‘Samsara’ creators Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson discuss the digital filmmaking divide (video)

'Samsara' creators Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson discuss the digital filmmaking divide video

We've set up shop in a conference room above Third Avenue in Manhattan, a Canon 5D trained on Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson. I find myself apologizing awkwardly for the setup, several times. There's a long boardroom table in the middle and a customary junket breakfast spread to the right. It's about as plain as meeting rooms come, save for a few movie posters lining the walls, advertising films distributed by the indie film company that owns the space. Hardly ideal for our purposes, but here were are, all clumped into a single corner, with the director and producer of Samsara flanking a cardboard poster for their movie, leaned atop a stand. It's not the welcome befitting the creators of a big, beautiful sweeping cinematic masterpiece. But they're tired -- too tired to care about such things, perhaps. They dismiss such apologies, clip their lavaliere microphones on over their shirts and sit down.

Fricke motions to the single SLR seated atop a tripod, explaining that he used the same model on a recent commercial shoot. "We have a solid background grounded in shooting in film, and that just stays with you," he adds. "When I'm shooting like with a 5D, like what you're using now to shoot this interview, I'm working with it like it's a 65 camera. It's my frame of reference, my background. I'm just wired that way." The world of filmmaking has changed dramatically in the two decades since the duo first unleashed Baraka on the world, a non-narrative journey across 25 countries that became the high-water mark for the genre and a staple in critics' lists and film school syllabi.

Continue reading 'Samsara' creators Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson discuss the digital filmmaking divide (video)

Filed under: ,

'Samsara' creators Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson discuss the digital filmmaking divide (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The Engadget Show 36: John Hodgman, iPhone 5, Improv Everywhere, Samsara and the New Museum

It can be tough to shake the notion that art and technology are conflicting forces -- that is, until you're confronted by a concept that lives at the crossroads of these seemingly dissonant concepts. For this latest episode of the Engadget Show, we set up shop right there, in order to explore what it means when technology itself is a work of art. We're starting things off at the New Museum on the Bowery in Manhattan, where Tim and Brian will be diving deep into the "Ghosts in the Machine" exhibition, to check out pieces like Stan VanDerBeek's Movie-Drome, a dome dreamed up in the mid-60s that foresaw a world in which the viewer is bombarded by visual stimuli. We'll also discuss how the museum is harnessing the power of the web to open its offerings up well beyond its gallery doors.

We speak to the founder and principal players of comedy performance art group Improv Everywhere about the role technology has played in the rise of the group and some of its most famous (and infamous) pranks. As ever, we're breaking out the Gadget Table to discuss the month's latest and greatest (and not-so-greatest), including the iPhone 5, Amazon's Kindle Fire and Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1, before Brian heads out to the private (annex) library of comedian-turned-deranged-billionaire John Hodgman to discuss how technology is impacting the publishing industry and his upcoming books "That is All" and "The Complete World Knowledge Boxed Set".

While we're at it, we'll be speaking with the producer and director of the classic film Baraka and its newly released spiritual sequel, Samsara and paying a visit to the gang at Breakfast New York, who have worked with the likes of Google and Conan O'Brien to turn advertising into art. All that and the introduction of our latest feature "Ask @hodgman." Welcome to the new Engadget Show.

Continue reading The Engadget Show 36: John Hodgman, iPhone 5, Improv Everywhere, Samsara and the New Museum

The Engadget Show 36: John Hodgman, iPhone 5, Improv Everywhere, Samsara and the New Museum originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 15:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments