via Maryland Film Festival The slow roll into summer is the time of year when we start to look at our big-picture tasks, so it seems appropriate to share a big-picture article about the state of film. For The New Yorker, Richard Brody wrote a lengthy piece about the state of “independent film” and what […]
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Graduated and moving onto filmmaking? Kodak may have a deal for you
Congratulations to everyone who graduated this weekend! We have no doubt you’ll go on to do great things. In particular, we want to talk to AU’s graduating film students, many of whom may be looking to start film projects. If you’re considering going down that path, you might need a little crowdfunding money. And if […]
Continue readingOn cinema and hunkiness
As we get closer to the end of the finals, we bring you hunky dudes. More specifically, we bring you an examination of the future outlook of hunky dudes in cinema. (Is there anything academic analysis can’t un-sexify?) Flavorwire‘s Lara Zarum wrote an insightful post about the changing representation of masculinity in movies. As the […]
Continue readingThe future of film preservation is… DNA?
Not that you need any kind of mental stress during finals, but our media librarian passed along this mind-blowing update from the world of film preservation. The best-preserved filmstrips and digital backups will still deteriorate overtime, but the folks at Technicolor (yes, the Wizard of Oz Technicolor) think they’ve developed a foolproof technique for keeping […]
Continue readingIf you’re seeing a movies in the 1910s, kindly remove your hat
Finals week has arrived, folks. In deference to your stress levels, we’ll be sharing some light, entertaining things this week. Firstly, we wanted to show you these great old “lantern slides” that were once displayed in movie theaters at the turn of the 20th century. In the days long before FirstLook and movie theater radio […]
Continue readingMovies don’t get worse than watching them on Videodisc
Occasionally, we have a laugh about some of the obsolete media formats we keep stocked behind the desk. We still have a large number of VHS tapes and a handful of LaserDiscs – and even an extremely unloved U-matic player that looks like part of the Space Shuttle. But there’s a format even clunkier than […]
Continue readingKoyaanistocksi is filmmaking out of balance
Here’s a fun one to start off the week: Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi is a striking experimental film that uses footage of nature, people, and technology to convey our often dissociated relationship with the world. It’s an unusual, groundbreaking work that, along with its outstanding Philip Glass soundtrack, has become a touchstone for awe-inspiring cinema. Koyaanisqatsi […]
Continue readingHollywood’s big new technology is 90 years old
As movie theaters search for new technology to drag people into theaters, the latest promise comes from Barco Escape, a three-screen technology designed for “immersive cinema” with a panoramic view or, potentially, action on three different screens at once. But as Dennis Duffy once said, technology is cyclical. These ideas have come up before – […]
Continue readingNew infographics break down gender in screenplays… and it’s about what you’d expect
Late last week, Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels released a study on Polygraph breaking down the dialogue of over 2000 major screenplays by the gender and age of the actors. If you’ve followed any of the other news about representation in film for the last few years, the results should come as no surprise: it’s […]
Continue readingA new site can find movies by describing them… for the most part
Every once in a while, we get stumped trying to remember a certain movie starring a certain actor. Usually those questions can be answered with a quick search (or by asking your librarian!), but there are trickier ones too: how do you find a movie by the subject matter? Today, we stumbled across a new […]
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