Category Archives: observational

The Intimacy of Strangers – Eva Weber

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Eva Weber – The Intimacy of Strangers (2007, 7.4MB, 2:23)

Trailer for the innovative The Intimacy of Strangers,
“a story of life, love, loss and hope – told entirely
through overheard mobile phone conversations of
random strangers.”
Winner of several festival awards, including the President’s
Award at the 2007 Full Frame Film Festival, which is extra
exciting as Full Frame is one of the first festivals that has
started showing videoblog work within the last year. Be sure
to check out the excellent IoS website, a wonderful complement
to the actual film.

Day of Ashurah (Day of Tenth)

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Ashurah
Day of Tenth (2006, 13.6MB, 1:40 min.)

Europe January 2006.
Sunnis and Shi’a Muslims commemorating ‘Day of Ashurah‘.

Lossy Video

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Hollywood News
Hollywood News (2006, 2.7MB, 1:06 min. )

Saddam on Trial
Saddam on Trial (2006, 1.9MB, 52 sec)

Two pieces from the Montreal based video collective Lossy Video.
The idea being to take news footage & ..er..look at it closely.
The results are undeniably capable, attractive & interesting.
Reminds me, conceptually, of Mark Tribe

Two from Human Dog

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Garage Door (2006, 4.4MB, 0:47)

Human Dog was one of the first videoblogs and has
been closed down since early 2007. Luckily, all of
the media remains online (so far). One of the best
things about the entire series of videos (and the various
serials therein) was creator Chris Weagel’s ability
to tease out the absurdity of everyday life without
hitting the audience over the head with his message.
Video that was made specifically to live online, this
is some of the best work ever produced in videoblog
format.

The French Democracy

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TheFrenchDemocracy
The French Democracy (2005, 39.7MB, 13:09 min)

Quite remarkable piece of Machinima from France, dealing with
the riots there by oppressed North African and Arab youth.
The subtitling and translation ( ‘I had some training to do’ says koulamata,
the author, rather disarmingly) are hit and miss, to say the least -but it would
be wrong to view this as an ‘all your base are belong to us’ curiosity.
The very strangeness of the English translation, the sheer virtuosity of shaping
the fairly recalcitrant source material into a coherent 13 minute plus narrative
means that its honesty and sincerity shine through at every moment.
There is an interesting discussion of the piece on the Machinima.com site.

Lewis LaCook -<em>Joey</em>

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Joey
Joey (2008, 18.9MB, 1:08 min)

A new video from Lewis LaCook comes too infrequently.
He’s one of a kind in his and here too.
There’s a throwing of everything, including the
kitchen sink, going in his movies & it shouldn’t work
but it so does.
We’ll repost another of his pieces tomorrow; a little feast for you.
Just for the record here’s Lewis’s description of the piece:

Joey, or DJ Joey, as he is affectionately called, is a
young man in Lorain, Ohio, who spends most of his day
dancing on the corner of 28th Street and Elyria Avenue
to his boombox, waving and smiling at passing
traffic.

This video was constructed of footage found on
YouTube, all dealing with Lorain, Ohio. This is the
first video I

My View

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Phil Hamilton – My View (2007, 12.6MB, 1:00)

Phil Hamilton doesn’t post video very often.
When he does, it’s just freaking cool.
Phil is now a freshman at the same school where
I’m currently finishing my graduate degree, but
I’ve never see him in real life.
This is a video of his dorm room view.
The music is also original, by him.
His work – all of it – always makes me wish
I was younger, and that is a real compliment.

Flat Earth – Thomson & Craighead

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flat_earth
Flat Earth (2007, 22 MB, 7:08 min.)

“Flat Earth is a desktop documentary, which takes the viewer on
a seven minute trip around the world so that we encounter a series
of fragments taken from real peoples’ blogs. These fragments are
knitted together to form a kind of story or singular narrative.”
from Thomson & Craighead.

Sporkworld Lumières

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Lawnmowing
Lawnmowing (2008, 3.9MB, 35 secs)

Mowing in February

Our Special Mowing in February Lawnmowers
are not the of the ordinary electric rotor,
gas-powered self-propelling,
or even hand pushed whirligig
human powered variety.
Our Mowing in February models
come with specially-equipped
permanently mounted plows
suitable for use by the most dedicated
lawnmowing enthusiasts
from September through May
in those clim’es so specially endowed
to understand the meaning
of a ‘Three Season Plow’

Martha Deed

Scraping
Scraping (2008, 1.9MB, 58 secs)

Millie Niss & Martha Deed’s Sporkworld project is sui generis – entirely unbeholden to
fashion or cool & standing in a long & broad American tradition of such stubborn
(& sometimes even eccentric) beauty.
Their latest wheeze & a vastly effective one it is too, is the Sporkworld Microblog
which integrates many formerly slightly disparate areas of their activity – poetry, still
& moving imagery, filthy humour, a sense of life’s transience & tragedy & utter strangeness,
into one coherent, constantly unrolling whole.
Formally too, they are smarter than smart, as anyone with eyes will surely see –
they’ve taken the splendid Lumière form & integrated it beautifully.
It fits them like a glove.
Lawnmower in particular seems to have been crafted by a 21st century
suburban Breughel.

LOOK

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LOOK (2007, 10.3MB, 1:43)

Trailer for LOOK, the movie, which is composed
entirely of surveillance camera footage.
LOOK asks (and attempts to answer) questions about
security versus privacy, highly relevant in modern,
legitimately paranoid times.
Are you always alone when you think you are?