Tag Archives: documentary

Bookmarks for August 27th

By Ed Fladung | August 27, 2009
  • IKEA goes with Verdana | Typophile
    the space-time continuum folds in on itself as IKEA switches from everyone's favorite typeface Futura to the ridiculously ugly made-for-small-text-on-monitors Verdana, in the name of style consistency across all countries including asia. Big mistake. This is like IKEA's version of "New Coke". stunningly dumb.
  • three frames
    my new favorite site [via @bigspaceship]
  • Art & Copy Film
    A documentary film about the truth in advertising. A film by Doug Pray, the Director of Surf Wise, Scratch and Hype!
  • YouTube – Tarantino's Top 20 Movies Since 1992
    interesting choices with explanation. Wong Kar- Wai's "In The Mood for Love" is not on the list. major oversight. I really like that "Unbreakable" is on it. I loved that movie and still do. incidentally, is it me or is Tarantino looking a bit like a hot tranny mess?
  • Good Hair ft. Chris Rock- Official Trailer
    now this is.a film i can get behind, hilarious.
  • Giant Waterslide Jump
    I know this is ridiculously old. my links are a bit stale from my trip up north yonder. but… reason 1023 for why the internet is better than tv: so that i can watch beautiful, priceless short clips like this without having to sit the drudgery of an hour long dumb home movie video show hosted by an unfunny stand-up comic and packed with commercials for environmentally insensitive products i don't need. watch the clip. hilarious, yet stunning in its accuracy.
  • Core CMS
    super easy to use content management system for photographers and designers "Core is a Content Management System (CMS) made with the designer in mind, someone who want to show off all their work with an easy updateable and customizable website without having to deal with databases, scripting and extensive php."
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Who is Bozo Texino?

By Ed Fladung | June 26, 2009

Who is Bozo Texino?
A Bill Daniel
56 min. black and white, experimental/documentary

Who is Bozo Texino? chronicles the search for the source of a ubiquitous and mythic rail graffiti– a simple sketch of a character with an infinity-shaped hat and the scrawled moniker, “Bozo Texino”– a drawing seen on railcars for over 80 years. Daniel’s gritty black and white film uncovers a secret society and it’s underground universe of hobo and railworker graffiti, and includes interviews with legendary boxcar artists, Coaltrain, Herby, Colossus of Roads, and The Rambler. Shooting over a 16-year period, Daniel rode freights across the West carrying a Super-8 sound camera and a 16mm Bolex. During his quest he discovered the roots of a folkloric tradition that has gone mostly unnoticed for a century. Taking inspiration from Beat artists Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac, the film functions as both a sub-cultural documentary and a stylized fable on wanderlust and outsider identity.

“I was drawn to the subject by the universal graffiti impulse and the classic, corny notion of freight train blues escape.” – BD

More on filmmaker Bill Daniels.

[via LOA]

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Bookmarks for June 19th

By Ed Fladung | June 19, 2009
  • I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel on Vimeo
    1000 frames per second video. ultra slow motion. skip to the 2 minute mark to see the block of jello bouncing (shot at 2500 fps). so amazing. I'd love to see this camera used on a fatty Teahupoo wave from inside the barrel.
  • Al Jazeera English – Focus – Iran on the brink?
    if there is only one article you read about what's happening inside iran right now, politically, read this one. amazing! Mark Levine walks through the different power structures in the government and the potential scenarios for dealing with the protests.
  • Food, Inc. Movie Site and Trailer – Hungry For Change?
    Great trailer, for what looks to be a great movie. That most people won't want to see, because the truth hurts too much. Incidentally, they used to say "you are what you eat". and us gutter punks would chime back "if you are what you eat, then we're all dead meat!" and stick up our two fingers and make the screw face like Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. The early 90s were a bright, young, innocent time. Now the refrain goes something like "if you are what you eat, than were all highly processed food products" or even "if you are what you eat, then we're all full of shit." that last one is more true than most people know.
  • Asia Times Online :: Divine assessment vs people power
    a huge article on the internal power struggle going on in Iran right now. This is just about election results. It's about a failed system of government and their attempts to stay in power: "As much as corporate media – from anywhere – has been rendered mostly irrelevant. Iranians are deploying an absolute non-stop, 24/7 thriller; a guerrilla communication redux, an ultra-raw version of history in the making via blogs – this is a nation of young bloggers – YouTube and Twitter, battling by all means necessary ultra-slow or shut down Internet, jammed phone lines going in and out, blocked chats, blocked SMS."
  • Nathan Bransford – Literary Agent: Query Letter Mad Lib
    This is an explicit how-to recipe on the proper way to put together a "query letter" for contacting potential literary agents. good advice, wish i found it first before sending out a bunch of queries. oops.
  • On Assignment: Covering Tehran – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com
    images from the Iran election protests taken by 28-year old Newsha Tavakolian, a Times freelanc photographer. These images have a very different feel from the ones we've been seeing from Getty and AP. much more intimate.
  • AgentQuery :: Find the Agent Who Will Find You a Publisher
    trying to find an literary agent to help you publish your blog book? this is a great resource.
  • Shane Lavalette: A Quiet Heaven in Vrindavan, India | GOOD
    beautiful photography by Shane Lavalette taken in India. very quiet photos. something not normally in unison with India. Shane is also the editor/curator of wicked zine Lay Flat.
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Bookmarks for June 14th

By Ed Fladung | June 14, 2009
  • Stop Smiling Magazine: VISUAL RESPONSE: GEOFF McFETRIDGE
    "We asked Geoff McFetridge — founder of the Los Angeles-based design studio Champion Graphics and a member of the Director’s Bureau — to offer his impressions on the differences between living in California and his native Calgary. Included here are several bonus questions that did not originally appear in Issue 36: Expatriate"
  • Daring Fireball: Simple Inbox Archiving Script for Apple Mail
    ok, You're using Apple's Mail app and you have 2 or 3 IMAP email addresses (dot mac, gmail, maybe your own domain) and your inbox is swamped with crap and you're having problems answering emails. This Apple Script created by John Gruber helps you stay organized. You just flag the messages that you know need to be responded to and once per day you run this script. It automatically moves all read inbox mail to archive folders, effectively cleaning up your inbox for you! awesome.
  • Jordy Smith's Rodeo Flip In The Mentawais
    pretty impressive
  • :: andy gilmore :: design ::
    damn! i'm loving this guy's design work. beautiful abstract geometric stuff. awesome.
  • Border Film Project
    Border Film Project is a collaborative art project giving disposable cameras to two groups on different sides of the border: undocumented migrants crossing the desert into the United States, and American Minutemen trying to stop them. To date, we have received 73 cameras — 38 from migrants and 35 from Minutemen — with nearly 2,000 pictures in total. The pictures show the human face of immigration, and they challenge us to question our stereotypes and to see through new and personal lenses.
  • How AT&T Should Handle the Twitter iPhone Price Backlash – Advertising Age – News
    if yer not in the know, Apple introduced a new iPhone 3G [s] this past monday. Of course, when Apple releases a new product millions of people all rush out to buy it. But when you have to buy it with a contract from AT&T things get dicey. When people started seeing the how much it was going to cost them to upgrade all hell broke loose on twitter. This article explains the bru-ha and why AT&T is not doing the right thing. My two cents: AT&T and most telcos are zombie corporations just like GM and Citibank. They don't exist to serve their customers, they exist to serve the interests of their shareholders. and that's it.
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Bookmarks for April 28th

By Ed Fladung | April 28, 2009
  • Where did this thing come from? The Swine. Influenza in Mexico City
    interesting read. conspiracy theory-laiden blog ramblings. if you're sick of the 24/7 news coverage that still manages to say nothing new.
  • jQuery for Designers – Tutorials and screencasts
    so you're a web designer (i.e. not really a programmer), you know your way around xhtml, css and can even hack your way through php enough to get your designs up and running in WordPress (i'm basically describing myself) but you javascript gives you the heebies. Well, this is the site for you (me). lots of good tutorials on integrating the jquery framework into your sites. Incidentally, I rarely see cool websites nowadays that aren't using some kind of jscript framework.
  • Kim Høltermand – Photography
    beautiful landscape and architecture photography. I'd love to see these printed large. and the flash-based site is minimal and awesome. great design/programming.
  • Should I Be Worried About Swine Flu?
    statistics don't lie
  • "Cuban Skateboard Crisis" a 2007 Documentary
    awesome docu on skateboarding in Cuba. if you're not on it already, Glen Friedman is killing it on his blog, go grab the rss. i know i sound like a broken record, but he is on it.
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Style Wars

By Ed Fladung | April 27, 2009

know.the.ledge.

Style Wars is an early documentary on hip hop culture, made by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant, made in New York City in 1983. The film has an emphasis on graffiti, although breakdancing and rapping are covered to a lesser extent. The film was originally aired on PBS television in 1983, and was subsequently shown in several film festivals to much acclaim, including the Vancouver Film Festival.

I had a DVD copy of Style Wars. Somehow it got lost in the move.

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Bookmarks for April 19th

By Ed Fladung | April 19, 2009
  • Chávez creates overnight bestseller with book gift to Obama
    "A 36-year-old historical tract attacking the imperialist exploitation of Latin America has become an improbable overnight bestseller after the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez abruptly presented a copy to Barack Obama." – add Obama's moves to open relations with Cuba and I don't know how much more happier I could be about having Obama in office. This guy has a shopping list of wrongs (our country has done over the past 40 years) and he is righting every one of them. Obama is an inspirational dude. I know I've linked it before, but for a good primer on the subject of exploitation of Latin American read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman".
  • Voules Random
    great indie electronic mp3 blog. tons of great music here. try Wolfy vs. Projections. reminds of the old 'Moon Tribe' years, albeit my kind of electronic music stops at royksopp. if you can dance to it, i probably won't dig it. it took my 10 years to appreciate Daft Punk.
  • Shawn MORTENSEN ::: PHOTOGRAPHY
    amazing body of work by Mortensen who recently passed away at the age of 43 (?!). Mortensen seems to have been at the epicenter of several different underground art movements over his 20+ yrs shooting. His list of subjects is *deep*. more info over at SuperTouch
  • SuperTouch » FIRST LOOK: “McGEE, TEMPLETON, PETTIBON” AT CIRCLECULTURE GALLERY
    McGee, Templeton, Pettibon. curated by Aaron Rose. great photos from the Berlin show. put this show on the very long list of "things I'd do if i had endless loochie"
  • Legwork Studio
    ridiculously sweet website from a design shop in Denver. love the scaffolding content. For extra bonus, peep the "about" video, redonkulous. [via Eli's tweet]
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Stacy Peralta circa 1975

By Ed Fladung | April 2, 2009

picture-6_500
photo: C.R. Stecyk III | model: Stacy Peralta circa 1975

I’m trying to resist pushing the “add to cart” button on C.R. Stecyk III & Glen E. Friedman’s The Legend of the Z-Boys book. Resistance is futile.

Relatedly: I looked exactly like this, when I was 12 years old.

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Bookmarks for April 1st

By Ed Fladung | April 1, 2009
  • How to Write a Professional Biography – Mahalo
    pretty useful article with good, concrete step by step advice. everyone could use a bio refresh!
  • grain edit · House Industries interview
    Great Interview with Andy Cruz, the art-director behind the Alexander Girard series released by House Industries. House Ind. is releasing a Girard type family and in addition to the fonts, they have released new tshirts, a nativity set, alphabet blocks, a children's puzzle, lettering and Marliyn Neuhart designed Casa dolls. Basically, a bunch of cool toys for modernist loving grown-ups.
  • how 2 shoot a water shot and line up shot | on surf photography
    this blog post is schizophrenic. the first part is total crap. i dislike posts like this. there's been a few, recently. instead of giving helpful, clear advice, the synopsis of part 1 is basically: don't ask questions and get a pair of balls and a camera housing and get out into the line-up and don't get in anyone's way. The author's writing style isn't cool in that old-school curmudgeon vibe that you expect from Brewer/Grannis/Servais etc… Part 2 is way better and (gulp!) actually helpful. Alex Laurel's part 2 is down to earth and to the point.
  • Labuat | soy tu aire
    sometimes the internet can show you beautiful things. this is one of those. takes a minute to load but worth every second. delightful.
  • okayplayer – Video: Documentary on Big Daddy Kane
    One of my favorite MCs growing up. this a 17 minute doc following a true legend of hip-hop. worth a look. incidentally: why does he look like Ghostface's older brother?
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Awesomeness

By Ed Fladung | January 14, 2009

1970s Eames Office short documentary on the manufacturing process behind the Herman Miller fiberglass chair. killer soundtrack.

[via pica+pixel]

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Toxic: Garbage Island

By Ed Fladung | April 21, 2008

VBS.TV has a new 12 part series called Toxic: Garbage Island, a long-form (for web standards anyway) documentary on the North Pacific Garbage Patch.

I’ve posted about floating garbage island before and i’m sure if you ask any politician, they’d say it’s an urban myth hyped by Boing! Boing! conspiracy theorists. But it’s not! The folks at Vice sent a crew of people with video cameras out to the patch. Their verdict? Not only are the reports true, but it’s worse than they expected. There’s no patch and no island. Nothing that can be cleaned up easily. It’s a galactic mess of floating pieces slowly photodegrading into even tinier toxic, digestible pieces. everywhere and nowhere. a gigantic floating toxic stew. and it’s twice the size of Texas.

Stevey originally turned me on to the series a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to repost. With Earth Day tomorrow (Apr22), I thought I put the word out. The documentary is intense, horrifying and urgent. Special props to the Vice team for such engaging content. When watching it, you get the feeling that they didn’t quite know what they were getting in to and the narrator/host Thomas Morton keeps it interesting with an increasing use of curse words as they get further in to the garbage patch. Justifiable considering the horror show they encounter.

Relatedly: Check out this interview, Thomas Morton’s take on traditional (read: neo-hippy) environmentalism as he interviews the authors of Break Through, a book that calls for the “Death of Environmentalism” (or at least its current 60s era mentality). Morton can be a bit harsh and irreverent, but he makes some valid points.

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Jan Sochor

By Ed Fladung | March 5, 2008

jan sochor

Jan Sochor is a czech-born freelance photographer spliting his time between Europe and South America. His site has some great documentary-style photo essays, presented in a distinctive modern, minimal web presentation. very nice to see the design compliment the visual impact of the images*. His blog is great as well.

[via SwissMiss]
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*i’m not digging the rollover nav, but the design is so nice it’s hard to comment

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Thomas Cambell on Hi Shredability

By Ed Fladung | March 5, 2008

tmoe

Vice has a pretty cool internet-based video site thingy called VBS.tv and it has tons of content. I’d love to be watching this stuff from the comfy confines of my couch, apple remote, front row and my flat-screen. Hook it up Vice Peoples.

One of the VBS channels is a surf culture oriented, documentary-style series called Hi Shredability* and if you’re a surfer connected to the internet, chances are you’ve already seen it. If not, it’s a pretty good source of non-commercial surf-docu content and interviews. Episodes almost always feature underdog surf culture luminaries like Alex Knost, Mike Cunningham, Robin Kegal, Kassia Meador, Dan Malloy etc…

VBS just posted the final 3rd installment of the Thomas Cambell series and I’ve been waiting for it to go up to post this (as i’m not much of the cliffhanger kinda guy). What I really took away from his series was how surfing, art making and filmmaking are essentially the same thing, there are no distinctions for him. It’s all really just about: doin’ your own thing. and just trusting that it’s all gonna come together in the end. For Thomas it always seems to.

Hi Shredability host Tyler Manson on Thomas Campbell’s working process:

The state of Thomas Campbell’s desk says a lot about his work habits. It is covered in scrapes of paper, paint, photos, leaves, pieces of thread, books, doodles, and cups full of brushes, pens, and pencils. The pile is six inches deep and covers the entire desk, spilling onto the walls and floor and growing by a factor of 12.5 percent every day (we guestimate). He is working on so many different projects all at once we’re not sure how he keeps it all straight. Some end up getting finished, framed, and hung on a white wall, while others are dropped to the floor and maybe picked up days or years later and turned into something totally new.

Thomas Campbell episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | his website
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*with a name like “Hi Shredability” the series creators must have a well-placed sense of irony

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