AU students get access to our streaming video collection, which includes thousands of hours of great documentaries. We realize that there’s quite a bit to sort through, so finding the best of them (or even knowing to look for them) might be a challenge. To help you navigate the highlights of our collection, we’ve assembled […]
Continue readingVanity Fair celebrates one century of vanity credits
gif via listal Earlier this week, we acknowledged the 100th anniversary of Birth of a Nation and the blockbuster style of filmmaking that create. But as Vanity Fair points out, Birth of a Nation also marked the start of directors declaring authorship for movies. D. W. Griffith was the first director to have a possessive […]
Continue readingNew supercut celebrates the symmetry of bookending shots
Over the course of two hours, most films show growth and change. It’s reasonable to suggest that the characters you meet at the start of the movie are not the same ones you see off at the end. Filmmakers understand that and frequently look for visual ways to tie their beginnings and endings together. Jacob […]
Continue readingDid you ever catch the Citizen Kane pterodactyls?
There are dinosaurs in Citizen Kane. No, seriously, hear us out on this. This is one of the greatest bits of film trivia we’ve heard in a while. Before the advent of greenscreen technology, many films in the 30s and 40s used “rear projection” for complicated scenery. Pre-recorded footage of a background was projected onto […]
Continue readingCaught up with The Jinx? Watch these investigative crime documentaries
HBO’s true-crime documentary series The Jinx ended in shock this week when the show’s subject, real estate magnate Robert Durst, confessed to multiple murders over an open microphone and was subsequently arrested. No spoiler warning on this one: Durst’s arrest made international headlines. After all, how often does a documentary change the course of the […]
Continue readingWhy are film production deaths on the rise?
Last year, the death of camera assistant Sarah Jones during the filming of Midnight Rider brought attention to issues of film and television production safety. Many people risk their lives while filming large productions; beyond pyrotechnics and stunt performers and so forth, production assistants and crew members find themselves in dangerous or risky situations where […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – March 2015
Now that all the students are away, it’s time to roll out the new DVDs! We’ve been steadily adding new titles all semester, the usual mix of academic titles, popular films, television shows, and other interesting and noteworthy titles. We got the blockbusters Guardians of the Galaxy and Divergent, and we’re picked up Oscar nominees […]
Continue readingSee the next documentary from the director of Miss Representation TOMORROW!
Miss Representation was one of the most impactful and successful documentaries from 2011, and its examination of the portrayal of women in media is extremely relevant to larger cultural conversations that have started in the last few years. Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s newest film is The Mask You Live In, looks at another component of […]
Continue readingYour pre-March bracket: What’s the DCy-est film ever?
Many movies take place in DC to make use of its proximity to politics and major cultural institutions like the Smithsonian. Others just happen to take place in the city. It’s fun to see DC represented on the screen in a variety of ways, but the question remains: which is really the DC movie? It’s […]
Continue readingHappy Fair Use Week!
By the declaration of the Association of Research Libraries, this week is Fair Use Week! “Fair use” is one of the most important exemptions in copyright law that allows educators, artists, and journalists to create new works from copyrighted content. Fair use provisions have allowed everything from students editing films for academic assignments to supercuts […]
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