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The L.A.-based production house The Glossary created this homage to writer David Foster Wallace, condensing and illustrating his celebrated Kenyon College commencement speech into nine or so minutes — and scoring over two million YouTube views in the process. Comprised of director Matthew Freidell and producers Allison Freidell and Jeremy Dunning, producer, The Glossary self-funded this video without obtaining rights to Wallace’s audio. In an interview with Ad Week, the trio describe the video as “a passion project” and say that “sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” And while the video was prompted by Matthew’s love of …...

If you haven't read or listened to David Foster Wallace's commencement address to the 2006 graduating class of Kenyon College, usually referred to as 'This is Water', I'd recommend getting right on it. The speech, which runs for about 23 minutes, is a frank, honest meditation on the frustration of daily life and the importance of perspective as explained from Wallace's eloquent, detail-oriented, darkly humorous point-of-view. Luckily, if you're the kind of person who absolutely needs flashy moving images to stimulate yourself, director Matthew Freidell has you covered. Freidell, who works for a "fine purveyor of stimulating videograms" called The Glossary, has released a nine minute video version of 'This is Water', matching up an abridged version of Wallace's speech with a fast-paced collection of narrative scenes. In 'This is Water', Freidell pulls out every trick in the artsy video handbook: there's plenty of kinetic typography, time lapse photography, and fast cutting.