Monday Movies – Manhattan to Tokyo

A couple of movies combining motion and time lapse footage of Manhattan, and that other great metropolis, Tokyo. These are both from the Blue Eden page on Vimeo.

I haven’t been able to find out much about the people or person behind Blue Eden. The YouTube page was only set up at the beginning of December 2011, and the first Twitter post only went ‘live’ on January 4, 2012, so Blue Eden is definitely the new kid on the block . However, the quality of the three films produced so far, leave no doubt that the ‘kid’ may be new, but s/he certainly knows how to make a good first impression.

The information below is taken from that provided on Blue Eden’s Vimeo page.

Manhattan
A city that glows long after the light has faded. It seems people are always moving in and out of New York in pursuit of dreams. The city comes alive at night, as if unsatisfied to simply sleep. Many of us will leave one day, perhaps when we finally awaken, but those blurry lights continue to inspire long after.

I filmed this over one week in the winter. Scenes include Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Times Square, Grand Central, Wall Street, Met Museum, American Museum of Natural History, and the 9/11 Memorial.

Music: "Circuits" by The American Dollar.

New York "Afterglow" from Blue Eden on Vimeo.

Kyoto
I first visited Tokyo nearly 10 years ago and was swept away by its futuristic society steeped in ancient culture. The beautiful mix of new and old still entrance me today. We hoped to capture that beauty and filmed for 2 weeks in Tokyo and its surrounding areas. As we visited during the New Year, we were lucky to attend the "dezuiri" sumo ring-entering ceremony, which you'll see in the opening shot. We also captured "yumi hajime" (first archery practice of the year) as well as "hatsumode" (first shrine visit of the year) at Asakusa.

Other shots include Shinjuku, Shibuya, Roppongi Hills, Meiji Shrine, Rainbow Bridge at Odaiba, Tokyo Tower, Tsukiji fish market, Yokohama, Mount Fuji, Lake Kawaguchi, and Nikko world-heritage shrines. Music by Stephen Anderson.

Kyoto "Rising Dawn" from Blue Eden on Vimeo.

More Information
Blue Eden on Vimeo… 
Blue Eden on Facebook… 
Blue Eden on Twitter…

Also check out Blue Eden’s other Japan film, Kyoto HD "Rising Dawn" Technical information about the making of each video is available on Blue Eden’s Vimeo page. Finally, thanks to Blog Top Sites for bringing this to our attention.

Monday Movies - Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut



Screen grab from Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut

Just one movie for you today, and it’s great as it is bizarre, surreal, and funny.

In 2009, Vimeo developer Casey Pugh had a dream: to create an entire remake of the original Star Wars: A New Hope using only 15 second fan-made clips; they could recreate the scenes whichever way they wanted, whether using action figures, beer bottles, animation or dogs. Now, a 2010 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media later, the entire crowd-sourced project has been completed.

You can see the completed fan-made Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut, below. The two hour film includes animation, live action, puppets, Lego figures, and the weirdest collection of 15 second clips ever assembled into one delightful pastiche that pays tribute to George Lucas’s groundbreaking film.

Thanks to Gothamist for bringing this to my attention.

Monday Movies – The Vanishing El

The elevated line at Broadway and 125th Street

If you are a keen moviegoer like I am, you will almost certainly be familiar with the elevated railway lines that are used to such great effect in films like The French Connection, Saturday Night Fever, and the opening credits of Welcome Back Kotter. While most of the elevated lines in New York City (colloquially referred to as the ‘El’), have long disappeared from Manhattan, wonderful examples of these amazing engineering works can still be seen in Queens and Brooklyn. However, a short section of elevated line for the ‘1’ Train still soars high above Broadway and 125th Street in Harlem.

Manhattan’s most famous surviving section of elevated line today must surely be the formerly abandoned, by now newly renovated west side line. This has undergone a new lease of life, and been reborn as the incredibly popular High Line (see Walking The High Line, Street View Comes to The High Line, and here...). All of which serves to introduce today’s series of Monday Movies featuring the former Third Avenue El.

If Things Could Talk: The Vanishing ‘El’ [10:00]

As the name implies, the Third Avenue El, ran the length of Manhattan’s Third Avenue before crossing over into the Bronx. The first segments of the line opened in Manhattan in 1878, and service continued before the line was eventually shut down in stages – beginning with the Manhattan sections in the 1950s – before the complete shut down of the Bronx section in 1973.

The Third Avenue El was featured in a number of films, including The Lost Weekend (1945),The Naked City (1948), On the Town (1949), The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), and On the Bowery (1956).

The 3rd Avenue El [10:39]

In this film a beatnik photographer with a tripod, a stumbling drunk from the old Bowery, a giddy little girl travelling with her father, and a couple on a romantic excursion help create a loose narrative of life on the old El.

See more films at: http://www.weirdovideo.com 

Monday Movies – January 2, 2012

~ I have said it before, but it doesn’t hurt to  repeat it from time to time: the world really is a beautiful place, and the two films I have selected today for the Monday Movies reflect that very much. The first is a stunning seven minute NASA video of footage shot from the international space station and presumably from various Space Shuttle flights. The video is narrated by Dr. Justin Wilkinson from NASA's astronaut team.

In the film you can see some of the planet’s most impressive landscapes, including the coast of Namibia, Tunisia and Madagascar, along with Sicily, China, the Zagros mountains in Iran, Australia’s Gulf of Carpenteria, and the Great Salt Lake in Utah to name some of the birds-eye views on offer.

The second video is less than three minutes in length, but shows a full year in the life of our nearest neighbour – the moon. The time-lapse footage is quite hypnotic, but for me the real impact comes from comparing the views that both films offer of life in our universe. The stark contrast between the ever changing, blue, green and red landscape that is our beautiful planet, with that of the bare pockmarked surface of the moon, is frighteningly obvious.

As I said about another recent Monday Movie featuring different footage from the International Space Station:

"... if you think we humans are going to find a better place elsewhere in the universe – you are kidding yourself. This is it. This really is as good as it gets, and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can focus on protecting the planet, and doing everything possible to ensure it, and we, survive for many future generations."

Touring The Earth From Space

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A Year in The Life of The Moon 

If you were stuck somewhere far away from the recent lunar eclipse, here’s some consolation courtesy of NASA. The Scientific Visualization Studio at the Goddard Space Flight Center has put together this two and a half minute video from over a year’s worth of data recorded by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which has been orbiting the moon at 50 kilometers above its surface for over a year.

Related Content:

Touring the Earth from Space (in HD)

The Best of NASA Space Shuttle Videos (1981-2010)

Thanks to Open Culture for bring this to our attention.

Monday Movies: Manhattan in Motion

A couple of time lapse videos that although completely different, nevertheless manage to compliment each other. The first is a beautifully shot video of Manhattan recorded at various times across multiple days and nights. The other, a somewhat surreal piece showing the slow decay and transformation that an ant colony wreaks on an old scanner.

 Manhattan in Motion Time Lapse

Josh ‘Getting My Time Lapse On’ Owens publishes his videos under the Mindrelic pseudonym.

Apart from his page on Vimeo from where this video was sourced, Josh can be found on Twitter, Facebook, RedBubble and his Mindrelic website. However, other than that he appears to be from Rochester, New York, none of these websites offer any insight or information about Josh. Nor does he try to explain why he makes his films or what he hopes to achieve by their creation. He seems happy to let the videos ‘speak’ for themselves. So without further ado, here is Manhattan in Motion...

Mindrelic - Manhattan in motion from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

More information
www.mindrelic.com
www.vimeo.com/mindrelic
www.twitter.com/mindrelic
www.facebook.com/Mindrelicphotography

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Ants in My Scanner Time Lapse

Describing Ants in My Scanner as “… an exploration of the aesthetic of life and degradation”, Paris based François Vautier, the creator of this short video explains that five years ago he…

"…installed an ant colony inside my old scanner that allowed me to scan in high definition this ever evolving microcosm (animal, vegetable and mineral). The resulting clip is a close-up examination of how these tiny beings live in this unique ant farm. I observed how decay and corrosion slowly but surely invaded the internal organs of the scanner. Nature gradually takes hold of this completely synthetic environment.”

Vautier (whose work was presented at the WORLD EXPO Shanghai 2010), adds that the ants are still alive, and that the process of recording the colony continues.

ANTS in my scanner > a five years time-lapse! from françois vautier on Vimeo.

Music : Franks - Infected Mushroom.

More information

www.francoisvautier.tumblr.com/

Monday Movie: HDR Skies

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French photographer Tanguy Louvigny created the time-lapse film embedded below of Normandy and Brittany using High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging techniques. As you can see from the screen grab above, the footage – and the countryside – looks absolutely stunning, and Louvigny has generously made the above image, and half-a-dozen others, available for download as wallpapers for your computer desktop.

Films like this sometimes make me wonder if there is any point travelling to see the regions depicted in these homemade films for myself. After all, one would have to sit – in some instances – for hours to observe the same scenes. On the other hand, watching videos like the one here can lead to a growing sense of frustration knowing that life is too short, and no matter how much money you have, you will never have enough time to see all the beautiful places on this small blue planet.

Ultimately, more than anything else, these videos stir the wanderlust in me, and regardless of money or time, I am left counting down the months, weeks and days until my next journey.

For more information regarding how Louvigny creates his films, and the gear he uses, go to his website and Vimeo page.

Thanks to Open Culture for the heads up on this video and Louvigny’s delightful film.

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Hdr skies from Tanguy Louvigny on Vimeo.

Make sure you view the video at full size to see the footage at its best.