Archive for September, 2006

Philosophy of Open Source

Wednesday, September 13th, 2006

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to explain the philosophy behind Open Source. It will first examine the definition of the term, then reveal its history, and finally, explore how the philosophy is affecting all areas of society – not just the information technology world. At the end of this document is a bibliography, allowing you to continue to research this fascinating, and increasing more significant topic, if you wish.


So, what exactly is Open Source?

Although, as suggested in the introduction, open source philosophies can be applied to all areas of society, when first learning about this topic it is probably easiest to think about it in terms of computer software. Chances are – although in the future this may no longer be the case – you are viewing this website using a personal computer running an operating system such as Microsoft’s Windows or Apple’s Mac OS. Both are examples of proprietary systems. By proprietary, I mean to say that all the code hidden behind the software (the ones and zeros) are not accessible by people outside of the company that owns it. For most major commercial companies (such as Adobe and Sony), their software’s source code is considered to be a trade secret, and access to this code by third parties would normally mean that one would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and other legally binding papers (Source: Wikipedia 2006). So, simply put, your average computer programmer simply does not have the ability to modify propriety software in its entirety without permission from the owner.

For example, Microsoft does not allow anyone to view the guts of its Windows operating system, but instead gives programmers the ability to use API calls that allowing them to access specific portions of the proprietary code and make use of them; however no modification can take place (Source: Moylan 2006). This means that a programmer can get the job done and Microsoft continues to have complete control over their creation. On the face of it, everyone wins. However it does limit the programmer’s creativity, and makes his or her life a lot harder.

Open Source software on the other hand, upholds the belief that the source code of software should be available to anyone to easily view, alter, enhance and re-distribute any portion of that code without paying for it (Source: Moylan 2006). For example, with an Open Source operating system, such as Linux, if you decide you don’t like the way the system handles something and you have a programming background, you can modify any aspect of the computer software to suit your own personal needs. If you don’t like the way a button looks, or the way a menu opens – then feel free to tweak the code. You can add, edit, and destroy to your hearts content.

Still confused? Steve Weber, in his book ‘The Success of Open Source’ uses a simple analogy to Coca-Cola to explain the difference between open source and proprietary products. He explains that when you purchase a can of Coke, you are allowed to drink it, and you are also given a generic and vague list of ingredients on the side of the can. But Cola-Cola do not tell you the specifics – they don’t give you the complete recipe. Their secret formula is exactly that, secret – locked in a vault somewhere, with one a few people privileged enough to know what makes up the addictive syrup. Purchasing a can of coke does not give you the right to learn the secret. This is exactly the same with commercial software. Purchasing a copy of Microsoft Windows does not give you the right to the source code (i.e. the recipe that tells you exactly how the program was made).

Open Source projects are usually community-based projects built by programmers who donate their time and expertise to create a product that the marketplace is in need of, regardless of whether or not there is a possibility of financial gain (Source: Moylan 2006). In fact, whole virtual communities have been established where geeks worldwide can work together to create software that will hopefully make their lives easier or just more fun. For example, SourceForge.net (at the time of writing) has 128,465 registered projects, and 1,382,867 registered users. All these people work together to create software that anyone, anywhere can modify and customise to suit their personal desires. Open source is about freedom and liberty – not about price.


The Definition of Open Source

To determine whether something can be considered “open source” or not, the Open Source Initiative developed a definition based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines, written and adapted – for the most part – by Bruce Perens (Source: OSI 2006). The Ten Commandments that he came up with are as follows:

  1. Free Redistribution
  2. Freely Obtainable Source Code
  3. Derived Works
  4. Integrity of the Author’s Source Code
  5. No Discrimination against Persons or Groups
  6. No Discrimination against Fields of Endeavour
  7. Distribution of License
  8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
  9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
  10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

Take for example a computer program license. For the license to be considered open source, the program must be able to be given away or sold without restraint. The source code must be freely obtainable (either it should come with the program, or available on the Internet for free download). End users must be allowed to redistribute any modifications they make (however depending on the license, some modifications must be redistributed as patches, as to not interfere with the original code). The program should not discriminate against individuals or corporations (i.e. Bill Gates has just as much right to open source software as anyone else). The appropriate license should be travel with the program (or again, be available on the Internet). The program cannot be licensed only as part of a larger distribution but can be distributed with other software that is not considered open source. And finally, the license must not contain any medium specific terms of accepting the license agreement (i.e. it can’t state “to agree to this license click the ‘OK’ button on such-and-such webpage – as websites may become obsolete in the future).


The History of Open Source

Open Source philosophy has been around for a very long time. There are books dedicated to its history, so I will not go into too much detail, as this is not the focus of this document. But basically, it started with hackers such as Richard Stallman, spending huge amounts of time writing software, but instead of selling it for financial gain they wanted to share their work with fellow users (Source: Kidd 2006). They wanted people to learn from what they had made, and improve upon it. Out of respect, any changes that someone makes should be given back to the hacker community, so everyone can learn more from the additions, therefore improving their skills. This sharing of ones ideas and creation was purely based on good moral principles – money, fame and glory did not come into the equation.

The actual term, “open source” however first surfaced on the 3rd of February 1998, during a strategy session in California, after Netscape (creators of an internet browser called Netscape Navigator – which sparked the browser wars with Microsoft in the 90′s), decided to release the code to their software to the world (Source: OSI 2006). They decided that the term “free software” was too confrontational, and “open source” was the best thing they could come up with at the time. So although open source philosophy has existed for many, many years (as stated previously, the open source definition is based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines), it was only in 1998 that it became a recognisable term.


Popular Open Source Examples

Even though you may be unaware of it, chances are you make use of open source technology every day. To get you thinking, here are two of the more popular open source examples:

At the time of writing Mozilla Firefox is currently one of the most popular open source software projects going around. With features such as tabbed browsers, integrated search, live bookmarks and a generally faster user experience, it is a lot more feature packed and friendly than proprietary products such as Internet Explorer. Despite the fact that Microsoft and Apple have multimillion dollar development budgets, their browser software is currently being beaten by something developed by the people.

Wikipedia, an open source encyclopaedia is also taking the World Wide Web by storm. Containing over five million articles in a large number of languages, the site is claimed to be one of the top twenty most visited sites on the Internet (Source: Alexa Internet 2006). Anyone can modify the content on Wikipedia, which is one of the key ingredients to its success.


Other Markets…

The open source philosophy has grown across a large amount of different markets – not just the computer industry. For example, in the agriculture industry, open source beer has been created, such as Vores Øl and Free Beer 3.0. The recipes for both of these beers are freely available on the Internet, released under a Creative Commons License. In the health world, organisations such as the Tropical Disease Initiative have been founded investigating open source pharmaceutical development. Content is also a big area, with websites such as Wikipedia (an open source encyclopaedia) and Yellowikis (an open source version of the Yellow Pages) growing bigger and stronger every day. We have already discussed open source software in a fair degree of detail, but open source hardware is also existent. For example, the designs of microchips have been released under open source licensing agreements.


Blogging!

Blogging can also be considered open source, as people are contributing their time and expertise in areas in which they are often not compensated financially. When a blogger reports from a first-hand account, they are in effect “exposing source code” for other people to comment on, enhance and re-distribute (Source: Moylan 2006). The blogger can either take their blogs (their “source code”) and sell it, or promote it for free – just like with open source software. Incidentally, a lot of the web site software used on blogging sites is also open source, such as LifeType.


Society & Culture

Open Source technology is thought to be revolutionary because it promotes concepts of sharing and universal participation. Some believe that this revolution will take us back to the community based ideals of oral cultures, but the thing that puzzles most people about these organisations is that they are non-profitable. There has been a lot of thought put into why these people volunteer their time to set up such outlets and to contribute their information property without any economic remuneration. Demos, “the think tank for everyday democracy”, believe that we are experiencing a historic shift from the rise of the professional in the late 20th Century to a new phenomenon of people “pursuing amateur activities”, calling this the “Pro-Am Revolution” (Source: Demos 2006). It is believed that this so-called revolution has the potential to strengthen the democratic world by pushing “power to the edges” and to help potential new organisations and leadership emerge through the incubation of this “mega community”.  Goetz likens Open Source to an “ant colony” and believes that “the collective intelligence of the network supersedes any single contributor” (Source: Goetz 2003).

Open source principles have also affected other areas of society and culture, such as politics (i.e. open and collaborative formation of public policy) and journalism (i.e. on-line non-for-profit journalism). Open Source Filmmaking is also starting to gain momentum. One example is Elephants Dream, an animated film created only using open source software, with all the production files available for free download. This means anyone can download and modify the film, distribute it and share their updated version to the internet community.


Open Source Problems/Issues

Like anything, open source does not come without its problems. Luckily though, a lot of the issues of the past are slowly becoming less relevant in more recent times. Compatibility and comparability were once the main topics of conversations when talking about open source, but now some open source technology has become so advanced that it is almost completely compatible and comparable with its proprietary equivalents (for example, with software like WINE, you can run a large portion of Windows-based software on a Linux-based system; you can also open Microsoft Word documents in Open Office).

However there are issues with open source licensing. The main issues that arise are that of ownership. Technically and legally speaking, current open source licenses do not clearly define ownership rights, and therefore there is a possibility that someone could use the open source agreements to take advantage of others peoples hard work, and not give back to the community.

There are also problems with the actual term “open source”. Sometimes the term is used to describe software whose source code is visible, but there are limitations on what can be done with it. For example, you may be able to view the source code, but you may not be allowed to modify it and redistribute it. There is also some confusion between open source software and free software.


Conclusion

Open source philosophy is changing the way people think about technology and society. A couple of years ago you had to fork out a lot of money to get a good graphics editing computer program (such as Adobe Photoshop). Now you can just download a free version of GIMP. You can even modify its source code to make it better, or simply different, if you feel so inclined. Collaborative open source software projects such as Linux and Apache (a web server package) have demonstrated that a large and complex system of code can be built, maintained, developed and extended in a non-proprietary environment (Source: Weber 2004, p. 2). Outside of the computer world, people have created open source beer and cola. Vast amounts of informative content are being release as open source on sites such as Wikipedia. Blogging is becoming a household term, with people globally sharing their views and thoughts for free to anyone who wants to listen, watch or read. Even open source pharmaceutical development is on the horizon.

Despite the fact that most people would have never predicted that a system based around people working for free would work, open source philosophy is making a big impact. The thing to understand is that open source embraces the philosophy of sharing, and because of this, concepts such as piracy are no longer a problem. You are encouraged to share and spread open source products as much as you like. You can copy and redistribute, even after modification. This provides users with a freedom that is not obtainable from proprietary products (as illustrated right throughout this document), and creates remarkable opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs around the world, especially in developing countries.


References:


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Documentary Interview Experiments

Saturday, September 9th, 2006

As part of our Language and Communications class, we split into groups of four people and conducted a series of interviews. One person acted as camera tech, another sound tech, an interviewer and an interviewee. The purpose of the interview was to try and learn something about the interviewee that the interviewer didn’t previously know. It gave us a chance to consider documentary ethics, practise the technical aspects of documentary production, and to experiment with different interviewing styles.

Our group decided to use a very natural, down and dirty interview style. The interviewer and interviewee sat on the ground just casually chatting away. The camera was also on the ground, shooting in a black and white mode, handheld, shakily shooting angled headshots of the two people. The reason for this was primarily to do something different from all the other groups, but also as we were shooting on video (a very natural and realistic medium compared to film – video basically looks like Neighbours), we thought that we might as well not try and attempt to make it look like film. Shooting handheld, in black and white, and with poor lighting, took advantage of the rather grainy and comparably low-resolution of the DV format. The lighting of the scene was natural, with sunlight coming through the window striking the girls from above. Although it would have been nice to ‘tweak’ the look, possibly by simply using a reflector to bounce sunlight into the girl’s faces, we simply didn’t have the time. Audio wise, despite my objections, the boom microphone was placed in shot, in the centre of the two girls. This meant that the footage looked cluttered, but also meant the audio quality sounded very poor, as the ME66 is very directional. Although I was personally happy overall with the look of the film (despite the microphone being in shot), others suggested that it distracted them from what the people were saying, giving the footage a very unnatural feel. The interviewee and interviewer didn’t like the footage either, saying that by being on the ground, with all the other class members looking down on them, made them act in a contrived manner. Personally, I disagree. I believe that by shooting them in this way, when they are under quite a lot of pressure to deliver something interesting, brought out their true personality – even if it was just them panicking and struggling. Both the interviewee and interviewer insisted that they had no problem discussing ‘interesting’ topics off camera, but as soon as the camera was shooting, they were in struggle town. I think that maybe they were just too scared to discuss the things they were talking about off-camera to tape, because they would be judged by the audience. And although they didn’t talk about topics they did before the interview, the camera still managed to capture a reality of the situation. Watching the footage showed two girls struggling to find an interesting topic to talk about for the audience. I found the footage we captured fascinating. However, shooting in this style did affect the interview in a way I didn’t predict. It made the interviewer feel like she was on the same level as the interviewee, despite the fact there was a visual sense of hierarchy. What I mean is that it felt like the interviewer and interviewee had equal power. Despite the fact that only one person was asking the questions, it felt as is neither person was in complete control of the interview. So, by shooting in the style that we did, we effectively changed the whole feeling and pecking order of the interview. Is that a negative thing? For the purposes of this exercise, I think it was a positive. As this was only an experiment, it gave a valuable insight into documentary interviewing practises. However, I would probably not use this style for most documentary pieces, unless I was evaluating or investigating human communication or something similar. I think one of the main areas lacking in this interview was pre-interview, that is, defining a solid list of interview topics. I think the fact that little planning was done was the main reason the interview seemed so hard. The other thing that really annoyed me was the quality of the audio, not only due to the positioning, but also due to the handling noise of the boom pole.

Other groups used several different styles. Some had head shots of the interviewee, some had wide shots, some had the interviewer in frame, but all of the other groups kept the camera on tripod. Audio wise, everyone used the ME66 microphone and all the interviews (except the last one, in which I acted as boom operator – he says arrogantly!), had really poor sounding audio. The reason being, like our groups interview, the positioning was bad (shotgun mics work best shooting directly at the source’s mouth at around three to five feet away), the manual riding of the gain was overcompensating, and the ME66 is not really suitable for broadcast quality indoor audio capturing (a hyper-cardiod is preferred). Also the boom handling was also very poor, resulting in a lot of handling noise coming through the track. Although the operator is partly at fault for not holding the boom pole gently, the fact that no shock suspension is available doesn’t make the operator’s job any easier.

Generally speaking, the best interviews were the ones with the best content. It didn’t really matter how poorly the technical side of the production was. If the interview was interesting, you can forgive the poor audio quality and lousy framing. Although in some of the interviews the poor camera work was slightly distracting, such as when in one interview, the camera started panning down the interviewee’s body for no particular reason (completely unmotivated). As is always the way, the moment the camera was off the interviewees face, they said something really out of the ordinary. What did I learn? You should only move the camera when motivated to do so, and even then, you have to seriously think about it and predict what’s going to happen next.

One of the interviews had the interviewers head on the far left of frame out of focus, with the interviewer centre frame in focus, with the shotgun microphone also in view. This visual style was very distracting, and seemed to waste a lot of the frame space as the whole right side of the image was just white. The most visually appealing interviews I found were just generally static shots of the interviewee, with the occasional slow zoom or pan to add a bit of life to the footage. The fact that everyone’s footage was shot from on a tripod gave the interviews a very manufactured, yet professional feel, as if you were watching a news program or police interrogation.

With documentaries it’s my belief that there should always be an invisible line between the crew and the interviewee. Unfortunately, in some of the interviews this line was crossed and in some cases completely ignored. For instance, in one interview the focus changed from the interviewee to the interviewer as the boom operator started to ask him questions. The camera operator had to follow the action, and filmed the interviewer, leaving the interviewee off-camera, off-sound, and probably very bored. This destroyed the pacing and authenticity of the whole interview. The viewer, who was just starting to become interested in what the interviewee had to say, all of the sudden has to watch the crew interviewing each other. Very unprofessional! What made matter worse was when the interview eventually shifted its focus back to the interviewee, the camera person asked him an extremely hard pressing question, abruptly ending the interview, in a very contrived manner. However, this was only an experiment – so not hard feelings, just another lesson learnt.

The main things I learn out of the days efforts were that production values are important. To get good usable footage you need a good camera, audio and boom operator. If you have someone that doesn’t really know what they’re doing, the whole shoot can be jeopardised. Planning is also extremely important. If you don’t spend time planning interview questions, and developing a well thought out plan of attack, there is a good chance that nobody will have anything appealing to talk about. An invisible wall also has to be developed, and then everyone has to stay on their own side. As soon as a crew member steps from one side to the other, the whole interview is put at risk. The camera operator and sound technician just need to do their job as quietly and professionally as possible, without interrupting or distracting the interviewer or interviewee.

The other thing I realised was that you really need a clear plan of what you want to get out of the interview. If you do in there just wanting to ask a couple of questions, then you may come out with some good footage, but footage that you don’t know what to do with. For instance, in our group, we went in there trying to find something we didn’t know about the interviewee, but actually came out with footage that essentially just explores human interaction. Although the footage we captured was good, and very interesting, it wasn’t what we needed to complete the task at hand. This was the same with the interview in which the crew started getting involved in. It started off just a traditional interview, trying to find something new about the person, but ended up being a train wreck, with cast and crew asking each other unplanned questions. Because the interviewer wasn’t connecting with the interviewee on a personal level, the interviewee decided to act, instead of being himself. The result – just a big mess!

Ethical considerations also came into question when watching the different interviews. In one case, the interviewee admitted to recently loosing a girlfriend, offering the interviewer the opportunity to ask some very hard-pressed questions, but decided to ignore the topic and move on to something else. The reason – he didn’t want to ask a series of very personal questions as he didn’t know the interviewee very well. Was this the right thing to do? Maybe – it’s a tough one. The interview probably would have been a lot more interesting if the interviewer decided to pursue the topic. But he simply didn’t want to. Even when the interviewee corrected the interviewer when he mistakenly said the girlfriend came from the same town as the interviewee, the interviewer just changed the topic once more. Without question, the interviewer could have gotten a lot more out of the interviewee. However, his morals told him not to do it. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is, like I’ve said, hard to say. I guess as these interviews were filmed in a university with the whole class watching the filming take place, and knowing that the class will be analysing the footage at a later date – it was the safe decision to make. Better to only ask innocent questions than to risk the interviewee becoming completely overwhelmed or overly uncomfortable. However, in a real filming situation, I would probably say that it’s better to ask the tough questions. I mean, in all honesty, although the interviewee was very nervous, I don’t think he would have minded being asked questions about his ex-girlfriend (despite the fact that they only broke up a couple of days previous). This was even more apparent when the interviewee corrected the interviewer.

It seemed to me that because these were filmed in a university, and everyone in the class was watching, no one seemed to ask any heavy questions. Everyone played it safe so they didn’t get their hands burnt. On the more technical side, people took risks. Our group shot in a very unconventional manner; the complete opposite to everyone else. Some camera operators decided to take the camera off the interviewees head and film more random things (like panning down the interviewee’s body). Although these would be quite major risks in a professional environment, in the context of this experiment they were just further tests, to see if it worked.

My favourite interview had the interviewer asking the interviewee a series of great questions, but also a lot of very random questions. For example, “if you were a tree what tree would you be”?  This caught the interviewee off guard in most cases, making for a really fascinating piece of footage. The interviewer established a really good connection with the interviewee, and I think these random questions really helped do this. The important lesson to be learnt out of this is that to get good interview footage a good relationship needs to be built between the interviewer and interviewee. They need to be comfortable with each other. If the interviewee is scared of the interviewer or vice versa, the footage will look forced, fake and probably unusable.

After looking at the various different groups’ footage, it’s clear that the questions asked by the interviewer are also very important. You need to ask open ended questions that interest the interviewee so that they talk casually and passionately about their view on the topic. Questions that just result in the interviewee answering yes or no hardly make for an interesting interview. But how do you know what types of questions to ask? I guess doing your research before the interview helps. If you know where the interviewee’s passions lie, you can ask questions that you know will generate a lot of gusto. But also I think it’s very important that the interviewer actually listens to what the interviewee is saying. They need to listen and base their next set of questions on the interviewee’s responses. In the interview where the crew started interviewing each other instead of the interviewee, obviously the interviewer wasn’t listening to the person he was asking questions to. If he was then the conversations would have never had changed viewpoints. This is also a very good example of the interviewee becoming intimidated by the interviewee and as a result, he spent way to much time talking, instead of listening. The result – a self obsessed interview that didn’t really work.

Overall, I found this experiment to be tremendously useful. Although a lot of the stuff learnt could be regarded as common sense, it’s always better to do it yourself and learn from your mistakes than by just reading a book or being told what’s what. It’s also extremely beneficial to test out all the interviewing practises yourself and then evaluate what you’ve done. It’s one thing to know how to do something – it’s something completely different to actually follow your own advice and wisdom. It takes a lot of self control, persistence and self-confidence to listen and follow to your own advice. It’s a lot easier to be lazy and say “it’ll do”. I also strongly believe practise makes perfect, so any chance of practising our skill is welcome in my books!

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Elephant

Saturday, September 9th, 2006

I have just realised that after half a year of studying film and television, my whole perspective of what makes a fantastic movie has changed. Last year, I would have said it has to entertain me and absorb me in its world. That’s still true – a good movie still must do this. However, I have started to believe that a good movie must also offer something new. It has to push boundaries. It has to challenge its viewers. It has to be groundbreaking. I knew this – it almost seems like common sense. However, I didn’t truly understand the concept. Movies like The Isle, 2:37 and The Book of Revelation, fit into the revolutionary category. Although all of them scared the hell out of me, and seriously made me wonder what I was doing watching them, I have grown, not only to appreciate them, but I now actually understand that they’re truly fantastic pieces of art and because of that, I have made the conscious decision to say “I like them”. Previously, I only appreciated them – I didn’t consider them compulsory viewing. I’ve change my opinion. I think you need to watch film like these, if you are going to become a filmmaker, so that you understand that the challenge is to create something that hasn’t been done before. To create something that will spark people’s imaginations. Make them angry – make them cry – whatever. Now, a lot of people have suggested that 2:37 is just a rip off of Elephant. Personally, I think that’s a bit of an over exaggeration. Yes, the cinematography is very similar. Some of the camera work is almost exactly the same. And yes, the sound design is very similar (which isn’t unpredictable seeing as the same person did both movies). And yes, the story does have its similarities – i.e. it’s about a high school that suffers a tragic event. However, after watching elephant for the first time, I came out of the room with a completely different feeling to when I left 2:37. After watching 2:37 I felt sick. I felt like I had just been tortured. However after watching Elephant, I felt something completely different. That’s why I don’t believe 2:37 is a rip off of Elephant. Although it has a lot of similarities, you leave the theatre feeling different emotions. It’s not so much about the sound design, or what’s shown on screen. It’s more about the feelings and emotions it sparks. That’s what film school has taught me thus far. It’s not about pretty pictures and nice sounding audio. It’s about a story that messes with the viewer. The story is everything. The story must evoke a passion in the viewer, whether it’s negative or positive. I’ve come to realise that that’s what filmmaking is all about.

Elephant, like 2:37 (although some would hate that I am comparing Elephant to 2:37 and not the other way round!), follows around several typical high school teenagers as they go about their normal school day – except all hell breaks loose at the end when two teenagers decide to shoot everyone. It opens with a car dangerously driving down a typical American suburban street, smashing into other cars as it goes. The driver is a drunken parent, attempting to take his teenage son to school. At this point, I was thinking that maybe Elephant was going to be exactly like 2:37 – an insight into the lives of several very troubled teens; based around a horrific mystery, with a gruesome climax. As it introduced more characters, the cheerleader, the football player, the outcast who spends her time in the library, I starting to think “here we go again”, but I soon realised I was wrong.

Unlike 2:37 these characters felt real. They didn’t feel like stereotypical American teen soapie characters. I felt like I was watching archive footage of real people whilst at school. What they said, and what they did wasn’t important. It was fairly random, and to be perfectly honest, boring. It was just a bunch of people at school – just another day at the office. It was almost like watching Big Brother. Groups of girls gossip in the canteen, a wannabe photographer develops his prints, a shy girl helps out in the library. That’s what made this movie a lot different to 2:37. It was a lot more random and a lot more detached. Although it only focussed on a few characters, you still never got close to knowing any of these people. You were basically shown them at their most boring. At although they did fit the stereotypical teenager moulds, I never really thought about that. I guess because, in reality, the big attractive alpha males are the ones playing footage, and the gorgeous teenage blondes are normally completely obsessed with their appearance. Or maybe it was simply because I knew something sick and evil was around the corner, and I was ignoring the film and just subconsciously waiting for that key event.

Forgetting about 2:37 for the time, the film has a very unique and stunning visual style. All the shots are either extremely smooth steady cam, or slowly panning and tilting crane shots. The smooth, almost floating camera work helps to underscore the feeling of this being another ordinary, empty and humdrum day at school. There is also some time lapse photography which helps to slow down the already slow paced film. The colour of the footage is surprisingly pale – for example, in reality bold red and yellow tee-shirts, are less striking, showing more texture and contrast, which helps portray a very “film look”. You think the film looks very nature, until you study each individual frame, and you realise that it doesn’t look real at all – it just looks like a beautiful movie frame; completely colour corrected and contrived. Although, I can’t work out way (apart from the fact it looks cool), the film also makes use of messing with time. For example, when John interacts with a dog, as the dog jumps into the air we are shown the dog in slow motion. It does look great – but why do it? Does it affect the story in any way? I don’t think so. The film also messes with time in another sense – scenes are constantly overlapped as we are shown stories from a different characters perspective. The film reminded me a lot of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, as it followed around the characters, with its haunting and hypnotic manner. You knew something bad was going to happen – you knew people were going to get hurt – you just didn’t know when. You just didn’t know who was going to survive.

The soundtrack is truly amazing. It really messes with your emotions. Music is used; however, only sparingly. Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” and “Piano Symphonies Nos. 14 & 2″ are used within the film – the peaceful classical music adding to the sense of danger and mystery. “Fur Elise” is basically the theme song for Elephant, as there is a scene were one of the key characters is playing that song on the piano in his room. The reason I have a great respect for the soundtrack of this film, is that it’s not wall-to-wall music or sound effects. Everything is very subtle and unnerving. The soundtrack compliments the picture, in that it’s very random and unexplained. Sounds of unimportant conversations, general school atmospheres, dogs barking in the background, random natural sounds etc. are slowly faded in and out creating a confusing, yet simplistic aural soundscape. However, in the more dramatic scenes, especially towards the end of the film, as the images became more intense and horrific, so did the audio. More sounds were layered together, and the tempo of the score became faster. The sound designer made fantastic use of the stereo medium (as opposed to mono); swinging sound effects from left to right, making you feel as if you’re trapped in the building with the characters. Silence is also used to great effect. Sound wise, the film reminds me a lot like “Alien”. Both films take the natural sounds of the scene, and manipulate and add to them to create a feeling of terror and fear. Neither film overuses sound. Your ears are never feed too much information. In fact, a lot of the visual styles remind me of Alien as well. For example, although one is on a spaceship and another is at a school, the long dimly lit hallways scenes are very similar.

Watching this film at school made a huge impact on me. It makes it more real. At any moment someone could pull out a gun and there would be nothing I, nor anyone else, could do. Now that’s terrifying.

A lot of people have said that the film is pointless, doesn’t offer any insight, and is basically just a really bad movie. I disagree. Yes, it’s really hard to watch. To be honest, I really didn’t want to be sitting there watching or listening to the movie. I just wanted to run away. However, that’s what makes it so amazing. I still find it hard to believe a bunch of pixels on a screen, and some human manipulated soundtrack can evoke such powerful emotions. I really respect the fact that the filmmakers decided not to explain why the killers did what they did. There is no single explanation for such behaviour. The fact that the two murderers were having a hard time at school (being bullied by their peers), played violet video games, read gun magazines, and were apparently gay, could have been contributing factors – however they are definitely not sole explanations. No one knows why the killers did what they did. No one can really understand what was going through their heads. No one can truly claim to understand their sickness. I respect the fact that the filmmakers didn’t just make up some seemingly logical expansion. It’s easy to say they killed everyone because they were being bullied. But being bullied is not a good enough explanation.

The film also unpredictable – just like life. The misfit girl is not saved just because she is like the assassins. When a muscular seemingly impervious African-American student starts sneaking up on one of the killers, one presumes that he is going to save the day. However, he’s not a hero at all – just another disengaged student that thinks he’s invincible. But the reality is no one is invincible. If someone is pointing a gun at your face, there really is nothing you can do about it. If the person wants to kill you – he or she can. This is not a film about high school students, bullying, homosexuality, or love. It’s about the randomness of violence. This film could have easily been set in any other location and played by any age group (i.e. an office building). The outcome and the responses would have been the same.

The reason I think this film is so challenging to watch is that, even when people are getting shot left, right and centre, the pacing is still very slow and the actions very random. You are left just watching some of the most horrible events take place in front of your eyes, and yet, there is nothing you can do about it. There’s no real accessible reason for why it’s happening. There’s no sign of it stopping any time soon. The worst part is that the students in the building just don’t know what to do. Like the audience – they’re in shock.

Overall, it’s a remarkable movie. It’s a slow movie that shows the reality of a tragic and horrific event. It doesn’t offer any explanations as to why things turned out the way that they did. It only offers some random (and probably irrelevant) hints. The dialog is routine and monotonous, as is the action leading up to the slaughter. This is a movie that will set your brain and imagination into overdrive after viewing. So many questions are asked throughout the film and no answers are given. The cinematography is truly incredible, as is the petrifying soundtrack. It’s a painfully beautiful film, with a disconnected narrative that deliberately withholds closure. The filmmaker wants you to think about what you’ve just seen. There’s an unbearable tension right throughout the film, and when the onslaught eventually starts, it actually explodes on the screen, hitting you with a frightening energy that’s unforgettable and completely chilling. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the images of Alex and Eric walking through the school.

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