Featured Projects

Finding Horror in Everyday Life

Horror encountered in exotic places makes a kind of sense. And so we have Skull Island (“King Kong”), the Amazonian rainforest (“Anaconda”), and the Arctic (“The Thing from Another World.”) No big surprise if you meet up with a T.rex in Jurassic Park. But if you’re on familiar turf, there’s an extra adrenalin hit when…

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Tutorial Review: “The BASICS of Filming a CHASE Scene”

A Hollywood cynic observed: “When you run out of plot, shoot a chase scene.” Rubidium Wu begs to differ. In his 11-minute tutorial on filming a foot-chase scene, Wu argues that chases—when well done—not only provide action but also reveal character. Combining previsualization images made using Maya with clips from “Point Break,” the director covers…

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Singing for Empathy

Singing has been employed for myriad purposes such as expressing love, conveying spiritual beliefs, selling products, and satirizing people (Tom Lehrer’s “Wernher Von Braun“). Now we can add developing empathy to the list. In “School Sings ‘Stefania,’” RTEnews mobile journalist Eleanor Mannion captures scores of students performing the Ukrainian song that won this year’s Eurovision…

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Recycling Seen Through the Eyes of a Bird

One of the great challenges facing artists is making old subjects seem new. Peter Steele accomplishes this daunting task in “The Bird,” a two-minute animation film about recycling. While the visuals lead the way, pay attention also to the remarkable sound effects. Beyond aesthetics, the ultimate test of this kind of movie is whether or…

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Extended Selfie Wins Short Film Award

The pandemic has inspired scores of movies. One of the wittiest is Jon Gill’s “Working at Home.” This extended selfie provides evidence that a one-person production can be cinematically rich. The two-minute video won the Best Short Film Award at this year’s International Mobile Film Festival. About the Production About “Working at Home,” Jon Gill…

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Parkour Witnessed from the Inside

Parkour videos usually focus on the visible performance. They show us dazzling moves of the kind that would bring viewers to their feet if parkour were a spectator sport. In “Free,” Mobile moviemaker Cassius Rayner gives us a different perspective. He arranges for the athlete JA to take us inside, so that we can appreciate the…

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