Posts tagged 'Hd'

Ryusei Girl

Have you guys ever seen The Powers of Ten? It’s a 9 minute short Charles and Ray Eames created for IBM in 1977 that I first saw at the Boston Museum of Science with my dad sometime in the eighties. It depicts, “the relative scale of the Universe according to an order of magnitude (or logarithmic scale) based on a factor of ten, first expanding out from the Earth until the entire universe is surveyed, then reducing inward until a single atom and its quarks are observed.” (source: Wikipedia)

In the wake of that first initial viewing I was simultaneously struck with wonder by both the enormity of the universe it illustrated and the ingenuity of the filmmakers.

How do we know all this is true? And how did they DO that?

Up until that point I had never seen anything like it. The Powers of Ten was ‘educational’ but didn’t feel that way; it wasn’t stuffy or boring but exciting, the type of thing I could watch at school that wouldn’t feel like school. It turns out that learning stuff doesn’t have to be chore…in fact, it can and should be the exact opposite.

I can’t know for sure but my guess is that Takashi Ohashi has seen The Powers of Ten too and that it, in no small part, inspired the attached. It’s a music video from the same album as my previous post, Maison De Megu – so it’s no surprise that the two share a similar aesthetic – but they differ in setting, trading the former’s electrical schematic for a virtual world that ‘gels’ only when viewed from a particular viewing angle.

In fact, that point-of-view play is my favorite part. Beyond just the eye-candy thrill you get by seeing the visual plane wobble (during the wormhole-y zooms) and dramatically split (during the rotating sequences at 1:18-1:25, 1:47-2:20 and 2:52-3:11) it’s a reminder that our view of the world always ultimately depends on our perspective. In my mind that, not the zoom-in/zoom-out bits, is what provides the most significant parallel to The Powers of Ten. Is that looking into it too much? Am I extrapolating meaning where none was intended?

Maybe. Probably. But, whatever. That’s what I saw, maybe you did too?

Also: If you were diggin’ the wormhole dives through triangles you should definitely check out the super-rad music video for Slugabed’s Quantum Leap next, it’s 100% can’t-miss.

[ メグとパトロン - 流星ガール (megu & patron - Ryusei Girl) ]

Pari pari par-ri

In college I was lucky enough to land a summer internship at a nuclear power plant; it paid almost double than my previous gig (at a movie theatre), gave me regular ‘office hours’ and included every-other-Friday off. I had originally been hired to do office grunt work but, after a chance conversation with someone in the simulator division, was asked to come upstairs and help them out.

All nuclear power plants are required (by the NRC) to have a simulator that is an exact replica of the control room. And I mean exact, even the color and type on the paper labels that hang from the panels must be in perfect parity with their on-site counterpart.

Our job in the simulator division was to create scenarios that would test the knowledge of each operator and team, ensuring they could handle the worst-case sequence-of-events that would, if left unchecked, result in a catastrophic total shut-down of the reactor. Safety was certainly priority one but that’s just because a meltdown would result in a non-functioning reactor and, considering a power plant’s profitability is in direct proportion to its up-time (even a one percent reduction in output could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars lost), it’s in everyone’s best interest to know their shit.

If left unchecked the reactor would safetly shut itself down so your typical Hollywood, everything-is-FUBAR storyline would be deftly dealt with. As a result, I learned it was far-more interesting to fail a minor, seemingly insignificant pump or circuit, watch its effect cascade rapidly through the system and observe how the operators would deal with it. How quickly could they define the source of the issue? Could they keep the plant operating at peak-capacity while enacting the fix?

It’s essentially min-maxing in a JRPG, a particular flavor of OCD hyper-optimization that, when targeted at a suitable problem, makes my brain squirt out the happy juice.

One summer I was tasked with translating some on-paper schematics of an electrical sub-system into the codebase that had yet to be integrated into the simulator. For nearly two months I was left (mostly) undisturbed in my first-ever cubicle, discman strapped to my ears, bathed in light from a CRT monitor while I meticulously followed the diagrams, laying out and connecting each diode, capacitor and gate until a page of the circuit was faithfully reproduced.

Though what I was doing was exceedingly more interesting that any previous minimum wage job my fickle, easily distracted primate brain soon started to wander, embroidering elaborate scenarios to cope with the plodding tedium. I imagined electrons squealing with delight as they raced through the loops of an inductor or crowding together as they funneled into a diode.

Anything to pass the time.

So yeah, I get the attached. I’m there man; I’ve been there.

One of the cool things about my extended vacation from posting is that I get to catch-up on what some of my favorite artists have been up to in my absence. I’m happy to report that Takashi Ohashi has been continuing to use simple line and color to create thrilling, intuitively evolving music videos. This one is for Megu & Patron’s “pari pari par-ri-” (メグとパトロン - パリパリパーリー) and Takashi’s playful visuals are a perfect backing to the optimistic, joyful chiptune vibe of the tune. In fact, I couldn’t decide whether or not I wanted to post this or his equally-rad video for Ryusei Girl so I decided to just do both.

Stay tuned!

[ メグとパトロン - パリパリパーリー (pari pari pa-ri) ]

Birds

“A lighthearted essay on contextualized characters.
Reconstruction follows deconstruction.”

*Dusts off keyboard*

Whoa. Hey, what’s going in? It’s been a while.

The short story: I’ve been busy.

The long story:

I.

I’m a dad and my daughter is at the age where she notices (and gets upset) when I’ve got my face stuck in a phone or laptop whilst spending time with her. I was lucky enough to have parents who paid attention to me and know how important that shit is so, quite out of the blue, my not-at-work screen time is now at a premium.

II.

I’ve started open sourcing some of the software I’ve been writing over the last year and that’s been sucking up a lot of my time. “Sucking up” in a good way, in a “get lost in what you’re doing and end up feeling accomplished” sort of way. It’s really fun to hone in on, refine and document things I’ve been building with the express purpose of helping other people solve challenges similar to ones I’ve had to tackle. I learned how to program by using (and studying) code that was written by others and if those folks hadn’t open-sourced what they wrote I honestly wouldn’t have the skills necessary to do what I do for a living. I am seizing an opportunity to be useful to others; a state of being and action that, for me at least, yields the maximum about of bliss. If you’re curious:

     
  • django-versatileimagefield: A flexible, intuitive and easily-extensible interface for quickly creating new images from the one assigned to a field.
  •  
  • django-multilingualfield: Intuitively manage multiple translations of text-based content (including paths to files/images).

III.

I’ve been working on a project that I can’t talk a lot about right now but let me put it this way: if it happens I would post in on this web zone (even if I didn’t have a hand in making it).

Watching rad videos and talking about why I love them is one of my favorite things to do but sometimes even THAT has to take a backseat to other pursuits. Everything interesting on this website I found freely available to watch online and as compelling as it is to continually consume what others create, I also want to contribute my own drops to the internet’s vast ocean of interesting things.

All the above can be summed up with one of Ms. Tripatorium’s favorite phrases: “You can do anything but you can’t do everything.”

Over the past month or so I started to receive messages from many of you inquiring about the status of the site. Most of them included a little note of appreciation and none of them were mean or rude which was super-cool. To know that so many of you were missing these little posts I like to write in my spare time late at night or on the train to-and-from the city was tremendously gratifying.

Speaking of posts: attached above is a bizarre little treat Carl Burton introduced me to on twitter. It’s essentially improvisational animation; a minute-and-a-half riff on what gives birds their birdness. The ‘worm sequence’ is just mental and easily my favorite. Anyone have like $50,000 so we can hire ZEITGUISED (or, at least, lead animator Matt Frodsham) to make a whole bunch more of these?

Thanks, as always, for reading. Cheers!

P.S. If you haven’t seen Carl’s short Shelter I definitely recommend checking it out; it’s absolutely fantastic.

[ Birds ]

It’s Called “Moon”

Straight-away I was reminded of Jake Fried, but only in materials/process. It’s clear that Emanuele is also intuitively fleshing out the movement frame-by-frame as he goes but his work is unique in that there’s no figurative elements to recognize; only abstract geometry and form that, when quilted together, comes across as both familiar and foreign.

I’m reminded of the notebooks I used to fill with random scribbles while bored out of my mind in high school: I’d start with a stray line or a random shape and then try to make sense of it with the remaining paper, as if the choatic mess left by my pen was what I had intended to create from the beginning. It was a way to pass the time and entertain myself instead of blankly staring at the clock, fantasizing about the bell that would eventually set me free.

Thanks for passing this one along, Sam Lillard!

P.S. I recommend giving Jake’s work a look when you’re done here.

[ It's Called "Moon" ]

The Jump

I’ve technically already posted the attached – it was, after all, included in Late Night Work Club’s ultra-rad first release, Ghost Stories – but, considering that it was my favorite of the bunch, I figured this magical bit of animation from Charles Huettner deserved its own entry on the site. ENJOY!

[ The Jump ]

The Ecstatic Energy of Geometry

“14 teams of Austin based studios and freelancers participated in a 48 hour animation challenge in the spirit of an Exquisite Corpse presented by the Austin Motion Artists Group, Moontower VFX, Houndstooth Studio, and The Octopus Project.

On January 17th, 2014, each team received a specifically designed start frame, an end frame, an 11 second 4 bar phrase of the chosen Octopus Project song and a guiding theme “The Ecstatic Energy of Geometry.”

I’m always down for a well made exquisite corpse and the attached from Austin Motion Artists Group is an excellent example of the form. ENJOY!

P.S. Didya see the one Cartoon Network commissioned last summer?

[ Austin Anijam 2014 - The Octopus Project "Mmkit" ]

Rick & Morty

“I do for sure. I don’t like going places and sitting around for twenty hours waiting for them to reset a shot. I made the conscious decision a long time ago: I’m done with live action. ‘Cause I can just sit in my agoraphobic darkened room and create worlds, and now I’m doing it with a bunch of awesome, talented animators and designers and we can go anywhere we want. Anywhere…more – Justin Roiland in response to the question Do you find writing for animation more creatively liberating than, say, writing live action?

Last year, after reading that Dan Harmon would no longer be the showrunner for Community, I got super bummed-out. My love for the show is well documented and to confront the reality that it would no longer be nurtured with nutrients from its central, creative teat was pretty depressing.

A few weeks before Sony axed Mr. Harmon, adultswim announced it had picked up a pilot of an animated show he co-created with Justin Roiland (who you probably know best as the voice of Lemongrab on Adventure Time) and I distinctly remember feeling giddy at the news. Community, in many ways, already felt like an animated show – with its insane, truly far-out plotlines and laser-focused visual execution – and I figured that without any need for cameras, Dan Harmons creative vision could flow out, unencumered.

I’m happy to report that Rick & Morty is as bizarre as I had hoped it would be. Attached above is the second third episode (you can watch the first two at adultswim) and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Cheers!

[ Rick and Morty: Watch "Anatomy Park" now ]

One and Three Four

In the weeks since sharing Masanobu Hiraoka‘s Land I’ve come back and re-watched it at least a dozen times. His ability to change composition with unbroken, constantly-evolving morphs – as opposed to the more traditionally-employed cut – consistently rewards an additional viewing; each one yields another subtle treasure I overlooked the first (or second or third or…) time.

In the attached, a music video for Yoshiharu Abe‘s ONE AND THREE FOUR, Mr. Hiraoka experiments with how his psychedelic liquid transitions appear when kaleidoscopically mirrored and/or confined to a nearly-omnipresent circular frame. It reminds me a lot of both Celyn Brazier‘s stellar animation for Chunkothy and Ori Toor’s work which is about the highest praise I can give.

Full-screen HD for sure, kiddos. ENJOY!

P.S. If you haven’t seen (or seen-in-a-while) either Chunkothy or our many Ori Toor posts, I recommend you set aside some time to check ‘em out.

P.P.S. Our kaleidoscope feed is pretty rad, too.

[ ONE AND THREE FOUR ]

Limitless

When Ironlak discovered a large warehouse in Brisbane was marked for demolition they arranged for Sofles, Fintan Magee, Treas and Quench to have unfettered access to its interior walls. Luckily, Selina Miles was there to capture their aerosol orgy in gorgeous time lapse so we could all experience what happened. ENJOY!

Thanks for writing in to share this with us, Nathan! Cheers!!

P.S. For more, be sure to check out our graffiti and time lapse feeds.

[ SOFLES — LIMITLESS ]

Bells

“The majority of the 3D models used in the video are based on real objects from Space; the Hubble Space Telescope, Progress and Voyager 1. The planets and moons in the video are generated using NASA imagery, and helped to create a formal aspect to an otherwise abstract piece.”

As anyone who frequents this site knows, I’m a big fan of ‘wormhole’ videos. That’s not a formal, industry term or whatever just a little tag I started attaching to any video with a significant portion dedicated to taking bringing the viewer on a journey directly towards (or away from) the center of the frame. The first one I can remember seeing is 2001’s infamous ‘Star Gate’ slitscan sequence and I disctinctly remember wishing it had been twice (or three times) as long.

Ever since the inception of this site over three years ago I’ve tried to collect the best examples of the form and my current favorites are Max Hattler’s Sync, the bizarre and whimsical Pelican by David Wilson Creative (for The Maccabees), Jesse Kanda’s psychedelic sea-punk music video for Arca’s Manners, Quantum Leap by Thomas de Rijk (for Slugabed), and Carl Burton’s supremely strange and intriguing short film, Shelter.

Attached above is a video – by Stuart Sinclair – that fits in nicely with the aforementioned watchables. The glitchy, looped-and-syncopated music by Suns is just-right for a dive through space and the wire-frame visuals heighten the futuristic, tech-drenched vibe.

Top-marks all the way ‘round. ENJOY!

Oh and be sure to check out our wormhole feed, it’s not-to-be missed.

[ BELLS MUSIC VIDEO ]

Before Your Very Eyes

Thom Yorke + Flea + stop motion animation? Yes, please. Wait, Andrew Huang – of Mutual Core and SOLIPSIST fame – directed it? YES, PLEASE!!

Full-screen HD in a dark room with a nice pair of headphones is absolutely required. ENJOY!

P.S. A massive thanks is due to Brooks Ryba for the heads-up.

P.P.S. Our stop motion feed is filled with super-rad watchables.

[ Atoms For Peace - Before Your Very Eyes ]

X

Right out of the gate I was enamored with the aesthetic; it evokes movies like Tron and WarGames which – whether they hold up now or not – were seen in the brain-like-a-sponge days of my childhood and, as a result, a welcome flutter of warm nostalgia cascaded through my brain.

About a minute in though my interest started to wane; when were things going to pick up? I was a bit bored and having trouble understanding what this whole thing was about but, since Max made it, I stayed locked in (and am glad I did).

I build systems all day and, before construction actually starts, I first have to understand what I’m building and why it’s worth the effort. Usually there’s some kind of raw, chaotic element that, if thoughtfully reconfigured, can transform an unwelcome existing reality into a new, useful one.

I’m typically dealing with reams of unstructured data and have found that, more often than not, a wise first step in the process of turning chaos into order is forcing oneself to slow-down and observe. So that’s exactly what I did.

What are these shapes? Why do they move as they do? What causes the connecting lines to appear? Were they always there or do they spring from nothing when another form is close? What causes them to go away? Are they artifacts of communication or some abstract representation of relationship (or neither)?  Why do some shapes leave the frame while others combine or split or shrink down to nothing or…

...then it was over and I longed to see more. I wanted to live in that neon-and-artificial-yet-strangely-organic-and-alive world for a bit longer to see where things went. I couldn’t make sense of it at first but felt that if I kept watching some hidden, important meaning would eventually present itself.

As mentioned above, the talented Max Hattler directed the attached with some animation assistance from Matt Abbiss, Tony Comley, Valeria Fonseca, Siobhan Mcelhinney and Luiz Stockler.

ENJOY!

P.S. If you haven’t seen (or seen-in-a-while) Max’s excellent Sync I suggest you do; it’s SUPER trippy.

[ X (by Max Hattler) - Festival Version ]

Delta

CRCR – with help from the talented crew at WIZZ – turn out yet-another winner, this time for French turntablist collective C2C. ENJOY!

For more CRCR-created goodness just follow this hyperlink.

[ C2C - Delta (official Video) ]

Land

WOW. This gorgeous three and a half minute trip-fest of undulating, constantly-morphing animation by Masanobu Hiraoka (of Je Regarde) demands to be watched on the largest display currently at your disposal. Grab your headphones, too; Aimar Molero‘s music/sound design properly sets the atmosphere and breathes life into the sloshing, shifting abstract forms.

ENJOY!

A big thanks is due to Carl Burton for the heads-up on Twitter. If you haven’t seen his excellent short film Shelter yet I suggest making time to do so at your earliest convenience.

Oh and be sure to check out our Je Regarde feed, it’s full of other fantastic watchables.

[ Land via @carlburton ]

Against Time

I possess a near-superhuman ability to ignore everything that resides outside the scope of whatever infatuation currently occupies my mind grapes. This is an amazing trait to have if your day job is to dictate, in exhausting detail, exactly what a computer should do but becomes a burden when nearly everyone you care about wonders why your focus is eternally elsewhere. I, like the protagonist in the attached, would do just fine in a post-apocalyptic lonerverse as long as I had something to focus my obsessive attention on.

In my pre-dad anxiety I told a good friend, in near tears, that I was terrified of being a bad father. His response was, “As long as you want to be one, you will.” Essentially, if that voice is consistenly in your quivver of instincts all that’s needed is to listen (and act on) what it tells you.

In the past year and a half I’ve found myself in many similar moments – though certainly less extreme – to the one that takes place at 4:24: typing away, figuring shit out and riding high on the supremely satisfying buzz that accompanies the Sacred Act of Making Shit™ only to be unexpectedly interrupted. Writing an application is like building a house of cards; you know, before writing a single line of code, what the final functional outcome will be but the act of actually constructing it takes a long stretch of continuous concentration.

When a toddler wants your attention it is near-impossible to do anything else. Either you are present or you are not; as someone who has been both a child and an adult I’m all-too-aware that there’s no in-between. But attention can be deflected and, in the moments when I’d rather be absorbed in me, my natural tendency is to hand her my phone (or some other suitable distraction) instead of seizing the opportunity to revel in the peculiar magic that accompanies interacting with another human life.

Luckily, that’s typically when the ‘be a good dad’ voice rises up and – even though my preliminary, lazy and selfish instincts often wish it would shut up – I force myself to listen.

It’s graduation film season and Jérémi Boutelet, Thibaud Clergue, Tristan Ménard, Camille Perrin, Gaël Megherbi and Lucas Veber of Supinfocom Arles have set a high standard for any shorts to come. Special mentions are due to both Nathan Blais & Sylvain Livenais (of Spectral Approche) for the killer sound design; headphones are a must.

ENJOY!

P.S. Our Supinfocom feed is pretty rad.

[ Contre temps ]

Don’t Give Up

“I was still surprised,
When I caught your eye after all this time.
And it took me back to the times we had.
Even though that we’re far apart,
We’ve come so close and it feels so right;
Don’t give up…”

Kate Moross‘s laid-back, nature-in-oversaturated-technicolor supercut and Washed Out‘s airy, mellow sound make for a potent twosome of chill. Sub Pop forever.

A big thanks is due to William Doran for sending this one our way. Cheers!

[ Washed Out - Don't Give Up [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO] ]

Tacky, Sticky & Glutinous

“Lost between his dreams and his frustrations, a man is the witness of his own insanity.”

David Maingault‘s graduation film from his time at EMCA is a gorgeously rendered whacked-out fever dream that bubbles over with bizarre, unsettling intrigue. ENJOY!

[ Tacky, Sticky & Glutinous ]

End Scene

“The animation work was made in Adobe After Effects. Each frame was then printed and the print was subsequently scanned back into the computer. The scanned frames were then assembled back into the original animation, now with a new rugged look, created by the visit in the physical analogue world. No effects added after scanning.”

I’ve always been rather partial to the craggy, mechanical warmth of halftone patterns and this minimal-and-mysterious music video by Steffen Bygebjerg for Troels Abrahamsen puts them center stage. ENJOY!

[ End Scene ]

Macro Timelapse

Today’s allotment of mellow vibes comes courtesy of Daniel Csobot (visuals) and Daniel Gautreau (tunes). ENJOY!

If you enjoyed the attached and would like to see more videos like it, I’d suggesting visiting our time lapse feed next.

[ Macro Timelapse ]

Elk Grass

“But there’s that sweet grass, it’s dancing in the high bluffs and the sea breeze;
It’s where the elk sleep, dreaming simple dreams of luscious green grass and peace.”

Loving this gorgeous, atmospheric-and-mellow music video Awesome and Modest directed/animated for Pete Van Leeuwen. The tune sounds like it could have been on Beck’s Sea Change – my go-to album for the drive home after a long, hot day at the beach – and the complimentary connected-with-nature visuals further amplify its already laid-back, lazy vibe.

Enjoy!

[ Elk Grass ]