Sep

6

Shame on you Annie

September 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment

IF THE latest allegations by an Italian shutterfly are true, beleaguered celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz isn’t as original as her reputation would have us believe.

_46329229_007898433-1Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz is being sued by an Italian photographer who says she used his pictures without permission. [...]

According to legal papers filed at a New York federal court, Mr Pizzetti said Ms Leibovitz, 59, hired him to scout locations in Italy for an advertising campaign for Lavazza coffee in April 2008.

He said he photographed the Trevi Fountain in Rome and Plaza San Marco in Venice as well as other images which he sent to her digitally, but was later informed Ms Leibovitz would not be travelling to Italy for the photo shoot.

Mr Pizzetti said that in October, when the calendar was released, he noticed two of his photographs had been used, with models superimposed on it.

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Sep

5

The origins of District 9

September 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment

220px-NeillBlomkampCCJuly09IN 2005 Neill Blomkamp made a six-minute film that highlights xenophobia and social segregation in South Africa. But instead of using colour as the basis for examining the mechanics of discrimination, Blomkamp’s scenario, set in 1990 when Apartheid was still in effect, has extraterrestrial refugees as the unwanted in South Africa.

The documentary-style Alive in Joburg runs for six minutes and has become known as much for its special effects — remarkable for a short film with a limited budget — as for its subject matter.

More remarkable however is that, according to Blomkamp, all the interview statements which do not explicitly mention extraterrestrials were taken from actual interviews with South Africans:

I was asking black South Africans about black Nigerians and Zimbabweans. That’s actually where the idea came from [...] There are aliens living in South Africa [.] I asked “What do you feel about Zimbabwean Africans living here?” And those answers — they weren’t actors, those are real answers…

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