Ira Glass, the Host of This American Life, Breaks Down the Fine Art of Storytelling

in Literature, Media, Radio | January 27th, 2011

Since 1995, Ira Glass has host­ed and pro­duced This Amer­i­can Life (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), the award-win­ning radio show that presents mas­ter­ful­ly-craft­ed sto­ries to almost 2 mil­lion lis­ten­ers each week. What’s the secret sauce that goes into mak­ing a great sto­ry, par­tic­u­lar­ly one primed for radio or TV? Glass spells it out in four parts. Watch them all above.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lis­ten to Ira Glass’ 10 Favorite Episodes of This Amer­i­can Life

Ira Glass’ Advice on Achiev­ing Cre­ative Excel­lence Pre­sent­ed in Two Art­ful, Typo­graph­ic Videos

Ira Glass on the Art and Craft of Telling Great Radio Sto­ries

“They Were There” — Errol Morris Finally Directs a Film for IBM

in Business, Film, Technology | January 27th, 2011

In the late 1990s, Errol Mor­ris, the acclaimed direc­tor, was hired to make a film for an “in house” con­fer­ence of IBM employ­ees. Even­tu­al­ly IBM can­celed the con­fer­ence, and the film was scrapped. (Watch a clip of it here.) Now more than a decade lat­er, IBM has brought Mor­ris back, this time to direct a film meant to com­mem­o­rate the 100th anniver­sary of the com­pa­ny’s found­ing. The 30-minute film, They Were There, appears on IBM’s YouTube Chan­nel, and it notably fea­tures music by Philip Glass.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Novem­ber 22, 1963: Watch Errol Mor­ris’ Short Doc­u­men­tary About the Kennedy Assas­si­na­tion

Film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris Gives Us “11 Excel­lent Rea­sons Not to Vote?”

Errol Mor­ris Med­i­tates on the Mean­ing and His­to­ry of Abra­ham Lincoln’s Last Pho­to­graph

Beyond the Still: The Largest Online Collaborative Film Contest

in Art, Film | January 26th, 2011

A year ago, Canon launched a con­test called “The Sto­ry Beyond the Still,” which encour­aged pho­tog­ra­phers to become film­mak­ers, and help view­ers see “beyond the still” image. Fast for­ward twelve months and we have the final result: A col­lab­o­ra­tive film, now being pre­miered at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, that stitch­es togeth­er “chap­ters” (or film sequences) cre­at­ed by six con­test-win­ning artists, all under the direc­tion of Vin­cent Laforet. Each chap­ter ends with a still image that cre­ates the jump­ing-off point for the next chap­ter, giv­ing one artist the chance to pick up where a pre­vi­ous artist left off. The com­plete col­lab­o­ra­tive film (above) runs 37 min­utes. You can find more con­test-win­ning video on Vimeo right here.

via @webacion

The State of Wikipedia Animated

in Wikipedia | January 25th, 2011

Amidst the cel­e­bra­tion of Wikipedi­a’s 10th anniver­sary, Jim­my Wales has nar­rat­ed an ani­mat­ed his­to­ry of the web-based ency­clo­pe­dia, and where he sees it head­ing in the future. One place you can expect to find Wikipedia going (some­thing slight­ly hint­ed at here) is the class­room. In the months ahead, look for Wikipedia to devel­op an “open edu­ca­tion­al resource plat­form” that will help stu­dents make bet­ter use of Wikipedia in the class­room, if not con­tribute to writ­ing stronger articles/entries. The Wired Cam­pus has more on this new ini­tia­tive com­ing down the pike.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Big Thinkers on Wikipedia’s 10th Anniver­sary

16 Free Hitchcock Movies Online

in | January 24th, 2011

Alfred Hitch­cock, the mas­ter of sus­pense, direct­ed more than 50 fea­ture films dur­ing his long career. Today, his work is admired world­wide, and he’s con­sid­ered one of our finest direc­tors. Although many of his land­mark films remain copy­right­ed, some of his impor­tant works, par­tic­u­lar­ly his ear­ly ones, have slipped into the pub­lic domain. And so we have cat­a­logued 16 Alfred Hitch­cock films that you can watch online – for free.

All Hitch­cock films appear in our big meta col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. You might also par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoy our col­lec­tion of Free Noir Films.

• Black­mail — Free — Eng­land’s first “talkie” fea­ture film, star­ring Anny Ondra, John Long­den, and Cyril Ritchard. (1929)
• Bon Voy­age — Free — A French lan­guage WWII pro­pa­gan­da film by Alfred Hitch­cock. (1944)
• Down­hill — Free — In this silent film, a pub­lic school­boy “takes the blame for a friend’s theft and his life falls apart in a series of mis­ad­ven­tures.” Also released under the title, When Boys Leave Home. (1927)
• Easy Virtue - Free — Ear­ly silent film direct­ed by Alfred Hitch­cock. Loose­ly based on a play by Noël Cow­ard. (1928)
• Jamaica Inn - Free — A young woman dis­cov­ers that she’s liv­ing near a gang of crim­i­nals who arrange ship­wrecks for prof­it. Stars Mau­reen O’Hara, Robert New­ton and Charles Laughton. (1939)
• Mem­o­ry of the Camps — Free — An attempt to revive a World War II film meant to doc­u­ment the Holo­caust. Hitch­cock was involved with the orig­i­nal project. (1985)
• Sab­o­tage – Free – Alfred Hitch­cock directs this British thriller based on Joseph Conrad’s nov­el The Secret Agent. Also released as The Woman Alone. (1936)
• Secret Agent - Free — Direct­ed by Alfred Hitch­cock, this film was loose­ly based on sto­ries by W. Som­er­set Maugh­am. Stars John Giel­gud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Car­roll and Robert Young. (1936)
• The 39 Steps — Free — One of Alfred Hitchcock’s first hits. British thriller is based on the nov­el with same name by John Buchan. (1935)
• The Lodger: A Sto­ry of the Lon­don Fog - Free — One of Hitchcock’s silent clas­sics. A land­la­dy sus­pects her lodger is a mur­der­er killing women around Lon­don. It’s said that this is Hitch­cock­’s first “Hitch­cock­ian” film. (1927)
• The Manx­man – Free – Hitchcock’s last silent film. (1929)
• The Plea­sure Gar­den — Free — After sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts, Hitch­cock made his solo direc­to­r­i­al debut in the Ger­­man-British co-pro­­duc­­tion based on a nov­el by Oliv­er Sandys.
• The Skin Game — Free — A 1931 Hitch­cock film based on a play by John Galswor­thy recounts the trag­ic tale of a fam­i­ly feud. (1931)
• Waltzes From Vien­na - Free — Alfred Hitch­cock told Fran­cois Truf­faut that this film (about the writ­ing and per­for­mance of The Blue Danube) was the low point of his film career. (1934)
• Young and Inno­cent — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly released in the US as The Girl Was Young, this Alfred Hitch­cock film was based on Josephine Tey’s nov­el A Shilling for Can­dles. (1937)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Alfred Hitch­cock Make Cameo Appear­ances in 37 of His Films (Plus Free Hitch­cock Films Online)

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound

1000 Frames of Hitch­cock: See Each of Alfred Hitchcock’s 52 Films Reduced to 1,000 Artis­tic Frames

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rules for Watch­ing Psy­cho (1960)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

37 Hitch­cock Cameos over 50 Years: All in One Video

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound

John Wayne: 26 Free Western Films Online

in Film | January 24th, 2011

32 years after his death, John Wayne (né Mar­i­on Mor­ri­son) remains a tremen­dous­ly pop­u­lar movie star. Accord­ing to a Har­ris Poll tak­en ear­li­er this month (Jan­u­ary 2011), Amer­i­cans still rank The Duke as their third most favorite actor, putting him right behind John­ny Depp and Den­zel Wash­ing­ton. No doubt about it, the leg­end of John Wayne con­tin­ues to grow. And hap­pi­ly you can find a gold mine of John Wayne West­ern films online – all free. Today, we have pulled togeth­er a list of 25 films that span five decades of work, mov­ing from the 1930s to the 1970s. You can find them all oth­er­wise list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

• Angel and the Bad­man - Free — A black and white West­ern star­ring John Wayne and Gail Rus­sell. Con­sid­ered a rad­i­cal depar­ture from the West­ern genre at the time. Find Inter­net Archive ver­sion here. (1947)
• Blue Steel – Free – John Wayne plays a U.S. Mar­shal try­ing to cap­ture the Pol­ka Dot Ban­dit. Some con­sid­er it the best of the John Wayne Lone Star films. (1934)
• Born to the West — Free — Can Dare Rudd prove he is respon­si­ble enough to win the heart of Judy and also out­wit the crooked saloon own­er? Stars John Wayne, Mar­sha Hunt and John Mack Brown.

• Fron­tier Hori­zon - Free — The Three Mes­que­teers try to pre­vent whole­sale slaugh­ter in this fine Repub­lic West­ern. Stars John Wayne, Ray “Crash” Cor­ri­g­an, and Ray­mond Hat­ton. (1939)
• Hell­town — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly called “Born to the West,” this John Wayne West­ern was based on a nov­el by Zane Grey, an impor­tant author of West­ern nov­els. (1937)
• McLin­tock! — Free — Com­e­dy West­ern star­ring John Wayne and Mau­reen O’Hara. Loose­ly based on Shakespeare’s The Tam­ing of the Shrew. (1963)
• ‘Neath the Ari­zona Skies — Free — John Wayne plays a cow­boy pro­tect­ing an oil-land heiress. (1934)
• Par­adise Canyon — Free — Fea­tures Wayne as “gov­ern­ment agent John Wyatt who search­es for a coun­ter­feit ring oper­at­ing on the Mexican/Arizona bor­der.” (1935)
• Rain­bow Val­ley — Free — John Mar­tin (John Wayne) is a “gov­ern­ment agent work­ing under cov­er. Lead­ing cit­i­zen Mor­gan calls in gun­man Butch Galt (Buf­fa­lo Bill Jr.) who blows Mar­t­in’s cov­er.” Find the YouTube ver­sion here. (1935)
• Randy Rides Alone – Free – Jailed for mur­ders he didn’t com­mit, Randy Bow­ers (John Wayne) escapes only to stum­ble into the den of the real mur­der­ers. Enter­tain­ing ear­ly Wayne West­ern. (1934)
• Rid­ers of Des­tiny -Free — John Wayne por­trays Sin­gin’ Sandy Saun­ders and has a rep­u­ta­tion as the most noto­ri­ous gun­man since Bil­ly the Kid. Wayne was the first singing cow­boy, but his singing was dubbed, and it was the last time he “sang” in a West­ern. (1933)
• Sage­brush Trail — Free — John Wayne plays John Brant who escapes from jail after being wrong­ly accused of mur­der. Fea­tures great stage­coach chase. (1933)

• Texas Ter­ror — Free – A young John Wayne in a roman­tic West­ern. (1935)
• The Dawn Rid­er - Free — John Wayne plays John Mason, a man aveng­ing his father’s mur­der. A West­ern direct­ed by Robert Brad­bury. (1935)
• The Desert Trail - Free — Ear­ly West­ern with John Wayne. Accord­ing to West­ern­Clip­pings, not Wayne’s finest hour. (1935)
• The Law­less Fron­tier - Free – B West­ern star­ring John Wayne and direct­ed by Robert Brad­bury. (1934)
• The Lucky Tex­an – Free — Jer­ry Mason (played by John Wayne) and Jake Ben­son become part­ners and strike it rich with a gold mine. (1934)
• The Man From Utah - Free – The Mar­shal sends John West­on (John Wayne) to a “rodeo to see if he can find out who is killing the rodeo rid­ers who are about to win prize mon­ey.” (1934)
• The Range Feud — Free — Clint Turn­er is arrest­ed for the mur­der of his girl­friend Judy’s father, a rival ranch­er who was an ene­my of his own father. Stars John Wayne and Buck Jones. (1931)
• The Star Pack­er - Free – “A gang work­ing for ‘The Shad­ow’ is ter­ror­iz­ing the town. John Tra­vers (John Wayne) decides to take on the job of sher­iff and do some­thing about it.” (1934)
• The Trail Beyond — Free – West­ern star­ring John Wayne, Noah Beery, Sr., and Noah Beery, Jr. (1934)
• Two Fist­ed Law - Free — After Rob Rus­sell steals Tim Clark’s ranch, Clark starts prospect­ing for sil­ver. Stars John Wayne and Tim McCoy. (1932)
• War of the Wild­cats - Free – John Wayne stars in a West­ern also released under the title In Old Okla­homa. One of Wayne’s bet­ter post-Stage­coach per­for­mances. (1943)
• West of the Divide – Free – A young John Wayne in a B West­ern. (1934)
• Winds of the Waste­land — Free — The arrival of the tele­graph put Pony Express rid­ers like John Blair (John Wayne) and his pal Smoky (Lane Chan­dler) out of work they try to start a stage­coach route through a ghost town. A rival stage­coach com­pa­ny tries to stop them. (1936)

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!

The Poetry of Photographer Milton Rogovin

in Art | January 23rd, 2011

Before the week comes to an offi­cial close, we want­ed to remem­ber and cel­e­brate the life of Mil­ton Rogovin, a social doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er who, in the tra­di­tion of Walk­er Evans, used his cam­era to cham­pi­on the under­priv­i­leged — the work­ing poor and the under­class­es liv­ing in the Unit­ed States and beyond. He died this past week at the old age of 101. The New York Times revis­its his work in this obit­u­ary, and the short video above gives you a glimpse of the man and his body of work.

Alcohol in its Microscopic Splendor

in Art, Random | January 21st, 2011

Who knew that alco­hol could take on such beau­ty? What looks like abstract art above is actu­al­ly your every­day Cos­mopoli­tan. And, with­in this larg­er col­lec­tion, you will dis­cov­er the micro­scop­ic beau­ty of The Bloody Mary, Dry Mar­ti­ni, Pina Cola­da, Sake, Tequi­la, Vod­ka Ton­ic, Whiskey, and White Russ­ian. For more micro pho­tog­ra­phy, check out the win­ner of the 2010 Nikon Inter­na­tion­al Small World Pho­tomi­crog­ra­phy Com­pe­ti­tion, and our post ear­li­er this week, The First Snowflake Pho­tos (1885).

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The First Snowflake Photos (1885)

in Art, Photography | January 19th, 2011

Back on a Ver­mont farm in 1885, Wil­son A. Bent­ley attached a micro­scope to a bel­lows cam­era and became the first per­son to pho­to­graph an indi­vid­ual snowflake. Two decades lat­er, he sent 500 prints of his snowflakes to the Smith­son­ian, where they still remain. (View some here.) And then, yet anoth­er two decades lat­er, he pub­lished a book packed with 2,400 snowflake images. NPR’s web site has more of Bent­ley’s work on dis­play. And, of course, you can find an entire trib­ute site ded­i­cat­ed to his win­tery work…

Fractal Landscape

in Science, Video - Science | January 19th, 2011

An evolv­ing frac­tal land­scape, all cre­at­ed with a WebGL 3D frac­tal ren­der­er. If you join/log into Vimeo, you can down­load the video right here and watch “Sur­face Detail” in full detail…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Arthur C. Clarke Presents the Col­ors of Infin­i­ty