movies
10 Second Film Festival: Sticks
More than 3000 enjoyed the 10 Second Film Festival
Thanks to the Soap Factory and MPLS.tv!
Watch ‘Sticks’ in its entirety below (14-seconds):
Life is but a Taco…
MPLS.tv created the credits for the Soap Factory‘s 10 Second Film Festival and did it so well this opening credit won the award in the ARTHOUSE category, and features the Mayor of Minneapolis, Chris Cloud:
‘sticks’ at the 10 Second Film Festival
The crowd at the 10 Second Film Festival
“Lars can eat carrots really fast” was a crowd pleaser, too, and when i didn’t hear the call to claim the award for ‘sticks’ evidently they chose this as the next winner, which i didn’t go up for either because i STILL couldn’t hear anything! : P
Plastic Bag
Ramin Bahrani-written-directed-and-edited, Werner Herzog-narrated and original soundtrack by Kjartan Sveinsson of Sigur Rós?
Goodbye Solo
Every now and then a film moves me, lifts and tosses about my sense of the world, of knowing myself and my own culture, let alone the cultures of others and where mine fits in. Then, it sets me down gently, back in the place I was to begin with. Only then, the place looks a whole lot different. Better? Not necessarily. Worse? Not necessarily. Just – different.
Yesterday a good pal showed up and had brought me Goodbye Solo. I watched it not once but twice before falling to sleep with images of Souléymane Sy Savané, Red West and the road ahead of all of us, wherever or whatever our situation.
One of the most beautiful things about this film is how Ramin Bahrani chose to tell it visually. The cinema of the whole thing is masterful. The relationship between these two unlikely characters is developed elegantly without a hint of muscle-y force.
I could rant on and on about the reasons why I love it, why this is a film to be celebrated but for two reasons I will leave you in peace: 1) I do not wish to dilute it for anyone reading this who has not yet taken it in, and 2) I already did so at length to my pal who brought it to me, thanking him for the gift of spending 91 minutes of my life watching the work of a truly gifted filmmaker who should be an inspiration to generations of filmmakers to come.
Thank you, Ramin.
Cinematography: We’ve come a long way?
We don’t have to ask why we love videos and movies, visual literacy is becoming more important as time goes on.
Produced by Thomas Edison and directed and filmed by Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery was the first narrative movie ever made.
Thinking about today’s conventions I see in contrast to the silent films of the early years of cinema, the first thing is obvious: there are a lot of talking heads. The cinematic elements that make me love movies, especially silent movies, are mostly lacking, having given way to VFX and complicated dialogue. Cool effects work well in the right places but, as we learned from the great, early filmmakers, a story is best told with a visual, artful use of the tools to lead us to make connections on our own. This is what cinematography is. The American Society of Cinematographers defines cinematography as:
a creative and interpretive process that culminates in the authorship of an original work of art rather than the simple recording of a physical event.
The difference between a good film and a great one is that even with the audio removed a great film stands on its own. The audience can still make sense of the action because the cinematic elements keep moving the story forward.
Silent films didn’t have the luxury of audio tracks to bolster what was happening on the screen. Directors worked feverishly to keep the inclusion of cards with words on them to a minimum as audiences often found them distracting because they broke a certain rhythm to the visual story that was unfolding before them. The fundamentals of editing were more than enough for directors in those early days as they saw a seemingly infinite number of conventions that could be used to craft atmospheres, psychological experiences that led audiences to emotional heights and dramatic lows in response to the visual sequences taking place in front of them.
In contrast to now, when a majority of popular films have so many stylistic choices in common, produced with technology that can shoot high and low, inside and out, leave no stone unturned, no thought of a character unknown, possessing perhaps a similar cultural rhythm about them, too, that can at times make them feel almost like the same movie. Technology has certainly opened up many more options for modern day shooters, myself included. Shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II allows us to shoot cinema quality footage at 24p at a fraction of the cost. However, as in design, there is a time and place for whitespace, which is to say, to not exploit the tools for all they’re worth just for the sake of exploiting the tools for all they’re worth. Does it add to the story? Yes? Keep it. Does it not add to the story? Lose it.
I surely don’t mean to discount the work of the great cinematographers of our age, only to suggest that limitations are what create the opportunities for innovation, not a lack of them. The life pursuits and soaring accomplishments of a legion of great screen directors in the early days of cinema stand testament to it.
So how has the rapid deployment of these new tools impacted our ability to tell a story cinematically? Surely it’s both helped and hindered. A great story is still a great story, regardless of what tools are used to tell it.
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.
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 one. We like them both. We do listen to waaay more short songs than long ones, though. This is the reason we love still images more than films. If our house was on fire and we had to save still images or films, we would have to save the stills. We know. Sounds surprising! We work in motion but, like most of our favorite filmmakers, we think in stills. Moments. In a moment, a still image can change our lives. Films take a little longer.
Which is one reason we created and curate 10secondfilms.org. In 10 moments, a film can pack quite a wallop. Some maybe not so much, but are still worthy as friendly exercises in media literacy.
Howard Rheingold called this site “genius, funny, and yes, friendly expression of participation media literacy” via his Twitter account.
Gever Tulley also commented on it using the most appropriate phrase ever: “oddly compelling” – also via Twitter.
Compliments coming from fellas like these make us feel pretty darn swell, to say the least. Thank you, Gever and Howard. You both have our most humble admiration and deepest respect.
This is all just to say that we believe the experience of producing media should be a friendly one for all ages, especially as technology can still be an obstacle to the creative process for many of us. As an exercise in media and visual literacies, the 10-second format is vital. It minimizes the need for complex tools. These moments as movies are gratifying and occasionally inspire larger, more ambitious projects.
Make a 10 second film with any device that captures motion pictures.
No editing — One take — 10 seconds maximum length — Sound is optional.
Have a 10 second film you like?
We’d love to hear about it and perhaps even feature it on the site – click here to tell us more.
Meanwhile, thanks for reading and — keep playing.
Herskovits and the Heart of Blackness
A compelling examination of the career and controversy surrounding Melville J. Herskovits, the pioneering American anthropologist of African Studies and controversial intellectual who established the first African Studies Center at an American university and authored, “The Myth of the Negro Past.”:
Big River Man: Martin Strel
Check out Martin’s complete [and impressive] list of accomplishments here
Trent Harris
Trent Harris is great for having made Rubin and Ed, which has been one of my favorite movies ever since my pal, Alec, turned me onto it prolly more than 11 years ago.
Trent’s made other stuff, too, and continues to make stuff, such as random video posts @ Fling A Ding:
Thanks, Trent
On Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing: Sound as Image
translating information from one sense into another, especially sound to image, is one of the things technology does well
case in point is Close Encounters of the Third Kind
is this captivating? in the case of Close Encounters it is. however, personally, i can only say that in other cases, such as the one below, watching the patterns go by while experiencing the familiar audible sensations of this music is sometimes satisfying and sometimes not. it surely depends on multiple factors. sometimes my eyes want to be free of this structure, preferring to let the imagination wander around and let the sound just be it’s own thing. sometimes yes, sometimes no
the idea of translating the input of one sense into or through another…hmmm…
brings up questions. sometimes, though, my own nature seems to want to focus on just one complete sense or at least in bursts of intensive focus. for example, to the music and let the other senses waft the in-between moment in
senses can be wrestled. this meditation is about giving each attention with care, rather than throw jumbled mass at them all without consideration. that’s sure easy enough to take for granted, too
cheers to Kurt Vega for the link:
Maurice Sendak : Where The Wild Things Are
Spike Jonze worked with Lance Bangs on this new documentary about Maurice Sendak, who wrote and illustrated Where The Wild Things Are, which is in post-production having been directed by Jonze. Click on the image to see the trailer for the documentary.
