Audrey recently acted in her friends and fellow students Tom and Tyler’s 16mm short film “The Pauper and His Wife“. I sure love that black and white film look. Audrey and I have been working with film and archive film for a couple weeks so look for it in coming projects from us!
Longtime readers will know that I day dream a lot about long distance bike adventures, but it’s been a while since I wrote about one.
At MountainFilm in Telluride this year, we had the pleasure of catching this amazing film made by two young French Canadians called Asiemut. The courageous and adventuresome couple, Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier (heros!), bike their way across a significant portion of the Asian continent completely on their own. It’s an amazing film, truly one that inspired me in my own dreams of documenting such an adventure. It’s one of those films that makes you think, ‘damn, you can do anything if you stick your mind to it!’
If you’re planning on doing a trip like this (who isn’t?) they’ve got some great tips on how and where and when to travel on their website. I’m bummed they don’t have a full trailer up on YouTube, though they do have this short clip to give you a sense of the tone of the film:
Asiemut certainly reminded me of my blog buddies, Project Pedal. I’m sure they’ll dig this. Maybe you guys would like to do a bike trip with Audrey and me next? Haha. I can’t wait to see their film!
Since I’m a video nerd, statements like this make me drool (over the possibilities):
We filmed the whole documentary film with a semi-professional camera, mini-dv Sony pdx10, 16:9 format. We traveled with seventy mini-dv tapes and two 360 minutes lithium batteries. We also had one charger, a stool, and a laptop. We took ourselves every single images of our film!
As you can see on the picture below, we had a camera mount that permitted us to film and to speak to the camera as we biked. We created it ourselves in the north of China with the help of two amazing chinese welders. It was attached at the front of our luggage support and was also attached to our handlebar. It was a homemade camera mount, quite heavy, but worked very well!
[Gogol Bordello]
[Vampire Weekend]
We got to enjoy a very relaxing, sunny summer day listening to music outside at Drexel’s campus this past weekend (see all the photos here). The Popped! Music Festival got a lot bigger this year. Last spring we were cramming into small local venues watching great up and coming area bands. This year, it was a full-on festival complete with international musical acts.
My friend Alexis did a great job pulling this thing together over the past year. I helped her out planning a bit early on, so Audrey and I scored some VIP passes and had a good time watching the (ahem) mild debauchery going on back stage.
If you’d like to see some live music clips from the event, check out my music vlog yvynyl live.
As many of you know, Audrey’s in film school at Temple. She’s been doing lots of fun projects for class, and this is one of her first big final projects. I’ve been meaning to post it here for sometime, and I just remembered this morning. The film stars our friend Patrick Gouveia and features the music of our friends Make a Rising (they’ve got a great new album, btw - buy it at their label High Two). Enjoy!
My good buddy Marc Brodzik just launched a new online video channel called Scrapple.tv. It’s a site bringing fresh, interesting and off-the-wall videos from the Philly underground art & music & political scenes.
Marc’s been churning out some amazing shows all year, and his new project is sure to entertain. He is quite a character. I think the Philly Weekly put it best when they said, “Interviewing Marc Brodzik of Scrapple.TV is like wrestling a Tasmanian devil covered in baby oil.”
Here’s the first episode of one their new series called Back2Basics:
I’m lucky(?) because I get to watch a lot of video on the internet. It’s what I get paid to do, which tends to make me a bit jaded at times. But every so often I come across a video that blows my mind. This video is one of those.
The time it took. The energy. The planning. The foresight. The danger. The vision. This is shear and utter genius (plus some good old fashioned hard work).
Blu, whoever you are, I salute you. Applause all around. You will go far.
It’s that freakin’ simple. I love this candidate more than I have loved any other candidate for any office at any level of government. Ever. This man will change the world. He will. Is it just talk? Is it just charisma with no action? It doesn’t matter! He’s offering the one thing I care about. The only thing I’ve been asking for. It’s that simple.
Yes, I’m evangelizing for the guy. Hell yes I am. Why? Because I am so sick and tired of the American government. I’m so disillusioned. I have been so utterly angry for the last decade. So angry at the complacency. The absolute disregard for democracy, for human dignity for the goddamn rights of not only American citizens but the rights of all humans. I feel like we’ve been abused, thrashed about in this hellish nightmare of a Bush administration. It’s been so bad for me, for the last 10 years I’ve been calling myself an anarchist rather than give one ounce of my energy to those f*ing criminals. Finally, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, I feel like we might make a comeback. Finally, I think this country can pull itself together.
Barack Obama is no savior. He’s just a guy. But that guy embodies the one thing I have been aching for: hope.
Okay, [/rant]. Now watch this:
And this:
