Filmmaker Arev Manoukian combined all of the right elements to make his amazing short, Nuit Blanche.  From Wired:

For Arev Manoukian, capturing the live action for his elegant short film Nuit Blanche came easy: He filmed two principal actors in four days on a green-screen soundstage in Toronto.

The hard part happened over the next eight months, as the 28-year-old Canadian filmmaker hammered out densely layered digital effects shots culminating in a crushingly effective slow-motion car crash lavished with beautiful breaking glass.

That attention to detail paid off. Within days of posting the four-minute, 41-second romantic drama on the Spy Films website, Manoukian says he got calls from Hollywood agents and managers. He signed with talent agency William Morris Endeavor last month and went on a two-week spree of meetings with studios and producers. “Needless to say, it’s very exciting,” Manoukian told Wired.com in an e-mail interview.

In March, he brainstormed with Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov and 9 producer Jim Lemley. “I just came back from some very promising meetings,” Manoukian says. “They are interested in producing my first feature!”

Continue reading the article for some of the technical details and a short interview with Manoukian.  Also, just to round everything off, watch the making-of video.

I co-shot this piece last fall for National Geographic (with fellow filmmaker, Stephani Gordon, and NGTV producer and friend, Laura Boyd).  The featured Explorer, Joe Riis, does amazing work and his stills (used throughout the cut) are incredible.

Pronghorn are extremely timid and they have extraordinary vision – they can detect the flick of a finger from hundreds of yards away.  So I spent quite a bit of time waist-deep in snow, pushing my telephoto to the maximum, and minimizing my movement as I operated the camera.  It was a tough task… but persistence eventually paid off.

The original post from National Geographic is here.

From Boing Boing:

(Flash video above. Alternate viewing options: Download MP4 or watch on YouTube) Boing Boing Video presents a remix of “Synesthesia,” a documentary directed by Jonathan Fowler, about people whose senses blend, or mix. For instance: a synesthete might see colors when listening to music, or taste flavors when hearing a spoken word. Synesthesia was once thought of as a disease or disorder, but many who experience this alternate form of perception think of their anomaly as an advantage — or, for them, simply what is normal. In this piece, Dr. David Eagleman of the Baylor College of Medicine explains this condition, and four synesthetes explain how they perceive the world. The full-length version of this film was produced with support from The Research Channel, and is available for viewing on their website. CREDITS: Directed & Produced by Jonathan Fowler. Cinematography by Rex Jones & Jonathan Fowler. Music by Moby & Olis.

Yet another way to watch my original, full-length cut (Red Mondays and Gemstone Jalapeños: The Synesthetic World), is via The Research Channel’s HQ YouTube post. This piece was actually a student project I produced in 2007, as part of my curriculum for a Master of Fine Arts degree in Science & Natural History Filmmaking from Montana State University.

Thanks again to all of the participants, The Research Channel for the production grant,  Dennis Aig and Simon Dixon as advisers, Xeni Jardin and friends at Boing Boing Video for the remix, and of course, fellow filmmaker and friend, Rex Jones, who operated that crucial second camera with his always eclectically keen eye.