Rewind This – The Art of VHS!!!!
I cannnot wait for the documentary release ‘Rewind This The Art of VHS. I remember being a member at every video store i could in my home town. My forst job as a teenager was at the first video store in town…i would work on a Friday and Saturday and my boss would let me choose as many films as i wanted to watch and bring back early Monday morning.
This was at a time just before the big british ban on movies happened in the early eighties, so i managed to see some greats before they were taken off of the shelves…’Evil Dead’, ‘Cannibal Ferox’ etc…
The most fun i had though was looking at all the front cover designs, i was fascinated by them, often spending as much time staring at the artwork as watching the movie…i really miss Videos…i remember the day i gave all mine away, not that long ago…maybe ten or twelve years…sniff.
REWIND THIS! OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS:
An exploding industry without rules! Backyard filmmakers with zero budget and a surplus of dreams! Unchecked global piracy! The race to control media consumption! Videotape changed the world and laid the foundation for modern media culture. Low cost equipment created unprecedented opportunities. Major studios and small indies operated on an even playing field for the first time ever. The story of the home video revolution is a tale of both technological advancement and human ambition. VHS vs. Beta! Porn invades the home! Direct to-video madness! It’s all here, along with a rogues gallery of directors, rental employees, XXX vets, box artists, collectors, and more. Join the pizza party!
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The Home in 2001 as Imagined in 1967
THE HOME OFFICE
Oh jeez this is funny. I want that phone…i guess none of them could have guessed that everything he mentioned would be integrated within one machine…brilliant. I guess they got it right on most fronts here…i am that guy who works from home…i am the future…well, the future past anyway…i’m probably a little outdated now.
THE LIVING ROOM
Hilarious!! I love the sunken lounge seating area…very Don Draper. I have one of those futuristic switches on my wall…its called a dimmer switch…oh how futuristic!!! Living the dream!!!
THE KITCHEN
Oh Wow…eradiated foods…what the hell is that!!! And i love how they had no idea how the food was to be stored in the future so it was stored over “there”. Automated Chef!!!! Do they mean my microwave oven???? haha!!! And the food comes out here…of course it does Walter!!! Brilliant!!! I kinda wish that this was exactly how the future (now) was…the colours, style and shape of things looked far more interesting than they actually do.
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True Skin/Sight/Plurality – 3 great Sci-Fi short films
True Skin
I fucking love this…not all of it, there are a couple of characters in it that don’t sit right with me…visually, but i’m nitpicking.
So…set in Hong Kong (future Hong Kong though), which is now a place where body modification has become an aspect of everyday living, our lead character, Kaye, having stolen ‘something’ is now on the run from the authorities.
The CG work in this is amazing…just the look and feel is done so well. Written and directed by Stephan Zlotescu.
Sight
What’s the future of gaming?
Really good concept, actually quite scary and prophetic me thinks. The concept of this film, by Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo, seems to me as an idea that could be seriously based in the real. Surely, with the onset of augmented reality and the interest in gaming on mobile phones, this kind of gaming, or certainly the first generation of this type of gaming, is only a few years away. Possibly. If there is money to be made i’m sure some company out there will make it.
More interesting is the whole augmented reality contact lenses that these guys are wearing…they look cool…imagine being able to read a persons facial movements to help tell whether someone likes you or not or is interested in what you’re saying…woah!!! the possibilities…and the problems!!!
Plurality
Ok…this is more standard sci-fi fare…big brother, people controlled by the grid, a blade runner type character who chases down any protagonists. It would be too easy to give away the plot so i won’t go on…for me it’s enjoyable but i would have loved more information with regards to some of the characters, why and how are they there and what happens to them? Still, quite enjoyable.
Directed by Dennis Liu…jeez it took him 2 years to make this short…god, i would love to make a sci-fi short but i don’t think i could spend 2 years of my life on it…well…it depends i guess…filming done first…post production for the next two years!!! i could do that!!!
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Air Canada 75th Birthday Ads by Karim Zariffa
It’s not all about the effects packages you know.
I wanted to show you these ads created by Karim Zariffa for Air Canada which i think are really cool.
In the first video Karim made all the sets by hand and any changes you see in the video that happens to the text are created by strings and pulleys, amazing…my DIY skills are shit but i would love to do something like this…working on some music vids soon so may experiment a little.
The air hostess was filmed seperately to the rest of the shot and then composited in.
The second vid was all done as a model and the look of it, i think, really works. Its really nice to see Tv advertising that isn’t always computerized.
Karim Zariffa is a designer from Montreal, Quebec, Canada and has won numerous awards for his work. Talented Bastard!!!
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Cadbury ‘Enjoy The Moment’ Olympic ads by Shane Griffin
I really love these ads by Chris Griffin. I’m not totally sure what program he used for this but it looks very similar to Trapcode for After Effects and could possibly be done in there; though i think this is probably done in a 3D program. It must have been some serious motion capture going on for the swimming ad…jeez. Very nice and cool work.
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Motion Monday – Cathexis Trailer by AUJIK
Ok, i don’t know where to start with this one.
This is the trailer for a short film called CATHEXIS. CATHEXIS is a collaboration between a Scottish electronic musician and a cognitive neuro-scientist from Stockholm and the artists who created the video are from Japan…erm that’s probably given you enough clues as to how bizarre but beautiful this video is.
Here is how it is described on their behance page.
The concept of the film is how Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) transcends with human emotions.
In the video several examples of this is manifested by an esoteric group called AUJIK.
The video took one year to accomplish and was funded by the Swedish art grants committee and Helge Ax:son Johnsons foundation.
A Cathexis soundtrack will be available on Parallax sounds records in late spring.
There will also be a catalogue with illustrations and information about AUJIK and their synthetic/organic artefacts.
Cathexis is devided in to four sections/chapters:
QUALIA: Form, space, physics and metamorphosis.
AMYGDALA: the limbic system; neurosis, psychosis, phobias.
LABRIDAE: Gender, animus/anima-complex, hermaphroditism.
MANDALA: creativity, interaction, transcendence.
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Spiderman Movie Posters – Best and Worst
This is the Official poster for the new Spiderman movie and of the ones i’ve seen, the best.
This is a fan-made poster and i really like this one. The use of the logo is good and the character looking down over the city is great…not maybe as exciting as the official one but certainly more interesting than the next ones.
This one above is the worst of all of them…appalling!!! Whoever came up with this idea and got paid for it doesn’t deserve the job…jeez!!! I can imagine the meeting…”hey i’ve got a great idea for the poster, we’ve got the Lizard in this one right?…well remember the Godzilla poster?…” Pleb!!!
Bad. I hate this. I’m sure this idea of the character looking over hi shoulder has been used so many times and its just boring boring boring. And the compositing is awful…especially around the head and hair areas. CRAP!!! Not Amazing!!!
Oh God!!! Not Amazing!!!
These last three are just for the fun of it…i used to love the 70′s Spiderman Movies and the tv series (Nicholas Hammond as Spiderman). Ok there weren’t any supervillians but it was still great especially “the Dragons Challenge”….Spiderman versus Kung Fu Triads…Awesome stuff!!!
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Inspiration – The Eagleman Stag by Mickey Please – Studio Den75
This Animation by Mickey Please is the awesome tale of Peter Eagleman’s life and his quest for an answer to his existential angst.
This is one of the most brilliant stop motion pieces i have ever seen
Oh if i had the patience, the imagination, the talent and the wit to be able to create work of this calibre. Amazing stuff. Worth aspiring to for sure.
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