Top Second Weeks ALL TIME

The top second weeks in the history of Hindi film industry in terms of nett collections are listed below.

1. Three Idiots (2009) - 56.84 crore

2. Dabangg (2010) - 35.97 crore

3. Ready (2011) - 32.68 crore

4. Golmaal 3 (2010) - 31.92 crore

5. Don 2* (2011) - 27.17 crore

6. Ghajini (2008) - 26.50 crore

7. Singham (2011) - 24.95 crore

8. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) - 24.56 crore

9. Raajneeti (2010) - 23.92 crore

10. Om Shanti Om (2007) - 22.18 crore

11. Dhoom 2 (2006) - 21.07 crore

12. Bodyguard (2011) - 20.55 crore

13. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) - 19.53 crore

14. Welcome (2007) - 19.44 crore

15. Jaane Tu... Yan Jaane Na (2008) - 18.34 crore

16. Partner (2007) - 18.30 crore

17. My Name Is Khan (2010) - 17.55 crore

18. The Dirty Picture* (2011) - 17.49 crore

19. Krissh (2006) - 17.48 crore

20. Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009) - 17.37 crore

21. Wanted (2009) - 17.33 crore

22. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (2011) - 16.59 crore

23. Love Aaj Kal (2009) - 16.39 crore

24. Chak De India (2007) - 16.31 crore

25. Singh Is Kinng (2008) - 16.12 crore

26. Rockstar (2011) - 15.85 crore

27. Ra.One* (2011) - 15.29 crore

28. Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006) - 15.08 crore

29. Race (2008) - 14.89 crore

30. Yamla Pagla Deewana (2011) - 14.73 crore

Film industry awaits direction

David Cameron’s visit to Pinewood studios this week to promote British film has cast him in the role of both hero and villain. His comments on the future shape of the industry polarised opinion among film makers.
The prime minister, striding around studio sets and surrounded by anxious-looking industry representatives, said public funding of film production should be rebalanced towards mainstream commercial movies.
Ken Loach, the acclaimed British director of the Palme d’Or winner The Wind that Shakes the Barley, called the remarks a “travesty” and accused Mr Cameron of leaking his own government’s review of policy on the film industry, due to be published on Monday.
Commercial success was “hard to predict”, Mr Loach said, arguing that film makers were not entrepreneurs and measured themselves by creativity and originality.
“David Cameron has made a mistake. He has dived into the pool but doesn’t understand the water,” said Rebecca O’Brien, an independent film producer at Sixteen Films, the company set up by Mr Loach.
“He has hijacked this review with a sound bite and demeaned what is a complex report that has been worked on long and hard.”
The review by Lord Smith, the former Labour culture secretary, is expected to recommend that profits made from films be returned to production companies for reinvestment, as opposed to the original funding bodies.
Lottery funding used to be apportioned by the now-defunct UK Film Council but the money was considered a loan and was expected to be repaid from the film’s income.
Andrew Eaton, film producer behind A Mighty Heart and Junkhearts, said: “If you have kids and you give them pocket money, at some point you have to get them to take responsibility for it. The same applies here, otherwise the industry cannot mature into a grown-up business.”
The question of how to nurture UK film has taxed successive British governments. Should the industry, which straddles the commercial and cultural worlds, be subsidised for its artistic value or be left to commercial ­producers?
Film making contributes more than £4.2bn a year to the economy and more than £1.2bn to the exchequer, according to a report by Oxford Economics.
The UK has notched up some notable box office successes in recent years, including Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech.
“I would be supportive of anything that does more to encourage UK producers to think about mainstream commercial success. Film is a global business with a worldwide audience. UK producers have to up their game,” said James Clayton, chief executive of Ingenious Media, which specialises in film finance.
“I argue that making commercial films is less risky than making art house films. Take the film St Trinians 2: it cost the same as a Mike Leigh movie, roughly £5m. The key point is making films for the right price.”
But a Financial Times review of 10 years of UK Film Council annual accounts shows that many of the so-called “mainstream” production companies that received significant public funding had fairly poor product ­performance.
Ecosse Films, which produced Wuthering Heights and Brideshead Revisited, was awarded a total of £6.2m in Lottery funding between 2001 and 2010 but recouped just £2.4m, or 39 per cent.
Number 9 Films, producers of Made in Dagenham and Intermission, recouped only £1.5m, or 21 per cent, of the £7.2m it was rewarded; Ruby Films, which produced Chatroom and Tamara Drew, was awarded £4.1m but recouped a mere 8 per cent, or £348,184. These figures involve Lottery awards from the Film Council, which was axed last year as part of the government’s “bonfire of the quangos”, and exclude regional or other grants.
Film producers are hopeful that Monday’s report will provide relief for the sector. But one person familiar with Lord Smith’s review said it was unlikely to tackle the need to give film companies incentives to become more international – by shooting more movies in Europe, for example.
The film tax regime, introduced in 2007, largely restricts relief to money spent in the UK by British production companies. It was not extended for UK actors or crew working abroad.
“As an industry we are still immature about running our business ... Every year people go to to Cannes and get drunk. It’s like an immature office outing. But we are getting better and more consistent, as seen this past year with our successes, “ said Mr Eaton.

3d Video Production London UK

3D Experience filmed their first experimental 3D Video Pop Promo in the winter of 1985. This was captured & edited on VHS tape using a pair of low resolution security cameras, using a simple slide bar mount. 25 years and 3 government grants later, 3D Experience were demonstrating to a select audience, two 3D theatre technologies, where viewers did not need 3D glasses at all. On the 3rd January 2008, 3DE showed that it was possible for 3DHD to be captured economically with their 3D rigs, transmitted via 1 HD Channel and viewed at home on an inexpensive 3D Ready TV – nearly 2 years later Satellite and Cable Channels are following.

Along the way, 25 3D cinemas have been fitted with 3D Experience polarized 3D systems in Spain, the USA, the Czech Republic and the UK. These have been supplied with 3D Experience produced movies such as Battle For Treasure Castle, SeaSpace 2000, Living In VR and more recently, The Witch Way, a fully animated 3D movie in High Definition using 3DE’s fully interactive software 3D camera rig. Besides the entertainment sector, 3D Experience manufacture 3D capture & viewing technology for the military, medicine and space sectors and over two decade in the business, have built up an impressive client list.

The Company’s 3D knowledge base is vast and they will usually find a solution for even the most challenging technical problem. Equipment for hire and for sale range from miniature stereo camera mounts to 300mm rigs for steadycam or un-manned aircraft. Their popular larger pro-mounts are being used for 3D feature films and were used for the BBC’s rugby 3D trials and even Channel 4 used a Pro-mount for recording Her Majesty the Queen.

3D Experience’s revolutionary 3D CamBuddy Dual-view monitor, essential, in the alignment of stereo cameras, has matured from a low powered 4:3 ratio monitor to the ever popular 16:9 version. Two further models are in development - a 1,000 lumen Hi resolution sunlight readable version and a Pro 2D/3D version. These, being part of the ever growing treasure trove of know-how, skills, techniques and patents of future capture & display 3D technology products.
 

Aretha Franklin announces engagement

The 69-year-old soul legend and Grammy award-winner said she was hoping to marry over the summer.
She told AP that she and Mr Wilkerson were considering Miami Beach, Florida, as a possible location, followed by a reception on a private yacht.
Franklin, whose latest album is called Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love, has been married twice before.
"We're looking at June or July for our date, and no, I'm not pregnant, LOL!," she said in a statement.
The singer returned to performing in May last year after being admitted to hospital for an undisclosed ailment.

Aretha Franklin has become engaged to her long-term friend William "Willie" Wilkerson.

St Trinian's cartoonist Ronald Searle dies

David Sillito looks back at Ronald Searle's career. Courtesy of the estate of the artist and the Sayle Literary Agency.British cartoonist Ronald Searle, best known for creating the fictional girls' school St Trinian's, has died aged 91.

His daughter Kate Searle said in a statement that he "passed away peacefully in his sleep" in a hospital in France.

Searle's spindly cartoons of the naughty schoolgirls first appeared in 1941, before the idea was adapted for film.

The first movie version, The Belles of St Trinian's, was released in 1954.

Joyce Grenfell and George Cole starred in the film, along with Alastair Sim, who appeared in drag as headmistress Millicent Fritton.

Searle also provided illustrations the Molesworth series, written by Geoffrey Willans.

The gothic, line-drawn cartoons breathed life into the gruesome pupils of St Custard's school, in particular the outspoken, but functionally-illiterate Nigel Molesworth "the goriller of 3B".

Searle's work regularly appeared in magazines and newspapers, including Punch and The New Yorker.

'Unabashed ambition'

Aside from his schoolday stories, he was a savage satirist, and some of his darker material was informed by his time as a prisoner of war during World War II.
There, he worked on the infamous "Railway of Death" - a Japanese project to create a rail link between Thailand and Burma, the construction of which led to the death of more than 100,000 labourers, including 16,000 Allied prisoners.

Some of the work he created whilst being held captive is displayed at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe paid tribute to Searle, whom he described as his "hero".

He said: "He was clever and he was funny and he could draw. A lot of cartoonists come up with an idea first but Ronald could really draw."

However, he added that Searle's most famous creations were a "millstone around his neck".

He told the BBC: "He created St Trinian's, which we all loved, and he despised it because he couldn't get away from it and of course he did many, many other things."

Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell said Searle's work stood out for its "genuine wit, intelligence and unabashed ambition".

Anita O'Brien, curator at the Cartoon Museum, said Searle was "absolutely unique".

She added: "He really was one of the most important cartoonists, not just in Britain, but in the rest of the world.

"Many people were influenced by his work. He did so many things, he was so versatile, so talented, so prolific. He will be incredibly missed and there was no one else like him."

Chris Beetles, who held several exhibitions of Searle's work at his gallery, said: "He had become the yardstick by which all those professionals in his trade judged themselves, and his witty draughtsmanship was the standard to which they aspired.

"Over my 40-year collecting and art dealing lifetime, I have never encountered a cartoonist with his consistency of drawing ability, and such an inventive range of humour from burlesque to surrealism."

'Comic anarchism'

Across his career, Searle won a number of awards, including prizes from America's National Cartoonists' Society and France's prestigious Legion d'Honneur in 2007.
But St Trinian's was his most enduring work - spawning five films between 1954 and 1980.

After a 27-year hiatus, the series was revived in 2007, with Rupert Everett in the headmistress role.

The movie also starred Talulah Riley, Jodie Whittaker and Gemma Arterton, making her film debut.

A sequel, St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold, was released two years later.

Simon Winder, from Penguin the company that published St Trinian's said: "We are all extremely sad to hear of Ronald's death. He was a marvellous, remarkable man and a great artist.

"I can think of nobody who did more to ridicule and undermine 1950s Britain and St Trinian's and Molesworth will endure forever as masterpieces of comic anarchism."

A full statement from Searle's family read as follows: "Ronald William Fordham Searle, born 3 March 1920, passed away peacefully in his sleep, after a short illness, with his children, Kate and John, and his grandson, Daniel, beside him, on 30 December 2011 in Draguignan, France.

"He requested a private cremation with no fuss and no flowers."

Moving on Up: Pixar-inspired house sells for $400,000

The property in the Salt Lake City suburb of Herriman in Utah was modelled on the appearance of the colourful home where Carl and Ellie Fredricksen live out most of their lives in the animated film, and has been designated the "official" Up house by Pixar and Disney. It was built by designer Adam Bangerter and features every possible detail from the movie, including a blue kitchen complete with retro fridge, microwave and oven.

The new owners are Clinton and Lynette Hamblin of Petaluma, California, who had long searched for a home similar to the one in the film. When they heard that the Herriman house was for sale they travelled to view it and were surprised to find the price tag lower than many of the homes they had been looking at in their home state. "We just love the message of the movie – adventure is out there," Lynette told the Salt Lake Tribune. The couple will move in on her birthday, 4 January, next year.

The Up house has been a boon to tourism in Herriman, where civic leaders have even honoured it with a special resolution. More than 45,000 people have toured the property, including another California couple, Lisa and Geoff, who posted this extensive photoshoot of the interior and exterior online.

In Up, we first see the house as Carl and Ellie arrive as optimistic newlyweds. Later, they build a nursery (which also exists in the "real" Up home – see the pics in the link above) but are disappointed when Ellie is unable to become pregnant. Many years later, after Ellie dies, Carl lives in the house as a curmudgeonly loner, but he achieves a new lease of life with the help of a perky "wilderness explorer", Russell, and several thousand helium-filled balloons, which transport the pair and the house to the wilds of South America for the kind of adventure Ellie would have cherished.

Bangerter told the Associated Press earlier this year: "[The house] illustrates what home ownership really is, and it's not an investment. It's part of the American dream to have a house to care for, to improve and to make part of your family."

Archiwum brytyjskiego WWW: UK Web Archive

Zbudowane przez Brewstera Kahle archiwum Webu w zasobach Internet Archive to chyba najbardziej znany projekt zabezpieczający historyczne wersje stron internetowych i innych obiektów dostępnych w usłudze WWW. Warto zwrócić uwagę na inne internetowe archiwum, mające już nie – jak w przypadku Internet Archive – globalny – ale regionalny charakter i pozwalające przeszukiwać zgromadzone zasoby w dość ciekawy sposób. Tym archiwum jest budowane przez British Library UK Web Archive.
Jakie zasoby są tam gromadzone?

UK Web Archive zawiera strony internetowe publikujące wyniki badań, oddające zróżnicowanie stylu życia, zainteresowań i aktywności mieszkańców Wielkiej Brytanii, prezentuje też internetowe innowacje. Obejmuje ono także strony mające status szarej literatury (grey literature): takie, które udostępniają sprawozdania, raporty, oświadczenia polityczne i inne efemeryczne, ale posiadające znaczenie postaci informacji.

Wykorzystanie tu pojęcia szarej literatury jest dość istotne. Dr Helena Dryzek z Politechniki Warszawskiej proponuje kilka definicji szarej literatury oraz informuje o istnieniu specjalnego systemu gromadzącego od 2001 roku opisy dokumentów trudno dostępnych i niekonwencjonalnych, takich jak: sprawozdania i raporty z badań naukowych, materiały konferencyjne, dokumentacja techniczna, promocyjna i reklamowa, tłumaczenia niepublikowane, normy i zalecenia techniczne, niektóre dokumenty urzędowe itp. W zasobie archiwum znajdziemy także blogi o bardzo szerokim zakresie tematów: od politycznych i technologicznych aż po osobiste.
Tylko w ciągu ostatniego miesiąca w UK Web Archive zarchiwizowano ponad 9 tys. stron internetowych oraz zebrano nowe wersje ponad 38 tys. stron. Łączna objętość tych danych to 9.67 terabajtów. Archiwizacja stron WWW odbywa się zawsze za zezwoleniem ich właścicieli – oznacza to konieczność bezpośredniego z nimi kontaktu i uzyskiwania zgody (chyba, że treść stron publikowana jest na licencji Creative Commons). Chociaż British Library uzyskała prawną podstawę do gromadzenia zasobów cyfrowych (Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003) – jak czytamy na stronie UK Web Archive – konieczne są kolejne regulacje pozwalające na automatyczne budowanie historycznych kolekcji WWW.
W serwisie archiwum skorzystać można z dość interesującego narzędzia. UK Web Archive N-gram Search pozwalającego przeszukiwać treść wszystkich zgromadzonych zasobów i wizualizować częstotliwość występowania słów kluczowych na osi czasu. UK Web Archive udostępnia też możliwość pełnotekstowego przeszukiwania bazy zgromadzonych zasobów