Posts Tagged YouTube
YouTube: The Criterion Collection Now Has a Channel
Posted by admin in Film, streaming video on January 26, 2010
The Criterion Collection–the folks that as they so succinctly put it: “Since 1984 . . . has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements”–now has a YouTube channel. I assume it will be mostly populated with trailers, nothing full run. But, of course, with YouTube trying to compete with television, I could be proved wrong in a few months. Check it out.
As a Wim Wenders fan myself, I was pleased to find this trailer from PARIS, TEXAS–Wenders’ 1984 film.
I wish I could embed the video here, but YouTube apparently does not allow that on the channels. How odd.
YouTube: The Muppets’ Bohemian Rhapsody
Posted by admin in Music, comedy, streaming video on December 6, 2009
I may be the last person on the planet to see and link to this gem, but what the heck. Hat tip to my sister, Theresa, who made me aware of it–and aptly hyped it as: “It’s even better than Beaker’s Ode to Joy.” Ladies and germs, the Muppets’ rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
Video: John Irving on Last Night in Twisted River
Posted by admin in Literature on November 10, 2009
No, I did not decide to make this John Irving day at the blog. But I do love what technology offers me about my favorite novelist. John Irving video at my fingertips.
From the writer’s website, he shares some of his thoughts on the new book. Here’s a snippet:
“I always begin with a last sentence; then I work my way backwards, through the plot, to where the story should begin. The last sentence I began with this time is as follows: He felt that the great adventure of his life was just beginning as his father must have felt, in the throes and dire circumstances of his last night in Twisted River. And theres the title, waiting for you at the end of the story Last Night in Twisted River.”
And for an even more enjoyment, here’s a clip of Irving discussing the book and his work in general, I’m particularly struck when he says “Don’t take the people you love for granted.” :
Scott Bateman on Atom Age Vampire, Animation
Posted by admin in Animation, comedy, politics, pop culture on August 27, 2009
When a person can craft a 1940s educational film into pure comedy, you have won me over as a permanent fan. That person is Scott Bateman, an “animator in New York City“. His latest project shows how funny stamps can be…seriously. Until very recently, Bateman’s work was featured at Salon.com–but Bateman Animation can also be found at True/Slant and his YouTube channel. With his run at Salon ending, Bateman is devoting more time to generating interest in his film, Atom Age Vampire, which we also get to discuss. My thanks to friend of the blog, Mary Jo Pehl, for introducing me to the greatness of Bateman’s work. And my thanks to Bateman for this email interview.
Tim O’Shea: How do you go about tracking down obscure audio like “Actual audio from the 1947 educational film Using The Bank“. And from there, how do you typically go about writing the script that you run in parallel with the animation. Do you write the script before starting the animation work?
Scott Bateman: There is a wealth of amazing material in the Prelinger Archives at archive.org, a web site that hosts a vast array of public domain material. The Prelinger Archives specializes in short educational and industrial films from the 1940s and 1950s–hygiene, cold war propoganda, juvenile delinquency, it’s all there. Man, I can spend hours on that site!
My writing process for these animations goes something like this: I’ll end up watching a film several times while I animate it, because I’ll go through once and animate bodies, then another time through for mouths, another for hands, etc. So by the time I add the commentary, I already have a ton of snarky comments about the film at my disposal. I’ll put in the comments I most want in the movie first, then fill in the holes between.
Holt & Perren on Media Industries: History, Theory and Method
Posted by admin in commerce, education, media industries, philosophy, pop culture on May 6, 2009
It seems like media industries are being redefined on a fairly frequent basis these days. So when I found out about the new textbook, Media Industries: History, Theory and Method, I was curious to see what ground the textbook covered. Fortunately, the editors of the textbook, Jennifer Holt (Assistant Professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara) and Alisa Perren (Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University) were quite willing to answer my questions. In the spirit of the collaborative way that they edited the textbook, Holt and Perren collaborated on the answers. Once you’ve read the interview, be sure to also visit Professor Perren’s media industries blog. My thanks to both Holt and Perren for the interview. And if that’s not enough for you, be sure to visit Wiley’s (the publisher’s) site to download a PDF excerpt of the textbook.
Tim O’Shea: How did the idea for the textbook first come about?
Jennifer Holt/Alisa Perren: We both teach classes about the media industries and were frustrated with the lack of course materials devoted to this subject – especially materials approaching the topic from a humanistic perspective. We also saw that the study of media industries had been growing and expanding but it had not yet been mapped as a field in an academic text. So we enlisted some of the people who have done formative work in this area as well as those doing new scholarship to help us put what we saw as the emerging field of media industries into context for our readers. (To view the book’s table of contents, click here.)
O’Shea: How did you divvy up the editorial duties on the textbook?
Holt/Perren: This was truly a collaborative effort. We worked together in recruiting contributors, editing all of the essays, and writing the introduction. And amazingly, we remained friends through it all.
Cecil Castellucci on Beige, Her Creative Process
Posted by admin in Literature, Music, sequential art on April 8, 2009
Cecil Castellucci is a storyteller of many platforms. In a creative sense, she wears a seemingly infinite number of hats–the most apt description of her work can be found at her You Tube channel: “young adult author, Graphic Novel writer, filmmaker, performance artiste and general troublemaker”. Her 2007 Young Adult novel, Beige was released in paperback last month (March) . I caught up with her recently to discuss that novel, as well as the path that has led her to find a new voice as a writer. An interviewer always hopes to get a subject who can be as open and direct as Castellucci, but it happens so rarely, I’m always appreciative.
Tim O’Shea: Beige is partially inspired by your initial move to Los Angeles. While the novel is not your story, of course, I’m wondering if when writing a novel like this do you find you learn a little about yourself in the process?
Cecil Castellucci: While no novel is biography, there are always elements of myself and where I’m at or where I’ve been. Sometimes it’s a look back, sometimes it’s a reflection of now, sometimes an imagined path not taken. So, I think that I learn a little bit about myself from every novel I write. For Beige, I was inspired by moving to my particular neighborhood in Los Angeles, Silverlake, and dealing with all the punk in Los Angeles. Everything was so punk rock here and I felt like an outsider looking in, even though I had moved here to put out my first CD on No Life Records. I was working at Epitaph Records and I was this little indie rock girl who sang Twee music. I suppose in this case I learned about the essential roots of punk, which are pretty much the essential roots of being an artist in the world. Ask questions. Pay attention. Think for yourself. When you do that, it’s all good.
Chris Epting on Movies, Baseball and Music
Posted by admin in Film, Literature, Music, comedy, episodic TV, pop culture, sports on February 4, 2009
Sometimes the best leads for an interview happen in the library. Such was the case when I ran across pop culture historian Chris Epting’s 2007 book, Led Zeppelin Crashed Here: The Rock and Roll Landmarks of North America. I was impressed with Epting’s research, after flipping through the book, which aims to take the reader “through America’s rich rock ‘n’ roll history with the musical landmarks detailed in this extensive collection. Nearly 600 locations, including birthplaces, concert locales, hotel rooms, and graves, are neatly compiled and paired with historical tidbits, trivia, photographs, and backstage lore—from the site where Elvis got his first guitar and Buddy Holly’s plane crashed to Sid and Nancy’s hotel room and the infamous ‘Riot House’ on the Sunset Strip.” I tracked Epting down at his website and he agreed to an email interview. We covered a great deal of ground and I had a substantial amount of fun along the way. Hopefully you’ll have fun reading this.
Tim O’Shea: Do you think your affinity for pop culture began where you grew up–in Westchester County, New York–an area where you note: “certain notable people became attracted to the area. Jackie Gleason, for one. Other actors. Writers. Thinkers. Even Peter Frampton (on the heels of the blockbuster album “Frampton Comes Alive”)”
Chris Epting: It definitely started at that point in my life, but I think it was more a process of the times than the geography. That said, our close proximity to New York City was valuable in terms of what were exposed to, but in general I think growing up in the thick of the 1970s is what really did it for me. It was an interesting time in that you had some great directors breaking out (Scorcese, Coppola, etc.) some cutting edge TV (All in the Family, MASH, etc), great radio (both am/fm), decent theater—a lot of culture was in flux, and the churn produced, I think, a wonderful storm of pop culture fury that still influences a lot of things today.