Monday, December 31, 2012

Eric Chua : Life, Business and Real Estate in Singapore ? Excellent ...

This article will be perfect for you if you want information about Affiliate marketing and you would like to have it in an easy to understand format. Your marketing efforts can be enhanced using these tips.

Having a blog can be a successful way to route visitors to your website. The key is to ensure that you use timely, relevant, updated content. When readers learn that your blog contains fresh content from one visit to the next, you?ll have more loyal visitors.

Make a plan for how you will market your webpage and the strategies you will use. Free or inexpensive ways to do so include commenting on blogs, hanging posters in local establishments, and making good use of social networking sites. There are a lot different tactics to draw business. Get creative!

TIP! To achieve success in internet marketing, try using words like ?guaranteed? in your advertisements and related content. People also know that companies sometimes don?t live up to their guarantees, so build up a reputation for honoring your promises.

Free Shipping

If you give incentives to your customers, they might order more quickly. Some popular incentives that other marketers offer include free shipping and free wrapping services. You may want to offer free shipping to the first hundred people purchasing a new product. This is a tried and true method for generating sales.

Make useful information available to your readers on the internet to promote your small business. Always make sure that your site?s content is exclusive to your site. Customers that visit your website should be able to learn about your business, so take care to keep your website stocked with up-to-date information.

TIP! Try and make all your banner advertisements look unique. So give your banner ad a more appealing look to entice more people to click it.

Have you considered making a video to showcase some of your products? Upload the video to YouTube and link it to your website. This will have a tremendous effect on the number of users who visit your site regularly.

Use AJAX and Flash only minimally. While the added interactivity might look nice, it does nothing to optimize your site for search engines. Only use Flash sparingly. Be sure to add plenty of navigation links and keywords to the pages the use Flash.

Another option would be combining products into a package deal and selling it for a lower price. That way the customer gets more bang for their buck. Do not disguise any portion of the terms of redeeming such an offer. Customers truly appreciate full disclosure.

TIP! When you do not regularly update or revamp your website, consider keeping things fresh with a company blog. Google and the ranks like new content, if you do not provide it, your site will move down in rankings.

Create a game to attract more site traffic. Customers may look for something to play online, so something simple can attract many people! Try to carefully and subtly incorporate advertising of your products within the game design. For instance, if you sell products for hair, your game could be about hairstyling and feature the things you sell on your site.

Your company needs a tagline and a logo, no matter how small it is online. Branding is accomplished more easily when these items are present. A good slogan or a visually appealing logo can influence a customer to be loyal over the long term. When a potential customer is looking to purchase your product, your slogan may come to mind, and bring you a new sale.

Target Market

TIP! Whatever you do, make your website stand out among the rest. If your website is distinctive, it is likely to draw plenty of traffic away from more indistinguishable sites.

Know the preferences and needs of your target market, so you can design your website in a manner that will draw them to it. After you know your target market, you can easily provide them with content that will attract them to your website repeatedly.

Avoid seeing Affiliate marketing as job replacement, but more as a hobby. If you see great levels of success, you may think about making it more of a career, but start with low expectations.

Make sure you advertise your business on many popular sites. It might cost you a little money and some time, but it?s an investment that will pay off in a huge way. You want to pick a site that has heavy traffic and offers content in your particular niche or area of industry.

TIP! Updating content frequently is one of the best things you can do to capture the attention of the search engines. Old, outdated information is going to give the viewer the impression that you do not care about your company, and therefore your customers.

Take an international approach, and welcome visitors to your site from around the world. To do this, translate your website into several different languages so that it is understandable to a much broader range of people. You will get many more customers from different parts of the globe, and you are likely to see an impressive boost in traffic. If a customer can easily read the information on your site in their own language, chances are higher that they will buy from you.

Identify specific actions you want your readers to take in your emails. Potential actions could be buying a service or product, subscribing to a magazine or visiting a web page. Tracking the actions your customer takes can help you see how successful your email marketing efforts were.

Successful advertising creates an emotional bond between your clientele and your products. Your reader should be prompted to daydream about using your product. Your customer should ?experience? your product when they read about ti.

TIP! Create a FAQ on your site. You can write the questions with the answers already in mind, and use them to advertise your products! Suggest one of your products for a particular issue or problem.

In conclusion, these tips can help you begin with affiliate marketing. It is our sincere hope that you have found this information valuable and will enjoy applying it. Implement the advice given and you?ll be well on your way to reaching a new level of success.

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Source: http://www.maynaseric.com/excellent-insider-info-for-affiliate-marketing-enthusiasts

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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Obama Weekly Address: Washington Politics Must Not Get In The Way Of "America's Progress"

White House: President Obama urges Congress to meet its deadlines and responsibilities, protect the middle class from an income tax hike, and lay the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello Everybody. For the past couple months, I?ve been working with people in both parties ? with the help of business leaders and ordinary Americans ? to come together around a plan to grow the economy and shrink our deficits.

It?s a balanced plan ? one that would protect the middle class, cut spending in a responsible way, and ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more. And I?ll keep working with anybody who?s serious about getting a comprehensive plan like this done ? because it?s the right thing to do for our economic growth.

But we?re now at the point where, in just a couple days, the law says that every American?s tax rates are going up. Every American?s paycheck will get a lot smaller. And that would be the wrong thing to do for our economy. It would hurt middle-class families, and it would hurt the businesses that depend on your spending.

And Congress can prevent it from happening, if they act now. Leaders in Congress are working on a way to prevent this tax hike on the middle class, and I believe we may be able to reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time.

But if an agreement isn?t reached in time, then I?ll urge the Senate to hold an up-or-down vote on a basic package that protects the middle class from an income tax hike, extends vital unemployment insurance for Americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction.

I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities ? as long as these leaders allow it to come to a vote. If they still want to vote no, and let this tax hike hit the middle class, that?s their prerogative ? but they should let everyone vote. That?s the way this is supposed to work.

We just can?t afford a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. The economy is growing, but keeping it that way means that the folks you sent to Washington have to do their jobs. The housing market is healing, but that could stall if folks are seeing smaller paychecks. The unemployment rate is the lowest it?s been since 2008, but already, families and businesses are starting to hold back because of the dysfunction they see in Washington.

You meet your deadlines and your responsibilities every day. The folks you sent here to serve should do the same. We cannot let Washington politics get in the way of America?s progress. We?ve got to do what it takes to protect the middle class, grow this economy, and move our country forward.

Thanks, everybody.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/12/29/obama_weekly_address_washington_politics_must_not_get_in_the_way_of_americas_progress.html

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Tron taggers, Spike assumes a Wookiee Life Debt on My Little Pony, plus Gotham Girls!

Tron taggers, Spike assumes a Wookiee Life Debt on My Little Pony, plus Gotham Girls! This week in the world of cartoons we continue to traverse the desert that is holiday programming, but we do have new episodes of Tron: Uprising and MLP: Friendship is Magic, as well as a couple of throwback cartoons.

As always - minor spoilers ahead!


My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic ? "Spike at Your Service"

Tron taggers, Spike assumes a Wookiee Life Debt on My Little Pony, plus Gotham Girls!
Every Brony's favorite little dragon, Spike, is hunted by some really cool looking wolves made of wood in this episode.

Applejack saves him in this clip, leading Spike to take on a Chewbacca-like role to fulfill his Noble Dragon Code.


Tron: Uprising ? "Tagged"

Tron taggers, Spike assumes a Wookiee Life Debt on My Little Pony, plus Gotham Girls!
In what will likely be one of the last episodes of the series, the Renegades attempt to garner the support of a pseudo-street team that is tagging the grid with the message "Tron Lives."

The next episode of Tron: Uprising, "State of Mind", airs this Sunday night at midnight in the Cinemax time slot on DisneyXD.


Adventure Time ? "Pilot"

Tron taggers, Spike assumes a Wookiee Life Debt on My Little Pony, plus Gotham Girls!
Not new by any means, but I'm really, really missing my weekly Adventure Time fix. Here is a short look at the original six minute pilot created by Ward and crew.

A keen ear can hear Finn called Pen in this first glimpse at Adventure Time.


Marvel Super Heroes: What The??! ? "The Perfect Combination "

Tron taggers, Spike assumes a Wookiee Life Debt on My Little Pony, plus Gotham Girls!
Captain America (or Captain Depression-Era as Tony Stark zings him) and Iron Man vie for the opportunity to have Thor as their wing man.


Gotham Girls ? "The Vault"

Tron taggers, Spike assumes a Wookiee Life Debt on My Little Pony, plus Gotham Girls!
A short-lived web series from 2000 starring Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Batgirl, Catwoman and sometimes Zatanna, this great show also spawned a comic book series by DC featuring covers by Shane Glines.

This first episode features Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn annoying each other as they attempt to crack a diamond vault.


Top image courtesy of DisneyXD. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic airs Saturdays on The Hub. Tron: Uprising airs late on Sunday nights on DisneyXD. Enjoy the holidays.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/io9/excerpts/~3/MDS5H0dnKIM/tron-taggers-spike-assumes-a-wookiee-life-debt-on-my-little-pony-plus-gotham-girls

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finance: The Benefits Offered With Car Finance Lease UK

By Joey T Watson

Car leasing can provide drivers a series of benefits based on individual needs for transport. The leasing agreement usually lasts for 24 to 48 months and may be renewed at the end of this period. There are many reasons to consider agreements pertaining to the car finance lease UK.

The monthly payment is calculated according to the residual value of the vehicle including the depreciation and value at the end of the leasing agreement. This can prove highly beneficial as the retail value will not have to be paid. This means that you do not have to budget for exorbitant monthly repayments.

A contract is based on leasing a new vehicle or purchase the automobile on completion of an agreement. This option can prove cost effective as you will not have to seek a loan with enormous interest to obtain the necessary transportation. You will also be responsible for a lower monthly repayment as the asset is not purchased at retail value.

For those looking for transport on a budget, leasing can provide a solution. You will not have to be concerned with depreciation as this will be estimated and included in the costs. In many instances, you will also not have to save a large sum of money in order to make the deposit.

With the rate at which newer vehicles depreciate today, leasing allows one to drive the latest cars and upgrade according to the contract. This way you will not have to fork out large expenses attributed to depreciation. The vehicle leased will also be covered by a manufacturers warranty for the specified period.

There are maintenance packages one may add to keep the vehicle in optimum condition including genera wear and tear. Consider the range of benefits provided with a car finance lease UK. This includes the resale of assets and fluctuating interest rates with alternative financing.



Source: http://finance32.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-benefits-offered-with-car-finance.html

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Friday, December 28, 2012

Samsung confirms multi-window feature and Jelly Bean update for original Galaxy Note

Samsung confirms multiwindow feature and Jelly Bean update for original Galaxy Note

That previously-spotted Premium Suite upgrade for the Galaxy Note is on its way, with Samsung revealing all the details on its site. With a refreshed UI appears very similar to its successor, the respectable Android slab will also lay claim to Air View, Multi-window apps and the addictive easy clip function that allows you to crop and share images and text with the stylus. Thanks to that Jelly Bean update, owners of Samsung's original phablet can also start dabbling with Google Now, which will continue to pluck information from your search history, location and timezone. There's no word yet on when the refreshed Premium suite will find its way onto devices anywhere, but with Samsung already singing the update's praises, it shouldn't be far away.

[Thanks Kenneth]

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Comments

Source: Samsung

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/27/samsung-galaxy-note-confirms-multi-window-jelly-bean-update/

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Strange behavior: New study exposes living cells to synthetic protein

Dec. 27, 2012 ? One approach to understanding components in living organisms is to attempt to create them artificially, using principles of chemistry, engineering and genetics. A suite of powerful techniques -- collectively referred to as synthetic biology -- have been used to produce self-replicating molecules, artificial pathways in living systems and organisms bearing synthetic genomes.

In a new twist, John Chaput, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute and colleagues at the Department of Pharmacology, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ have fabricated an artificial protein in the laboratory and examined the surprising ways living cells respond to it.

"If you take a protein that was created in a test tube and put it inside a cell, does it still function," Chaput asks. "Does the cell recognize it? Does the cell just chew it up and spit it out?" This unexplored area represents a new domain for synthetic biology and may ultimately lead to the development of novel therapeutic agents.

The research results, reported in the advanced online edition of the journal ACS Chemical Biology, describe a peculiar set of adaptations exhibited by Escherichia coli bacterial cells exposed to a synthetic protein, dubbed DX. Inside the cell, DX proteins bind with molecules of ATP, the energy source required by all biological entities.

"ATP is the energy currency of life," Chaput says. The phosphodiester bonds of ATP contain the energy necessary to drive reactions in living systems, giving up their stored energy when these bonds are chemically cleaved. The depletion of available intracellular ATP by DX binding disrupts normal metabolic activity in the cells, preventing them from dividing, (though they continue to grow).

After exposure to DX, the normally spherical E. coli bacteria develop into elongated filaments. Within the filamentous bacteria, dense intracellular lipid structures act to partition the cell at regular intervals along its length. These unusual structures, which the authors call endoliposomes, are an unprecedented phenomenon in such cells.

"Somewhere along the line of this filamentation, other processes begin to happen that we haven't fully understood at the genetic level, but we can see the results phenotypically," Chaput says. "These dense lipid structures are forming at very regular regions along the filamented cell and it looks like it could be a defense mechanism, allowing the cell to compartmentalize itself." This peculiar adaptation has never been observed in bacterial cells and appears unique for a single-celled organism.

Producing a synthetic protein like DX, which can mimic the elaborate folding characteristics of naturally occurring proteins and bind with a key metabolite like ATP is no easy task. As Chaput explains, a clever strategy known as mRNA display was used to produce, fine-tune and amplify synthetic proteins capable of binding ATP with high affinity and specificity, much as a naturally occurring ATP-binding protein would.

First, large libraries of random sequence peptides are formed from the four nucleic acids making up DNA, with each strand measuring around 80 nucleotides in length. These sequences are then transcribed into RNA with the help of an enzyme -- RNA polymerase. If a natural ribosome is then introduced, it attaches to the strand and reads the random sequence RNA as though it was a naturally-occurring RNA, generating a synthetic protein as it migrates along the strand. In this way, synthetic proteins based on random RNA sequences can be generated.

Exposing the batch of synthetic proteins to the target molecule and extracting those that bind can then select for ATP-binding proteins. But as Chaput explains, there's a problem: "The big question is how do you recover that genetic information? You can't reverse transcribe a protein back into DNA. You can't PCR amplify a protein. So we have to do all these molecular biology tricks."

The main trick involves an earlier step in the process. A molecular linker is chemically attached to the RNA templates, such that each RNA strand forms a bond with its newly translated protein. The mRNA-protein hybrids are exposed to selection targets (like ATP) over consecutive rounds of increasing stringency. After each round of selection, those library members that remain bound to the target are reverse-transcribed into cDNA (using their conveniently attached RNA messages), and then PCR amplified.

In the current study, E. coli cells exposed to DX transitioned into a filamentous form, which can occur naturally when such cells are subject to conditions of stress. The cells display low metabolic activity and limited cell division, presumably owing to their ATP-starved condition.

The study also examined the ability of E. coli to recover following DX exposure. The cells were found to enter a quiescent state known as viable but non-culturable (VBNC), meaning that they survived ATP sequestration and returned to their non-filamentous state after 48 hours, but lost their reproductive capacity. Further, this condition was difficult to reverse and seems to involve a fundamental reprogramming of the cell.

In an additional response to DX, the filamentous cells form previously undocumented structures, which the authors refer to as endoliposomes. These dense lipid concentrations, spanning the full width of the filamented E. coli, segment the cells into distinct compartments, giving the cells a stringbean-like appearance under the microscope.

The authors speculate that this adaptation may be an effort to maintain homeostasis in regions of the filamentous cell, which have essentially been walled off from the intrusion of ATP-depleting DX. They liken endoliposomes to the series of water-tight compartments found in submarines which are used to isolate damaged sections of the ship and speculate that DX-exposed cells are partitioning their genetic information into regions where it can be safely quarantined. Such self-compartmentalization is known to occur in some eukaryotic cells, but has not been previously observed in prokaryotes like E. coli.

The research indicates that there is still a great deal to learn about bacterial behavior and the repertoire of responses available when such cells encounter novel situations, such as an unfamiliar, synthetic protein. The study also notes that many infectious agents rely on a dormant state, (similar to the VBNC condition observed in the DX-exposed E. coli), to elude detection by antibiotics. A better understanding of the mechanisms driving this behavior could provide a new approach to targeting such pathogens.

The relative safety of E. coli as a model organism for study may provide a fruitful tool for more in-depth investigation of VBNC states in pathogenic organisms. Further, given ATP's central importance for living organisms, its suppression may provide another avenue for combating disease. One example would be an engineered bacteriophage capable of delivering DX genes to pathogenic organisms.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Arizona State University. The original article was written by Richard Harth.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Shaleen B. Korch, Joshua M. Stomel, Megan A. Le?n, Matt A. Hamada, Christine R. Stevenson, Brent W. Simpson, Sunil K. Gujulla, John C. Chaput. ATP Sequestration by a Synthetic ATP-Binding Protein Leads to Novel Phenotypic Changes inEscherichia coli. ACS Chemical Biology, 2012; : 121203123002005 DOI: 10.1021/cb3004786

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/HOgFMtBFq6s/121227143001.htm

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Ask Professor Pedagogy - Center for Teaching - Vanderbilt University

Ask Professor Pedagogy is a twice monthly advice column written by Center for Teaching staff. One aspect of our mission is to cultivate dialogue about teaching and learning, so we welcome questions and concerns that arise in the classroom; particularly those from Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff. If you have a question that you?d like Professor P to address, please send it to us.

Dear Professor Pedagogy,

I am looking for new, innovative ways of engaging my students with the local history and culture of the city.? As an instructor, I believe that using local, relevant resources for teaching makes the learning for my students more authentic and effective.? However, getting outside the classroom in a structured way seems so daunting and difficult to manage.? Do you have any ideas on how I might get my students engaged in learning about the local history of the community in which our university is located?? Are there ways of leveraging technology, too?? How can I assess that they have learned something if I have them moving around outside the classroom, and can?t be with them at all times?

Thank you for your response,
Learning on the Move

?

Dear Learning on the Move,

I applaud your efforts in thinking how learning could occur outside the four walls of the classroom, and wanting your students to engage with the local context in which they are both living and learning.? Moving outside the ?classroom as container? paradigm (Leander, et al., 2010) can be scary; there seem to be so many unknowns and variables to control.? However, other models of learning (e.g., apprenticeship models) show us that teaching and learning can happen in a variety of different ways that don?t resemble the traditional classroom model (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991).? Here, learning occurs within authentic activity, at the elbow of a more knowledge other (Hall & Greeno, 2008), and in spaces that necessitate moving and coordinating bodies (e.g., Hutchins, 1995).? This description is a stark contrast to our traditional image of a student sitting in a chair, legs under a desk, looking at a screen.? All this to say, move forward with your ideas of re-imagining university teaching and learning!? Feel good about yourself for problematizing the lecture-style model and engaging minds within bodies in places bustling with activity and history!

So here?s my idea:? Starting with your objectives of getting your students out of the classroom, learning about the history and culture of the community, providing some structure, and perhaps introducing them to new technologies, you could do a geocache!? Yes, you heard me, a geocache.? If you don?t know what a geocache is, you might want to first visit this website for some very basic information.? Now, I don?t know the exact content area or discipline from which you teach, but connecting your big, disciplinary ideas to the resources of the community through a geocache could be an effective structured way of teaching som ?e material ?on the move.?

First, think carefully about the learning objectives you have in mind.? Then, do you want your students moving around an area of the community that is walkable?? Do you want them navigating the transit system?? What specific locations will afford your students with new information, and why is it important to actually be in that place?? Will they be in groups?? Will each group member have a particular task?? Do you want to use GPS (global positioning system) technology on smart phones or on devices?? Would you prefer them to use paper maps?? What do you want your students to produce, or bring back with them from this activity?

Once you have answered these questions for yourself, you might:

  • Place some ?tasks? around the area in which you want your students to engage.? Tasks could be typed-out on slips of paper, rolled-up in tubes and located in hard-to-see spots.? The tasks could ask your students to do a variety of things, but make sure that the task is location-specific or relevant to actually being in that spot.? Otherwise, the effort of getting to that particular location will seem for naught.
  • Ask students take a picture of the location, do a rubbing of an engraving with trace paper and charcoals, and/or do some written reflection in that place.

Let?s say you have five tasks to which you want groups of students to navigate and complete ? one could be a kind of written assignment, two could be more problem-solving tasks, one could be a group interpretation of the meaning of a place, and one could be a simple photo proving that they had arrived and noticed something noteworthy about the location.? You might find that the variety of ?task types? will differently engage your students and provide new ways of learning the material.? For some of your students, it will be the navigation and finding the cache that gets them most excited (especially if you have introduced this activity as a race or competition).

In response to your question regarding assessment, you should think carefully about how you debrief this activity in conversation with your students.? Maybe you want each group to share particular artifacts that they have either created or found at locations.? Perhaps you want students to discuss how each location and task relates to bigger disciplinary ideas that are important for the course.? Maybe you want students to do an individual, follow-up assignment at home that synthesize some of the major points you were hoping to get across via a geocache.? Regardless, make sure you do some kind of debrief or wrap-up so you can assess both what your students learned, and how well this activity went for your own pedagogical objectives and toolkit.

Good luck and have fun!

Professor Pedagogy

References:

Hall, R. & Greeno, J. G. (2008). Conceptual learning. T. Good (Ed.),?21st?Century Education: A Reference Handbook, (pp. 212-221). Sage.

Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning. Le-gitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Leander, K.M., Phillips, N.C. & Taylor, K.H. (2010). The changing social spaces of learning: Mapping new mobilities. Review of Research in Education 34, 329-394.

Tags: Ask Professor Pedagogy, Geocaching, Teaching Outside



Source: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2012/12/ask-professor-pedagogy-geocaching-in-the-community/

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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Mark Sanchez To Start For Jets Due To Greg McElroy Concussion

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. ? The New York Jets' wacky quarterback situation took yet another twist.

Greg McElroy has a concussion ? which he didn't reveal until Thursday ? and will be replaced by Mark Sanchez as the New York Jets' starting quarterback in the season finale at Buffalo on Sunday.

Coach Rex Ryan walked into his news conference before practice, took the podium and opened with: "You're not going to believe this."

McElroy, preparing to make his second NFL start in place of the benched Sanchez, was lifting weights Thursday morning and started experiencing headaches, Ryan said. McElroy went to the team's training staff and then revealed he was suffering concussion-like symptoms after being sacked 11 times in the Jets' 27-17 loss to San Diego last Sunday.

McElroy and head trainer John Mellody then went to Ryan to tell the coach the news.

"We come to find out that Greg wasn't exactly truthful with our training staff after the game," said Ryan, who acknowledged he was "stunned" to hear it. "He never disclosed that he had symptoms after the game to our trainers. Right now, he's being evaluated for a concussion."

Ryan said there was no way he would play McElroy against the Bills and the third-stringer will "definitely be out." McElroy had been listed on the injury report Wednesday with a mild abdominal strain, but was a full participant in practice and was expected to play without any issues.

"I admire his courage and everything else, but you have to be truthful and I think that's the lesson learned here with the medical staff," Ryan said. "The fact he really wanted to play, I understand the competitive side of Greg and all that, but the most important thing is the health of the players.

"Obviously, I feel fortunate that something like this showed up without him going out there and putting himself in harm's way."

Ryan chose to start Sanchez over Tim Tebow because the team has just two practices and a walkthrough to prepare before the game.

"Mark has had success earlier in the season against Buffalo and he's very familiar with them," Ryan said. "That's the reason I'm going with Mark."

After finding out about McElroy's condition, Ryan spoke with both Sanchez and Tebow to tell them of his decision.

"Obviously, Tim's not happy with that, as you'd expect," Ryan said.

Sanchez was benched for the first time in his four-year career after turning the ball over five times at Tennessee on Dec. 17. McElroy leapfrogged Tebow on the depth chart to start against the Chargers.

The news comes on the heels of some tension between Ryan and Tebow last week, when the popular backup quarterback told the coach he was "disappointed" at not getting the start and wanted to play "regular quarterback." ESPN New York first reported Sunday that Tebow asked out of the wildcat, and a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed that to The Associated Press. But Tebow insisted Wednesday that he did not ask out of doing anything and acknowledged that Ryan might have misinterpreted what he said.

The two met again last Friday to clear the air, and Tebow reiterated that he was willing to do anything the team asked him to do. Tebow will be the No. 2 quarterback on Sunday at Buffalo, and could play ? but it won't be as the starter.

"Obviously, he'd like a shot at it," Ryan said, "but with the situation the way it is, it's a short window, really, to get the preparation time in and I just think it's best for our football team."

___

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Links:


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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/mark-sanchez-jets-greg-mcelroy-concussion_n_2370658.html

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iPhone 5 launches in more countries

iPhone 5 launches in more countries

The iPhone 5 has launched in several new countries recently, predominantly in Africa. The phone launched on December 21 in Botswana, Camaroon, Central African Republic, Egypt, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, St. Lucia, St.Vincent & the Grenadines, Tunisia, and Uganda, along with the islands of Barbados, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts. The iPhone 5 also went on sale in Vietnam.

Source: (CNN Money)[http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/27/apple-iphone-5-launch/]



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/D1XMCVM4k_Q/story01.htm

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Doctors: Health of Ex-President George H.W. Bush Worsens (Voice Of America)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Newtown School Shooting: Resources to Help Parents of Mentally Ill Children

Dec 18, 2012 7:57am

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When Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and fatally shot 20 children and six adults, the attack re-opened a fierce debate about mental illness.

Lanza, 20, reportedly had an unspecified personality disorder, and in the wake of the rampage, many parents have aired their personal stories about struggling to cope with troubled children.

CLICK HERE for full coverage of the Newtown Elementary School Shooting

Studies have shown that many children who might need mental health services do not receive them. A 2002 study found that only 23 percent of U.S. adolescents who needed mental health treatment had actually received it in the prior year, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

About 60 million Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Below is a list of organizations that can help the parents or caregivers of mentally ill children:

The Resources

Your state: Each state runs a mental health agency under the aegis of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.? Click HERE to find mental health programs and treatment facilities in your area. The agency also runs a free disaster distress helpline for anyone who is experiencing distress as a result of a natural or man-made disaster. Call 1-800-985-5990.

NAMI: The National Alliance on Mental Illness is a grassroots organization that provides advocacy for the access to services and support for the mentally ill across the United States. Its more than 1,000 affiliate organizations across America also provide education and training for parents of mentally ill children and adolescents. ?NAMI?s Child and Adolescent Action Center offers peer discussion groups and other support for teens who have been diagnosed with a mental illness, as well as peer support for parents and caregivers. Click HERE to find your local NAMI affiliate.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: ?The free lifeline is available 24 hours per day, seven days per week to people who believe they are in crisis, even if they are not contemplating suicide. ?People have called us for help with substance abuse, economic worries, relationship and family problems, sexual orientation, illness, getting over abuse, depression, mental and physical illness, and even loneliness,? a message on the organization?s website says. Click HERE to go to the website, or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to be connected to a counselor at anytime. The organization also provides specialized help for young adults and veterans.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: The organization?s website offers links to resources and treatment options, as well as simple definitions for disorders, symptoms and signs of mental disorders, answers to frequently asked questions, a medication guide for parents, clinical resources and expert videos, and other information. The AACAP also offers Facts for Families, a free comprehensive guide for families dealing with children with mental illness. The guide is available in English and Spanish, and other resources are made available in Chinese, Malaysian, Polish, Icelandic, Arabic, Urdu and Hebrew. Click HERE to go to the organization?s resources page.

The Child Mind Institute: ?The Child Mind Institute is a private organization that provides research, advocacy, resources and clinical care for children and teens who suffer from psychiatric and learning disorders. The institute?s website offers a symptom checker, glossary of mental health terms and mental health guide, and a list identifying 11 simple signs that indicate a child may have a psychiatric disorder. ?Click HERE for the institute?s resources page.

Mental Health America: The organization works to provide advocacy and access to quality behavioral health services for all Americans. ?It has more than 200 affiliates in 41 states. MHA also provides for the general public comprehensive information about mental illness, and offers links to the public for crisis counseling, treatment options, mental health providers, clinical trials and help to pay for prescription medications, among a number of topics. Click HERE for the organization?s resources page.

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SHOWS: Good Morning America

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/12/18/newtown-elementary-school-shooting-resources-to-help-parents-of-mentally-ill-children/

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Pakistan: 8 working on polio killed in 48 hours

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ? Gunmen shot dead a woman working on U.N.-backed polio vaccination efforts and her driver in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, raising to eight the number of people killed in the last 48 hours who were part of the immunization drive.

The attack on the woman was one of five that took place on polio workers in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday. One male polio worker was critically wounded, while the others managed to escape unharmed.

The recent killings prompted the U.N.'s public health arm to suspend work on the vaccination drive in two of Pakistan's four provinces Wednesday, a major setback for a campaign that international health officials consider vital to contain the crippling disease but which Taliban insurgents say is a cover for espionage.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Suspicion has fallen on the Pakistani Taliban because of their virulent opposition to the polio campaign, but the group's spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, denied responsibility in a telephone call to The Associated Press.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is endemic. Prevention efforts have managed to reduce the number of cases in Pakistan by around 70 percent this year compared to 2011. But the recent violence threatens to reverse that progress.

Militants accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the vaccine makes children sterile. Taliban commanders in the troubled northwest tribal region have also said vaccinations can't go forward until the U.S. stops drone strikes in the country.

Insurgent opposition to the campaign grew last year after it was revealed that a Pakistani doctor ran a fake vaccination program to help the CIA track down al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in the town of Abbottabad in the country's northwest.

The number of attacks this week on polio workers is unprecedented. They came as the government started a three-day vaccination drive Monday targeting high risk areas of the country, part of an effort to immunize millions of children under the age of five.

The deadliest of Wednesday's attacks occurred in the northwestern town of Charsadda, where the female polio worker and her driver were gunned down, said senior government official Syed Zafar Ali Shah. Gunmen attacked two other polio teams in Charsadda and one in the town of Nowshera, but no one was hurt in those attacks, he said.

Earlier in the day, gunmen shot a polio worker in the head in the city of Peshawar, wounding him critically, said Janbaz Afridi, a senior health official in surrounding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

On Tuesday, gunmen killed five female polio workers ? three of them teenagers ? in a series of attacks in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province, and a village outside Peshawar. Two men who were working alongside the women were critically wounded in those attacks. A male polio worker was also shot to death in Karachi on Monday.

Maryam Yunus, a spokeswoman for the U.N. World Health Organization in Pakistan, said the group's polio staff have been pulled back from the field in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh and asked to work from home until the vaccination campaign ends Wednesday.

Officials in Karachi temporarily suspended the vaccination campaign in the city after the shootings Tuesday, but the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government plowed ahead, not wanting to be cowed by the violence.

Several dozen polio workers and human rights activists protested against the killings in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday and demanded security for the field staff.

The Pakistani government and the U.N. have also condemned the attacks, saying they deprive Pakistan's most vulnerable populations ? specifically children ? of basic life-saving health interventions.

Polio usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions, attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze. A total of 56 polio cases have been reported in Pakistan during 2012, down from 190 the previous year, according to the U.N. Most of the new cases in Pakistan are in the northwest, where the presence of militants makes it difficult to reach children.

Despite the obstacles, the government has teamed up with U.N. agencies to give oral polio drops to 34 million children under the age of five. Clerics and tribal elders have been recruited to support polio vaccinations in an attempt to open up areas previously inaccessible to health workers.

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Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-8-working-polio-killed-48-hours-151516727.html

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Yugioh Calculator for Android

Players Duel each other using a variety of cards. You win a Duel if:
1. you reduce your opponent?s Life Points to 0;
2. if your opponent is unable to draw a card; or
3. if a card?s special effect says you win.
If you both reach 0 Life Points at the same time, the Duel is a draw.

Yugioh calculator helps easy damage calculating for two players in a phone. Coin tossing and dice throwing are also included.

Source: http://www.appszoom.com/android_applications/tools/yugioh-calculator_ezjke.html?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Free++Applications+for+Android

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Monday, December 17, 2012

Observations on film art : A dose of DOS: Trade secrets from Selznick

David O. Selznick dictating a memo in 1941. Secretaries are Virginia Olds (back to camera) and Frances Inglis.

DB here:

Tucked neatly within over 4500 archive boxes in Austin, Texas, are tens of thousands of items of information about how the Hollywood studio system worked. The trick is to find the ones you?re looking for?and the ones you didn?t know you should be looking for.

Those archive boxes are housed at the Harry Ransom Research Center?at the University of Texas. This magnificent research library holds cultural records of inestimable value, from Whitman and Poe manuscripts to the papers of David Foster Wallace. Among the Center?s impressive film collections, the jewel in the crown is the David O. Selznick papers?a vast trove of material related to the career of the man who produced, some would say over-produced, Gone with the Wind,?Rebecca, Spellbound,?Duel in the Sun, and other classics of the Hollywood system.

Selznick has been studied from many angles, partly because his collection provides exceptionally full accounts of his activities. He kept, it seems, nearly everything, most famously memoranda.?While chainsmoking cigarettes, swallowing amphetamines, writing amateur poetry, and revising scripts and visiting sets and critiquing rehearsals and watching rushes and retaking scenes and checking on rivals? films, Selznick found time to dictate a blizzard of memos.

From his youth he loved to write memos??I could sell an idea much better in written form than I could verbally??and he became adept at dictating them. The results were precise, punchy, and often eloquent.?Usually signed DOS (the O being a middle initial he bestowed upon himself), these communiqu?s could be lapidary (a one-liner asking if the cast is protected from sunburn) or epic. After getting Selznick?s dense, eight-page telegram explaining why Since You Went Away?s nearly three hours could not be reduced, a colleague replied: IF I WERE YOU I WOULD MAKE NO FURTHER CUTS IN SYWA. YOU MIGHT TAKE ABOUT TEN MINUTES OUT OF YOUR TELEGRAM.

In his later years?Selznick contemplated publishing a collection called?Memo Strikes Back. After he died in 1965, his son encouraged film historian Rudy Behlmer to make a compilation. The result,?Memo from David O. Selznick?(1972), is a superb collage portrait of the man?s personality and creative years. In the 1980s, the Ransom Center acquired the papers that Behlmer worked through, along with physical artifacts, including costumes from?GWTW.

Me-mos, they were called by many, since they seemed to reflect the compulsive micromanaging of their creator. Directors and staff smarted under Selznick?s insistence that he control every creative decision. But for those of us coming afterward, Selznick?s criticisms, complaints, demands, reminiscences, agonies of frustration, and I-told-you-sos help us grasp the concrete problems of filmmaking.

Last week I went to Austin hoping to get some information about how Hollywood creators of the 1940s regarded the task of storytelling. DOS delivered as he did on the screen: splashily.

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Paper traces

William Cameron Menzies production sketch for Gone with the Wind.

Most commentary on movies stops with?the films as we find them. Critics who concentrate on producing interpretations are particularly inclined to play down primary-document research. ?We already know,? a famous English critic once told me, ?all we need to know.?

In my youth I mostly agreed. Criticism starts with watching and listening closely to what?s happening on the screen. But it doesn?t have to end there.?That?s because doing systematic research into film depends on asking questions. And?if we?re going beyond a single movie and asking questions about craft, norms, preferred practices, and regulative principles shaping a filmic tradition?in short, questions of film poetics?evidence from practitioners can help a lot.

Hollywood, for instance, has produced a rich array of published materials?interviews, trade coverage, promotion, technical papers?that offer evidence of what filmmakers thought they were doing. You have to read them with a jaundiced eye and be alert for rhetoric, but there?s still a lot to be found in Hollywood?s public presentation of its doings. There?s an even richer lode of unpublished script drafts, production memos, correspondence, transcripts of meetings, court cases, and the like. Mountains of such material remain locked up in studio files. This is what makes the paper collections at major universities, at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy, at the Museum of Modern Art, and at other institutions precious to those of us studying film history.

Collections like these are grist for the perpetual flow of celebrity biographies and accounts of Hollywood as a business. What, though, can they tell us about the history of film form and style?

Like some published material, these items can suggest how aware filmmakers were of their creative choices. When I was teaching, and the class focused on details of framing or cutting, some students were skeptical. ?This is reading too much in,? they?d say. ?The director couldn?t have intended that!? And it?s true that sometimes things we think were carefully planned came about through accident or sudden inspiration. Still, in other cases a document shows that filmmakers were consciously aiming at fine-grained effects.

Moreover, archive documents can indicate the array of creative options available?the extent to which one artistic choice is preferred over alternatives that wouldn?t work as well. If filmmaking is problem-solving, we learn about the costs and benefits of competing solutions. We gain a better sense of what can and can?t be done within a tradition when we glimpse filmmakers struggling to decide between expressive possibilities.

Yet another benefit of paging through archival documents is the recognition that we can?t neatly separate filmmaking as business from filmaking as an art. We commonly imagine a studio producer ordering a director to take the cheapest option, to trim costs in every way. Surely this happened a lot. Surprisingly often, though, the suits did and still do invest a lot in artistic effects, even innovative ones. When writing our book The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960,?we were struck by the power of the idea of the ?quality film,? that mixture of novelty, showmanship, and high production values that justifies time and resources. A flamboyant crane shot, a complicated lighting scheme, a gorgeous musical score, flashy special effects?in the Hollywood tradition and others, these are appeals worth paying for, even if not every viewer appreciates them.

Perhaps above all, studying records can call our attention to aspects of the film that your initial impression didn?t pick out. A critic can?t notice everything. Examining collections such as Selznick?s, or those housed in our Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, have taught me that what appears effortless or perfunctory on the screen can be the product of intense thought, protracted debate, and hours of hard work. Once you re-tune your attention, even minor moments can be worth thinking about, if only because the filmmakers labored patiently over them.

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Getting what you pay for

Since You Went Away (1944).

Selnick was a fussbudget on a scale that makes Schulz?s Lucy look laid-back. He sought control over every aspect of the film, from purchase of material through production, post-production, publicity, and distribution. Gone with the Wind?s volcanic success seemed to confirm the wisdom of his endless tracking of every detail. Because that tracking is made explicit, not to say vehement, in his memos and other correspondence, we get glimpses of Hollywood?s artistic strategies large and small.

Start small. In The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production, I wrote about the ?rule of three??the guideline that presses filmmakers to state important story information three times, preferably with variations (serious/ funny/ pathetic). I gleaned that precept from reading published work, and I could check it by studying the films. Still, further evidence is always welcome, so it?s nice to see a transcript of a story conference during the prolonged rewriting of Portrait of Jennie (1949). The hero, the painter Eben Adams, comes to a coastal town in search of his dream-girl, and DOS suggests:

In every scene he is to ask: ?Do you remember a girl named Jennie Appleton?? Use rule of three?two [townfolk] do not remember her?the third one does. . ?. ?Remember her well. . . pretty young thing with dark hair.?

More recently, I?ve been wondering whether studio screenwriters of the 1930s and 1940s were consciously adhering to something like today?s notion of a three-act structure. I?ve found scattered evidence from memos elsewhere that refer to a movie?s ?first act? or ?last act,? but nothing that indicates a commitment to an overarching three-part layout.

I haven?t found clear-cut evidence in DOS?s papers either, but in another story conference on Jennie, Broadway showman Jed Harris is reported as saying: ?The second act?he must get the picture back because that?s all he?ll ever have of her.? In the finished film, Eben doesn?t search for the portrait, but Harris?s remark indicates that he had some sort of multiple-act structure in the back of his mind. He adds later: ?The picture at this point is about 1/3 gone, and from here you have the machinery of trying to stop what is impossible to stop.? Far from definitive evidence, but teasing.

Now consider a medium-size example. Kristin and I have argued that many Hollywood films have a symmetrical opening-and-closing structure, often presented as an epilogue that mirrors the beginning. More recently I suggested that this bookend structure often displays an advance/ retreat pattern. At the start, the camera may move into a space or a character may come toward us; at the end, the camera may retreat and/or the characters may turn away or walk into the distance. On Since You Went Away (1944), Selznick sweated over ways to frame this panorama of the American home front. Early on he decided to start his film with an exterior view of the Hilton family home. This image dissolves to a closer view showing a star in the window, which indicates that a member of the family is in the armed forces.

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Eventually Selznick decided to end the film by pulling back from a miniature of the house, with a single camera movement replacing the two unmoving shots that started things off. Anne is joyfully embracing her two daughters; they?re inserted as a matte into the upstairs window.

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Selznick considered redoing the opening as a slow camera movement in to the window, but only if the miniature was good enough. Perhaps it wasn?t. And at one point he wanted the final shot to start with the star in the window, at least for purposes of the preview screening, ?to parallel that at the beginning of the picture.? Again, that wasn?t accomplished, but his playing with possibilities reflects his tradition?s commitment to symmetrical openings and closings.

It would have been far cheaper simply to have ended the film on the three-shot of the women, shown at the top of this section. But Selznick wanted ?a nice rounded feeling? in his epilogue, and he was prepared to pay for it. True, he was exceptionally finicky, but going to a lot of trouble and expense to get this formal rhyme was not unusual in studio practice. The hardheaded film business is willing to invest in vivid, emotionally gripping artistry identified with quality moviemaking.

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Stylistic trends

Portrait of Jennie (1949).

In broad terms, it?s fair to say that American studio films of ?the 1940s display a more self-conscious use of long takes, sustained camera movements, and deep-focus cinematography than we find in other eras. (Actually, it?s a trend we find throughout the world at the time, for reasons that aren?t well understood.) But these new techniques didn?t replace traditional analytical editing. They worked within it. Continuity cutting, established in America in the late 1910s, remained the dominant stylistic framework for filmmakers.

Citizen Kane?s fixed single-shot scenes in depth were very unusual in cinema of the period. More commonly, deep-focus shots, like moving-camera shots, served as establishing framings or otherwise became part of conventionally edited sequences. This middling or compromise style can be found in dozens of films of the forties, and Selznick seems to have more or less consciously gone along with it.

He worried about what he called ?cuttiness,? the tendency to break every scene into brief single shots of the players. Often, he suggested, a well-handled two-shot would work better. He told his editor on Since You Went Away to avoid ?the conventional treatment of close-ups and reactions.?

It most definitely is not necessary always to treat every one of our scenes with dead center close-ups, and direct cuts or over-the-shoulder angles, when an intimate scene is played between two people.

He goes on to tell a second-unit director that a scene of a couple in a car could be played in one or two setups, perhaps in a single shot ?if we could get an interesting composition on the two of them rather than a dead center two-shot on individuals.?

Selznick saw Hitchcock as an editing-biased director and so after signing him to make Rebecca (1940), he warned him and other members of the team to avoid over-cutting. Again, the preference was for a tight two-shot.

The new scene between the girl and Mrs. Danvers on the arrival at Manderley (Script Scenes 130A, 130N and 131) may be very cutty as described in the script, and perhaps ought to be protected in a close two-shot of ?I? [the heroine] and Mrs. Danvers, or some other angle that will keep us from playing it in too many short cuts.

In most cases, however, Selznick gave himself an out by treating faster cutting as an alternative. He consistently wanted coverage, as he indicates immediately for the Rebecca scene just mentkoned.

However, I suggest we make the short cuts also, as this may be the best way of playing it after all. If we use the camera to move up to Mrs. Danvers for the finish, which is the way I think it should be used, then perhaps the first shot of her should be retaken also.

As the last sentence indicates, Selznick sometimes opts for camera movement to avoid cuttiness. Perhaps the American Hitchcock?s interest in tracking shots that follow characters, particularly glamorous women, through the set stemmed from Selznick?s belief in the power of occasional camera movements. He notes that a tracking shot introducing Alida Valli in The Paradine Case (1948) is too bumpy, asking why the staff couldn?t manage ?something as simple as going up to a woman?s face, and then pulling back from it across a set, without the camera shaking in the manner of early silent pictures.?

Yet these longish takes aren?t to be the dominant stylistic approach.?Sustained takes often block off choices in post-production. Producers, then and now, want coverage, and you didn?t have to be a micromanager like Selznick to want your directors to give you options for rebuilding scenes in the cutting room. We see this when?Selznick objects to John Cromwell?s playing entire scenes in lengthy shots.

This is of course nonsense, since as often as not an incomplete take is better than the identical portion of a complete take. . . . It seems folly to spend hours getting a complete scene ?instead of just picking up those sections of the beginning or middle or end that have been fluffed.

Some directors resisted by shooting long takes without coverage. Hitchcock did this in one sequence of The Paradine Case and then promoted this ?three and a half-minute take? to the Hollywood community, perhaps to make it harder for Selznick to change it. Nonetheless, Selznick cut the scene up. Once freed from Selznick, of course, Hitchcock was able to pursue the long-take option to extremes with Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949).

Despite wanting flexibility in editing, producers can be seduced by the prospect of ?pre-cutting? a film?planning the shots so exactly that the film can be ?pre-visualized.? The director can thus avoid taking shots that won?t be used. Selznick was proud of William Cameron Menzies? precise production planning on Gone with the Wind, and this made him believe in the power of the storyboard. When he rewrote a script, which was often, he was inclined to have artists immediately prepare fresh drawings of sets and shots.

Hitchcock had promoted himself as someone who drafted a film on paper so thoroughly that shooting became efficient and predictable. Selznick was therefore startled when Hitchcock proposed a long shooting schedule for Rebecca. ?In view of the many speeches he has made to me about how he pre-cuts a script, so as to shoot only necessary angles, it is a mystery to me as to how he could spend even 42 days.?

During shooting, DOS became furious with the pace of production, declaring Hitchcock ?the slowest director we have had.? Hitchcock, he believed, was spending more time getting his few angles than directors who shot in normal fashion. Yet Selznick remained susceptible to the dream of pre-cutting. Some years later, he predicted that Since You Went Away wouldn?t take much time in the editing room because the scenes ?will be camera-cut to an extra-ordinary degree, and putting it together should take no time at all.? The film?s editing occupied several months.

Selznick, then, was attracted to current trends of longish takes and the fluid camera, but like nearly all his peers he saw these as subordinate to the overarching demands of analytical editing, whether through traditional protection coverage or through ?pre-cutting.? Something similar seems to have governed his interest in depth staging and deep-focus cinematography. Peppered throughout the memos I examined are his concern for ?foreground pieces,? props that can enliven a shot. A miniature sailing ship in Portrait of Jennie, he suggests, is too big for its placement in the shots as taken. ?It would have been a far better foreground piece for another angle.? So it became such a piece, as the still surmounting this section indicates.

Of Since You Went Away DOS notes:

I think that lately we have been overlooking chances for good foreground and background planes in our set-ups. I don?t want to over-do this but of a lot of our shots could be much more interesting in this regard.

In particular he emphasizes the bronzed baby shoes introduced in the film?s opening, as the camera glides through the Hilton family parlor picking up traces of the departed father. A later scene, in which Anne writes a letter to her husband Tim, seemed the ideal chance to re-use that prop. ?Photographically, I thought it would be much more interesting with the shadow of the shoes, or using the shoes as foreground pieces.? This composition, if it was shot, didn?t appear in the final film, but it shows once again that filmmakers can be aware of broader trends of their period, and that they?re willing to go to considerable trouble to join them.

A striking example of the insistence on participating in the deep-focus trend appears in the files around Spellbound. After arriving in America, Hitchcock occasionally produced some big-foreground depth images, as below in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and in?Notorious (1946).

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Such compositions were rare in most films Hitchcock did under Selznick, but in Spellbound Selznick realized the value of keeping up-to-date. The most famous big foreground in the film (and in all Hitch?s work) is seen at the climax, when Dr. Murchison trains his revolver on Constance as she edges out of his office.

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This bizarre shot is somewhat anticipated by a less aggressive setup. Constance hears over the radio that the police have tracked J. B. to Manhattan, and she goes into the next room to pack to follow him. The action is handled in a canonical post-Kane composition.

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The production records make me wonder whether this shot (presumably using a larger-than-life clock and radio) was filmed under Hitchcock?s supervision. It may have replaced an even more complex shot that cinematographer George Barnes objected to. (I?m still gathering information on this.) In any event, Selznick realized that a minor transitional scene could be dynamized by a flamboyant, difficult-to-achieve image: a throwaway mark of quality.

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Pendulum swings of innovation

Since You Went Away.

I?ll save other things I found for future work. Let me finish by talking about how Selznick?s ?directing at a distance? shows ?a craftsman?s concern for novelty and pictorial storytelling.

Hitchcock famously shot the Old Bailey scenes of The Paradine Case with several cameras in an immense set. Selznick may have okayed this tactic on this occasion because it would speed up Hitchcock?s schedule. (Selznick had hoped it would take only one day; it took three for principal photography and several more for pick-up inserts.) But both before and after Paradine, Selznick was interested in extending multiple-camera shooting beyond its normal uses.

Multiple-camera coverage of ordinary scenes had a heyday in the early years of sound, but afterward it was usually reserved for unrepeatable action (fires, stunts, cars going off cliffs) or very big scenes. Selznick had deployed several cameras, including the lightweight Eyemos, during the dance at the airplane hangar in Since You Went Away. Like Welles, he also considered using the tactic for ordinary dramatic scenes. He writes in 1947:

I have long felt that sooner or later, probably when economic necessity dictates, this method of shooting will come into vogue, with far more time spent on rehearsal, far less time on shooting, enormous savings and better quality. I know that for years I have been discussing with Hitchcock my feeling that we could take a film of a particular type, thoroughly rehearse it, and shoot it in a week?and this is just what Hitch is planning to do on The Rope [sic].

Selznick anticipated the practice of multiple-camera television production. It?s intriguing to think of Hitchcock taking this idea and simply substituting one camera for many, creating another technical stunt that could be publicized.

DOS was sensitive to conventions and often sought to refresh them. For one back-projected scene of Portrait of Jennie, he advises Dieterle ?to avoid the awful-looking, head-on, two-shot process setups and angle camera in different ways: perhaps with lower cameras, one shooting across Adams at Spinney and the other shooting across Spinney at Adams.? This echoes his concern for finding unusual angles on the process arrangement?in Since You Went Away?s driving scene. He likewise encouraged unusual staging, recalling

the love scene between Freddie March and Janet Gaynor in A Star Is Born, the one in which he takes her home the first night, after the kitchen scene, where the entire scene is played on Freddie?s back; and the love scene in Nothing Sacred in the crate after Carole Lombard has fished Freddie March out of the river. Both of these treatments enormously enhanced the value of these scenes, which shot conventionally would not have been necessarily so effective.

In the first instance, the conversation is handled by an unusually prolonged over-the-shoulder shot that doesn?t show March replying to Gaynor. In the second, the romantic dialogue is emphasized by the darkness of the crate and our inability to see either actor clearly.

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Yet Selznick worried about becoming too ?arty? as well. During the filming of?Since You Went Away he confessed:

I feel that I am at least partially responsible for our increasing tendency to play scenes on people?s backs. . . . In Jane?s attack upon the colonel after the breakfast scene, we are on neither one principal nor the other, but on the colonel?s back and Jane?s back . . . In the church scene there has been talk of playing it on the three backs, but I have tried in the script to indicate that we should not do this.

Stark lighting is of course common in 1940s cinema generally, but Selznick favored it in the 1930s as well, in the shots above and more famously in Gone with the Wind. By the 1940s, Since You Went Away and Portrait of Jennie include scenes steeped in rich shadow areas, cast shadows, and silhouettes.

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But here, as elsewhere, DOS?s urge for innovation was curbed by anxiety about going too far. In a memo to Cromwell on Since You Went Away, he wrote that ?all of us (mostly myself) are overdoing the silhouette business. . . . Let?s from now on all use this silhouette effect very sparingly, and only when it?s absolutely indispensable to our mood.?

Perhaps what I?ve called his middle-of-the road approach was less a balance and more of a pendulum swing between extremes. He could sometimes foreswear the grand, almost monumental look of many scenes and demand something quieter. At the end of the day when Anne?s husband has left for war, she looks at his unmade bed.

She leaps up and wriggles into it, covering her face with the blankets, and starts to cry.

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Commentators often fasten on the twin-beds convention as an example of the naive timidity of studio-era Hollywood. Yet every convention offers opportunities for expression. When Anne rises, the sight of one rumpled bed and one pristine one brings home the husband?s absence in a simple, powerful image, and her plunging into it directly conveys her longing to be in his arms.

I?m absolutely positive that this gag will not get over unless we see the two beds in the clear, one made up and one not made up, before she hops into the other bed. I think these two beds constitute good storytelling.

When the hard-bitten Ben Hecht saw Since You Went Away, he cabled Selznick: ?It made me cry like a fool.?

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You can certainly argue that Selznick the fussbudget was his own worst enemy. His micromanagement raised his budgets and drove away his collaborators. As the production values grew more inflated, it was hard to recoup costs, let alone turn big profits. Ten years after Gone with the Wind premiered, Selznick?s fiefdom lay in ruins. He withdrew from production, millions of dollars in debt. He wrote in a confidential 1948 memo:

In the final analysis it is my fault for two reasons: (1) my production methods; (2) my tolerance through the years of the wastefulness. . . . The most successful series of pictures ever made in the history of the business has produced profits which are perhaps not more than twenty per cent of what they should be.?

Ideas matter in any domain, even in studying Hollywood. And not just the ideas of critics, historians, and theorists. The practicing artisans of the studio system had rich but tacit ideas about preferred ways to build plots, to shoot and cut scenes, to mix sound and add music. These norms were seldom stated outright.?Were Selznick less interfering, less prone to hesitate between alternatives, less obsessed with minute details, we would not know as much about the workings of the system he sought to rule. He distilled into typescript and double carbons many notions that ordinarily went unstated. His plump files teem with ideas about how films were made, and how their creator thought they should affect audiences. Thanks to institutions like the Ransom Center, his work is preserved to enlighten us about filmmakers? secrets, even the secrets they don?t know they know.


I?m very grateful to Emilio Banda and the rest of the staff at the Harry Ransom Center, who helped me during my visit. Thanks also to Steve Wilson, Curator of Film there, for advice. And of course thanks to my family?Diane, Darlene, Kewal, Kamini, Megan, and Sanjeev?who made our trip to Austin so enjoyable.

My quotations come from the memos I examined, as well as from other items in Rudy Behlmer?s Memo from David O. Selznick. I also drew on Ronald Haver?s David O. Selznick?s Hollywood (Knopf, 1980), the initial edition of which is surely the most gorgeous book ever published about the American film industry. Haver?s study is not only spectacularly illustrated but deeply researched, and it, like Behlmer?s, is indispensable for the study of the studio system. The Menzies production sketch is taken from the Haver volume.

No less indispensable is Leonard J. Leff?s Hitchcock & Selznick (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987). After sifting through both the Selznick collection in Austin and the Hitchcock collection at the Academy?s Margaret Herrick Library, Leff produced a detailed account of the two men?s creative work. Hitchcock?s long take in The Paradine Case is promoted in Bart Sheridan, ?Three and a Half Minute Take?,??American Cinematographer 27, 9 (September 1948), 304-305, 314.

Paul Ramaeker offers a subtle account of Portrait of Jennie as a ?supernatural romantic melodrama? at The Third Meaning.

For more on 1940s stylistic norms, see The Classical Hollywood Cinema, chapter 27, and On the History of Film Style, chapter 6. The first essay in my Poetics of Cinema discusses Hitchcock in relation to trends of the period, concentrating on Rope and long-take options. On Citizen Kane and rationales for deep-focus cinematography, you can go here. I mention a bit about the fashion for the ?fluid camera? in 1940s Hollywood in this entry.

William Cameron Menzies served as art director and more for Gone with the Wind, and he and was pressed into service ad hoc for later DOS projects. I think he may have influenced the shadow-drenched style of Since You Went Away and Portrait of Jennie. I wrote about Menzies? work, and again about deep-space work in 1940s Hollywood,?here and here. See also David Cairns? enlightening essay in The Believer.

Since You Went Away: ?I think that Miss Keon had better start preparing a script of retakes and additional scenes. I think we missed a wonderful opportunity in the Christmas scene in not having a shot from the angle of the family, or from the bottom of the stairs, of the Colonel going up the stars with Soda behind him.?

This entry was posted on Monday | December 17, 2012 at 11:31 am and is filed under Directors: Hitchcock, Hollywood: Artistic traditions, Hollywood: The business, Poetics of cinema. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2012/12/17/a-dose-of-dos-trade-secrets-from-selznick/

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