Daydreams of Stardom and Nightmares of Failure

Unknown and underpaid, the stuntmen of Bollywood risk life and limb to make it in the world’s biggest film industry.

Bollywood’s biggest blockbusters are often action-packed with death-defying scenes. But behind the big screen are the stunt men and women who risk life and limb to give these films the ultimate thrill.

With hardly any safety measures in place on set, many of these unknown and underpaid performers often end up injured – or worse. With no insurance, the tragic consequences of injury leave many penniless, disabled and unable to support themselves or their families.

Filming 'friendly' shark encounters from above - BBC News

 

Jason Iggleden films daily aerial shots of sea life - including Norman the grey nurse shark - to show how often 'friendly' shark encounters occur off Sydney’s Bondi Beach without people even realising.

Sound, Music, Noise

As soon as you hear threatening music or sound effects in a film, you know disaster is lurking, even if the onscreen images suggest nothing of the kind. Be they pure sound, music or even raw noise, acoustic events are powerful. "Brain Beats" visits researchers, musicians and other people who are particularly interested in sound. Our journey spans an arc from evolutionary research to the question as to the role the ear should play if mankind ever leaves the earth and sets off into outer space.

Why a cat always lands on its feet

Étienne-Jules Marey was a French scientist and inventor who analyzed how things moved. He developed a way to photograph multiple stages of movement onto a single glass plate, a technique called chronophotography. Later, when Kodak introduced celluloid film, Marey swapped the glass plate for a roll of film that moved in between exposures. This technique formed the basis of cinematography, and it’s how he recorded the stages of a cat righting itself in midair. He published his findings in Nature and demonstrated how the cat splits its body in two and uses the inertia of its own body weight to spin around.

Why the Victorian mansion is a horror icon

Haunted houses are often depicted with similar features: decaying woodwork, steep angles, and Gothic-looking towers and turrets. The model for this trope is the Victorian mansion, once a symbol of affluence and taste during the Gilded Age - a period of American history marked by political corruption and severe income inequality. After World War I, these houses were seen as extravagant and antiquated, and were abandoned. Their sinister relationship to the troubling end of the Victorian Era in America eventually led to their depiction as haunted and ghostly in both fine art and pop culture, and is now an unspoken symbol of dread.

China bans Winnie the Pooh film after comparisons to President Xi

He's El Presidente for life and probably believes himself to be a god and he's losing his fecal matter because people are comparing him to a fictional children's character.  It's a good thing he doesn't look like Donald Trump.  People would be calling him the Orange Froot Loop, Cheeto Jesus, Mr, Tang Body Wash or Corporal Bone Spurs.  Find a sense of humor, I'm sure they're available cheap,

 Who’s afraid of Winnie the Pooh? The Chinese government, apparently.

Chinese censors have banned the release of Christopher Robin, a new film adaptation of AA Milne’s beloved story about Winnie the Pooh, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The Winnie the Pooh character has become a lighthearted way for people across China to mock their president, Xi Jinping, but it seems the government doesn’t find the joke very funny.

Sudan's Forgotten Films

Two elderly men in Sudan race to save the national film archive, as reels of rare footage disintegrate in its vaults.

Benjamin and Awad run Sudan's national film archive. The two men, who have worked together for more than 40 years, are devoted to protecting their country's visual memories.

Home to some 13,000 films, the archive preserves pivotal moments of Sudan's turbulent history and is one of the largest in Africa. 

But the archive is in a fragile state. Following years of neglect and poor storage, many film reels are turning to dust in Sudan's unforgiving tropical climate.

White House Does Propaganda For Kim-Jong un

Reporters were shown a video ahead of Donald Trump's press conference in Singapore, which the US president said he had played it to Kim Jong-un and his aides toward the end of their talks. It was made by Destiny Productions and was presented in Korean and English in the style of an action movie trailer

This Is A Drone's View Of Sakura In Tokyo

Tokyo-based filmmaker Yasunori Iwamoto has traveled as far as New Guinea in plying his craft, but this project took place closer to home. Over the past decade or so, the Megurogawa River, especially the stretch that flows right by Nakameguro Station, has become one of Tokyo’s most popular spots for cherry blossom viewing (called “hanami” in Japanese). With 800 cherry blossom trees straddling a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) section of the river, the twin tunnels of pink flowers are interrupted only by the occasional cross street.

China; How To Stifle Dissent In Hong Kong

When Hong Kong returned to Chinese control in 1997 it was done under an agreement which allowed the city to continue to exercise the rights granted it under the British.  Over the last five years the people of Hong Kong have felt these rights slipping away as Beijing imposed its will in the form of censorship and refusing to relinquish its right to choose the cities government.  An independent film released last year has given the people of Hong Kong a lesson in power, control, political pressure and self censorship.

Ten Years – the terrifying vision of Hong Kong that Beijing wants obscured

A dystopian independent film has played to packed houses but after Chinese criticism it has disappeared from public screens

It has been hailed as one of the best films to come out of Hong Kong in decades, playing to packed houses and picking up nominations for two major Asian awards.

But if you want to see the independent production Ten Years the only places are private showings advertised through Facebook.

As Beijing steps up its crackdown on political dissent, the film’s disappearance has left some moviegoers scratching their heads and wondering whether the long hand of the mainland authorities may be responsible.

The timing of attacks from the mainland and the content of Ten Years appears to bear this out.

The film is a dystopian narrative composed of five short stories in which Hong Kong has been totally taken over by China to the point that neither the language, Cantonese, nor local agricultural products can be freely used.

Want To Be In The Movie Business? Please See Isaac Nabwana In Kampala

People dream of being involved in the movie business. Some even make their own low budget films and then there's Isaac Nabwana an Ugandan filmmaker whose films, as he put have no budget.  That hasn't stopped him from making films or attacking people from outside Uganda to track him down and become involved in the process.  You may end up being eaten by cannibals in one of his films but no one kind denai that you've been on the big screen.  

Isaac Nabwana, a self-taught film-maker, has killed off more than 20 white actors at his makeshift studio in Wakaliga in Kampala over the past six months. Western fans of the director’s Tarantino-style productions have come seeking a slice of the action – and ended up taking part.

“All of them die,” Mr Nabwana says. “It’s Wakaliga versus the rest of the world.”

Tucked away in a courtyard at the end of a dirt track, “Wakaliwood” is tricky to find. The entrance to the tiny studio is behind a clothes line, and the helicopter, a feature of so many Ramon Production films, lies idle under a tarpaulin.

It is here that Mr Nabwana, 43, has assembled a motley collection of actors, craftsmen and technicians to make films for anywhere between $2 and $200 a production. “I don’t even call it low-budget,” he laughs. “We have no budget.”