Posts tagged 'Water'

Little Boat

The attached first appeared on my radar over a year ago when it was initially released. We had recently featured This one time… – a bizarre, wonderfully inventive short by its creator, Nelson Boles – and, for whatever dumb reason, I figured I’d save his latest for later. Between now and then Little Boat has been pinging my consciousness at regular intervals and, when I saw it had been selected as a finalist in the 2012 Vimeo Awards, I figured it was high time I give it a proper watch.

Sometimes when I’m certain a film is going to be great I won’t press play until the setting is just-right. Often I’ll implore you to ‘grab your headphones’ or turn the lights-down and, in that regard, I try to take my own advice as much as possible. Most times that isn’t feasible and I’ll catch up on your suggestions and my own regular internet rounds while on the train or whenever I have a few minutes in-between keeping my daughter alive.

It’s a shame I waited so long to dive in to this one but I’m glad I made the effort to slow myself down before experiencing it. Everything about Little Boat is great – its whimsical, bizarre (and endearing) story is told entirely through quick vignettes of tightly executed, cell-shaded visuals backed with some excellent sound design that completes the immersion. It, like all great animated shorts, appears to be a snapshot taken from within a fully-realized unique world, wholly separate from our own. Nelson seems to have a knack for creating those so we’re excited to see what he’ll come up with next. Speaking of which, have you seen This one time… yet? It’s fucking great.

[ Little Boat ]

Datamosh

“Now that television transmissions have gone completely digital you have probably seen this effect before.  You’re watching TV and then suddenly the image freezes.  Then, instead of glitching back to the next shot, its as if the next shot appears to be wearing the information from the previous shot.  It’s a surreal effect that can be hard to explain.”

Don Whitaker (of Squircle Zoom fame) wrote in to tell us about a video mashup technique called ‘datamoshing’ that, “uses video compression artifacts as a composition tool”. If you’re interested in trying it for yourself be sure to check out this three part tutorial that utilizes free, readily-available-on-the-internets software.

The attached music video – for the tune Mande Burung by Odelia – was created by Charlie Visnic and is an excellent application of the technique. Mind-bending, mellow and trip-tastic – enjoy!

Thanks for the heads-up, Don!

[ Mande Burung by Odelia via The B-Roll ]

Coalescence Cascade

Behold! The coalescence cascade! (That would make a great band name, btw.)

[ Waterdrop shot in 10000 frames a second via Gizmodo ]

Refraction

Jesse Zanzinger had the fantastic idea to shoot a whole bunch of stuff through oil and water.  I think you’ll enjoy the result.

Be sure to hang in there ‘til you see the numbers.

[ Refraction ]