Shawn Mendes’ recent music video for his song “Lost in Japan” leans heavily on Sofia Coppola’s film “Lost in Translation” for visual inspiration. In this video I show a side-by-side comparison of the two, and share some the thoughts the music video inspired about effective homage.
Ex Machina as a kind of Turing Test
Much attention is paid to the Turing Test in Ex Machina, but I think the film itself also functions as a Turing Test of sorts.
Commentary Culture: How Terrace House "Fixes" TV
Increasingly more and more of what’s available to consume is media about other media. Whether it’s news commentary shows, reviews, video essays, reaction videos, or video game let’s plays, meta content is here to stay.
This video is the first part of a series of videos I’m making to examine commentary content and commentary culture online.
Symbols of Conflict - Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul is in its 4th season right now, and it’s definitely my favorite thing currently on TV. Color me surprised that a spin-off could not only live up to the quality of its parent show Breaking Bad, but in many ways eclipse it to become its own powerhouse of excellent character writing and acting, editing and cinematography.
Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and their amazing team of writers, directors, cinematographers and editors are pushing the boundaries of what expected from a TV drama.
There’s so many great things I could say about the show, but in this video I decided to focus on one aspect that I particularly like, how they open scenes.
50K, Stickers, and Newsletter
Thanks to everyone who’s watched and supported me over the last (almost 2 years) I’ve now reached 50,000 subscribers. It’s an exciting milestone! I’m grateful to have the opportunity to be able to make stuff for you folks, and I hope I can keep doing it for a long time to come.
I’ve added some neat little bird stickers as a Patreon reward. Get yours here!
I’ve added a newsletter to the site. If you want to stay up-to-date on my latest videos and receive other updates, sign up here. It’s mostly a way to be notified about new videos right now, but I’ll try to make it worth your time to be subscribed by adding value where I can.