Bloggin' On: Musings and Updates for January 11, 2020
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| Illustration Credit: Pixabaay |
Well, I received my Blu-ray of Kenneth Shapiro's 2013 award-winning documentary Great Voices Sing John Denver on Thursday; of course, I watched it as soon as I retrieved it from our mailbox and was pleased to see that the film includes entire performances by the 15 opera singers who participated in the creation of the eponymous tribute album produced by the late Milton Okun and Elisa Justice.
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| © 2013 Great Voices Film Company and CDK Productions |
All in all, I'd have given the Blu-ray a "five-star" review (metaphorically speaking, since I don't know how to make the graphics for "stars" on Blogger); the film itself is beautifully shot, edited, and presented, and I appreciate that the company that made the home version (CDK Productions, I imagine) provides English language subtitles in the main feature (the extra features do not have subtitles, though).
At best, though, the most stars I can give the Blu-ray (not the film itself) is four, and that is because I ran into some difficulties while playing Great Voices Sing John Denver on two different players.
Per my review of Great Voices Sing John Denver:
In one of our Blu-ray players - a Sony Blu-ray player connected to our house's Samsung 1080p high definition set and a home theater sound system - the Great Voices Sing John Denver plays well and without hiccups of any kind throughout the main feature. The images shot by cinematographer Matt Bass are always compelling to watch, and the sound recording by Josh Morton is both crystal clear and without flaws.
However, I had to resort to going to IMDb.com to look up the cast and crew of Great Voices Sing John Denver because once the main feature ends, the credits freeze when the list of producers comes on the screen. This happened the first time I played the disc, so I ejected the Blu-ray, examined it, noticed it had a fingerprint smudge (probably mine), and carefully cleaned it with a soft non-abrasive cloth. I put the disc back in the player, skipped to the credits, and lo and behold! It froze at that point again even though the disc was clean and had no smudges or scratches. I tried again earlier this morning - the disc's playing surface looks fine to the naked eye, but it still freezes at the same spot in the credits rollup.
In my other player, a Samsung Blu-ray player that's connected to my Samsung smart TV and a soundbar, the playback is, well, spotty. The sound and image are fine, but it tends to skip and even freeze at odd times. Maybe it's because I rarely use that TV/Blu-ray player combination, or maybe it's the HDMI cable acting up, but playback was not as good in this setup as it was in the main TV's.
I told my significant other, who is the one who is in charge of the household and usually handles such things as decorating and setting up of TVs and whatnot, and she said she'd look into the connections on my study's TV/Blu-ray setup. I am hoping that the issues with the Samsung Blu-ray player and the Great Voices Sing John Denver Blu-ray can be resolved by adjusting the cables in the back of the TV set.
I can still watch the film on "the main TV" in the "common room," of course, but there's still the issue with the credits roll. In any case, I have several options available to deal with the problem.
In Other News
Meanwhile, in New York City, my friend Juan Carlos Hernandez is making progress with Happy Days Are Here Again, our third collaboration as screenwriter (me) and actor-director (him). Over the past nine months we've made two short films; A Simple Ad (see video above), which is a drama that I wrote last March, and Clown 345, a comedy to which I contributed one-third of the story/script.
Juan reports (via text) that principal photography is complete and that now he is going around New York and shooting exterior scenes and establishing shots. Once that is done, then he and producer Adria K. Woomer-Hernandez will go on to "post," which is the editing, lighting-correcting, and mixing of the sound and score. This is the most difficult and time-consuming phase of making the movie, so I don't know when Happy Days Are Here Again will be uploaded to YouTube. Probably by February, but don't hold me to it.
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| © 2018 Alex Diaz-Granados and Amazon Publishing (CreateSpace) |
In other writing-related news, one of my Twitter followers bought my short story, Reunion, on Amazon last week and finally read it early this morning. Here's what she had to say:
Rainy mornings are perfect for reading! Just finished this short story by my friend
@Fardreamer
Pick it up on amazon!!
I was also pleased to see that my book's product page on Amazon now displays the "Top International Review," which is from the Amazon UK site that serves Great Britain. It was written by Meg Learner:
A lovely lyrical book and excellently written. It makes use of flashbacks, yet these are expertly woven into the story so that you always know where you are and how they contribute to the tale. This is quite a short read (I downloaded it to my Kindle and read it on my train journey) but it certainly packs a lot into the story and the idea is fresh and novel. I have not read a story like this before. It's not my normal type of reading material, as most of my reading these days is factual or business-related but I really enjoyed it and was sorry when it was finished.
The book basically makes the point that it is better to be sorry for sins of commission, rather than regret sins of omission, yet it also shows how the angst of high school and teen fears get in the way of true love. One point I would make - I would LOVE to see a sequel to this, written from Marty's point of view. PLEASE?
As you can imagine, I'm over the moon with happiness about the way things seem to be coming together as far as my writing career goes.
Well, Dear Reader, that's all the news that I have for you for now. So, until next time, I'll catch you on the sunny side of things!
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