“From 1895 to the early 1950s, all commercially available 35mm film, stills, negatives and even X-rays were made out of cellulose nitrate: a fragile, combustible, unstable, highly-flammable substance that was also used in explosives.” But “[a]ccording to the eminent curators at the British Film Institute (BFI), cellulose nitrate film is the most vivid film stock ever created.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Writing Better By Abandoning In-Text Links
“You write differently when you know you can’t dodge explaining yourself by fobbing the task off on someone more eloquent or better informed. You have to express what you want to say more completely, and you have to think harder about what information ought to be included and what’s merely peripheral.”
Dramatists Guild: NY Musical Theatre Fest Bad For Writers
“In a letter sent last week to members, the guild explained that NYMF’s new contract entitles the festival to 2 percent of the applicant and author’s gross ‘on all income received from the play in excess of $20,000 over 10 years.'” The guild says that’s “too high for a presenting festival that already asks participants to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket.”
LA Opera’s Ring, Through A Pop Music Critic’s Eyes
“Achim Freyer’s staging of ‘Das Rheingold’ is as much a pop experience as it is a classical one. That’s not to say it’s easily digestible. … Pointing to all corners of culture, Freyer’s set and costumes argue vehemently against any division between high and low.”
Via Soap Opera, Getting Information To Displaced Haitians
“First, Haitians received food and shelter; now the moving image has joined the humanitarian response. All over this rattled capital city, Port-au-Prince, outdoor screens are popping up, as a handful of organizations race to produce programming that entertains and informs the hundreds of thousands of displaced people living in camps without televisions or radios.”
Audience Choice: How Should Mozart’s Zaide End?
“If you haven’t heard of [the opera], it’s because the composer never got around to finishing it and it wasn’t found in his papers until after his death. … When Wolf Trap started thinking about staging ‘Zaide,’ the question immediately surfaced of how they wanted to end it. There were plenty of options.” This weekend the audience gets to pick one.
Salander Auction, For Fraudster’s Creditors, Falls Short
“More than a third of the art didn’t sell, which dealers and art consultants attributed as much to Salander’s habit of buying in bulk — indiscriminately, some say — as to European economic turbulence.” Art dealer Lawrence B. “Salander, 61, who pleaded guilty in March to a $120 million art fraud, is free on $1 million bail.”
Polish National Museum Backs Gay Rights With Show
Already threatened with demonstrations, the exhibition about homoeroticism will mainly “feature classical works from the National Museum’s collection, juxtaposed with contemporary art. The director, Piotr Piotrowski, said its emphasis will lie on eastern Central European art because ‘here the battle for equal rights for homosexuals continues’.”
What’s The Point Of The 48 Hour Film Project?
The project’s “moviemakers get a whole weekend — from Friday evening to Sunday evening — to complete a four-to-seven-minute film.” Its founders “wanted to find out whether it was possible to make a movie in such a short time and if so, whether anyone could stand to watch it. The answer to both questions turns out to be, mostly, yes.”
Arts Advocacy’s Rhetorical Deficit
“Arguments that used to work on behalf of the arts no longer always do. And the arguments advocates are using instead all too often miss the point, by making roundabout claims that ignore what makes art appealing on a gut level.”