August 31, 2010

Some things change. Some things stay the same.

While deadlining on a project this evening, I glanced down to the space on the desk beside my computer. Things look a little different there than they did a few months ago.

Along with my headphones and harddrives and phone were a couple of Claire's soothers and a cloth of hers (part of a set which conveniently reminds you which day of the week it is). She was hanging out in her swing beside me as I edited video, watching my hands go from the keyboard to the mouse and watching the screen as the images flicked by. I like to think she's learning to edit.

Life is good.

August 30, 2010

The Wilderness Downtown: an Arcade Fire interactive music video.

This is, without a doubt, one of the coolest music videos (if you can even call it that) you've ever seen.

The Wilderness Downtown is an interactive video/music/software mashup by Chris Milk, featuring We Used To Wait by Arcade Fire. You start by entering in the street address of where you grew up, and go from there.

I won't give anything away. Give it a shot and see for yourself: http://thewildernessdowntown.com/

August 11, 2010

Why You Can’t Work at Work

Jason Fried of 37 Signals discusses a major flaw of the modern workplace (and no, it isn't your coworker's coffee brewing skills).

http://bigthink.com/ideas/18522#

I know this isn't new, but I just saw it for the first time this evening.

UPDATE: Posterous doesn't seem to want to let me embed the video, but the link is there if you wanted to see it.

August 5, 2010

RIP Turok

My parents came home to find this voicemail on their phone one day back in October. It came from a Newfoundland number.

(download)

The laughter in the background, along with the fact that there is no dog on our street named "Turok" suggests that, perhaps, they were pulling our leg.

August 2, 2010

Starry night

About a year and a half ago, I attempted some astrophotography for the first time. Nothing fancy: I just set my camera to a 30 second exposure and pointed it towards the sky. It yielded some interesting results, so I've been meaning to have a go at it again ever since.

Last night, I took the camera out on to our little Stratford-apartment balcony, and pointed the camera towards Charlottetown. This is what I got.

Click here to download:

starry-night-llEIWbGraNEcbShgFELW.zip (1825 KB)

I'm going to try some more this week, as we head out to the country for a few nights.

July 29, 2010

Paper animation/puppetry shoot setup.

I've been working on a project for the past couple of months. It's an introduction video to a company's project, and it's done entirely with paper (similar to my Space Race film from a while back). I'll post more about the project itself after it's delivered to the client, but in the meantime, here's a few photos of the setup.

It's nothing fancy: A Canon 7D shooting straight down at the assets. I set it up in the dining area of our apartment, which got annoying after a while, but worked. The nice thing about it was how lightweight the setup really was, so setting it up and tearing it down was simple.

Click here to download:

Paper_animationpuppetry_shoot_.zip (5281 KB)

July 14, 2010

Old Spice man's reply to my buddy @kentvillard

Have you been following the recent viral campaign from Old Spice? Their manly man from the commercials answered questions from folks on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Yahoo! Answers for about 10 hours yesterday, resulting in over 100 videos. Check them out at http://www.youtube.com/oldspice . They are hilarious, and in my opinion, the entire campaign will go down as one of the greatest viral campaigns to date.

My highlight of the day was seeing a response to friend and UPEI co-worker Kent Villard. Kent asked via Twitter "@oldspice my 14 year old son Max Villard, wants to know is it too early for him to use old spice and become a man like you." Old Spice offered him some fantastic advice:

July 8, 2010

"The Great Showdowns"

I came across Scott Campbell's The Great Showdowns this evening. I'm hooked.

He's sketching some of cinema's classic (and not so classic) showdowns. Some of the showdowns take a little bit of work to identify (the captions from the films he has below the images help), but once you get 'em, they'll give you a chuckle. These are some of my favorites: