A Beginner’s Guide To Giving A Damn… About Climate Change is designed, directed, animated and produced by Airside, and written and co-directed by Al MacCuish.
The primary-coloured animation sports Airside's trademark naif style, and adapts it to a jokey public service announcement. Good to see these Live Earth-commissioned shorts getting some after event exposure.
Archive for March, 2008
Airside animated over climate change
BUG: infectious music video
BUG has taken over the music video showcase slot at the glammed-up BFI Southbank. This event is sold out unless you know somebody who has a spare ticket. Otherwise sign up for updates, and get in on the next one fast.
Video of the Week: $$ Troopers
I haven't seen something so aggressively styled, so successfully combining striking live action with graphic effects for a long time. Las Palmas have hit a glitchy 8-bit groove with this promo clip that combines War Games-style retro 3-D graphics, with fluttering video feedback, a smattering of Jenny Holzer-like aphorisms, and pseudo-religious imagery. Watch out for the subliminals.
Portishead stripped down
Stripped down, like the track: Blue-hued high grunge imagery for Portishead's first video Machine Gun from new album, Third. Whether web-cammed or CCD'ed, this is the antithesis of the To Kill a Dead Man promo epic. It catches the moment - we've moved on from 16mm noir homages to YouTube rehearsal sneak peeks.
Radiohead want your transmission
A natural extension to Radiohead's current media experiments, and their Radiohead TV concept -- the band have teamed up with Aniboom, the animation/video site, for an In Rainbows animated music video competition.
10 semi-finalists get $1k to create a 1 minute long clip. From 11 voted for semi-finalists (10+wildcard late submission), 5 make the final to win $10k to make the full length version of their submission.
Super circuit-breaking!
I have a nice stash of chip music in my iTunes folder, and have long been an enthusiast of the 8-bit aesthetic - the crude music and graphics of retro-gaming - so Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet is a documentary recently shown at SXSW 2008 which is simply a must-see. I've already included some of this scene in a screenplay, so this doc has just made it onto my essential research list.
You too can level up at 2 Player Productions.
British Animation Award 2008 winners
The British Animation Awards 2008 highlighted some beautiful stuff still coming out of UK animation. Never easy to find the edge in BAA results, but definite highlights for inventiveness are the music video winner, Salmon Dance for The Chemical Brothers, by Dom&Nic -- and a particularly cool result in the Best Film at the Cutting Edge category with Semiconductor's Magnetic Movie (commissioned by the Animate! Arts Council/C4 scheme) leading the pack.
Winning Salmon Dance video and full BAA results after the break.
Bjork's visual lust
Björk's Wanderlust, created by Encyclopedia Pictura (made up of Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfritsch), has taken over nine months of heavy effort, animation and rendering. 2D and 3D versions of this hi-def epic are almost ready for presentation according to FEED.
Björk has always been a visual gadfly, but what I find most interesting about this latest project is that it fits with her personae so well, not since the legendary collaborations with Gondry has Björk felt so 'in the picture' rather than simply in the vocal.
Slo-mo Spike explodes
Spike Jonze is currently serving visual feasts on a platter. What with the Flashing Lights video, the recent leak of upcoming third feature (adult reimagined) Where the Wild Things Are, and now exploding skateboarders (in this extreme intro video for lakai), Jonze is back on a creative hotstreak, and seemingly obsessed with slo-mo.
Watch it quick.
Pangea Day previews
Take part on May 10, 2008. Pangea Day is about using film to help change the world. "Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future.
