Machinista 2004

Following from the original edition in 2003 founded in Perm, Russia [1386km east of Moscow] Machinista is a migrating festival exploring, celebrating and questioning the ideas of "artificial intelligence in the arts" and "human-machine interaction". machinista.org features contributions to the 2004 Machinista festival in Glasgow, 7-9 May. This year's edition includes intriguing 'machine-vision' pieces such as (Remote) Mind - The Strangers are still me by Muehleck & Rauch, a DVD installation piece using a 3D medical scanner to capture facial data, to look at how visual representations of memory can be understood....

KDLAB / NikeLab: Art of Speed

Expect to see NikeLab's Art of Speed project featuring multi-disciplinary moving imagemaker-created shorts all over the Web and at digital film festivals globally shortly. The Computerlove site has a great preview of the collection featuring Les Jumelles by KDLAB. Art of Speed will be featured at nikelab.com from 1 May 2004: "With the Art of Speed project, Nike sought an outside perspective, asking 15 digital artists to create their own visions of speed through a Nike lens." Interview from Computerlove.net: This short film follows the morning run of an athlete in the distant future, who leaves her home for a... Read more "KDLAB / NikeLab: Art of Speed" »

Posted by Editor on April 23, 2004 10:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Listed in {Nanotainment} & {VJ / Motion Graphics}

New Steamboy trailer

Latest trailer available for the much-anticipated masterpiece by virtuoso animé director, Katsuhiro Otomo: Official site | Trailer [QT 16.1M] Steamboy is the next feature film by Katsuhiro Otomo. This much-delayed movie, originally dated for release in October 2003, is to be released mid-July, 2004 in Japan. The most expensive anime film ever made at 2.4 billion Yen, Steamboy has involved over 180,000 drawings, 400 CG scenes and 9 long years of production,. The scenario revolves around Rei, a young British inventor in the mid-19th century, just before the first ever World Expo. He receives a packet from his grandfather Roid...

New Apple AV software

Apple ramps up their AV line-up, including new HD and Pro versions of their video editing suites. Apple Pro Software line-up : Final Cut Pro HD (editing) | Motion (motion graphics) | DVD Studio Pro 3 (DVD authoring) | Shake 3.5 (effects compositing) | Logic Pro 6 (sound composition) The accompanying release of Xsan, a clustered filesystem for Mac OS X adds a high-performance storage solution for a production network using Xserve RAID On a more consumer-facing level Movie Montage 1.0 promises to be the iPhoto of video, to organise small-scale desktop/laptop video footage....

Kill Bill Vol.2 Japan remix

Kill Bill Vol.2 opening to stellar audiences illustrates the cross-over potential for genre-fusing, boundary-defying cinema when packaged intelligently. Tarantino, of course, is a master at this. And while we wait for the full animé spin-off from his latest opus, material such as alternate trailers act as an enticing diversion. A perfect example of this is the Japanese campaign for the feature film which is a light-year ahead of the U.S. version. Offering a exuberantly freeform approach perfectly matching the ebullient stylings of the movie, the lurid Japanese trail mixes special effects with tricksy editing in a direct reflection of...

Dead Leaves animated film

With a lurid superkinetic feel provided by Imaitoonz, Dead Leaves is an accelerated audiovisual thrill-ride animé. Taking lavish influence from Japanese mecha, anthropomorphism, and computer-game intros, this new-wave animated feature film has been a recent hit at selected Asian film festivals including Resfest Japan, and Tokyo animé expo. Its primary-coloured delights should hit European animation festivals this year... Official site | Trailer [QT 12.5M] Synopsis: "Pandy and Retro, partners in crime, are finally arrested on numerous charges and sent to the infamous maximum-security prison 'Dead Leaves', where the galaxy's craziest have been locked up for good. Once confined, Pandy... Read more "Dead Leaves animated film" »

Posted by Editor on April 17, 2004 10:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Listed in {Accelerated cinema}

Hollywood opening eyes to gaming

Technology > Out of Hollywood, Rising Fascination With Video Games" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/10/technology/10GAME.html">Out of Hollywood, Rising Fascination With Video Games is a New York Times article illustrating both mainstream media and mainstream directors are waking up to the possibilities of engaging with, and crossing between, film and game worlds. Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) frustrated at his lack of involvement in the LOTR games, will be working more closely with Ubisoft and Universal Pictures for games based on his next feature project, King Kong. Andy and Larry Wachowski's involvement in games design and plots for the Matrix sequels...

Mobile soap don't wash

A number of Internet sources have reported on Fox Lab's Lucy Hood previewing a made-for-mobile phone soap, Hotel Franklin, at the recent MIPTV market in Cannes. Pitched at 1 minute in length (the 'natural length for phone viewing' according to Hood, senior VP of content and marketing at Fox) the cliff-hanger episodes throw us into the world of a man trying to discover if a mysterious girl in a hotel is actually an expensive call girl. Filmed specifically for the constraints of limited size mobile phone screens, the limited information available so far has the distinct whiff of the webisodic...

PSX-PS3-PSP synergies

Latest news emerging on Sony hardware plans bring together more details of how their 'ubiquitous network strategy' will play out with their new hardware. News emerging from controversial remarks by SCEE President David Reeves includes: Two versions of PS3: Home Server version nearer to PSX functionality, including hard drive, stripped down Games machine for hardcore next-gen gamers. PSP titles to be region-free, but UMD movies likely to include additional functionality Integral broadband distribution highlights Sony's commitment to downloadable game and add-ons strategy. With direct online purchase, Sony's price flexibility on gaming products will be increased. Additional sources suggest Wi-fi...

Bluespoon generative visuals

Blue Spoon recently completed providing a striking set of generative visuals for the London Sinfonietta, Squarepusher, Jamie Lidell tour, a worthy unofficial touring sequel to London's annual Ether festivals which combine modernist classical works with contemporary electronica. Of particular note was a twitching, convulsing hyperrealistic 'Sam head', and a lush evolving web of neural networks. Other visuals were provided by Flat-e and Pablo Fiasco, whose sampling and live video effects filming complemented Jamie Lidell's standout and flamboyant vocal performance expertly. The realtime effects work presented here suggests this will be an increasingly influential trend this year. [Source: Flat-e]...

Making music look good

An interesting selection of MVPA award nominees for 2004 have been announced celebrating the best in music video production. Full mvpa nominees 2004 are listed on the official website. Highlights include nominations for Floria Sigismondi, Michel Gondry, and Alex & Martin in the Alternative Video section; Brand New School (Direction Of A New Artist); Floria Sigismondi and Sophie Muller (Director of the Year); Chris Hopewell for Radiohead's There, There (Alternative video); with notable nods for Mike Mills and Arya Sonboutanaj, Ruben Fleischer, David LaChapelle, Shynola, Buf in Paris, Laurent Briet, Roman Coppola....

Guggenheim go motion

The infiltration of modern graphic designer's moving image projects into gallery and museum settings continues apace with the imaginatively titled Motion Graphics at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao on 30 April, 2004. The event features workshops by The Designers Republic, PsyOp, and Joshua Davis....