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One of the great unknown variables of film making are the labs that process the film negatives. In the old days of film making, only about half of all exposed rolls would ever survive the lab, nowadays most productions go through the processing without a problem.

That said, the very first film I worked on (back in the early 1990s, a black&white silent short drama shot in Checkoslovakia, now Czech Republic) had to be partially re-shot because of some trouble in the lab. And one commercial that involved one of the hugest cruise ships going to the Hardanger Fjord in eastern Norway, filmed on speed boats and a helicopter, was totally ruined in the lab. Luckily they were covered and the project was re-shot 100%, much to the DPs delight, as the weather turned out much nicer.

Worst case

One story we heard in Filmschool was that one lab in London used to employ a blind man as their main lab person. He was very thorough. But the catastrophe hit when one evening the cleaning ladies forgot to switch off the lights…

Anyway, here comes a segment from Der Untergang with altered subtitles:

In the past few weeks, Microsoft has managed to impress me, and impress me thrice. First with their campaign “Bring the love back” (link). Then they showed a new way of collecting meta data for photographs. And finally, they have a cool table-top computer in the works.

But then the old Microsoft factor jumped in. They just do not know marketing. When I visited their site, I was surprized how un-cool they managed to make their videos. Yes, they have a cool web-site, but the videos are just old-school; nicely made, but essentially boring. If I hadn’t seen the video from Popular Mechanics first, I wouldn’t have grasped how cool this thing really is. Worse yet, in the same week that Microsoft has the first public showing of this new Surface thing, everyone is talking about a mobile cell phone.

They have the means to pay for any type of ad strategy, but it seems that the problem is at the core of Microsoft. Stories are much more interesting than facts.

So, without further ado, a video that uses Microsoft footage with a new voice-over, putting the Surface computer into perspective: (via)
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