Congrats Steve and JP and thanks Ron for hosting, a job well done especially for a first-timer :)

Well done Steve winning Challenge #9. Great photo - a worthy winner.

Also praise to Inframan for winning the Exhibition contest. You had several potential winners in there.

Congats to all who entered.

Steve, look forward to your choice of next challenge.

Yeah me too, always loved Rourke's films but have yet to see the wrestler. Pope was one of his best. He's been pretty consistent too throughout the years, I used to compare him a bit with Nick Cage but Cage has gone to crap ever since that con air movie... when he did stuff like Vampire's Kiss, Birdy, he was super.

Yep, a teen in teh 80s as well as a young adult by '86 ;). I loved that decade, the only regret for me is not to have been a teen in the 60's, or maybe 30s/40s too. But everything after the 80's went to hell imo... maybe things will get definitive again in the '10s ;)

Hehh I just checked out Adventureland at imdb for the first time, didn't realize it's from the same studio/director as Superbad, which I thought was pretty funny for what it is but Adventureland is nothing like Superbad.

You seen Big Man Japan yet?

JP, in case you're still looking for some films:

Push (imdb: [link] )... kinda corny premise but turned out to be a fun time-waster

Adventureland (imdb: [link] )... big surprise, my wife found this one so I just ran it last night not knowing what to expect but wanting to watch anything to put me to sleep... initially you get the impression you're in for a usual teen flick full of gross-out humor and lame/stereotypical characters etc and a weak plot, but it's actually got none (or very very little) of that. Excellent movie, great cast, great story that actually brought back some memories for me of what the '80s were like for a teen

Check 'em out ;)

jp, hit the voting tab and then there are spots for your competition and exhibition votes, click on either and it will give you a recap of the thumbnails you voted on along with points for each.

Forgot to mention this but a few days ago I changed the max voting points per gallery so that it's calculated as total pics divided by 3 rather than by 2. Ron suggested that the previous calculation provided too many voting points so let's see how it works out now with 20pts in exhibition (20 is the minimum regardless of # of entries) and likely a max of 22pts in exhibition.

Bahh, nevermind about the underlined popups, they're crap.

Hey guys, you'll notice underlined yellow text under random words and phrases throughout the site. Yes, these are adverts (though at the moment all they point to is to a dictionary site). What I'd like to do is eliminate that google sidebar somehow by replacing it with something as non-intrusive but that doesn't necessarily require page space. I don't know how non-intrusive these underlines are but if they work and no one minds them, then I'll swap them for the sidebar after a few days.

Ron, maybe you missed my message in the previous challenge:

"When you get a chance, please send me a note at [link] and provide me with 1) your first & last name, and 2) the Topaz product you'd like to get a license for. I'll forward that info to Topaz Labs and they'll then send the product registration info to you within a few days"

Please let me know regarding the above so I can send an email to Topaz tomorrow.

I love this theme. It makes for some great comic relief. It was great fun combing through my archives for things that make up famous movie titles. Thanks.

Just an FYI for everyone: a few minutes ago I updated the way browsers render the pages here. At the beginning I coded using some "old skool" markup just to avoid receiving too many "I can't see anything properly with my 5-year old browser" for a while, but now I've begun updating things to modern standards... the more the remaining source gets updated, the worse it'll look on older browsers, so please upgrade your browsers to the latest...

Minimum browser versions:

* Firefox 3.x
* IE8 (not sure about IE7 and don't care, IE8 is still broken enough as it is and I won't be hacking any CSS etc just to fix what Microsoft should've fixed ages ago ;))
* Opera 9.x
* Safari 3.x
* Google Chrome 1.x (this browser rocks!!)

Even with the newer browsers, you'll now see some layout glitches over the next little while but that'll all get sorted as the code gets updated.

The two excellent shots in the Exhibition so far, by Franky2005 & slieb25, are exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.

I have just managed to get home to my PC for the first time since announcing the title of the new Challenge. I am sorry if I did not make my idea for the challenge clear. The idea is to portray a film title - it is NOT to portray a film..We are not trying to create a poster for a film but we are simply using the words from any film title as our subject for an image. It doesn't matter what the film is about, if you have seen it or when/where it was made. I would only ask that if the title is in a language other than English then please provide a translation.

Hi ... reading Justin's take on this, I see more lattitude for this than for bubbles. A lot of pictures that will be able to be relevant. Ron's demo in exhibition seems to favour this interpretation. 'The good, the bad and the ugly' ... they all looked bad and ugly, but I 'got' it immediately. But if someone did a picture of a beautiful ballroom dancer for Bonderchuck's War and Peace, then maybe a mention of the scene could help, but it would make sense.

Exactly what I was thinking - I fully understand where Konstantin is coming from with his argument, that without knowing the movie, any photo meant to symobolize that movie may not be understood or fairly judged on that merit by those who haven't seen the film in question. If judged purely on photographic merits, it may seem drab or dark, but that may be perfect for the film.

However, what Franky2005 said is what I was thinking - you don't have to come up with a photo that portrays the film's plot, emotion, and story - just the title. So though the film "Nomad" was far deeper than the title may imply (it's a pseudo western about a warrior in 18th century Kazakhstan who united the three tribes against an invading tribe), anything that implies nomadic existence should suitably fit the theme.

My thinking is...take it as far as you want to go - either shoot for the title itself, and let it stand...or shoot for a deeper association with the film, but maybe include some additional information on the film, such as a link to the IMDB page with plot details and photos from the film, so folks who may not have seen it can better understand how your photo is meant to convey it.

For the movie lovers. It might be old, but I just got across this recently. A new film trailer for "Shining":
[link]
It shows how to give anew interpretation to a movie.
:-)))

Thanks Konstantin. At the end there cannot be challenge theme that simply fit all the same way. There have been quite a few topics I have struggled with in the past (I hardly do macros, animals, ...). But hey, this is the challenge! :-)

There are always many ways to approach a new theme. Just a thought but you could see the challenge as a kind of reverse engineering to create an image. First find a title, then create the image. The theme is to portrait a film title, it does not say you need to portrait the content of the film! Thus all you may need to do is taking a look into the theatre schedule or TV programm to identify a film title where you think you can create an image which fits perfectly to this title. Just an idea! :-)

... I was kicked out from previous message - may be too long ... juts too finish - the general topics like Wide Open Landscapes or Bubbles etc ... because we all have the same (or similar) associations with the subject.
But don't worry, I think the majority belongs to the same cultural group so that galleries will be overflowed with dozens of great pictures.
Konstantin

Hi - thank you for your replay but I still have some doubts. See you, any impressions (movies, books, music, travel memories etc ... ) coming through our feelings create a kind of associations which can be different from person to person but these are fully "out of sync" with somebody who does not have personal impressions of the subject. Zackie - I have seen no one of the movies you mentioned. When you just say "Nomad" , you get the whole row of different emotions and associations related to this movie, its music, colors, story etc ... for me this is just the name, associations = 0, you can post absolutely any picture, and even you add some comment, this will say me nothing as well I will have not the smallest idea how good or bad is your interpretation. The topic like this can only work if we all have seen same movies.
The last time I was in cinema, if I remember correctly, was more then 25 yeas ago. On TV I mostly watch sport - (my wife and me love tennis & biathlon) and sometimes news. Some days ago we have seen a DVD with a Russian movie, received as present from our friends 3 or 4 years ago, but only opened. Related to modern Russia it was not "closed" even to us - for all of you this will be fully not understandable - we would have to explain you the Russian story starting from 19 century to give you the chances to understand why the people behave/speak to each other the way they do.
Konstanti

Konstantin, I agree to Justin. first the interpretation of the theme allows for any language. You simply can deliver a translation. Secondly I am eager tolearn about non Hollywood movies. We have had à similar challenge some years before and it was really inspiring to get recommondations from all over the world with the contributions or thread discussions.

I wouldn't worry too much Konstantin. I think as long as you reference the film title, and maybe some additional information like the year of release or director, you can bring up film titles in any language and from any place in the world. With your worldly travels and diversity, maybe link to some modern Russian filmmakers like Sergei Bodrov (the brilliant "Nomad" and "Mongol"), or some local Singapore moviemakers like Jack Neo ("Home Run" or "Best Bet")...or maybe some German cinema from a favorite director of mine, Tom Tykwer ("Lola Rentt", "Der Krieger und die Kaiserin"). If it's a foreign title, just provide a translation for those closed-minded Americans who never stray outside of Hollywood productions. ;)

Hi Ron, first of all congratulations to everybody with the interesting challenge which resulted a whole gallery of great images. Congratulations to Ron with the win all place-holders with high results.

Ron - I have some doubts regarding the topic you announced. The interpretation of movie titles can be interesting but ... it only can work in a mono-culture groups, where people grew up in the same environment, watch same movies, read same books, hear same music etc ... I suppose that even the most of co-challengers are from USA there are also many fellows from other countries (yes, there are some outside of USA :-)) who belong to other cultural environment. Secondly, there are some strange people (like me for example) who are not sure that Hollywood is the only place in the world where movies are produced and are more familiar with cinematographical production of other studies (yes, there are some outside of Hollywood :-)).
Konstantin

Cool topic Ron, we can really have fun with this one, now to get the camera out and use the thinking cap for movies.