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Svankmajer's shorts are a LOT better than his features, though he has a few that are phenomenal.. it's just that his style works so much better as a feature. Stop-motion is fun as hell, and anyone can do it. You could definitely do it -- I highly reccomend a freeware program entitled STOP MOTION ANIMATION MAKER or something like that, it's about 500kb program and I've used it for all my stop motion stuff, in conjunction with a webcam. It quickly snaps photos and when played back, the stop motion looks gooooood. The thing is, while it's not too challenging to do once you get the hang of it, it's TIME CONSUMING AS HELL. I mean, I've spent an hour to do a 30 second stop motion thing. Basically.. snap a photo.. manipulate an object slightly.. snap a photo.. manipulate slightly.. snap.. manipulate.. snap. It's far more tedious and time consuming than you could ever imagine. But the finished results are always amazing. It's so fun to play around with. One of the tricks I often use is removing frames from when actors move/talk/do ANYTHING. That gives them a really really jumpy action.. almost like it's sped up, but it's not.. it makes their lips rubbery. Really fun... So, I reccomend playing around with it. Svankmajer is a talented stop motionist but the MASTER is definitely Bruce Bickford. Download PROMOTHEUS' GARDEN right away; it's only 30 minutes long and it will blow your mind.
Also, I absolutely love Altman. I think the Player is one of his lesser works, but I think he's one of the best filmmakers of all time. I definitely agree with most of your points Demon.
Eric Rohmer is amazing, I'm just getting into him but what I've seen has been incredible, Mr. Pimples. Got any reccomendations?
LifeDistortion, I LOVE Johnny To. I jsut finished a megatorrent of like 25 of his films. Got a ton I'd never seen, like LifeLine and PTU. My favorites are RUNNING OUT OF TIME, HERO NEVER DIES, FULLTIME KILLER, and THE MISSION.. so far. He's produced a shitload of great movies like ODD ONE DIES and TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NUMBER 1. He's incredible. His films really excite me -- they represent everything I love about the Hong Kong style of filmmaking.
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