Date: 2009 Posted by:AMPPP-lifier Cast: Patrick Han, Pearlyn Lii, Melissa Ma, Peter Yang, and Andrew Yeh Credits: Not given Duration: 0.59
Not much information is given on this schools project billed as being “Othello Trailer for Cordero’s Sophomore English Honors Class. Period 4″. Just before he is executed, Iago looks back on his life in flashbacks, to the accompaniment of melodramatic music. There is no dialogue, only messages on computer screens and print-outs and the four players shown at crisis point, before the video ends with the execution. As a burst of creative energy, it is not at all unimpressive.
Date: 2009 Posted by:hanidahshan Cast: Michael Zananiri (Fred Graham), Nabil Shukri (Lippy), Hani al-Dahshan (Slug), Mohammad Dijani (stage manager) Credits: Directed and choreographed by Hani al-Dahshan, DOP and lighting by Ahmad Gobba, music and lyrics by Cole Porter Duration: 8.52
A ‘music video’ homage to Cole Porter’s immortal ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’, from the musical Kiss Me Kate. The rendition itself is straightforward lip-synching, but the build-up exchange between the three protagnists, shot in moody monochrome, makes the video distinctive, even if the song then comes across as slightly anachronistic. Why is was made, and with such care, seems unclear, except that the filmmaker declares “I’ve been in love with this song for 2 years and finally decided to make it into a music video.” So here it is.
Date: 2009 Posted by:Cedric Vilim Cast: Not given Credits: Shot and edited by Cedric Vilim, music ‘Squarepusher’ by The Exploding Psychology Duration: 1.43
A peculiar intepretation of Macbeth’s lines, “What hands are here? Hah! They pluck out mine eyes. / Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.” (Act 2 Scene 2). On one level, it’s a man in a bath with apples, intercut with shots of cuts of meat, overlaid by electro dance music. On another level … who can say? But it’s certainly unexpected. And uncategorisable.
Date: 2009 Posted by:metalshakespeare Cast: Viceroy Matthew [Matt Stikker] (lead guitar, backing vocals), Lord Simms [Jason Simms] (vocals, rhythm guitar), William Sly [Randy Bemrose] (drums), Sir Raleigh the Valiant [Riley Geare] (drums), Duke Luke (‘Bottom’) [Luke Dennis] (bass) Credits: Not given Duration: 4.58
The Metal Shakespeare Company bringing together Shakespeare and heavy metal music. They may not do so entirely seriously, but they certainly go about their business with skull-banging gusto. This full-blooded assault on Hamlet (chiefly Hamlet’s lines on Yorick’s skull, from Act 5 Scene 1) shows as much respect for the tenets of heavy metal as it does for Shakespeare’s verse. The costuming and settings are pure heritage Shakespeare, but the energy of the performance takes the video beyond a mere comic sketch. Chiefly, it demonstrates how neatly Hamlet works seen through the music of modern tortured adolesence (though the addition of an ass’s head from A Midsummer’s Night Dream is a bit odd).
The Metal Shakespeare Company hail from Portland, Oregon, USA. Previously known as Dagger of the Mind, they describe themselves as “70% metal and 30% theater”. They cite their influences as being Iron Maiden, Manowar, Dio, Judas Priest and Mercyful Fate, while they feel that their sound can best be described as “Shakespeare turning in his grave”. Turning rhythmically, at least.
Date: 2008 Posted by:ylpiaocai Cast: Ben Cunis (Romeo), Courtney Pauroso (Juliet) Credits: Produced by SilhouetteFilm. Stage production directed by Paata Tsikurishvili, choreography by Irina Tsikurishvili Duration: 2.26
A trailer for a production of Romeo and Juliet by Synetic Theater, the company founded by Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili which specialises in silent interpretations of the classics. Its theatre production have included Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet, as well as several non-Shakespearean works. They describe their work thus:
Synetic Theater seeks to advance and enrich the theater arts through presentation and education in its unique performance style of a synthesis of the arts, fusing the classical elements of drama, movement, dance, mime, and music into a distinct form of non-realistic theater.
In truth the result seems to be ballet as much as anything, but it is vivid theatre nonetheless, with its heart lying in silent cinema quite as much as in dance. Unlike many theatre trailers, the video reflects the essence of the theatrical experience.
Date: 2007 Posted by:justjill Cast: Not given Credits: Produced by Patrik Fleming and Jill Blum Duration: 6.63
An enjoyable skit from a Shakespeare class at the University of Baltimore, in which Gladys and Lorraine gossip about Ophelia and Gertude, the Macbeths’ marital disharmony and the three witches’ skin care problems, and King Lear, interspersed with advertisements for the King Lear Guide to Retirement Planning and Rid-a-Kin, the ideal poison for troublesome relatives. Some audio problems along the way, but bitchy fun.
Date: 2009 Posted by:deathpunkscum Credits: Giordano Travera (Script and treatment), Michele Socci (Photography), Gabriel Spada (Post-production) Cast: Not given Duration: 3.48
A stylish visualization of Macbeth, akin to pop video. A haunted male figure stares at himself in mirror then wanders down Italian railway stations, interccut with striking symbolic images (a hypodermic needle, a burning playing card, buildings in bright sunlight contrasted with dank passageways) overlaid by electronica and a whispered, threatening monologue paraphrasing Macbeth’s soliloquy from Act 1 Scene 7 (“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly”). This is thinking in images, inspired by word-images, showing how well the soliloquies lend themselves to this sort of impressionistic treatment.
Date: 2007 Posted by:pulsetv.ir Credits: Created by Alireza Alborzi Cast: The Simpsons Duration: 1.46
One doesn’t expect to find Shakespeare parodies on an Iranian web TV channel, but that’s where this video resides (specifically on Pulsetv.ir, which is a channel on Blip.tv). It’s a mash-up of scenes from assorted episodes of The Simpsons to produce the world’s favourite American family’s interpretation of Othello. Homer is Othello, Marge is Desdemona, Sideshow Bob is Iago – it all just falls into place. The humour is doubled by the portentous trailer commentary, cheekily lifted from the trailer for Oliver Parker’s feature film Othello (as are the closing titles). Silly stuff, but done well.
Date: 2009 Posted by:John Carson McCarthy Credits: Created by John McCarthy Cast: None Duration: 0.54
A striking animated intepretation of Othello, without characters or any action from the play. Instead, and using the Maya and After Effects animation programmes, the filmmaker illustrates Othello’s turmoil and self-destruction through images of a house collapsing and turning into a prison. A few quotations appear as signposts. Brief and rudimentary as it is, this is a startlingly imaginative piece of work.
Date 2008 Posted by:withtheangels Credits: Series creator, director and producer Mary Feuer, writer/producer Jonathan Robert Kaplan, writer Werner Trieschmann, Associate producer Jenni Powell. Produced by Strike.tv Cast: Carly Jones (Ashley Davis) Duration: 2.16
With the Angels is a web video series produced by Strike.tv and created by Mary Feuer, author of the celebrated Lonelygirl15 web series which convinced many that its confessional tales were true life. With the Angels “tells the fish-out-of-water story of Taffy Simpson (played by Jamie Tisdale), a small-town Arkansas girl swimming in the freak-infested waters of Venice, California”. The plot line for episodes 1-8 is described thus:
Taffy’s roommate Ashley and her best friend Andy throw a party, but Taffy isn’t in a partying mood. Things look better in the morning, though, as Taffy tells us about her new life and her thwarted plan to attend the Sunshine Film Academy. New-agey neighbor Miranda pushes some of Taffy’s buttons, and another neighbor, TV writer Trey Alan Gordon, just might give Ashley’s career a jump start. We learn that sometimes there’s more to friendship than meets the eye as Andy’s feelings for Ashley come into focus.
In episode seven aspiring actress Ashley is seen performing an audition to camera. Her imaginative choice is Helena’s speech from All’s Well That Ends Well, “Then, I confess/Here on my knee, before high heaven and you/That before you, and next unto high heaven/I love your son”. The video follows With the Angels and Mary Feuer’s style in closely imitating web video conventions, so Ashley’s rendition looks a lot like a great many other online Shakespeare auditions, with its intimate playing to the camera (though strictly speaking she is addressing someone positioned just to the side of the camera, which introduces a note of falsity – she’s also kneeling down). At any rate, it’s a fine, heartfelt performance. But why?
This being a web series, there is more to the tale. In the follow-up episode, Taffy (in characteristic mode confessing to the camera) shows us the full tape of the audition, which she had edited and posted for them. Now we see the soap opera, and why Ashley has chosen this particular monologue (“she loves someone who doesn’t love her back”). Her initially flat rendition is turned into something with feeling through Andy’s direction, and of course through her feelings for him. So now you’ll be watching to watch episode 9…
Posted by bardbox 
Posted by bardbox 
Posted by bardbox 