» Posts Tagged ‘seen’
Urban historian Steven Duncan and videographer Andrew Wonder journey into the tunnels underneath New York City in the fascinating and aptly-named Undercity, a 30-minute short shot on a Canon 5D in the city’s subway tunnels, sewers, and abandoned subway stations (and on the Williamsburg bridge). Undercity is a highlight of recent DSLR projects, as the small size and low-light capability of these cameras enable this video to be made at all (most of the filming seen here is illegal). The short also includes interviews with the people you might not encounter during a visit to the city: residents of the tunnels themselves. Highly recommended. More »
Filmmaker Jamie Stuart hauled out his Canon 7D (and winter parka) during the blizzard that recently slammed the U.S. East coast to film Idiot with a Tripod, a short film depicting New York City getting blanketed in powder. So named in homage to Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent film Man With a Movie Camera, the clip garnered the following praise from Roger Ebert: “this film deserves to win the Academy Award for best live-action short subject.” Oscar or not, it’s nice to see a clip that’s in no way sophomoric go viral. Check it out: More »
An oldie but goodie, the Eclectic Method’s Tarantino Mixtape recently won a Vimeo Community Choice award. I’ve seen EM “perform” live, and their extreme mashups of pop culture artifacts, projected onto several screens at once, can cross the wires in your brain. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up for debate, but Tarantino’s own oeuvre owes heavily to the art of the mashup, and thus Eclectic Method’s remix seems a fitting tribute: More »
The filmmakers behind Wallace and Gromit have created what is billed as “the smallest stop-motion animation ever.” Shot on a CellScope attached to a Nokia N8
This beautiful and touching stop-motion short by Kirsten Lepore just won a Vimeo Community Choice award, and deservedly so. On a basic level it’s a perfect example of anthropomorphism, as we assign emotions and desires to what are literally piles of dirt. Going beyond this, the relationship metaphor feels derived from real life, negating any sort of escapism to be had at the hands of what could otherwise be merely cute animation. Highly recommended. More »
Here’s a 10-minute, DSLR-shot movie about movies. Directed by Nuno Rocha and shot in Austin Texas. It might be a bit meta, but it comes with the message for screenwriters to treat your characters like they’re real people… More »
“Umbra” is the latin word for “shadow”, and makes for a fitting title for Malcolm Sutherland’s enchanting short. Malcolm was recently selected to provide an animated promo for the Vimeo Festival + Awards, and I found the Canadian animator’s latest to be an immersive and otherworldly 5-minutes, worth watching more than once: More »
If my own experience is any indication, most people celebrated Halloween last night, on Saturday — which leaves the actual date of October 31st in no-man’s land. If you’re not inclined to dress up two nights in a row — or at all — here are five videos to watch in the comfort of your zombie-free home. Note many of these have NSFW violence and/or language: More »
Yesterday I checked out the YouTube Play exhibit at the Guggenheim here in New York, which is showing for three days (simultaneously with the Bilbao, Berlin, and Venice Guggenheim museums) “the ultimate YouTube playlist: a selection of the most unique, innovative, groundbreaking video work being created and distributed online during the past two years.” In the spirit of YouTube, however, these videos are not restricted to expensive museum installations; anyone can watch them online, for free. More »
This DIY Russian “adaptation” of Michael Bay’s Transformers was shot in two hours and edited in a month. Despite it copying the worst Hollywood has to offer (the second Transformers was one of the least-entertaining action films I’ve ever seen, and I’m not the only one to think that — it has a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), props to these guys. Presumably they will get paid effects work out of this demo, and in that regard it’s a good calling-card type of project. Remember when you used to need a room-sized computer to do this kind of stuff? Shot on a Canon T2i (known as the 550D overseas) and Nikon D5000, animated in 3ds Max. More »
This is not a sponsored post! These are amazing! What are amazing? Glad you asked! Webishades are amazing new technological glasses that allow you to watch web series in 4K resolution in glorious 2D (note how there is only the red color of red/blue 3D glasses). I don’t need to sell these things when they sell themselves: More »
I’m a few days late with this, and at the speed of the Internet that might make this old news. But as someone who’s currently evaluating the relative merits of HTML5 vs Flash (for the interactive implementation of my project 3rd Rail), I was intrigued by director Chris Milk’s interactive video for Arcade Fire’s latest album The Suburbs. Built entirely in HTML5 (which means you’ll need a compatible browser to experience it), the multiple window-spawning video makes very clever use of Google Maps and its streetview feature to personalize the video for your own hometown. More »
I’m not sure why this project is holding my attention so. David Fincher and Sony Pictures aren’t exactly DIY filmmaking, so it’s not hugely topical to this site. And on the list of true stories I’d like to see told by Hollywood, the founding of Facebook isn’t on top. But with the official trailer for The Social Network hitting the web today, I can’t help but stay interested in the project. The RED-shot film is loosely based on the book The Accidental Billionaires and the trailer is masterfully cut to a choral version of Radiohead’s Creep by the Scala and Kolacny Brothers. The film itself will be scored by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, who says of the film, “it’s really fucking good. And dark!” Trent Reznor is calling a film about Facebook “dark?” Maybe that’s why I’m interested. More »
I caught the new show from the Neistat Brothers on HBO On Demand the other night and found myself sucked in by the decidedly low-fi, autobiographical chapters. The show is appropriately named The Neistat Brothers, because that’s what it’s about: them. Them and their creative process, which ascribes to a total NYC/DIY aesthetic. Because of its use of indie music and first-person narrative, but also due to the DIY nature of the production, the show reminds me a lot of the terrific Four Eyed Monsters podcast, which was about the making of the DIY feature Four Eyed Monsters — the difference is, Neistat Brothers has no associated feature film attached. It’s just about the Neistats, who are fellow graduates of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces (class of 2006, in their case). Normally I’d find a show about a show — which is essentially what it is — to be solipsistic and navel-gazing, but the brothers work it out. More »
I don’t remember where I heard it, but someone mentioned that Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for The Social Network was the best they’d read in years. Now that I think about it, this was probably an unsubstantiated internet rumor, not from someone I actually know in person! Regardless, this stuck with me, as it’s pretty hard to imagine exactly what a movie about the founding of Facebook would look like. Those rumors about Justin Timberlake playing Mark Zuckerberg (Timberlake is in the film, but Zuckerberg is being played by Jesse Eisenberg) didn’t help. And now the teaser from Sony Pictures reveals very little about the film — other than the fact that they’re taking it very seriously: More »
What happens when an oversexed Hollywood actor has a daughter? This seems to be the question posed by the trailer for Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, a possible spiritual successor to Lost in Translation
Pixel art, along with its musical counterpart the chiptune, describes a game, video, or song produced on old computer equipment (or produced to seem like it was produced on old computer equipment). I suppose pixel art is no different from any revivalist pursuit, but there’s something uniquely funny about designing for a 192×160 screen (which is less resolution than the image at left) in an era of 1080p (and higher) resolution content. In an era of over-produced pop stars and slick but empty movies, perhaps that’s exactly the point! Simon Cottee’s 10-minute documentary on pixel art makes for an interesting follow-up to the retro-yet-high-tech short PIXELS posted here a couple weeks ago. More »
The Last 3 Minutes, a DSLR short from director Po Chang, reminds me a bit too strongly of a video released a year ago by director Chris Milk, entitled Last Day Dream. Even the titles are similar! Both videos are shot in their entirety from a first-person perspective, enabled by the small size and maneuverability of the DSLR du jour, the 5d Mark II. Here they are in chronological order (Last Day Dream was released a year before The Last 3 Minutes). NSFW language in the former: More »
Cold War Kids' "I've Seen Enough" is multi-color, multi-angle
The interactive video for Cold War Kids’ “I’ve Seen Enough” video isn’t multi-angle — it’s more “multi-take” — but the idea is the same. While I designed a multi-angle music video player in a similar vein for MTV (it’s in my portfolio — scroll down to the second image), what interests me most isn’t multi-angle storytelling but rather multi-story storytelling, where more than one narrative thread is unfolding simultaneously — and the viewer has a choice as to which one they follow. My in-and-out-of-development project 3rd Rail is exactly this.
Here’s the Cold War Kids video: More »
If you saw the original Social Media Revolution video a year ago, let me save you some time: the new version making the rounds (yes, via social media) isn’t worth watching. However, if you didn’t catch that video or you’re one of the people who responded “I am afraid of social networks!” on my ongoing survey (please take it if you haven’t already!), this might serve as good brain candy for you: More »
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