RSS Feeds
Gadgets
Hollywood Film Kit: Lights, Camera, Sit Alone at Your Computer
Posted by Mark Wilson at 1:10 AM on October 2, 2008
So things didn't work out with the screenplay. And that backlot audition turned out to be a backseat party for two. But don't give up your dreams so quickly! It's a known fact that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had to open mouth kiss for 5 seconds to get Good Will Hunting produced—in front of girls even! So pick up this Hollywood Film Kit and get back on the horse. The USB Spotlight will make your eyes sparkle as "producers" get a full look at your "talents" compliments of the simulated 35mm webcam and your AdultFriendFinder account. $US25. [iwantoneofthose via OhGizmo]
Some of you P2P fans may want to know about a new coalition called Arts + Labs. It may sound like some kind of open-source hippie think tank, but it's actually a powerful alignment of film and music copyright owners (NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America) and tech firms and ISPs (Microsoft, Cisco Systems and AT&T). It's a group that could put together a pretty serious anti-piracy system without much trouble. Saul Hansell at the NY Times says the group claims that "network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers." Hansell interprets this as a call to filter packets, and put the kibosh on any dubious transfers.
We were surprised to learn that one of the stars of Steve Carell's Get Smart is actually a Swiss Army knife, albeit one whose talents are slightly more impressive than your own trusty multi-tool. It's got your scissors, saw, magnifying glass and can opener, but how about a flame thrower that shoots six feet? Or a crossbow with stow-away bolts? Or a blowgun with its own fold-out sight? The crazy part is, even though this thing is a movie prop, the producers had to make it really work. We scored exclusive schematics of the knife itself, and caught up with prop-meister 
For me, the first "ooooh" moment when I got my first HDTV was watching SportsCenter...and I don't even watch sports. Never before had I seen such a crisp, vibrant image in my life. It didn't look real. It looked more than real.
Nestled in the hills above Hollywood is a glass house that boasts one of the coolest open-air home theaters I've ever seen. You can flop on one of the sofas and watch a movie on an enormous screen, one of the outer walls of the guesthouse of the Hagy Belzberg-designed Skyline residence. A couple more mouthwatering pics after the jump.
Hollywood wants ISPs such as Verizon to 
Appropriately, the DVD release of Live Free or Die Hard by Fox next week will come bundled with a copy of the film playable on a computer. 
A little birdy told us that last night, the 
The briefly ballyhooed iTunes movie rental store did sound a bit 
