are carrying sophisticated cameras in our pockets and have easy access to online film libraries and creative collaborators.</p> <p>As <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791286/obo-9780199791286-0052.xml">psychoanalytic approaches to filmmaking</a> reveal, our screens have a unique ability to see beyond reality. Our screens reach into the deepest depths of our desires, fantasies, and emotional landscapes.</p> <p>Here are five approaches to filmmaking that can challenge our perception of the world, from the (dis)comfort of your own home:</p> <p><strong>1. Video diary</strong></p> <p>I’m not referring to the kind of YouTube vlogging that made <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/fashion/jenna-marbles.html">Jenna Marbles</a> a millionaire, nor the diary room confessional of Big Brother, but a visual rendition of expressive journal keeping.</p> <p>Avant-garde filmmaker <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/my-debt-to-jonas-mekas">Jonas Mekas</a> pioneered the film diary in the 1960s by experimenting with the camera’s limits – incorrect exposure, disorderly movement, re-arranging time, and injecting a poetic voice. The challenge here is to portray your inner experience and not let the recording device simply “capture” it.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kzkzQExJ9rc?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">Jonas Mekas – Always Beginning | TateShots.</span></p> <p>If diaristic wanderings prove difficult, Gillian Leahy’s <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mylifewithoutsteve/179709856">My Life Without Steve</a> is a beautiful example of what can be achieved in a single apartment. The reflective narration from protagonist Liz guides us through emotional turmoil, memory, and theories of lost love.</p> <p>Additionally, the meticulous still-life compositions by cinematographer Erika Addis, entirely restricted to the apartment space, offer an intimacy and familiarity beyond words: streetlights dancing on the water, a steaming kettle, floral wallpaper …</p> <p><strong>2. Location home</strong></p> <p>Sometimes the location can be more significant than the person. This is certainly the case in films documenting imprisonment such as Berhouz Boochani’s experience of Manus Island detention centre in <a href="https://vimeo.com/230860000">Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time</a>, or Jafar Panahi’s discrete autobiography <a href="https://youtu.be/ajOgE_BPLVU">This Is Not A Film</a> recorded under house arrest in Iran. In 2015, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2415458/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Wolfpack</a> told the unusual tale of seven brothers confined to a New York apartment with Hollywood movies as their window onto the world.</p> <p>Isolation offers an opportunity to interrogate the politics of home. The 1970s feminist movement gave rise to scathing critiques of gender-based domestic roles. Martha Rosler’s video art performance <a href="https://www.moma.org/collection/works/88937">Semiotics of the Kitchen</a> has inspired generations of classroom appropriations. The crude infomercial inspired performance undermine both the authority of the camera and the kitchen as a space of domination.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oDUDzSDA8q0?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">Semiotics in the Kitchen (1975)</span></p> <p>Chantal Akerman’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073198/">Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles</a>, also released in 1975, offers a less obvious subversion of domesticity. The protagonist is a single mother undertaking sex work as part of her daily routine to provide for her child. Rather than sensationalising prostitution, the camera respectfully captures the subtle gestures and emotions of the working mother.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ih3nBxjkBH8?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.</span></p> <p><strong>3. Online collaboration</strong></p> <p>Collaborative media comes in many forms: participatory video, citizen media, user-generated and crowd-sourced content.</p> <p>Collaborative approaches to filmmaking were pioneered by visual anthropologists attempting to accurately and ethically record foreign cultures. Handing the camera over was seen as a way to access insider knowledge. YouTube and Instagram could be considered large-scale collaborative media projects. More coherent and meaningful projects focus on a particular theme or creative parameter.</p> <p>User-generated content (UGC) and fan-based creations have since become common to the genre, such as <a href="https://vimeo.com/15416762">The Johnny Cash Project</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/CB5ib4ouxes">Shrek Retold</a>, and <a href="https://vimeo.com/29174093">Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake</a>.</p> <p>Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s <a href="https://hitrecord.org">HitRecord</a> is one of the most innovative UGC platforms with more than 750,000 contributors and the opportunity to get paid if the production makes money. By investing in personal contributions, the audience gains a sense of proprietorship over the project and boost distribution through their social networks.</p> <p>The best examples of collaborative media are highly curated and elaborately produced. The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Katerina Cizek have produced a series of ambitious multimedia compilations under the <a href="http://highrise.nfb.ca">Highrise projects</a>. Of these projects, <a href="http://outmywindow.nfb.ca/#/outmywindow">Out My Window</a> is perhaps the most relevant to our current experience, featuring 13 participants from around the globe sharing personal stories from their highrise homes.</p> <p>Collaborative media offers a multitude of voices to common themes and experiences. The trick to maintaining cohesion and continuity is to formulate detailed instructions for how to contribute.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/31376449" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">Highrise / One Millionth Tower | National Film Board of Canada.</span></p> <p><strong>4. Found footage</strong></p> <p>Found footage documentaries are composed entirely from existing media. The recent surge in this genre such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Apollo 11</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5433114/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Maradona</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2870648/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Amy</a>, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7694570/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Final Quarter</a> about footballer Adam Goodes, all demonstrate that filmmakers need not touch a camera to produce a cinematic masterpiece.</p> <p>While we may not individually be able to acquire rights to copyrighted material, most of us are unwittingly accumulating extensive media archives of our lives. The popular <a href="https://1se.co/">1 Second Everyday</a> app demonstrates how existing phone footage can be transformed into a revealing and enthralling sequence through rhythm-based montage.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lyx6O_WFJhU?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">1 Second Everyday.</span></p> <p><strong>5. Machinima</strong></p> <p><a href="https://voices.uchicago.edu/machinima/sample-page/">Machinima</a> (machine-cinema) is an innovative alternative to animation, in which detailed 3D graphics engines of computer games are used as cinematic stages. Most of the productions in this genre mimic mainstream comedy and action movies but there are a few examples of how the artform can interrogate our relationship to virtual worlds.</p> <p>Nominated for the “Weird” category of the <a href="https://www.webbyawards.com/">Webby Awards</a> for online excellence, the narrator of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1tAmAFSc-YS63RrFMwkG0GuPVN70ku_G">Grand Theft Auto Pacifist</a> navigates the ultra-violent game world, understood as an extension of our lived society, in a hilarious experiment to see if he can exist peacefully.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nDRKbYNjRic?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption">Grand Theft Auto Pacifist.</span></p> <p>But be warned, the first person I knew to go down the machinima path disappeared without a trace for two months, lost to the <a href="https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/">World of Warcraft</a>.</p> <p><strong>The ½ – since it’s not for everyone</strong></p> <p>Lastly, my half recommendation. While not something I can recommend to students, during this difficult period of social distancing those of us fortunate enough to be isolated with loved ones might use the opportunity to master the elusive art of sexual desire … erotica.</p> <p>Again, the camera need not be enslaved as a witness but can be recruited to explore the psychological and physical playing field of our desires.</p> <p>And not all of your filmmaking need be shared around.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134907/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/aaron-burton-676917">Aaron Burton</a>, Lecturer in Media Arts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-wollongong-711">University of Wollongong</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/great-time-to-try-5-ways-to-make-movie-masterpieces-at-home-134907">original article</a>.</em></p>

Movies