Video Of The Day: Time Lapse Of Superstorm Sandy Hitting New York City

by Jessica Marati on

Richard Shepherd created this time lapse video of Superstorm Sandy hitting New York City by using images from the New York Times webcam, which has been positioned on the 51st floor of the Times building in midtown Manhattan since the start of the storm. The video shows the progression of Sandy from noon on October 29 until 9:30 a.m. on October 30. Keep your eye out for a shift at minute 0:42, when electricity went out and downtown Manhattan plunged into darkness.

Video Of The Day: Woman’s Painful Escape While Running With Bulls

by Libby Zay on
A woman narrowly outruns a trio of bulls stampeding through the streets, only to find herself having a run-in of a different kind. Her painful escape is a reminder that running of the bulls ceremonies often result in serious injuries, most of which aren’t directly caused by bulls. In Pamplona, Spain, the most famous location for this type of event, between 200 and 300 people are injured during the runs each year. Most injuries are minor, but according to Wikipedia, 15 people have been killed in Pamplona since record keeping began in 1924 – most by goring or suffocation. If the idea of being chased by bulls still sounds like a good time, the tradition is running strong in cities and towns throughout Spain, Portugal and Mexico.

[Video: Mortationparkour on YouTube]

Video Of The Day: Amazing Kuala Lumpur Time Lapse

by Libby Zay on

Once a small Chinese tin-mining village, Kuala Lumpur has grown to be the largest city in Malaysia, a metropolis of around 6.5 million people. The transformation took only about 150 years, and today visitors will find an ultra-modern city with dazzling lights, cloud-reaching skyscrapers, a state-of-the-art monorail, bustling shopping centers and more.

Architectural photographer Rob Whitworth set out to capture the essence of this lively city. It wasn’t easy: the video above was filmed over 5 months, in which he put in 400 hours of solid work. It took four cameras, 40 shoots, 640 gigabytes of data and 19,997 photographs.

“My time lapse explores how the city changes from day to night highlighting how spaces dramatically alter during the course of a few hours,” Whitworth said. Watch the transformation he captured above.

Video Of The Day: ‘Half The Sky’ Visits Cambodia’s Toul Kork Road

by Jessica Marati on

Watch Meg Ryan Visits Cambodia’s Toul Kork Road on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

“Half the Sky” is more than a four-hour PBS documentary series; it is a movement to turn oppression into opportunity for women worldwide.

The documentary, which premiered earlier this month, is the film manifestation of the best-selling book by New York Times writers Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It follows Kristof and six American actresses as they travel to different countries in the developing world to explore issues facing women, from gender-based violence in Sierra Leone to sex slavery in Cambodia (featured in this clip).

The film swings from inspirational, to horrifying, to unspeakably sad. But while watching it will undoubtedly be a heavy experience, it will also be one that hopefully impels you to action – or at the very least provides a greater awareness of the things you witness in the places you travel.

The full documentary can currently be viewed only on PBS, but selected clips are available online.

Video Of The Day: Summer In Barcelona

by Libby Zay on

Summer might be over, but that doesn’t mean we need to stop daydreaming about warm places and days spent at the beach. It also means that some great videos produced over the summer are now popping up on Vimeo, such as the film above by director Pau García Laita. Over the summer months, the 22-year-old filmmaker sought out to capture a day in the life of his hometown of Barcelona, Spain. From sunny shots of classic Barcelona architecture to windsurfers catching waves on the Mediterranean, the film offers a glimpse of the city that would tempt any traveler to want to hop on a plane to Spain. However, García Laita didn’t just stick to tourist trodden places; he also captured some places and spaces travelers rarely see, like the stacking of boxcars in the city’s train yard or a bird’s-eye view of some construction sites. Did he do a good job of capturing Barcelona? You tell me in the comments below.