The Queen's Speech!

Listen to the Queen's message to the Nation.

Her Majesty speaks of the importance of friends and family and remembers members of the Armed Forces serving overseas at Christmas.
Visit the Royal Channel

Xmas Greetings!

My Best Wishes to everybody!

ilaria salvadori

...don't forget...Gollum!

eilan is right! Give a look at these images...



(The actor Andy Serkis in the role of Gollum in "The Lord of the Ring")

Backstage del film Beowulf

Il regista Robert Zemeckis per la realizzazione del film Beowulf ha utilizzato la tecnica del “Performance Capture”, che è l’ultima evoluzione della “Motion Capture”.
Zemeckis ne ha fatto uso anche nel film 'Polar Express', nel quale è protagonista e produttore il noto attore Tom Hanks. A livello storico si deve annotare l’utilizzo di questa tecnica per la prima volta in 'Matrix', anche se sotto il nome di U-cap (universal capture).

Performance Capture
- Tecnica che consente di catturare le espressioni e i movimenti di attori reali per applicarli ad un personaggio virtuale.
- La tecnica è del tutto simile alla motion capture, sulla quale non approfondiamo, ma si avvale di una tecnologia più sofisticata. I marker, sensori posti nei punti di giuntura delle ossa e di contrazione dei muscoli, sono estremamente piccoli e posizionati principalmente sul volto degli attori.
Il "performance capture" è stato impiegato per numerosi videogames e film come 'Final Fantasy'. Grazie alla luce riflessa dai tantissimi microsensori che ricoprono interamente gli attori (150 ad esempio solo per il volto) le camere a infrarossi riescono a catturare quella che si potrebbe chiamare "l'essenza dell'espressione umana", per applicarla poi a qualsiasi personaggio. Gli attori recitano proprio come a teatro, un'intera scena dall'inizio alla fine, senza preoccuparsi di primi piani o cambi di obiettivo. Le immagini catturate ed elaborate vengono poi inserite su scenografie ricreate al computer. Ma non c'è animazione: ogni espressione, ogni gesto, sono umani.
La cosa più difficile è stata far interagire un set tradizionale con un ambiente digitale e riuscire ad allineare correttamente il funzionamento dei marker facciali.

Questo film inoltre è stato girato anche in 3D, usando la tecnica chiamata “IMAX DMR - Movies Reimagined”, che è il più grande formato pellicola nella storia del cinema, 70mm (15 perforazioni) 10 volte più largo dell'attuale standard a 35mm. Purtroppo in Italia esistono pochissime sale allestite per questo tipo di visione.

freddie

Shakespeare's Othello!

Shakespeare wrote Othello about in 1603.
It’s a famous tragedy which was set in Venice and Cyprus and the main characters are: Othello the Moor, Desdemona, Cassio Iago and Emilia.

This tragedy starts with the war between Venice and Turkey. Othello, a valiant soldier, left for the war with his wife Desdemona and the lieutenant Cassio. When they arrived in Cyprus, they discovered the Turkish fleet had been destroyed by a tempest. Iago wanted Othello to remove Cassio from his rank so he set up a secret plan to achieve his goal.

With the unsuspecting complicity of his wife Emilia, he used Desdemona’s handkerchief to convince Othello she was Cassio’s secret lover.
Iago artfully stirred up Othello’s anger by defending Cassio and highlighting Desdemona’s unfaithfulness to his eyes, so in the end Othello, mad with jealousy, killed Desdemona.

Immediately Emilia explained that she was innocent and everything had been planned by evil Iago. So she was killed coldly by her husband and Othello, devastated by remorse, killed himself. Iago was condemned to torture and Cassio replaced Othello in his office.

When I went to see “Othello” with my class it was my first time at the theatre. Initially my attention was caught by the beauty of theatre: the hall, the chandeliers and all its furniture were striking.
Also the performance itself was amazing. It’s different from the cinema, where I often go. The actors, who acted live on stage, the scenery and all the special effects turned the whole performance into a breath-taking show.
“Othello”, tragedy of love and jealousy, made me understand that It’s important to rule our own emotions without being destroyed by them.
Unfortunately it seems that nowadays, there are a lot of Othello among us as the daily news tragically show!!!

.Greta.

Othello at the Pergola Theater

On Friday, 23rd we've been at the Pergola Theatre to see "OTHELLO" by William Shakespeare, translated by Masolino D’Amico and with Sebastiano Lo Monaco playing the "Moor".

Write down your comment.

Evening at the cinema (2)

Cinema again!
This time "The Legend of BEOWULF" by Robert Zemeckis, the new semi-animated movie version of the epic poem of Beowulf, a young Scandinavian hero who fights two gigantic monsters, Grendel and his mother.

Did you like it? Write down your impressions.

(Thanks to Giacomo Chiostri IID for his Dragon!)

The Origin of the English Language

English language has changed really much in the history of England, that's because there were many invaders.

The first inhabitants of the island were the Iberians, but in 700 B.C. arrived the Celts, german tribes who brought the german language with them. During 43 AD and 47 AD the Romans conquered Britain and brought Latin into the country.

However in 409 AD Emperor Honorious withdrew his soldiers to defend Rome, and other Germanic tribes, the Angles and the Saxons, invaded the future “England”(the land of the Angles).
Between the 8th and 9th centuries new invaders came in England from Norway and Denmark, the Vikings. And they imposed their language too.
The last invaders of England were the Norman who spoke the French language.

Finally, we can consider the English like the mix of German, Latin, French and various scandium languages.
In fact the old English was really different from the English spoken nowadays, it was similar to the modern German.

We also read the text of an old version of a Christian pray (Our Father) and that was literally misunderstandable, some words were pure German, and others strange mix of it.

In conclusion I can affirm that it's a great fortune for us that English language evolved so much in the centuries, if not it would be really harder to study it!

Tuesday evening at the cinema!

Yesterday evening we went to Grotta cinema to see "Elizabeth, the Golden Age" by Shekhar Kapur.



Did you like it? Write your comment about it!!!

Early Britain

Just a little presentation on the history of Early Britain.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ilaria.salvadori/EarlyBritain/photo#s5127437989501386450

The Plantagenets

Just a little bit of history...

Stephen the last Norman king was succeeded by the first Plantagenet king Henry II who made some reforms to improve military service and to reduce barons’ power.
To restore order and the administration of justice he sent travelling judges to hold court and the law they administered was named “Common Law”, because it was used everywhere.
In other part of Europe was used Civil Roman Law and the Canon Law of the Church.
To reduce church’s power Henry II decided to make his Chancellor and friend Thomas Becket Archbishop.
But Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, became an opponent of the king, so he was murdered (1170) and became a saint and pilgrims from all over Europe come in England to visit his shire in Canterbury Cathedral.
Henry was succeeded by his elder son Richard called the “Lion Hearted”, who was replaced (as he was at the third Crusade) by his brother John who was called “Lackland” because he lost Normandy and other possessions. To defend these possession he needed money to finance wars so he levied higher taxes.

Than the barons forced him to sign a document, known as Magna Charta which marks the first step towards the constitutional monarchy.
After John’s death became king his son Henry III.
Edward the first (who became king in 1272) made Model parliament that was the meeting of his Council and this would be the base for the future two Houses of Parliament.
In 1348 during Edward III in England there was the “Black Death” caused by fleas living on rats which infested the ship trading with Europe, and it was also caused by people who in this period weren’t very clean and healthy.
This plague killed a third of England’s population and wasn’t good for the economy.
In the last year of Edward reign started the rise of a religious movement of reform called Lollardy, whose leader was John Wycliffe, that criticised the corruption in monastic orders.
In the 14th century the artisans and the tradesmen in the town organised themselves in groups called guilds.

(Mary)

...3B...

Our class is very small, we are few but we are good!!
It’s made up by sixteen students, we are very amusing.

We are lead by Francesco Viliani, he’s a very humorous guy; Mauro Paradisi is so very funny too..

In opposition there are Simone Giuntini, a botanical, and Marina Kordha, a very serious and quit girl. The other five girls in the class are really likeable and good: Valentina Bacherini, Giulia Covacci, Lia Fabbri, Greta Perini and Sara Tassi.
Our genius of Maths and Physics is Andrea Vagnoli. In the class we have also the best historian of school, Fabio Bartolozzi; and the best footballer, Michele Cantiani.

There are the “different” twins too, Roberto Santoni and Leonardo Taiti: they live in symbiosis, one doesn’t live without the other.
In the end Federico Mazzinghi and Mirko Risaliti are our phylosophers.
The class 3°B is made in this way…but for knowing us better, came and visit our blog!!!