There are 113 posts filed in videos.
For the past six years, I’ve recorded one second of video for every day of my life, then combined them all to create a 5-6 minute video that summarizes that year.
As usual, the process of going through the seconds is an emotional one. I fondly remember details and moments that I’ve forgotten, and get nostalgic for all the things in life that I miss.
Ultimately, this has been one of the more intense, eventful years of my life and I’m glad to be living through interesting times.
I chatted with Aaron White from the Feelin Film podcast about Solo: A Star Wars Story. Interestingly, I don’t think we actually disagreed about the content of the film! But we did diverge in how much we enjoyed it.
For a 2-hour long dissection of Solo, listen to the /Filmcast review.
I had a fun time chatting with Erik Samdahl from FilmJabber about Deadpool 2. In our spoiler-filled discussion, we chat about our famous cameos, and whether the sequel lives up to the insanity and zaniness of the first film.
You can check out Erik’s review of Deadpool 2 here and follow him on Twitter.
I had a chance to chat with legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky about the new HBO original series Barry. Stephen and I talk about the show’s themes and how realistic its depiction of acting class is. Also: Stephen gives advice to anyone interested in taking acting classes for themselves.
Check out Stephen’s new book, My Adventures with God, on Amazon or wherever books are sold.
Avengers: Infinity War is a hugely ambitious, audacious superhero film that made for an amazing theater-going experience. In this spoiler discussion, we discuss what made the film work and what we thought could’ve been improved.
I had a fun time trying out Mixtiles recently, which is an app that lets you print out photos that are ready to hang. I found Mixtiles via an Instagram ad and was intrigued at the idea of being able to easily print, mount and move around photos.
Mixtiles cost $49 for the first three, and $9 for every Mixtile thereafter. Shipping is free (although it’s basically just built into the cost of the first three Mixtiles).
Overall, I had a good experience with Mixtiles and think it’s great in certain circumstances. Find my full video review above and my pros and cons of the service below.
Pros:
Cons:
I recently acquired some lights for a video project, and decided that I’d try to use them to create more decent-looking vlogs as well.
First up: a review of Anker’s Nebula Capsule projector. I’m a big fan of this projector and think it’s a great combination of price and portability. Read more thoughts over at /Film and watch the video review below.
I’ve been diving into the work of Patrick Willems on YouTube recently and I enjoyed his piece on the art of the video essay.
Willems argues that the format is fairly stale at this point. Many video essay-ists are actually filmmakers in reality, but their essays don’t reflect the full breadth of their creative abilities. Why not?
I appreciate that Willems is trying to push the medium forward. His subsequent video essay on Star Wars begins to show what may be possible with the medium from a narrative standpoint.
For the past five years, I’ve been recording one second of video every single day, then assembling them to create a video representing that year of my life. I typically put these videos together after each birthday but I was a bit late this year. When I finally got around to it recently (see above), I made a startling realization: I’d been sick five times in 2017. I’ve written before about my recent illnesses but it wasn’t until watching the 1Second video that I realized how bad things had gotten.
I got a physical and a blood test and it doesn’t appear as though I have any serious diseases. But I’ve really run myself ragged this year and I need some time to step back and re-assess my priorities in life.
Thus, I’m going to be taking a two month break from the Slashfilmcast. For the first time in my life in over a decade, I won’t be running any podcasts. Instead, I’ll be focusing on my full-time job, my relationships, and my family.
Me: I used to get joy from twitter but now it makes me upset.
Therapist: what if you just didn’t use it anymore?
Me: not sure I understand— Caro (@socarolinesays) October 16, 2017
I’m also planning on unplugging more — in some senses, at least. Starting later this month, I’ve committed to deleting Twitter from my phone for awhile and spending more time writing/blogging and reading. (That said, I will probably still auto-post some blog posts and Periscopes on there.) I realize I’m incredibly blessed and privileged to even have the option of doing any of this, and I am grateful to those in my life who have supported these decisions and made them possible.
I hope to return and join the podcast again for our Last Jedi review in December. At that point, I’ll know a lot more about the shape of things. In the meantime, we have a huge list of awesome Slashfilmcast guest co-hosts that listeners have been suggesting to us via email. I look forward to hearing new, exciting voices on the podcast. I look forward to learning how to relax a little bit more. And I look forward to slowing down the pace of things, for just a little while.
Last night, SNL aired a sketch about a deranged individual who was obsessed with the papyrus font in James Cameron’s Avatar. It’s a fairly amusing short film that derives its strength from being ultra-niche in its focus.
For months, a debate has raged on the /Filmcast about whether or not Avatar is still culturally relevant. The film is the most successful movie of all time yet left seemingly zero cultural footprint. One of the vaguely defined barometers of cultural relevance? Being featured prominently in an SNL sketch.
Looks like Avatar defenders just got another arrow in their quivers…
Halo Top has released a new ad online and it’s really something. Directed by Mike Diva and released on his YouTube channel, it’s creepy and unsettling and generally provokes a bunch of emotions I wouldn’t think you’d want associated with an awesome ice cream brand.
In an interview with AdWeek, Diva explains how the ad came together:
I guess the CEO has been a fan of my stuff for a while. He basically just said to me, “We already have enough commercials that explain why Halo Top is awesome. We just want something in your style that just grabs people’s attention.” I came back and pitched my idea in person. It’s one of those things where I felt like, if I just sent it to him over email, I would sound like a crazy person. I had to get in front of this dude and illustrate why it’s going to be funny. On paper, it just reads like it’s super dark, you know? I downloaded a text-to-speech app and kind of acted it out, and played the robot parts on my phone, so he would understand why it’s funny for the robot to say “Eat the ice cream” a bunch of times.
There’s also this later in the interview:
A lot of people are drawing comparisons to Kubrick and saying it’s a take on 2001: A Space Odyssey. That it’s a direct homage. I actually didn’t want that at all. I had reservations about shooting in the 14th Factory Space Odyssey set. I didn’t want people to associate it with Space Odyssey just because there’s a robot in it. We yanked out all the furniture and redressed the entire room to make it look as different as possible. But of course, we still ended up getting a lot of those comparisons.
To quote Gob Bluth, “COME ON.”
I missed this short film from Vice when it was first released in February, but am glad I finally found it. It’s a look inside the effort by Everything Is Terrible to not only amass the largest collection of Jerry Maguire VHS tapes, but also their desire to build a permanent pyramid in the Nevada dessert that will serve as a tribute to these “Jerry’s.”
On the one hand, there are probably better things for one to devote one’s time to than anything Maguire VHS-tape-related. On the other hand, this project gives me so much joy with its randomness that I kind of want these guys to succeed.
I was stunned by this Honest Trailer for Kong: Skull Island, which features the participation of the film’s director, Jordan Vogt-Roberts. It’s rare to see a director be so blunt and relentless about criticizing his own film, but Vogt-Roberts deftly shows that he still has the self-awareness to recognize his own film’s weaknesses.
In retrospect, I now understand why most directors don’t do this kind of thing. With film being such a collaborative medium, there are many people who could interpret commentary like this as throwing them under a bus: screenwriters, actors, editors, (heck even the studio itself) etc. I’m sure Roberts is on good terms with all, but it just feels like the risk is large for misinterpretation.
That said, this is an extraordinary work of self-examination, taking place on the massive stage of an insanely popular YouTube channel. Kudos to Vogt-Roberts for putting the magnifying glass on himself.
Taylor Swift’s music video for “Look What You Made Me Do” dropped last night, and has already racked up 19 million YouTube views. Directed by Joseph Kahn, the video is bold, arresting and features some genuinely interesting visual ideas.
But if you’re like me, you don’t closely keep up with Swift’s online feuds or her career goings-on. Thus, I found Chris Rosen’s analysis of the video at EW to be extremely handy in putting together WTF is actually happening in the video:
Incredible reporting by Vice News that captures the intensity and horror of this past weekend’s events.
I think many folks I know were hoping Charlottesville would trigger some kind of turning point in the national psyche — an incident that would finally wake people up to the level of resistance necessary to stand up to the hate.
I don’t know if that’s coming. In fact, I suspect that we haven’t seen the end of these divisive figures, who are now more emboldened than ever. As one of the Neo-Nazi interview subjects in the documentary explains:
We’re starting to unveil a little bit of our power level. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Wired has a super cool feature with Atomic Blonde stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave, who breaks down one of the film’s fight scenes in extreme detail.
I saw Atomic Blonde last night and was really impressed by the action (here are some brief, Periscoped thoughts). There’s one fight scene in the film that people will be talking about for decades (not the one covered above). Definitely worth the price of admission.
Watch this 4K trailer for Tom Lowe’s Awaken on the largest screen you can:
This is the first time in my life where I’ve started crying from watching a trailer. The trailer itself is a beautiful work.
There are some insane, timelapse shots from the sky — shots that have never been attempted before. According to Engadget, this was done using “gimbal technology that allowed [Lowe] to shoot astrophotography scenes from a moving helicopter.” Incredible.
From the film’s website:
Shot over a 5-year period in more than 30 countries, the film pioneers new time-lapse, time-dilation, underwater, and aerial cinematography techniques to give audiences new eyes with which to see our world. Executive produced by Terrence Malick and Godfrey Reggio, AWAKEN is a celebration of the spirit of life, an exploration of the Earth, and an ode to the Cosmos.
This looks like a gorgeous exploration of technology and humanity in the vein of Samsara. I can’t wait to see it.
Travis Lee Ratcliff has a nice video essay exploring what makes a prequel successful. In short: characters and events in the prequel need to have meaning beyond their original context. Many prequels forget this (including Better Call Saul, at times) but I think Saul has really cleared the bar for creating something new and satisfying out of an existing world.
[Thanks to Søren from the Slackfilmcast for bringing this essay to my attention]
YouTube channel Shots Fired has one of the best breakdowns of the Silicon Valley opening credits that I’ve seen. Two fun details I hadn’t noticed before: The FBI trucks pulling up to Theranos’s building, and the porta potties next to Soylent.
In the past few days, I’ve driven the better part of 2500 miles from Seattle to Las Vegas and back again. To capture this trip, I used the timelapse feature on my GoPro Hero 5 Session and created the above video. A few production notes: