The inimitable Saul Bass — designer of some of the most impressive opening title sequences in movie history — on Making Money Vs. Quality Work. Bass has created title sequences for such films as The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Vertigo (1958), Anatomy of a Murder (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), Ocean’s 11 (1960), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). He also designed posters for many of the same films, including The Shining in 1980.
Completely beautiful, like a moving postcard. Director/Producer/Editor James W. Griffiths was asked by Tourism Malaysia to make two films, one on the subject of Malaysian history and one on nature. We Were Wanderers is an ode to the flora and fauna of Malaysia. This was filmed on a Canon 1D Mark IV and graded using Color Finesse in After Effects. Looks like some of the slow-motion shots were enhanced with Twixtor, software I can’t wait to try out with a project I’ve got coming up end of the month.
I recently watched Chaplin on Netflix, and a major culmination of the film reached with this exact, incredible speech taken from 1940′s The Great Dictator. From the comments,
Charlie Chaplin spoke these words 70+ years ago , for someone to be able to take these words and show how that even today they ring true is a testament to their timelessness and brilliance and for a video to do the words justice is brilliant also. well done
And it is still true, even today. Ignore the at times cheesy visuals (Cybermen from Doctor Who, anyone?) and listen to the words and really hear them. The Album Leaf was a cute choice for the music in the background. Still inspirational, Charlie. Thanks.
This cute music video for How I Know by Toro y Moi is about three gents exploring a haunted house. Little do they know, the spirits of two female ghosts long for companionship. You may even recognize Daniel “You Go Glen Coco” Franzese from Mean Girls.
Internationally renowned photographers Tim Navis + Kim Høltermand have started a new project with film collective Scenic Studio and composer Deru. They’ll set out on a journey to explore the remote and beautiful countryside of Iceland to document their experiences with the landscape, residents and traditions. The end result, a beautifully packaged box set of the film and companion soundtrack, will be released to backers of the project as a physical artifact of the unique and awe-inspiring experience.
Tim + Kim will film at various locations throughout the island, inspired by moments of discovery and chance occurrence.. Scenic will edit the series into short films, featuring an original score by Deru and a full-length soundtrack (the first single is available now) featuring contributions from select musicians and contemporary composers.
A Continuous Lean‘s Michael Williams was in Europe for meetings recently and was able to spend a bit of time and a few days in the South of France. He was kind enough to take some photos with a Fujifilm X100 and a bit of post tweaking.
I’ve been listening to this record on repeat for the last few months, so tight. Last night was the first time I really explored the iTunes LP of it that I got and watched the three music videos attached. JEALOUSY.
I’ve been wanting to do something like this locally with A-OK, I love the concept an execution on this video by Sumit Paul.
Excerpt from iamthisland.org:
I AM THIS LAND is a response to a year of divisive rhetoric; it is Breakthrough’s call for a more positive and open-minded future for our country. The new year provides the opportunity to celebrate our diversity and recommit to building a society that values dignity, equality and justice.
Tom Ford – fashion powerhouse/film mogul/old school romantic/myhero – is the cover star of the spring/summer 2011 issue of Another Man and presents Tom Ford’s five easy lessons in how to be a modern gentleman.
You should put on the best version of yourself when you go out in the world because that is a show of respect to the other people around you.
A gentleman today has to work. People who do not work are so boring and are usually bored. You have to be passionate, you have to be engaged and you have to be contributing to the world.
Manners are very important and actually knowing when things are appropriate. I always open doors for women, I carry their coat, I make sure that they’re walking on the inside of the street. Stand up when people arrive at and leave the dinner table.
Don’t be pretentious or racist or sexist or judge people by their background.
A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach
One of my closest and dearest friends moved to Montréal a couple years back to focus on Modeling, fire-hooping and marine biology. No jokes. I’m very proud of him.
It’s a great story, inspired by an 8-bitted Dribbble post by UK artist and designer Harry Harrison, San Francisco interactive designers Addison Kowalski, Amadeus Demarzi and Courtney Guertin took the idea to the next level by 8 bit-ing their Twitter avatars, which inevitably went viral among the tech set, finally consuming MG Siegler and myself in a blaze of pixelated glory about a day ago.
On December 16th, 1960 a Trans World Airlines Lockheed Super Constellation collided midair over Brooklyn with a United Airlines Douglas DC-8. The T.W.A. flight — a slow moving propeller plane — was heading from Columbus, Ohio en route to LaGuardia. The other plane, a much more advanced jetliner, was destined for Idlewild airport (JFK) with 77 passengers from Chicago. All together, the crash killed 134 people, being one of the worst air disasters at the time. It is a fascinating story that was highlighted extremely well on the NY Times City Room blog.
The coverage included additional information about T.W.A. co-pilot Dean Bowen that, as well as being a skilled aviator, he was also a talented photographer. Through his travels he used Kodachrome to document life as he saw it. One commenter even pointed readers to a Flickr set of Bowen’s images.
Russell Leng is an artist living in Vancouver. His work is inspired by the relationship between natural and built environments, which is expressed in this explanation of his work.
My work is characterized by geometric forms interacting with organic marks. This is seen in a variety of ways, such as a rigid line next to a loose application of paint or gradient. I notice these relationships in nature as well; a tree breaking through a concrete sidewalk, or a housing development by a river. I want to examine these relationships between natural and built landscapes, conjuring a new sense of place. By confronting the viewer’s perception of landscape, I aim to question how these unceasing amalgamations change how we identify with our environments, and perceive ourselves in them.
Reading on, it’s eerie how many similarities I feel I have with Leng, his time is often spent daydreaming about cabins, neon lights, and the feeling he gets while hearing the ocean before seeing it, feels like a page taken out of my own book. Perhaps it’s just impossible not to feel this way living in BC?
(via @martyzylstra) The story of the week is not Amos Lee entering the chart with an anemic sales total of 40,000. That’s like seeing your name in print in the newspaper. All your homies call you up thrilled and the following day you’re forgotten. Ditto with Cake. These are not bad stories, the fans come out and support these acts, they can make a living playing music. But they’re never going to go platinum. They’re never going to blow up like Mumford & Sons.
Could it be the Hot AC play? And there’s been adult radio spins, but there are barely any adult radio stations.
We could debate all week long what’s fueling Mumford’s sales, but the fact is Mumford & Sons’ “Sigh No More” sold 31,000 copies this week to place number six on the SoundScan chart. They’re almost at 750,000 copies. And number 10 on the 2010 chart was Ke$ha, with 1,143,000 copies sold.
In other words, in the world of recorded music, Mumford & Sons are SUPERSTARS!
Katy Perry’s vaunted “Teenage Dream” has sold barely over a million. Despite being on the chart for 22 weeks. Then again, Mumford’s been on the chart for 49. You see it takes that long to build.
And building is the story.
It’s no longer about the peak. The Black Eyed Peas are going to headline the Super Bowl this weekend on the downswing of their career. Not because they’re decades beyond their moment in the sun like the classic rockers, but because their latest album, “The Beginning”, is the beginning, of the E.N.D. It’s over. It’s like everybody in America looked at each other and said THESE GUYS SUCK! In a world searching for meaning, the Peas are meaningless. It’s hard to party all the time when you’re broke and don’t have a job.
When that happens, you’re looking for something more soul-fulfilling. It turns out Top Forty radio is not king.
Most of those Top Forty acts, which do sell singles on iTunes, can’t tour for shit. Whereas Mumford sells every ticket. Then again, Mumford underplays and undercharges. What a concept! Create a frenzy, get everybody talking about you!
In other words, your friend says he’s going to the show. Do you want to come? You debate. The Ticketmaster charges, the lame opening act, you’re gonna pass. But when your friend is going to the show of an act you’ve never heard of, and is foaming at the mouth about it, and you get excited and want to go too and you can’t get a ticket you’re frustrated and ask yourself WHAT IN HELL IS GOING ON HERE?
What is going on here?
The media is driving towards a cliff of its own device. The record labels and the movie studios and the newspapers and magazines and TV stations are in cahoots, believing it’s still the nineties, when hype is everything and it pays to be mainstream.
You know how you become mainstream today? By driving in the complete other direction and doing something so different, so unique, so ALIVE that the public is drawn to it.
Mumford doesn’t need the usual suspects. It’s just the music. That’s enough. Acoustic instruments, no beats, HUH?
You can decry the Internet. But it’s the Net that breaks these new acts. Because the mainstream, if it cares at all, cares last. People are looking for something new. And they’ve found Mumford & Sons…
