• I always love developers showing their working, and none more so than Valve. Here are ten dense minutes on the teleportation mechanics in Half-Life: Alyx. I like this because you're not just seeing some opinions; they're showing glimpses of the research and testing that informed those opinions, as well as early prototypes, coupled with being a studio with some really deep time invested in VR; it's fascinating seeing them come to their conclusions. Also, as ever, I love seeing how bit a role sound is in presence.

Peter Hoving on 16mm film

11 September 2019

I loved this ~45m documentary from Peter Hoving on shooting 16mm on a wind-up Bolex.

It delicately combines a technical overview of the Bolex camera (and, later, the editing process and sound sync systems)… with a look back at Hoving’s own first films from the sixties on it, the story of a life shooting moving images, a brief glimpse into social history of America.

All at a delicate, leisurely pace, with time for the images to breathe. No rushed cuts, no heavy edits; quite a lot of Milt Jackson on the soundtrack. Practically no attention paid to the conventions of the Youtube era.

Just a gentle, thoughtful film about making moving images.

  • Nice interview with Tim, largely on _Infinite Detail_, for which there are some spoilers. And I liked this, on how important sound is to the book, and why:

    " It comes from a bunch of places. Mainly wanting to always write a book that addressed the science fictionality of Black electronic music. And to me it’s impossible to separate the music I’m writing about – and love – from the heard environment, the two are entwined."