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The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

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Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#181

Post by throw10920 »

happy_path wrote: post #37

Are we going to see old refurbished devices be sold as distraction-free machines? Does a new market for somewhat-luddite computers exist? I'd like to buy something like the freewrite [1] but cheaper, any suggestions? [1] https://getfreewrite.com/

I know that owning dedicated hardware is appealing, but - why not solve the problem on a software level? Install Linux and then disable/remove the TCP/IP stack (and associated tools) as much as is practical, and use a USB drive to get your creations onto your main computer.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#182

Post by ceejayoz »

dylan604 wrote: post #92
ceejayoz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully expect it's greenlit, but not publicly so. They'll openly greenlight it when theater attendance drops off, after a couple of weeks, and ride the extra publicity.

Great, so a minimum of 2 years before we get the rest of the story. At least it's not GRRMartin time spans.

Faster than I expected. https://twitter.com/Legendary/status/1453058884516466691

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#183

Post by throw10920 »

ataru wrote: post #33
stuff4ben wrote: post #5

On the one hand, as a technologist, this pisses me off because we've advanced so far in the field of word processing. Autocorrect, holding more than 40 pages in memory, cut/paste, etc. Why does this Luddite persist in the old ways?!?!?! But as a writer who knows the pains of distraction... maybe he's on to something?

Maybe he doesn't want to have to create an account. Maybe he doesn't want to figure out how to disable cloud saves. Maybe he doesn't want to pay a subscription fee. Maybe he doesn't want emojis, mentions, hash tags and recommendations about what his friends are reading. Maybe he doesn't want a analytics report in his mail describing about how he used the software this week. Maybe he doesn't want "undoubtedly absolute…

This seems like a false dichotomy - Libreoffice/Openoffice and Abiword don't have any of these anti-features (except for telemetry, which is useful (when sent to a trusted party)).

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#184

Post by aerostable_slug »

handrous wrote: post #102
jordanab wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fantastic. Go see it in Imax if you can. Going to the theaters will help to get part 2 made.

Strongly concur on it being a theater watch, ideally Imax. The effects are next-level good. You won't see all the detail at home unless you've got one hell of a set-up. There are good sets and costumes, and the CG isn't muddy, cheap Marvel "just good enough not to ruin it" stuff, but is truly good. It's also very unlikely you have an audio system at home that can keep up. This is both because there's a lot of really…

Re: audio, to add to the above comment, if you are going to watch the new Dune at home without a really good setup (or good headphones) I highly recommend turning on subtitles.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#185

Post by handrous »

danpalmer wrote: post #151
handrous wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly concur on it being a theater watch, ideally Imax. The effects are next-level good. You won't see all the detail at home unless you've got one hell of a set-up. There are good sets and costumes, and the CG isn't muddy, cheap Marvel "just good enough not to ruin it" stuff, but is truly good. It's also very unlikely you have an audio system at home that can keep up. This is both because there's a lot of really…

Best thing about IMAX for me was the sound. Big screen is great, and helps with the sense of scale of the ships which are stunning, but the stand-out element for me was the ornithopters – their sound design was so good, worth watching in IMAX just for that.

I know of at least one theater complex nearby that has an Imax screen or two, but those are not the best sound in the house. They're very good, but the gold standard (at least around here) are the couple of normal (but quite good) screens + projectors that they've paired with some fancy Dolby thing. It's noticeably better, in movies that are mixed for it (and I think this one is).

However, I'd probably take Imax with very good sound over a normal theater with the best possible sound, for this one. Then again, I've not tried it in the best-sound theaters, so maybe I'm wrong about which is preferable.

I know that, trying to (re-)watch it at home, my normally-plenty-good pieced-together 5.1 system was not up to the task, which is the first time I've felt like that about this set-up of mine—and I watched both Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 on it, so it's been Villeneuve-tested before.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#186

Post by sewercake »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #105
causi wrote: post #4

There's something to be said for the focused nature of older technology. If you were to set me the task of writing something long-form, and told me the faster and better I did it the more I would be rewarded, I'd be doomed with a modern laptop or a smartphone. My favorite writing tool is, frankly, an IBM TransNote from 2001.

Eh, you can get that distraction-free experience with modern technology if you want it. When I want to focus on writing, I have a Vim setup that gives me a screen with a cursor. I run that full screen, turn off notifications and whatnot, and get to it. And when I'm done I can go back to using my modern technology to do everything else I want with the content, whether it's formatting/typesetting, sharing, etc. There's…

depends.

I get used to things. I have spent hundreds of hours using modern laptop computers to develop software, read articles, mindlessly consume social media content, watch porn. Because of these hundreds of hours, when I come to interact with my laptop computer, a set of pre-established affordances, feelings, and thought patterns immediately present themselves.

This goes away if I write in my notebook or type on my alphasmart, where a whole other host of feelings and thought patterns immediately appear. Usually, these are feelings and thought patterns that are localized to what I'm writing about, which makes writing (and thinking) much easier.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#187

Post by handrous »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #184
handrous wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly concur on it being a theater watch, ideally Imax. The effects are next-level good. You won't see all the detail at home unless you've got one hell of a set-up. There are good sets and costumes, and the CG isn't muddy, cheap Marvel "just good enough not to ruin it" stuff, but is truly good. It's also very unlikely you have an audio system at home that can keep up. This is both because there's a lot of really…

Re: audio, to add to the above comment, if you are going to watch the new Dune at home without a really good setup (or good headphones) I highly recommend turning on subtitles.

I sat in what should have been around the audio sweet-spot, if there was one, in the pretty good theater I went to, was paying very close attention, and still missed a few lines due to the mix. Most of those lines I missed again trying to watch it at home (where I have no hope, really, because it turns out this movie's too much for my usually-fine surround sound setup). I blame Nolan, and his... niche, at best, audio preferences. Plus Villeneuve for imitating it. I don't remember his previous films requiring this much active effort to tell WTF people are saying.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#188

Post by dylan604 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #136
dylan604 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too fast? The movie is longer than the original and only part of the story is included. How much slower can they make the story playout?

> The movie is longer than the original and only part of the story is included The original is a dense 200,000 word novel, not the 1984 movie you seem to be referencing, which itself a cut a lot.

Sure, at this point I'm just hoping it doesn't get Hobbit-ed by making shit up to pad the time and introduce characters not in the original material.

Re: The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in Movie Master on MS-DOS

#189

Post by cmrdporcupine »

h0l0cube wrote: post #164
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah the USB drive is on the other end. To read his floppies.

Oh right, never contemplated such a thing to exist.. but there it is in Google. I wonder if worries about electronic media becoming unreadable over time are overstated

Don't worry about your worries being wrong-worries, because your worries are real-worries. Those USB floppy drives have about a 1 in 3 chance of actually working. There's last I looked only one manufacturer left and no real quality control on them. I bought a $30ish at one point and it simply just doesn't read floppies. Not sure it even showed up in the USB device tree.

And that's 3.5". I can't imagine how to solve this for 5 1/4" and 8" floppies. Or tape media from the 70s mainframe days, etc.

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