In an effort to assure traditionalists that anything television can do the Internet can do better, YouTube got their first slice of the awards show pie last night with their inaugural YouTube Music Awards. In Saturday’s Times, Chris Milk — under the watchful eye of creative director Spike Jonze — revealed that each performance would be structured around a live music video, utilizing the platform to generate viral content in house. For the opener, Jonze enlisted one Greta Gerwig, replete with twinkle toes and jazz hands, to accompany Arcade Fire’s “Afterlife,” through forests, apartments, and a bearded man’s embrace. It […]
A new trailer for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming The Wolf of Wall Street has just dropped, and it’s very different in tone from the Kanye-scored one that’s been circulating on the interwebs for the last few months. Check it out above.
Waitressing, temping and working as a grip and electric intern were some of the odd jobs Reed Morano had on the way to becoming a d.p. In this latest Craft Truck video, Morano makes the case that grip and electric is “not putting the light up, it’s what you do with it once you get the light up.” You can watch the full Craft Truck interview here.
Those 25 New Faces folks seem to crop up everywhere, so it’s no surprise that 2013 alum Mohammad Gorjestani‘s Refuge, an excellent sci-fi-tinged short about an Iranian immigrant set in the San Jose of the near future, has been chosen as a Staff Pick on Vimeo, by the cultured curatorial eye of Jason Sondhi, who was chosen for our 2011 list. Check out the film above, or here at Vimeo.
Jamie Stuart was back at the New York Film Festival this year, getting up to his usual antics, except this time with a hot new camera, the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera. (You can read his review of the camera here.) Look out for appearances by a host of film luminaries who graced NYFF this year — Alexander Payne, Spike Jonze, Tom Hanks, the Coen brothers, John Goodman, Tilda Swinton and Rooney Mara — plus cameos from Glenn Kenny and, um, me.
From the “communications research center” Fabrica comes this lovely documentary short film, Al Pioppi, about an Italian restauranteur who, for 40 years, has been building homemade rides and attractions in the forest around his establishment. For him, it’s not just advertising but also an inquiry into existence and mortality.
From Cinefix, here is Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining reimagined, with surprising effectiveness, as an 8-bit video game. (Hat tip: Daring Fireball.)
Andrew Thomas Huang, one of our “25 New Faces” this year, sadly missed out on the annual gathering for newly inducted alums in Tacoma because, he said, he was in London for the whole summer. He didn’t say what project he was working on exactly, but it turns out to be have been, very excitingly, a music video for Thom Yorke and Flea’s band Atoms for Peace. This great promo for “Before Your Very Eyes” is yet another dream collaboration for Huang, whose previous two music videos were for Sigur Rós and Björk.
Wes Anderson’s sensibility has, I suppose, always been somewhat “European,” so it’s not a big stretch for him to be extending his storytelling realm to include one of the great cities of Central Europe in The Grand Budapest Hotel. And he certainly seems to be having fun with this star-studded, 1920s-era romp, which may be the most visually lavish and designed film of his career to date. On the surface, the film looks like a companion piece to Jiri Menzel’s I Served the King of England, which tackles similar subject matter but with a comic bite and political engagement that […]
Gordon Willis, the legendary cinematographer who shot The Godfather and Annie Hall, reveals in this clip from Craft Truck‘s cinematographer series how to be a valuable crew member and the norm of the relationship between the director and d.p. Watch the full interview here.