From the 2015 video description:
The Rescued Film Project discovers and processes 31 rolls of film shot by an American WWII soldier over 70 years ago.
Incredibly, The Rescued Film Project still operates to this day. Remarkable non-profit organization. Consider donating to their cause if you can!
@ignmontalvo makes wonderful, dare I say powerful visual essays. His account on Vimeo is full of treasures. I found his account only after someone shared with me Netflix Film: Looking. His older upload, is an oldie but a goodie:
Joywave, a rad indie band that hails from Rochester, New York is known for their penchant for the meta and the weird. Just watch their 2015 music video for Somebody New and you’ll see what I mean. In 2019, Joywave released the single Obsession, in preparation for the full-length Possession slated for March 2020. The single came with goodies, a delicious music video that is oozing with nostalgia and American culture.
Here’s a few of my favorites stills from the music video:
The music video is well produced. It’s also very visibly Los Angeles. THat’s not a slight either. It’s really beautiful. It has the weight of a hundred films, and shows just how flexible the Los Angeles landscapes can be for filmmakers. Check it out:
New York has an entrenched and somewhat mystical entanglement with waste management over the course of its history. For the past 34 years, Nelson Molina, a former DSNY worker has collected and maintained an incredible (but unofficial) museum of 45,000 collected objects that were thrown out to the curb by New Yorkers. The short which follows Molina, offers us a glimpse of the collection. The short is titled, Treasures in the Trash and is directed by New York based filmmaker, Nicolas Heller.
My favorite line from Molina is so poetic:
Before you throw something out, think about. Everything can have a home.
Since the museum resides inside an active garage for the Department of Sanitation, it’s not open to the public. But, that could all change with your help! From the video’s description:
The collection is not open to the public since it is in an active garage, but our hope is to get a proper space with the help of this film. Please visit nycstrongest.org/future-museum to donate!
According to Atlas Obscura, you can also email tours@dsny.nyc.gov to schedule a private tour of the MANEAST11 garage’s collection.
If you know me personally, you know how much I love The Times. It’s a wonderful newspaper I fell in love with in college. I’ve consistently held a subscription in one form or another since then. It has prestige, integrity and a wide breadth of reporting. From real estate musings, to the incredible science pieces. It’s the standard candle, few papers can emulate. It has growth rings and battle-scars like the great Redwoods in California:
Update: speaking of frontpages of the New York Times, they really missed the opportunity on a proper headline to capture the racist-filled mass murdering that took place over the weekend. A total of 31 were left dead:
Really really bad.
Probably one of the most uplifting, succinct, emotionally touching and truly thoughtful piece of video journalism I’ve seen in 2019. Bob Ross has touched just about everyone on planet Earth. Nearly three decades after his untimely death in 1995, everyone seems to want to know — where are all the Bob Ross paintings now?
This Staff Pick hit me right in the feelers.
It’s a short film from Joan Bosch (he/him), a Spanish filmmaker “based between Madrid and Barcelona.” From the short film’s description on Vimeo:
“(Life) While Traveling” is a short film about the way we look to the world when we travel. It’s about colors, shapes, textures and details that surrounds us every day, but we only realize when we are far from home.
Gorgeous, emotional, and even a tad nostalgic. Really motivates me to take stock of what we have here, on Earth. Joan really hit me in the feelers on this one. Enjoy.
Once upon a time, filmmakers Spike Jonze and Sofia Coppola were married. While fitting the dreams of film hipster heaven, their marriage ended long before the Internet could freak out about their seemingly perfect union, not unlike the way it did during the twee super marriage of Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Zoe Deschanel (it, too, didn’t last). “It’s not Spike,” Coppola insisted in 2003 about Giovanni Ribisi’s portrayal of a character in “Lost In Translation” many felt was a dig at her ex-husband. “But there are elements of him there, elements of experiences. There are elements of me in all the characters.”
Jorge Luengo Ruiz (@jorge_luengo) created this excellent video, a splicing of Lost in Translation and Her. It’s gives me chills to see the parallels between the two directors. The cinematic symmetry is delicious, and yet heartbreaking at the same time:
Working at Vimeo, there’s no shortage of Staff Picks to go through and watch in the archives. This was Staff Picked originally in 2011, but I just happened across it today!James W Griffiths is the director of this short, and I don’t have much else to share other than the video description:
Shot entirely on the Nokia N8 mobile phone. Winner of the Nokia Shorts competition 2011.
For context the N8 was released 9 years ago. It had a 12.1 megapixel resolution which was unheard of at the time. But also, not great when we’ve been spoiled 4K+ resolutions as of lately. It also had a 16GB SSD, and a SD memory card slot.
It’s extraordinary and really wonderful what we can achieve around such simple medium constraints.
This music video was initially created on the computer using several pieces of 3D animation software. After the digital version was finalized, all 1,480 frames of the video were then individually printed using ink jet printers. Once an image was printed, it was then painted, drawn, and illustrated on top of using traditional animation techniques. Lastly, the newly illustrated frames were scanned back into the computer and sequenced into the final film.
This animation film is another work of art from the Brooklyn studio, Art Camp. Ravishing, delicious and ambitious — just a few words to describe just how amazing this animation is. The style, the process, and the music pairing are a match made in heaven.
It’s just so fucking good.
For the past 10 years, street photographer Patrick Barr aka Tiger Hood has become a local legend known for bringing golf to the streets of NYC. It’s a game that requires only three items: a golf club, a newspaper-stuffed milk carton, and a crate. What was initially just a way for Barr to pass time has gained traction from major news outlets and celebrities on a global scale. However, street golf seems to overshadow his true passion… photography. Barr’s archive consists of thousands of mind blowing film photographs of NYC from the 1990’s to 2000’s. His goal was to preserve a time and place that he predicted would dissolve in the coming years. With his archive as evidence, he predicted correctly.
Spectacular. I love stuff like this. I’ve personally never witnessed street golf in the city, but eagerly await my chance to take a swing if I ever spot Barr on the putting green. Amazing photography.
Director and Producer, Nicolas Heller is hosting a screening of the documentary (RSVP here), at Project Farmhouse on March 2nd.
A remarkable and moving Staff Pick. Directed by Staff Pick creative alumni, Even/Odd and Mohammad Gorjestani and commissioned by Square, Inc.
If you ask me, dance is the perfect medium to capture, distill and convey the depth of tragedy, complexity and sadness of war and loss. I just love this quote from Román Baca, the dance company director of Exit 12:
Every story is not being told, and every voice is not being heard. Veterans are emboldened when they are able to share their lives not only with other veterans but other people.
That is so very true. I’m happy to see Baca chasing his dream. Moreover, I’m happy to veterans helping each other, and inviting us into the wrinkles of this complex catharsis that we can all heal from.
You can read more about this Staff Pick at the Vimeo Blog. Follow the Exit 12 dance company online here.
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.
Created using Google Earth imagery.
A superb interview is available as well from the site, Directors Notes.
Looking back on 2018, I haven’t been this happy, or this productive in a very long time. It feels good to reflect on this past year. By comparison, when 2017 drew to a close, I came to the conclusion that it was a difficult year. It ended with mixed feelings of nostalgia, regret, and a lot of uncertainty.
2018 was a totally different ballgame though. I began the year with two very simple goals in mind:
That’s it. Underpromise and over-deliver ????
I busted my ass at work (at the time, I was working for an ad agency). I learned lot’s of things there, (and re-learned even more outside of work hours). Let me tell you right now, there are merits to skipping happy hour with your co-workers and going home to work on side-projects (or just going home to relax).
I finally picked up React (and Typescript for that matter). Spent a lot of time with Shopify’s tools (for a side-project), went back to Ruby for a bit and spent a considerable amount of time with tried-and-true PHP.
While on the subject of PHP — I joined Vimeo full-time, as a Front-end Developer. Thanks to amazing and open environment here, I learned even more regarding React, Git best practices, and how to write good PRs. As a bonus, I became a better Designer — mainly via feedback and collaboration. The tried-and-true iterative design process has been missing from my work-life since college, and it feels good to be part of a team that treats design as a first-class citizen. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about Vimeo as time goes on.
I focused most of my energies on mental health, which I recommend to anyone and everyone for the year 2019. Taking time to relax more did wonders (although leaving the “Ad World” really did most of the leg work here, I do not miss the hours or the pressure). Exercising more self-control with screen-time when I’m off work was a big one for me too. I tried cutting back on video games as well (even if I wasn’t entirely successful with that, it is for the better).
I’ve also begun to switch gears in my morning/evening commute routine too. Listening to more audiobooks than news or podcasts has been a mostly positive thing. Mainly because when commuting home in the evening, it can be really stressful. Nothing is more dreadful than a packed, hot, humid subway car, full of hundreds of sighs and negativity as millions of New Yorkers head home after a long day in the office. For whatever reason, there’s something very soothing about audiobooks, even at the height of the evening rush-hour.
Which leads me to my running routine. However irregular the days may have been, I ran more in 2018 than the year before, which is good I suppose. On the days I did decide to run, I wouldn’t run further than 2 miles at the most. My regret for 2018 is that I probably should be doing more than just running. Perhaps a more varied selection of cardio that involves my other limbs like swimming, rowing, or something.
So yeah, 2018 was a pretty good year for my personal goals. But I have so much more in my life than just myself.
My girlfriend, and best friend, Leah Constantine (@dumbcurator) joined The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a highly prestigious institution of art and history. But a week before that, in May of 2018 she graduated from The Pratt Institute School of Information’s Master of Science in Library and Information Science. Simply put, Leah’s amazing. Here’s her website.
In 2018, we didn’t travel as much as we would have liked. And that’s okay. For the most part, we stayed in NYC all year. I travelled to Texas for my step-father’s birthday and I was happy I did, because we skipped Thanksgiving with our families to save money. It panned out well for us, because for one, we did another road-trip to Texas for Christmas. And for two, we wanted to begin saving money for trips elsewhere for 2019.
Also, there was a lot of really good movies I watched in 2018!
All in all, 2018 was a fantastic year of growth for my girlfriend and I — honestly can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of this year. For 2019, I’m going to focus on several things:
See you next year!
As part of my ongoing effort to become more effective at Git, I stumbled into an interesting problem. At Vimeo, we have a lot of branches named after issues reported in Jira. Some branches take on the name of the project or component or a very specific fix. We also have branches that don’t follow naming-conventions at all. It happens. Anyways, somedays, I forget the name of the branches I’ve worked on, say yesterday. Other times, I forgot what work I did on which branch. I grew tired of tab-switching between my terminal and Jira or Github to go and find my work history. I don’t need to see my commits, I just need to see a list of recent branches.
So, I began googling around the web, and came across this post. It’s a good solution I think, David Walsh seems to agree too. Basically, it lists the most recent branches you’ve worked on. But ideally, I’d rather opt for an alias in my .bashrc. I don’t want to clutter up my .gitconfig. That’s, just like my opinion man. Without further ado, here’s my alias in my .bashrc:
# ~/.bashrc
alias recent-branches="git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate --count=10 --format='%(refname:short)' refs/heads/"Stupid simple, readable and short. Just the way I like it. There are of course, more complex solutions to this simple problem. But I’m not a huge fan of those longwinded solutions. Anyways, when I run the recent-branches alias in my terminal:
➜ example-repo git:(feature-pages) recent-branches
nav-bar-component-fix
GH-48
features-pages
FR-47
XR-73
VP-71
new-privacy-policy-page
VP-70
VP-49
GH-46Nifty huh? As you can see, the alias command is really just one long git command. It takes a count=10 flag. So if you need to see more branches in your history, just inflate the value accordingly. Enjoy! ✌️