"The Mysterious Islands" and "The Voyage that Shook the World"

2 fantastic documentaries came out last year on Darwin, both are top notch worth the watch and extremely well done. However they differ very much in their approaches.



The Mysterious Islands is an adventure to Darwin's Eden, a modern day expedition to he Galapagos Islands, the expedition explores whether Darwin's interpretation of Galapagos hold water. The film is shot on the Red One camera, and the film is a visual and audio feast to behold. The imagery and music are simply breathtaking.



The Voyage that Shook the World is a more traditional documentary style film, it tracks not only Darwin's original voyage but also from Darwin's childhood to his death. It interviews many experts around the world and has a lot of reenactments.

To learn more about these films visit their web sites:
http://www.TheMysteriousIslands.com/
http://www.TheVoyage.tv/

Review: Homeschool Dropouts

Technical thoughts:
The production values are high, though not quite as high as Return of the Daughters. There are a few time where I though “they should have taken that again, or split it up to cover that fumble. The segway bits sometimes felt like they shot it multi cam like a live event.

It also felt to me like the end of production might have been rushed to get the DVD out. The DVD menus don’t work as smoothly as they should (like they didn’t test it more than once), and there were few times where I thin they through in a cross fade on a splice of voice over and it messed up the sound a bit. Kinda strange. It just felt like the were 90% done and had it all very good to that point and then had to throw it in to a package in a hurry. Also after the film was done, the dvd kept playing black for about 3 more minutes before returning to the DVD menu, like they forgot to adjust the out point for for export. Just little things, I found slightly strange.

Pulmonary content thoughts.
The material was, as always excellent, well thought out, organized and presented. The problem they identify is one that sure resonates with me, I don’t expect 99% of my home school friends to home school there kids, many home schools near grads are even hostile toward home-schooling. It is rather unsettling.

The mid section felt like it followed some posts on Anna Sofia and Elizabeth’s blog “Childish Homeschooler Syndrome”, which makes sense.

The first 3/4ths of the film I mostly felt depressed, as they covered the problems, I kept thinking “yup seen that one first hand”, identifying each one in myself and in my friends. They never said “we are in a dire situation here” but it sure felt like one to me. The last 1/4th was them saying that they felt there was hope, but I didn’t feel to encouraged. I felt more convinced and convicted of the deep importance of home education, but not all to hopeful.

Overall Impressions:

Highly recommended.

http://www.westernconservatory.com/products/homeschool-dropouts

Ben Botkin's new blog

Check out Ben Botkin's new blog! Ben Botkin is an amazing film composer, I highly recomend checking out his site!

http://www.benbotkin.com/

The Battle for Civilization

If you haven't heard of the Botkin family before, let me tell you they do some amazing video/film work. They have made several outstanding documentaries such as The League of Grateful Sons and just recently the highly controversial The Return of the Daughters. Geof Botkin is a huge part of the faculty for the SAICFF, and Isaac Botkin has a fantastic blog: Outside Hollywood.

Well, the Botkin family has just announced their latest project, The Battle for Civilization, and it looks very, very, very good. I highly suggest you check out the trailer!

http://www.battleforcivilization.com/

Film makers, get out your pencils and start taking notes!

Hebrews in New Mexico?

The has for a long time been constant cry that Columbus was not the fist man from the "continent" to discover north america, before him, the Vikings, and the Chinese. I have always loved little known facts in tidbits about history. Much of what current Academia tells us, and much of what North Americans 'know to be true" about the ancient world is way of. there is much, much, much evidence that people have been traveling back and forth from north america to "the continent" for many thousands of years, and leaving their mark. Not just in exploration, and one time trips or rediscovery, and rediscovery, and rediscovery, and rediscovery... but even in regular trading!
However, this simple short documentary shows evidence for something that I had never heard of.

Watch the video here: http://visionarydaughters.com/2008/03/research-on-hidden-mountain


From a video makers perspective, I also really like this video. It may just be a short like youtube esc video, but it looks professional. Not only is the sound clean and the shots well composed, but the mountain fly-over graphics, and the well orchestrated (not cheep sounding) music that fits with the feel of the vid, add huge production value.
One thing I really like is the simple VFX that they used to show the petroglyphs and text worked really well. But then again, what do you expect from a Botkin production?
The only real crit I had was Noah seems to stumble a bit on his lines. He might have benefited from another take.