District 9 is a breakthrough film on many levels.

Many of the aspects that elevates it as a work of cinema have been tried before. The mockumentary style. The manga battles. The incredible screen effects.

But never before has it been blended in this style, on such a raw African backdrop.

It was so real it made me homesick.

Most chilling, was Sharlto Copley’s debut performance as flawed hero, Wikus van de Merwe. He managed to perfectly bring to life that thin veneer of good intentioned warmth and humanity that thinly veiled the sheer evil of racism and xenophobia.

When his alien-like extremeties pierced through his skin, the metaphorical arc appeared, to complete itself in the closing scene of the film – on the scrapheap, the animal, now with the best of humanity within.

District 9 is more than cinema. It is art that constantly defies definition.

It permanently impacts the way you think about life.

It represents the extremes of Africa. The cradle of man, where the best and worst of our condition lives side by side in a constant everyday battle.

It deserves repeated viewings. And many accolades. Not just for fine craftsmanship in film, but also for the best kind of storytelling. The stories that define our age and our species.

Now, in the connected age, it is ever more true. News is a commodity and nobody wants to pay for it. Which is a problem, because to report news professionally costs money.

There is one way that a media title can transform to survive in the connected age.

Become a movement. Create a point-of-view. Follow a focus.

The rise of social media has proved again that people want to belong. They want to share. Media organisations should drop the pretence of objectivity, state their allegiance and congregate their followers. Develop and promote rockstar journalists. Sell merchandise. Convert their readers into followers. Give them a sense of tribe. Be honest about what they stand for.

Objectivity is not dead. It just never existed. Now, in order to survive, newspapers need to acknowledge that and turn it into profit.

I am going to assume that you have your CS4 installation discs at hand. I am going to assume that you did not use less than standard methods for obtaining your Adobe product. Because you are going to need a very particular file, on a very particular disc in the box to make it work. So if you fall into the pirate category, matey, you might have to just understand the principle and then figure it out for yourself. But then, you are that kind of person who can do that, right?

Step 1: Follow the steps to install the Canon software. You may choose the custom install, and only choose the Scangear installer. No photo-editing software Canon provides on their little disc is going to out-awesome Photoshop.

Step 2: Insert the disc labelled ‘Content’. Browse to [language:English] -> Goodies -> Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended -> Optional plug-ins -> Import-Export

Step 3: Drag the file ‘TWAIN.plugin’ into the following folder on your machine in the ‘Applications’: Adobe Photoshop CS4 -> Plug-ins -> Import-Export

Step 4: Restart Adobe Photoshop. Open File -> Import-Export.

The scanner will show up in there, as if by magic.

Enjoy.

Flash as a platform, of course, will never die. In fact it is proving to be a pretty nifty tool for delivering content.

But I’m thinking about those bubble-gum sites that are designed in that horrid 550pxx400 keyhole. Because iPhone doesn’t like them. And iPhone is proving to be a pretty big deal on the Web. Just look at this interesting little factoid that popped up on teh interwebs this week. That’s right, kids. Ever since the launch of the iPhone GS Youtube has seen a 400% a day spike in increased video uploads.

So the more people realise that their content is being accessed on the Jobsphone, the more they will veer away from Flash.

Every car, tuk-tuk, truck, bus or scooter – honking once every few seconds. A collective cacophony of horns rising from a buzzing swarm, each one, a feeble attempt from a vehicle to make his presence, location and track known to every other vehicle.

Of course the result is not so effective. Plenty of cars have plenty of dents. I personally, have been involved in two bashings and I don’t even come to India that often.

And it’s not just the professional drivers who do it. I’ve been driven by people who in the normal course of life and business can be considered to be quite sane, pleasant and normal. And if you ask why do you honk your horn every three seconds they reply: “I don’t know.”

And there, ladies and gentlemen, lies the most powerful metaphor of what is going on in today’s media landscape. Hundreds of thousands of brands, all crawling over the marketplace, each one honking its little horn in an effort to make itself known. Each one, contributing to the drone that is so unpleasant that it literally forces people to try and block their senses by taking such actions as investing in personal video recorders.

And if you really probe and analyse their strategies you’ll see the answer to why they honk is “I don’t know why.”

If you are not doing something that makes you sound different to everybody else, you are just contributing to the noise. And you run the risk of being run over.

A barber, a bald man and an absent-minded professor takes a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it’s the barber’s turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says “How stupid is that barber? He’s woken up the bald man instead of me.”

1. Always make sure there is film in camera
2. The crew is actually making your film. Respect them and they will
   respect you.
3. Friendship is irrelevant.
4. Beautiful pictures are shot on happy sets.
5. Always expect a fuck up.
6. Pay big bucks for a great DP but keep loads spare for a genius editor.
7. Storyboard 500 times before your shoot. But be prepared to change
   your mind every second.
8. The director is the invisible energy on the set.
9. The quality of the gear means less than the quality of the people.
10. Directing is having three more shots to do and six minutes of
    available light and being ready with an answer when the AD turns to
    you and asks: “what do you want to do, Guv?”*

* Number 10, if I remember correctly, was once dispensed by David Fincher. I paraphrased from memory.

Wonder what the effect would be if this had scary music on it?