I spent some time this Sunday evening hopping around on Letterboxd. It’s a lot of fun jumping from film to film. Or hell, even list to list, discovering and collecting movies and classics to my watchlist. Give it a try, and join Letterboxd. You won’t be disappointed. I promise.
Eventually I came across Terrance Malick’s supposed magnum opus: The Tree of Life on a list. The film left a considerable impression on me. It was released in 2011. A time of youth, tumult, and personal maturity for me.
I don’t really have much to say about it. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, it’s just there’s so much too say. You really need to watch this film. It’s just really something, so very dense. Here’s the trailer:
A film from Páraic McGloughlin. His short-film was voted Best of the Month earlier this year. While it’s not my favorite video for 2018, it really stood out. From the video’s description:
A brief look at the earth from above, based on the shapes we make, the game of life, our playing ground – Arena.
Rummaging through old Vimeo Staff Picks during some downtime this morning, I came across this beautiful short. Miguel de Olaso, (aka Macgregor), is a Spanish filmmaker who typically specializes in high-speed racing filmography, commercials and short-films.
He has a knack for the unique camera movements and well-paced storytelling. I have a deep fascination and love for locomotives and foreign lands — so naturally this film was an absolute treat for the eyes.
Despite being rich in natural resources such as iron, gold and copper, Mauritania maintains a severely depressed GDP. Their primary transportation network is a single railway that pretty much dissects their country (across a portion of the Sahara that borders several other countries). In many ways, Mauritania’s economic future seems dim. But in other respects, it represents the tenacity of a growing, natural resource-rich nation and their relationship with their lifeline — The Mauritania Railway.
You can read more about the making of this short, here. Absolutely nuts. Enjoy!
Hill said in 2016 that while making a coming-of-age drama is a cliché in and of itself, he’s hoping to give fans a skateboarding movie that avoids the “’80s cowabunga kind of trope,” and instead takes cues from the films that inspired him to tackle the subgenre, like This Is England and Kids. First appearances can be misleading; trailers aren’t always sincere reflections of the art itself. But Hill is clearly mining from a very personal place, and if nothing else, Mid ’90s looks like an aesthetically pleasing piece of childhood nostalgia for his generation.
And who knows? While Hill has bounced between some really fun, absurdist comedies, he’s also a two-time Oscar nominee. Perhaps his first grasp of Oscars gold will come from the director’s chair. It certainly wouldn’t be the wildest thing we’ve seen from Jonah Hill. Mid ’90s hits theaters October 19.
This looks hella-good. Some thoughts:
My memories from the 90’s mostly include watching cartoon programs such Pokemon or Power Rangers or whatever was on Nickelodeon — basically late-nineties things. However, after 9/11, and as I entered my teenage years things changed. Skating became a rudimentary means to explore my neighborhood, bond with new friends, impress girls and an opportunity to do something fun with my younger brothers when we were bored (which was often). Remember CCS Catalogs? Oh man.
I ditched the skateboard when I was 17 or so. For a car and a MacBook no less. Then one day, I discovered I was in college and I no longer owned a skateboard.
While I own a deck now, it’s really just symbolic for me at this point. Though, I never outgrew my love for skateboarding. I think it’s because the sub-culture is so forgiving and so ancestral. It felt like everyone who bled together, stayed together, y’know? Everyone is a misfit in their own right as a teenager, but there was this common heritage we all felt emotionally. It was powerful stuff.
Not sure if this was a visceral emotion I tied to skating, or if it was just a side-effect of being a teenager — at any rate, those years were jam-packed, complex and nostalgic to reflect upon.
As you can probably tell, I’m excited to check out this Jonah Hill’s new movie and re-live some of that coming-of-age nostalgia. This film feels genuine. It doesn’t feel campy like Grind or culture-bleached in the ways the Lords of Dogtown felt. Mid90s feels, just right.
Elliot Lim is a freelance director, designer, and animator based in the Bay Area. Elliot has a wide and varied resumé of work (some notables include HBO, FX, AT&T, and Jarritos).
While jumping around a bit on Vimeo this morning, I found some of his handiwork. This short in particular was completed for Greenpeace was absolutely astounding. Lim has a beautiful hand in illustration styles, motion, and direction. Really top-notch stuff. Enjoy.
The entire process of breaking a story and getting it to print is just bonkers. It’s hard to fathom making such deadlines today, let alone 40 years ago.
Over the July 4th weekend of 1978, the New York Times switched from a Linotype typesetting process to phototypesetting (or cold-typesetting). Filmmakers Carl Schlesinger and David Loeb Weiss were there to document the end of an era for the historic paper. Amidst a still-looming print deadline, and rigid schedule to switch to an entirely modern process the next day — the entire process feels like total anarchy. With minutes to spare, they make the deadline.
As for the mystical etaoin shrdlu, it’s a non-sensical phrase generated by the typesetter, running their fingers vertically along the Lintotype keys. It was used as a signal to editors that a known mistake was made by the operator. Because operations had to move quickly, it was common to see etaoin shrdlu make it into products such as this one from a 1903 edition of The New York Times.
From the film’s description:
A film created by Carl Schlesinger and David Loeb Weiss documenting the last day of hot metal typesetting at The New York Times. This film shows the entire newspaper production process from hot-metal typesetting to creating stereo moulds to high-speed press operation. At the end of the film, the new typesetting and photographic production process is shown in contrast to the old ways.
There are interviews with workers at NYT that are for and against the new technology. In fact, one typesetter is retiring on this final day as he does not want to learn the new process and technology.
This is the first time the film has ever been available in HD from the original 16mm master film.
See more printing, journalism, and typographic-related films at: printingfilms.com
I have so much respect for these hot metal typesetters, editors, and journalists. This was a tough-as-nails job. They crafted an entire process around the machine’s unforgiving mechanical problems to ensure a daily paper was possible.
It’s really something to behold. The Linotype was a marvelous (and very dangerous machine) feat of mechanical engineering but by the late 1970’s it was time to say goodbye as the digital age was upon us. We’ve come a long way.
Something Like Home is a Duolingo documentary about the impact of language and education on the lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey and Jordan. Over the years, thousands of people have written to us with stories of learning a new language in order to find a sense of identity, of safety, of home. So we traveled to meet them.
In doing so, we uncovered some common themes: survival, perseverance, humility, grit. These people defy stereotypes, and their stories have the power to forever alter the lens through which we see the world.
The UN Refugee Agency petition asks governments to ensure that refugees from all countries get access to education. Sign the UN petition:
This is a quick half-hour documentary Duolingo produced. I don’t think it’s an especially groundbreaking piece of film, but it’s definitely worth a watch . Especially in these tiresome and fatiguing times.
I’ve been a New Yorker for about 2 years now, and while I’ve barely scratched the surface exploring this town — it is most certainly replete with annoyance, anxiety, humor, mystery, romance and among other things, meditation. The geography of sounds here are boundless and seemingly amorphous from week-to-week.
Commercial and Music Video Director Menzkie , shot this short in 2014 and I’ve honestly been looking for a film that communicates and describes what it feels like living here. I think this is it. It’s an old Staff Pick, but I thought it was worth re-sharing.
I love the sound design. It is pretty apparent it’s a mix of recordings and SFX. But it totally captivated me. Good stuff.
We’ve had so many huge moments in history captured by it. The moon landing, the Challenger Disaster, OKGO’s Treadmill Music Video, and of course 9/11. Which in its own right was of huge historical significance — it was probably the most-watched event in history thanks to the web. So many servers melted that day serving live-video to hundreds of millions of people across the globe, check out the March 2018 episode of The Talk Show and you’ll get a better sense of what I mean.
So let’s dive into this news. Instagram (or should I say Facebook?) is taking a gamble on long-form video. There’s been no shortage of contenders, from Beme to Portal to the more well-known, You’veTube and of course Vimeo.
IGTV is different in a few ways. First, it’s built for how you actually use your phone, so videos are full screen and vertical. Also, unlike on Instagram, videos aren’t limited to one minute. Instead, each video can be up to an hour long.
[…]
Also like TV, IGTV has channels. But, in IGTV, the creators are the channels. When you follow a creator on Instagram, their IGTV channel will show up for you to watch. Anyone can be a creator — you can upload your own IGTV videos in the app or on the web to start your own channel.
I don’t think this is a risky move at all, nor a creative one from Instagram. But, everything the team at Instagram has done in the past 5 years has been top-rate. Their engineers are smart and calculated and know how to scale a product with such finesse, it really is incredible to behold. I’m actually a little shocked they didn’t launch with 2 or 3-hour video capability.
That being said, Instagram is getting into long-form video hosting, not because they want to but because they have to. For one, if they don’t compete, Instagram loses traffic to You’veTube. They want to change that. For two, it’s pretty evident people are re-posting content on Instagram. It’s annoying, it’s not the original content, and no one like being phished for likes.
I think IGTV presents an interesting value for the Instagram product. It’s the same reason You’veTube introduced You’veTube Music. It’s all about directing audiences to the proper product for use. Without You’veTube Music, regular You’veTube videos would be getting wildly popular plays while the original music creators would be losing out on the metrics. I suppose there are too many slime videos on Instagram, perhaps there will be a slime video channel on IGTV? Fingers-crossed there is because I’m getting sick of seeing all the weird content on the Explore tab.
Food for thought from Marques Brownlee:
Thoughts on IGTV: Competition makes everyone better. So hell yes, I will be on IGTV.
Vertical videos are… a challenge. I’ve played with the app briefly, and it’s different but not awful
But Insta just crossed a billion active users, we’d be silly to ignore a platform like that
The Armed, a punk band from Detroit, Michigan continues to iron out their raw sound. Nowhere to be Found, from their 2018 album Only Love. If you’re searching for a melodramatic modern punk take — Only Love is it.
What seemingly begins as a familiar Underworld homage, it quickly devolves expectations. There’s a minor reprieve from a formulaic build-up, but director (and drummer for The Armed) Tony Wolski has something else in mind. He breaks the fourth-wall mid-video, revealing the film set (the band, a table, lights, equipment, but no PAs to be found). At the height of the reprieve, they deliver a chaotic noisy turn — a symbolic mosh pit and demolishes the scene in a violent wash of hardcore drums and screamo.
Stu Maschwitz is an absolute madman. He’s a veteran filmmaker, photographer, ex-Industrial Light & Magic, and co-founder of the now-defunct effects studio The Orphanage. He’s currently the Chief Creative Officer of Red Giant, video editing and effects software I use regularly. You’ve’re probably familiar with his work.
In short, Tank is an animated short film… made entirely in After Effects. It’s nuts. Make sure to watch the entire film and the behind-the-scenes. It’s a work of fucking art, and you can tell Stu really sunk his heart into this film. It’s absolutely wonderful.
“[Facebook video] hasn’t been beneficial,” said Neil Katz, global head of content and engagement at The Weather Channel, during a speech at the Digiday Video Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. “It has been good for Facebook, but it hasn’t been good for us.”
[…]
“We went along for the ride every single step of the way,” Katz said. “But we noticed, over the course of two years, that we were being paid in all types of currencies — followers, shares, views — that did not feel like money.”
The Weather Channel was part of Facebook’s funding program for live and on-demand news feed videos and also produced three shows for Facebook Watch last fall. The Weather Channel’s deal to produce live and on-demand news feed videos for Facebook, for which Katz said it received a seven-figure fee, shined a light on how difficult it is to make money on Facebook. Paid to produce a predetermined number of minutes per month, The Weather Channel found it was only making $28 per minute of video produced. For comparison, Katz pointed out how the CBS reality show “Survivor” cost $45,000 per minute to make in 2009.
Not surprised. Facebook is a one-sided business. It’s closed-off, full of trolls, your mom and dad, an echo-chamber of bad ideas, and where content goes to die. While IBM clearly isn’t as brash as Elon Musk it leaves me wondering, “how much longer until Facebook has a user-exodus crisis on its hands?”
Sentimentality is a tricky thing. For those of us who possess it, experiencing “all the feels” can provide a deep well of emotion to draw from, enhancing our response to — or remembrance of — any given person, place or thing. However, like any well, it’s deep, dark and you can fall down it if you’re not careful. When it comes to our physical creations and possessions, sentimentality means the difference between tossing something in the waste bin and keeping it on a bookshelf for time eternal. Take an inanimate object that has been imbued with a life and identity of its own, like a stuffed animal, and you can begin to understand how one starts down the path of becoming a hoarder. Ainslie Henderson is to sentimentalists what Willy Wonka is to chocoholics. Since releasing his BAFTA-nominated directorial debut, “I Am Tom Moody” in 2012, Henderson has established himself as one of today’s preeminent stop-motion animators, lauded for his uncanny ability to breathe life into any manner of puppet, anthropomorphic or not. Henderson’s newest film, “Stems,” is an empathic ode to the artist’s puppets and today’s Staff Pick Premiere.
[…]
Despite the final film’s modest runtime, production took the better part of six months, a testament to the painstaking work inherent to stop-motion and central to Henderson’s ability to bring his characters to life. “I take my time,” says Henderson, who is then quick to point out that the design of the puppets is every bit as important as the way in which they’re ultimately animated. “They should have a kind of ‘aliveness’ even before they move, that way you don’t have to do terribly much in the animating to bring them to life.” When asked if he ever gets attached to his creations, Henderson’s response is perhaps unsurprising: “I cherish them. Even the ugly, or half-finished ones get a place on the shelf in my studio. They’re like this weird, constantly growing little family who stare out at me from the windowsill as I’m working.”
Wonderful camerawork, stop-motion and sound design.
Amazing storytelling. Tinder may get a lot of flack, but at least it didn’t violate the privacy of millions of people. I like Tinder, and I still think it’s vastly undervalued. I also believe the next prevailing Social Network empire will not be Facebook — it will be the Match Group.
These are cool. Simple concepts, fast iteration. These are really really effective. I’d like to see local news reporting pickup on these kinds of graphics. Those whimsical non-representational, 3D texturized motion graphics we’re familiar with in local news are just so shitty.
A lovely, light-hearted piece from Giant Ant. A great spot, for a great cause. As if battling cancer isn’t hard enough, imagine being a kid with a cancer diagnosis. If you want to help the IFS, donate your imaginary friends here
I don’t normally purchase leather products. I’m no vegetarian either, unlike my better half. I do however, live and die by Michael Polan’s adage: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
That being said, leather isn’t for everyone, and ethical debate aside — The Saddleback Leather Co. knows how to make a truly remarkable bag. Properly. No bullshit. It’s a lovely video production, and Dave is a really good dude:
If you don’t believe me, read his Saddleback story. It’s really, truly something else. He had some tough times. Also, Dave is one hell of a writer. I enjoy coming across these stories, because there’s always a silver-lining, for example:
In 2003, Blue and I ended up living in Juarez, Mexico in a not so nice neighborhood and rented a $100/month apartment with no hot water. I saved so much money living there that I was able to send a little money for 5 more bags, then 8, then even a dozen at a time.
Where’s this headed…
So, in 2006, just after a trip through Costa Rica and Panama, I moved to El Paso, Texas, met my super funny and hot wife, Suzette, on MySpace.com and got married 6 months later.
Through the lens of graphic design, Design Canada follows the transformation of a nation from a colonial outpost to a vibrant and multicultural society.
Cast (Designers): Burton Kramer, Rolf Harder, Fritz Gottschalk, Hans Kleefeld, Stuart Ash, Heather Cooper, and more
With Commentary by: Massimo Vignelli, Douglas Coupland, George Stroumboulopoulos, Hannah Sung, and more.
This looks so great. I’m glad to see Vignelli is in the documentary as well. He (and the infamous Helvetica documentary) were huge inspirations to me in high school. May he forever rest in peace.
I’m also a huge rail-nerd. So seeing Vignelli critique the 1969 CN logo is going to be mind-blowing for me. You can read more about the Allan Fleming re-branding here, and more about CN’s history, here.
