Response 6

I was disappointed I couldn’t attend more of the True/False Film Festival events, but I was glad I got a chance to see one of the films. Saturday morning, I dragged my roommate downtown to see Echoes of Home, about traditional yodeling in the Swiss Alps (screen capture courtesy of Truefalse.org, above). The film mostly revolved around the world of experimental music, following three very different musicians in Switzerland. I love music, and while this isn’t necessarily the type of music I would listen to or performances I would go see (as the brother of one of the film’s subjects said, I wouldn’t go see him perform more than once), I thought the film's topic was completely fascinating, if bordering on the bizarre. I think it’s interesting how the landscape and surroundings of people can influence cultural things like music. One of the subjects near the beginning of the film said that he thought he would sing differently if lived in the desert.

I also got a chance to attend the Adobe seminar. The Adobe expert focused on film editing software, such as Adobe After Effects, but it still proved to be an informative session. Plus, I was excited to get a nice Adobe pen, notebook and a month trial of the Adobe Production Premium package. So I now have an additional month of Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver and Illustrator CS3 to help relieve my urges to buy the CS3 Design Premium package.

Last week, I also attended a session of the POYi judging. The magazine category they were judging had 34 entries which quickly went down to about 6, some of the best entries being cut out because of qualification rules. The judges seemed to be focused on picking a winner that covered an atypical subject and that did it well. The judges had different perceptions of some of the work submitted and whether it was overdone. One judge seemed especially convinced about one submission, but it seemed unfair to me because she mentioned how she had seen the photo essay online before and knew all of the back-story. I wished they had talked more about what they were seeing and why they were making the choices they made. Unfortunately I had to leave before they chose the runner-up.