Beauty is in the eye of the Google Glass wearer.
At least that’s what the Internet search giant hopes a handful of young filmmakers will discover. Google is enlisting film students from five colleges to help it explore how its wearable computing device can be used to make movies.
The $1,500 Google Glass headset is already being used by 10,000 so-called explorers. The device resembles a pair of glasses and allows users to take pictures, shoot video, search the Internet, compose email and check schedules.
As part of its experiment, Google will lend each school three pairs of Google Glass.
The participating schools are American Film Institute, California Institute of the Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of Southern California.
Google Inc. says it plans to share an update of how students are progressing sometime after school resumes in the fall.
The company says the schools will explore how to use Glass for documentary filmmaking, character development, location-based storytelling and “things we haven’t yet considered.”
Norman Hollyn, a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, said students will be encouraged to use Glass to tell stories incorporating the first-person point of view.
He said one model that students might follow is one explored in the film, “Timecode,” by director Mike Figgis, which uses four cameras to capture four different people simultaneously. Students will also be encouraged to try to use Glass’s data overlays as a way of revealing elements of a story. At least two short films are expected to be done by the beginning of next year, he said.
“We’re kind of looking at it as, ‘How can we push this to tell stories rather than just sit on a cool Disneyland ride and broadcast that out to people?'” he said. “This excited us in a lot of ways.”
Glass users can shoot video in “720p” high-definition quality by issuing voice or touch commands.
Google has already shown off a few examples of how people are using the device, such as tennis pro Bethanie Mattek-Sands preparing for Wimbledon and physics teacher Andrew Vanden Heuvel taking his class on a virtual field trip to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Utah Leaders and Locals Rally To Keep Sundance Film Festival In The State
With the 2025 Sundance Film Festival underway, Utah leaders, locals and longtime attendees are making a final push — one that could include paying millions of dollars — to keep the world-renowned film festival as its directors consider uprooting.
Thousands of festivalgoers affixed bright yellow stickers to their winter coats that read "Keep Sundance in Utah" in a last-ditch effort to convince festival leadership and state officials to keep it in Park City, its home of 41 years.
Gov. Spencer Cox said previously that Utah would not throw as much money at the festival as other states hoping to lure it away. Now his office is urging the Legislature to carve out $3 million for Sundance in the state budget, weeks before the independent film festival is expected to pick a home for the next decade.
It could retain a small presence in picturesque Park City and center itself in nearby Salt Lake City, or move to another finalist — Cincinnati, Ohio, or Boulder, Colorado — beginning in 2027.
"Sundance is Utah, and Utah is Sundance. You can't really separate those two," Cox said. "This is your home, and we desperately hope it will be your home forever."
Last year's festival generated about $132 million for the state of Utah, according to Sundance's 2024 economic impact report.
Festival Director Eugene Hernandez told reporters last week that they had not made a final decision. An announcement is expected this year by early spring.
Colorado is trying to further sweeten its offer. The state is considering legislation giving up to $34 million in tax incentives to film festivals like Sundance through 2036 — on top of the $1.5 million in funds already approved to lure the Utah festival to its neighboring... Read More