Uncropped rediscovers the work of photojournalist James Hamilton, one of the great chroniclers of America’s cultural history. From his photographs for Crawdaddy, The Herald, and Harper’s Bazaar to his celebrated work for The Village Voice, Hamilton’s photographs are a valuable archive of over forty years of American cultural and political history.
Hamilton created iconic images of musicians Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Charles Mingus, and hundreds more. He took intimate portraits of everyone from Meryl Streep to Alfred Hitchcock, broke off to do set photography for George Romero, Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson, and also pursued powerful and controversial assignments across the U.S. and the world.
Uncropped is also the story of a bygone era of alternative print media and a rich history of New York City from 1969 to 2008.
Afternoon Inc. was responsible for the film’s art direction & animation. Both the unofficial teaser (above) and the film’s title sequence are edited to The Right Profile by The Clash. A not-insignificant reason I signed on to do this project was because I wanted to work with this song.
Seemingly imperturbable, Hamilton is an effortlessly cool New York legend in his own right. Charming, wry, with an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, he possesses an uncanny ability to capture the essence of a moment or a person.
Motion theory: The design and animation is a bit scruffy around the edges. Things are alive and unsettled, not honed to perfection. Movements are either quick or nonexistent.
Typography: In a nod to the analogue ghosts of alt-weeklies (and other publications), various weights of Frere-Jones’ free-wheeling Community font were loosely combined with Klim’s ode to the typewriter Pitch Sans.
People often ask me if there is a film that shows what New York was like in the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s, into the ’90s. Now there is: D. W. Young’s ‘Uncropped’… A necessary document for anyone who cares about great journalism.
Director and Editor:D.W. Young Producers:Judith Mizrachy, D.W. Young Executive Producer: Wes Anderson Executive Producers: Chris Fralic, Irma Fralic, Dan Wechsler Composer: David Ullmann Art Direction, Animation: Matt Eller
