The PBS Newshour Art Beat reports that students of Haiti’s only film school, Ciné Institute, have kept filming after the earthquake, shooting and editing despite their own personal circumstances. Ciné Institute Students Effort from Ciné Institute on Vimeo. Learn more Ciné Institute Ciné Institute online videos at Vimeo Conversation: Students from Haiti’s Only Film School [...]

In live sand animation, sand is lit from underneath using a lightbox and manipulated by an artist in real time to create images. This performance can be projected for a live audience or filmed. Many commercials have been popping up lately which use sand animation. Who are these artists? There are four well-known sand animators [...]

This great animation, by the artist Blu, is drawn and erased frame by frame on real walls and buildings in Baden and Buenos Aires. Visit the artist Blu’s web site.

In a series of short flashes, either by flashlight or hand signals or other means, Yoko Ono would like you to flash in this sequence: 1 flash. 2 flashes. 3 flashes. Which now means I Love You. Flash it from rooftops, from ships at sea, at parties and clubs, across a shop, to people on [...]

In all the news reports of record-breaking crowds gathering to recreate Thriller’s signature dance sequence from beginning to end, I’ve heard no mention of Michael Peters, who choreographed Thriller with Michael Jackson. Michael Peters was an award winning choreographer, winning Tonys and Emmys for his work, including choreography for Donna Summer’s Love to Love You [...]

The Computer Chronicles series ran for 20 years, covering the new and ever-changing world of computers for a broad audience. In 1987, they presented a show titled Computers and the Arts.

A great look at a film detail often overlooked, but very important to a sci-fi film’s greatness… the design of hallways. From Den of Geek, In Praise of the Sci-fi Corridor: Corridors make science-fiction believable, because they’re so utilitarian by nature – really they’re just a conduit to get from one (often overblown) set to [...]

Support for the filmmakers… Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

On The Muppet Show, Animal battles Buddy Rich. Until I saw this clip, I didn’t know the musician who performed Animal’s drumming was Ronnie Verrell. This is some amazing drumming. Get The Muppets.

I’ve noticed for quite some time that most media web sites and newspapers do not have an Arts section. The closest you find is Entertainment. The meaning of these two is of course very different, not because art can’t be entertaining, it can be. But art often has more purpose to it than that. By [...]

Throwing some support to the filmmakers out there, here’s a short film for today. Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

The current issue of Wired is all about manga – how the industry works and how it conquered America. Two stories: (pdf) How Manga Conquered the U.S., a Graphic Guide to Japan’s Coolest Export, the story of Manga in the US told using Manga. Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex Read some manga and [...]

The other day, though not in the rest of the post, I linked to the New York Times story discussing that the studio had tested their own cut of Across the Universe without Julie Taymor’s knowledge. I don’t know how that turned out, but it must be mostly ok because her name is still on [...]

YouTube and Google have just provided a new way for filmmakers and small independent studios to distribute their work and, importantly, get paid for it. It’s a great new model. I’m just testing it out and experimenting now, just to see how it goes. This one has animation and other short films from various studios [...]

Negativland is a group that creates mash-ups of existing music, sound and video. They have been sued for this, but believe firmly that art belongs to society. They are releasing a compilation of their work, Our Favorite Things, which properly has been mashed up yet again by other artists. They started doing this pre-YouTube and [...]