#[ v; cinema and auditory ]

[gemtvusa]

Sony A80K OLED TV Review, Design, Price and Release Date

Sony A80K OLED TV Overview: The Sony A80K combines the remarkable contrast and rich color palette expected from OLEDs. In addition, it's enhanced with 4K 120Hz capabilities ideal for gaming and the unique Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology from Sony. This OLED TV delivers stellar performance without stretching your budget. Prices: €1,309 at OTTO DE (55-inch) €1,429 at Coolblue DE €1,999 at EURONICS DE (65-inch) Pros: Superior contrast with deep blacks and noteworthy brightness True-to-life colors straight out of the box in Cinema mode Comprehensive HDMI 2.1 features tailored for gamingCons: Slightly less brightness compared to leading OLED TVs Basic remote design missing backlight feature Absence of HDR10+ compatibility.

Sony A80K Review

The Sony Bravia XR A80K OLED is passionately engineered to redefine the boundaries of home entertainment. Remarkably, it excels in this pursuit, making it all the more surprising that its price tag isn't steeper. While the A80K isn't easy on the wallet, its value is undeniable. As one of Sony's premium OLED offerings, it's brimming with the brand's top-tier visual and auditory tech. Even though it might not outshine every competitor in all aspects, it undeniably ranks as one of the top TV purchases available. SONY BRAVIA XR A80K - SPECS - Price: $1,499.99 - Screen Size: 55-inch - Model Number: XR-55A80K - Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160 pixels - HDR Compatibility: HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG - Refresh Rate: 120Hz - Connectivity: - HDMI: 2 ports of HDMI 2.1, 2 ports of HDMI 2.0 - USB: 2 ports - Audio Output: 50W - Smart TV Platform: Google TV - Dimensions (without stand): 48.38 inches (width) x 28.13 inches (height) x 2.13 inches (depth) - Weight (without stand): 39.5 lbs. This TV merges the best of Sony's technology, delivering exceptional picture quality, sound, and smart features.

Sony A80K Design Review

The A80K flaunts Sony's elegant One Slate design, seamlessly merging aesthetics with an all-glass front panel, roughly half an inch deep. This cohesive look is undeniably eye-catching. Incorporating functionality, an inset at the back facilitates hassle-free connections, complemented by a snap-on cover to manage and hide cables. The TV comes with a versatile three-way stand that can be adjusted for various setups – whether you want it flush with the stand or elevated to accommodate a soundbar. In my setup, I utilized the latter, gaining a good three inches of clearance. If you possess one of those bulkier soundbars, this stand offers the flexibility you need. For those who prefer wall installations, Sony offers an optional bracket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Y-HDuAAxs Sony's accompanying remote is succinct in its design – a departure from the larger, glow-in-the-dark versions from their past models. While its straightforward button configuration is user-friendly, the absence of a backlit keypad can be a slight inconvenience in low light settings. However, Sony earns kudos for the remote's textured surface, minimizing the risk of it slipping through fingers or vanishing in the couch gap. Design Rating: 4.5/5.

Sony A80K Features Overview

Equipped with Google TV, the A80K OLED allows smooth app navigation, complemented by the convenience of Google Assistant for voice-activated searches. This is made possible through the microphone incorporated into the Sony remote. Popular streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and Apple TV are easily accessible, with dedicated buttons on the remote for quick access. In the realm of picture quality, the 2022 Sony OLED models are enhanced with the XR OLED Contrast Pro and Cognitive Processor XR technologies. These work in tandem to optimize brightness and deepen blacks dynamically, adapting to each scene. Furthermore, the broad color gamut panel, coupled with the XR Triluminos Pro and Cognitive Processor XR, ensures faithful color reproduction, covering the full DCI-P3 spectrum – the gold standard for digital cinema and Ultra HD Blu-ray content. Connectivity-wise, the A80K boasts four HDMI ports, of which two are HDMI 2.1 compliant. This means they support advanced features such as 4K at 120Hz, VRR, and ALLM. For US viewers, there's an added bonus: the A80K incorporates an ATSC 3.0 tuner. This advanced tuner facilitates access to free over-the-air digital TV broadcasts in the latest format, promising 4K visuals accompanied by Dolby Atmos audio. While ATSC 3.0 had a modest beginning, its adoption is on the rise, with predictions of it reaching three-quarters of the US market by the end of 2022. Feature Rating: 4.5/5.

Sony A80K Sound Quality Overview

The A80K OLED TVs are equipped with Sony's innovative Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology. By utilizing five actuators — three behind the screen and two on the sides — the screen itself is vibrated to produce encompassing sound, with two additional subwoofers augmenting bass levels. Additionally, features like Acoustic Audio Calibration adapt sound to the room's acoustics, Voice Zoom sharpens dialogue, and 3D surround upscaling enriches the auditory experience. While I often bypass a TV's native sound system in favor of external setups, I found the A80K's sound performance commendable. Dialogues were articulate and clear, even at higher volumes without any discernable distortion. The Dolby Atmos mode provided an immersive soundscape, with perceivable vertical and overhead sound dimensions. While an external Dolby Atmos soundbar might have fine-tuned the audio experience further, the A80K’s inherent sound system is impressive enough, especially for those not regularly indulging in action-packed cinema or those who prefer not to invest in an additional soundbar. Sound Quality Rating: 5/5.

Sony A80K Pricing and Availability Overview

Release Date: May 30, 2022 Pricing: - XR-55A80K: $2,000 (US) / £2,099 (UK) / AU$3,899 (Australia) - XR-65A80K: $2,300 (US) / £2,899 (UK) / AU$4,999 (Australia) - XR-77A80K: $3,300 (US) / £3,999 (UK) / AU$7,999 (Australia) Sony unveiled the A80K in the latter part of spring 2022. Positioned as the brand's mid-tier OLED model, the A80K's price point is notably more accessible compared to Sony's premium A95K QD-OLED lineup. In terms of competition, LG's C2 OLED stands out. The pricing dynamics between the Sony A80K and LG C2 vary by region. For instance, in the US, the 65-inch and 77-inch A80K models are priced slightly below their LG C2 counterparts, while the 55-inch variant leans towards a higher price compared to the LG C2 of the same size. Meanwhile, in the UK, Sony's A80K has a steeper price across all sizes when juxtaposed against the LG C2.

Sony A80K Picture Quality Overview

With its impressive 99.5% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space for 4K HDR, the A80K showcases a vibrant display. Its brightness capabilities are noteworthy for an OLED TV, boasting 785 nits in Vivid mode and a commendable 616 nits in Cinema mode. Though it doesn't match the brilliance of the Samsung QN95B mini-LED QLED or LG's flagship G2 OLED, its brightness suffices for most ambient settings. During my real-world testing with the Netflix documentary, "My Octopus Teacher," the display remained vivid, even with overhead lights. Despite lacking anti-glare features like Samsung's The Frame, reflections were minimal. The OLED panel ensures consistent visuals from varied angles. While the A80K misses the Filmmaker picture mode found in many premium TVs, its Cinema mode proves color accurate right out of the box. However, purists may need to adjust the default Motionflow settings. Key Specifications: - Screen Size: 55, 65, 75 inches - Resolution: 4K - Panel Type: OLED - HDR Support: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG - Audio: Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital, DTS - Smart TV Platform: Google TV - HDMI Ports: 4 The A80K's 120Hz refresh rate delivers proficient motion handling, though some artifacts were observed, which could be mitigated through Motionflow settings. Its prowess in upscaling HD content to 4K was evident, possibly due to enhancements in Sony’s Cognitive Processor XR for 2022. In a dimly lit setting, 4K Blu-ray titles like "Dune" and "The Batman" were spectacular, exhibiting true blacks and intricate details in dark scenes. Bright HDR elements, juxtaposed against these dark backgrounds, offered a striking, almost 3D appearance. The capability to measure 0 nits on a full-black window pattern underpins its exceptional black rendition and robust contrast, especially under dim lighting. Picture Quality Rating: 4.5/5.

Sony Bravia XR A80K TV Ports Overview

The power cable for the A80K connects on the right side of its rear panel. Conveniently, all other ports are situated on the left, directly facing sideways for easy access. The lineup includes: - Two USB ports (one at 500mA and the other at 900mA). - S/PDIF optical audio output. - Composite video and S-Center speaker port. - Ethernet port. - RS-232C and IR input jacks. - Coaxial cable input. - Four HDMI ports. Of these HDMI ports, two are based on the latest HDMI 2.1 specification, boasting a hefty bandwidth of 48Gbps and modern features such as VRR and ALLM. One of these HDMI 2.1 ports is also eARC compatible. However, the other two HDMI ports stick to the older HDMI 2.0 standard. Although many TVs still feature exclusively HDMI 2.0 ports, it's a tad underwhelming to see this on the A80K. Nonetheless, this might not be a major concern for the average user.

Sony Bravia XR A80K TV Review: Technical Insights

While the real-world viewing experience is crucial, we ensure a holistic review by conducting a comprehensive suite of technical tests. Our evaluation setup involves using an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro pattern generator, and the Calman calibration software by Portrait Displays. For a deeper dive into our testing methodology, refer to our TV testing guide. In these technical evaluations, the A80K held its own, even against robust competitors like the Samsung S95B and the almost iconic LG C2. Test MetricsSony A80KLG C2Samsung S95BSDR Brightness (10%, in nits)232228329Delta-E (lower is better)3.16691.70093.0184Rec. 709 Gamut Coverage108.82.980%HDR Brightness (10%, in nits)6307941050UHDA-P3 Gamut Coverage99.33.16.76%Rec. 2020 Gamut Coverage74.58.84.97% For SDR content, the A80K's brightness of 232 nits was comparable to the LG C2's 228 nits, though it trailed behind Samsung's robust 329 nits. LG C2 took the crown in terms of color precision, showcasing the best Delta-E value. The A80K exhibited a minor color oversaturation, while the others were nearly perfect. When it comes to HDR, the narrative remains consistent. In their calibrated modes, Samsung dominated, but Sony's brightness lagged somewhat. Nevertheless, Sony's gamut coverage for both UHDA-P3 and Rec. 2020 surpassed LG C2 and was only marginally behind Samsung. Given that the A80K, especially the 55-inch variant, is priced a tad lower, its performance metrics are commendable. Moreover, certain inconsistencies in the S95B's display meant that, to the naked eye, the A80K presented a superior visual experience. Weighing in the cost against the features, the A80K emerges as a polished contender, offering an impressive viewing experience both objectively and subjectively.

Sony Bravia XR A80K TV Gaming Review:

When it comes to the recent lineup of Sony TVs, input lag is a bit of a chink in the armor. Using the Leo Bodnar 4K Lag Tester on the A80K, we recorded an input lag of 16.2ms. While this isn't a deal-breaker (with scores under 20ms being acceptable), it doesn't quite match the sub-10ms performance of competitors like LG and Samsung, which we earmark as the gold standard for gaming. Sony Bravia XR A80K TV showcasing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla That being said, the A80K isn't lacking in gaming-centric features. A significant highlight is its HDMI 2.1 ports, enabling 4K gaming at a fluid 120Hz. This ensures a silky-smooth experience, even in high-intensity gaming sequences. This was particularly evident in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla — the game’s snowy landscapes shimmered with realistic brilliance, and the essential coastal raids in the gameplay were as smooth and exhilarating as one would expect. Furthermore, when paired with the PS5, the A80K steps up its game. Features like Auto HDR Tone Mapping tailor the PS5’s settings to maximize the TV's potential. The Auto Genre Picture Mode, reminiscent of ALLM, ensures optimal picture settings, enhancing the visual experience regardless of the content being played.

Sony A80K Value Assessment

Positioned between Sony's high-end A95K QD-OLED and A90K and the more accessible European A75K in their 2022 OLED lineup, the A80K is crafted for those balancing between premium performance and cost-effectiveness. For U.S. consumers, the 65-inch A80K, priced lower than its LG C2 counterpart while offering comparable visual prowess, stands as an attractive proposition. In the UK, while it may lean on the pricier side, the A80K compensates with superior audio capabilities than the LG C2. An alternative avenue for better value might be TVs with QLED technology. However, venturing into the economical side of QLED often demands compromises in performance. Summing up, the 65-inch A80K is a prime choice for those set on acquiring a 4K OLED TV. For those chasing maximum screen size within a budget, without sacrificing quality, QLED emerges as a more fitting option. Should I buy the Sony A80K? Whether or not you should buy the Sony A80K largely depends on your specific needs, preferences, and budget. Here are some factors to consider: Pros of the Sony A80K: - Outstanding Picture Quality: The A80K boasts excellent color accuracy, deep blacks, and detailed shadows, characteristic of OLED panels. - Sound: The Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology delivers immersive sound quality without needing external speakers. - Gaming: While it might not be the absolute best in terms of input lag, the inclusion of HDMI 2.1 ports allows for high-refresh-rate gaming, making it compatible with next-gen consoles. - Design: The slim and sleek design, coupled with the One Slate concept, makes it an aesthetically pleasing addition to any room. - Smart Features: Powered by Google TV, it offers a wide array of apps and streaming services. Cons of the Sony A80K: - Input Lag: Some competitors, especially those designed with gaming in mind, offer lower input lag. - HDMI 2.1 Ports: It has fewer HDMI 2.1 ports compared to some other modern TVs, which might be a consideration for those with multiple high-end gaming consoles or other devices. - Price: OLED TVs generally cost more than their LED or QLED counterparts, and while the A80K offers value for its price, there are cheaper options available, especially if you are willing to compromise on some features. Things to consider: - Viewing Environment: OLEDs are known for deep blacks and great contrast ratios, making them ideal for dimly lit or controlled lighting environments. If your room is very bright, you might want to consider other options or ensure you can control the lighting. - Burn-in Concerns: Like all OLED TVs, there's a risk (albeit minimal with proper use) of burn-in over time. This happens when static images are displayed for prolonged periods repeatedly. Verdict: If you're in the market for a high-quality OLED TV with excellent picture and sound, and you value Sony's design and user interface, the A80K is a strong choice. However, if gaming performance is your top priority or you're budget-conscious, you might want to compare it with other options like the LG C2 or certain QLED models. Always consider what features are most crucial for you and how they align with your budget. Conclusion While the Sony Bravia XR A80K is an impressive piece of tech, it isn't without its shortcomings. TVs like the Samsung S95B may offer slightly enhanced brightness and color vibrancy. Furthermore, both the Samsung S95B and the LG C2 boast additional HDMI 2.1 ports and superior gaming features, which could be pivotal for gaming enthusiasts. The A80K isn't even Sony's crown jewel – that honor goes to the pricier Sony A95K OLED. Also, it bears striking resemblance in features and performance to its predecessor, the Sony Bravia XR A80J. Yet, when contemplating a new TV purchase, the Sony Bravia XR A80K emerges as a comprehensive package that promises a delightful viewing experience each time it's powered on. Read the full article

[stevensomeone-blog1]

Harry Potter AU, music AU, GoT AU, super strong Alain AU

send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it - accepting!

Harry Potter AU

There’s a stone windowsill that Steven used to sit on, leaning against the wall and looking out the window towards the lake. It was a quiet part of the castle where nobody would disturb him. 

Steven’s parents went a bit overboard with buying Ravenclaw merch his first year. Jumpers, scarves, flags, ‘Ravenclaw Dad!’ and all that cheesy stuff.

His mother was also a Ravenclaw. His father is a muggle.

Annually donates a hefty amount to the Mossdeep Space Center where witches and wizards are interested in exploration outside of their planet.

Kept in touch with fellow Triwizard competitors Cynthia and Lance after graduation, save for the one year he spent in isolation recovering from depression. 

Music AU

His indie label is called Steel Wing Records and is based out of Silver Lake in Los Angeles, but originally from his home office in Palo Alto.

Prefers to use LogicPro or even GarageBand over the other DAW.

Other than Alain, he later signs a four piece rock band from Brooklyn (though they’re distributed by Universal), a pop singer & producer duo from Chicago, and offers a development deal to a young songwriter also from California based out of France. 

Has an excellent rapport with NME…because it’s Steven.

Favourite genre is 60s-90s rock, but lately prefers synth based music as long as the production is showcased and is not lazily mixed with compression or quintuple layering.

Game of Thrones AU

House Stone from Rustboro in the Hoenn region is heavily based off of House Tyrell. His parents were allied with the former king but now Steven is looking to find ‘friends’ in anyone who brings him closer to the throne in the most subtly diplomatic way.

He has a curious side, mainly in how Valyrian steel was made, where the apparent magic from the past went, and if enchantments left on stone tablets mean anything now.

Growing up, he wanted to be an explorer but noble birth means that travelling is out of the question.

His favourite snack is lemon cakes, though this may not be a good thing.

Is far more spoiled and selfish in this verse, mainly because he never had to act the part of a grown up yet. 

K-Gay AU

Steven’s favourite character in the newest franchise is the one with a jetpack.

His family life is the most strained here, mainly due to the fact that there are so many stepmothers and stepbrothers that come and go.

He has an extremely busy schedule, which consists of ‘finding a presentable new outfit,’ ‘therapeutic day,’ and ‘test the PTR.’

His claim of eating one meal a day is a total lie. He enjoys the meals in the Ainsoft cafeteria and insta-ramen noodles when he’s bored.

Is Platinum rank, but pretends to be Master.

[chiseler]

Utopia and Apocalypse: Pynchon’s Populist/Fatalist Cinema

The rhythmic clapping resonates inside these walls, which are hard and glossy as coal: Come-on! Start-the-show! Come-on! Start-the-show! The screen is a dim page spread before us, white and silent. The film has broken, or a projector bulb has burned out. It was difficult even for us, old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) to tell which before the darkness swept in.

--from the last page of Gravity’s Rainbow

To begin with a personal anecdote: Writing my first book (to be published) in the late 1970s, an experimental autobiography titled Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (Harper & Row, 1980), published in French as Mouvements: Une vie au cinéma (P.O.L, 2003), I wanted to include four texts by other authors—two short stories (“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” by Delmore Schwartz, “The Secret Integration” by Thomas Pynchon) and two essays (“The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window” by Charles Eckert, “My Life With Kong” by Elliott Stein)—but was prevented from doing so by my editor, who argued that because the book was mine, texts by other authors didn’t belong there. My motives were both pluralistic and populist: a desire both to respect fiction and non-fiction as equal creative partners and to insist that the book was about more than just myself and my own life. Because my book was largely about the creative roles played by the fictions of cinema on the non-fictions of personal lives, the anti-elitist nature of cinema played a crucial part in these transactions.`

In the case of Pynchon’s 1964 story—which twenty years later, in his collection Slow Learner, he would admit was the only early story of his that he still liked—the cinematic relevance to Moving Places could be found in a single fleeting but resonant detail: the momentary bonding of a little white boy named Tim Santora with a black, homeless, alcoholic jazz musician named Carl McAfee in a hotel room when they discover that they’ve both seen Blood Alley (1955), an anticommunist action-adventure with John Wayne and Lauren Bacall, directed by William Wellman. Pynchon mentions only the film’s title, but the complex synergy of this passing moment of mutual recognition between two of its dissimilar viewers represented for me an epiphany, in part because of the irony of such casual camaraderie occurring in relation to a routine example of Manichean Cold War mythology. Moreover, as a right-wing cinematic touchstone, Blood Alley is dialectically complemented in the same story by Tim and his friends categorizing their rebellious schoolboy pranks as Operation Spartacus, inspired by the left-wing Spartacus (1960) of Kirk Douglas, Dalton Trumbo, and Stanley Kubrick.

For better and for worse, all of Pynchon’s fiction partakes of this populism by customarily defining cinema as the cultural air that everyone breathes, or at least the river in which everyone swims and bathes. This is equally apparent in the only Pynchon novel that qualifies as hackwork, Inherent Vice (2009), and the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of it is also his worst film to date—a hippie remake of Chinatown in the same way that the novel is a hippie remake of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald—seems logical insofar as it seems to have been written with an eye towards selling the screen rights. As Geoffrey O’Brien observed (while defending this indefensible book and film) in the New York Review of Books (January 3, 2015), “Perhaps the novel really was crying out for such a cinematic transformation, for in its pages people watch movies, remember them, compare events in the ‘real world’ to their plots, re-experience their soundtracks as auditory hallucinations, even work their technical components (the lighting style of cinematographer James Wong Howe, for instance) into aspects of complex conspiratorial schemes.” (Despite a few glancing virtues, such as  Josh Brolin’s Nixonesque performance as "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, Anderson’s film seems just as cynical as its source and infused with the same sort of misplaced would-be nostalgia for the counterculture of the late 60s and early 70s, pitched to a generation that didn’t experience it, as Bertolucci’s Innocents: The Dreamers.)

From The Crying of Lot 49’s evocation of an orgasm in cinematic terms (“She awoke at last to find herself getting laid; she’d come in on a sexual crescendo in progress, like a cut to a scene where the camera’s already moving”) to the magical-surreal guest star appearance of Mickey Rooney in wartime Europe in Gravity’s Rainbow, cinema is invariably a form of lingua franca in Pynchon’s fiction, an expedient form of shorthand, calling up common experiences that seem light years away from the sectarianism of the politique des auteurs. This explains why his novels set in mid-20th century, such as the two just cited, when cinema was still a common currency cutting across classes, age groups, and diverse levels of education, tend to have the greatest number of movie references. In Gravity’s Rainbow—set mostly in war-torn Europe, with a few flashbacks to the east coast U.S. and flash-forwards to the contemporary west coast—this even includes such anachronistic pop ephemera as the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men and the 1955 Western The Return of Jack Slade (which a character named Waxwing Blodgett is said to have seen at U.S. Army bases during World War 2 no less than twenty-seven times), along with various comic books.

Significantly, “The Secret Integration”, a title evoking both conspiracy and countercultural utopia, is set in the same cozy suburban neighborhood in the Berkshires from which Tyrone Slothrop, the wartime hero or antihero of Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), aka “Rocketman,” springs, with his kid brother and father among the story’s characters. It’s also the same region where Pynchon himself grew up. And Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon’s magnum opus and richest work, is by all measures the most film-drenched of his novels in its design as well as its details—so much so that even its blocks of text are separated typographically by what resemble sprocket holes. Unlike, say, Vineland (1990), where cinema figures mostly in terms of imaginary TV reruns (e.g., Woody Allen in Young Kissinger) and diverse cultural appropriations (e.g., a Noir Center shopping mall), or the post-cinematic adventures in cyberspace found in the noirish (and far superior) east-coast companion volume to Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge (2013), cinema in Gravity’s Rainbow is basically a theatrical event with a social impact, where Fritz Lang’s invention of the rocket countdown as a suspense device (in the 1929 Frau im mond) and the separate “frames” of a rocket’s trajectory are equally relevant and operative factors. There are also passing references to Lang’s Der müde Tod, Die Nibelungen, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and Metropolis—not to mention De Mille’s Cleopatra, Dumbo, Freaks, Son of Frankenstein, White Zombie, at least two Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals, Pabst, and Lubitsch—and the epigraphs introducing the novel’s second and third sections (“You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood — Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray” and “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more…. –Dorothy, arriving in Oz”) are equally steeped in familiar movie mythology.

These are all populist allusions, yet the bane of populism as a rightwing curse is another near-constant in Pynchon’s work. The same ambivalence can be felt in the novel’s last two words, “Now everybody—“, at once frightening and comforting in its immediacy and universality. With the possible exception of Mason & Dixon (1997), every Pynchon novel over the past three decades—Vineland, Against the Day (2006), Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge—has an attractive, prominent, and sympathetic female character betraying or at least acting against her leftist roots and/or principles by being first drawn erotically towards and then being seduced by a fascistic male. In Bleeding Edge, this even happens to the novel’s earthy protagonist, the middle-aged detective Maxine Tarnow. Given the teasing amount of autobiographical concealment and revelation Pynchon carries on with his public while rigorously avoiding the press, it is tempting to see this recurring theme as a personal obsession grounded in some private psychic wound, and one that points to sadder-but-wiser challenges brought by Pynchon to his own populism, eventually reflecting a certain cynicism about human behavior. It also calls to mind some of the reflections of Luc Moullet (in “Sainte Janet,” Cahiers du cinéma no. 86, août 1958) aroused by Howard Hughes’ and Josef von Sternberg’s Jet Pilot and (more incidentally) by Ayn Rand’s and King Vidor’s The Fountainhead whereby “erotic verve” is tied to a contempt for collectivity—implicitly suggesting that rightwing art may be sexier than leftwing art, especially if the sexual delirium in question has some of the adolescent energy found in, for example, Hughes, Sternberg, Rand, Vidor, Kubrick, Tashlin, Jerry Lewis, and, yes, Pynchon.

One of the most impressive things about Pynchon’s fiction is the way in which it often represents the narrative shapes of individual novels in explicit visual terms. V, his first novel, has two heroes and narrative lines that converge at the bottom point of a V; Gravity’s Rainbow, his second—a V2 in more ways than one—unfolds across an epic skyscape like a rocket’s (linear) ascent and its (scattered) descent; Vineland offers a narrative tangle of lives to rhyme with its crisscrossing vines, and the curving ampersand in the middle of Mason & Dixon suggests another form of digressive tangle between its two male leads; Against the Day, which opens with a balloon flight, seems to follow the curving shape and rotation of the planet.

This compulsive patterning suggests that the sprocket-hole design in Gravity’s Rainbow’s section breaks is more than just a decorative detail. The recurrence of sprockets and film frames carries metaphorical resonance in the novel’s action, so that Franz Pökler, a German rocket engineer allowed by his superiors to see his long-lost daughter (whom he calls his “movie child” because she was conceived the night he and her mother saw a porn film) only once a year, at a children’s village called Zwölfkinder, and can’t even be sure if it’s the same girl each time:

So it has gone for the six years since. A daughter a year, each one about a year older, each time taking up nearly from scratch. The only continuity has been her name, and Zwölfkinder, and Pökler’s love—love something like the persistence of vision, for They have used it to create for him the moving image of a daughter, flashing him only these summertime frames of her, leaving it to him to build the illusion of a single child—what would the time scale matter, a 24th of a second or a year (no more, the engineer thought, than in a wind tunnel, or an oscillograph whose turning drum you can speed or slow at will…)?

***

Cinema, in short, is both delightful and sinister—a utopian dream and an apocalyptic nightmare, a stark juxtaposition reflected in the abrupt shift in the earlier Pynchon passage quoted at the beginning of this essay from present tense to past tense, and from third person to first person. Much the same could be said about the various displacements experienced while moving from the positive to the negative consequences of  populism.

Pynchon’s allegiance to the irreverent vulgarity of kazoos sounding like farts and concomitant Spike Jones parodies seems wholly in keeping with his disdain for David Raksin and Johnny Mercer’s popular song “Laura” and what he perceives as the snobbish elitism  of the Preminger film it derives from, as expressed in his passionate liner notes to the CD compilation “Spiked!: The Music of Spike Jones” a half-century later:

The song had been featured in the 1945 movie of the same name, supposed to evoke the hotsy-totsy social life where all these sophisticated New York City folks had time for faces in the misty light and so forth, not to mention expensive outfits, fancy interiors,witty repartee—a world of pseudos as inviting to…class hostility as fish in a barrel, including a presumed audience fatally unhip enough to still believe in the old prewar fantasies, though surely it was already too late for that, Tin Pan Alley wisdom about life had not stood a chance under the realities of global war, too many people by then knew better.

Consequently, neither art cinema nor auteur cinema figures much in Pynchon’s otherwise hefty lexicon of film culture, aside from a jokey mention of a Bengt Ekerot/Maria Casares Film Festival (actors playing Death in The Seventh Seal and Orphée) held in Los Angeles—and significantly, even the “underground”, 16-millimeter radical political filmmaking in northern California charted in Vineland becomes emblematic of the perceived failure of the 60s counterculture as a whole. This also helps to account for why the paranoia and solipsism found in Jacques Rivette’s Paris nous appartient and Out 1, perhaps the closest equivalents to Pynchon’s own notions of mass conspiracy juxtaposed with solitary despair, are never mentioned in his writing, and the films that are referenced belong almost exclusively to the commercial mainstream, unlike the examples of painting, music, and literature, such as the surrealist painting of Remedios Varo described in detail at the beginning of The Crying of Lot 49,  the importance of Ornette Coleman in V and Anton Webern in Gravity’s Rainbow, or the visible impact of both Jorge Luis Borges and William S. Burroughs on the latter novel. (1) And much of the novel’s supply of movie folklore—e.g., the fatal ambushing of John Dillinger while leaving Chicago’s Biograph theater--is mainstream as well.

Nevertheless, one can find a fairly precise philosophical and metaphysical description of these aforementioned Rivette films in Gravity’s Rainbow: “If there is something comforting -- religious, if you want — about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long.” And the white, empty movie screen that appears apocalyptically on the novel’s final page—as white and as blank as the fusion of all the colors in a rainbow—also appears in Rivette’s first feature when a 16-millimeter print of Lang’s Metropolis breaks during the projection of the Tower of Babel sequence.

Is such a physically and metaphysically similar affective climax of a halted film projection foretelling an apocalypse a mere coincidence? It’s impossible to know whether Pynchon might have seen Paris nous appartient during its brief New York run in the early 60s. But even if he hadn’t (or still hasn’t), a bitter sense of betrayed utopian possibilities in that film, in Out 1, and in most of his fiction is hard to overlook. Old fans who’ve always been at the movies (haven’t we?) don’t like to be woken from their dreams.

by Jonathan Rosenbaum

Footnote

For this reason, among others, I’m skeptical about accepting the hypothesis of the otherwise reliable Pynchon critic Richard Poirier that Gravity’s Rainbow’s enigmatic references to “the Kenosha Kid” might allude to Orson Welles, who was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Steven C. Weisenburger, in A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion (Athens/London: The University of Georgia Press, 2006), reports more plausibly that “the Kenosha Kid” was a pulp magazine character created by Forbes Parkhill in Western stories published from the 1920s through the 1940s. Once again, Pynchon’s populism trumps—i.e. exceeds—his cinephilia.

[swampfilmanalysis-sp19]

Movie Musicals and Sound Editing

“Ideology and the Practice of  Sound Editing and Mixing” by Mary Ann Doane

Doane speaks of the idea that sound editing/mixing often is unnoticed, which, in return, successfully does its job.  The marriage between sound and image becomes very seamless when they are mixed well.  In the western world, sight is the highest of senses with hearing following below; however, it is the image that results in intellect and the sound that results in emotion and feeling.  Doane quotes, “If the ideology of the visible demands that the spectator understand the image as a truthful representation of reality, the ideology of the audible demands that there exist simultaneously a different truth and another order of reality for the subject to grasp.” 

Sound serves as a mood or atmosphere that continues through the entirety of a film to not disturb the image.  If there is silence, it disjoints the realism of that piece.  Music is a big part of sound mixing as it often underscores dialogue in order to evoke a feeling from the spectator.   In the article, Ernest Walter describes, “Often, it is an augmented effect blending with a dialogue scene so that one is, almost unaware of its musical presence, yet adding so much to the value of the scene.”  Doane tells of how sound is sometimes unanalyzable, yet able to carry such meaning within cinema.  

Doane’s last points in her article discuss the importance of sound quality and volume.  To preserve the reality of a world, the camera’s spatial awareness to the actors must be represented in the editing of the dialogue, sound effects, etc.  The visual space a spectator sees has to match the visual space a spectator hears. 

West Side Story (1961) Dirs. Wise and Robbins

Brief Summary: This film is about two separate groups who live in New York City.  The Jets are white Americans while the Sharks are Puerto Ricans.  Tony, who is a Jet, meets and falls in love with Maria, who is a Shark.  Based on Romeo and Juliet, this is a tragic story about star-crossed lovers. 

Snaps (0:19-1:13):  In the beginning of the movie, the spectator sees a group of boys on a basketball court in New York City.  While there is no dialogue, the spectator hears syncopated, quick spurts of underscoring along with the snaps of the boys.  As the snaps get quicker, the anticipation of the spectator increases.  These snaps occur often in the film as to assert dominance among gangs or for the gang members to “cool” themselves. 

Tonight Reprise (0:42-2:35): This clip shows all of the different perspectives of the night.  While the two gangs speak of their rumble, the two lovers speak of their plans to be together, and then the spectator sees Anita getting ready for her more lustful night.  The underscoring of the music clues in the viewer of the emotion each character feels in this sequence. The gangs have quicker, more aggressive music while Tony and Maria have a slow ballad. 

Tony and Maria Meet (0:00-2:08)- Immediately when these two lock eyes, the image is that of a blurred out surrounding, which is then matched by a muffled sound of the background noise. When Tony and Maria get close enough to dance with each other, the underscoring transforms into a light, romantic waltz (completely opposite of the Mambo that precedes this moment).  Once the dialogue starts, the underscore plays the famous tritone that Tony eventually sings in his solo titled “Maria.”

Hairspray (2007) Dir. Shankman

Brief Summary: This story follows the journey of Tracy Turnblad in 1960′s Baltimore, and her quest to integrate television.  After she dances her way on to the Corny Collins show, she fights for justice alongside Seaweed, Penny, Motormouth Maybelle, and many others.

Beginning Sequence (0:00-1:05): From the very first shot, the spectator can hear the different sounds of Baltimore (i.e. dogs, car horns, etc.).  As the shots get closer into the city, the sounds of bike bells and newspapers on the ground amplify.  The sound is painting a picture of the kind of Baltimore the film wants to be portrayed.  The other sound editing involved in this first scene is that of Tracy’s alarm waking her for school, and the consequent sounds of her getting dressed and groomed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwcXmQjVi3U

Nicest Kids in Town (0:00-1:33)- This sequence starts with Tracy tapping her pencil on her notebook as the spectator hears that sound matched with the underscoring of a bass, a bongo and jiggling keys.  Combining the visual and the auditory, it is evident Tracy has somewhere to be.  As the school bell rings, the studio’s bell also rings, connecting these two environments together in time.  As the sequence continues, the spectator hears shoes shuffling, the Nicest Kids backstage getting ready, the production on set for the Corny Collins show preparing to air, etc.  All of these fast paced sound effects and mixing allow spectators to understand that the girls are rushing home to see the show right as it begins.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-2He8cNHdw

The March (0:00-1:45)- Of the more emotional pieces of this film, Motormouth Maybelle sings this ballad of justice for equality as the people of Baltimore march.  The visual of a huge crowd with candles and signs combines with the heartbreaking song to continue the story while evoking feeling from the spectator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaBy1CiiGHc

Little Inez (0:00-0:45)- When Little Inez begins to dance with Link Larkin, the spectator hears the telephones ringing as well as the dialogue of “Inez” from the receivers.  The spectator is able to deduce from the visual and auditory clues that Little Inez is now in the running for Ms. Teenage Hairspray. 

Discussion Questions:

1. Comparing these two films, how has sound production evolved from 1961 to 2007?

2. Can you think of an example of a film that describes a city/place (like the beginning sequence of Baltimore) through the use of sound? Did it match or contradict your notion of that city/place?

3. How is purposeful silence used in sound editing and mixing? What emotions are often evoked from no sound?

[yifeizhang2]

3-Film sound design skill

 I want to talk about film music. This is my major. I have liked watching movies since I was a child, and I can watch all kinds of movies. There is a cinema near my house. Every time a new movie is released, I go to the movies with my friends.

When I became interested in film music, I did a lot of research. I read the book "Film/Music Analysis: A Film Studies Approach "written by Audissino, Emilio. He said I needed to study  film music not as'music', as mine was not a research in musicology, but in films history and stylistics. I also needed to analyse the role of his music in films, when I watch a film that has some effects on me— perceptive, affective, semantic, ideological— what intrigues me most is to understand how those effects have been produced and induced(Audissino, 2017,pg.5). Audissino, Emilio is talking about the role and influence of music on movies.

Music is the soul of movies. Music plays a huge role in movies. An excellent movie cannot do without excellent music. The movie Harry Potter is a very famous movie. His theme song Hedwig's Theme is also very popular. When people hear Hedwig's Theme, they will think of Harry Potter, and they will also hear Hedwig's in Harry Potter shops. Theme,The beginning of this music is a solo, combining the synthesized sound of celeste and the real sound, which is a keyboard instrument whose keys are struck with metal bars that sound like small bells. So it has an ethereal voice. I think very magical. This is a successful piece of music, and its creator John Williams has won many awards for it. Below is the music of Hedwig's Theme.

There are also many musical details in the movie. For example, in the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, when Harry first entered the magic school, the school assigned colleges to freshmen. According to different personalities, each student has his own unique tone. For example, Hermione is a lively girl. When she wears a cap uses oboe and clarinet to change his character. When Harry wears hat, uses violin and double bass to play formations. Tense atmosphere. john Towner Williams designed a unique tone for each character to shape the character's character, which not only helps the audience understand the characteristics of the character, but also provides a huge motivation for the expression of the movie's emotions. Below is a movie clip.

In Major Composers, Technique, Trends (1915-1990) in the book "American Film Music" written by Williams Darby and Jack Du Bois, it was written that when John Williams was composing the soundtrack to the film, he started writing after watching the film samples, not After watching the movie script, he believes that there are many literary factors in creating a concert based on the movie script, which reduces the naturalness of the music itself and ignores the audience's auditory experience( Darby、 Du Bois,1990,pg522).

These are very helpful to me and make me more careful about every character and detail in the movie. And I also use midi and Logic Pro X software( MIDI is short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It’s a protocol that allows computers, musical instruments and other hardware to communicate) to create film music( hahn,2020).which is a skill to start creating film music.

AUDISSINO, E, 2017. FILM/MUSIC ANALYSIS. [S.l.]: SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PU.

Darby, W. and Du Bois, J., 1990. American Film Music. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.

Hahn, M., 2020. What Is MIDI? How To Use The Most Powerful Tool In Music | LANDR Blog. [online] LANDR Blog. Available at: <https://blog.landr.com/what-is-midi/> [Accessed 22 November 2020].

YouTube(2017). Hedwig's Theme. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtHra9tFISY> [Accessed 22 November 2020].

YouTube(2012). Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone - Sorting Ceremony. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okUNLqtHRP8> [Accessed 22 November 2020].

[bambinaur]

ik I joke alot about being Italian but I just want to say a lot of amazing things have come frm italy like musically auditory visually texturally and the 60s was a v magical place for cinema esp in Italy and i’m just feeling very Fed satisfied sated sedated by soudtracks done by Ennio Morricone.

[iamtoolazytothinkoftheusername]

Final Project Final Report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MjRunhF2ik

Link of my final project

What it looked like when it was displayed. I chose large area to display them so that the audience would get a sense as if they are in a cinema. I really wanted them to engage their visual sense because I know that auditorial features are the main features for this work. So that visual works are not disregarded, I chose large screen on purpose. 

The two hardest parts of completing this project were coming up with appropriate scenes and figuring out how to produce an animation. I already had a song, and coming up with the series of drawings, stories, and method of direction all on my own was very hard. In my project, there are two main senses that are triggered: visual and auditorial. The two features, while produced at different times, had to evoke same emotions. In order to do so, I first listened to this song over and over again in order to remind myself of the emotions and situation that I was in while I was composing the song. After listing down the emotions, I came with the scenes and stories that are appropriate to the emotions.

I was reminded that I felt very lonely while composing the song because it was a time when I first came to this foreign nation without any family members or acquaintances. Yet, towards the end of the song, it evoked quite hopeful and energetic emotions. So, I thought of a story where someone would drag the lonely man out of the depressing places.

The first scene that starts with the colored sky and shifts down to black and white skyline was done so purposefully to maximize the aura of depression that the city (where lonely man lives) possesses. The man sitting alone at the corner of the room and smoking was added to hint on the loneliness and emotional sufferings that the main character experiences currently. The female character holds his hands and escapes (running scene) from the place, where she eventually takes him and flies above the clouds. The fact that the man is finally filled with colors and is flying over beautifully colored sky implies that he has finally escaped from the pains and found freedom and happiness.

The transition of the scenes are carefully timed so that visual and auditorial transitions are not conflicted from each other. The “transition” feature at the Final Cut Pro program was employed to make a slow and soft transition just like the mood of the song. Although I have dedicated a lot of time (pulled about 4 all-nighters) and thoughts, I still feel like this work could be improved with more given time. For example, the scene of running is too long and repetitive because I drew only 8 frames and copied and pasted the same motion to fill in the time. I could potentially add different scene or add more frames in the running scene to make the motion more fluent and natural. I prevented the audience from being visually bored by manipulating zooming in or out and cameras moving downward/upward features of the Final Cut Pro program, but it could be improved by adding more frames and more variety of scenes. In that sense, I would refer to this work as work-in-process.

[musicnachrichten-blog]

Bitter Moon mit erster EP

zwei Kernmitgliedern der Schweizer Band The Pussywarmers & Réka. Es ist der Erfahrung und Komplizenschaft zu verdanken, die in vielen Konzerten erworben wurde, dass es den beiden Musikern gelungen ist, ein ganz neues musikalisches Kapitel zu schreiben, welches von Anfang an als Duo-Projekt geplant war. Zwei Menschen, zwei Köpfe, eine geradlinige Ästhetik, d.h., um es einfach auszudrücken, das Ergebnis einer langen Studie über die Möglichkeiten der Vermischung einer elektronischen Instrumentierung mit akustisch-analogen Elementen. "Bitter Moon" is a different feel, a hybrid of veritable atmospheric cinematic soundscapes, moody analogue pop songs and dreamy synthesizer parts, which could be the musical introduction to an 80s television series, but also the first step into a larger narrative musical opus. When the needle hits the vinyl, something uncompromising draws you in. It's an album without a B-side containing 18 minutes of pure auditory tension. It's a piece of music you should listen to without interruption from A to Z - best in a bathtub with your eyes closed or on a lonely nightride. Let some audio cinema happen." (Niklaus Reichle) Die selbstbetitelte EP erscheint am 31.03. digital und am 12.04. als Vinyl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2r_RbLzfPE Bitter Moon live: 17.04.2019 (DE) Berlin, Urban Spree (mit Jacco Gardner) 26.04.2019 (CH) Vevey, Zahnfest 03.05.2019 (CH) Schaffhausen Tab Tap (mit Stahlberger) 04.05.2019 (CH) St. Gallen, ExRex (mit Bad Hammer) 03.08.2019 (CH) Zürich, Stadtsommer Bite it Promotion Read the full article

[imnews]

PVLSAR Releases New Single "Thunder"

Formed in 2016, P V L S A R brings together a musical universe inspired by Dépêche Mode or M83 with a visual universe inspired by science fiction films. With great sensitivity and finesse, P V L S A R tells whoever will dream of it, a true visual and auditory fable.

The spectator is invited by a futuristic poetry in an ode to sensational humanity, imaged with the refined aesthetics of SF cinema.…

[mikeyd1986]

MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 143, February 2019

On Monday night, I went to my Boxing small group training session at CinFull Fitness. Quite a few people were running late so Cinamon and I were wondering if anyone was going to turn up for tonight’s class. Luckily, Jade, Patrick, James and Scarlett ended up coming in the end. Tonight’s workout consisted of: several boxing drills, med ball slams and kettle bell squats (5 reps +5 each round), 3 rounds of walking lunges, 10 squats and 10 push ups, one minute of jab box combos (increasing by 1-2 reps).

I was struggling a little tonight. Maybe it was due to my sleeping problems, lack of energy during the day, lack of air circulation, group performance anxiety, who knows? But I feel like my boxing technique is gradually improving. At times, I do miss a rep or forget a movement but I just keep going, keep trying and keep striving. Thankfully the weather outside was pretty mild and not overly hot so I could breathe and recover easily.

On Tuesday night, I did my Body Balance class with Astrid Christophersen at YMCA Casey RACE. The weather was acting particularly strange tonight. One minute it was clearing up, the next it delivered another downpour of rain. Luckily I was undercover inside the group fitness room when it did decide to come down. Tonight we ended up doing release number 68 which consists of tracks including Of The Night by Bastille, Elastic Heart by Sia, Come Get It Bae by Pharell Williams, Maps by Maroon 5 and Pretty Hurts by Beyonce.

It was generally a pretty cruisey release with a double Tai Chi Warm Up to start. Sun Salutations & Standing Strength (Mountain pose, Downward Facing Dog, Plank, Crocodile, Intense pose, Warrior 1 into Warrior 3. Triangle pose. Side Angle pose). Balance & Hip Openers (Eagle pose, Angel pose, Star pose, Divers pose, Frog pose, Swan pose with quad stretch). Pilates (Oblique twists with crunches, Extended toe taps, Bridge pose, Arm balances, Crocodile pose). Twists (Seated twist, Twisted Down Dog, Twisted Pyramid pose). Hamstrings (Supine Hamstring stretch, Turtle pose, Wide Legged Forward Fold). http://www.totallylesmills.com/site/BODYBALANCE

On Thursday morning, I had an appointment to see my psychiatrist Dr. Ricardo Peralta at Vita Healthcare in Mount Eliza. Today it honestly felt like I had a snowball of pressure mounting up inside of me. It didn’t help that I was feeling weary and restless either. It was difficult to tell if my medication (50mg Quetiapine) was actually having a benefit besides making me sleep for longer. Sadly it wasn’t doing much for my energy levels during the day as I’ve felt a steep decline this week.

The 50 minute drive from home to Vita Healthcare honestly felt like a chore possibly because I had a large to-do list to get through today. Annoyingly, I felt sleepy the entire time behind the wheel which meant that I had to dig up extra energy to concentrate and focus more on the road. I relaxed a little when I finally arrived at the clinic, though it didn’t take long for me to get really flustered and nervous. I guess I really didn’t want this appointment to be a waste of time and actually get my money’s worth. (Dr. Ricardo is NOT cheap to see but he’s worth it!).

It didn’t spend much time beating around the bush, I got straight to the heart of the matter: my sleeping problems and low energy levels. I asked him whether he knew of a sleep specialist that I could see in order to get a sleep study done and come up with an official diagnosis. Thankfully he did and he wrote me up a referral to see one located at Wattletree Consulting Rooms in Frankston. Now the next step will be to book an appointment with them and hopefully they can work out why my sleep has been so terrible.

I couldn’t explain why I was feeling so anxious today. Perhaps it could be related to the unstable and inconsistent weather this month, my poor sleeping patterns, not eating the right foods, my mood swings, high stress levels from work. Could be a whole lot of things. But things felt a lot more smoother today at the clinic with the receptionist processing my medicare rebate and booking another appointment for me. Unlike my last visit in which everything felt like it was up in the air. https://www.vitahealthcare.com.au/our-team/#ricardo

On Thursday night, I cooked a basic fish and chips with steamed vegetables for dinner. This was probably the easiest meal I’ve done so far and thank goodness for that because I haven’t been feeling particularly energetic recently. Following this recipe, you start by mixing chopped herbs, olive oil and lemon juice together. This will be the coating for your fish at the end. Then you can fry up the fish fillets in a frying pan. I bought the blue grenadier as they were on special at Coles. Whilst this is happening, you can cook up some frozen chips in the oven and steamed vegetables in the microwave. That’s pretty much it. https://www.mumslounge.com.au/lifestyle/food/lemon-herb-fish-fillets-recipe/

On Friday morning, I caught up with my Mum and her friend Jules for coffee at Degani Cranbourne Park. We spent an hour talking about our experiences with driving tests, Jules’ recent overseas trips to Scotland and the Northern Territory (Watch out for those crocs!) to our poor sleeping patterns and finding sustainable employment. It was a nice time even with all the visual and auditory distractions that a large shopping centre tends to bring.

On Friday night, Mum and I went out to the movies to see Escape Room at Village Cinemas Fountain Gate. *START SPOILERS* Directed by Adam Robitel (Insidious: The Last Key), this film combines elements from Saw, Cube and Final Destination and is based upon the idea of real-life escape rooms. Six strangers get send a mysterious package containing a black cube and once opened, they discover that they’re each invited to participate in an escape room challenge hosted by MINOS ESCAPE ROOMS. There is a cash prize of $10,000 up for grabs for the winner.

Let’s run through each of the strangers. Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell) is a quiet achiever, has a shy personality and university student studying Quantum Physics. Ben Miller (Logan Miller) works inside a store room at a local grocery store and is generally an arsehole to everyone. Jason Walker (Jay Ellis) is a stockbroker from a major corporation and is very cocky and arrogant. Mike Nolan (Tyler Labine) is the oldest and also the most likable and talkative of the bunch. Amanda Harper (Deborah Ann Woll) is a war survivor and has claustrophobia plus post-traumatic stress disorder. And Danny Khan (Nik Dodani) is a video game nerd, escape room veteran and very annoying (He just won’t shut up!).

Once they all arrive inside the waiting room, this is when the game actually begins. The objective is to find clues hidden around the room, solve puzzles and find a way to “escape” each room. But the twist here is that these rooms are designed to kill the participants inside. This first room for example becomes a giant furnace. The rooms themselves become more complex and elaborate as it goes on. The strangers also discover that they are actually connected to each other by the fact that each of them have been the sole survivor of a major traumatic event.

Later on, we also discover that the “game” is being controlled by a mysterious Game Master named Dr. WooTan Yu, who’s name seems to pop up everywhere in each of the rooms. Speaking of rooms, they are very creatively designed and easily the best feature of the film. My favourite would have to be a deadly bar complete with a billiard table and a liquor shelf. Each time the phone rings, an ear-piercing dial-tone noise can be heard and the room suddenly starts falling apart to reveal an elevator shaft on the outside. Then the classic song “Downtown” by Petula Clark starts playing and gets increasingly more distorted.

Like the films I mentioned before, each of the strangers starts to get knocked off one by one until there’s only two left. Of course the film doesn’t come to a simple conclusion but throws in plenty of twists and leaves it open to a future sequel. Besides the corny dialogue and paper-thin characters, I still really enjoyed what Escape Room had to offer in terms of the thrilling set pieces and a shadowy organisation pulling the strings. 7.5/10 *END SPOILERS* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXk5qYKpq0Q

“So we're different colours. And we're different creeds. And different people have different needs. I can't understand. What makes a man. Hate another man. Help me understand. People are people so why should it be. You and I should get along so awfully.” Depeche Mode - People Are People (1984)

“Now I'm not looking for absolution. Forgiveness for the things I do. But before you come to any conclusions. Try walking in my shoes. Try walking in my shoes. You'll stumble in my footsteps. Keep the same appointments I kept. If you try walking in my shoes. If you try walking in my shoes.” Depeche Mode - Walking In My Shoes (1993)

[gemtvusa]

Sony A80K OLED TV Review, Design, Price and Release Date

Sony A80K OLED TV Overview: The Sony A80K combines the remarkable contrast and rich color palette expected from OLEDs. In addition, it's enhanced with 4K 120Hz capabilities ideal for gaming and the unique Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology from Sony. This OLED TV delivers stellar performance without stretching your budget. Prices: €1,309 at OTTO DE (55-inch) €1,429 at Coolblue DE €1,999 at EURONICS DE (65-inch) Pros: Superior contrast with deep blacks and noteworthy brightness True-to-life colors straight out of the box in Cinema mode Comprehensive HDMI 2.1 features tailored for gamingCons: Slightly less brightness compared to leading OLED TVs Basic remote design missing backlight feature Absence of HDR10+ compatibility.

Sony A80K Review

The Sony Bravia XR A80K OLED is passionately engineered to redefine the boundaries of home entertainment. Remarkably, it excels in this pursuit, making it all the more surprising that its price tag isn't steeper. While the A80K isn't easy on the wallet, its value is undeniable. As one of Sony's premium OLED offerings, it's brimming with the brand's top-tier visual and auditory tech. Even though it might not outshine every competitor in all aspects, it undeniably ranks as one of the top TV purchases available. SONY BRAVIA XR A80K - SPECS - Price: $1,499.99 - Screen Size: 55-inch - Model Number: XR-55A80K - Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160 pixels - HDR Compatibility: HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG - Refresh Rate: 120Hz - Connectivity: - HDMI: 2 ports of HDMI 2.1, 2 ports of HDMI 2.0 - USB: 2 ports - Audio Output: 50W - Smart TV Platform: Google TV - Dimensions (without stand): 48.38 inches (width) x 28.13 inches (height) x 2.13 inches (depth) - Weight (without stand): 39.5 lbs. This TV merges the best of Sony's technology, delivering exceptional picture quality, sound, and smart features.

Sony A80K Design Review

The A80K flaunts Sony's elegant One Slate design, seamlessly merging aesthetics with an all-glass front panel, roughly half an inch deep. This cohesive look is undeniably eye-catching. Incorporating functionality, an inset at the back facilitates hassle-free connections, complemented by a snap-on cover to manage and hide cables. The TV comes with a versatile three-way stand that can be adjusted for various setups – whether you want it flush with the stand or elevated to accommodate a soundbar. In my setup, I utilized the latter, gaining a good three inches of clearance. If you possess one of those bulkier soundbars, this stand offers the flexibility you need. For those who prefer wall installations, Sony offers an optional bracket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Y-HDuAAxs Sony's accompanying remote is succinct in its design – a departure from the larger, glow-in-the-dark versions from their past models. While its straightforward button configuration is user-friendly, the absence of a backlit keypad can be a slight inconvenience in low light settings. However, Sony earns kudos for the remote's textured surface, minimizing the risk of it slipping through fingers or vanishing in the couch gap. Design Rating: 4.5/5.

Sony A80K Features Overview

Equipped with Google TV, the A80K OLED allows smooth app navigation, complemented by the convenience of Google Assistant for voice-activated searches. This is made possible through the microphone incorporated into the Sony remote. Popular streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and Apple TV are easily accessible, with dedicated buttons on the remote for quick access. In the realm of picture quality, the 2022 Sony OLED models are enhanced with the XR OLED Contrast Pro and Cognitive Processor XR technologies. These work in tandem to optimize brightness and deepen blacks dynamically, adapting to each scene. Furthermore, the broad color gamut panel, coupled with the XR Triluminos Pro and Cognitive Processor XR, ensures faithful color reproduction, covering the full DCI-P3 spectrum – the gold standard for digital cinema and Ultra HD Blu-ray content. Connectivity-wise, the A80K boasts four HDMI ports, of which two are HDMI 2.1 compliant. This means they support advanced features such as 4K at 120Hz, VRR, and ALLM. For US viewers, there's an added bonus: the A80K incorporates an ATSC 3.0 tuner. This advanced tuner facilitates access to free over-the-air digital TV broadcasts in the latest format, promising 4K visuals accompanied by Dolby Atmos audio. While ATSC 3.0 had a modest beginning, its adoption is on the rise, with predictions of it reaching three-quarters of the US market by the end of 2022. Feature Rating: 4.5/5.

Sony A80K Sound Quality Overview

The A80K OLED TVs are equipped with Sony's innovative Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology. By utilizing five actuators — three behind the screen and two on the sides — the screen itself is vibrated to produce encompassing sound, with two additional subwoofers augmenting bass levels. Additionally, features like Acoustic Audio Calibration adapt sound to the room's acoustics, Voice Zoom sharpens dialogue, and 3D surround upscaling enriches the auditory experience. While I often bypass a TV's native sound system in favor of external setups, I found the A80K's sound performance commendable. Dialogues were articulate and clear, even at higher volumes without any discernable distortion. The Dolby Atmos mode provided an immersive soundscape, with perceivable vertical and overhead sound dimensions. While an external Dolby Atmos soundbar might have fine-tuned the audio experience further, the A80K’s inherent sound system is impressive enough, especially for those not regularly indulging in action-packed cinema or those who prefer not to invest in an additional soundbar. Sound Quality Rating: 5/5.

Sony A80K Pricing and Availability Overview

Release Date: May 30, 2022 Pricing: - XR-55A80K: $2,000 (US) / £2,099 (UK) / AU$3,899 (Australia) - XR-65A80K: $2,300 (US) / £2,899 (UK) / AU$4,999 (Australia) - XR-77A80K: $3,300 (US) / £3,999 (UK) / AU$7,999 (Australia) Sony unveiled the A80K in the latter part of spring 2022. Positioned as the brand's mid-tier OLED model, the A80K's price point is notably more accessible compared to Sony's premium A95K QD-OLED lineup. In terms of competition, LG's C2 OLED stands out. The pricing dynamics between the Sony A80K and LG C2 vary by region. For instance, in the US, the 65-inch and 77-inch A80K models are priced slightly below their LG C2 counterparts, while the 55-inch variant leans towards a higher price compared to the LG C2 of the same size. Meanwhile, in the UK, Sony's A80K has a steeper price across all sizes when juxtaposed against the LG C2.

Sony A80K Picture Quality Overview

With its impressive 99.5% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space for 4K HDR, the A80K showcases a vibrant display. Its brightness capabilities are noteworthy for an OLED TV, boasting 785 nits in Vivid mode and a commendable 616 nits in Cinema mode. Though it doesn't match the brilliance of the Samsung QN95B mini-LED QLED or LG's flagship G2 OLED, its brightness suffices for most ambient settings. During my real-world testing with the Netflix documentary, "My Octopus Teacher," the display remained vivid, even with overhead lights. Despite lacking anti-glare features like Samsung's The Frame, reflections were minimal. The OLED panel ensures consistent visuals from varied angles. While the A80K misses the Filmmaker picture mode found in many premium TVs, its Cinema mode proves color accurate right out of the box. However, purists may need to adjust the default Motionflow settings. Key Specifications: - Screen Size: 55, 65, 75 inches - Resolution: 4K - Panel Type: OLED - HDR Support: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG - Audio: Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital, DTS - Smart TV Platform: Google TV - HDMI Ports: 4 The A80K's 120Hz refresh rate delivers proficient motion handling, though some artifacts were observed, which could be mitigated through Motionflow settings. Its prowess in upscaling HD content to 4K was evident, possibly due to enhancements in Sony’s Cognitive Processor XR for 2022. In a dimly lit setting, 4K Blu-ray titles like "Dune" and "The Batman" were spectacular, exhibiting true blacks and intricate details in dark scenes. Bright HDR elements, juxtaposed against these dark backgrounds, offered a striking, almost 3D appearance. The capability to measure 0 nits on a full-black window pattern underpins its exceptional black rendition and robust contrast, especially under dim lighting. Picture Quality Rating: 4.5/5.

Sony Bravia XR A80K TV Ports Overview

The power cable for the A80K connects on the right side of its rear panel. Conveniently, all other ports are situated on the left, directly facing sideways for easy access. The lineup includes: - Two USB ports (one at 500mA and the other at 900mA). - S/PDIF optical audio output. - Composite video and S-Center speaker port. - Ethernet port. - RS-232C and IR input jacks. - Coaxial cable input. - Four HDMI ports. Of these HDMI ports, two are based on the latest HDMI 2.1 specification, boasting a hefty bandwidth of 48Gbps and modern features such as VRR and ALLM. One of these HDMI 2.1 ports is also eARC compatible. However, the other two HDMI ports stick to the older HDMI 2.0 standard. Although many TVs still feature exclusively HDMI 2.0 ports, it's a tad underwhelming to see this on the A80K. Nonetheless, this might not be a major concern for the average user.

Sony Bravia XR A80K TV Review: Technical Insights

While the real-world viewing experience is crucial, we ensure a holistic review by conducting a comprehensive suite of technical tests. Our evaluation setup involves using an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro pattern generator, and the Calman calibration software by Portrait Displays. For a deeper dive into our testing methodology, refer to our TV testing guide. In these technical evaluations, the A80K held its own, even against robust competitors like the Samsung S95B and the almost iconic LG C2. Test MetricsSony A80KLG C2Samsung S95BSDR Brightness (10%, in nits)232228329Delta-E (lower is better)3.16691.70093.0184Rec. 709 Gamut Coverage108.82.980%HDR Brightness (10%, in nits)6307941050UHDA-P3 Gamut Coverage99.33.16.76%Rec. 2020 Gamut Coverage74.58.84.97% For SDR content, the A80K's brightness of 232 nits was comparable to the LG C2's 228 nits, though it trailed behind Samsung's robust 329 nits. LG C2 took the crown in terms of color precision, showcasing the best Delta-E value. The A80K exhibited a minor color oversaturation, while the others were nearly perfect. When it comes to HDR, the narrative remains consistent. In their calibrated modes, Samsung dominated, but Sony's brightness lagged somewhat. Nevertheless, Sony's gamut coverage for both UHDA-P3 and Rec. 2020 surpassed LG C2 and was only marginally behind Samsung. Given that the A80K, especially the 55-inch variant, is priced a tad lower, its performance metrics are commendable. Moreover, certain inconsistencies in the S95B's display meant that, to the naked eye, the A80K presented a superior visual experience. Weighing in the cost against the features, the A80K emerges as a polished contender, offering an impressive viewing experience both objectively and subjectively.

Sony Bravia XR A80K TV Gaming Review:

When it comes to the recent lineup of Sony TVs, input lag is a bit of a chink in the armor. Using the Leo Bodnar 4K Lag Tester on the A80K, we recorded an input lag of 16.2ms. While this isn't a deal-breaker (with scores under 20ms being acceptable), it doesn't quite match the sub-10ms performance of competitors like LG and Samsung, which we earmark as the gold standard for gaming. Sony Bravia XR A80K TV showcasing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla That being said, the A80K isn't lacking in gaming-centric features. A significant highlight is its HDMI 2.1 ports, enabling 4K gaming at a fluid 120Hz. This ensures a silky-smooth experience, even in high-intensity gaming sequences. This was particularly evident in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla — the game’s snowy landscapes shimmered with realistic brilliance, and the essential coastal raids in the gameplay were as smooth and exhilarating as one would expect. Furthermore, when paired with the PS5, the A80K steps up its game. Features like Auto HDR Tone Mapping tailor the PS5’s settings to maximize the TV's potential. The Auto Genre Picture Mode, reminiscent of ALLM, ensures optimal picture settings, enhancing the visual experience regardless of the content being played.

Sony A80K Value Assessment

Positioned between Sony's high-end A95K QD-OLED and A90K and the more accessible European A75K in their 2022 OLED lineup, the A80K is crafted for those balancing between premium performance and cost-effectiveness. For U.S. consumers, the 65-inch A80K, priced lower than its LG C2 counterpart while offering comparable visual prowess, stands as an attractive proposition. In the UK, while it may lean on the pricier side, the A80K compensates with superior audio capabilities than the LG C2. An alternative avenue for better value might be TVs with QLED technology. However, venturing into the economical side of QLED often demands compromises in performance. Summing up, the 65-inch A80K is a prime choice for those set on acquiring a 4K OLED TV. For those chasing maximum screen size within a budget, without sacrificing quality, QLED emerges as a more fitting option. Should I buy the Sony A80K? Whether or not you should buy the Sony A80K largely depends on your specific needs, preferences, and budget. Here are some factors to consider: Pros of the Sony A80K: - Outstanding Picture Quality: The A80K boasts excellent color accuracy, deep blacks, and detailed shadows, characteristic of OLED panels. - Sound: The Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology delivers immersive sound quality without needing external speakers. - Gaming: While it might not be the absolute best in terms of input lag, the inclusion of HDMI 2.1 ports allows for high-refresh-rate gaming, making it compatible with next-gen consoles. - Design: The slim and sleek design, coupled with the One Slate concept, makes it an aesthetically pleasing addition to any room. - Smart Features: Powered by Google TV, it offers a wide array of apps and streaming services. Cons of the Sony A80K: - Input Lag: Some competitors, especially those designed with gaming in mind, offer lower input lag. - HDMI 2.1 Ports: It has fewer HDMI 2.1 ports compared to some other modern TVs, which might be a consideration for those with multiple high-end gaming consoles or other devices. - Price: OLED TVs generally cost more than their LED or QLED counterparts, and while the A80K offers value for its price, there are cheaper options available, especially if you are willing to compromise on some features. Things to consider: - Viewing Environment: OLEDs are known for deep blacks and great contrast ratios, making them ideal for dimly lit or controlled lighting environments. If your room is very bright, you might want to consider other options or ensure you can control the lighting. - Burn-in Concerns: Like all OLED TVs, there's a risk (albeit minimal with proper use) of burn-in over time. This happens when static images are displayed for prolonged periods repeatedly. Verdict: If you're in the market for a high-quality OLED TV with excellent picture and sound, and you value Sony's design and user interface, the A80K is a strong choice. However, if gaming performance is your top priority or you're budget-conscious, you might want to compare it with other options like the LG C2 or certain QLED models. Always consider what features are most crucial for you and how they align with your budget. Conclusion While the Sony Bravia XR A80K is an impressive piece of tech, it isn't without its shortcomings. TVs like the Samsung S95B may offer slightly enhanced brightness and color vibrancy. Furthermore, both the Samsung S95B and the LG C2 boast additional HDMI 2.1 ports and superior gaming features, which could be pivotal for gaming enthusiasts. The A80K isn't even Sony's crown jewel – that honor goes to the pricier Sony A95K OLED. Also, it bears striking resemblance in features and performance to its predecessor, the Sony Bravia XR A80J. Yet, when contemplating a new TV purchase, the Sony Bravia XR A80K emerges as a comprehensive package that promises a delightful viewing experience each time it's powered on. Read the full article

[osoundcul-blog]

Intersection of Sound art and Architecture

As preparation for the soundscape composition i started looking into creating space through sound.  This lead me to read the article ‘Space of Sound’. 

“Spatial Hearing One of our ear's best evolved functions is to spatially localize the source of a sound it perceives in terms of angle, elevation and distance. This is a survival feature of crucial importance, which is proven by the fact that it is independent of the position of the head, independent of the state of sleeping/waking of the subject and works over a wide radius which is not delimited by solid obstacles that might impair sight. All this suggests the importance of the ear as the primary alarm system that our auditory system took in its evolution.”

http://www.earweego.net/varia/SpaceOfSound.pdf 

After reading this I remembered something I had read regarding dolby’s new surround sound system ‘Dolby atmos’  

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/brands/dolby-atmos.html 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfiCqIIW-E

Dolby atmos allows film makers to place sounds anywhere in the soundscape in relation to the listener. This allows a realistic sense of movement and accurate spacial perception of sound intensifying the realism and immersive nature of the cinema experience, transporting viewers to alternate realties.