sundance

It’s you, perfected!

There are many reasons not to read women’s magazines. One of the biggies? All the retouched photos. The genetic mutants we call models and celebrities can beat the shit out your average Jane’s self image, but Photoshop can chop it up with chainsaw. This before and after cover of Red Book from a few years ago thanks to Jezebel.com says it all. In fact, Jezebel has made one of their crusades exposing the evils of Photoshop (here’s their most recent “unveiling”). One of the funniest commentaries on how fucked up Photoshop is when it comes to setting impossible beauty standards is this recent parody of a beauty product commercial by Jesse Rosten on Vimeo: “Just one application of Fotoshop can give you results so dramatic, they’re almost unreal…istic.”

Watch Buzz on the Bus and get the skinny on Sundance 2012

Pop quiz: Where is the best place to get honest opinions on Sundance Film Festival flicks? Well, SUNfiltered, but the Park City buses are a close second. This mountain town has a free, killer public transportation system and it ramps up during the festival. It’s the best way to get around and the best place to find out if that weird, Mongolian documentary is really worth braving the waitlist for. Don’t believe me? Watch and learn, grasshopper:

Video: Joe Berlinger talks West Memphis Three and Oscar

Sundance Film Festival veteran, and Iconoclasts producer/director, Joe Berlinger stopped by Sundance Channel HQ right after he found out his film about the West Memphis Three, PARADISE LOST, had been nominated for an Oscar. Lucky us! Check out what Berlinger has say about some of the controversy surrounding the film, why the fight for justice isn’t over yet and how the Oscar nomination might help:

Video: SMASHED–The funniest cast in a serious movie

You were probably expecting a laugh fest when you saw the names Octavia Spencer, Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul for the film SMASHED. Sorry, it’s a drama. But, that doesn’t mean there were not laughs aplenty when they all stopped by Sundance Channel HQ for a chat. Check out the entire video of their conversation, but just a warning…it includes some off color jokes, in addition to more serious fare on how films are cast in Hollywood.

Rashida Jones & Elijah Wood talk CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER tells the story of one couple whose relationship is managing to outlive their divorce. It’s a sweet story written by one of the film’s stars, Rashida Jones and her best friend/writing partner/actor/ex Will McCormack. Everyone always says how great it is to marry your best friend, but sometimes the relationship can tap out on the romantic level and settle in on that more comfortable territory. And that’s the story behind the film. But, the story behind the making of the film might be even more interesting. Rashida Jones, Elijah Wood and Andy Samberg are definitely names that have some clout in Hollywood, but CELESTE AND JESSE is still a true indie. As Jones points out, there ain’t no middle ground in Hollywood these days. Your movie is either big budget or DIY. But for Wood, who is used to big budgets and epic shoots, the indie process was really exciting. I guess there is something to be said for wearing stolen socks.

Kaleidoscopic Manhattan

I’m really digging the new video kaleidoscopic works from artist Anne Morgan Spalter. She captures video footage of urban landscapes such as Rockefeller Center or Fifth Avenue in New York City and then digitally transforms them using a decidedly 19th century concept. The resulting view is a constantly shifting but rigidly geometric patterned series of images as you can observe in the video above (my fave!), which I think is an interesting juxtaposition with the inherent symmetry of Manhattan’s streets. If you are around the Big Apple you should check out her debut NYC show at the Stephan Stoyanov Gallery.

Watch typical Brooklyn scenes in super slow-mo

8 Hours in Brooklyn from Next Level Pictures on Vimeo.

Ever wonder what getting tattooed looks like in ultra slow motion? Me neither. But thanks to some clever Brooklyn-based filmmakers, you can now watch it at 2,500 frames-per-second. Next Level Pictures‘ Jonathan Bregel took a Phantom Flex camera (familiar to TV-addicts as the camera that gets all that crazy slow-motion footage of the world’s fastest animals on the National Geographic channel) for a Sunday skateboard ride around Brooklyn. “I was DP-ing a commercial on a Saturday, but we technically had it for two days,” Bregel told me. “Clearly I couldn’t just let it sit there. My buddy, Mike Sutton from Rule Boston Camera, let us take it out the second day and we had some fun.”

Queen Elizabeth’s kinetic mosaic portrait

Content is Queen from Sergio Albiac on Vimeo.

Barcelona-based artist Sergio Albiac created this digital kinetic mosaic portrait of Queen Elizabeth II titled “Content is Queen” by incorporating popular videos from the Internet. The artist explains:

Earth Week art: Matthew Moore’s Digital Farm Collective

Digital Farm Collective from Digital Farm Collective on Vimeo.

Matthew Moore work was featured at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival… but not on a traditional movie screen. Rather, Moore’s “seed to market” videos of specific types of produce were shown at the Park City Fresh Market grocery store… directly above the bins of that produce. As with so much other recent food activism, the idea was to connect people with their food… and the journey it takes from farm to table.

Green tech finds (1/13/11)

From green tech at the auto show in Detroit to a potential standard for eco cell phones… your green tech finds for the week.

• Green tech in Detroit: Lots of green technology at the North American International Auto Show; The Street gives a run-down of seven developments worth watching…
  
  
• Crowdsourced environmental video: Dialogue Earth, an organization tied to the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, has completed a pilot involving “crowdsourcing” environmental science video content (specifically on ocean acidification). See the winner above…
  
  

Vimeo of the Week: Water & Rocks

Water & Rocks, New Zealand from Metron on Vimeo. When posting my favorite Vimeo video of the week round these parts I find myself returning to moving, ethereal short films focusing on natural beauty. This week’s choice, Water & Rocks, is one of those types. As I have two friends in New Zealand now I [...]

High speed camera freezes the world

This person pointed his high speed camera at travelers waiting on the platform while his train sped by. The result is neat, and what’s cool is that anyone can do this with a relatively cheap camera. Read more details behind this video from the creator. The recap also explains how if at first you don’t [...]

A green Moore’s law? The Story of Electronics