Category Archives: Movies

Art, Movies, Music

I admire people who excel at things they do

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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
One of my comic collections – Don Martin

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.

https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgeCollier

Movies, Music, Pipes / Folk / Instruments

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)
Computer, Movies

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)

Mobile Phone holder, like a third hand

Sometimes a Nikon on a tripod is better.

Chromakey / Green screen
Portable version
Green screens .. loads of fun
Video grabbers

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.

A little OBS trick without green screen

StreamFX example

Working on a blender animation.
Realtime screen grab, which gets 3D placed in a scene.

Computer, Movies

Kdenlive and credit scroller

For a video project iḿ working on, i needed a vertical credit scroller.
I’ve put together a little howto.

Tools used:

  • OBS – Recording the howto
  • Kdenlive – generating the Credit scroller, and recording voiceover howto clip
  • Vlc

And this is the result

Movies

Movies and more.

We love movies, and watch anything.

I’ve posted about genres:
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2021/03/23/movie-genres/

And we are watching the whole top 250 of imdb.

Now i wanted to have a list of movies by Actor or Director.
So i could see if there are more movies i have to watch
So today i started to figure out how.

So i made a Google Sheet and scraped websites with the needed information.

  • Create a new sheet
  • Make a tab for top-dutch, actor or director
  • Do a search of things you want to display
  • A search of actor and filmography will probably work (imdb of wikipedia)
  • copy the url and make a note of which table it is, first second or more.
  • Paste in the sheet the following at A1
=IMPORTHTML("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutger_Hauer_filmography","table",1)

Where the last number (this case 1) is the number of table in the page.

Now you can color code those entries.

Movies, Photography

VR 360 180 3D

First tests with a Vuze Xr. (unedited unoptimized)

It can record 360 movies or take 360 degrees pictures.
Besides that it can do stereoscopic recording for using in VR glasses. (2D 180 tested in a oculus vr set)
In the past i made those 360 degrees pictures manually using Hugin for example. Also stereoscopic images, using two pictures.
But it was a lot of work, and most of the times the quality wasn’t worth it.

Another test i did recently was
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2022/01/02/ipcam-sphere-panorama/

Soon more

Art, Computer, Movies

Wanted to make a videowall for a video project

I’ve seen some commercial solutions, and some free blender solutions which where too complex or too much hassle.

I’m not paying anything when you can do it yourself for free.
And i wanted a easy to setup wall, using movieclips or pictures.

So below is a blender howto

Above also shows howto enable displaying keypresses for making howto movies and a plugin for distributing objects.

Little example using method above
Movies

English humour

One of my first encounters with English Humour was when my wonderful teacher Mrs Walraven rolled in the old VCR-on-cart when i was going to technical secondary school (MTS)

She showed us Monty Python, Faulty Towers and Black Adder. THIS is the humour i like, this is for me!

So from that point on i wanted to see English Humour.

There are standup comedians i like, Billy Connolly (seen him live), Eddie Izzard (seen him live), Michael McIntyre and Jimmy Carr (tickets!!!) to name a few.
Life stories, wierd confronting idea’s and realisations of things , Real life observations and Dark humour. (in that order)

Billy Connolly 2016

But i wanted to tell about TV shows (i try to place them in order):

Monty Python
One of the first things i saw, great stuff. Liked the movies also.

Black Adder
Loved the way it was the character Rowan Atkinson played got smarter every ‘season’, and Tony Robinson (Baldrick) was getting dumber.
The last ‘season’ WWI was when all things where exactly right.
(Yearly rewatch)

Not the nine o’clock news
This one i need to review

The Young Ones
A series that broke boundaries like Monty Python.
First time i notished the perfect duo, Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson

Fawlty Towers
To few episodes, but each a brilliant piece of work.
Superb characters! (Yearly rewatch)

Red dwarf
Great stuff, loved the characters. And the space setting

Mr Bean
Great (silent) performance of Rowan Atkinson.
Liked his One man show more i think.

Bottom
Then i learned about Bottom. It was the genius jokes and performances.
The 5 liveshows where even more amazing. (Yearly rewatch)
Also i have to mention the movie : Guest House Paradiso

So i went looking for more:

Filthy Rich & Catflap
Secret Policeman’s Ball (not really a TV series)

Then i came across a oldie …

At last the 1948 show
A predecessor of Monty Python with Marty Feldman

Do not adjust your set
Also with guys who did Monty Python later on.

Today i was in Uist on holiday in Scotland, talking about these show.
The B&B owner said “Do you know – Ripping Yarns???”
So that’s the next to find and view!

Others i have to mention:
Alas Smith and Jones
The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff
Allo allo


The location where the bench was from the intro of Bottom the TV series. Now a plaque is there, which reads: “Rik Mayall. 1958-2014. Punched his friend in the balls on a bench near this spot.”