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• Greatest turntable ever made?

  Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007 7:07AM / Members only

  Hmm... I'm not quite sure about whether this is of any interest to anyone. I'm only writing about it because it got me pretty excited.
  
  Two weeks ago I managed to get a record player in an auction, a BBC EMT 950. Apparently it's the greatest turntable ever made! Seems a bit strange to make such a claim, but I've been trawling the internet, and most people seem to agree. They were never made available to the public, they were used only for broadcast, usually by radio stations.
  
  
  
  This picture isn't my one, but it's exactly the same, more or less. It weighs 75 kilos, and took four of us to carry it. I wish I wasn't so obsessed with it, but it really is amazing. I don't know if it's easy enough to make out, but on the left there is a "groove indicator" which is a needle that tells you which groove of the record you are on. Under that is a digital counter, that you can use to cue up your records, using the built-in reverse gear. It stands on big metal legs, and is around hip-height, so you can lean on it, like you would a juke box. It was built in 1976, and still hasn't been bettered. Back then it cost 15,000 Deustche Marks. I don't know my exchange rates, and rate of inflation, but that works out as around twice the cost of my parents house at the time (I may well have miscalculated, but make no mistake, these were EXPENSIVE). It sounds amazing, and it's taken over my living room. I guess if the house gets broken into, they'll have a hard time stealing this behemoth. It's brought out the obsessive nerd in me that's always been pretty close to the surface, if not fully apparent to everyone.
  
  If this is the kind of waffle you like reading, you can read more about EMT turntables here:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMT_turntables
  

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• Toronto Film Festival etc.

  Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 9:33PM / Members only

  I've been back in London for about two weeks now. I feel pretty exhausted having been away in Australia, Hong Kong, back to Australia, back to Hong Kong and then off to Toronto for the film festival. The last three months have been full on. I've transferred the negative from the 24 Herbs shoot, that all looks really good, and I've started editing. I should have that finished really soon. Feels like we shot that a few months ago.
  
  The Toronto film festival was a lot of fun. I saw the new George Romero zombie film, "Diary of the Dead". We had to queue up at midnight for tickets, and we very nearly didn't get in. George Romero was there, with Dario Argento. George was really enthusiastic about the film, saying he thought it was much more personal, and seemed much more pleased with it than "Land of the Dead". He kind of went off on a mini-tirade against zombie films where the zombies moved fast ("How can they move so fast? they're dead, they'd snap their ankles!"), and made a point of saying that a good zombie film has a sub-text that reflects on contemporary life. I guess that's a fair enough point. The film was pretty good, but I did keep falling asleep with jet lag. There were hundreds of celebrities partying all over the place, I wasn't very good at recognising people, I thought Harvey Weinstein was Jessica Alba's bodyguard. He is a big man though, easy mistake to make.
  There was a fantastic French horror film called "Frontiere" that was a lot of fun. Some really great horrific situations, some very claustrophobic, and refreshingly different to most of the horror films that Hollywood seems to be churning out at the moment. I can't say I saw that much that really blew me away, but my brain was pretty fried with being so busy for the last few months, I didn't get to see as many films as I would've liked to.
  One of the things I love about film festivals is seeing movies I know I'll probably never get the chance to see anywhere else. This time the film was "Mid Road Gang", a Thai film about a gang of six stray dogs that get fed up of being chased by dog catchers and generally having to steal food and sleep rough. After the leader of the gang gets injured in a car accident, they decide to make the journey to the mythical "Dogtopia" where dogs are fed, treated with kindness, and sleep in proper beds! The whole film was made with real stray dogs, which they adopted and trained. Rather than use CGI to make their mouths move, they use voice overs. It works well, but it is a strange film, it made me laugh a bit too much perhaps. Check out the poster with the dog in a cart! What you can't tell from the poster is that the Poodle is wearing a bikini...
  
  
  

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• Phew...

  Wednesday, Sep 5, 2007 5:04PM / Members only

  Crazy. Just recovering today from the 24 Herbs shoot last night. I've shot handheld with a 35mm Arriflex 435 many times before, but these re-housed Russian Anamorphic lenses we were using were very, very heavy. The combination of the two has made a mess of my shoulder. I felt like I was floating on air once I put the camera down.
  The atmosphere was really fantastic, it was such a lot of fun to shoot. It was wonderful to see everyone pitching in to help. There was a lot of good energy on set.
  The film gets processed in the next week. I leave for the Toronto Film Festival tonight. The film gets couriered to me in London for the time I get back there. Then I'll Telecine and start editing. Hopefully we should have it all finished before October. I can't wait to see the Rushes. There were so many cameos in the video, it should be fun to spot them in the final edit.
  I'll try and post some screen grabs from the footage before the edit is finished.
  Thanks to everyone who made it all possible, Kim did an amazing job Producing, Dan F was super kind letting us have the bar all night. I love shooting in Hong Kong!
  

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• Welcome to my page!

  Tuesday, Aug 28, 2007 4:26PM / Members only

  Hello, I'm honored to be invited to join the alive not dead collective. Seems like there's a lot of very talented and inspiring people here. I haven't written a blog before, I'll try and keep it going.

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• welcome alex smith to alivenotdead!
  rottendoubt on 8/28/2007 5:43PM
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  MissScarlett

  posted on Saturday, Jan 3, 2009 8:55AM  [Report]

  Happy New Year!
  In 2009... May your days be many and your troubles be few. May all God's blessings descend upon you. May peace be within you may your heart be strong. May you find what you're seeking wherever you roam.
  ~ Kelly
• 
   vivo

  posted on Thursday, Dec 25, 2008 3:01PM  [Report]

  Hohoho~ Alex, Wishing You And Your Love Ones A Blessed & Joyous Christmas!
• 
  MissScarlett

  posted on Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 4:29AM  [Report]

  Hey Alex,
  Wishing you and yours the true blessings of the season...peace of mind, joy of heart and love all around.
  Merry CHRISTmas and may your New Year be filled with blessings beyond your imaginations.
• 
  meaymeay

  posted on Wednesday, Oct 1, 2008 9:43PM  [Report]

  Hi there, thanks for visiting my page! :)
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   torpedogang

  posted on Sunday, Sep 14, 2008 11:46AM  [Report]

  love the vid!
• 
   Etchy

  posted on Friday, Sep 12, 2008 7:53PM  [Report]

  great job on the video!
• 
  jugger

  posted on Tuesday, Sep 9, 2008 3:15PM  [Report]

  HI
• 
   Ryan Hui

  posted on Monday, Sep 1, 2008 11:46PM  [Report]

  It was great seeing you in London man! Thanks for the desert and taking us to the cool record shop. Take care!
• 
  Pirate0926

  posted on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 11:34AM  [Report]

  Wow,u have a winsome creatureo(∩_∩)o...
• 
  Pirate0926

  posted on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 11:34AM  [Report]

  Wow,u have a winsome creatureo(∩_∩)o...
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