Michael Morgenstern

Meditation Retreat 2012 Photos

I finally took a few days to sift through the 500 or so photos I took on my meditation retreat and edit them all carefully. Some of these are HDRs, which means they are stitched together out of multiple images of different exposures to create something magical that the camera

Back in NYC

This summer has been amazing. I spent the first two months of it on the road, first at a 9-day meditation retreat with Shinzen Young. I won’t try to summarize an experience that rocked my world like that one did.. Then I headed to Los Angeles to do

Shabbat Dinner trailer

Just got posted on the intertubes:

Shabbat Dinner at Frameline36!

Well, we’re accepted to twelve festivals so far (and after this week, it’s looking like a bunch more may be on the horizon) but I don’t think any of the others have or will be able to compare with the experience that was Frameline. Q&A

Everest Residency 1: Beach House

I spent the month of April following the band Everest around their New York residency. It was a truly awesome experience getting to know the band and see them behind the scenes for a sustained amount of time. As Eli said, this kind of sustained band experience in a place

Happy World Refugee day

Over 30 million refugees and internally displaced people live around the world, separated from their homes. Zooming out… At least one billion people have been hurt, killed, or had their lives destroyed because we have been unable as a human race to be compassionate enough (and take the right collective

Great, so our president likes equality now.

I wasn’t very excited or happy or relieved that Obama came out in support of marriage equality. I’m inclined to believe he’s always supported it, but whatever his true feelings actually are, he makes these statements for political reasons. He’s either pushing as much of his

Wow, crowdsourcing is awesome. Now, Chinese and French!

Wow. You guys…!! I put up the script for Shabbat Dinner a few days ago, and NINE HOURS later, the entire thing was translated into Spanish. And translated well! It was amazing watching little boxes flit across the screen doing the translation, so thanks everyone. I think it provided a

Crowdsourcing a translation

Okay all, so I have one week to translate Shabbat Dinner into Spanish. While I could run the whole thing through Google Translate, that sounds wholesale and inhuman. Gah. So let’s crowdsource it! I’ve set up a spreadsheet on Google Docs. If you know Spanish, just click this

Teaching and screening Shabbat Dinner at Harvard-Westlake

The month started off with a whirlwind week in Los Angeles, where I was invited to guest teach at the Harvard-Westlake video art program. The course was to focus primarily on color correction. Cheri Gaulke and I designed a four-part workshop, which we taught to each of the

Making Shabbat Dinner Part 4: Distribution

A four-part series on just what went into making a short film. You can also read part 1, preproduction, part 2, production. and part 3, finishing the film. In mid-January I watched the film for the first time in two weeks, writing down all my thoughts. I held

Making Shabbat Dinner Part 3: Finishing the Film

A four-part series on just what went into making a short film. You can also read part 1, preproduction, part 2, production, and part 4, distribution. Post-production Post production is arduous and time consuming, but immensely gratifying. The small changes accumulate slowly into full iterations, each one breathing

Making Shabbat Dinner Part 2: Production in 2 days

A four-part series on just what went into making a short film. You can also read part 1, preproduction, part 3, finishing the film, and part 4, distribution. Pre-production Pre-production was well underway and Aidan began putting together the shoot. He found a cinematographer, costume designer, assistant

Making Shabbat Dinner Part 1: Preproduction in 2 months

A four-part series on just what went into making a short film. You can also read part 2, production, part 3, finishing the film, and part 4, distribution. I’d never seen the point of making a short film; or rather, I saw the point and still hadn’t

Comics

Webcomic: I heard you like comics

RIP Steve, and a question on "freedom"

I’m a bit late to this particular blog post title, I suppose. I’m reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs and it’s riveting. What a privilege for those who have been able to work with such a man (and for him, to be able to change

My solution to the Burning Man ticket crisis

Unless you’ve been living under a (neon covered?) rock, you might have heard about the ticket crisis facing Burning Man. Because tickets sold out at the end of the cycle last year, the organizers were worried about their fair distribution this cycle. They set up a multi tiered system:

Comics

Webcomic: Low on Ram

Not hippy

I just lost a whole day’s worth of work because Soundtrack Pro doesn’t have a friggin autosave (and yes, because I didn’t save.) So here’s some Douglas Adams. Fuck it, I’m going to go get some sushi. “Please call,” it said. “Not happy,” and gave

I'll keep practicing!

Adorable story that happened to me yesterday: I was sitting on the subway typing on my computer (yes, I’m one of those people. It makes a 45-minute long train ride the perfect email response time.) A little kid walked up to me. I later found out that he

Comics

Webcomic: Lemonade Stand

SHABBAT DINNER Release Party February 23!

We’d really like to see you at our release party. Bring friends!! (Also..Shabbat Dinner now has a fancy new website. I left out the Under Construction GIF, but you get the idea..) SHABBAT DINNER a short film by Michael Morgenstern playing once in a private screening before its

speaking engagements

Presenting at Columbia panel on human rights and film

I’d like to invite everyone to a panel at Columbia University Law School. I will be talking about the creative approaches that FilmAid has taken to human rights advocacy and showing some clips of our work. Film has had such a powerful impact on the refugees that I’ve

writing

The Blank Page

I try to spend at least a half hour a day banging my head against a wall. Some may call it writing, and yes, at times words appear on a page, only to be backspaced into oblivion. But more often than not, the dominant behavior during these sessions is my

Comics

Webcomic: Stripper