50 years ago at the Olivetti Sales School in Berkeley Square I learnt concept of valued adding and which Sky TV has developed to an exceptional level in order to maintain market share as Virgin and the BBC and other cable networks attempt to compete with the giant that has made sportsmen and a few sports women into international celebrities on a par with the cinema idols of my childhood, and with the accompanying wealth and media attention.
When I commenced with Sky sports the initial premium was £3 and now it is the subscription maker although Virgin with offering free ESPN is putting up a good fight. In fairness it is Sky which has poured billions into football and more recently cricket, showing Test series around the world and more recently with the one day and 20 20 competitions and where ESPN and ITV has joined in the latter.
Politicians have moaned at the absence of Tests matches from terrestrial and main channel TV as well as Premiership Football. At present the World Cup, the European Cup and the FA CUP are available to Terrestrial and Freeview. The Olympic Games is the major event of Terrestrial TV every 4 years and Formula One which has been switching between the ITV and the BBC. The BBC also has the Wimbledon fortnight.
The Boat Race, The Derby and the Grand National, Golf with the Ryder Cup and the British Open, Darts and Snooker, Cycling with the Tour de France and GB, Athletics and the Grand Prix events, Rugby Union and League and American Football, Basketball and Baseball have all gravitated towards cable and Satellite with the BBC trying hard to maintain its role as the Premier broadcaster, but losing out repeatedly to Sky.
Sky’s first solution on reaching a plateau in sales was to produce a system where it is possible to record shows in the box and to pause a current show and other extras which required the price of a new box, and a set up fee. n came High Definition with anther new box, set up fee and subscription. I have an HD ready large screen TV, not the biggest domestic screen on the market but one which dominates my lounging work room and where I am yet to see the difference between the screen quality and HD. I also have so far been unable to get the BBC and ITV HD channel on my Freeview built decoder with the TV set
The TV is a marvel in that I can switch between terrestrial and Freeview on the opening screen, then go to Sky on the second and presumably a cable channel or other digital TV system with another channel for Tape and DVD/CD playing and one for attaching PC where I have mastered using the lap top to transfer SKY, BBC ITV and other channels players. The recent bonus is Sky catch up on some features.
Now this autumn there is to be 3D showings of sport, entertainment and film, but a special TV is required with the sets in production for purchasing coinciding with the new system. There will also be enlarged lap top type gaming computers which will revolutionise lives, but at a price.
I have mixed reactions to the latest 3D development. I have had only three experiences to-date. The first was journey to the centre of the Earth, the Jules Verne story, where I saw the latest production in 3D at the 02 Dome. It was a significant improvement over the hand held cardboard glasses with red and green lenses and a good example of value adding to the product, as in addition to a higher ticket price to pay for the 3D process and its development there was an additional fee to hire the glasses. I thought the new process excellent but noted that the screen size was significantly reduced and that there appeared to be a distortion of the human figure when in movement.
The reduced screen size was eliminated a year later for the viewing of Avatar which also boasted there latest improvements in computer generated technology in which real actors perform the physical movement of the characters against the blue screen wearing electronics which maps out their movements. I thought the combination of the latest CGI with 3D interesting, especial where the process is used to bring out from the screen into the audience in addition to the 3D depth within the screen. I did not think the film merited major awards in terms of story and the overall impact.
I was interested in seeing the latest film version of the Alice in Wonderland story created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the name of Lewis Carroll 1832 1898. The book as never been out of print since its first appearance in mid Victorian England (1865) and has been translated into over a hundred languages. A feature of the original manuscripts of Alice’s adventures Underground, changed to Wonderland for publication, and the Sequel, Through the Looking Glass were the illustrations and several special educations to include original drawings followed by various artists bringing their own interpretation tot he story. Scholars have also attempted to give meaning to the contents, line by line. An original edition was sold in 1998 for $1.54 million, the highest for a work intended for children until a limited edition of a Harry Potter book sold for £1.95million $3.9 million.
The first film, a silent one was made in 1903 followed in 1931, 1933 and 1949, followed by Walt Disney in 1951. Jonathan Miller produced a BBC TV production in 1966 followed by a musical film in 1972. In 1986 the BBC created a 4 episode serial with a whole variety of special editions ranging from a Sesame Street Special in 2008 to a pornographic edition in 1976 and an erotic lesbian anime movie in 1995.The reason why the latter two are mentioned is because question has been asked was the author of the work a paedophile?
Dodgson was a distinguished mathematician who became a lecturer at Christ Church Oxford for close on 30 years, having graduated at the university after Rugby school. Brought up in the household of a clergyman, Dodgson also trained for the priesthood and in his diaries he expressed concern about his worthiness and a preoccupation with sin and guilt, describing himself as vile. I single man in his late twenties and early thirties he became attached to the wife and three daughters of the dean of Christchurch and it was on one of their long river boating trips on 4th of June 1962 that he outlined to the girls a story about Alice Underground, which he worked to become the Alice which almost every literate child reads or is told today.
While a single man spending his leisure time with unrelated children would be the cause of speculation today it was significantly less so over a century ago and one also thinks of the relationship of J M Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and the sons of the Llewellyn Davies family who he spent much time with. However what has led to justifiable questioning of the character of Dodgson is that it is established that he undertook nude and semi nude photographs of female children which he and his defenders argue was not uncommon at the time and reflected his artistic interest in the human form. It is also argued that far from being interested only in children in his life and the writings in his diary reveal that he had a strong heterosexual interest in the adult female, single and married and after the publishing success of the Alice books he became a close friend of the notorious free lovers and thinkers of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. The issue may have been settled one way or the other in the four of the thirteen volume of diaries which have disappeared together with a few pages torn from another.
Knowing something of the background but having read the Alice books several decades ago, I was interested in seeing how Tim Burton approached the Alice story, especially having cast Johnny Depp as the Mad hatter and giving him the lead role alongside Alice.
The two books cover toughly the same period in which a pre puberty girl finds herself in a strange world of creatures in which the human beings resemble playing cards in one and chess pieces in the second. There is no overall story but a series of bizarre experiences in which appear what has become legendry characters, The Mad Hatter. The March Hare and the Dormouse, Tweddledee and Tweedledum, The White Rabbit, The Dodo and the Cheshire Cat, The Walrus and the Carpenter, Humpty Dumpty, The Mock Turtle, The Lion and the Unicorn, The King Queen and Knave of Hearts, The White Queen and the Jabberwocky.
The film 2010 film begins with Alice as a young woman pressurised into accepting the offer of marriage from an aristocratic wimp and rushing away to avoid having to turn him down at a staged family event before a large number of guests. She falls down a large hole in the ground after encountering a large White Rabbit.
The film then faithfully follows the first chapter of Alice Underground in that she discovers the doorway into the enchanted garden and drinks from the bottle, Drink me , to shrink in size only to leave the key on the table, and then eats too much of the cake, Eat Me, making herself into a giant, so she has to drink again from the bottle with the key in hand to exit into the garden and the wonderland. Most of he next five chapters are omitted especially the Pool of Tears and Caucus Race and the Duchess. However we do met the Caterpillar smoking the hookah pipe and the Cheshire Cat before meeting the Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, with the March Hare and Dormouse at the Tea Party.
I was struck that in his endeavour to create a story with a plot beginning to end Tim Burton has borrowed from the Wizard of Oz with the Red and White queens, sisters, replacing the White and Wicked witches, and the Mad Hatter and other characters replacing the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow.
Immediately upon her arrival there is a great debate among the characters if Alice is the Alice who appeared in Wonderland in the past, thus suggesting the opportunity for the film makers to make a prequel in the future, covering aspects of the adventures in the original books not covered in this film. The reason they want to know is that they are shortly to have Frabjous day on which according to an ancient prophetic scroll Alice looking like Joan of Arc, special sword in hand, slays the Jabberwocky, a fearsome creature with aerial power, and controlled by the Red Queen who has taken power away from her sister, the White Queen.
Among the first to hear the possibility that Alice has returned, the Red Queen who sends the Knave of hearts to capture her using a bloodhound who works for the Queen under protest as she has his family as hostages. Fortunately when they arrive at the Hatter’s tea party, he knows the bloodhound who does not reveal the presence of Alice. Later when the Hatter is captured Alice decides to rescue him and the Bloodhound from the palace of the Red Queen where the special sword is kept and guarded by the ferocious Bandersnatch who is even more aggressive than usual because he has lost an eye taken by the dormouse in an action which had a mother sitting close by horrified while the children appeared to take the incident in their stride as when Alice has to walk on large dead stepping stone heads to cross the river to get to the castle like palace.
Inside the Palace Alice is nearly discovered when she eats too much of the cake and grows bigger than the Queen, but manages to pass herself off as Um from Umbridge as the Queen is playing Croquet using the head of a Flamingo. Because of the various changes in size Alice is always getting in and out of clothes and growing into a giant again the Queen orders use of curtain to make an appropriate dress
The Hatter also talks his way out of execution by designing a variety of hats for the queen. They make their escape to the White Queen which leads to a confrontation with the Red Queen who produces the Jabberwocky as her champion. Alice who has taken the special sword with the help of the Bandersnatch remains reluctant to take the role as champion. She has been ambivalent about her role from the outset. In a flashback to her childhood, she remembers having recurring nightmares of an Underland and of her father’s advice in which he tells her to pinch herself whenever she is frightened by her dreams. However this time she cannot wake herself up and reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the only way out is to taken on the fear inspiring Jabberwocky.
The full forces of the Red Queen come to the White Queen and they form battle lines on a giant chess board. Finally comes as Joan of Arc look a like and has a heroine battle after which she has to drink the blood of her conquest to return to her present time, as a consequence adventures Underground she rejects the marriage proposal and approaches her former guardian and friend of her father to join father’s former business which he manages. She decides to go off on a mission to China to extend the business following in father’s adventuring footsteps, thus proving for an opportunity film covering this aspect, although how the Underworld characters can be reintroduced remains to be experienced.
Alice is well played by Mia Wasilowska in a character the opposite of how Victorian young women were required to behave. Jonny Depp is outstanding as a soulful man destined to be alone whose clothes and appearance changes throughout the film to match his intense emotional moods. Helena Bonham Carter is the Red Queen with Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Michael Sheen, the White Rabbit, Alan Rickman is ideal as the Cheshire Car, Timothy Small plays the bloodhound, Barbara Windsor is the Dormouse Tim Piggot Smith as the Guardian owner of the firm, Geraldine James as his wife, Lindsay Duncan as Alice‘s dependent mother, Francis de La Tour as the delusional aunt, Michael Gough as the Dodo, Imelda Staunton as the Tall Flowers and Christopher Lee as the Jabberwocky.
I saw the film on a Saturday evening at 5,15 and the house was full. The approach of the Odeon was to restrict bookings to the Premier Sears , about 40 of the 240 or so available. I was advised to arrive half an hour before the performance and already there was a queue of around fifty people. The queue had reached outside he cinema before we were allowed to rush for seats of choice. This meant that those with families, the majority, had plenty of time to be pressurised for popcorn, drinks, ices and such like which meant that most families were spending £50 on the visit without going for a meal after.
Clearly the 3D film has become the weekend family outing competing with the teenage domination of the past decade. I was overwhelmed by the half dozen previews of CGI 3D family films coming over successive weeks, including new 3D versions of past favourites. The emphasis in the trailers was on 3D trickery as things flashed straight at you into the auditorium. This did enable a rapid adjustment to the format. Sky used he opportunity to show what 3D football and ballet will be like and I cannot wait for the cricket. However this will further affect the inclination to meet the cost and limitations of the live performance, with the exception of sitting in the sun for a few pounds watching championship cricket, meeting spectators and visiting other cricket ground.
And what of the film given the history of films, the books and the author? I continue to find some of the 3D effect unnecessary and overwhelming and similar to being in a strobe lighted dance hall or rock concert at maximum blast without any slow or quiet numbers. I also wondered about the impact upon the children who were as young as five or six. I was taken to the cinema at least twice a week from the age of six or seven seeing films where children were only allowed with an accompanying adult, the A picture, yet it was sometime the graded C film which had the most disturbing influence, The Wizard of Oz being one but also the A film with Margaret Lockwood, the Wicked Lady and a film in which a number of people became hunted and which I have not seen since. On arrival to get tickets I overheard a family leaving an early showing and the children agreed with their father that the opening was great but it sagged in the middle. My impression is that it will have been considered a good time but only one of many with not outstanding. Whether it will lead to some turning to the original books I suspect only a few. Both books can be read on line through the Gutenberg project.
When I commenced with Sky sports the initial premium was £3 and now it is the subscription maker although Virgin with offering free ESPN is putting up a good fight. In fairness it is Sky which has poured billions into football and more recently cricket, showing Test series around the world and more recently with the one day and 20 20 competitions and where ESPN and ITV has joined in the latter.
Politicians have moaned at the absence of Tests matches from terrestrial and main channel TV as well as Premiership Football. At present the World Cup, the European Cup and the FA CUP are available to Terrestrial and Freeview. The Olympic Games is the major event of Terrestrial TV every 4 years and Formula One which has been switching between the ITV and the BBC. The BBC also has the Wimbledon fortnight.
The Boat Race, The Derby and the Grand National, Golf with the Ryder Cup and the British Open, Darts and Snooker, Cycling with the Tour de France and GB, Athletics and the Grand Prix events, Rugby Union and League and American Football, Basketball and Baseball have all gravitated towards cable and Satellite with the BBC trying hard to maintain its role as the Premier broadcaster, but losing out repeatedly to Sky.
Sky’s first solution on reaching a plateau in sales was to produce a system where it is possible to record shows in the box and to pause a current show and other extras which required the price of a new box, and a set up fee. n came High Definition with anther new box, set up fee and subscription. I have an HD ready large screen TV, not the biggest domestic screen on the market but one which dominates my lounging work room and where I am yet to see the difference between the screen quality and HD. I also have so far been unable to get the BBC and ITV HD channel on my Freeview built decoder with the TV set
The TV is a marvel in that I can switch between terrestrial and Freeview on the opening screen, then go to Sky on the second and presumably a cable channel or other digital TV system with another channel for Tape and DVD/CD playing and one for attaching PC where I have mastered using the lap top to transfer SKY, BBC ITV and other channels players. The recent bonus is Sky catch up on some features.
Now this autumn there is to be 3D showings of sport, entertainment and film, but a special TV is required with the sets in production for purchasing coinciding with the new system. There will also be enlarged lap top type gaming computers which will revolutionise lives, but at a price.
I have mixed reactions to the latest 3D development. I have had only three experiences to-date. The first was journey to the centre of the Earth, the Jules Verne story, where I saw the latest production in 3D at the 02 Dome. It was a significant improvement over the hand held cardboard glasses with red and green lenses and a good example of value adding to the product, as in addition to a higher ticket price to pay for the 3D process and its development there was an additional fee to hire the glasses. I thought the new process excellent but noted that the screen size was significantly reduced and that there appeared to be a distortion of the human figure when in movement.
The reduced screen size was eliminated a year later for the viewing of Avatar which also boasted there latest improvements in computer generated technology in which real actors perform the physical movement of the characters against the blue screen wearing electronics which maps out their movements. I thought the combination of the latest CGI with 3D interesting, especial where the process is used to bring out from the screen into the audience in addition to the 3D depth within the screen. I did not think the film merited major awards in terms of story and the overall impact.
I was interested in seeing the latest film version of the Alice in Wonderland story created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the name of Lewis Carroll 1832 1898. The book as never been out of print since its first appearance in mid Victorian England (1865) and has been translated into over a hundred languages. A feature of the original manuscripts of Alice’s adventures Underground, changed to Wonderland for publication, and the Sequel, Through the Looking Glass were the illustrations and several special educations to include original drawings followed by various artists bringing their own interpretation tot he story. Scholars have also attempted to give meaning to the contents, line by line. An original edition was sold in 1998 for $1.54 million, the highest for a work intended for children until a limited edition of a Harry Potter book sold for £1.95million $3.9 million.
The first film, a silent one was made in 1903 followed in 1931, 1933 and 1949, followed by Walt Disney in 1951. Jonathan Miller produced a BBC TV production in 1966 followed by a musical film in 1972. In 1986 the BBC created a 4 episode serial with a whole variety of special editions ranging from a Sesame Street Special in 2008 to a pornographic edition in 1976 and an erotic lesbian anime movie in 1995.The reason why the latter two are mentioned is because question has been asked was the author of the work a paedophile?
Dodgson was a distinguished mathematician who became a lecturer at Christ Church Oxford for close on 30 years, having graduated at the university after Rugby school. Brought up in the household of a clergyman, Dodgson also trained for the priesthood and in his diaries he expressed concern about his worthiness and a preoccupation with sin and guilt, describing himself as vile. I single man in his late twenties and early thirties he became attached to the wife and three daughters of the dean of Christchurch and it was on one of their long river boating trips on 4th of June 1962 that he outlined to the girls a story about Alice Underground, which he worked to become the Alice which almost every literate child reads or is told today.
While a single man spending his leisure time with unrelated children would be the cause of speculation today it was significantly less so over a century ago and one also thinks of the relationship of J M Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and the sons of the Llewellyn Davies family who he spent much time with. However what has led to justifiable questioning of the character of Dodgson is that it is established that he undertook nude and semi nude photographs of female children which he and his defenders argue was not uncommon at the time and reflected his artistic interest in the human form. It is also argued that far from being interested only in children in his life and the writings in his diary reveal that he had a strong heterosexual interest in the adult female, single and married and after the publishing success of the Alice books he became a close friend of the notorious free lovers and thinkers of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. The issue may have been settled one way or the other in the four of the thirteen volume of diaries which have disappeared together with a few pages torn from another.
Knowing something of the background but having read the Alice books several decades ago, I was interested in seeing how Tim Burton approached the Alice story, especially having cast Johnny Depp as the Mad hatter and giving him the lead role alongside Alice.
The two books cover toughly the same period in which a pre puberty girl finds herself in a strange world of creatures in which the human beings resemble playing cards in one and chess pieces in the second. There is no overall story but a series of bizarre experiences in which appear what has become legendry characters, The Mad Hatter. The March Hare and the Dormouse, Tweddledee and Tweedledum, The White Rabbit, The Dodo and the Cheshire Cat, The Walrus and the Carpenter, Humpty Dumpty, The Mock Turtle, The Lion and the Unicorn, The King Queen and Knave of Hearts, The White Queen and the Jabberwocky.
The film 2010 film begins with Alice as a young woman pressurised into accepting the offer of marriage from an aristocratic wimp and rushing away to avoid having to turn him down at a staged family event before a large number of guests. She falls down a large hole in the ground after encountering a large White Rabbit.
The film then faithfully follows the first chapter of Alice Underground in that she discovers the doorway into the enchanted garden and drinks from the bottle, Drink me , to shrink in size only to leave the key on the table, and then eats too much of the cake, Eat Me, making herself into a giant, so she has to drink again from the bottle with the key in hand to exit into the garden and the wonderland. Most of he next five chapters are omitted especially the Pool of Tears and Caucus Race and the Duchess. However we do met the Caterpillar smoking the hookah pipe and the Cheshire Cat before meeting the Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp, with the March Hare and Dormouse at the Tea Party.
I was struck that in his endeavour to create a story with a plot beginning to end Tim Burton has borrowed from the Wizard of Oz with the Red and White queens, sisters, replacing the White and Wicked witches, and the Mad Hatter and other characters replacing the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow.
Immediately upon her arrival there is a great debate among the characters if Alice is the Alice who appeared in Wonderland in the past, thus suggesting the opportunity for the film makers to make a prequel in the future, covering aspects of the adventures in the original books not covered in this film. The reason they want to know is that they are shortly to have Frabjous day on which according to an ancient prophetic scroll Alice looking like Joan of Arc, special sword in hand, slays the Jabberwocky, a fearsome creature with aerial power, and controlled by the Red Queen who has taken power away from her sister, the White Queen.
Among the first to hear the possibility that Alice has returned, the Red Queen who sends the Knave of hearts to capture her using a bloodhound who works for the Queen under protest as she has his family as hostages. Fortunately when they arrive at the Hatter’s tea party, he knows the bloodhound who does not reveal the presence of Alice. Later when the Hatter is captured Alice decides to rescue him and the Bloodhound from the palace of the Red Queen where the special sword is kept and guarded by the ferocious Bandersnatch who is even more aggressive than usual because he has lost an eye taken by the dormouse in an action which had a mother sitting close by horrified while the children appeared to take the incident in their stride as when Alice has to walk on large dead stepping stone heads to cross the river to get to the castle like palace.
Inside the Palace Alice is nearly discovered when she eats too much of the cake and grows bigger than the Queen, but manages to pass herself off as Um from Umbridge as the Queen is playing Croquet using the head of a Flamingo. Because of the various changes in size Alice is always getting in and out of clothes and growing into a giant again the Queen orders use of curtain to make an appropriate dress
The Hatter also talks his way out of execution by designing a variety of hats for the queen. They make their escape to the White Queen which leads to a confrontation with the Red Queen who produces the Jabberwocky as her champion. Alice who has taken the special sword with the help of the Bandersnatch remains reluctant to take the role as champion. She has been ambivalent about her role from the outset. In a flashback to her childhood, she remembers having recurring nightmares of an Underland and of her father’s advice in which he tells her to pinch herself whenever she is frightened by her dreams. However this time she cannot wake herself up and reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the only way out is to taken on the fear inspiring Jabberwocky.
The full forces of the Red Queen come to the White Queen and they form battle lines on a giant chess board. Finally comes as Joan of Arc look a like and has a heroine battle after which she has to drink the blood of her conquest to return to her present time, as a consequence adventures Underground she rejects the marriage proposal and approaches her former guardian and friend of her father to join father’s former business which he manages. She decides to go off on a mission to China to extend the business following in father’s adventuring footsteps, thus proving for an opportunity film covering this aspect, although how the Underworld characters can be reintroduced remains to be experienced.
Alice is well played by Mia Wasilowska in a character the opposite of how Victorian young women were required to behave. Jonny Depp is outstanding as a soulful man destined to be alone whose clothes and appearance changes throughout the film to match his intense emotional moods. Helena Bonham Carter is the Red Queen with Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Michael Sheen, the White Rabbit, Alan Rickman is ideal as the Cheshire Car, Timothy Small plays the bloodhound, Barbara Windsor is the Dormouse Tim Piggot Smith as the Guardian owner of the firm, Geraldine James as his wife, Lindsay Duncan as Alice‘s dependent mother, Francis de La Tour as the delusional aunt, Michael Gough as the Dodo, Imelda Staunton as the Tall Flowers and Christopher Lee as the Jabberwocky.
I saw the film on a Saturday evening at 5,15 and the house was full. The approach of the Odeon was to restrict bookings to the Premier Sears , about 40 of the 240 or so available. I was advised to arrive half an hour before the performance and already there was a queue of around fifty people. The queue had reached outside he cinema before we were allowed to rush for seats of choice. This meant that those with families, the majority, had plenty of time to be pressurised for popcorn, drinks, ices and such like which meant that most families were spending £50 on the visit without going for a meal after.
Clearly the 3D film has become the weekend family outing competing with the teenage domination of the past decade. I was overwhelmed by the half dozen previews of CGI 3D family films coming over successive weeks, including new 3D versions of past favourites. The emphasis in the trailers was on 3D trickery as things flashed straight at you into the auditorium. This did enable a rapid adjustment to the format. Sky used he opportunity to show what 3D football and ballet will be like and I cannot wait for the cricket. However this will further affect the inclination to meet the cost and limitations of the live performance, with the exception of sitting in the sun for a few pounds watching championship cricket, meeting spectators and visiting other cricket ground.
And what of the film given the history of films, the books and the author? I continue to find some of the 3D effect unnecessary and overwhelming and similar to being in a strobe lighted dance hall or rock concert at maximum blast without any slow or quiet numbers. I also wondered about the impact upon the children who were as young as five or six. I was taken to the cinema at least twice a week from the age of six or seven seeing films where children were only allowed with an accompanying adult, the A picture, yet it was sometime the graded C film which had the most disturbing influence, The Wizard of Oz being one but also the A film with Margaret Lockwood, the Wicked Lady and a film in which a number of people became hunted and which I have not seen since. On arrival to get tickets I overheard a family leaving an early showing and the children agreed with their father that the opening was great but it sagged in the middle. My impression is that it will have been considered a good time but only one of many with not outstanding. Whether it will lead to some turning to the original books I suspect only a few. Both books can be read on line through the Gutenberg project.
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