LukeGeraghty.com
Life, one story at a time
Inception – The Dream World of New Cinema
Aug 6th
Inception is a myriad of tales: a heist caper; a story of love and loss; a journey through realms of fantasy and reality, the lines in-between blurred beyond belief. It is ambitious and, even better, it is successful.
The viewer is taken under the film’s spell from the opening scene, tumbling down the tiers of Nolan’s dream world and ending up in a limbo far removed from reality. When the film is over, you find yourself wondering, “What is real?”.
Unanswerable existential questions aside, the film is a total mindfuck; a heist film to see twice to both understand the story and appreciate the cinematography. The team behind the dream world of steel, brick and sand includes cinematographer Wally Pfister who, in an interview with Cinematical, said, his job was “50 percent technician and 50 percent artist”. One sees this balance in Inception, a movie that never forgets the little details yet remembers to push the boundaries – to dream “a little bigger”, as Eames would say. Here the dream world is realistic – not surreal – and the setting is a normal cityscape filled with glass and metal that can be manipulated and moulded at will. A city block can fold over onto itself and mirror doors can be moved to create never-ending reflections until the Architect becomes bored and shatters them. This dream world is an entirely modern affair.
So, too, is the balance of CGI and old-fashioned legwork. The hallway scene in which Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) fights in zero gravity was not created through use of a green screen – it was a spinning set with wires.
“All of those moments where it looks like I’m off-balance? That’s because I was off-balance. I was doing my best to keep my balance and fight this guy when the floor was becoming the wall and the ceiling was becoming the floor,” said Gordon-Levitt to MTV News.
Though certain action sequences are tedious (the snow fortress fight anybody?) and they never approach the realism found in other back to basics flicks i.e. the Bourne series, I think this level of realism would be inappropriate. Nolan sought to restrict the use of CGI, not to shun it altogether. The central theme of the movie is control and it appears this extends beyond the film to Nolan and his directorial style.
Few filmmakers tread this fine line as carefully as Nolan but a select few will surely be inspired by his work. Inception is that rare breed of 21st century film that makes use out of modern computer-generated imagery without abusing it – a new cinema where substance and style are in perfect harmony.
I just hope future CGI films can maintain this spinning top’s balance.
What Is Reddit, Who Is A Reddit User And How Do I Get On The Front Page?
Aug 3rd
Links on the front page of reddit are likely to generate thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hits. If that link is to your external website, you are going to benefit from increased exposure to your content and, if you are selling a product that fits the demographic, a noticeable increase in sales. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well…
This article will take you through:
- What is reddit?
- Who is a reddit user?
- Choosing an appropriate link.
- Choosing an appropriate title and subreddit.
- Hitting the front page and hitting it consistently.
- Reddit from a business perspective.
What is reddit and how does it work?
Reddit is a social news site where registered users can post links to outside content (images, videos, articles etc.) or internal, self-created content. This link can be up-voted by other users – which makes the post rise in rank to a maximum of number 1 on the front page (“what’s hot”) – or down-voted, causing it to sink to the place where Stallone movies go to die. It is also possible to comment on the link and this is where the denizens of reddit come out to play.
Getting to know the community: a typical reddit user
Likes: Atheism, Jon Stewart, Pokémon, cats, creativity, personal stories, breasts, philanthropy, Ron Paul.
Dislikes: Religion, FOX News, religion, Sarah Palin, blatant self promotion.
Traits: GSOH, smart, savvy, forgetful, geeky, kind, American, stubborn. Will pick you up when you’re feeling down or quickly make you regret posting that link to a TED video. Great at one-liners; not so great at recognising regurgitated content.
Choosing your link
So you have a rough idea of the community and how the site operates. Though the beauty of reddit is that you can post anything, the truth is that just “anything” won’t cut it. If you want to hit the front page, you must be brutal with your link and the content that it leads to. Posting duplicate content is unlikely to net you a front page position and whiny or negative posts usually get relegated to the Bog of Eternal Stench. A search on searchreddit.com will garner better results than those from the main site’s search engine.
Your best bet is fresh, topical content. Breaking news stories are a goldmine and any associated with the above likes/dislikes are a good start. Funny pictures or images that have not been posted previously are good and personal stories even better. If you want to sink a little lower, NSFW content can work, not surprising considering the predominantly male userbase.
For example, this organ donation post of mine was topical and quite specific, which may explain its success. Other times you can submit multiple news stories and have only one of them strike a chord, albeit a negative one in this instance.
Getting a link to your own website on the front page will be trickier but not impossible (more on this later on). Again, ensure the content is relevant to reddit and its community. A site trying to flog dustbins and Port-a-Loos is plunging straight down to SludgeVille but an insightful post from a programming blog could find success in the programming subreddit and, ultimately, on the front page.
Choosing your title and subreddit
Now you’re sure of the link/text, you are going to need to bring in the punters via a title. This is more important than anything else, as this is all a reddit user sees before deciding whether they want to click on a link or not. Don’t try and deceive people but do make it catchy and pertinent. If you are linking to something funny, try not to put the punchline in the title. Always tailor the wording to the type of post i.e. a hard-hitting story about a Moldovan orphanage may benefit from a plain title with the facts laid bare.
Also, make sure to post in a relevant subreddit. A subreddit is a sub-community within the main website focused on a specific topic i.e. politics, which focuses on US politics mainly. A viable strategy for hitting the front page is to post within a subreddit and have that link up-voted by the reddit users there. The effect of this is two-fold: 1) the link will rise in popularity within the subreddit, rising perhaps to the top; 2) the link will rise on the “what’s hot” listing which makes up the default content on the front page. Here lies the cycle of gathering steam, maintaining it and moving upwards to a better ranking.
Hitting the front page and hitting it consistently
To hit the front page you need a healthy amount of up-votes to down-votes (60/40, let’s say) and these votes need to be within a certain amount of time. It is difficult to explicitly state how many up-votes and in what amount of time because of factors such as the karma system.
Simply, there are two types of karma: comment and link. Comment karma goes up or down depending on up-votes and down-votes on your comments; link karma goes up and down depending on your links. There are, however, certain additional facets. For example, self-posts will not net you any karma and it is believed that an up-vote from a redditor with a huge stash of karma is worth more.
Although the karma system isn’t 100% transparent, a link posted by a redditor with a high amount of karma will probably start with an advantage. So amassing a healthy amount of karma is a worthy pursuit. It might help you hit the front page consistently.
Just be advised that it’s okay if your submission goes nowhere. It happens to all of us. I find that those who want to use reddit for self-promotion without giving anything back tend to be disappointed. Instead, add your link in hopes of starting a conversation; try to lend your expertise to discussions; and give back at least as much as you take.
Sideline: Reddit from a business perspective
- Trying to get traffic to earn revenue from your ads? Reddit will give you a low proportion of adclicks, especially if your advertising is not targeted to the typical reddit user. Remember also that many use ad blocking so they won’t even see your ad.
- Hard to leverage traffic.
- If you become a liked and respected member who gives back, people may well be interested in you and thus more likely to visit your site and buy your product.
Graphic Designs 2
Aug 1st
Ascension
Okay, so here’s a more abstract picture I came up with recently. I have no idea where these things come from. I put myself in front of a computer for a few hours and before you know it I’ve come up with a few morbid creations. Death…disease…all that good stuff is never far from my mind.
65_RedRoses
And here’s a little image I did in remembrance of Eva (aka 65_RedRoses). I spent the last few days going through her blog. What a fighter. She was often concerned with her legacy to the world and that is something that I think about too. People obsess about trivial matters and stress about unimportant bullshit when all that energy and time could be spent on causes that can make a difference.
