And She Stares Longingly at What She Has Lost

This film is beautiful and it is a pleasure to see it in the best sound design category because audio is such an important part of this clip. Though the audio is dominated by a song, the effect sounds never overwhelm. The extreme restraint and subtlety employed by the filmmakers is impressive on their own merits. More impressive, though, is the song selection, which evokes romance, tragedy and loss, the main themes of the work.

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Bush Cross Dressing

This video is crap. That is to say it looks like garbage. But what an ending! The final makeup shot is very well done. Strong concept, though a little overplayed.

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Death of a Language

Breaking the trend of great videos, I wanted to post this. The last speaker of a native Alaskan language has died at age 89.

It seems to me that we have been warned repeatedly that this is happening and will continue to happen. And though it doesn't make a lot of practical sense to get too worked up about it, the loss of a language is the loss of a history and a culture.

Would the preservation of an endangered language be useful in the future? Doubtlessly to historians and anthropologists. Does the disappearance of languages say anything about us today? Aren't we supposed to be embracing diversity and letting the global cultural market flourish?

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Circle Squared

Circle Squared is a beautiful animated short. It is simple, well-executed, and clever. The art design (clean, minimalist) and the sound editing are two strong elements contributing to this clip's success. I do wonder why the tiger thing died, and what a crocodile is doing near a corn farm, but really, these are minor questions.

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Be a man

WOW. This is too funny. Check your balls. Carpe Testes.

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Evidence of My Existence

This video is perfect. The narration is smart, swift, and informative, assuming you already understand the world well enough to skip over the basic and move deep into the terrain of Lo Scazlo's photo subjects. The editing is tight, especially for someone with a photographer's background, and the final chapter about his son is beautiful. The notion of exploring LoScazlo's Evidence of Existence is a smart concept created by a highly talented artist.

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Getting Away With Murder

Wow. I loved this. It's something like Reservoir Dogs crossbred with Curb Your Enthusiasm. It makes no sense, but the story is so full-bodied and insane, I can't help but slam my fist against the table and shout 'Yes!' This is something good, something new, and something engaging. My only question is, why is the FBI Agent doing an HST impression?

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Webby Awards

For the next few days I'll be working as a reviewer for the Webbys. My job is to watch internet videos and give some feedback. Whenever I find an interesting clip, I'm going to post it here. I wanted to start with one that relates to the VJ theme, though future video clips probably won't.

This comes from Rocketboom and features Ruud Elmendorp as the VJ. If you've seen my presentation, you might recognize him as the VJ behind the God's Army piece. He won the 2006 VJ Award for International reporting, and this clip shows he is still doing some great work.

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