Brand - Tony Hawk

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"It's about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy."

Elliott Erwitt joined Magnum Photos in 1953 and became a full Member in 1954.

"Typeface," Kartemquin Films' new documentary

Typeface focuses on a rural Midwestern museum and print shop where international artists meet retired craftsmen and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique.

It’s a Thursday afternoon and all is quiet in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Main Street is virtually empty, and there are “for rent” signs in several shop windows. In the last few years, the un-employment rate has been consistently on the rise in the region. Factories are leaving the heartland for cheaper locales and the little town of Two Rivers is struggling to re-invent itself. Jim VanLanen, one of the town’s most industrious entrepreneurs, began developing small museums as a way to bring tourists and industry to the area.

A few blocks off the main drag, in a section of the old cavernous Hamilton printing factory, a lone employee waits in the most popular of these museums for visitors to come. A couple of individuals straggle in every few days and then, come Friday, the museum fills with life. Machines hum, presses print, artists buzz about. One weekend each month, the quiet of Two Rivers is interrupted as carloads of artisans drive in from across the Midwest. The place comes alive as printmaking workshops led by, and filled with, some of the region’s top creative talent descend on the sleepy enclave. The museum is significant to the town’s history, but more importantly, its existence is critical to the worldwide design community who are passionate about the history of their craft and its function in the contemporary field. They believe the future of their industry may lie in the past.

Typeface, Kartemquin’s latest documentary in progress, will bring this fascinating junction of historical and contemporary, as well as rural and urban America together for enjoyment and contemplation. This film will be of interest to art and graphic design enthusiasts, to teachers as an educational resource, and to anyone looking for a film about perseverance and preservation in the heart of America.

Film critics from Synecdoche, New York DVD

Rainbeau Creative
Synecdoche, New York, my favorite film of 2008, is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. On the disc's Special Feature "Infectious Diseases in Cattle: Bloggers' Round Table", I talk about the film's merits with other film critics.

Screenhead
Picture this: you find yourself at Blockbuster talking to the employee (probably called a companion or a facilitator) about favorite movies. The first word out of their mouth is Glitter. You feel the bile rising up your throat, and you run away as fast as you can to your friend. Your friend who shares your obsession for Fight Club, or your unhealthy obsession with the Godfather. We are that friend. We are fellow ScreenHeads.

film freak central
Now and zen I think about life and stuff.
Roman Polanski's character in The Tenant asks his beatnik girlfriend a great philosophical question, which I'll paraphrase here: If I cut off my arms, I say, "This is me, and these are my arms." If I cut off my legs, I say, "This is me, and these are my legs." But if I cut off my head, do I say, "This is me, and this is my body," or "This is me, and this is my head."? What right does my head have to say it's me?
I know how I'd answer that question.
I love to write. I love to watch movies. I love to read. Film Freak Central is for people who share these passions.
This is me, and this is my website.
-Bill Chambers, Editor-in-Chief

Filmbrain
Film blogger, film critic, and now President of Benten Films (www.bentenfilms.com), a DVD distribution company that I run with fellow critic and dear friend Aaron Hillis. Oh, but I'm still a part-time misanthrope.

the auteurs notebook

au•teur

-n. [ō-tûr', ō-tœr']

the creative visionary behind a film.

the•au•teurs

-n. [thē ō-tûrs', thē ō-tœrs']

1. an online movie theater where
you watch, discover, and discuss
auteur cinema.

a new social experience.

indieWIRE
The leading news, information, and networking site for independent-minded filmmakers, the industry and moviegoers alike, indieWIRE launced on July 15, 1996 and re-launched with a bold new approach on January 12, 2009 (press release). Winner of the Webby Award for best film website, indieWIRE was lauded as a "must read" by Variety, branded the "online heartbeat of the world's independent film community" by Forbes, and dubbed "best indie crossroads" by film critic Roger Ebert. Read more...

Some Came Running

Film writer, formerly of Premiere magazine and .com. Reach me at glennkenny@mac.com.

Cinematical

SpoutBlog
SpoutBlog is here to discover and digest everything worth knowing in movies each day.

For anyone with more than a fleeting interest in movies, the landscape of film is changing drastically. A movie lover’s passion for film doesn’t recognize boundaries between Hollywood blockbusters, unsung independent achievements and viral clips from YouTube.

Wherever the under hyped piece of genius or over hyped piece of not-so-genius comes from, chances are we’re writing about it here. And when there’s a film festival to attend, we’ll probably be there treasure hunting for movies and interviewing filmmakers on the bleeding edge of the Industry.

Consumers will drive sustainable packaging design

Dorothy Mackenzie, packagingnews.co.uk, 10 June 2009
Dorothy Mackenzie, chairman of creative agency Dragon Rouge, argues that consumers' desire for more sustainable packaging should prompt a new wave of manufacturer-led product and pack innovation. 

Consumers, particularly in the UK, have expressed concern about packaging waste – to a level often disproportionate to the real impact of packaging and at the expense of concern about other aspects of products' sustainability performance. This has encouraged retailers to launch a packaging crusade with commitments, such as Wal-Mart's target to reduce packaging by 5% over the next four years.  

Retailers grabbed the initiative on packaging, leaving many manufacturers standing on the sidelines trying to deal with conflicting retailer agendas, such as weight reduction versus recyclabilty or use of recylcate versus biodegradability. It has appeared as though retailers were calling all the shots, exhorting manufacturer's brands into minor packaging changes that may have offered some incremental improvements, but which were largely missed by consumers.  

Some companies – notably Unilever – have been introducing innovative consumer packaging with a noticeably better environmental footprint, but many others have been slow to act in a way that consumers recognise, although they may have been achieving worthwhile changes in transport or outer packaging. This represents a missed opportunity for building positive engagement with consumers. Consumers are likely to be positively influenced by innovative packaging that delivers environmental benefits, provided of course, that it also offers convenience and other performance benefits.  

In some areas, the need for consumers to modify their behaviour, to adapt to the new packaging format, can offer a good platform for interaction and dialogue. It provides some interesting new content for brand communication and some opportunities for inspiring on-pack messaging.  Refill packs are being explored again, for example by Dairy Crest, and while this will be far from an automatic and easy switch for consumer, it does add some interest and excitement to an otherwise generic and routine purchase – and something to talk about.  

To achieve significant improvements, however, it will often be necessary to consider the product and pack together, rather than focus simply on changing the pack around the existing product. We have already seen examples of this with concentrate detergents and there will be more. The desire to reduce the impact of the packaging stimulates a "why does it have to be like this?" review of the product as well. This could be a more productive starting point for innovation than focusing on packaging alone.  

This more holistic approach, considering product and packaging together, also gives manufacturers an opportunity to take a step beyond where retailers can go by building sustainability into the brand and product itself, rather than just looking for amendments to existing systems. This approach will require a close partnership with the packaging and product supply chain, to unleash their deep levels of knowledge to speed up the innovation process. It will also demand a good understanding of consumer insights to know what is possible. 

Dragon Rouge has joined forces with Cook Business Consulting to deliver new product and packaging ideas, for brand owners and retailers, that are more sustainable and commercially attractive.

MSU wins $400,000 from Coca-Cola Company to create packaging innovation, sustainability center

Published: Jan. 23, 2009 
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Improving the global sustainability of product packaging took a meaningful step forward with a new collaboration proposed by The Coca-Cola Company and Michigan State University. Coca-Cola awarded $400,000 to MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources to help establish a new Center for Packaging Innovation and Sustainability.

The planned center, to be housed in the MSU School of Packaging, will serve as a think tank for packaging innovation and sustainability and a research and education hub to measure and reduce packaging’s environmental impact. The Coca-Cola grant represents the initiating gift in a campaign to establish the global center.

"The Coca-Cola Company is honored to collaborate with Michigan State University in its quest to bring corporate, academic and packaging professionals together to foster new ideas in sustainable packaging,” said Ingrid Saunders Jones, senior vice president of global community connections for The Coca-Cola Company.

“Our company has set ambitious environmental goals to not only deliver quality products, but to also have minimal impact on the environment. Research and work generated through this collaboration with MSU will assist us in reaching our goals,” she said.

Read more...

UCSD educator artfully elevates eccentricity

Professor Ernest Silva wants aspiring artists and dabblers alike to dive in, 'get dirty'

By David Coddon 2:00 a.m. May 24, 2009

An admittedly “eccentric interview style” helped artist Ernest Silva get his job teaching in the Visual Art Department at UCSD.

How eccentric? He brought a garment bag with him to the Washington, D.C., interview for a one-year position. Inside: a selection of men's suits he had painted. One of his interviewers that day, UCSD faculty member and artist Eleanor Antin, “saw it as a sort of mini-performance,” Silva recalled with a smile. Not long afterward, the Providence, R.I.-born Silva – who'd received his BFA from the University of Rhode Island and MFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art – found himself in San Diego, joining a prestigious faculty that included not only Antin, but also the likes of Manny Farber, Patricia Patterson and Allan Kaprow. “An incredibly diverse and exciting group,” Silva said. Read more...