Lil' Buck & Prime Tyme Freestyling

Music "Snap" by Ronald Jenkees http://www.YAKFILMS.com © YAK FILMS 2012

Lil' Buck and Prime Tyme freestyling a hybrid of hip hop and ballet to get the week going. 

A Brief Look at Texting and the Internet in Film

Is there a better way of showing a text message in a film? How about the internet? Even though we’re well into the digital age, film is still ineffective at depicting the world we live in. Maybe the solution lies not in content, but in form. For educational purposes only. You can follow me at twitter.com/tonyszhou Here are three short films that take place on your desktop Internet Story (2010): youtu.be/g-SL4ejpP94 Noah (2013): vimeo.com/81257262 Transformers: the Premake (2014): youtu.be/dD3K1eWXI54 Music: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - In Motion (from The Social Network) David Arnold & Michael Price - On the Move (from Sherlock) Daft Punk - End of Line (from Tron: Legacy) Al Hirt - Green Hornet Theme (from Kill Bill Vol. 1)

Tony Zhou explores the effects of technology on cinematic storytelling: 

Is there a better way of showing a text message in a film? How about the internet? Even though we’re well into the digital age, film is still ineffective at depicting the world we live in. Maybe the solution lies not in content, but in form.

How To Be Different

Bernadette Jiwa on differentiation: 

The reason it’s not easy to copy a truly great brand is because they have put so much of themselves into the work— that there is no substitute. There is only one Banksy, one Dyson and one Disney. They each show up uniquely as brands in the world by being more of who they are.

J'adore Paris

www.agour.co.uk I recently embarked on a three week trip to Paris, to try and capture the city in all its glory. I had never visited the city before, and was quickly struck with how beautiful it is. My aim was to capture the classic sights; ornate buildings and typical Parisian activities, and contrast that to the modern business side, towering glass glad skyscrapers and fast paced life. I felt very lucky to have been in Paris when the massive thunderstorm started. I had seen the weather forecast, and made sure to position myself in among the skyscrapers. The storm started off slow, but very quickly built up to be absolutely ferocious. The lightning was hitting almost every other second, and some bolts were taking up the entire sky. The following night another huge storm hit Paris, and I spent the night furiously cycling around whilst grabbing as many shots as possible. I would set up, grab a sequence and as soon as the lightning moved away I gave it warp nine and cycled to my next spot as quickly as possible. By the end of the night I was freezing cold and completely soaked.. but content with what I had managed to capture. Cue three weeks of shooting, followed by roughly 5 weeks of editing.. I think in total I spent over 400 hours working on this project, which means that every single second of video took two and a half hours to produce. The video was entirely self-funded, and shot purely out of my love for timelapse. If you enjoyed the video, please pass it along to a friend. To keep up to date with my latest work, you can find me on facebook at www.facebook.com/paulrichardsonphoto For the tech-heads, I used a Canon 6D, 17-40 f4, 50mm 1.8, and a 70-200 f4. The motion control sequences were shot on a home built dolly, coupled to a emotimo TB3. Most of the footage is available to license in 4k. If you require any custom sequences, I'm also available to work on commissions. For any enquiries, please contact me at paul[a-t]agour.co.uk

Another fantastic hyperlapse film, similar to Barcelona. This one created by Paul Richardson while on vacation in Paris. Wait for the end to watch Paris in the midst of a thunderstorm. 

Can you relate?

Rebecca Mead, writing in The New Yorker, uses Ira Glass' tweet declaring "Shakespeare sucks" as the starting point to explore whether relatability is relevant to works of art: 

What are the qualities that make a work “relatable,” and why have these qualities come to be so highly valued? To seek to see oneself in a work of art is nothing new, nor is it new to enjoy the sensation. Since Freud theorized the process of identification—as a means whereby an individual develops his or her personality through idealizing and imitating a parent or other figure—the concept has fruitfully been applied to the appreciation of the arts. Identification with a character is one of the pleasures of reading, or of watching movies, or of seeing plays, though if it is where one’s engagement with the work begins, it should not be where critical thought ends. The concept of identification implies that the reader or viewer is, to some degree at least, actively engaged with the work in question: she is thinking herself into the experience of the characters on the page or screen or stage.

But to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her. If the concept of identification suggested that an individual experiences a work as a mirror in which he might recognize himself, the notion of relatability implies that the work in question serves like a selfie: a flattering confirmation of an individual’s solipsism.