[Weekly Update] November 28, 2021

Happy Hanukkah! It's getting pretty cold outside, so remember to stay warm and stay safe!

CHANNEL UPDATE

• Not much to update about the channel. It seems with the holiday season approaching, sponsorship agencies also slow down in response, thus delaying some of the smaller videos I have planned.
• Our Christmas videos will still be on time, though. No worry!
• Meanwhile, we have our main characters casted for our martial art short film! Let me just say, it is absolutely not easy to find a middle age woman who can speak both English and Chinese, can act, and can fight. But we have a Chinese Opera actress onboard the project! This is exciting.
• Anyway, we also have a series of smaller videos planned for Twitter. With each 2 minute video, I'll talk about one camera that I've used in the past, and talk about what I've learned from the process! If you haven't do so yet, follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook for the extra content!

MEDIA TALK

• Had some rare down time this week, decided to watch some TV shows, but only the first episode. Let's talk about them.
• While looking for reference material for my own short film, I took a look at the first episode of Warrior, a show recommended by many of our viewers.
• Overall, I like it. But my enjoyment came mostly exists due to the knowledge that it was conceived by Bruce Lee. Warrior is ultimately a faithful creation of what Bruce Lee wanted to make in the late 60s early 70s. And the show definitely feels like it.
• Outside of its very Bruce Lee inspired action scenes, which are all short but sweet, its very trope-y story also feels like a 60s TV show: A Chinese kung fu fighter crosses the ocean to look for his missing sister, and ends up having to adapt to the extreme racism of that era.
• It's classy, but also dated for the exact same reason.
• It's biggest weakness, I'd say, it's that it doesn't have Bruce Lee. The main character, unfortunately, just isn't that interesting. We don't get to know him much throughout the first episode, and his cocky demeanour only really works if it is enhanced by the actor. It's a role only Bruce Lee can pull off.
• For that reason, Warrior feels kinda a hit or miss. I would definitely gladly give it a few more episodes worth of viewing. But I'm not clamouring for more.
• Also watching for inspiration, I watched Hawkeye. But not for the fights (I already kinda expect it to be bad), but for the Christmas aesthetic. Yes, I'm looking to set our film during Christmas. Or Chinese New Year, depending on the shooting schedule.
• Okay, so my biggest complain about Hawkeye: Is it me or is this show really... dark? Like, in terms of brightness. A lot of time I can't see a thing because the frame is so dark.
• While it definitely accentuates the Christmas lights all of over the sets (and they are very beautiful sets), It also makes it so hard for me to look at actor performances. Not to mention, the action scenes are basically unwatchable.
• Other than that, the first episode just isn't that fun or interesting. It mostly follows the same formula in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in which we see two parallel characters going through their day to day life.
• However, unlike Falcon and Bucky, who has a lot of complicated past and present difficulties, Clint and Katie In Hawkeye both have fairly decent life and minimal difficulties. As such, majority of the episode just meanders forward with little to no tension and character conflict.
• It didn't really build up to anything. And after watching the first episode, I'm not sure I want a second. I don't know what the show is promising, so I have no expectations for anything.
• Finally, for no particular reason, I watched X-Files.
• The first thing I want to ask is if the show was shot on film or video. Because while the frame rate looks a bit wonky at times, it also looks very cinematic. Whatever camera they used, the cinematographer did an excellent job taming it.
• As for the characters, with hint sight... I kinda really don't like Mulder now lol. He's the type of smart characters who is always correct, despite always offering the most unlikely of explanations all the time. House MD is also one such character. This makes Mulder retroactively just a lot less interesting and likeable, at least for the first episode.
• And young David Duchovny just... isn't that good of an actor. Maybe TV acting was different, maybe the director was giving bad directions. But Duchovny's monologue explaining why he becomes obsessed with aliens is... melodramatic.
• He's basically doing the "quiet yell", where he puts a lot of forces into tensing up his body, but his voice don't have real power behind it. It's kinda a beginner acting mistake. I might be way wrong here, but that's just how I feel.
• Nevertheless, the first episode sets up a good mystery, with a neat pay off that still holds up to this day. The kind of supernatural sci-fi atmosphere is still rare to see these days. This might be a show I would want to watch more.

That's the update! Am I a weirdo for only watching the first episode of a show? I really wish I have more time for watch them. But ever since I started this channel, I almost always watch films for work and for work only.

What is your favourite first episode of a TV show? It's not my favourite, but Breaking Bad is probably the most memorable.

Anyway, expect a video next week! See you then!