Thursday, September 10, 2009

“JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer to get comic-book biographies - The Guardian” plus 4 more

“JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer to get comic-book biographies - The Guardian” plus 4 more

JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer to get comic-book biographies - The Guardian

Posted: 10 Sep 2009 04:51 AM PDT

Stephenie Meyer (left) and JK Rowling

Stephenie Meyer (left) and JK Rowling. Photograph: AP/AFP

The latest in comic book warfare pits two unlikely heroines against each other: JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer. The bestselling authors are set to go head-to-head at the end of the year, when graphic novel biographies of each writer are lined up for publication.

Dressed in a purple off-the-shoulder dress and a golden necklace, Rowling's comic persona is somewhat more glamorous than that of Meyer, who sports a grey v-neck jumper. Whether this will prove more enticing to readers of the comics, which are scheduled for release in December and November respectively by US publisher Bluewater Productions, remains to be seen.

The Rowling graphic biography will follow her "rags to riches story", said Bluewater, from her middle-class upbringing, to her time in Portugal teaching English and her "meteoric rise" to bestsellerdom. Author Adam Gragg said Rowling was "a remarkable and multi-dimensional woman". "Learning about who she is and how she struggled to become a success was a truly enlightening experience," he said. "Twelve publishers turned her down. If it weren't for the daughter of a British publisher who liked Rowling's first chapter of Philosopher's Stone, we might never have met Harry Potter."

Meyer's story, meanwhile, will be narrated by a vampire "in a very fun, respectful and unique way", according to Bluewater president Darren G Davis.

The publisher is currently in the process of selecting two other prominent female authors for its comic book series, and said it was deliberating between Toni Morrison, Ayn Rand, Margaret Atwood, Ursula LeGuin, Harper Lee, Anne Rice, Beatrix Potter and Virginia Woolf. The books are being published as part of its Female Force series, which has already featured biographies of Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton.

Brent Maddock  - Variety

Posted: 10 Sep 2009 06:17 AM PDT

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Future, past useless at my age, says actor Sharif - Reuters India

Posted: 10 Sep 2009 07:07 AM PDT

By Mike Collett-White

VENICE (Reuters) - For Omar Sharif, the future and the past are useless. The only thing that counts for the Egyptian actor is the present.

"I think that thinking about the future is something for young people, and thinking about the past is useless when you are old," Sharif told reporters in Venice, where his latest movie "The Traveller" is in competition at the film festival.

"In life I have already wiped out everything that has already gone," he said through an interpreter, switching languages with each question. The translator gave his age as 78, although online biographies and his Myspace page say he is 77.

"Every moment is like that for me now and that is how it should be. To live well at my age you always have to think about concentrating your attention on the moment that is now and the moment you are living because you don't know how much longer you may live."

Sharif plays the old Hassan in Ahmed Maher's debut feature film The Traveller (El Mosafer), which follows Hassan on three pivotal days in his life -- the first in 1948, the second in 1973 and the third in 2001.

The story explores time and the past, as an elderly Hassan seeks to reconnect with his own personal history through the young Ali who he is convinced is his grandson.

THE ONLY ARAB  Continued...

Creative, bold figures subjects of biographies - Columbus Dispatch

Posted: 09 Sep 2009 03:40 AM PDT

Two artists, a wordsmith, an abolitionist and the inventor of television are the subjects of new biographies for children.

• The Secret World of Walter Anderson (Candlewick, 48 pages, $17.99, ages 9 to 12) is Hester Bass' story of "the most famous American artist you've never heard of."

Anderson studied wildlife along the coast of Mississippi, where the locals called him crazy for his eccentric behavior. But he painted incessantly and left behind a body of work.

Many of his pieces were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Some of the proceeds from the book will be used to help conserve the others.

• World of Inventors: Leonardo da Vinci (Silver Dolphin, 40 pages, $21.95, age 8 and older) is a biography in a box -- including a build-it-yourself model of a flying ornithopter, one of his inventions.

The text by Lorraine Jean Hopping covers the great artist's life but dwells most on his many inventions -- including the flapping ornithopter, intended to simulate avian flight.

• Noah Webster: Weaver of Words (Calkins Creek, 40 pages, $18.95, age 8 and older) -- Who knew that, in Middle English, webster means "weaver of words"?

In her thorough, if wordy, picture-book biography of the proponent of an American language and creator of an English dictionary, Pegi Deitz Shea reveals similar tidbits.

Webster, for instance, lobbied Americans to spell words the way they were pronounced, suggesting giv rather than give and bred rather than bread. He didn't win on those, but he did convert the English spellings of plough and colour to the shorter versions. Monica Vachula's oil-painting illustrations are lush and plentiful.

• John Brown: His Fight for Freedom (Abrams, 40 pages, $18.95, ages 9 to 12) -- The fiery abolitionist looms larger than life in a tale that begins in 1840 and ends just before the Civil War.

Brown, hanged after his ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry, W.Va., didn't live to see American slaves freed. John Hendrix's illustrations are as colorful as the subject of his text.

• The Boy Who Invented TV (Knopf, 40 pages, $16.99, ages 5 to 8) -- In the early 1900s, Philo Farnsworth grew up on a Utah farm without a refrigerator, a car or a radio.

How the inquisitive, gadget-loving youngster came to develop one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century is a good story, excitingly told by Kathleen Krull.

The book is inventively illustrated by Greg Couch, who incorporates newspaper headlines into his paintings.

ngilson@dispatch.com

Adobe Story public preview released - IT World

Posted: 10 Sep 2009 05:34 AM PDT

Adobe Systems has announced the public preview of Adobe Story, the company's new collaborative script development software, at the 2009 IBC (International Broadcasting Convention) trade show in Amsterdam. Adobe Story, which debuted in April at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show, automatically turns script content into metadata that can be used throughout the digital video workflow. "Video creators understand that the key to workflow optimization is metadata," said Jennifer Taylor, Adobe's Director of Flash Content Creation and Distribution. "It's best to capture metadata as early in the process as possible."

The preview version of Adobe Story is available for free at Adobe Labs.

Adobe Story is designed to be part of the planning and pre-production phase of the video workflow and will be integrated with other Adobe products, including future versions of the Creative Suite family, Adobe says. Adobe Story is designed to help simplify production, reduce costs, and streamline operations for camera operators, editors, directors, and others involved in video project development. Once information, such as script location and character biographies are captured or entered into Adobe Story, the metadata will automatically flow into other products in the Creative Suite Production Premium toolkit, improving the efficiency of capturing clips and editing footage.

"Today, broadcast and media companies are looking for next-generation video workflows that transform how content is created and consumed," said Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager of Dynamic Media at Adobe. "By capturing valuable script information in the pre-production phase, Adobe Story provides these companies with a groundbreaking new tool that can radically streamline production workflows, reduce overall costs, and make entertainment more interactive and engaging."

Scriptwriting generally includes several phases: outline, several drafts, final draft, shooting script, and creation of a production shot list to accompany the final script. Adobe Story is designed to help simplify and accelerate this process. With Adobe Story, project participants also get a visually rich environment to share ideas at will. Users can employ the software's industry standard formatting to create a script from scratch or import scripts into Adobe Story from applications such as Microsoft Word and Final Draft, or export into Adobe PDF, text, XML, Movie Magic, and CSV.

Participants can use Adobe Story to work online and offline and automatically synchronize input and comments once they connect to the Internet. During this phase, the software automatically captures metadata such as scene locations and other pertinent information to create a more efficient workflow.

When the video production is ready for online distribution, the metadata can also help viewers discover and search through content to find favorite characters, episodes, or scenes, making the viewing experience more interactive.

Adobe is demonstrating Story at IBC from September 11 through 15.

» posted by ITworld staff

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