jrr tolkien | better to begin than to refuse

"Gandalf chose to come himself, and he was the first to be lost," answered Gimli. "His foresight failed him."

"The counsel of Gandalf was not founded on foreknowledge of safety, for himself or others," said Aragorn. "There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark."

The Two Towers

photo | saul leiter | woman in rain

david lynch | doing things

"I’m just, you know, kind of happy in the doing of things. Even just having a great cup of coffee is happiness. Getting an idea, or realizing an idea. Working on a painting…working on a piece of sculpture, working on a film. One thing I noticed is that many of us, we do what we call work for a goal. For a result. And in the doing, it’s not that much happiness. And yet that’s our life going by. If you’re transcending every day, building up that happiness, it eventually comes to: it doesn’t matter what your work is. You just get happy in the work. You get happy in the little things and the big things. And if the result isn’t what you dreamed of, it doesn’t kill you, if you enjoyed the doing of it. It’s important that we enjoy the doing of our life."

eyvind earle | path in snow

 

the stahl house

the stahl house, los angeles

case study house no. 22

pierre koenig, architect

photograph by julius shulman, 1960 

my movie montages

I love the movies. And I like making things. So I spend a lot of time making movies out of the movies. Here are links to some of my ongoing montage projects.  (Note: They're always best with headphones, or good speakers. The bigger the screen the better.)

Date Movies

The whole obsession began with the project of finding date references in movies.  It started with watching The Longest Day on June 6, 2004, which led to the search to find one movie for each day in the calendar year. Which led to finding a lot more than one movie clip for each day of the year. Which led to making montages for specific days, usually the birthdays of friends. I've created maybe seventy of the darn things, but most of them were posted on a defunct Vimeo account. Here are links to a handful I've put up on the YouTubes.

Jan 6  

Feb 7 

Feb 21 NEW

Mar 1  NEW

Jun 7  

Jul 12 | with extended credits 

Sep 2  

Oct 30

Dec 22  

 

A Year At The Movies In Half An Hour

or one month at a time...

A Month At The Movies In Two And A Half Minutes 

January | dates only | dates titles events 

February | dates only | dates titles events

March | dates only | dates titles events

April | dates only | dates titles events

May | dates only | dates titles events

June | dates only | dates titles events

July | dates only | dates titles events

August | dates only | dates titles events

September | dates only | dates titles events

October | dates only | dates + titles 

November | dates only | dates + titles   

December | dates only | dates titles events 

I prefer the versions with no titles, just a stream of images and sound. But if you're curious about what movies the clips are from, or about the events depicted, there are versions including those things as well 

Dial V for Video

A tribute to video stores, a trailer for International Independent Video Store Day. 40 movies in 4:32.  Here.  

Good Time Diner

My son-in-law plays in a band, and they thought it would be a blast to project movie clips behind them while they play, and during breaks. So I got to make some really long montages! Welcome to the diner! Here's a minute-and-a-half trailer for one of their gigs, but unfortunately there are some restrictions for viewing the longer montages at the moment.  When I get those sorted out, I'll post links here. In case anybody's got 45 minutes to spare sometime...  ,

NT GUILTY: You need a good lawyer?

Movie clips about lawyers and the law, a graduation present for my daughter Katie's graduation from law school. Probably my favourite. Montage, not daughter.  Here. 

The Movies Go To The Movies: Marquees

A chronology of movie-going, as seen in the movies. A work in progress; here's how far I got by May 30 last year, starting with a 1915 screening of "The Curse Of Drink" at The Gem (from the film "On Moonlight Bay") through to "The Bicycle Thief" at The Rialto in 1991 (as seen in "The Player"). 

Earth Day International Film Festival: End of the World Edition

And here's the trailer for an imaginary film festival. Just for fun.

john singer sargent | stairway in capri