Fast Approaching

Margaret Sixel on Editing Mad Max: Fury Road

“Editing this film was tough because there’s very little dialogue, which is how scenes are structured, so the options are endless. It was a relief to find a scene with dialogue. You cut them in a day. It’s ridiculously easy.” Margaret Sixel on editing Mad Max: Fury Road

Behind the Scenes on Mad Max: Fury Road

One of the glorious things about Mad Max: Fury Road was that it showed old-school movie-making can still kick ass and take names – not just keeping up with the CGI Joneses, but a shot over the bow before it surged forward and made the rest of the blockbuster field eat its wake. This eighteen-minute compilation of raw footage from Mad Max: Fury Road shows just how much of the effects were done…

“Learn to Say F*ck You”: Sol LeWitt’s Advice to Artists, Put to Music (Video, 2013)

From MOCAtv’s “Learn to Say F*ck You”, with words by Sol LeWitt and music by Rancid. (2013)

Sometimes there’s a mashup so sublime, you just can’t resist. Modern art, punk rock, and good creative advice?  I’m on board.  I’m so behind that. Swirl some bright colors in my face, and the deal’s done.

MOCAtv, the digital channel of the Museum of Contemporary Art, writes this about their video:

In 1965,…

If you’ve got funny comedy timing, you can make [shots in closeup] work with just a finger, or just a hand, and usually if you leave it to a hand double or an extra, it will never be as funny as an actor doing it.

Edgar Wright

Watch: Terry Gilliam's 1968 video Christmas card (1968)

Watch: I Hate Christmas Too (BBC, 1997)

Watch: A Very Calvin & Hobbes Christmas (2011) + Making Of

The Screw-In Coffin (2013, PBS Inventors) - film by @ironicsans

Watch the Weekend Longform Video: Screenwriting Lecture by Abi Morgan of "Shame", "The Hour"

To round out my film history kick, watch: The Cricklewood Greats (2012), Peter Capaldi's love letter to the history of British B-movies

Alice Guy-Blaché, the forgotten first female filmmaker

Alice Guy-Blaché, the first female filmmaker.

I think I’m on a film history kick here.  Filmmaker…

Lantern is a search portal created by the Media History Digital Library and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Communication Artsto search a digitized collection of early industry periodicals from 1867 to 1978 relating to film, television,…

Watch the Weekend Longform Video: The Bakery Girl of Monceau (1963) by Eric Rohmer

Paper sculpture maps reveal the history of cities

Detail of Matthew Picton’s map of Dallas, showing the route of the Kennedy assassination.

The…

Watch: Interview with Eric Rohmer (1981)

Night Lights: The Black Marble (NASA, 2012)

Still from NASA’s Black Marble animation.

From the NASA Earth Observatory comes this animation of…

Kudos to IndieWire for turning an eye not just on women directors, but on a largely invisible demographic: older women.  Their article, “Heroines of Cinema: 15 Female Directors Who Made Their First Feature After Turning 40“, looks at women who started…