Fly on the Wall Productions

 

Fly on the Wall Productions are a young production company fresh out of Cape Town, South Africa. Their client list includes brands such as Nike, MTV and the Discovery Channel.  The film above, entitled Circular Painting, was put together for Discovery Channel. It is a stop motion, timelapse, motion control shot within a circular canvas. The two minute film was made over a non-stop 12 hour period which saw numerous street artists, musicians, painters and animators contribute their time and talent. The theme for the film was the fate of the earth and the challenges we face in preserving it.

 

Fly on the Wall, again working with their client Discovery Channel, have also put together a series of  ‘portraits’. These are really beautiful video pieces designed to celebrate the life and flavour of South Africa. The portraits are generally about a person, place, feeling or thing that moves the creative team about South Africa. The portrait above, entitled Ubuntu B-Boys, is a standout. Gritty yet optimisitic – it makes me want to jump a plane to soak in the SA vibe.

[via Wooster Collective]

Nike Skateboarding in Europe

Jason Hernandez was recently in Europe working on Nike Skateboarding’s new AM film. The clip above is just a little taste of what to expect. Hernandez was hanging with teammates Justin Brock, Grant Taylor, David Clark and Daryl Angle. Hernandez says of the experience in shooting with HD: “It was a little scary for me transitioning to HD. It was tough trying to wean skaters off the look of the VX1000. But once they see how crisp it looks they usually get the picture.”

N.B.  Just a heads-up to let you know that there is quite a bit of black at the beginning of this vid. Keep watching though – the good stuff does come!

[via Hypebeast]

Sarah Larnach and Partizan Lab for Ladyhawke

My Delirium, the new single from Ladyhawke (aka Pip Brown) isn’t officially released until 8 December. But the debut video by Frater – that’s animation duo Benji Davies and Jim Field over at Partizan Lab - is out now. Again, it features the wonderful work (watercolour and animation) of Sydney-based illustrator/painter Sarah Larnach.

See more of Sarah’s work here.

Nate Frizzell on Sketch Theatre

So-Cal resident Nate Frizzell recently hooked up with the Sketch Theatre team to film him as he drew the piece above.

Watch the video of Nate Frizzell sketching here.

I was only recently introduced to Sketch Theatre when a friend sent me the link and now I’m completely addicted. There is something voyeur-tastic about being able to watch artists from all walks of life partake in the raw process of putting ideas and expressions down with a pencil and paper.

[via Juxtapoz]

Girl Talk Creates a Mash-Up

I am super-pumped! St Jerome’s Laneway Festival tickets are on sale and Pittsburgh-based musician Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk) is headlining.  This guy is set to induce feverish spaz outs on the streets as he triggers samples and creates mixes new and old out of loops from his laptop. Gillis’ latest album, Feed the Animals, is composed almost entirely of more than 200 samples of other artists’ music, ranging from Lil Wayne to Kenny Loggins — none of which Gillis has obtained permission to use. It’s safe to say that you won’t hear his stuff on commercial radio. The above video gives a neat insight into how Gillis mixes his music. His approach to crafting a mash-up matches nicely with one of my favourite definitions of creativity by Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things”.

Matias Troncoso

By day, Matias Troncoso is a composer and music teacher. In whatever time is left, he’s a freelance photographer. Chilean-based, Troncoso’s photographs use light and colour to great effect – they have a vintage, almost nostalgic, feel – as if the images come from a long forgotten family photo album.

See more of Troncoso’s photography here.

The Wackness

Its the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana. The newly-inaugurated mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, is only beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against crimes like noisy portable radio, graffiti and public drunkenness. The Wackness, the latest film from direcor Jonathon Levine, centers upon a troubled high school student named Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) a teenage pot dealer who forms a friendship with Dr. Jeffrey Squires (Ben Kingsley), a psychiatrist and kindred lost soul. When the doctor proposes Luke trade him weed for therapy sessions, the two begin to explore both New York City and their own depression. The Wackness captures the spell of 1994 – a time of pagers, not cell phones; a time when Tupac and Biggie were alive but Kurt Cobain had just died. Co-starring Method Man, Mary-Kate Olsen, Famke Janssen and Jane Adams, The Wackness won the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award and hits Australian cinemas on 13 November.

Barack Obama vs Lee Dorsey: Yes We Can!

In 1970, R&B singer Lee Dorsey and his long time producer, Allen Toussaint, collaborated on an album entitled ’Yes We Can’. The title song was Dorsey’s last entry into the singles chart. Fastforward to 2008 and Tano Sokolow has crafted a remix with Barack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ speech from the night of the New Hampshire Primary. As Sokolow says, “the recording is funky, political, and unapologetically optimistic.  Surprisingly little editing was needed to couch Obama’s famous Yes We Can speech into the song”. Unapologetically optimistic is right – I sense change.

To listen to the remix, go here.

[via Boing Boing]

Daito Manabe

Do you remember those infomercials on late night TV for electric muscle-stimulation devices? You know, they would transmit mild electric shocks to the muscles of lycra-clad models to make them contract and were heralded as the best way to lose weight and gain muscle mass? Well, Daito Manabe’s latest project is sort of like that – but way cooler. Manabe has rigged up a machine to turn music into electrical pulses. The music and the electrical pulse are synched together to create a ballet of contorted facial tics. With a little refinement we’ll probably see this trickery appear in either the next Playstation ad or the next Pharrell clip - or both.

[via Booooooom]

Stella-Rae Zelnik

I met photographer Stella-Rae Zelnik last week and I was like, “Woah, mucho gusto!”. We were both at the launch of the Vagabondage Art Exhibition at The Front Gallery and Café in Canberra, a skateboard art exhibition that was on display from October 16 to 21. The exhibition was a celebration of skateboarding as a culture and a community with photography and installation pieces that aimed to portray the artistic relationship between rider and location, with particular emphasis on the city of Canberra. The exhibition featured select pieces of Stella’s work which she had recently shown for her solo exhibition ‘All Work and No Play’ as part of this year’s VIVID National Photography Festival. In that exhibition Stella documented the Canberra skate scene using 35mm film and an old Olympus. The resulting images are muy sabroso…

Stella’s work isn’t restricted to skate culture. For her latest exhibition she worked with James Thompson to merge different styles of live band photography. To view more of Stella’s work go here. And, while you’re there, check out her post entitled “Queanbeyan Streets”. I’ve never seen QBN look so good!

To see Stella talk about her work go here or to listen to Luke Brown, co-curator and co-exhibitor of Vagabondage, talk about the exhibtion click here.

The McCain-Obama Dance-Off

Elana Mullaly

Brisbane-based illustrator Elana Mullaly has a beautifully edgy style. Working with ink, colour pencil, graphite pencil and water colour, Mullaly’s illustrations have a careless refinement with a distinctly feminine touch. She’s at her most supercool when she mixes her media – just scope out the skateboards in the gallery below. The 26-year-old’s work will be showcased as part of the Nine Lives Gallery Launch this weekend in Fortitude Valley, Queensland.

See more of Elana Mullaly’s work in the gallery below.