The overall quality of these is really poor, with little attention paid to framing, continuity, editing, or even choice of image. It's commonplace for the image in these films to have nothing whatsoever to do with what the narrator is talking about at the time.

In addition, instead of using archival footage of the times and places of their subjects, they just hire someone to go take some random contemporary film of Moscow, or Leningrad, or Paris, or London, or New York, or what have you.

This, despite the fact that authentic archival footage of all the major cities from every era in modern history is widely available- for free- on the internet.

I think these Russian TV shows were produced not only on a low budget, but also by people who don't have a clue about how to put together a film. I'm thinking they are old people who don't know about the internet.

On the other hand, I'm eternally grateful that they made these Russian TV shows, because that's the only possible way I have access to archival footage of the actual chess masters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHL...

Unless I start composing my own classical music, all my chess films will be at the mercy of shifting youtube deals with various copyright holders.

Thanks for stopping by at my forum the other day.As I am delighted to see you are back again and hope you are fully recovered.Are you ?..

And no, I have no plans of becomming a grandmaster though I have an IM-norm from way back.But I could perhaps have made it but now when I´m looking back I am glad I took another path.

Occasionally I coach strong players and I do enjoy immensely to follow the games of Carlsen and Co. ;)

And sometimes I do look at your videos
whic are a big kick down memory lane as well as getting the feeling of being situated in good old Vienna,Praque and ...

Kudos,kudos and kudos!

And have you considered doing some of more up to date masters like e.g. Spasski,Larsen..!?... a touch of rockmusic couldperhaps work with them. Just and idea :)

Talking about music.Did you know that the scene from the movie where Bing Crosby sings about "White Christmas",actually takes place in the californian sun ? ;)

I will work my way up to more recent masters eventually, but at the moment there certainly won't be any new documentaries soon.

I have recently purchased several dozen chess history books which are awaiting me in BC, one of them in German.

My new idea is to actually know what I'm talking about before making the next documentary.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Bing actually sang "White Christmas" in two films, can you name both?

Merry Christmas to you!

No I cannot name the two movies ):

But for trivia my wife and take much pleasure in watching "QI" on BBC.

<jessicafischerqueen: <moronvich> great to hear you in such a good mood. I wish I could afford your coaching, as my "game" is appalling at the moment.>

Often to refind the joy and innocence
for the game is the best remedy.With or with or pawnsacs;) <Niels> has a spledid story from his own life about billards.You can find it at <Doms>.

Wife and I do enjoy the christmastime every year.Perhaps because we have decided that we actually have a choice regarding how much stuff we take in.

Spielmann vs S Landau, 1933

Kmoch vs Spielmann, 1926

Our hero toasts Kmoch with Black in only 23 moves, finishing with a couple neat combinations :)

Another game in the same variation, where Spielmann sacrifices an exchange just to establish a <fawn pawn> (and wins, of course):

A professional film/video editor told me two 'trade secrets' once:

(1) You should edit film in a linear way, from beginning to end -- but video is edited from the middle outwards.

(2) A good editor's work is invisible. If people notice the editing, you're not doing the job properly.

Both are debatable, I guess. I think both 'rules' assume that you want a smooth, seamless, professional-looking finish. Though the video editor in question had also played guitar in a punk combo, so he wasn't exactly a mindless pawn of the system.

Me, I read Nimzowitsch. I'm proud to be a pawn of the System.

I saw some of the best minds
Of my generation...
Though a mind isn't easy to see
Even if you have a scanner.
The kind that does positron emission tomography
Not the kind that makes heads explode
Though I understand there's some overlap.

Was it Dan Quayle or George Dubya
Who said that a mind was a terrible thing to lose?
It's good when politicians speak from experience.

I've seen some great bodies too
But few had great minds attached.
Or is that just stereotyping?

Don´t look like you are here to deliver the mail <Dom> ;)

Saw him in Brussels 1998 I think.
Said to my mate : "nice of him bringing them Pearl Jam"...

Re the AM civil war..

Jeez.. How could Americans be so wicked to Americans ?

Andersonville .. Seems like hell on earth .. yet they were 'fellow' americans in there.. ..

Advantages is that it's instant, you can play through the moves with a mouse and you can't accidentally enter in the wrong moves with your eyes.

I did try to copy and paste your game into my chess interface, but if you put in annotations without using the right punctuation and such, it won't paste into my chess interface.

If I didn't know better I might have thought you'd penned that after a few dozen pints down the Dog and Ferret with James and Myles.

You know I have done some research into professional editing programs and the hardware requirements to run them, you really have to learn about this to get any value out of it.

I'm not convinced at present that there'd be any noticeable jump in visual quality for any videos that are destined for youtube uploads alone.

The Holy Grail of formatting secrets I'm trying to crack at the moment is how to convert 4:3 frames to 16:9 frames- You can "do it" easily but not really because the idiot's method just stretches the frame so the aspect ratio of the images is off, which looks ridiculous.

There's a proper way to do it, and I think you can do it on your home computer.

I recently downloaded two versions of the famed "World at War" documentary series, one in the original frame size and one that had been converted to 16:9 and it's a "true conversion"- the proportions in the image are true.

It's like magic and I don't know how they are doing it yet.

<Ken Burns> has recently started doing it too, his "Prohibition" documentary has lots of old photos and film clips that he has converted to 16:9 without any distortion.

But you know what I prefer the less elongated frame sizes on his earlier films. I don't like this trend to make the screen super wide and cropped vertically, I suspect a conspiracy of "widesters".

I shouldn't have to actually turn my head back and forth left to right in order to watch a movie on my computer.

At any rate I'm still going to try to figure out how to convert old photos to 16:9 without distortion just so I can do it if I want to.

I played this song for you before but it reminds me of the artistry in your videos, plus it's a great song! ; P

33 ?

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33 ♖c7-c8! <attack defender: d8-rook> (Svidler)

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33 ... ♖d8-d7 34 ♗b3-e6! <attack defender: d7-rook>

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<GC: THE UNDERRATED REMOVAL OF THE GUARD>

<GC: GRISCHUK AND SVIDLER REMOVE THE GUARD>

Chapter 11: The Fingerslip Variation.

His kebab rustling softly in the desert air, the heavily armed guard patrolled the fortress where 'Mad Lemur' Madlemursikov, the dictator of Kyrgtatagua, was holed up. Two Spetsnaz veterans watched from the shadows.

Silently, 'Peter' Svidler indicated his intent to slip down and strangle the guard. 'Grozhny' Grischuk shook his head and held up two fingers to Svidler. "Same to you" thought Peter, before seeing the glow of a cigarette at the far end of the wall. There were two guards!

Grischuk went first, materializing from nowhere to sever the smoker's carotid artery with a dirk from Krym. Seconds later, Svidler's lethal fingers had throttled the first man.