tagged w/ Multimedia
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“A Year in New York” is an enchanting, emotionally moving five-minute documentary short film by videographer Andrew Clancy, accompanied by Irish singer/songwriter James Vincent McMorrow’s beautiful song “We Don’t Eat.” Sometimes words cannot do justice to life in a big city, as “A Year in New York” so entrancingly confirms. The film reveals that despite the chaos that surrounds urban life, there is a common thread of excitement and resilient optimism.
“A Year in New York” presents the viewer with a stream of quintessential New York visual imagery, from the No. 7 train rolling past Silvercup Studios' iconic film and television complex, to die-hard Rangers fans losing it at Madison Square Garden; from runners and rollerbladers cruising through city parks, to late-night, outdoor summer concerts; from blinking beacons on NYPD police cars, to the sparkling lights of the colossal Rockefeller Christmas Tree, resulting in a stunning homage to the city that never sleeps and to its lucky inhabitants.
This piece includes a number of wonderful high-resolution color photographs, a magnificent photo-gallery and the entrancing documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/a-year-in-new-york-a-beautiful-visual-symphony/“A Year in New York” is an enchanting, emotionally moving five-minute... more
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“Thinking Aloud on Pleasure and Frustration” is a six-minute documentary short film featuring Adam Phillips, an English psychotherapist/psychoanalyst, literary critic and the author of several well-known books, including: “The Beast in the Nursery: On Curiosity and Other Appetites,” “On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored,” “Going Sane,” “On Kindness” and most recently, “On Balance.” Phillips has written widely, from a unique psychoanalytic perspective, on a range of themes central to concepts such as the human condition, human suffering, desire, pleasure and the good life. As a practicing psychoanalyst, he offers a refreshingly subtle analysis of these concepts, grounded in the lives of actual persons. Phillips delivers his thoughts here with an unusually open and rich quality of fluid extemporaneous prose.
This piece includes photographs and the engrossing documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/adam-phillips-thinking-aloud-on-pleasure-and-frustration/“Thinking Aloud on Pleasure and Frustration” is a six-minute documentary... more
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“One Hundred Portraits from the Occupation” is an emotionally moving photo-documentary by New York City street photographer Joseph O. Holmes. It is a beautiful collection of photographs that brilliantly encapsulates the blend of cultures represented by people participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests at New York’s Zuccotti Park.
Holmes describes his work here as an attempt to present his photographs without editorializing, as an effort to capture the portraits in Zuccotti Park with as little political content as possible. The balance for which he seems to strive is one that allows empathy for his subjects to shine through, but without making the portraits in any way his own political statement. His portraits vividly capture the humanity of these people, countering the hostile and dismissive portrayals with which they too often are labeled.
This piece includes a number of stunning high-resolution color photographs, a photo-gallery and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/occupy-wall-street-one-hundred-portraits-from-the-occupation/“One Hundred Portraits from the Occupation” is an emotionally moving... more
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“The Little Boat” is a bittersweet, sometimes heartbreaking minimalist five-minute animated short film by CalArts student Nelson Boles. After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in September 2005, Boles enrolled in the Teen Program at The Animation Academy in Burbank. He was a 16 year-old young man from New Orleans, a refugee from the storm. Later, when things got back to semi-normal in New Orleans, he returned home.
“The Little Boat” imbues life into an obstinately mundane object, as the little red the dinghy steadfastly pushes forward through storms, floods and wars. One shot, at the 2:10 mark in the film, shows the little boat resolutely thrusting forward upon the stormy seas, only to have its mast shattered in half; it’s as heartbreaking a moment as anything that could happen to a more conventional animated character with eyes, hands and legs.
This piece includes illustrations and the memorable animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/the-little-boat-a-bittersweet-tale-of-persistence-and-adversity/“The Little Boat” is a bittersweet, sometimes heartbreaking minimalist... more
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ast week, an upcoming gallery show of work by the late photographer Tim Hetherington was announced, the inaugural exhibition of The Bronx Documentary Center that was founded earlier this year. The exhibition, titled “Visions,” is a collection of never-before-seen photos by Hetherington, a British-American photographer who lived in Brooklyn. He was a longtime Vanity Fair and CNN contributor who died in April while covering the conflict in Libya, along with fellow conflict photographer and Brooklyn resident Chris Hondros.
It is amazingly ironic that the announcement of the exhibition of Tim Hetherington’s work coincided precisely with published reports that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the erratic, provocative dictator who ruled Libya for 42 years, had finally met a violent and vengeful death in the hands of the Libyan forces that drove him from power.
Hetherington was most famous for his Academy Award-nominated 2010 documentary “Restrepo,” which he filmed with Sebastian Junger in 2007. The film follows the Army platoon assigned to what was then the most dangerous posting in Afghanistan, The Korengal Valley, to clear it of insurgents and gain the trust of the local populace. In the course of the film, the platoon builds a new outpost they name after Juan Sebastian Restrepo, a comrade who was killed during the early days of the 15-month assignment.
On April 20, Hetherington was trailing rebels in the besieged coastal city of Misurata in Libya, when he and Hondros were killed in an explosion from a rocket-propelled grenade. He left behind 40 rolls of undeveloped 220mm film. The negatives revealed a fascinating mix of what Tim called “the theater of war,” men strutting with their guns, as well as landscapes, graffiti, and men firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades in battle. And a vase of plastic flowers in a bullet-marked room. Seventeen of the prints will be on display in the Bronx Documentary Center show as 36- by 30-inch prints hanging from the ceiling on two large wood panels, beginning October 22nd.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a remarkable photo-gallery and five documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/visions-tim-hetheringtons-theater-of-war/ast week, an upcoming gallery show of work by the late photographer Tim Hetherington... more
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Apple has posted this video of the tribute to Steven P. Jobs, which took place last week at the Apple campus in Cupertino, California. The event, “A Celebration of Steve’s Life,” was held to commemorate Mr. Jobs, who died this month after battling pancreatic cancer.
The video begins with Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, who shared thoughts of Mr. Jobs’s work at Apple over the years and noted that no one in attendance would be working at Apple if it wasn’t for Mr. Jobs. “There is one more thing he leaves us; he leaves us with each other,” Mr. Cook said. “Other than his family, Apple would be his finest creation.” Mr. Cook also said the last piece of advice Mr. Jobs gave him was “to never ask what he would do; just do what’s right.”
Following Mr. Cook’s speech, Al Gore, the former Vice President and an Apple board member, spoke. Some of Mr. Jobs’s favorite musicians played at the event. Norah Jones sang the Bob Dylan song “Forever Young.” The British band Coldplay performed “Fix You” and “Yellow,” while thousands of Apple employees listened and helped celebrate the co-founder’s life.
This piece includes photographs and the full video of the commemoration.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/a-celebration-of-steves-life/Apple has posted this video of the tribute to Steven P. Jobs, which took place last... more
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“The Gawper” is a terrifying, comedic horror-themed two-minute animated short film directed by the talented Seth Watkins at A Large Evil Corporation. With the most evil time of the year approaching, this new CG animated short is reminiscent of the early horror flicks, paying homage to films like “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.” The little film is part “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” part Looney Tunes and part 1950s B-movie goodness.
In the midnight darkness of night, what horrible terror awaits? Well, let’s just say that it doesn’t pay to be a grave robber, especially when terrifying skeletons belonging to the dead you are attempting to rob are going to try to stop you. Watch the video if you dare!
This piece includes black-and-white illustrations and the beautifully executed animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/beware-the-gawper-a-terrifying-horror-experience/“The Gawper” is a terrifying, comedic horror-themed two-minute animated... more
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“We Found Love” is the world premier of Rihanna’s sexually charged, clubby smash music video, the apparently autobiographical single from her upcoming sixth album “Talk That Talk” (to be released on November 21st). The video appears to be an artful, poignant reminiscence about her previous tumultuous relationship with Chris Brown. Shot in Belfast, Ireland, the nearly five-minute music video features Rihanna in a passionate relationship with a muscular young man, played by the British model/boxer Dudley O’Shaughnessy.
“We Found Love” tells the story of a tragic love-affair, exploring the dark underworld of substance abuse, as she and her lover are seen partying, doing drugs, attending raves, swilling booze and ultimately engaging in devastating acts of serious domestic violence. Enjoy the video now, since there’s no way it will be shown on television without extensive censoring!
This piece includes a number of color photographs, as well as an HD version of the official music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/rihannas-we-found-love-a-tragic-love-affair/“We Found Love” is the world premier of Rihanna’s sexually charged,... more
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“To Die By Your Side” (Mourir Auprès de Toi) is a tragicomic stop-motion animated short film co-created by the celebrated filmmaker Spike Jonze and designer Olympia Le-Tan. After spending five years adapting Maurice Sendak’s “Where The Wild Things Are,” Jonze’s more recent short films include last year’s robot love story, “I’m Here,” and this year’s Arcade Fire collaboration, “Scenes From the Suburbs.” “To Die By Your Side” is his latest short film, which premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.
A tale to pierce the heart, the star-crossed love story is set on the shelves of Paris’s storied Shakespeare and Co. bookstore. When night falls, an old Parisian bookseller closes the small shop, and a klutzy skeleton springs off the cover of “Macbeth” and falls for Mina, the flame-haired damsel from “Dracula.” Enlisting French filmmaker Simon Cahn to co-direct, the team wrote the script between Los Angeles and Paris over a six-month period of time, before working night and day animating the 3,000 pieces of felt that Le-Tan had cut by hand.
“To Die By Your Side” is a delightfully whimsical, humorous and poignant animated felt short film: Be sure to watch it to the end!
This piece includes a number of colorful illustrations, as well as the wonderful animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/spike-jonze-to-die-by-your-side/“To Die By Your Side” (Mourir Auprès de Toi) is a tragicomic... more
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Herb Ritts (1952-2002) occupies photography’s Mount Olympus, along with the most important fashion and glamour photographers of the late 20th Century, including Horst, Richard Avedon, Bruce Weber, and Helmut Newton. His photographs are a pivotal reference in our collective cultural memory; the classical poses of celebrities and models with their clean lines and distinct forms are easily recognizable as his style.
Herb Ritts was self-taught and he took his cues from the desert landscape surrounding his home and his close proximity to Hollywood culture, evident in the graphic quality and visual simplicity of his photographs and the heightened glamour of their subjects. He inserts a sense of rigorous formalism that seems to be inspired by modernist photographers like Edward Weston, August Sander or Man Ray.
The Edwynn Houk Gallery in Zurich recently presented an exhibition of photographs drawn from the collection of the Herb Ritts Foundation. In addition, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, has recently acquired 69 black-and-white images by the late L.A. fashion photographer valued at close to $1 million, given by his foundation in a single transaction that was part gift and part purchase. A Ritts exhibition is being planned at the Getty, drawing in part from the new acquisition, for April 2012.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution photographs, a photo-gallery and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/the-photography-of-herb-ritts-distinctive-portraits-with-monumental-sensuality/Herb Ritts (1952-2002) occupies photography’s Mount Olympus, along with the most... more
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“Parigot” (The Course) is an action-packed, comical five-minute animated short film created by students at the French animation school Georges Méliès. In the streets of a Paris that is starkly divided between outrageosly fashionable and wealthy aristocrats versus crowds of poverty-stricken homeless people, the film depicts the mortal struggle of two characters from those wildly different worlds. A handsome-looking royal servant is forced to engage in a city-wide battle against a filthy homeless man helped by a large flock of determined pigeons. The ultimate stake? A deliciously appetizing gourmet supper. Drawn by those whom they serve into a conflict that is no longer theirs, under the mirthful spectators’ eyes of a merciless metropolis, who will end up triumphant in this epic battle? The rich, the poor…or maybe neither?
This piece includes a number of colorful pictures, as well as the wonderful animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/parigot-the-royal-servants-epic-battle-against-a-homeless-hobo/“Parigot” (The Course) is an action-packed, comical five-minute animated... more
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“A Short Commercial for Your Mind” is a tumbling, hallucinatory one-minute experimental/art short film by Daniel Mancina. A visionary litany of affirmation, the film presents a graphically cinematic rendering of something between art and life. “I’m talking to myself again, while my consciousness explodes. My mind is made up: There’s going to be trouble.”
This piece includes a number of photographs, as well as the experimental/art short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/a-visionary-litany-of-affirmation-a-short-commercial-for-your-mind/“A Short Commercial for Your Mind” is a tumbling, hallucinatory one-minute... more
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“Lost and Found” is a deeply heartwarming CG animated short film directed by Philip Hunt at London’s Studio AKA. The film is an adaptation of the award winning story book by illustrator and childrens’ book artist Oliver Jeffers, which premiered on Christmas Eve 2008 on Channel 4 in the UK. Since that time, “Lost and Found” the animation has won more than 40 international awards, including a BAFTA for Best Animated Short Film in 2009.
A magical tale of friendship and loneliness, “Lost and Found” tells the story of a little boy who finds a penguin on the doorstep of his house one morning. Although at first he is unsure about what to do, the boy becomes determined to help the penguin find his way back home, even if that means rowing a small boat all the way to the South Pole!
This piece includes colorful pictures, as well as the widely acclaimed CG animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/lost-and-found-the-remarkable-story-of-a-friendship/“Lost and Found” is a deeply heartwarming CG animated short film directed... more
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“Gettin’ Tail” is a hedonistic three-minute 1920s-style black-and-white animated short film, which was directed by Niklas Rissler and Kevin O’Grady for Passion Pictures. You know about those people who just can’t get enough sex? Well, that’s Smutley the Cat for sure. Smutley does not discriminate, and he really craves all kinds of hedonistic, rough and dirty sexual perversions. Smutley will bareback and have wild unprotected sex with anything on two legs, four hooves or even just a couple of flippers if the situation arises. But he’s only able to do this because he’s a cat with nine lives. The rest of us need to protect ourselves with condoms.
The juxtaposition between the film’s basic style, the story and the music (“Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts) is both unexpected and engaging: it puts a smile on your face while reminding you to do the right thing!
This piece includes black-and-white illustrations, as well as the very humorously sexy animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/smutley-the-sex-crazed-cat-gettin-hot-tail/“Gettin’ Tail” is a hedonistic three-minute 1920s-style... more
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“Cruising” is a collection of photographs by photographer Chad States, capturing images of furtive men at their most “discreet.” States traveled to parks across the U.S. to document the culture of gay cruising, in which men meet in public locations for anonymous sex. The resulting photographs are gorgeous, a mixture of portraits, landscapes and voyeuristic tension: amid lush photographs of public parks, a figure or figures suddenly appears, barely visible through the brush. States hopes that his non-judgmental approach to a subculture many have reviled helps viewers see that these parks might be “a place to be liberated.”
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a photo-gallery and a short film/music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/voyeuristic-images-of-furtive-cruising-in-public-places/“Cruising” is a collection of photographs by photographer Chad States,... more
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Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s Co-Founder and visionary, who helped usher in the era of personal computers and led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday at the age of 56. Mr. Jobs had waged a long and public struggle with cancer, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment. He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. After leaving, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.
“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company in August. “Unfortunately, that day has come.” By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and a wide range of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet.
This piece includes a number of photographs, a documentary and a short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-rebel-icon-and-genius/Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s Co-Founder and visionary, who helped usher in the era of... more
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Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s Co-Founder, Former-CEO and visionary, who helped usher in the era of personal computers and led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday at the age of 56. The death was announced by Apple Computers, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage. Mr. Jobs had waged a long and public struggle with cancer, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment.
He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. After leaving, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.
“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company in August. “Unfortunately, that day has come.” By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and a wide range of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet.
This piece includes a number of photographs, a photo-gallery and three videos.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/steven-p-jobs-apple’s-co-founder-former-ceo-and-visionary-dies-at-56/Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s Co-Founder, Former-CEO and visionary, who helped usher... more
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Once just a shell with just a lentil for a hat and a Dorito for a hang-glider, Marcel (The Shell With Shoes On) is now the proud owner of a new book and a television development contract. Not too shabby for a tiny animated creature who skis on a man’s toenail!!
“Marcel: The Shell With Shoes On” is a delightful three-minute animated short film directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp, voiced (untreated & unenhanced) by a genius named Jenny Slate. Marcel is a very, very teeny-tiny little shell, but he throws big food parties for his friends, goes skiing and frequently chats on the phone. Ugh, he’s so darn cute. This may very well be the most adorable video ever made. Fantastic.
This piece includes colorful pictures and the wonderful animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/marcel-the-shell-lands-a-big-television-show/Once just a shell with just a lentil for a hat and a Dorito for a hang-glider, Marcel... more
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“A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now” is a photographic exhibition that looks at three critical periods in Cuba’s history as witnessed by photographers before, during and after the country’s 1959 Revolution. The exhibition juxtaposes Walker Evans’s 1933 images from the end of the Machado dictatorship, with views by contemporary foreign photographers Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris and Alexey Titarenko, who have explored Cuba since the withdrawal of Soviet support in the 1990s. Walker Evans's distinctive photographic style was nurtured by New York in the late 1920s, but it became more fully formed by his 1933 experiences in Cuba.
Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris and Alexey Titarenko look at Cuba in very different ways. In 2001, Virginia Beahan began a multiyear project on Cuba; Beahan’s Cuba is a land of contradictions, full of disappointments and hope, decay and rejuvenating beauty, simultaneously anchored to the past while looking beyond the present.
Through distinct vantage points, Alex Harris probed the country’s propensity for ingenuity as it underwent great transition. His 1998-2003 photographs focus on three icons of the island, the American car, the beautiful woman and the revolutionary hero, as metaphors to explore the distortions with which Cubans and Americans see one another.
Alexey Titarenko’s 2003 photographs of life in Cuba depict people persevering amid varying states of ruin: collecting food rations, fixing long-outmoded cars or playing baseball. Titarenko was drawn to Cuba following years spent photographing his home town of Saint Petersburg, a once-grand city transformed by revolution and slow decay under Communist rule. Titarenko deliberately photographed Havana in much the same way he’d photographed his native St. Petersburg, as a city that has suffered very much from communist policies and communist rule. And so his black-and-white and very dusty gray imagery removes any spark, any color from Havana, which is in fact very colorful.
This piece includes a number of black-and-white and color photographs, a photo-gallery and three documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/a-revolutionary-project-explorations-of-cuba-from-walker-evans-to-now/“A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now” is a photographic... more
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“LGFUAD” (an acronym for Let’s Get Fucked Up and Die) is an award-winning four-minute experimental animated short film created by Kelsey Stark. The short mixes a variety of animation styles, primarily focusing on an unwieldy hypnotic medium that looks like an organic crayon drawing. In the film, a young woman eats pizza and relates a series of surreal, richly psychosexual and violent stream-of-consciousness stories about how cool it is to be a ghost.
“LGFUAD” characterizes a jaded, dissatisfied personality type, exacerbated by a hipster-emphasis on cool and from growing up in media-drenched suburban environment where one is taunted constantly by what one doesn’t have, or hasn’t experienced. This is a controversial, love-it or hate-it film; “LGFUAD” is fresh, personal and conceptual, but edgy, uncomfortable and uncompromising all the same.
This piece includes a number of colorful pictures, as well as the edgy animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/lgfuad-a-grotesque-rampage-of-jaded-sex-drugs-and-violence/“LGFUAD” (an acronym for Let’s Get Fucked Up and Die) is an... more
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