TRON - Complete Score

Another item from the early 80's electronic front is the score to TRON, one the most original films ever created. The composer is Wendy Carlos, who uses almost the exact same set of sounds from A Clockwork Orange, which she composed as Walter Carlos. The effect meshes well with the ethereal landscape presented in the film.  AND it features Journey!

This is the remastered and complete score.

http://rapidshare.com/files/377491581/TRON_Complete_Score.zip

The P-Word

Definition - Something that never comes together.

Origin - After organizing meetings, parties, road trips and movies it became common parlance to say, "Sounds like a plan." Experience taught that if the word "plan" was uttered while planning such an event, the event would simply never take place due to unforeseen circumstances, or in many cases, lack of planning.

Usage - "Sounds like a P-Word."

Source - Unknown

Blue Thunder Promotional Score

Continuing with the thread of early 80's electronic scores, I present Blue Thunder.  This is a perfect example of the standard at the time.  It's a decent enough score with some high points.  Nothing flashy here.  It gets the job done and then some, but it's no E.T.

Rubinstein's other notable score was WarGames, which I'll have to dig up for this blog.

http://rapidshare.com/files/373976657/Blue_Thunder__Promotional_Score_.zip

Tutorial: Great Prop Photos

The following is a cut-and-paste from Boba Debt's excellent (and now defunct) prop site:

Let me start by saying that I am not a photographer nor have I ever had any formal photograpy training.

A lot of you ask me how I get such good pictures of my props for my web site.

Here are some methods that I use to get good pictures.

THE BASICS

1. Buy a good digital camera. I use an Olympus D-450. I splurged and bought a macro lens set, rechargeable batteries, a tri pod and Flash Path floppy adapter for reading the smart media. 

2. Shoot against a white back drop. Here is my set up. I pull the sheet tight with clamps. 

3. Use white light to get rid of shadows. As you can see in the picture above I have 1 light pointing behind the blaster. This eliminates the shadows that the front lights create. 

4. Use SHQ to get a prep shot. This is a smaller file size. Once you have the right picture with the correct lighting do tip 5.

5. Use TIFF format for the final shot. Large file but very detailed and easier to edit. 

6. Use the time delay if you have it. Even a slight shake will blur the photo. By using the time delay the camera will have time to settle before it takes the picture. 

7. Move the front lighting during the time delay. I have found that even a slight variation of your lights will change the picture. During the time delay you will be able to manipulate the lights to get the optimal picture. 

EDITING TIPS

I use Adobe PhotoShop Deluxe. 

1. Edit the photo in its original size. Don't reduce it until you have it looking good when it is big. 

2. Cut the object out of the background with white lines. It may be tempting to use a fill tool but this will give you fuzzy edges.

3. Eliminate the entire background with pure white. I cut and paste a white block from Corel Draw to use as my back ground color. This ensures that it is not tinted an off white color. Then I make sure that I eliminate all of the back ground with this color. You can use a line that is 100 pica wide to get rid of most of it, then use the brush for the small areas. 

4. Reduce the photo to a manageable size. 

5. Rotate the picture a few degrees back and forth to blend lines. Sometimes the picture will look edited once it is reduced. If you rotate it a few degrees and them rotate it back to the correct position it will blend the picture and make it look more natural. 

6. Make sure you use the Sharpen tool if you need it. 

7. Save your work constantly. 

That's it, never had a class but I can take pictures all night long until it looks good.

The Clue Phone

Definition - An invitation to stop being an idiot.

Origin - Unknown.  Possibly a movie or stand-up comic.

Usage - "Ring-ring!  Hello?  It's The Clue Phone.  It's for you."

Source - Brent Carter?

Salem's Lot

This one's for Greg. Haven't listened to it yet.

http://rapidshare.com/files/371797153/Salem_s_Lot.zip

Moe Farkas

Definition - Assistance or additional resources that are currently unavailable. Generally used in gaming when a group is heavily outmatched in battle.

Origin - Subversion of gangsta term, "Mo' fukkas." Moe was a large and resourceful group comically anthropomorphized into one being. He often took the form of Mongo from Blazing Saddles.

Usage - "We need Moe Farkas!"

Source - Mike Owings

Suck The Pipe

Phonology - Sokke Di Pipe-a

Definition - To make a tragic mistake or come to an unwitting conclusion.

Origin - Derived from a segment in a Dennis Miller routine in which he talks about watching TV as a child:

"Daddy, why did the bad man have to die?"

"Because he was a slack-jawed rat. And all rats must suck the fucking pipe."

Usage - "It's too bad that Todd got so far in that level of Goldeneye only to Suck The Pipe at the very end."

Source - Mike Owings

The Froolian Empire

My friends and I extended our teenage years well into our 30's. I suppose a lot of people my age did. It speaks volumes about our society that we behaved in such a silly fashion for so long and yet managed to become relatively stable "adults." I use the term loosely, because in many ways I still feel like a kid. I suspect many of you reading this do as well.

What is the Froolian Empire? It's a loose conglomerate nation-state that randomly and nomadically extends its power at various intervals. It also happens to exist wherever my friends happen to be at the moment.

It is useless to attempt a map of the Froolian Empire, as it has no formal boundaries. Basically, when someone moves to a new location, that area is annexed in the name of Froolia. The previous area is lost to attrition unless there is someone else there to hold it.

We all had titles as well, given out by the self-proclaimed President (or is it Emperor?) of Froolia, Trace Stevens. I forget my title now. I believe I've had a few over the years, but ultimately our fates are left to the whims of our supreme ruler. If he wishes to bestow a new title upon me, I as his humble servant will faithfully act in accord.

How did all of this come about? Good question. I'm at a loss to much of it myself. I know we played a LOT of Risk back in the day and I'm sure that between that and Castle Risk we adopted some of those rules to better mete out our political influence.

The main thing I remember is that Froolia was a neighboring country to Latveria (Doctor Doom's homeland) in the Marvel Comics. That's how we got the name. I seem to remember that it was spelled, "Fruhlia," or something similar in the actual comic, but I was corrected in a recent interview with our fearless leader. Clearly I was delusional or under the sway of an enemy power because it is obviously spelled, "with two O's and an A...and an I somewhere in the middle."

But all of this pales in importance to the single greatest contribution of the Froolian Empire - the language.

It's difficult to describe. You speak in code and make a voice like Ren Hoek using a funny Italian accent. "De queek a-browne fox-a yumped ov'r de lay-zee a-dog." That's the closest approximation I can type and still make sense. As I stated before, the real language was encoded. We could speak to each other for hours at a time (and often did) and no outsider had a clue what we were saying.

This space will be used to document the lost language of the Froolian Empire. If any of you come across or remember any vital information (or wish to amend anything I've mentioned or forgotten above), please forward it to me and I will add it to the official record.

My email is pwwhdr70@gmail.com.