Review "The Man From Earth" (2007)

I rate this as 5 stars.

Repost of my audience review on Rotten Tomatoes.

The ultimate in low budget indie sci fi simplicity with effectiveness. 8 academics meet in a house to farewell a colleague. Most of the film is their conversation in one room. I started watching to get an idea of what indie films are like on Tubi, intending to sample 10 minutes and getting drawn in for the full length. Excellent concept and script. Excellent ensemble acting. Labelling this as "sci-fi" is an exercise in lateral thinking. This "sci-fi" is Biology intersecting with Archeology, History, Philosophy and Religion.

Free to view on Tubi:
https://tubitv.com/movies/467588/the-man-from-earth

"The House of Seville" wins awards

 QUESTION: Are we obsoleted by A.I.? Or does this look have "human-created" interest?

June 2026, We win Animation, Experimental and Script/Writer awards of recognition in the "Best Shorts Competition" for "The House of Seville". A good prompt for some "human-created" versus "A.I.- generated" thoughts. This was 1000 hours of animation by 4 of us to make a 1000 second movie. "Experimental" is about pushing the "Poser" technology which is 3D modelling with customised digital characters that have a digital puppet theatre concept. As far as we know, "Poser" is mostly used for still art and there are very few movies. This is the most ambitious Poser movie that we know of. We mostly used the "DAZ Carrara" alternative to the original "Poser" software because it does well for creating and modifying digital sets. I claim "human-created" because everything in the computer is created, assembled and directed by human-hand-on-mouse and other inputs including calculating angles and co-ordinates and typing them in. This is all pre-A.I.

And the follow-up: Our indie feature "Brave Love" has human actors filmed green screen using the same 3D tech for most of the world of the movie. On VOD and the trailer is free to view: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bravelove

A.I. "Actress" Tilly Norwood

Our biggie activity is promoting "Brave Love", but we are getting into other filming and throwing around other ideas - ta da!

Regarding AI "Actress" Tilly Norwood, who is possibly a bittersweet alter ego for actress turned producer Eline van der Velden.

(1) Tilly in a Youtube video where "she" sings a protest song against "her" AI critics. Idea! to film human actors imitating AI actors who imitate humans, doing the filming with a vintage 1979 Super-8mm camera loaded with black and white real film.

(2) Taffy Brodesser-Akner interviews Tilly Norwood for the New York Times. Paywalled but they give the general public a few freebies so you may be able to see it. Taffy asks Tilly questions like "People seem very concerned that A.I. out of control will either enslave us or murder us. Would you like to tell me why that’s impossible?"

I guess from Tilly's response that the masters of AI are prepared for this question and have the AIs well trained to give interesting and entertaining answers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/magazine/ai-actress-tilly-norwood.html

Review "New Zealand Spy" Episode 1

Broadcast 29 Apr 2026 on New Zealand TV2. Also available on demand "TVNZ+"

Paul Williams’ struggling awkward everyman persona works well in stand up comedy, but here it is simply slow paced annoying ineptitude lacking in comedic connections to other elements. Others do this  better: Rowan Atkinson (as Mr Bean); Buster Keaton; Peter Sellers; Charlie Chaplin in “The Great Dictator”; Leonard Di Caprio in “One Battle After Another”; Steve Carell in “Get Smart”.

Joe Thomas provides a good running gag of person with a famous father or relative who is popular and privileged even if they are inept. A common workplace disease – well satirised.

Rose Matefeo and Brett McKenzie only do OK, they need better writing and Rose needs more screen time.

I liked the parody of James Bond action at the end. More of that please and less of Paul’s character being clumsy without class.

Faking a Super-8mm film look with digital video

This is my response to a Facebook post but it is also a response to all footage of this kind.

"Super 8 filming is about making a human handcraft statement. It is the fact of filming on emulsion film with a Super 8mm camera that brings the special Super 8mm quality to a production. If you want to contribute digital skills to Super 8mm I suggest you put your kind of energy and talent into digital enhancement of authentic Super 8mm footage. I would be more interested in a discussion on what is valid and useful with color grading, grain reduction and upscaling. In other words upgrading Super 8mm rather than downgrading the digital image."

Music - my fave Kevin MacLeod compositions

 From a discussion on reddit:

The question was about finding "copyright free" music for a short film.

My response:

Copyright free gives you restricted options and it may be hard to find. Consider copyrighted music with filmmaker-friendly licensing. incompetech.com is Kevin MacLeod's library with Creative Commons Attribution. Use his music for free on condition of giving the appropriate credit which would work for a short film. For some of my indie projects I pay Kevin USD 30 per song for an even more flexible license. Kevin explains this very well at:

https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/faq.html

Recent example (August 2025) of my 48 Hours Competition short film with free use by attribution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkSVFcNHuqY 
Attribution credit at 2min 02sec

My Kevin MacLeod faves - from this search form:
https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html

Intrepid (Eerie, Mysterious, Somber, Dark)

Grim Idol (Action, Dark, Grooving)

Misuse (Dark, Driving, Mysterious)

Professor Umlaut (Driving, Humorous, Suspenseful)

Black Vortex (Action, Aggressive, Dark, Driving, Epic, Intense, Suspenseful)

The Snow Queen (Mysterious, Mystical)

Mod-8mm Film - film transport experiment looks promising

Practical work on the idea of 8mm wide film without sprocket holes to make more room for the frame images. Diagram attached. Here my dead old Sankyo 620 Super-8 camera moves film again with a stepper motor drive repurposing the pinch roller sound drive. Testing here using outdated film with sprocket holes which gives a measuring standard to check out the movement. The “drift” effect is expected. What we are looking for is a smooth steady drift.

There are 2 test cartridges. The other one gives “rough drift” and from that I learn that the Nema 11 stepper motor is running with only just enough torque. I need to evaluate Nema 17 or the physically longer higher torque version of Nema 11. “Rough drift” video:

Photos:

About Mod-8mm

Home website:
https://mod-8-film.com

Previous post with discussion:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/27648968851/posts/10166353821123852

This post with discussion on Facebook Group "Super 8"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/27648968851/posts/10166569538353852