Videos

Mother’s Day Without My Mother – Keeping Her Memories Alive

It’s been a year and a half now since I lost my mom suddenly and without any warning.  She was my heart, my soul, my mentor and my child in so many ways.

She showed me how to love unapologetically, how to appreciate art, how to be street smart, how to just be.
In every sense of the word my mother was just pure emotion.  When she loved, she REALLY loved, and when she was hurt she was devastated.

I miss her now and every single day. There’s not a day that goes by that I do not think about her and with every fiber of my being I take heart in knowing that she provided me the lessons I needed in life to be strong and to be cautious and to love.

I lead with my heart the way I realize she did.

I can’t say she’s in a better place because I don’t believe that, however she is in a better place in my memories and in my heart.

I think back on the times we shared and become overwhelmed with either guilt or with gladness that I was filled with bitterness and/or joy respectively.

She hurt me.  And I hurt her. But never did I ever doubt that we loved each other unabashedly.

And so on this Mother’s Day 2015; 1 year and 7 months later, the pain is stings just as much as the day I lost her.
That being said, I found solace in channeling my energy to creating this video for her. It brought me closer to her and despite not having very many videos to choose from (which made it extremely difficult since she refused to be in front of the camera) I made something that I can say describes exactly how I feel.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom.  I know you’d be so proud of me for this and for what I do each and every day having you as my guide.

Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad & Kristen Bell Finally Reveal How They Made Frozen (In Musical Form, Of Course!) [VIDEO]

olaf gif hot tub frozen

So we all loved “Frozen” right?

Just to give you an idea of HOW successful “Frozen” has actually become, here are the stats:

  • 19th highest-grossing film of all-time
  • Golden Globe for Best Animated Film
  • 2 Academy Awards [NOMINATED (But sure to win Best Animated Feature Category & Best Original Song this Sunday)],
  • Largest 3-day and 5-day unadjusted Thanksgiving openings of all-time, $66.71 million and $93.01 million (which had been previously held by 1999’s Toy Story 2 with respective $57.39 million and $80.12 million
  • Worldwide Gross: $980,905,905
  • 2,706,163 Likes on Facebook (to date)
  • A Broadway Show version is already in the works

I know, that’s pretty impressive, right?

jonathan goff, kristoff, frozen

“Frozen” now brings about a third renaissance for Walt Disney’s legendary film studio and I feel is the culmination of a revival driven by fierce competition and the purchase of Pixar.

And Elsa’s drag queen moves are fabulous!

Drag Queen Elsa Frozen gif

To be frank, this film will go down as one of my all-time faves.  The writing was superfluous, the cast was excellent, and the music was out of this world! Not to mention the story is unlike anything Disney has done before, and is clearly speaking volumes around the world.

Screen Shot 2014-02-27 at 7.50.04 AM

But don’t take MY word for it, Jonathan Groff (yum), Josh Gad (ha) and Kristen Bell (awww) made a musical about the making of “Frozen”. Enjoy!

SEE FULL 3:20 VIDEO HERE:


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By Far The Coolest SlowMo Video You Will EVER See

Adam Magyar is just genius.


Like I said, genius.

He positioned himself on trains pulling into stations in various cities, filming the waiting crowds and here is the result. An astounding, captivating piece of footage that captures a moment in time is one that I don’t think anyone has done before!  And the fact that the editing contains no music creates this eerie, voyeuristic feel to it.  Adam has taken to New York, Berlin, Tokyo and I’m expecting many more to come!

And now with the new slo-mo feature on my iPhone 5s it lets me capture video at 120 frames per second in 720p, and I’m hoping to channel just some of the genius that is Adam Magyar!

For anyone who’s ever had to wait for a train, these short films of people waiting for public transit is for you.

Adam Magyar

Adam Magyar

And just to confirm it was in fact 720p and 50fps that this footage was filmed in. And while some of you may not believe it, it is true. The only difference is that it was shot using a customized Optronis high-speed camera at 56 times normal speed.

Read more about how Adam spent two years writing custom software to improve image quality and reduce noise and the challenges he had to overcome in this fascinating article! Medium


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