Posts tagged video
video 
My kind of body art
My kind of body art
"Come On Up To The House," by Tom Waits, directed by Anders Lövgren :: first posted here 20 November 2009
The human imagination never ceases to amaze and astound me. Give a creative person a blank (body) canvas, a Magic Marker, a camera and a Tom Waits song, and you get this marvelous stop-motion message of hope and invitation.
Christy: 
video Subtractive creations
Subtractive creations
from "His Girl Friday - Between The Lines Edit," by Valentin Spirik, 2005. His Girl Friday is available in its entirety here :: via Waxy.org
Howard Hawks' 1940 Cary Grant/Rosalind Russel screwball comedy His Girl Friday is probably the greatest cinematic example of nonstop, everyone-talking-at-once comic banter. Well, not-quite nonstop: here an intrepid editor has strung together all eight minutes of clips from the film where nobody is saying anything. It reminds me of another work of subtractive genius I've heard about, in which Damion Searls compiled all of the text abridged out of a book called Moby Dick in Half the Time. The result, containing all the odd, astonishing, and confusing bits of Melville's work and none of the boring old plot, was published under the pruned-off subtltle ; or The Whale.
Nate:
"Every Painting in the MoMA on 10 April 2010," by Chris Peck :: via things magazine
When declining to contribute to New York's Museum of Modern Art, Gertrude Stein commented "You can be a museum, or you can be modern, but you can't be both." Who knows if that's universally true, but this video (really a series of stills) for me triggers not the bracing feelings of novel modernity but rather a pleasant nostalgia. I've never been inside MoMA, but seeing so many famously familiar works of art makes it feel like coming home. I especially love the photos that have people in front of the paintings—a reminder, as the date in the video title makes plain, that this is a record of timeless images, yes, but also of a particular time and place.
Nate:
"Obsessives: Seeds," by Leslie Jonath, Eric Slatkin, Blake Smith, and Roxanne Webber, CHOW, 29 April 2010 :: via Coudal Partners
An interview with Jeremiah "Jere" Gettle, founder of Baker County Heirloom Seeds, on the joys of seed-saving, -sharing, and of course -cultivating. Filmed in the company's "seed bank" storefront, the converted historic Sonoma County National Bank Building.
Nate:
video Drawing Cash
Drawing Cash
A fan-contributed, computer-drawn still frame from The Johnny Cash Project, 2010 :: via MetaFilter
This well-done interactive site allows users to contribute frames to a rotoscoped music video of Johnny Cash's "last recording," a cover of the gospel standard "Ain't No Grave." Contributors can select or be assigned a frame from the source video (a moody compendium of archival footage) and then trace and rework it using drawing tools provided by the website. Since people are always contributing new frame drawings, the video changes quite a bit if you rewatch it a few days later. Needless to say, this is no mere cobbled-together fan site—the credits page alone is impressive.
Nate:
from "The danger of a single story," by Chimamanda Adichie, TED.com, July 2009
I first discovered Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie when she was featured on the cover of my copy of Poets and Writers magazine. She was so striking on the cover, with her bold red head wrap and beautiful gaze, and her interview revealed a very intelligent, inspiring woman—I couldn't wait to read her work. In this video, Ms. Adichie talks about the danger of hearing only a single story about another person or country, risking a critical misunderstanding about their depth, beauty, intelligence, and humanity.
Christy:
video How to move a church
How to move a church
"How to move a 100-year-old church," promo for the series Monster Moves, 2007 :: via Coudal Partners
This video is fun, surreal, inspiring, and honestly a little creepy.
Nate:
"Everything is Everything: Alternate Version for Single Channel," by Koki Tanaka, 2007 :: via Coudal Partners
There's an odd decisive joy to this short film of odd decisive actions. I love the sense of deadpan discovery as the filmmaker finds abbreviated new uses and gestures for everyday plastic things, conjuring up a dance of objects for an audience of food. Really.
Nate:
from "Always in the Season," by Pomplamoose, 2009 :: via Boing Boing
Some lovely seasonal bedroom big-band from Pomplamoose, the guy-and-girl duo Andy's written about before. The video's show-it-all style is as winsome as usual. As a bonus, once the song ends Jack and Nataly break out of their deadpan to offer an off-the-cuff promotion of the World Vision gift catalog (which Andy's also posted about). If you make a gift and email Pomplamoose your receipt, you get an mp3 of this song plus a bonus track.
Nate:
video A tale of two cities
A tale of two cities
"Mankind Is No Island" by Jason van Genderen, 29 September 2008 :: via Richard Law, 7th grade English teacher at Strath Haven Middle School (not the last time my son will introduce me to significant cultural works!)
For some reason, this year I have been especially seeking out Advent moments—books, films, and music that capture longing, incompleteness, and hope. This short film, shot on a cell phone in New York and Sydney, fits beautifully.
Andy:
Feast by Matt Zoller Seitz, Museum of the Moving Image, 24 November 2009 :: via kottke.org
Lovely montage of food and feasts from movies. Check out the accompanying essay and credits reel as well.
Nate:
"Ljósið," by Ólafur Arnalds, from the album Found Songs, 2009 :: via My Contracrostipunctus
I came across this video on Jacob Marshall's blog and it gave me a mental mini-vacation in the middle of an otherwise hectic day. What is it about music, color and movement that can instantly soothe an anxious soul?
Christy:
video Grocery Store Musical
Grocery Store Musical
"Grocery Store Musical," book and music by Anthony King and Scott Brown for Improv Everywhere, 20 October 2009
How are the horizons of the possible shifted when shoppers in a Queens, NY grocery store suddenly burst into song? The intrepid folks at Improv Everywhere (with a song co-written by my old college pal Scott Brown) do their best to find out. It's not as elaborate as their earlier Food Court Musical, but perhaps more charming for its simplicity. You can't choose a better venue for the meeting of human longing and material abundance than a supermarket.
Nate:
video Les was More
Les was More
"Les Paul & Mary Ford on Alistair Cooke's 'Omnibus,'" 23 October 1953 :: via Boing Boing
Last week guitar and recording pioneer Les Paul passed away at age 94. While I knew he'd had something to do (in parallel with Leo Fender and Adolph Rickenbacker) with the development of the solid-body electric guitar, I didn't realize that he had a still-more-solid claim as the father of multitrack recording. If the solid body made the rock-n-roll (and modern country) "sound" possible, multitrack recording has fundamentally changed the way music is produced—vastly expanding the sonic and harmonic possibilities, but also undermining live performance as the preferred way of experiencing music. Legacy aside, though, it's charming seeing Les and his wife Mary Ford showing off their magical musical tools on this 1950s variety show.
Nate:
"????? (Hibi no neiro)"," by SOUR, 1 July 2009 :: thanks @jonathanhliu
video Can’t say no to that!
Can’t say no to that!
Surprise Wedding Reception at Improv Everywhere, 2 June 2009 :: via Kottke.org
The actor/prankster/surrealist performance artists of Improv Everywhere threw a surprise wedding reception for a random couple getting married at New York's City Hall. Nice.
Nate:
Technology mediates the high school musical. But, per the final example, the motives of the tourist Mona Lisa photographer do diverge from those of parent videographers: both are using technology to capture/realize the experience of being there, but the parent is also more likely to be zoomed in on nuances of the performance (specifically, a what their kid is doing at all times while onstage) that would not necessarily show up in a single professional video. Ten years from now, personal video cameras may well have become smart and unobtrusive enough to reside in the glasses-frames of parents, who'll then be able to have their cake and eat it too. At least till they get busted for intellectual property theft (which could well be schools' the real reason for the camera-bans).
Nate: 
Two schools I have taught at in the past couple of years ban camera use at their high school musical night. One of the reasons is because students look out to the audience to see if mum and dad are watching. If they see only a sea of lenses instead of adoring eyes they are met with technology rather than soul.
We are obsessed with recording life from our point of view, even when it is only 30 cm from the next person’s POV.
The Mona Lisa is photographed by every visitor to the Lourve when we have ready access to pristine images of her taken in optimum lighting etc.
We humans are strange creatures.
"Gopangane," sung by KS Chithra and KJ Yesudas, music by Raveendran, from the film Bharatham (1991)
This is one of my favorite Indian film songs, bar none, from the 1991 Malayalam film Bharatham. The plot and the music delve richly into the carnatic music heritage of South India, notable for its wide and precise vocal quavers and deep, soulful rhythmicality. Like most Indian film music, there are occasional moments of (to my ears) cheesiness, but these only make it all the more thrilling when the groove kicks in at 1:27.
Nate:
excerpt 
Biophilia
Biophilia
Rusty Pritchard is one of the terrific, thoughtful people behind Flourish, a national conference for pastors and church leaders on creation care in Atlanta this May. If you care about these matters, you should be there—I will be.
Andy: 
Loving nature, it turns out, is not just an instinct but a virtue. Like nature itself, the virtue of loving it requires cultivation. There’s no question that the trait of biophilia is good for us and good for God’s garden, but we aren’t able to retain a love for nature simply because it’s built in. We must actively create, and re-create, every generation, a culture that loves, and therefore tends and keeps, God’s garden.
“We need environmental stewards now more than ever. Yet we are raising a generation of young people whose primary experience with nature is virtual. Real nature is a full sensory experience, with frequent open-ended problem-solving opportunities and no off switch. We should all make outdoor play a priority for our children and ourselves. Nature: use it or lose it.”
video Cirque du sushi
Cirque du sushi
"Kaiten (conveyor) sushi time in real Japan" by pastora911 (Youtube) :: via Boing Boing
Here's what happens when you set a video camera on a plate at a kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi restaurant in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Japan. Really amazing and surprisingly plotty (worth the full 7:39): culture-keeping (and consuming) at its best. All it needs is the right retro-indie soundtrack and it would fit right into a Wes Anderson film.
Nate: