The Anne Frank museum has publicized the only existing film footage showing Anne Frank. In this film you can see her leaning out of the window.

War is such a waste.

July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor.

Anne Frank Museum home page. (via)

Barb Dybwad has collection a nice list of online resources where you can find free multimedia content for your use. My favourite one would be the Creative Commons search.

I came across this beautiful shortfilm by a young film maker named Jesse Rosten, shot on no budget on a RED one.

Watch it in full quality on his website – but try not to read the story before seeing the film.

Flash press camera

By Christine Berrie

An exhibition called ‘Sight Unseen‘ has opened at the California Museum of Photography which showcases the work of twelve blind photographers from around the world.

The curator of Sight Unseen, Douglas McCulloh, explains how visually impaired people are able to capture such beautiful images.

See the gallery, visit the virtual exhibition, or over at the BBC some (commentated) photos.

Here’s a visual representation of my blog:

You can make your own Wordle over at, well, wordle.net

So RED just had their first public showing of their REDRay magic box. Some compression wizzardry made it possible to compress 4k video by the factor of 750 – resulting in 4k footage at a datarate that is half of standard definition miniDV. Basically you get a picture way, way, way better than HD at a fraction of BluRay’s data rate. This might just turn the whole delivery upside down, as it will enable distribution of high quality films via standard broadband. Also, digital cinema will not need proprietary distribution technology, because a feature film will fit on a standard DVD-R.

At the REDuser party in Las Vegas RED showed both uncompressed footage side-to-side with the same footage compressed with their technology. Uncompressed size was roughly 320GBs, while the REDRay version shrank down to 450MBs. Many reported as to not being able to tell the difference.

Some video footage from the REDuser party has been put online by Justin.tv.

I hope that it will only be a matter of time before 4k projectors come at an affordable price. Community cinemas could spring to life again, and small filmmakers could organize regionally to open up their own cinemas. Distribution of independent film will no longer be limited by cost.

What an exciting times we live in, my friends.

Solargraph by Pekka Salminen

I’ve done some pinhole camera experiments in my younger days, but Justin Quinell is our age’s master in this technique. Have a look at his collection of multiple-month exposures, which he calls Solargraphs.

He also built a miniature camera, letting you expose from within the mouth. And he even sells those little cameras for next-to-nothing.

And do visit Junstins homepage, where you’ll find lots of other goodies, including instructions on how to build a 720-degree camera out of toilet rolls.

One of the things I love about the Internets is how they change media, and especially advertising. In TV the advertiser has to spend a lot of money to get fixed slots of say 10, 15 or 30 seconds. Excepts for a few notable exceptions, stories have to be very simple, quickly told.

Now, with Internet and broadband, stories are no longer restricted by length – they just have to be good, so that people do want to watch them. More money can be spend on the actual film, rather than its distribution. “Get out of the Doghouse” is an excellent example of one of those. Observe:

(via Doug Karr)

Found a great article by BSC and ASC member Roger Deakins, one of my favourite Directors of Photography.

With all our modern inventions and innovations, there are few films that manage to achieve the “quality” of Citizen Kane, though there are many that have far less grain and considerably higher resolution.

Every shot I have ever made has been a compromise in some way. That’s a sweeping statement, but true nonetheless. No image has ever been as good as the one I envisioned in my mind’s eye. Maybe that’s what keeps me going: just once, I want to see that image onscreen!

There has always been a disregard for preservation, whether it’s preservation of a historic site, the Dodo, the polar bear, or a film like Sid and Nancy.

The animators who “photographed” [Wall-E] worked in a three-dimensional world and covered the action in much the same way as a live-action film, but the directors of photography, Danielle Feinberg (lighting) and Jeremy Lasky (camera) – separate positions you might note – used no emulsion, no Fresnel lamps or diffusion, no Steadicam, no geared head, nor any other live-action tool. Nevertheless, theirs was a stunning cinematographic achievement. It’s true they had an advantage – they never had to battle fading daylight, conceal a light’s source or hide dolly tracks – but I would not hesitate to recommend them for ASC membership.

Read the full article here.