It's Awards Season in Hollywoodland and the great and the good of the silver screen are gathering and dazzling on California's red carpet.
But how can we mere mortals get in on the action? With your trusty GALAXY Note II to hand, you can take part in 2013′s Academy Awards, watch the films that made it on that rather splendid 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display and then try your hand at making one for contention in 2014.
Following the Oscars
1.E! Live from the Red Carpet (free)
This year's Oscars takes place on February 24 so you'll want to get your set up in place in advance. For following the red carpet action as it happens, you can't do better than E!'s Red Carpet app. With lovely crisp images filling the Note II's expansive screen of the stars in all their finery, the app updates with the winners as they're announced as well as all the fashion faux-pas.
No self-respecting film fan should be without the IMDb app. Playing host to a huge encyclopedia of film casts, crews, connections and trivia, it's your go-to app for "Where do I know that guy from?" and "What's the quote I love again?", not to mention, "I really fancy Jennifer Garner, what else has she been in?". An essential – and free – download for your GALAXY Note II.
3.The Official 2013 Oscars App (free)
What a gyp; this app is compatible with the Samsung GALAXY Note II but it's not available in the UK! Gah!! Discrimination that is.
Still, if you're lucky enough to be rocking the GALAXY Note II in the US this Oscars season, you can enjoy a comprehensive guide to everything Oscars related, including information on the nominees, trailers for all the films up for award and you can even cast a virtual ballot and keep track of how well you predicted who'd win what on the night.
4. Samsung Video Player (free, built-in)
Samsung has made one of the best video apps on the market so if you're investing in this year's big winners, do them justice by watching them through the built-in Samsung Video Player.
You can pop out the video and keep it floating anywhere you like on the Note II's generous screen while you multitask in other apps – penning that screenplay when inspiration strikes, perhaps? Or storyboarding using the S Pen, planning shot lists… or simply checking Twitter because Lincoln is quite long and you can't be expected to pay full attention all the way through, right?
5. Netflix (free, requires subscription)
Once the ceremony itself is out of the way, you'll want to swot up on what made the great and the good the great and the good. Get thee to Netflix, friends, and stream full films (and TV series) in HD to take full advantage of your Note II's pin-sharp screen. It may not have the most, er, comprehensive film library in the world but it's growing all the time and managed to garner more of 2012′s new releases than its arch-rival Lovefilm. Lovefilm, incidentally, doesn't yet offer an official streaming app for Android… You know what to do.
Written by Charlie Lyne, Ultra Culture strikes a careful balance between good-natured outrage, poster deconstruction and a genuine love of film, particularly the 2004 teen-road-movie Eurotrip for some reason. While he hasn't revealed his plans for Oscar night this year, his predictions, reactions and (in 2011) progressively more inebriated live blog are always entertaining yet spot-on.
The definitive guide to the Academy Awards can be found at The Hollywood Reporter, which has dedicated a whole section of its site to awards season.
With pre-ceremony hype, in-depth analysis of the winners and nominees and videos, photos and every other tidbit of Oscars-related gossip that you could possibly desire.
Shooting a contender for the 2014 Oscars
Right, enough basking in reflected glory – time to put your Note II where your mouth is and get shooting.
8. Lapse It (free, premium option)
The Samsung GALAXY Note II's HD video camera is a perfectly good shooting machine alone, but a spot of time-lapse video adds a professional veneer to any filmmaking endeavour.
Enter LapseIt, an app that you can set to take a still image at an interval of however many seconds you like to show the passing of time. Once you've recorded your time lapse video, you can trim it in the app and set it to play as quickly or as slowly as you like. If you upgrade to the pro version of the app, you unlock a bunch of new features including the ability to record using the Note II's front-mounted camera.
If you don't have a clapperboard handy then Sync Slate is the app for you. Taking the place of the traditional wooden slate and removing the need to faff about with chalk, it allows you to set the scene, take number and snap 'action' for marrying up the sound and image tracks when you come to edit your opus.
What's more, it'll automatically increase the take number every time you snap it into action so no need to keep track yourself – perfect when time and light are running out.
This is one for the real film enthusiasts among you – Kodak's Cinema Tools app calculates how many minutes of film you've shot based on the amount you've used in feet or meters.
It can calculate your running time whether you're shooting in Super 8, 35mm or PTA-approved 65mm – so in 100 feet of 35mm film at 24fps, you've only shot yourself 1m 06s of movie. Better crack on.
The app also features a depth of field calculator for setting up your shots, and a glossary so you can at least make out like you know what you're talking about when you're talking about B Wind, emulsion speed and unprezzing.
What are you waiting for? The 2014 Oscars are yours for the taking.
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