PressPausePlay is an award-winning documentary film that poses questions on what the digital revolution has done to various creative industries:
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities.
But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.
Although the topic of photography isn’t addressed directly, the film is very relevant to photographers, since the imaging industry has definitely been transitioning from old school (film and traditional distribution methods) to new school (digital and Web-based distribution methods).
Star Wars Uncut is a remake of the original Star Wars movie created with the power of crowdsourcing. The project started back in 2009 after creator Casey Pugh sliced the original movie into 15 second segments and asked volunteers to use their creativity to recreate the scenes at home. The best clips were combined into a feature length film, which went on to win an Emmy Award in 2010 for “Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media”. Above is the recently-released director’s cut of the film.
Photographer Tome Lowe has spent the past two years working on TimeScapes, his debut feature film that presents a breathtaking time-lapse portrait of the American Southwest. Just to give you an idea of how epic the film will be: every time he releases a sneak peek of the film, the video goes viral and receives hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of views. This trailer is no different.
Lomography has launched the LomoKino, the world’s first consumer 35mm movie camera. It’s an old-school hand-cranked camera that uses standard rolls of 35mm film (yeah, the kind you use in film cameras). The camera captures 144 individual frames onto each roll of film, producing a video that lasts 50-60 seconds. Once you have your film developed, you can watch it using a separate LomoKinoScope: a hand-cranked movie viewer! Read the rest of this entry »
Everybody Street is an upcoming documentary film about New York City street photographers (e.g. Bruce Gilden and Joel Meyerowitz) who have taken some of the most iconic images of the past century. Created by photographer Cheryl Dunn, the film was originally a 36-minute short film, but is being expanded into a feature length movie. Read the rest of this entry »
The video recording quality of DSLRs has gotten to the point where you can slap them onto big fancy rigs and use them to film portions of big budget Hollywood movies without anyone noticing any difference. Iron Man was the first superhero in the Marvel universe to make use of the Canon 5D Mark II, and today it was announced that the camera was also used extensively throughout “Captain America: The First Avenger”.
[...] Action scenes in “Captain America: The First Avenger” in which [Second unit DP Jonathan Taylor] used 5D Mark II cameras for POV shots include a car chase and crash, and a high-speed motorcycle pursuit. The small size of the camera enabled Taylor to mount it on the interiors and exteriors of moving vehicles to capture dramatic action shots. The camera’s size also ensured that it was “invisible” to the film cameras shooting the same scene from a distance.
So basically, in certain scenes, a Canon 5D Mark II was actually recording from within the scene itself!
The Negative Effect is a documentary film by Malaysian director Dick Chua about a group of youngsters obsessed with film and lo-fi photography. He followed the group of about 40 photo-enthusiasts back in 2008 as they traveled to Penang Island in Malaysia to shoot and put on a photography exhibition without any sponsorship or support. The film premiered in Malaysia in 2009 and Singapore in 2011. Hopefully it’ll start showing internationally soon, or at least become available as a DVD.
Kodachrome may be gone, but it’s far from forgotten — DreamWorks is planning to make a movie centered around the closing of the final Kodachrome lab in Kansas. Author Jonathan Tropper got the idea for the movie after reading an article about the film’s demise in the New York Times, and pitched the idea to the studio. His script involves a father-son road trip in which they attempt to reach the lab and process their Kodachrome rolls before their memories are lost forever. Shawn Levy is being named as the potential director for the movie.
Back in August 2010, Friskies selected 25 cats around the country and gave them the hardship privilege of wearing a camera around their necks, documenting their lives over the course of 5 days. The resulting footage was edited into “Cat Diaries”, the first movie to be filmed entirely by cats. It’s a unique look into what it’s like to see and explore the world as a cat.
Next time they should figure out a way to attach a chicken to the cats to stabilize the footage.
