film + video

A little heads up about tonight's Project Runway, particularly for those of you in Los Angeles. The episode airing tonight of the popular designing/sewing reality show was not only shot at the Getty Center, but apparently the whole competition centers around designing outfits "inspired by the museum's architecture and artwork." Should be a fun time, considering all the sprawling, swirling bits spread across the gardens and the design of the buildings themselves. If you're in Los Angeles, the Getty has decided to host a screening of the episode in their Harold M. Williams Auditorium, with an added bonus at the end:

After the screening, the museum will hold a panel discussion featuring three speakers from the world of art and fashion, including a former curator from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; an editor from Marie Claire magazine; and an L.A.-based fashion designer.

Update: If you don't already have your space booked, it looks like you've missed your shot. The event is already all full.

If you regularly use the internet (the thing you're looking at right now) and you find yourself on design blogs here and there (here you are), it's without question that you've run across the work of filmmaker David Hillman Curtis. Besides making his own short films, the designer/director/writer has put together a handful of popular short documentaries in his "Artist Series," profiling industry big shots like Milton Glaser and Paula Scher. Now Curtis has put them all together in a special, limited-edition package, designed by James Victore no less, for sale on his site. To mark the release, The Morning News' Rosecrans Baldwin interviewed Curtis for the NY Times' The Moment blog, which is well worth your time. And to refresh your memory on how great these profiles are, here's Curtis' piece on Stefan Sagmeister's launch of "Things I Have Learned So Far in My Life":

In 2004, Merle Becker quit her corporate television job at MTV to pursue a growing fascination with rock posters. Soon, she was traveling across the country interviewing artists such as Stanley Mouse, Art Chantry, and Tara McPherson. "My initial intent was to find out why so many artists are drawn to doing rock posters," says Becker. "I also wanted to tell a clear story of the history of the art form." The result is American Artifact, a documentary that has been making the festival rounds and premieres tonight in New York at the Royal Flush Festival.

The film chronicles the rise of American rock poster art, from the skeleton and roses posters created for the Grateful Dead and the birth of silk-screening to grunge and the off-kilter whimsy associated with contemporary bands. "It is my hope that this film causes people to see 'lowbrow' art in a different way," notes Becker, "as beautiful pieces of art that are also valid statements about the cultural changes that America has seen throughout the years."

Always a huge music fan, Becker was inspired to make American Artifact after encountering Paul Grushkin and Dennis King's coffee table tome Art of Modern Rock. "I was not only blown away by the artwork, but I was also surprised that nobody had done a film about its history and the current rock poster art movement," Becker tells us. "I really had no idea that modern rock posters were being done, and until that book, I thought that the '60s rock poster art had marked the end of that medium." She soon found her way to GigPosters.com, "and the rest is history."

Read on for more from our interview with Becker.

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It's been a busy fall for Disney. The company recently announced its agreement to acquire Marvel Entertainment in a $4 billion deal that would bring the likes of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, and the Fantastic Four into the company's stable of animated characters. Helping to decide the filmic fates of everyone from Captain America to the X-Men—provided that the deal closes—will be Rich Ross, the newly appointed chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. Ross, who has led the Disney Channel to world domination (see also: Montana, Hannah), will oversee worldwide production, distribution, and marketing for Disney's live-action and feature animated film labels, including Walt Disney, Touchstone, Miramax, and Disney/Pixar. He'll also head the company's theatrical and music groups.

This writer was on a shoot all last night and as such, his brain is a little melty. So how about another piece of video? This one comes (via Archinect) from the always wonderful GOOD, wherein they talked to artist Lincoln Schatz about how he would like to perceive the world. His choice, of course, would be to have access to Rem Koolhaas' brain using some kind of brain-sharring device:

This is part GOOD's larger, often very funny series, Inventions, filled to the brim with things you wish you'd thought of. One of our favorites, besides the one above, was comedian Nick Thune's backflip shoe.

With Oscar season upon us, things at the multiplex seem like they're going to get glum and melodramatic pretty quickly. Personally, this writer will sit out all the brooding and pining and instead focus his attention on looking forward to seeing Jonathan Parker and Catherine Dinapoli's upcoming sendup of the art world, (Untitled). It's an easy target, sure, but it looks smart enough not to devolve into mockery or cheap parody, while still being as ridiculous as its subject often is. Also, it has ex-footballer Vinnie Jones playing an artist who specializes in taxidermy. That's worth the price of admission right there. Here's the trailer:

Although Philippe Starck's first foray into reality television ("Design for Life") just kicked off last week, these programs certainly aren't taped near their air dates. As such, although we're only two episodes into the program, some of the contestants are letting it slip that they weren't entirely happy to be a part of the program. Here's one piece of juicy gossip:

[Ana Maria Pachescou] told Design Week in July that, "You will hear that we had a week to do a project, but because of the complications of filming we actually only had two days. We are all nervous that this will make us look like bad designers."

Another has said that they're happy to soon by free of Starck and the show's producers, eager to return to normal and be able to design products in peace.

In another piece of audio-visual follow-up, we first told you back in October of last year about Tom Ford making the leap from fashion design to filmmaking as he was set to make his first pass as a director with A Single Man, a period adaptation of a novel by Christopher Isherwood. The film finally saw its debut this past Friday, closing out the Venice Film Festival. And now that the cat's out of the bag, we finally have a trailer for the film. It certainly doesn't tell you much, instead relying on its pretty shots and lots of silent emoting. It reminds us a lot of trailers for foreign films, where there's little speaking so as to not scare off the subtitle-averse. But it looks sharp, moody, and interesting, so we're game. Bring it on, Ford.

More than a year ago, we first reported that everyone's favorite looney-yet-prolific designer, Philippe Starck, was going to get his own reality TV show on the BBC. But then time went on and nothing. We heard that it would appear starting in March, but then that month came and went. We called out to the heavens, "Where is it?!" back in June, but apparently the heavens were out that day. But lo and behold, here we are and the first episode of Starck's show finally aired last night. Originally called "Philippe Starck's School of Design," it's now running under the title "Design for Life" and although we weren't able to see it (the mediabistro jet was being used by those jerks over at GalleyCat), from the preview descriptions we've read make is sound exactly like "The Apprentice" (or like nearly every other reality program), with competitions, voting, etc., just with product design filling in the "What profession?" entry on the official reality TV form. Though in this case, the contestants are all students, which feels slightly refreshing, but we'll have to see. In the pre-airing press, the Guardian asks why the UK needs a French designer to save British design and the Independent gives a nice overview of the program, with some explanations of what the challenges each week will be. If you happen to be a savvy UnBeige reader across the pond and can point us to any clips you put up from the show or happen to run across any on your various travels, please do let us know. We're dying to see it.

Hate advertising? Make better ads. Filmmaker Doug Pray shows how it's done in the documentary Art & Copy. Now playing in select cities, the film spotlights influential advertising creatives such as George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, and Lee Clow, and legendary campaigns, from "I Love NY" to "Got Milk?" But Art & Copy is no history lesson. "In my interviews, I stuck to emotions, creative motivation, and big-idea philosophies of the ad creatives rather than 'how-to' stories, industry-insider talk, or the politics of their clients' products, which is a different film altogether," notes Pray, who secured sponsorship from The One Club to realize the project. "By interviewing these icons, they became real for me, and I saw advertising as an art form with enormous potential—when done well." Pondering whether to see this film? Just do it.