Fans of Vikings might feel better after watching this documentary about all the actual Vikings who supposedly visited Minnesota a millennium ago. Filmed partly in Duluth, Lost Conquest played on the film festival circuit in 2015 and 2016. Now it’s available for free online to the entire world.
In Slow TV news, I’m taking a break this month from filming farming in meticulous detail to take you to a tourist trap in Switzerland. The World of James Bond museum sits atop Schilthorn in the Berner Oberland region because that’s where they filmed that one 007 movie with Telly Savalas. You might remember Telly Savalas from his classic Visit Duluth TV spot. George Lazenby starred as James Bond. You won’t remember him at all.
Is this the most boring video ever shot at the Food Farm? Or the most mesmerizing?
You be the judge.
Slow TV documents ordinary events over long periods of time in delightful detail. This particular example features live animals, an on-camera introduction and a few seconds of fast-motion!
But don’t get used to these exciting innovations. Our next video could just as easily be 12 straight hours of grass growing.
So good for you. So slow for you.
Let’s face it: competitive jigsaw puzzling is never going to be particularly exciting to watch. Unless you speed it up! Here’s some time-lapse GoPro footage from last Saturday’s third annual Duluth Puzzle Derby at Clyde Iron Works.
Music is “Held My Breath” by Portrait of a Drowned Man, which was composed for Wicker Kittens, a feature-length documentary about competitive jigsaw puzzling.
See your Food Farmers pack up February’s share of vegetables and experience a phenomenon I like to call “maximum mesmerization.”
Have you ever wondered how the Food Farm in Wrenshall grows such delicious and wholesome food? In 2016, you’ll get to feast on a bumper crop of incredibly-detailed-but-somehow-mesmerizing-behind-the-scenes videos shot at the farm in the style of Norwegian public television’s Slow TV documentaries. Here’s a small taste.
If you liked my previous film, Wild Bill’s Run, you might also like my next film, Wicker Kittens. On the other hand, you might hate it. Because they’re two different films. This one is about competitive jigsaw puzzling. I’m going to stop trying to second guess your personal tastes now and let you watch the trailer.
This is your best chance to see local documentary and Arctic crime caper Wild Bill’s Run. It’s screening on Outside’s website on Thursday evening, Feb. 7. You can watch the film anytime between 6 and 9pm (Central Time). Director Mike Scholtz will be hanging out in the comments section at the bottom of the page, waiting for people to ask him questions he can’t answer about snowmobile repair, climate change and the whereabouts of Wild Bill Cooper.
Lawrence Bernabo previewed my documentary Wild Bill’s Run on KUMD. Meanwhile, I had a bunch of mesmerizing raw footage left over from editing the film. I thought it might be a good idea to throw these two things together, sorta randomly, without thinking about it too much.
I think you might like this documentary for a number of reasons:
1) It’s really good.
2) It’s super pretty.
3) It’s way more interesting to hear a swell guy like Dave tell you his story than it is to learn about teen depression on Wikipedia. (But if you do happen to learn a few things about depression, and you want to do something about that, please visit givevoicenow.com and donate a couple of bucks to help the Miller-Dwan Foundation build Amberwing, a mental health facility for kids, teens and young adults here in Duluth.)
