Yesterday was a big deal, celebrated quietly only inside my heart.
Category: documentary
Telling stories
We can’t throw a rock across the Web without hitting one of the many articles, posts, books, podcasts or interviews focused on the use of storytelling in business. Arguably kicking the magic out of the hat, most of them address the way stories are used in marketing goods and services (yawn). We need to think…
Dr. Walter Soboleff
This piece speaks for itself:
Dropped is in
This 10-minute short film is made up of clips found on YouTube by Chris Beckman, who collected clips of people dropping their video cameras and edited them together into this artful masterpiece:
The Unseen Sea
Simon Christen shot this in the Bay Area:
Behind the Scenes: WIND
Behind the scenes with the Exploratorium, A Curious Summer and Tinkering Unlimited as they prepare to work with young learners to harness wind’s invisible power through discovering where it comes from and how to predict its behavior while studying aerodynamics and lift. Through tinkering with wind-powered machines and vehicles, such as a paragliding wing, turbines…
Flight
Since forever, I’ve been hooked on flight. In planes big or small, balloons, anything that flies, goes fast and is otherwise in direct opposition to the side of me that believes strongly in being safe by observing best practices at all times. I once lived in Juneau, Alaska and used to watch paragliders from my…
Tinkering School: Day 8
Go cart design, assembly and testing by the inimitable Team Tinker with snippets of boat model design and other moments of singular, whimsical tinkering mastery. Thanks to Moby for his song, Porcelain.
10 Second Film Festival: Sticks
A pal was kind enough to capture some of the reaction to ‘Sticks‘ at the Soap Factory’s 10 Second Film Festival on July 4th, 2010 in downtown Minneapolis, including the award for Best Documentary and praise it received from the local celebrity judges and HUGE crowd. Thanks to the Soap Factory and MPLS.tv! touch here…
‘sticks’ at the 10 Second Film Festival
The crowd and judges went cuckoo for “sticks” at the Soap Factory’s 10 Second Film Festival last night – the announcer and the crowd of thousands continued to chant “sticks” long after it screened, especially after I neglected to claim the win (until later) because I couldn’t hear anything! Gee whiz, what can a fella…
fate and the wall
A wall is accidentally knocked over leading to a discussion about the roles of choice and fate across cultures.click here to watch on mobile device
The Music of Conrad Praetzel and Clothesline Revival
The best music you may not have heard of comes from the imagination and inspiration of Conrad Praetzel, an archaeologist-turned-musician living in Northern California, who makes soulful music under the moniker Clothesline Revival. Collaborating with great musical forces in the world, including Charlie Musselwhite, Sukhawat Ali Khan, Robert Powell, Rounder Records, the field recordings of…
Ken Burns on filmmaking
If you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or a feature film I could tell you the steps to take to do that, but every working documentary filmmaker I know has gotten there through their own unique path. There is no career path.
Asleep
This is just the fat trimmed off a project I’m working on: a multimedia installation about people asleep in public spaces called, appropriately, “Asleep”:
Up There
Sure, in the end it’s just another commercial. Using this format, however, Stella Artois gives us a glimpse of more than a 30-second spot devoid of any intellectual calories whatsoever. Have 12 minutes to spare to watch this beautifully shot documentary?
10secondfilms.org
Some think content will keep getting longer and longer until movies are 3 and 4 hours long. That’s fine. OK with us. We also like the idea of not spending 3 or 4 hours to get something out of it. Like music, there is a time and place for a long song and a short…
Best. Worst. April. Fools’. Prank. Evah.
This prank was so good I had to remove it to help put certain parties at ease (hi, mom and dad). Don’t blame them, I prolly shouldn’t have included them in the first place – my poor judgement. The responses are still up, however, and can be viewed here. Thanks to all who responded and…
Coldcuts: Reuben Palmer in Barcelona
I’ve met some cool musicians while living in Barcelona and traveling elsewhere. Why not shoot some vids, have some fun and help them spread the word? In that vein, Coldcuts was just created to showcase these pals’ work. This weekend, we shot some tunes with Reuben Palmer in my flat here in the Born:
On Generosity
One thing keeps coming into my mind now that I’ve been back in Spain from Senegal for a couple of weeks: grace and generosity are a completely different sport there, as shown to us by our hosts. It was astonishingly unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. Anywhere. Generosity is the habit of giving freely without…
Plastering Walls in Senegal
Team action in Senegal:
Education at its Finest
BFIS and Habitat for Humanity in Senegal A small window into the experience of students from the Benjamin Franklin International School in Barcelona who spent a week near Dakar, Senegal in Keur Mbaye Fall, working in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity. “If we wish to teach fish to swim, it helps if we put them…