David Edelstein's 13 Best Movies of 2004

David Edelstein of Slate has revealed what he considers The 13 Best Movies of 2004.

Village Voice: Take 6 -- 2004 Film Poll

The Village Voice has their sixth annual 2004 Film Poll Winners that poll film critics to find out what films they thought were the best of the year.

MCN 2004 Top Tens

Movie City News 2004 Top Tens compile many critics top ten lists together as well as a big table with all sorts of top ten data as well as the lists of the worst films of 2004.

Canada's Top Ten 2004

Canada's Top Ten 2004 is a list of the top ten Canadian films that is chosen by a panel assembled by the Toronto International Film Festival Group. Hopefully we'll be able to see more of these films as the year goes on.

Roger Ebert's Best Films of 2004

Roger Ebert gives us his list of the Best Films of 2004 on his site. I like how Ebert has a "Special Jury Prize" section where he lists films that aren't in the top 10, but are too good for second prize.

indieWIRE's Top Ten Lists for 2004

indieWIRE's Top Ten Lists for 2004 is a good place to start with the best films of the year. I'll post some more of these later, but what were the best films that you saw last year?

People and Their Cookies

I've finally uploaded the pictures of People With Their Gingerbread Cookies so you can see some of the fun that we had at the end of the term with the cookies that were decorated for the filmmakers of Screen Arts.

CC Mixter

CC Mixter is the companion site to the Creative Commons sampling initiative based around the WIRED Magazine CD that you can sample and remix. The site lets you share your mixes and enter contests to win prizes and show up on other CDs.

Lauenstein & Lauenstein Filmproduktion

Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein create distinctive 3-D animation that combines claymation, puppetry and computer animation under their company name of Lauenstein & Lauenstein Filmproduktion. They created what has to be my favourite short animation of all time, which is "Balance" and you can see that along with some of their other work at their site. Amazing, talented and unique.

Brit Film Future Is Digital

Wired News has a story that says Brit Film Future Is Digital which tells of the Digital Screen Network which is installing digital video projectors into British cinemas to help increase the number of films made in the UK that are seen there. That's something that would be great for us here in Canada.

Going Deep With Wes Anderson

Going Deep With Wes Anderson is an article in Paste Magazine about filmmaker Wes Anderson who has a new film (The Life Aquatic) that will be around here soon.

Screen Arts December Screening

Projector and Screen,
originally uploaded by Chris Campbell.

I was very proud and happy to be able to attend the screening that Shannon organized on December 16. Only a portion of the work from the term was screened, but it was great with a packed house and enthusiastic audience. The perfect way to end the term and a reminder of why it's fun to teach talented people. I've also posted some of the photos I've taken in a set on Flickr creatively named Screen Arts Screening December 2004.

Cookies for Screen Arts

Cookies,
originally uploaded by Chris Campbell.

In Media Workshop class today we gave out cookies decorated to look like the wonderful members of the Screen Arts community. I took some pictures while they were decorated.

Elimination Dance

Elimination Dance is a great short film by Bruce McDonald based on a poem by Michael Ondaatje. It's an odd film that is visually adventurous and funny. You can see it on the Zed site.

Tool Time at Pixar

Tool Time at Pixar is an article in Millimeter about an in-house tool that Pixar developed to help in the production of The Incredibles. It's a neat tool that allows you to superimpose sketches over an image to help in communicating ideas and changes visually.

To make ammends...

An interesting, albeit short, article on Stanley Kubrick's film "Barry Lyndon" and the advanced radical that is a Zeiss 50mm f/0.7 lens. NASA made, don't you know.

Vu d'ici - 10 reasons why blogging is good for you

On Vu d'ici I found 10 reasons why blogging is good for you, which is another great summary of why people blog and why you should be blogging. Her blog also makes me miss living in Montreal...

Woody Allen's Typeface

Some filmmakers have a distinctive visual style that shows up in the type that they use. Woody Allen's Typeface is an examination of the titles of some Woody Allen films by Scott Steffens on Contact Sheet.

Stanley Kubrick and the Future of Graphic Design

Stanley Kubrick and the Future of Graphic Design is an entry on Design Observer about Stanley Kubrick's graphic design in his film, with particular attention to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Art of Ken Adam

The Art of Ken Adam is a showcase of the production design by Ken Adam for seven of the James Bond movies as well as Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove. The distinctive look of the early Bond films set the standard for the series and is still influential in more modern films such as The Incredibles who draw on the same look for the villian's headquarters.

Pause Online: Music Videos

Pause Online: Music Videos is a collection of music videos that you can watch as part of the submarine channel. Great stuff that you can view by artist or director with videos directed by Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and others as well as videos from bands such as the Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Beck, Bjork, and many others. There are also interviews with many of the directors. A great way to spend a lot of time!

Guardian Unlimited Film 2004

The Guardian Unlimited Film section has their 2004 in Review which collects together the top film-related stories for the year. A great way to start thinking about that list of the best films of the year that many of us will be writing soon.

How we work

How we work is a neat collection of snippets describing the process that various artists follow from rodcorp.

Color Correction/Finishing in FCP 4

Ken Stone's site is filled with fantastic tips for using Final Cut Pro and there is a great article by Andrew Balis on Color Correction/Finishing in FCP 4 that has lots of information and practical examples.

Fredo Viola - The Sad Song

Fredo Viola - The Sad Song is featured in ZoneZero magazine. I saw (and heard) Fredo Viola's amazing video and music a while ago, but I forgot about it. There is a Flash version of the video (as well as a higher-res version) that shows what a talented artist can do with simple tools. Go and look and listen and be amazed.

We the Media

We the Media is a book and site by Dan Gillmor that explores how grassroots journalism is changing the way we get the news. The blog has information and news about the book, but the entire book is available in an online version, but you can also buy the hardcover version from O'Reilly.

31d1

31d1 is an electronic musician with a site were you can listen and watch what he's made and it's made even better with a Creative Commons non-commercial licenses for the beats, loops and mixes that are there. It's good when people share.

(Via Creative Commons.)

FilmSound.org

FilmSound.org is a great site by Sven E Carlsson that provides a collection of articles and tips for designing sound for film. The site has a solid glossary of sound terms and some definitive articles concerning sound by Randy Thom and Walter Murch.

Acadia Theatre in Wolfville

Acadia Theatre Marquee at Night,
originally uploaded by Chris Campbell.

The Acadia Theatre in Wolfville is now open. It is owned by the Acadia Cinema Coop and they show films from the Fundy Film Society. I went to see "Shaun of the Dead" there last night. There are very, very few repetory cinemas around and it's wonderful that there is one that I can walk to!

People Like Us

Collage artist Vicki Bennett works under the name people like us and creates wonderful audio and video works using sampling and found footage. She's inspiring and funny and talented. You can see and hear most of what she's done on her site and can also listen to the archive of her WFMU radio show, Do or DIY.

Negativland

NegativWorldWideWebland is the web site of Negativland, a group of culture jammers who have been working together since 1980. They coined the term, "culture jamming" in 1984 and have creative a series of memorable collage and appropriated works that have resulted in two lawsuits, including one related to the band U2. Read, listen and explore Negativland's space.

Untold Stories

Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers is a report by the Center for Social Media that looks at getting permission to use various materials in filmmaking. Very relevent for the documentarians out there.

Peter Wintonick interviewed on The Arts Tonight

Eleanor Wachtel interviewed film-maker Peter Wintonick on CBC Radio One tonight. She hosts a show called The Arts Tonight which airs at 10:00 pm every weekday evening. Good timing for me cause I get off work at 10. It was very interesting hearing the discussions between the two. They talked about the same issues that Janet and Chris talk about in class. It was great to hear it from the man himself. I went on The Arts Tonight Website to see if they had the broadcast available to download or stream, but to my disappointment, they don't.