Category Archives: Burning Shorts

Jun 02 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 12: More From June 2007

MY WATCH JUST MELTED

What time is it? Let me see. Oh my goodness, my watch just melted. The June and Beyond Issue below was published yesterday, and here we are again.

Since then, Tim Rehling alerted us to the latest and most astounding work of Lasse Gjersten. Lasse was profiled here in ISSUE 5 - DECEMBER 2006 / JANUARY 2007.

THE ONLINE VIDEO SANCTUARY FOR INNOVATIVE WORKS: WE PUBLISH WHEN WE MUST

We see clearly and declare our mission as Online Sanctuary for innovative, intrepid, and noble video works. So, we must respond to Tim’s alert immediately and present Gjersten’s greatest work here and now. To advance our mission, we publish when we must. Now … and awe-struck we present …

Lasse Gjertsen “Giovanni Sollima - Sogno ad Occhi Aperti (Daydream)”

Jun 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 11: June 2007

BURNING SHORTS ONE YEAR LATER

ART, ARTIST, ONLINE MEDIUM ALL IN MOTION AMAZING MOTION …

… AND EMOTION

Since Burning Shorts launched one year ago, so much has changed. The Online Video Giant Goo-Tube has emerged, and many similar sites presenting the Raw and Unfiltered continue to trend downward in traffic. Oh, yes, nearly everyone with a site, especially Hollywood Major Studios (and their many networks), has declared entry into this medium, though we have yet to see a single successful online video site emerge from Old Hollywood.

During the very same time, Burning Shorts, thanks to you, has trended generally and steeply upward.

Also during this year, we have connected with two of the artists who we were honored to present in our very first Issue: Ryan Wood of Dangerously Adorable Productions, Inc., creator/writer/director of “Fear of Girls” and Sarith Azuma now known as Xin Sarith Azuma Phan Wuku, creator/star of “Urban Ninja for Hire” pictured above displaying the spirit appropriate for online video achievement.

What has not changed in the year is the enduring brilliance of these works and the artistic expansion of their creators. To us, this is thrilling: “Content is King”, and quality content lives on and on.

Wood, now our cherished colleague, and one particularly savvy Hollywood Studio have allied for soon-to-be premiere release online “Fear of Girls 2″. With “FoG2″, we see pioneer visionary Wood innovate to the very heart of what the world has experienced as comedic/dramatic series entertainment, all while seamlessly presenting lol comedy, touching drama starring our geek-is-chic team of “DougDoug” and “Raymond”. The art and artist to watch above all.

See our two very curious friends again in “Fear of Girls”. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7521044027821122670&q=Fear+of+Girls&hl=en.

… AND MOTION …

We at Burning Shorts enjoyed some time with Xin Sarith and the EMC Monkeys, watching practices and sharing social time. In the year since we first presented “Urban Ninja for Hire”, Xin Sarith has grown and expanded.

http://www.originalxin.com/main.html .

Xin Sarith Azuma Phan Wuku in his own words (redacted from a longer essay):

“Born in the jungles of CAmbodia, i lead a peaceful life until the day rebels came and attacked my village. My family and i fled and became refugees in Thailand, minus an older brother… After buying a fake last name- PHan, we came to America.

Karma got to me once i faced a Muay Thai kick boxer. I never walked the same again. Also around this time, i fought the law and the law won.

For my 21st birthday, i went hitch hiking around middle America. After being gone for 2 months, i felt renewed. Birth of Evolved Monkey Combat! Utilizing my years of martial arts experience and being, “down with the phat beat”, I took a chance. I had a dream. I had a passion. And i wanted to share it with the world! After 3 short years of giving it my all, i produced “URBAN NINJA”.

Through suffering and hardship, sacrifice and perseverance, i am what i am today. Strong in mind, body and spirit. Confident in myself and proud of the things I’ve accomplished. I am open minded and aware of the people and things around me and although I am somewhat of an anti-hero, beneath my tough exterior lies compassion for my fellow man. I’ve learned to appreciate life and to live it the best way i possibly can.

Now you know pieces of my story. A kid who came from nothing. A kid who had a dream. A kid who gave it all but never gave up. Go be that kid. And maybe one day, i will read your story.”

http://www.originalxin.com/chronicles.html .

There it is in the final paragraph, as clearly stated as ever expressed: the American Dream lives. And, Xin Sarith’s guide to the Dream is Eastern wisdom for the ages:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

-Siddhârtha Gautama, the Buddha”

http://www.originalxin.com/monkeypoo.html .

Over thirteen and a half million views and a year later, experience Xin Sarith’s “Urban Ninja for Hire” again …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2kJZOfq7zk .

May 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 10: May 2007

BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN!!!

THE AMERICAN ARTISTIC DREAM IS ALIVE AND WELL !!! — THE LANDLORD AND WikiTube

We interrupt the routine and the ordinary to bring you The Landlord http://funnyordie.com/v1/view_video.php?viewkey=3efbc24c7d2583be6925 an hilarious video. In roughly a week in mid-April it has zoomed faster and higher than the Space Shuttle Booster Rocket … 9,055,809 views with no signs of slowing … pulling a new and previously unknown viral video site FunnyOrDie into the hottest viral video destination on the web.

Behold the rocket blast performance of the Landlord on site rating system Alexa: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsjl.funnyordie.com .

FunnyOrDie has been smart enough to put The Landlord on its landing page ahead of its own home page! http://sjl.funnyordie.com/v1/landing.php.

The American Artistic Dream is Alive and Well when a creative team can connect with the global audience this quickly and directly!

Our mission at Burning Shorts is to ignite the connection between creative team and audience, and our soon-ending Year One shows success beyond our best hopes.

In a medium where The Landlord is just the beginning, our Destination is always Further. So now and into Year Two we introduce “WikiTube”, the organic and innovative next step for Burning Shorts.

“Wiki”: As Wikipedia says of “Wiki”: “… [A]n effective tool for mass collaborative authoring.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki. We want your discoveries as link candidates for our site!

“Tube”: A word that evokes the Mother of All Online Video, YouTube. The aim here is to stress that we invite you to find in the vast Raw and Unfiltered, YouTube and its sibling viral video sites, the Artistic American Dream Videos for our audience.

“WikiTube”: Collaborate with us to find and present American Dream Videos to audiences!

To help you WikiTube, we offer this resource. During Year One, we compiled online/viral video sites in what we call “The Directory of the Raw and Unfiltered”. We happily offer you that Directory: for each site, the Directory has the site address as well as a sentence describing creative content and a sentence describing business model. Request it, and it is yours.

Further.

Apr 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 9: April 2007

And Beyond

See where you fit in the big human picture through this simple and eloquent interactive work. http://www.royalsapien.com/pop1/

The very first Burning Short of Issue One was/is “Surf’s Up”, a surfer daring the most impossibly huge monster wave. Here is another surfer in a slick, seductive masterwork of performance art.  http://www.dailymotion.com/cluster/extreme/video/x14gl9_dynamite-surfing

Which leads naturally to Banksy… iconoclastic artist who defies everything including our effort at editorial comment. Drill into the site and let us know if you too are speechless. If we do not hear from you, we will know you are. http://www.banksy.co.uk

And Beyond … We … Burning Shorts, our Friends, and Allies … plan to hit the road on the “Wanted Dead Or Alive Tour”, a combination of anthropological field work and performance art, all with the aim of intensifying the impact of Burning Shorts. The more Raw Unfiltered and Disposable Video appears online the more we pursue the Elite and Enduring.

Cynopsis Digital ["CynDigital"] is a fine daily emailzine which features a video site or clip of the day. Subscribe free through www.cynopsis.com. Since CynDigital has the daily vid covered, our destination … the Elite and Enduring … grows ever clearer.

Mar 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 8: March 2007

Several months before its first birthday, Burning Shorts happily reports . . .

  1. 100% correct prediction of hit properties: Every Issue published in the first six months contained at least one property that subsequently went big to wildly big in the mass media.
  2. Double monthly 400% traffic spikes: Traffic has been solid since birth. Then, in December 06, traffic increased 400%. January 07 traffic increased 400% over December.

Our mission always: intelligently present only the finest online video from and for artists, for media professionals (who seek to discover these artists), and the audience generally.

To stress our mission’s importance and to present a treasure among the finest online video, consider Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE.

Blog As Artistic Collage

“Let us not talk falsely now the hour’s getting late.” –Bob Dylan

Hollywood (movies and television) no longer affords the conditions for creative innovation, and, so, Hollywood is broken. It is understandable that most professionals in Hollywood are blind to this reality.

This is why. At best, Hollywood has been always dysfunctional. Specifically, Hollywood has been the dysfunctional marriage of creativity and commerce, of art and business. Some time ago, I sought to present this dramatically with the help of a mental health professional.

I proposed that, before an audience, we assemble a group of Hollywood creative talents as well as a group of Hollywood business and management executives. Each group would be small in number but great in eloquence and intensity. The moderator or, rather, the mediator would be a mental health professional; specifically, a marital therapist.

Then, the therapist would pry open and help the participants unpack the enduring tensions in this “dysfunctional marriage”. I thought it might be illuminating. And fun.

Dysfunctional marriages produce many unsuccessful offspring, just as the Hollywood marriage of art and business produced many unsuccessful works. However, even dysfunctional marriages produce some remarkable offspring, perhaps all the more worthwhile because of their family histories, and, so too, did Hollywood produce some remarkable, even wondrous works.

On those occasions when I could advance this proposal, I did so. Alas, those to whom I presented it were too caught up in the very dysfunction to explore the idea.

Now and hereafter, it is too late. Hollywood, like other businesses, has become a body with four or five heads: Disney, Newscorp, Time-Warner, Viacom, and perhaps Sony or NBC-Universal. As a result, the cost of making and marketing content has soared, and the marriage has dissolved with bottom-line business in control. Wondrous works fade as possibilities.

~~~

At the same time, digital media, in which film-making resources and global distribution are easily available to anyone motivated, have provided a spectacular source of hope and excitement for innovative and compelling entertainment. From Walt Disney to DC Comics and countless other examples: the great ones started small; yes, even Superman. So, online video is the focus of my attention, and a focus toward which I have been working for twenty-five years.

The site Burning Shorts is my effort to bring to Hollywood and to the audience the early, small, and yet wondrous: the finest online video, and the innovative talents who will emerge.

However, nothing in my experience prepared me to be dazzled by Bedazzled. It is not an online video. It seems to describe itself as a “blog”.

I prefer to recommend it to you as a site which, in its totality of look, tone, design, and content is a wondrous work of art. It is also organic, growing over time. I do not know the identity of its author currently, but the whole site feels like the expression of a single artist: visual images, online videos, links, and exotica, woven together by prose, wit, and intelligence. I urge you to consider this important.

You will find it at http://bedazzled.blogs.com.

Feb 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 7: February 2007

Tax Cut for Perverts

We strive to understand online video as well as to present its finest quality works. More in the spirit of understanding, we immodestly present “Tax Cut for Perverts”, a masterpiece in the critical media category “Politics as Theater”, starring City Councilmember Carolyn Moceri. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rZlYWqJvBA&NR

Apparently from the City Council of Warren, Michigan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren,_Michigan, the Politics as Theater here is sheer absurd comedy.

The absurd comedy is reinforced in a subsequent installment by artist Warrenkooks in “Moceri Does the Hat Dance”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o003qzf7oV0

Politics as Theater is a critical media category. For those who watched the online video beheading of American Nick Berg by Insurgents in 2004 the power of viral video as a weapon for those engaged in asymmetric conflict with the West is, alas, beyond measure and woefully underestimated.

The mere awareness of Politics as Theater and the tragic shift of the former to the latter is generally overlooked, understandably, by the very media that bloat and profit from the shift. So, when Jon Stewart calmly and eloquently rips the lid off the Politics of Theater on CNN series “Crossfire”, the result is glorious. We provide a selection of postings of Stewart’s Appearance, and we urge the longer versions, such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmZkw169xEI . With Stewart’s masterfully appearance, more is better: His comments are delicious and good for you! Remember: “I’m not going to be your monkey.” For other editions: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Jon+Stewart+on+Crossfire&search=Search.

“Line Rider~Futuristic Adventure”: Metaphor and Reality

Just last Issue we introduced new-born artform Linerider. Now, with “Furturistic Adventure” (again with thanks to David Harrison), please enjoy how that artform is racing forward with stunning beauty and velocity, like the little sled-riding protagonist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yav47XgQo7w&eurl=.

So, “Furturistic Adventure” (among other spectacular Linerider works) is both metaphor for the stunning beauty and velocity of the Linerider artform and that stunning beauty and velocity itself!

Possible Walt

Walt Whitman is forever one of America’s greatest original voices. Imagine then literally hearing his voice, as this alleged recording by Edison captured Walt at the end of his life. http://www.whitmanarchive.org/audio/ then click “America” to play the recording. (Our thanks to Sue Bachner.) We believe the voice is reading these lines.

“America

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love …”

Jan 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 6: January 2007

Line Rider: It has been said that, once you experience Line Rider, “you will never get any actual work done on a computer ever again …” About a week ago, one of our Visionary Editors, Angela Dalton, introduced us to Line Rider, suggesting first that we view the “movies” made with Line Rider and then attempt to use it ourselves. We did so, and now we invite you to do so as well: http://official-linerider.com/play.html.

As with the work of silent film comedy masters like Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, Line Rider seems simple and yet its movies thrill the audience on many levels.However, unlike great silent film comedy and possible only in online media, you can be Chaplin, Keaton, or Lloyd by using Line Rider to thrill the audience.

When our awe subsided slightly, we hunted down our Visionary Editor of the Frontier (”VEF”), David Harrison. We typically bring VEF our freshest discovery; usually, he has not only seen it already, but he knows features and advancements about our discovery completely unknown to us! Once again he was well ahead of us: VEF was a passionate Line Rider enthusiast, and, so, he directed us to www.linerider.org for the most spectacular collection of Line Rider movies we have ever seen. Here you will see the new Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd!

Scooped again by VEF, we asked him when and where he learned about Line Rider, and he said that it was about a month ago, mid December, from “some guy working in a Ventura (California) bike (bicycle) shop …”

The timing of Line Rider seemed … well, odd. So, we ran the traffic figures on the official Line Rider site, and we found that, while it appeared on www.alexa.com back in October 2006, the traffic to the site experienced a dramatic vertical spike in mid December, then dropped off, and spiked again about a week ago, precisely parallel to when VEF and we learned about it.

Even more puzzling is that the Line Rider Theater discussed above, www.linerider.org, appears on Alexa for nearly all of 2006 and with peaks and valleys of significant traffic from mid-October a full two months before the whiplash vertical spike of the official Line Rider site itself!

We would predict: first the official site would find its audience and then the theater site would grow from the former. Incorrect. And, what to conclude from the fact that both our Visionary Editors connected with Line Rider at the peaks of the official site’s recent spikes? Unclear.

We will predict that Line Rider is and will continue to be a very influential, perhaps even classic, work in the emergence of online artistry.

Burning Shorts, Year One.
Mission: Present and Predict.
Present: finest entertainment online video, which video also
Predict: proved to be mass media hits
Results: 100% successful.
Now that we have made that point …

“I’m always late for school cause your Moms drive slow … oooohhh …”
–Strong Bad, HomeStarRunner.

We celebrate in this New Year’s Issue an established online masterpiece, Home Star Runner. Home Star Runner is an online Flash animated site with linear and post-linear features. It is creatively both multi-dimensional and organically whole.

We have adored this work for years.

For those who love this work, give yourself a New Year’s treat and visit again. For those who will love this site, we urge you to visit Strong Bad’s Emails, a feature which wondrously defies description and will make you laugh with joy. http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html
Consider: Just this single feature of the work contains two hundred Strong Bad Email Cartoons!

We urge you to start at the top and go …

No. Unlike our beloved Lonelygirl15, Home Star Runner did not occupy the cover of December’s Wired Magazine.

Yet, what a great way to start the New Year: with gratitude for the enduring and expanding artistic masterwork of Home Star Runner …

Dec 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 5: December 2006/January 2007

Bountiful thanks to Tim Rehling who directed us to the latest work from Lasse Gjersten, “Amateur—Lasse Gjertsen” , November 7, 2006 .

Our passion is to bring the finest Online Video to our audience. Our joy is when a kind friend, like Tim, shares our passion and guides us to the finest! Thanks, many thanks, again, Tim Rehling and our many other supporters.

Ages earlier (about six months ago) we saw, Gjersten’s first post, a clever piece called “Hyperactive“*. “Hmm …” we thought.

Viewing “Us - Lasse Gjertsen” May 10, 2006 together with “Amateur” we knew: this was an artist we must advance here.

These two pieces, among the 16 works by the artist (live-action and animation)*, showed a talent that is, yes, Scandinavian melancholy like Ingmar Bergman yet somehow marbled with the whimsy of constant wonder like Roberto Benigni, then occasionally sprinkled with “Itchy and Scratchy” gore and featuring an audio-visual percussive rhythm that is all Gjertsen’s.

We will not let this artist out of our sight/site!

*Lasse Gjersten entire online videography at time of this publication – 16 videos all at http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=lassegg [live-action and animation with dates on films and film notes from 2003-2006; dates presented are dates of posting to online site.]

Oct 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Volume 4: October/November 2006

“The Ceremony is tomorrow …” –Bree, Lonelygirl15, October 11, 2006.

Yes, we scooped the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times about Lonelygirl15, not in the identity of those responsible for the work, but, much more importantly, by identifying Lonelygirl15 as a spectacularly beautiful work.

Much has happened since Issue Two: Bree, Daniel, and the creators of Lonelygirl15 have been identified and revealed as artists.

And we at Burning Shorts consider it the highest tribute to this work that, fact or fiction, the series, now nearly fifty episodes, continues to grow more and more compelling.

And, yes, as Bree explains, “The Ceremony is tomorrow …” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmWkkRm-DbE … This is a most ominous bulletin. Recent episodes have shown Bree and Daniel estranged, and Bree falling more deeply under the influence of the occult magic, or as Aleister Crowley [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley ] called it, “Magick”. Indeed, Crowley’s bizarre influence floats through the episodes like a sinister aroma.

Bree, it feels to us at Burning Shorts , is in great jeopardy. Real jeopardy because the work has earned our suspension of disbelief … Indeed, you can find “The Ceremony is tomorrow …” at the refreshed
http://www.lonelygirl15.com or http://www.lonelygirl15.com/?p=79&play=1 .  The LGPEDIA wiki link at the site reveals all there is to know, with justified confidence: the work has earned our suspension of disbelief. So …

Send best wishes, prayers, spells or magic to protect our Bree … “The Ceremony is tomorrow … “

Sep 01 0 comments
Burning Shorts

Burning Shorts Issue 3: September/October 2006

Sponsor Alert! Ad Agency Alert! And Audiences of All Ages!

Please consider this brief, simple, and gifted entertainment. “Windward Shorts: Cubicle War” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeTuQDJDqdM . Yes, it is an effective comedy, perhaps an homage to such diverse duos as Laurel and Hardy or Tom and Jerry.

Sponsor Alert! Ad Agency Alert! The piece may also be a critical clue to evasive treasure: the relationship between online video and commerce.

This piece is based organically and seamlessly on the sponsor it promotes: Windward Reports. At the outset, one of our duet explains that since he and his adversary have been using Windward Reports, they have had more time for … well … in their case: mischief. Indeed, Windward Reports is a software product which time-saves for those who compose reports digitally.

The visionary brilliance of Windward Report’s marketing via this video deserves admiration and scrutiny: Ultra-optimal cost efficiency, simple but resounding product promotion, and creative freedom for talent.

This piece proves, with out-loud laughter, the organic, seamless connection that can exist between art and commerce online. Bravo!