Perhaps it’s a kind of personal central heating method but even though we are entering into a very cold snow filled December I’ve been watching a few surf movies. ‘Big Wednesday’ has to be one of my favorite surf movies ever.
I recently watched the Janet Street-Porter episode of ‘The Genius of British Art‘ on 4OD and absolutely loved it! The episode begins and ends in St Ives Cornwall, one of my favorite places in the world not just for art but for surfing and it’s beautiful setting. Janet begins her exploration of modern British art by introducing St Ives as the place that she first fell in love with British art, I could quite easily say the same for myself. The episode also ends with Janet talking about ‘The Dark Monarch‘ exhibition in the Tate St Ives at the end of 2009. The image above is of Janet stood in the entrance hall in-front of Patrick Heron’s large stained glass permanent feature and Damien Hirst’s unicorn piece which in my opinion was the perfect magical way to start the ‘The Dark Monarch‘ exhibition. The Dark Monarch is also the title of a book by Sven Berlin, since reading it I have become almost obsessed with his other works which give a great insight into the transformation of British Art in the mid 20th Century and of the artist himself.
Recently came back from an amazing trip to New York to see Stella Kim (will post photos soon) and was reminded of one of my favourite childhood cartoons ‘An American Tail’ by Steven Speilberg
I already loved Arcade Fire and their new album ‘The Suburbs‘ before I stumbled upon this brilliant interactive video by Chris Milk and I love them even more now! Incorporating the viewers own home town imagery with the Arcade Fire track ‘We Used To Wait’ playing over the top really makes the subject matter and lyrics much more relevant. Visit: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/ to see what I’m on about.
Colin Firth and is his wife Livia Giuggioli have launched a new film website named brightwide. The aim of the site is create a better platform for social and politically driven cinema. Brightwide aims to encourage audiences to become more actively involved in films driven by serious world issues. The site will have online premier’s to either test the appeal of a film before a potential nationwide cinema release or to just keep audiences interest in certain movies alive. Before this site became available information and discussion about social and political films may have been quite difficult to get hold of. All of the films shown on Brightwide have been played and a major festival and are quite likely to have been awarded there too.
A successful impact for content driven political cinema must be quite hard to achieve so a well known platform where a films message and content can be discussed with a chance to see other films with similar purposes makes sense to me. Often if a content driven documentary or fiction feature makes it to a nationwide cinema release it’s audience may still not be that large and the people who do go and see it won’t necessarily do anything about the films subject afterward. However by also providing a digital platform for these movies not only to be viewed but to be discussed and learnt about the film may have a better chance of getting to more people who will easily be able to learn how to get involved and act on the issues they have seen.
The only down point I have picked up on for the online viewer is that the films on Brightwide are pay per view. In a way this is a shame as the films may get wider audiences if they were for free. However I really don’t think this is such a big issue, the filmmakers will benefit from the money paid and allow them to continue creating thought provoking and striking cinema. Also the pay per view method keeps the site free of commercial advertising and allows it to be self maintained, quite a contrast to any trip to the cinema.
If anything this site will be a great place to watch current alternative film driven by important messages and awe inspiring stories away from big budget main stream cinema.
Just come back from watching Tom Fords ‘A Single Man’ and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Very well made, excellent imagery, lots of great perspectives on the important things in life and the acting was impeccable.
This is a 'Design blog', well kind of! I use the term loosely as not all the posts are design related, apart from being posted by me, a designer! Some posts are my work but most will be work by others discovered by endless searching of the web. Anyway hopefully you will find a feast of visualy exciting links and posts here. My email is: info@jeffreyshield.co.uk
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