Last Minutes with ODEN

in Film | October 13th, 2010

This past Sat­ur­day, Vimeo held its first annu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny in New York City. Films by nine final­ists were screened (see the list below) and then came the big moment: the announce­ment of the Best Video Award, which went to Eliot Rausch, direc­tor of “Last Min­utes with ODEN.” As an orga­niz­er of the Vimeo fes­ti­val explains, the doc­u­men­tary (watch above) is about “redemp­tion and trans­for­ma­tion.” It’s about how Jason Wood, an ex-con­vict and drug addict, grows per­son­al­ly, even spir­i­tu­al­ly, through his rela­tion­ship with Oden, a three-legged dog now strick­en with can­cer. The doc­u­men­tary takes us poignant­ly through their last day togeth­er.

Nar­ra­tive: “Thrush” by Gabriel Bis­set-Smith
Doc­u­men­tary: “Last Min­utes with ODEN” by Eliot Rausch
Music Video: “Liars ‘Scis­sor’ ” by Andy Brun­tel
Ani­ma­tion: “Between Bears” by Eran Hil­leli
Orig­i­nal Series: “Break-ups The Series” by Ted Trem­per
Exper­i­men­tal: “oops” by Chris Beck­man
Motion Graph­ics: “TRIANGLE” by Onur Sen­turk
Cap­tured: “Flu­id Sculp­ture“by Char­lie Buck­et
Remix: “BREAKDOWN the video” by Kasu­mi

Dark Side of the Lens: A Poetic Short Film by Surf Photographer Mickey Smith

in Art, Life, Video - Arts & Culture | October 12th, 2010

Dark Side of the Lens presents the art and inner voice of Irish surf pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mick­ey Smith. The six minute film lets you expe­ri­ence Smith’s aes­thet­ics trans­lat­ed into beau­ti­ful prac­tice. (“I wan­na see waverid­ing doc­u­ment­ed the way I see it in my head, and the way I feel it in the sea.”) But then it rather poet­i­cal­ly cracks open the per­son­al phi­los­o­phy of the artist:

I nev­er set out to become any­thing in par­tic­u­lar, only to live cre­ative­ly and push the scope of my expe­ri­ence for adven­ture and for pas­sion… The raw bru­tal cold coast­lands for the right waverid­ers to chal­lenge – this is where my heart beats hard­est…

Most folk don’t even know who we are, and what we do or how we do it, let alone what they pay us for it. I nev­er want to take this for grant­ed so I try to keep moti­va­tion sim­ple, real, and pos­i­tive… If I only scrape a liv­ing, at least it’s a liv­ing where I’m scrap­ing.… If there’s no future in it, this is a present worth remem­ber­ing.

The aes­thet­ic choic­es. The per­son­al deci­sions. It’s all what’s hap­pen­ing behind the cam­era, the place no audi­ence sees, the “dark side of the lens.” You can find the full tran­script of Smith’s com­men­tary after the jump…

A final note: Dark Side of the Lens was born out of a project called “Short Sto­ries.” Estab­lished by Relent­less Ener­gy Drink, the UK-based project chal­lenged film­mak­ers to cre­ate their own mini opus, to explore and cel­e­brate “no half mea­sures” in film. Find oth­er shorts here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Join the Legion of Creative Commons Superheroes!

in Education | October 10th, 2010

Cre­ative Com­mons has kicked off its Legion of Super­heroes fundrais­ing cam­paign say­ing, “Imag­ine a world where knowl­edge flows freely and can be built upon with­out lim­its. Imag­ine a world where cul­ture, art and media are avail­able to every­one, sci­en­tif­ic con­tent is shared by cor­po­ra­tions and research insti­tu­tions, and shared intel­li­gence aug­ments human rights efforts across bor­ders.”

It’s not hard for us to imag­ine that world. We see it every day. Whether you know it or not, the enrich­ing video/audio fea­tured on Open Cul­ture is often released with a Cre­ative Com­mons license, which means that it can be shared freely across the globe. Our col­lec­tion of free online cours­es offers a good exam­ple. Some of the world’s finest uni­ver­si­ties release their cours­es with a CC license, allow­ing an inter­na­tion­al audi­ence to con­tin­ue learn­ing and grow­ing. And we just help get the word out.

Right now, Cre­ative Com­mons is work­ing to raise $550,000 by the end of the year to sup­port their work. I have includ­ed a lit­tle box below where you can make a con­tri­bu­tion of any size. Or you can head over to their site and do the same. If you would like to sup­port open­ness and inno­va­tion, please con­sid­er being a super­hero and giv­ing what you can.

Art Builds Upon Art: Nina Paley’s New Video

in Art | October 8th, 2010

From the mak­er of Sita Sings the Blues comes a new short film that artis­ti­cal­ly deliv­ers a sim­ple mes­sage: “All cre­ative work builds on what came before.” Using arti­facts from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art, Nina Paley draws the visu­al con­clu­sion that art bor­rows and remix­es – that noth­ing is real­ly out of the box. This argu­ment res­onates for some. For oth­ers, it falls flat. Either way, the film is worth a watch. (You can down­load high-res and Ogg ver­sions at the Inter­net Archive.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing is a Remix (A Short Film)

Footage of the Coronation of the Last Russian Czar (1896)

in History | October 8th, 2010

The coro­na­tion of Nicholas II, the last Russ­ian czar, took place in May 1896, an event cap­tured in some of the old­est footage still in exis­tence (above). The coro­na­tion was a high point, and, from there, it was large­ly down­hill for Nicholas. In 1905, the czar lost a humil­i­at­ing war against Japan, which then part­ly trig­gered an unset­tling rev­o­lu­tion lat­er that year – one that forced the king to live with­in the con­straints of a con­sti­tu­tion­al monar­chy. But this was just the begin­ning. The real rev­o­lu­tion came in 1917, and soon enough the Bol­she­viks, led by Lenin, exe­cut­ed Nicholas II, his wife and son, his four daugh­ters and domes­tic staff in July 1918. Bloody Nicholas – he had a fair amount of blood on his own hands – was dead. And now the new communist/Soviet era was under­way…

Relat­ed note: The Library of Con­gress hosts online a big series of pho­tos from the Russ­ian Empire cir­ca. 1905 — 1915. You can access them via the top lev­el, or by jump­ing direct­ly into the full col­lec­tion of images here. (Thanks Michael for the tip here.)

via How Stuff Works

Revisiting JFK on YouTube

in History | October 6th, 2010

On Sep­tem­ber 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared in Amer­i­ca’s first nation­al­ly tele­vised pres­i­den­tial debate, an event wit­nessed by some 70 mil­lion Amer­i­cans. Although radio lis­ten­ers thought that Nixon hand­i­ly won the debate (48% v. 21%), tele­vi­sion view­ers gave the edge to Kennedy (30% v. 29%) – the even­tu­al win­ner of the elec­tion. On that Sep­tem­ber night, pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics entered the tele­vi­sion age and nev­er looked back.

Thanks to the YouTube Chan­nel spon­sored by the JFK Pres­i­den­tial Library, you can now revis­it this his­tor­i­cal moment, along with oth­er key footage from the Kennedy pres­i­den­cy. Tak­ing a tour of the chan­nel, you will find Kennedy giv­ing his inau­gur­al address, mak­ing the strong case for civ­il rights, con­fronting the real­i­ty of nuclear war, and urg­ing Amer­i­ca to win the race to the moon.  The JFK video col­lec­tion now appears on our grow­ing list of Intel­li­gent YouTube Chan­nels.

David Sedaris Reads From New book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

in Audio Books, Books, Comedy | October 5th, 2010

Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk: A Mod­est Bes­tiary, the new book by David Sedaris has hit the stands last week. And now thanks to The Guardian we get Sedaris him­self read­ing a story/chapter from the col­lec­tion, “The Mouse and the Snake.” It runs near­ly 10 min­utes. Start play­ing below…

via @brainpicker

Jeff Bezos: What Life Story Will You Write?

in Books, Life | October 4th, 2010

A quick bit of inspi­ra­tion from the man who has changed the way we buy books, and now the way we’re read­ing them – Jeff Bezos (CEO, Ama­zon). Speak­ing at Prince­ton’s grad­u­a­tion last May, Bezos dis­cussed the life choic­es that we all face: Will you fol­low dog­ma? Or be orig­i­nal? Will you play it safe? Or take good risks? Will you be a cyn­ic? Or a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of oth­ers? Or will you be kind?

In short, your life sto­ry comes down to your choic­es. What sto­ry will you write? And how will it read when you’re 80?

via TED

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steve Jobs Talks Life at Stan­ford Grad­u­a­tion

Donald Duck Discovers Glenn Beck: A Remix

in Art, Current Affairs, Television | October 3rd, 2010

This week, Jonathan McIn­tosh (of Rebel­lious Pix­els) released a new cartoon,“Right Wing Radio Duck,” that remix­es dozens of clas­sic Walt Dis­ney car­toons from the 1930s to 1960s. The artis­tic work is seam­less. The video is down­right fun to watch. And the under­ly­ing mes­sage is entire­ly con­tem­po­rary. A la Col­bert: Keep Fear Alive.

The new video is released under a Cre­ative Com­mons license, and, accord­ing to the artist, this trans­for­ma­tive remix “con­sti­tutes a fair-use of any copy­right­ed mate­r­i­al as pro­vid­ed for in sec­tion 107 of the US copy­right law.” Will Dis­ney, a com­pa­ny that exer­cis­es enor­mous pow­er over Amer­i­can copy­right law, agree? That remains to be seen.

To Glenn Beck fans who dou­ble as OC read­ers (if we have any), I apol­o­gize in advance.

via Alec Couros (aka @courosa)

Hear The Epic of Gilgamesh Read in the Original Akkadian and Enjoy the Sounds of Mesopotamia

in History | October 1st, 2010

Long ago, in the ancient civ­i­liza­tion of Mesopotamia, Akka­di­an was the dom­i­nant lan­guage. And, for cen­turies, it remained the lin­gua fran­ca in the Ancient Near East. But then it was grad­u­al­ly squeezed out by Ara­ma­ic, and it fad­ed into obliv­ion once Alexan­der the Great Hel­l­enized (Greek­i­fied) the region.

Now, 2,000+ years lat­er, Akka­di­an is mak­ing a small come­back. At Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, Dr. Mar­tin Wor­thing­ton, an expert in Baby­lon­ian and Assyr­i­an gram­mar, has start­ed record­ing read­ings of poems, myths and oth­er texts in Akka­di­an, includ­ing The Epic of Gil­gamesh. This clip gives you a taste of what Gil­gamesh, one of the ear­li­est known works of lit­er­a­ture, sounds like in its moth­er tongue. Or, you can jump into the full col­lec­tion of read­ings right here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Her­itage Key

Relat­ed Con­tent:

World Lit­er­a­ture in 13 Parts: From Gil­gamesh to Gar­cía Márquez

The Ancient His­to­ry Learn­ing Guide

What Ancient Greek Music Sound­ed Like: Hear a Recon­struc­tion That is ‘100% Accu­rate’