Using some webscraping, bash scripts and a online bar chart race tool, I made a visualisation of the top movies.
Copy/view here
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/14680792/
Category Archives: Movies
Pre 40’s movies that surprised me
(These are only movies 1900-1939)
UPDATE 20230830
I’m not talking about the well known movies like:
- King kong (1933)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
- The Gold Rush (1925)
- Frankenstein (1931)
- Modern Times (1936)
I’ve seen many more, maybe i’ll add above and more to below list.
These are also very good, just watch them!
Things to come (1936)
H.G.Wells sci-fi movie ‘predicting’ WWII and a trip to the moon (predicted 1970 instead of 1969)
Special effects using Matte painting, double exposure and miniature models.
It’s Christmas 1940, and Everytown resident John Cabal fears that war is imminent. When it breaks out, the war lasts 30 years, destroying the city and ushering in a new dark age of plagues and petty despots. But there is hope in the form of Wings Over the World, a group of pacifist scientists and thinkers lead by Cabal. Their dream is to build a utopian society on the ruins of the old. But first they’ll have to unseat the latest ruling tyrant.
M (1931)
Good story with superb acting by Peter Lorre.
M is a 1931 German mystery suspense thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre in his third screen role as Hans Beckert, a serial killer of children. An early example of a procedural drama, the film centers on the manhunt for Lorre’s character, conducted by both the police and the criminal underworld.
Metropolis (1927)
Silent Sci-Fy movie, using some special effects never seen before.
It is a long movie, and shows some nice dystopian scenes.
This influential German science-fiction film presents a highly stylized futuristic city where a beautiful and cultured utopia exists above a bleak underworld populated by mistreated workers. When the privileged youth Freder discovers the grim scene under the city, he becomes intent on helping the workers. He befriends the rebellious teacher Maria , but this puts him at odds with his authoritative father, leading to greater conflict.
Freaks (1932)
What can I say, can’t be made anymore. Shocking to see what sideshows looked like 100 years ago.
Still they managed to tell a story about relations and greed.
When trapeze artist Cleopatra learns that circus midget Hans has an inheritance, she marries the lovesick, diminutive performer, all the while planning to steal his fortune and run off with her lover, strong man Hercules. When Hans’ friends and fellow performers discover what is going on, they band together and carry out a brutal revenge that leaves Hercules and Cleopatra knowing what it truly means to be a “freak.”
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
While almost at the end of our 250 best movies journey, this movie popped up.
Almost the oldest in our collection.
The Kid is one year older (charlie chaplin)
This one has a history.
Al copies had to be destroyed ( Stokers Widow ordered it, because it was not authorized https://rosenbach.org/blog/the-destruction-of-nosferatu/ )
So this version I saw, was put together using multiple sources. Like a Frankensteins monster.
But is it a well made movie, which had a great influence on dracula movies to come.
Max Schreck as Orlok is amazing! There is something in his statue/movement.
Quentin Tarantino in Amsterdam to promote his book.
Being cinephiles.. we had to go .. and we didn´t regret it!
We went to Carré listening to Mr Tarantino talking about his book. Someone interviewed him about his life, and love for movies. He told many anecdotes and side stories. Sometimes with little clips from movies he talked about.
We were very lucky to have seats on the 6th row!
Beforehand I met another movie hero of mine, and got the change of talking to him personally.
Mister van Koolhoven! I posted about him in the past
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2021/03/23/movie-genres/
He was very nice and approachable, gave me some tips to check out.
Like letterboxd.
A superb evening! And we also bought the book.
Rendering images from dos till now
I like creating Art, painting, drawing, sculpting but also computer generated. Most of the things i create are for adults. So i can’t post my best work.
Below are some of the programs i’ve used, these are NOT the generic drawing programs like Gimp, Photoshop or alike.
Ony programs that generate (photorealistic) graphics.
I tried to start with the oldest ending with Blender. There is an overlap and sometimes i’m not sure when I used these programs.
BMRT
Blue Moon Rendering Tools, or BMRT, was one of the most famous RenderMan-compliant photorealistic rendering systems.
Could not find examples?
3DS4
3D Studio, not to be confused with the later “3d Studio Max” product, is a DOS-based tool from Autodesk for creating 3d models and animations.
Vivid
This is the Vivid raytracer. It will only run in a dos environment.
http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/vivid/
Povray
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, most commonly acronymed as POV-Ray, is a cross-platform ray-tracing program that generates images from a text-based scene description.
Example povray source
megapov -geometry 1600×1200 +L /usr/share/povray/include/ +L /data/povray/megapov-1.2.1/include/ +L /data/povray/povray-3.7.0.RC3/include/ ./mine.pov
#include "colors.inc"
#include "metals.inc"
#include "woods.inc"
global_settings { ambient_light rgb<0,0,0> }
#declare Jump_Start = 0.5;
#declare Jump_Height = 7;
#if (clock < Jump_Start )
#declare Camera_Y = 1;
#else
#declare Camera_Y = 1
+ Jump_Height*
0.5*(1-cos(4*pi*(clock-Jump_Start)));
#end
camera {
angle 38
location <0.3,Camera_Y,-3>
right x*image_width/image_height
look_at <0,1,0>
rotate<0,-360*(clock+0.01),0>
}
plane {
y, 0
pigment { checker color LightGray color White } // checkered floor
}
// deze later spotlight maken
//light_source { <10, 10, -10> color White }
//light_source { <-10, 5, -15> color White }
light_source
{ <100, 200, -150>/50, 1
fade_distance 6 fade_power 2
area_light x*3, y*3, 12, 12 circular orient adaptive 0
}
light_source {
<3,7,-4> // position
color White
spotlight // specifies spotlight
radius 15 // cone opening from its axis in degrees. Light start to dim outside of this.
falloff 20 // outside of this, there is no light.
tightness 1 // over-all coherence of the light beam
point_at <0, 2, 0>
}
box
{ <0,-200,0>, <143,1100,33>
scale 0.001
texture {T_Wood4}
translate <0.42,-1,0.65>
rotate <-20,0,0>
}
#declare plank1 = box
{ <0,0,0>, <143,2200,33>
scale 0.001
texture {T_Wood4}
}
#declare size1 = union {
object { plank1 }
#declare xpos = 153;
#declare xpos1 = -10;
#declare ypos = 90;
#declare zpos = 16;
#declare xfinal = 1000;
#declare yfinal = 2200;
#declare zfinal = 1000;
#while (ypos <= yfinal)
#torus { 10,5 rotate<90,0,0> translate<xpos,ypos,zpos> texture {T_Chrome_4E} scale 0.001 }
#torus { 10,5 rotate<90,0,0> translate<xpos1,ypos,zpos> texture {T_Chrome_4E} scale 0.001 }
#declare ypos = ypos + 200;
#end
}
union {
object { size1
rotate <0,0,-20>
}
object { size1
rotate <0,180,20>
translate <1,0,0.033>
}
rotate <10,0,0>
}
Bryce
Bryce or Bryce3D, is a 3D modeling, rendering and animation program specialising in fractal landscapes.
More about the webcam controls https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/1998/10/23/made-a-webinterface-for-my-diy-webcam/
Poser
Poser (Pro) is a 3D computer graphics program optimized for the 3D modeling of human figures.
Blender
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software tool set used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D-printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and, formerly, video games. Blender’s features include 3D modelling, UV mapping, texturing, digital drawing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animation, match moving, rendering, motion graphics, video editing, and compositing. (Dutch developers started it in 1994)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)
Below here not really for art but graphical generators .
Others: Zbrush, Xara3D, Sketchup, OpenScad
Terrain Maker, Terragen
I made the double chanter in blender in this post
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2021/07/02/3d-printed-double-chanter-proof-of-concept/
Below my openscad version
difference(){
difference(){
difference(){
union(){
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 100, d1 = 16, d2 = 16, center = false);
translate([-12.5,0,0]){
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 70, d1 = 25, d2 = 25, center = false);
}
translate([12.5,0,0]){
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 70, d1 = 25, d2 = 25, center = false);
}
}
translate([-12.5,0,0]){
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 70, d1 = 17, d2 = 17, center = false);
}
translate([12.5,0,0]){
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 70, d1 = 17, d2 = 17, center = false);
}
}
translate([-12.5,0,65])
rotate([0,90,0])
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 20, d1 = 10, d2 = 10, center = false);
}
translate([0,0,70])
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 50, d1 = 12, d2 = 12, center = false);
}
translate([0,0,69]){
difference(){
union(){
translate([0,0,0])
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 5, d1 = 16, d2 = 16, center = false);
translate([-12.5,0,0])
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 5, d1 = 25, d2 = 25, center = false);
translate([12.5,0,0])
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 5, d1 = 25, d2 = 25, center = false);
}
translate([0,0,0])
cylinder($fn = 180, $fa = 12, $fs = 2, h = 5, d1 = 12, d2 = 12, center = false);
}
}
NSFW Galleries:
Things in movies that bug me
Will add more
I love movies, but somethings bug the hell out of me.
I often see movie mistakes, but when those mistakes are not too obvious, i can live with it.
Glasses being flat
They could have used glasses which are a little curved, so it isn’t too obviously flat.
But a better solution is :
The Wilhelm scream
I know it’s a running gag, but it’s not funny anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream
People not really tied up, or pinned down
I hate seeing people tied up badly in movies, so easy to escape. Sometimes the actor has to hold the rope in place to keep it from falling off.
Rope, zipties and chains. (I will add some examples)
In some older movies you can see straining on wrists or neck. So it was really secure and tight! (real)
American unrealistic events
Not talking about sci-fi or adventure movies.
Over the top movies. That’s why i like murder mysteries from Iceland, Scandinavia more than American.
There are many movies, in which the main character is the average joe, but he can fall off buildings, hit by cars, and run all day without getting tired. And escapes after that in the most improbable way.
Same category as Wilhelm Scream, the squeaky gate/door
We’ve been using the same sound in our student place 25 years ago.
I even recorded new and better examples for people to use.
Xfiles, sparatacus blood & sand, Supernatural, Shawshank Redemption, Reign of Fire, Final Destination, Quantum Leap, Fringe, etc etc
UPDATE: 20230716 The sound ..
My recording
Not consulting an expert
Movies about science, computers or even general laws of physics are more believable when asking an expert for advice to portray something.
Lights in diving masks/space helmets
Spaceships are alway the same orientation, on the same plane, when they meet.
There is no up / down whatever in space. Directors are always thinking of one plane.
Therefore you need to have at least 4 to be “surrounded” in space. 🙂
Not finishing drinks
Maybe i’m cheap. I won’t leave a glass untouched.
Hanging up on phone calls without saying anything like goodbye
Just rude.
People driving looking for minutes at the passenger, not looking at the road
Even worse, moving the steering wheel left right left .. even on a straight road.
Every 555 number has been used 100’s of times
All persons have a number in the range 555-0100 till 555-9999
Rain only being in the place of the actor.
The houses up the street are dry and in the sun
Generic stuff
- Daylight when needed is in full swing in 2 minutes.
- Hero’s are still looking at the end-battle scene when officials arrive
- Bomb are always in the last 10 seconds defused.
- Hero has to fight lots of people before ending up at the boss, who is stronger than all his minions!
- People destroying their phone to avoid tracking.
Take out simcard and destroy, take out battery and destroy then stamp on the phone and throw in the sea.
Take out the battery if possible, dunk in water else
Two minute timelapse of oyster mushrooms growing.
#!/bin/bash # capture images from Foscam ( 5 minute interval ) while true; do wget -q "http://IP-WEBCAM:88/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=adminuser&pwd=adminpass" -O $(date +%Y%m%d%H%M).jpg sleep 300 done # from jpg to mp4 ffmpeg -f image2 -r 24 -pattern_type glob -i '*.jpg' -vcodec libx264 -profile:v high444 -refs 16 -crf 0 -preset ultrafast -vf scale=1920:1080 paddo.mp4
If your ipcam can’t add timestamps, use below part to add text (replace in above script)
... ... wget -q "http://IP-WEBCAM:88/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=adminuser&pwd=adminpass" -O /tmp/1.jpg convert -fill white -pointsize 30 -draw "text 10,30 '$(date)'" /tmp/1.jpg $(date +%Y%m%d%H%M).jpg rm -f /tmp/1.jpg ... ...
Movie to txt in dutch
In the past i’ve converted some VHS movies speech to text, using all kinds of tools.
Lets use some opensource tools!
pip install moviepy pip install SpeechRecognition
Create a python script with the following:
(Called mine wav2txt.py)
import math, contextlib
import speech_recognition as sr
from moviepy.editor import AudioFileClip
movie_audio_file_name = "movieadiofile.wav"
with contextlib.closing(wave.open(movie_audio_file_name,'r')) as f:
frames = f.getnframes()
rate = f.getframerate()
duration = frames / float(rate)
total_duration = math.ceil(duration / 60)
r = sr.Recognizer()
for i in range(0, total_duration):
with sr.AudioFile(movie_audio_file_name) as source:
audio = r.record(source, offset=i*60, duration=60)
f = open("transcription.txt", "a")
f.write(r.recognize_google(audio, language="nl-NL"))
f.write(" ")
f.close()
Now convert a movie to wav using below.
ffmpeg -i /fileserver/path/koolhoven.mkv movieaudiofile.wav
run python3 wav2txt.py
output
(Note .. these are not timestamped for subtitles)
I only needed the things being said in the home movie recordings as text.
Ik zit hier in de film The James Dean aan de
wereld voorstelde en daarmee de tienerfilm ingeleverd introduceren zelden werden onrustige 10 asiel zo mooi blootgelegd als ik deze film van Nicolas bij en dat wordt dan meteen toevallig even de mooiste
titels ooit wel eens autocross vanavond kijken we naar de kom ik nog even veel zomer dat je voor het eerste meisje Zoem de eerste baantje
etc..
I admire people who excel at things they do
These are my lists, but i’m open for discussions/questions
Work in progress
Actors
- Tom Hanks
- John Lithgow
- Dennis Lee Hopper
- Jack Nicholson
- Clint Eastwood
- Dustin Hoffman
- Rutger Hauer (RIP) .. see “De kijk van Koolhoven” why
Art
- H.R. Giger
- M.C. Escher
- César Manrique
- Comics ( Details from André Franquin, Dark Humor Koen Hottentot, Don Lawrence, Don Martin ) to name a few, they are spot on
Classical Music
- Paganini
- Ludovico Einaudi
Composers
- Ennio Morricone
- Hans Zimmer
- John Williams ( with a remark )
Some of the Starwars Suite was taken from already existing music
( See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN3vl-JnUF8 ! )
Gustav Holst – The Planets Suite – Mars part for example
Folk/pipers (composers)
- Gordon Duncan (RIP)
- Fred Morrison
- RS MacDonald
- Paddy Keenan
A (bad) comic i drew about Gordon Duncan in 2012
Opera
Bands (non folk)
Rammstein – I know, seems like a obvious populair choice.
But hear me out.
I like classical till metal. But it has to be musically interesting.
Most (non-german) people don’t listen to the lyrics, i did not either.
I found the music okay. Then i started to listen to the lyrics.
The lyrics are surprisingly deep.
Layers in the text, word jokes like:
Du… (you)
Du hast… (you have, but sounds like hasst .. You hate)
Du hast mich… ( You have me, or sounds like you hate me)
Du hast mich…
Du hast mich gefragt… (You have asked me)
Although people think they are fascists or far-right. Coming from the punk scene, they are kind of the opposite.
Everything they do has a meaning, but sometimes you can “paste” different stories about the song.
Listen to Ohne Dich, and then see the Music Video.
Have a good listen to Germany, and Man gegen man.
There are others better in explaining .. see:
And a AI generated Music Video .. perfectly matching the Lyrics
Bonus:
Check out this YT channel, all kinds of musicians .. transcripted (is this a word?) by this dude.
Avond van de filmmuziek
After 3 times being cancelled due to Covid, it finally happened.
We got to get to the “Evening of the film music”
We held on to our tickets, as apparently 90% of the people!
We love film music, but it is a treat when there is a live orchestra.
(And special effects .. like a stuntman hanging from the roof, fire (not like Rammstein haha), and big displays)
If you get the chance .. go!
Wicked good musicians and singers.
Tania Kross was amazing!
Previous concerts we went to: Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. The star wars suite, and an evening with Hans ZImmer.
- Richard Strauss – “Also Sprach Zarathustra”
- The Cinematic Orchestra – “Arrival of the Birds” from Theory of Everything
- John Williams – “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
- Ennio Morricone – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Main title
- The Ecstasy of Gold
- Ennio Morricone – Once Upon a Time in the West
- Man with a Harmonica
- Once Upon a Time in the West
- Hans Zimmer – “Maestro” from The Holiday
- Thomas Newman – “The Night Window” from 1917
- Ludovico Einaudi – “Oltremare” from Nomadland
- Ludovico Einaudi – “Fly” from Intouchables
- John Williams – “Duel of the Fates” from Star Wars:The Phantom Menace
- John Williams – “Main Title” from Star Wars: A New Hope
Intermission
- Lalo Schifrin and Lorne Balfe – “Fallout” from Mission: Impossible – Fallout
- Alexandre Desplat – “The Shape of Water” from The Shape of Water
- Alan Silvestri – “Portals” from Avengers: Endgame
- Hans Zimmer, Elton John and Lebo M – The Lion King
- Circle of Life
- King of the Pride Rock
- Don Davis and Juno Reactor – “Navras” from The Matrix Revolutions
- Jerry Goldsmith – Theme from Basic Instinct
- 60 Years of James Bond
- James Bond Theme
- “No Time To Die” from No Time To Die
- “Skyfall” from Skyfall
- “A View to a Kill” from A View to a Kill
- “Goldfinger” from Goldfinger
- “Live and Let Die” from Live and Let Die
- John Williams – “The Raiders March” from Raiders of the Lost Ark (encore)
Streaming, recording, videocall and more
I use a bunch of different tools to create video’s or stream stuff.
Below is some info about those tools.
Software:
- Kdenlive – Linear video editor (Adding text, transitions, etc)
- VLC media player – For example to embed video in OBS
- OBS – Opensource Broadcast software, i use this also to record my screen – You can use this as a virtual webcam, so you can fool around with the image.
- Audacity – For editing audio
- QPrompt – Teleprompter
For OBS i made a shortcut/macro keyboard thingy. Based on an arduino pro mini. (Which can connect to a computer acting like a HID, for example a keyboard or mouse)
I use this one to emulate keystrokes which i’ve configured in OBS to do:
- Switch to scene 1
- Switch to scene 2
- Transition from scene to scene
- Start streaming
- Start recording
- Mute
- [empty] – sometimes used as “start virtual webcam”
- Slow transition
- Blank screen
- Display overlay text
(Originally i planned to do this with a Nextion Display)
Sometimes a Nikon on a tripod is better.
I don’t have a dedicated webcam for my battlestation. So i mainly use a Actioncam (4k) which can be connected via USB. Or i use a Nikon together with the Camlink.
So i record using my mobile, webcam, screen record
Edit using Audacity and Kdenlive.
When recording with OBS i use MP4 as a container, this is a no-brainer to embed in websites. Use mkv when recording long shots, or when connections can break. (A mp4 will be corrupted)
ffmpeg -i streamrecord.mkv -codec copy putinmp4container.mp4
I’ve played around with StreamFX which gives you some nice extra tools.
(There are loads of plugins to download)
Using websockets is on my todolist.
StreamFX example
Working on a blender animation.
Realtime screen grab, which gets 3D placed in a scene.