Authors — Sarah Salovaara
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Visitors’ Godfrey Reggio on 4K, Black and White Cinematography, Long Cuts and Philip Glass
For our Winter issue, experimental documentarian Godfrey Reggio, along with his producer Jon Kane and d.p. Trish Govani, explored the significance of selected stills from his latest film Visitors. A revealing exercise for any filmmaker, Reggio’s excerpts carry far more weight than they would for most: the eight shots account for more than 10% of the film. Comprised of only 74, 4K black and white shots, the Philip Glass-scored Visitors is a meditation on the act of spectatorship, as the viewer unflinchingly gazes at 70+ second takes of faces, swamplands, disembodied hands and the moon. In the above video for The Creators Project, Reggio extols […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 26, 2014 -
The Pirate Cinema: A Real Time Collage of File Sharing
Ever wonder what a data visualization of every file transfer bouncing around the internet airwaves might look like? The Pirate Cinema, from artist Nicolas Maigret, has rendered something close to it. Described as a “cinematic collage generated by peer-to-peer network activity,” the project is comprised of arbitrary clips from real time BitTorrent file sharing. Users IP addresses and countries are displayed in the upper corners, turning purportedly private transactions public. For Maigret, “this horizontal network architecture…recalls the utopian vision of openness and free appropriation that arose in the early days of the Internet.”
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 25, 2014 -
Cut Copy’s “We Are Explorers” Video Released With DIY 3-D BitTorrent Bundle
For the video to their single “We Are Explorers,” Cut Copy paired with the Tokyo-New York creative lab Party to relate the tale of a couple of 3-D printed night owls. Cinematographer Sesse Lind shot roughly 200 figurines, printed from a yellow, UV-reactive filament, under black light flashlights, only at night, to achieve the desired effects. The result is downsized nocturnal epic whose scale belies its ambitions. To accompany the release, the creative team packaged a BitTorrent Bundle that includes the musical track, the video and the 3-D printing files, so that fans can craft and upload their own versions. With the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 25, 2014 -
Tribeca Film Festival’s #6SecFilms Competition Now Open
What happens when you distill filmmaking to its barebones, limiting runtime to six seconds, and the recording apparatus to a cell phone? Judging from last year’s winners of Tribeca’s #6SecFilms Vine competition, the answer is some pretty inventive stuff. Animators and genre fans alike can submit their Vines to the competition through March 27, using the #6SecFilms hashtag, along with the appropriate category: #drama, #comedy, #animation and #genre. The winners will receive a meeting with GrapeStory, a mobile marketing agency and production house. Last year’s winners and short-listers went on to be featured in the Super Bowl Budweiser ads and currently […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 24, 2014 -
“Just Like You” Music Video Shot Over Nine Months
Director Matthew Riggieri and d.p. Michael Patrick O’Leary set a camera in concrete to film the music video for Bosley’s “Just Like You.” Then, they left it there for nine months, and built an outhouse on top of it, so that no one could steal it. With its quick cuts, the result isn’t a time lapse per se, but it does give you some idea of the changing seasons.
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 24, 2014 -
Stanley Kubrick Behind the Scenes of Full Metal Jacket
Vivian Kubrick shot a reported 18 hours of footage while on the set of her father’s Vietnam War film Full Metal Jacket. Though Ms. Kubrick eventually abandoned her documentary project, bits and bobs of the footage surfaced in comprehensive collections such as Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. A condensed version of the behind-the-scenes action is now available on YouTube, featuring Kubrick directing Matthew Modine and the gallery of extras during the “this is my rifle, this is my gun” sequence alike. The clips also provide insight into Kubrick’s on-set personality, which — at least, here — does not appear quite as […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 21, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Ti West’s The Sacrament
The Sacrament, Ti West’s found footage horror film, tracks an innocuous visit gone awry. Kentucker Audley, Joe Swanberg and AJ Bowen star as a coterie of photographers who visit Audley’s sister, played by Amy Seimetz, on the Eden Parish commune, where she has lived since completing her rehab program. Turns out the place isn’t as forgiving as Audley and co. suspected. The Sacrament hits theaters on May 1, and you can watch the red band trailer above.
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 21, 2014 -
The Digital Storytelling Lab’s Archive Project
The Digital Storytelling Lab, the Ira Deutchman-run collaborative at Columbia University, is on the hunt for projects. Any form or function, your work or one of historical relevance, that makes enticing use of data. Why? Because the Digital Storytelling Lab wants to archive them. Though their mission is to “design stories for the 21st century,” the Lab is also keen to maintain the foundations modern technology expounds upon, as they examine its democratization’s role in altering the relationship between creator and audience. If you’d like to participate, fill out a form with three projects over at their site.
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 21, 2014 -
Full Lineup for 2014 New Directors/New Films
A Sundance heavy set of additional titles has been announced for this year’s New Directors/New Films series, taking place at MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center from March 19 – 30. I covered the first announcement back in January, noting that the festival’s obscure spirit was alive and well, though the recent inclusions appear to be verging on BAMcinemaFest territory, with such buzzed titles as Obvious Child, Dear White People, She’s Lost Control, The Babadook, To Kill A Man and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. I’ve enjoyed the festival for international discoveries, and we still have plenty of those too: Fish & Cat […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 20, 2014 -
Zero Point: An Interactive Documentary Made For Oculus Rift
Zero Point, a meta-documentary about the virtual reality industry, is about to remove the popular practice of 3D filmmaking from theaters. Founded by Oscar-nominated director Danfung Dennis, the tech company Condition One has created the first film to be viewed with Oculus Rift, those nifty goggles made for 3D gaming. The virtual reality headset will allow the viewer to control the visuals through movement — effectively positioning the audience as a character, or even a real-time cinematographer, in the film. Condition One plans to project Zero Point on “the inside of an imaginary sphere, surrounding a viewer with an [Oculus] Rift headset,” according […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 20, 2014
