My Rode Reel 2021 is over and the winners have been announced, with the overall Judge’s Prize winner being the video above; Two Halves by Chen Wei Choon, based in Malaysia, who walks away with a cool $250,000 in cash as well as a bunch of gear from the competition’s sponsors; Zhuyin, Insta360, Nanlite, Adobe, Arri, DZOFilm, Pelican, MZed, Musicbed and Rode themselves. It’s interesting to see an animated film winning this year, but it’s extremely well shot and edited with a great story....

While we have seen some somber predictions on how AI will impact the creative industry, we also see some incredibly innovative uses of AI image generation. One of those uses is the ability to create real-feeling storyboards or “DVD grabs”. They look realistic to the point that they remove the need to contract full sets to create impressive shoots. Redditor jarts uploaded a set of ‘DVD grabs’ from a movie called “Kurukshetra Hovarabord Showdown” (1984)....

I recently watched a movie with my kids about the Cottingley Fairies. The film was a bit of a snoozer but it was my introduction to the true story of two little girls who, between 1917 and 1920 took beautiful b&w glass plate photographs of one another interacting with fairies in the forest behind their home in Cottingley, England. A century later, we don’t give a second thought to any notion that what these children photographed were real elfin creatures....

When man landed on the moon in 1969, it was a milestone in the history of humankind. Around 530 million people watched the Apollo 11 moon landing live. During the trip to the moon, while on the surface, and when heading home, many photographs were created. Made using modified Hasselblad 500EL cameras, those shots result in some very high resolution images. Fast forward to now and motion designer Christian Stangl along with his brother, composer Wolfgang Stangl, have created a fantastic short film documenting the event....

Erik Kuna is a Floridian photographer shooting for SuperCluster, a creative agency sharing the story of space to everyone, and instructor at KelbyOne. Kuna has taken revolutionary steps in rocket photography, employing techniques never used before to create amazing cinemagraphs and images. Those are more than merely documentary, they’re art. We’ve asked Erik to share the story behind one of his pictures with us, and it’s seriously cool. Erik had the idea to incorporate his daughter into a shot, and what a shot it is....