Sundance Channel recently sat down for an interview with Karin Diann Williams & Stuart Hynson Culpepper, creators of THE CAPTIVE. Watch THE CAPTIVE now at Sundance Channel Digital Shorts.
What was the inspiration for The Captive?
Karin: Believe it or not, we started with just the idea that we wanted to make a web series. We had an inkling that the microseries was about to find its audience and really explode as a popular form.
Stuart: We saw all the activity blossoming on YouTube and sites like it and knew a huge audience was there and they were wanting something beyond the user-generated content, something thoughtful and well produced. So we took the plunge. Part of the idea for the themes and action in The Captive came from studying the kind of person we thought were going to engage: someone fairly tech literate and independent in their thinking.
Bike sharing programs are popping up all over the place — cities, corporations, and universities are all investing in making bikes available to commuters to ease traffic congestion and pollution. With almost all of these services, you can assume that the bikes themselves were delivered by trucks to their respective locations. This past Sunday, though, fourteen Worksman bicycles (based in NYC) were delivered by the most obvious method: cyclist rode the 55 miles from the factory to Princeton University.
The other night in Manhattan we were treated to something quite unusual: the Empire State building lit up in a way not seen before. We New Yorkers are used to seeing the color change. The building is orange on Halloween and red and green around Christmas. But last night’s colors were unique. They mixed many hues. Had I not been wearing gloves I might have thought it was summer’s Gay Pride.
The rainbow lights turned out to be tie-dye in honor of the Grateful Dead. A new exhibit at the New York Historical Society is set to open in March 2010. It is the first ever large-scale retrospective of the band’s history. Legendary Dead members Phil Lesh and Bob Weir are in town all week playing shows thus prompting the psychedelic colors bathing the building.
Jay Smooth, who created the hip hop music blog and founded NYC’s hip-hop radio show, WBAI’s Underground Railroad, recently took on Roman Polanski on his blog. Roman Polanski on a hip-hop blog? Ok, I’ll listen.
The rant, clocking in at over seven minutes, is hard to look away from. He presents his case against Polanski, and Polanski supporters, in smart intense ramblings. And while most talking heads on TV leave me dizzy and unimpressed something is really engaging about this guy. Why is he on the radio and not TV? The whole Polanski debate is quite something. As many members of the film community have come out in support of Polanski, this charged rant takes the other side.
I don’t write too much about my love of architecture and interiors here, but this slideshow The New York Times recently posted has me sitting here feeling inadequate and unsuccessful. I mean really, who would not want to live in this space? If only I’d married for money.
At 25 million, the asking price is twice as high as the highest apartment sale in Brooklyn history. Views of the Brooklyn bridge and all points north, south, east, and west can be seen from the DUMBO apartment’s 3 floors. It’s so mouth watering even I would consider moving to Brooklyn.
Design firm MSLK notes that we American consume 1500 plastic bottles of water every second. Great statistic… but does it create a particularly vivid image for you of the levels of bottled water consumption? If not, no worries: MSLK has that covered. Their new art installation Watershed integrates 1500 empty water bottles with “signs with facts about the dangers of this rate of consumption and what the public can do to make a change.”
As I walked south on Sixth Avenue this morning, like any thinking person, I declined two different people’s attempts to give me a free copy of the New York Post. Not really my kind of paper.
It wasn’t until I got comfortable at my desk and read the day’s news, online natch, that I realized that wasn’t really the Post they were giving out. I should have known by the hippie clothes of the paper holders. Methinks Posts workers wouldn’t wear vintage plaid bell bottoms.
The Yes Men, the collective that produced the paper, have done this before. Last November they printed and distributed a fake New York Times. While the fake Times was about Iraq, this fake Post is all about the environment. You can check it out online here.
Summer’s moved on from NYC and Autumn has arrived early. This is saddening as summer just does not seem to last as long these days (maybe it is because NYC has become the new Seattle). So when I stumbled upon these pictures in the Los Angeles Times of the world’s largest swimming pool I immediately jumped on Orbitz looking for flights. And no, the pool is not in Mexico. It’s in Chile.
The pool, located at the San Alfonso del Mar vacation property resort at Algarrobo, Chile uses water from the the surrounding Pacific ocean to fill up. It measures 3,324 feet in length and is clear 100 feet below. Sailing and kayaking are encouraged. As is diving, though with no fish, I am at a loss as to why anyone would do that.
The High Line continues to be a hit here in NYC. This summer the park’s popularity has been enormous and will only continue to grow if these guys keep doing fun, innovative things with the space. Case in point was yesterday’s launch of High Line Art, which is a series of commissions and creative partnerships sponsored by the Friends of the High Line. The works will be be featured on the High Line, around the park, or inspired by the High Line.
The debut was last night and featured the artists Lisa Sigal and Paul Ramírez Jonas. Their installation, Specials, is a mobile unit constructed of vendor carts and a wall. On the wall side various artworks are hung. On the reverse side is an actual taco stand, serving free tacos to art connoisseurs and the many randoms passing by. It’s pretty genius in that it presents art (and tacos) in a very different way.
Last night the cart feautured works by Fiona Tan and Regina Silveira and a potato and corn croquette with red cabbage and avocado taco. Anyone make it over for dinner?
As Fashion Week winds down here in the Big Apple and the dust settles many a gay are left talking about what’s happening in fashion. Yes, we gays discuss fashion. I know, shocking.
The press is picking up on a new trend that even I, one of the biggest gays in this oh-so gay town, could not possibly pull off. Bows. Yes, those bows. The ones on Minnie Mouse’s head and your Prom date’s satin pink dress. Those bows.
It’s odd to me that I am linking to two Wall Street Journal stories in as many days but I just ran across this funny little video they did accompanying David Byrne, he of Talking Heads fame, to Brookyn via bikes. Byrne was a judge in a citywide competition to design new bike racks for New York City. He was so into the project that he designed his own. Included are giant shoes, dollar signs (for the Wall Street area natch) and dogs. The video is cute.
