Change is Constant (2006, 6.5 MB, 3:02 min)
This is a short film I edited to one of the tunes recorded by
Amoeba Technology. I shot most of the footage use in the video,
the footage is a mixture of 16mm, Super 8 and Mini DV.
from Mark Reilly, at alienresident.
A Tough Dance (1902, 7.1MB, 47 sec.)
Bicycle Trick Riding (1899, 5.5MB, 37 sec.)
Three Acrobats (1899, 5.4MB, 36 sec.)
Three exhilarating chunks of early movie making from the
Library of Congress online collection of variety stage motion pictures.
I particularly love the deeply strange A ‘Tough’ Dance.
There’s also a great early animation collection on the LOC site.
Un chien andalou (1929, 156MB, 15:40 min.)
This is just the source.
Can you imagine Cocteau, Deren, later Hitchcock & Cronenberg
without this?
Oh..more:- the whole of cinema would have a great gaping bloody gap
in it & what was left would be dull dull dull & Black Francis wouldn’t have been
able to write ‘Debaser’.
It simply prised open the language.
Afterwards, Bunuel went on to make some of the sharpest, most provocative
& disturbing films of the 20th century & Dali went on to
…well… be Dali.
Home Movies (2007, 11.9MB, 1:10 min)
Money at the Situation (2007, 6.5MB, 37 sec)
Assured & capable micro movie making from Bill Shackelford in 2007.
In the case of Home Movies, more: beautiful, poetic
& singular, using only the artefact laden footage around cuts in
his grandfather’s 8mm home movies from the 50s & 60s.
Bravo!
Very nicely executed short film from UK film-maker Toby Tatum,
who is clearly both gifted and imaginative.
It brings to mind an attempt to conjure in a distilled way the atmosphere of
pieces like Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence.
(and nothing wrong with this; I’m using Innocence as a point of comparison
rather than asserting influence)
I’m not sure it entirely succeeds – the act of distillation, of reduction to
suggestion, to atmosphere (ironically the very richness of the prize-winning music by Abi Fry
contributes to this) means it ends up feeling laid on a tad thickly.
Nonetheless it’s work that demands & deserves attention and I’ll be interested to see where
Tatum heads next.
Beautiful and delicate, yet somehow tough, bit of
performative portraiture from 1994 by Eleanor Suess.
I really like the fact her work doesn’t scream look-
at-me-how-clever-I-am but when one does look
carefully, there is art enough to engage,
reward and move.
Gavito & Plazaola (n/k, 13.5MB, 3:44 min.)
‘The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that
happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing
possible: to dance silence. This is essential to learn in tangodance,
the real dance, that of the silence, of following the melody.’
– Carlos Gavito
Watch the late Carlos Gavito & his partner Maria Plazaola
play havoc with the space time continuum in this extraordinary
piece in which time slows down, speeds up & actually comes to a
halt at least once.
Mesmerizing.
[ Found on this very strange tango site with lots more videos]
Le Lion Devenu Vieux (1932, 3.5MB, 1:04 sec.)
Ladislas Starewitch is often credited with inventing stop motion animation
as we know it, though so are several other people. It depends on what fits
into your definition of stop motion.
Certainly he was probably the first to actually make little figures and move
them frame by frame in an attempt to duplicate lifelike movement of actual
living things. it was because he was filming beetles and found that the hot
lights made them lethargic, so he made his own little beetles asrealistically
as possible and animated them instead.
This gave birth to further projects with very lifelike but sometimes partially
anthropomorphic (human-like) animals.
from – Darkstrider.
By Mica. (thanks Adam)
PIRATE (2006, 45 MB, 8:25 min)
By Annika Larsson.
Music by Tobias Bernstrup & Annika Larsson.
RUBBER (2011, 35 MB, 2:21 min)
Trailer for RUBBER, the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been
abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life.
RUBBER is a ‘smart, funny and wholly original tribute to the cinematic
concept of “no reason” ‘.
Director: Quentin Dupieux
DuPont (2011, 25 MB, 2:42 min.)
Smokey (2011, 25 MB, 2:45 min.)
A couple of previews from Rob Parrish
Samuel Beckett‘s only venture into the medium of cinema, Film was written
in 1963 and filmed in New York in the summer of 1964, directed by
Alan Schneider and featuring Buster Keaton. For the shooting Mr.
Beckett made his only trip to America. The film, which has no dialogue,
takes its basis Berkeley’s notion esse est percepti that is, to be is to be perceived.
The Mouse Escapes (2010, 56MB, 11:06 min)
After we posted the trailer for this the other week, director Simon
Mclennan was kind enough to let us post the whole movie, so here it is (and
quirky, and poetic and imaginative as it promised to be, it is.)
Alice in Wonderland (1903, 136MB, 9:32)
Enthralling first ever screen version of Alice in Wonderland
from 1903, lovingly restored by the folks at the BFI.
There’s no-one –no-one – who could not learn
something about film-making from this gem.
Nine minutes of sheer, grinning-with-joy delight.
The Mouse Escapes [Trailer] (2010, 4MB, 37 secs)
Difficult to gauge from the trailer what the full 12 minute piece
might be like but it will clearly be interesting & atmospheric and guided
by an acute visual sense.
The music, written by director Mclennan, is also rather good.
Website, with lots of details, here.
2001: A Space Odyssey (2007, 30 MB, 14:34 min.)
The fair use trio: zach layton, matty ostrowski, luke dubois.
From zach layton industries.
Binary Code (1994-98, 2MB, 52 secs)
On the Ephemeral Nature of Little Movies (1994-98, 3MB, 1:05 min)
I mentioned the Manovich Little Movies in the post I did the
other week on Eryk Salvaggio’s ‘Unfinished Mpeg Haiku’.
In the course of writing that I went to Manovich’s site to look at them
& was surprised to find that their page was in some disarray
and the movies themselves had been removed.
Nor could I find them either in the version archived on the Rhizome Artbase.
It seems a shame for them not to be available -they’re historical
(and in many ways amazingly presecient) documents at the least,
although I find them – especially the last one – gripping and touching too.
Then I remembered the wonderful Wayback Machine and I found them
there, all snug and safe and sound.
We’ll post them here in twos in the next week or so,
in the order in which they appeared in Manovich’s
original presentation of them.
Although the image linking to it has been removed from the site
Manovich’s very interesting statement remains.
(I guess if that goes too you’ll still be able to Wayback it)
Consolation Service (1999, 10 MB, 1:43 min.)
“Consolation Service” follows a young Finnish couple, Anni and J-P, as they
make public their decision to divorce. It is set in early spring in Helsinki, with
its frozen landscape on the cusp of thawing.
Consolation service (awarded at the Venice Biennial in 1999) Ahtila also
deconstructs the formation of the narrative and cinematic illusion: as though
in a straight documentary film (Cinéma vérité), both narrator and camera are
shown openly. The illusion of fiction is thus shattered, made visible. The use of
a hand-held shaking camera reminds the group Dogma 95 led by Lars Von Triers.
Jor El (1978-2006, 38MB, 3:29 min.)
Marlon Brando, the CG character, rather spookily reappears as
Jor-El in Superman Returns.
From Rhythm & Hues studios.
RAMBO (1987, 5.6 MB, 2:32 min)
ZERO ONE KILL MY DESIRE (1988, 7 MB, 3:12 min)
Early videos by Max Moswitzer using found footage material,
video collage, remix and animation.
More Max Moswitzer here.
Applause (2010, 104 MB, 1:02 min)
Last week we showed some of Kerry Baldry’s curatorial work,
now here’s one of her own pieces.
Says Kerry:
“Applause is a piece of work made on 16mm film.
Using superimposition and coloured gels Applause has been edited in camera …”
& its a smart & winning piece which punches above its weight.
It looks great & there’s something about the way the visuals work
that really illuminates the sound – the..er..um..applause-ness –
of the applause & this in turn directs us back, carefully, to the visuals.
(& both make us ponder it as a social phenomenon)
The piece made me listen attentively, mindfully, & then look &
listen & think & then do all three again.
ZWlSCHENLAGERUNG EINER NULLOESUNG (1988, 10.5 MB, 4:47 min)
COMPUTER GAME (1987, 9 MB, 3:53 min)
Early videos by Max Moswitzer using found footage material, remix
and live performance.
ZWlSCHENLAGERUNG EINER NULLOESUNG was using documentary
films from 1938-1945 and was a live action performance at the
University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1988.
COMPUTER GAME was exhibited at ARS Electronica in 1987.
More Max Moswitzer here.
Win, Place or Show (clip) (1998, 1.6 MB, 47 sec.)
Two men are having a discussion in a small apartment. The scene,
lasting only six minutes, is filmed from twenty camera positions.
A computer program then produces some 200,000 possible combinations
of images and sounds, so the viewer always sees a different version of the story.
Win, Place or Show questions our conditioned viewing behaviour.
video installation by Stan Douglas.
from ZKM Videosammlung.
Interview with Chen Chieh Jen (2008, 40 MB, 6:05 min)
Studio Banana TV interviews Taiwanese videoartist Chen Chieh Jen.
Chen
Jon Jost is not making movies (2006, 36.4 MB, 6 min.)
In 2006, Woods Hole Film Festival featured a tribute
to filmmaker Jon Jost.
I got a chance to talk with him for a few minutes
about his career in film and his commitment to
pushing the medium of digital video. In this video
he gives some great advice to new DV filmmakers,
and explains once and for all 24fps setting on your camera.
By Mica.
Ground Play (extract) (2009, 64 MB, 5:15 min)
I stumbled across Robert Todd’s work by accident & I’m glad that I did.
Judging by the extracts on his site, one of which we’re posting here, he will bear
a good deal of further investigation.
Here I love the use of oblique angles, cropping &c. to create a world both highly abstracted
yet naggingly familiar (and very beautiful).
There’s also an interesting dynamic going on between the probing camerwork & the
thoughtful and restrained editing.
There’s an interview with Todd here and you can buy DVDs of his work .
