The good news: tons of media usually reserved for paid customers is free right now. Not even kind-of-sort-of free; we’re talking no strings attached free, the kind you don’t need to worry about cancelling months later. You’ve got more than enough time to stream, and these companies are more than happy to provide the content.
Some of these services also offer generous free trials during the pandemic, and if you’re bored, you should take advantage of those, too. Just be sure to set yourself a reminder to cancel before your credit card gets charged at the end of the trial, or if you’re trying to track down the trials you’ve already forgotten about, a service like Truebill can be a lifesaver. Here’s a (fairly) comprehensive list to all the free content you can binge right now, plus the best free trials you can scam with nothing more than a fresh email address:
Right on cue, Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Flex customers are getting early access to the premium tier NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock roughly three months before it’s set to officially launch. While these customers won’t see much of the service’s originals right away, they will get access to thousands of hours of movies and series. Plus, they’re getting it for free.
One breakthrough made animation look natural. And it involved a clown dancing on a roof.
In this episode of Vox Almanac, I look into the beginning of rotoscoping, a technique animators can use to create realistic motion. Invented by Max Fleischer of Fleischer Studios (and echoed and practiced by many others), it involves taking filmed footage and using it as a traceable model for animation. The results are fluid and natural in a way animation had never been before.
While we’ve had to hit the snooze button on conventions and game groups, that doesn’t mean you can’t play with friends and folks from around the world. Do it virtually! Here’s a few sites to help keep you entertained with game-y goodness AND hanging out with other gamers from the comfort of your own couch!
On Thursday April 2 (7pm GMT/2pm EST), London, One Man, Two Guvnors, starring James Cordon, will be livestreamed on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel and will be available to watch for one more week. New productions will follow each week, along with behind the scenes talks and cast interviews.
We were doing one of our “virtual drinks and dinner” with friends from Denver last night and, as always, our conversation turned to what shows we were watching. I created this list for them and figured I would share it here, too. The first section is Netflix and the second are some of my favorite YouTube channels. — Douglas
Another great free collection from the Internet Archive — this time an audio collection instead of images. Dig in and enjoy! — Douglas
Through the Great 78 Project, the Internet Archive has been digitizing the audio from 78rpm records produced from 1898 to the 1950s. Over 25,000 high-quality recordings are currently available from artists like Edith Piaf, Irving Berlin, Lena Horne, and Duke Ellington. This preservation is important because the discs are fragile:
Watch this classic from the very beginning of film. — Douglas
Released on September 15th, 1914. Sometimes called the world’s oldest cartoon (erroneously), it is still the first to be created using keyframe animation. This movie required Winsor McCay and his assistant John A. Fitzsimmons (who traced the backgrounds) to create 10,000 drawings, which they inked on rice paper and mounted on cardboard.
Gertie is a dinosaur based on the Brontosaurus (nowadays known as Apatosaurus) skeleton in the American Museum of Natural History. McCay’s employer, William Randolph Hearst, was displeased with McCay’s success outside of the newspapers, and used his contractual power to reduce McCay’s stage activities.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
Improve your skills on your own, effectively and enjoyably, by watching films and series in the language you study.
Build your listening comprehension with thousands of hours of authentic language in context. After installation, you will have additional features for language learning when you watch videos on the Netflix website.
• Subtitles are shown in two languages, allowing you to compare the original audio and text with a translation in your language. • The extension allows you to listen to subtitles one at a time, and to change the playback speed. • There’s a pop-up dictionary, and the extension suggest the most important words for you to learn.
