Jon Brion gets around. As a composer, he scored some of the best movies of last decade and change –
Punch-Drunk Love,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
Synecdoche, New York, and
I ♥ Huckabees. As a producer, he's worked with
Fiona Apple,
Kanye West,
Aimee Mann, and the excellent bluegrass outfit
Punch Brothers. He writes pop music like the best of them – witness
Meaningless,
Knock Yourself Out,
Here We Go, or
Didn't Think It Would Turn Out Bad for a nice sampler of his style and range. His live shows are notoriously whimsical and eccentric – he's apt to perform
Radiohead's "Creep" in the style of Tom Waits, or cover
Stairway to Heaven as a one-man band, recreating all the parts to its climax on the fly.
posted by Rory Marinich
on Mar 9, 2013 -
20 comments
Billed as "Factory Sourcing Made Easy,"
Maker's Row is a searchable database of American factories, their specialties, their locations, and which parts of the production process they can help you with.
posted by OmieWise
on Dec 13, 2012 -
7 comments
From the mid 40s to the mid 50s
Coronet Instructional Films were always ready to provide social guidance for teenagers on subjects as diverse as
dating,
popularity,
preparing for being drafted, and
shyness, as well as to children on
following the law,
the value of quietness in school, and
appreciating our parents. They also provided education on topics such as the connection between
attitudes and health,
what kind of people live in America,
how to keep a job,
supervising women workers,
the nature of capitalism, and
the plantation System in Southern life. Inside is an annotated collection of all 86 of the complete Coronet films in the
Prelinger Archives as well as a few more. Its not like you had work to do or anything right?
[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Nov 1, 2012 -
41 comments
During the Golden Age of Hollywood and until 1967, mainstream movie studios were
banned by the Production Code from depicting taboo topics like drug addiction, explicit murder and venereal disease, or even showing explicit nudity. But in the 1930's and 1940's, films marketed as "educational" could and did fly under the radar, and three of the best known 'educational' propaganda exploitation films are:
Sex Madness (1935),
Reefer Madness (1936) and
The Cocaine Fiends (1938).
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Oct 15, 2012 -
30 comments
Sound on Sound magazine's
"Classic Tracks" series provides technical and personal details behind the recording of, uh, classic tracks.
[Not to be confused with Mix magazine's own "Classic Tracks" series, which was featured previously.] [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen
on Aug 29, 2012 -
21 comments
Bands often don't seem to be able to play on stage the way they did on their album; and we accept that for a lot of reasons having to do with the conditions, the production facilities and the sheer number of takes that were probably involved. But for a whole generation of hit music, there was often a more basic reason:
it wasn't them playing on the album in the first place.
For nearly a decade, if you were an L.A. producer and you wanted to record a hit single, you'd call in The Wrecking Crew. Members of The Byrds, The Beach Boys, and The Mamas and the Papas would step aside as The Wrecking Crew laid down the instrumental tracks. Then, the members of the main band would come back to add the vocals on top.
The above link goes to the OPB radio story I listened to this morning, with an embedded player.
Official site for the book.
posted by George_Spiggott
on Apr 2, 2012 -
64 comments
The Sweatbox "the documentary Disney doesn't want you to see" (95-minute SLYT), was made when Sting wrote songs for "Kingdom of the Sun" and his filmmaker wife Trudie Styler got insider access to the production. What? You say there was no Disney movie "Kingdom of the Sun"? I meant "The Emperor's New Groove". Rarely has the decline of an Institution been better documented.
This may or may not be Disney property and may or may not be taken down any minute, but it has survived on YouTube for over 48 hours after getting blogged-about a dozen times.
posted by oneswellfoop
on Mar 23, 2012 -
97 comments
In [the USA], buying a good over-the-counter nasal decongestant requires picking a card from an empty spot on the shelf, taking it to the pharmacist, handing over your driver's license, and getting it from behind the counter. Only the larger drug stores bother. Meth, on the other hand, is apparently easier to come by. So
here (PDF), from the the wonderfully named Journal of Apocryphal Chemistry, is a paper on how to make Sudafed® from Meth.
posted by TheNewWazoo
on Feb 28, 2012 -
58 comments
Nants ingonyama bagithi baba! It's been nearly two decades since that glorious savanna sunrise, and once again
The Lion King is
at the top of the box office. It's a good chance to revisit what made the original the capstone of the
Disney Renaissance, starting with the music. Not the gaudy show tunes or the Elton John ballads, but the soaring, elegiac score by Hans Zimmer which, despite winning an Oscar, never saw a full release outside of
an unofficial bootleg.
Luckily, it's unabridged and high-quality, allowing one to lay Zimmer's
haunting,
pulse-pounding,
joyful tracks
alongside the original video (
part 2,
3,
4), revealing the subtle leitmotifs and careful matching of music and action.
In addition, South African collaborator
Lebo M wove traditional Zulu chorals into the score, providing
veiled commentary on
scenes like this; his work was later
expanded into
a full album,
the Broadway stage show, and
projects closer to his heart. Speaking of expanded works, there were inevitable sequels -- all of which you can experience with
The Lion King: Full Circle (
download guide), a fan-made, three-hour supercut of the original film and its two follow-ups.
Want more? Look...
harder... [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 1, 2011 -
22 comments
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library today launched its latest online research tool, the Production Art Database. The database contains records for more than 5,300 items from the library’s collection, including motion picture costume and production design drawings, animation art, storyboards and paintings. Nearly half of the records include images, making this an invaluable online resource for researchers interested in motion picture design.
posted by Trurl
on Jul 2, 2011 -
7 comments
NYU's Snuff Film. The Village Voice reports on the accidental
death of NYU film student John Hunt Lamensdorf, on a shoot in Georgia.
Besides the inevitable litigation and hush-up, the death has also resulted in a scramble at NYU to change the rules and safety procedures for student productions.
posted by availablelight
on Apr 8, 2010 -
78 comments
Celemony are a bunch of crazy German software engineers known best for making Melodyne, a family of top of the line pitch correction tools. Apparently they've recently figured out how to do what they do with polyphonic audio.
I can't begin to explain how cool this is. Just
watch the video.
posted by stenseng
on Mar 13, 2008 -
122 comments
King Kong's
Post Production Diary - videos of weekly progress, on all aspects of filmmaking, starting from the first day of post-production, upto the premiere.
posted by Gyan
on Dec 19, 2005 -
18 comments
The next wave in Filmmaking? This summer, the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences, along with NVIDIA, will hold the world's first
Machinima Film Festival on August 17th in Mesquite, Texas.
Machinima is, simply stated, filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3D environment.
In an expanded definition, it is the convergence of filmmaking, animation & game development. Machinima is a very cost- & time-efficient way to produce films.
posted by lilboo
on Jul 12, 2002 -
11 comments
