December 2011
76 posts
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Fauna: The New Year’s Eve Possum Drop
If you’re too jaded for New York’s Times Square festivities on New Year’s Eve, head to Brasstown, North Carolina, for their annual Possum Drop. Clay Logan, the owner of Clay’s Corner shop and gas station, created the event in 1990 to celebrate the town’s status as the self-described “possum capital of the...
Watch Extreme Weather: Episode 4
Extreme Weather looks at the weather-related disasters that seem to be plaguing the planet with increasing frequency due to global warming. This episode covers floods in the Philippines, severe storms in Scotland, drought along the Danube, and the worst weather disasters of 2011.
WatchA Hypnotic Music Video Animates Photocopies of Photocopies
This stop-motion music video for New Jackson’s “The Night Mail” by Dublin-based animator Fergal Brennan explores a kind of visual entropy — the ways images emerge and dissolve when captured with a Polaroid camera or photocopied repeatedly.
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Electronic Literature: ‘The West’
Electric Literature embraces digital media in publishing and produces web videos inspired by the short stories in its magazine. Here, writer and visual artist Carson Mell brings a single sentence from his story “The West” to life.
WatchDeclassifying the U.S.’s Cold War Satellites
A short documentary from the National Reconnaissance Office explains how the U.S.’s earliest spy satellites monitored the Soviet Union without computers or digital cameras. For the full story, see Alexis Madrigal’s “TOP SECRET: Your Briefing on the CIA’s Cold-War Spy Satellite, ‘Big Bird.’”
Watch Girl Walk // All Day: Shopping Spree
Girl Walk // All Day, a 70-minute music video set to the entire Girl Talk mashup album All Day, is a playful exploration of dance and New York’s urban landscape. In chapter eight, the girl hits up the mall for a makeover and a new outfit to take the town by storm.
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An Eerily Beautiful Music Video Shot With Xbox Kinect
Tim & Joe’s lush music video for New Look’s “Nap on the Bow” creates a rippling underwater world with Xbox’s Kinect camera. The ghostly shapes are based on depth information from the Kinect’s infrared laser, which tracks 3D objects in space.
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Christmas in Space: Apollo 8’s 1968 Lunar Mission
Apollo 8’s astronauts celebrated Christmas in space during the mission that set the groundwork for Apollo 11. Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders orbited the Moon in December of 1968 and witnessed the first Earthrise in human history. Looking back at the tiny blue planet rising over the Moon’s horizon, one...
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The Chernobyl Workers Now
Maisie Crow’s short documentary, Half-Lives: The Chernobyl Workers Now, for the Virginia Quarterly Review tells the story of the community that survived the Chernobyl disaster.
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A 1908 Silent Version of ‘The Night Before Christmas’
ourtesy of the Internet Archive, this example of early cinematic storytelling from Thomas Edison’s production company includes live reindeer and sweeping miniature model landscapes.
WatchGirl Walk // All Day: Subway Car Dance Party
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A Skate Video Done in Watercolor, Frame by Frame
Matthew Box transforms ordinary skate footage by rendering each frame as a watercolor painting, and then putting them all together in a flowing animation.
Via Vimeo Staff Picks.
Watch 1950s Kodachrome Christmas
Jeff Altman, a professional film colorist, revived his grandfather’s beautiful 16mm Kodachrome footage and gave it a second life on Vimeo. Don’t miss his films from Las Vegas in 1962 and San Francisco in 1958.
WatchHow Christmas Lights Get Recycled
Adam Minter’s video from a recycling plant in Shijiao, China, reveals how the process of chopping up and breaking down the valuable components of holiday lights works. In “The Chinese Town That Turns Your Old Christmas Tree Lights Into Slippers,” he explores the system in more detail.
WatchWhen Christmas Presents Attack
DANIELS Happy Holidays video from 2010 is still hilarious
WatchThe Republican ‘Superhero Primary’
Nine-year-old Ari Garnick tracked down most of the Republican candidates in New Hampshire to ask each of them one very important, and hilarious, question: If you could be any superhero in the world, who would you be and why? Ari’s dad Darren captured their responses on video, and shares his take on the experience in “Republicans in...
WatchThe True Story of the Baghdad Country Club
Joshuah Bearman’s “Baghdad Country Club” is a stranger-than-fiction story that begins with a chance conversation between two guys stranded in the Baghdad airport. Here, the tale comes to life through animation by Colleen Cox and sound design by Pat Walters. Baghdad Country Club was produced by The Atavist, a publishing house for...
WatchExtreme Weather: Episode 3
Extreme Weather looks at the weather-related disasters that seem to be plaguing the planet with increasing frequency due to global warming. This episode covers drought in Mexico, floods in Australia, and the physics of hurricanes.
WatchThe Surreal Fanfare of a North Korean Military Parade
In 2010, photojournalist-turned-filmmaker Dan Chung captured one of North Korea’s largest military parades in mesmerizing slow motion for The Guardian. Don’t miss Alan Taylor’s “Inside North Korea” for rare photographs of the country.
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Cindy Gallop’s Black Apartment
Former ad executive Cindy Gallop is an infinitely quotable speaker on business, innovation, and sex — and she also happens to have a very cool apartment. In this mini documentary, filmmaker Paul Stone pairs some of her observations with a lush tour of her famous “black apartment,” which features a modern art collection and glossy...
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Girl Walk // All Day: Mopeds and Dance Offs
Chapter five of the dance film Girl Walk // All Day takes you on a breathless tour of N.Y.C. on a bright red moped
WatchLyle Owerko’s Photographs of Giant, Old School Boomboxes
In The Boombox Project, a short documentary by Paul Stone, photographer Lyle Owerko reflects on his creative process and his fascination with the genesis of hip hop.
WatchThe Year in Movies: 250 Films Edited Into 1 Trailer
Matt Shapiro’s 2011: Cinescape is one of the best movie mashups this year, blending a staggering 250 films into a cohesive whole. With the exception of the first clip from Sunset Boulevard (1950), all the films are from 2011 — the full list can be found here.
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Girl Walk // All Day: Love on the High Line
Chapter four of the dance film Girl Walk // All Day introduces a love triangle between three characters known simply as the girl, the gentleman, and the creep
WatchWelcome to the ‘Mad Men’-Era Suburbs
An excerpt from In the Suburbs, a 1957 film produced by Redbook magazine, promotes the suburban lifestyle of its young adult readers. The film can be watched in its entirety at the Prelinger Archive
WatchOkkervil River’s ‘Your Past Life as a Blast’ Explores Love and Memory
A dreamy music video for Okkervil River visualizes a couple’s experience together from both perspectives, reflecting the fluidity of memory in its cinematography and editing.The video was created by Isaac Ravishankara, who talks about the inspiration for the video and the production process in an...
