David Letterman’s Thanksgiving Gift: A Monkey Sneezing

If you don’t find this cute + funny you have no soul.

CIT FashionACT presents: Notions 2008 Graduating Parade

The eleven graduating students from the Canberra Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Design (Fashion) will showcase their debut collections at ‘Notions’ on 7 December. The graduating parade is a culmination of three years of creative and dedicated work by the designers: Andie Meredith, Jacquelyn Hewat, Kelly Battur, Karen Clarke, Francesca Altenberg, Gemma Jameson, Tegan Kennedy, Simone Viljoen, Kiri Davis, Lyndall Beattie and Sara Wurcker. If you’re local or visiting the area, be sure to check out the latest fashion designs that Canberra has to offer.

When: Sunday 7 December, 7:30pm for an 8pm start
Where: National Museum of Australia
A limited number of tickets are still available online at www.outincanberra.com.au

Touchgrind: Skateboarding on Your iPhone

Feel like a skate session but stuck in the office? iPhone is here to save you. Illusion Labs, the peeps behind iPhone apps Labyrinth and iPint, have developed Touchgrind – the first real multi-touch skateboarding game for iPhone and iTouch. The game’s innovative finger controls together with true physics simulation allows you to pull off tricks like ollies, shuvits, kickflips, heelflips, boardslides, etc in endless combinations on your iPhone. The game has three different modes: Warm Up; Jam Session; and Competition. Scope the game’s trailer in the vid below:

Call me old school, but – while Touchgrind is an undeniably cool app and sure to be popular – I just don’t think it will ever be as fun as this:

[via NOTCOT]

Unexpected Graffiti Error

Thankfully, walls don’t often have this problem…

“Unable to show the whole piece as an unexpected error occurred”

[via FFFFOUND!]

Is Hollywood Narrative Dead?

Some Hollywood execs are so concerned about the future of storytelling that they have enlisted the help of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT’s Media Laboratory has created the Centre for Future Storytelling which aims to determine whether the old way of telling stories – particularly those on the big screen delivered with a beginning, a middle and an end - is in trouble. As an interesting article in the New York Times reports:

Hollywood’s ability to tell a meaningful story has been nibbled at by text messages, interrupted by cellphone calls and supplanted by everything from Twitter to Guitar Hero…traditional narrative — the kind with unexpected twists and satisfying conclusions — has been drowned out by noise and visual clutter.

A common gripe is that gamelike, open-ended series like “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Spider-Man” have eroded filmmakers’ ability to wrap up their movies in the third act. Another is that a preference for proven, outside stories like the Harry Potter books is killing Hollywood’s appetite for original storytelling.

This article got me thinking.

If Hollywood storytelling is in danger, we are arguably seeing an opposing trend in television narrative. Thanks to innovative TV shows like The Sopranos, The Wire and Damages – which demand audience attention - there has been an increase in complex narrative structure and subject matter. This is intriguing, because while our culture values convenience and speed – watching a television series takes up a lot of time (a typical TV drama series is 13 episodes long).

Nowadays, with widespread access to multiple media streams, audiences like to watch/listen to stories on their own terms. Perhaps the quality of television narrative has been preserved because it has adapted to audience needs through innovations like TiVo and the DVD – while Hollywood’s delivery method has remained largely the same?

Read the full New York Times article here.

Iran: A nation of bloggers

 

Woah! Four international students from Vancouver Film School’s Digital Design department (Aaron Chiesa, Hendy Sukarya, Lisa Temes and Toru Kageyama) created this infographic entitled “Iran: A nation of bloggers” for their final term 3 project. From a script written by Kate Tremills, the short film highlights the cultural importance/relevance of blogging as an agent of change in Iran. The animation is uber-clean and sits perfectly with the matter-of-fact voiceover.

[via Motionographer]

The Cobrasnake’s “Too Young” Exhibition with Ksubi

Party photographer Mark Hunter (aka The Cobrasnake) is back in Australia with his exhibition “Too Young”. The exhibition sees 200 of The Cobrasnake’s favourite photographs being displayed at Ksubi’s two flagship stores. As the title suggests, the photos are of pretty young things (i.e. girls) shot in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, LA and Sydney. The Sydney exhibition was tonight – but if you’re in Melbourne on 28 November, get down to Ksubi’s Armadale store:

Time: 8:00 pm
ksubi no. 2 (The Bombed Mache)
1021 High Street
Armadale, VIC

Mark will be on hand, signing limited-edition tees and prints available for purchase.

[via Hypebeast]

Aakash Nihalani

Aakash Nihalani’s work consists mainly of isometric rectangles and squares that he selectively places around New York to highlight the geometry of the city.  Watch the video above as Nihalani goes “Cuban” and explores the interaction between colour and space. So simple, so crisp!

See more of Nihalani’s work at his website here.

[via Wooster Collective]

Snoop Dogg vs Martha Stewart

Snoop and Martha get down to making some mashed potatoes. The result is damn funny!

Frankie Magazine’s 2009 Calendar

The wonderful peeps at Australia’s Frankie Magazine have been working on something special for the new year: a limited edition 2009 calendar. Big, beautiful and full of artworks from the Frankie team’s most beloved artists – Katherine Brickman, Catherine Campbell, Jen Corace, Tinee Kleinschroth, Marjorie Liucci, Kat Macleod, Beci Orpin, Erin Paisley-Stueber, Lilly Piri, Rob Ryan, Mel Stringer and Eveline Tarunadjaja – the calendar is designed to bring new inspiration every day, all year long. Each calendar is $29.95 (AUD) plus postage, and they’re available only from the Frankie office or online.

If you want to make a date with Frankie next year, go here.

MK12: Title Sequence for Quantum of Solace

A movie’s title sequence is much like a handshake: it forms an impression. If it’s firm and confident, it allows you to become engaged with the story – if it’s limp wristed and clammy, it can put you off. I just watched the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. I have something of a fetish for the title sequences of films (see Se7en, Catch Me If You Can, Lord of War, etc) and when it comes to Bond, I consider each title sequence a highlight of the 007 experience itself. After Daniel Kleinman’s brilliant motion capture title sequence for Casino Royale, I was uber-excited to see what Quantum of Solace would offer.

For the latest instalment of the Bond franchise, visual effects producer Leslie McMinn enlisted the help of MK12. MK12 have pretty much become the go-to guys for fresh, contemporary title sequences.

MK12 was founded in 2000 by four friends (Timmy Fisher, Ben Radatz, Matt Fraction, and Jed Carter) who met at the Kansas City Art Institute. MK12 had done title work with MTV, ESPN and the Cartoon Network before getting their big break in feature film work in 2006 with Stranger Than Fiction. Their work on that movie was nothing short of ground breaking. The opening title sequence sees accountant Harold Crick, described by the narrator as “a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words,” go through his daily routine - as numbers, words and symbols morph across the screen.

MK12’s work on Quantum of Solace includes all the staple Bond elements: silhouettes, guns and, of course, women. But what I frickin’ love is the font work.

See Ben Radatz and Tim Fisher from MK12 discuss the Quantum of Solace title sequence in the video below.

Notably, MK12 also created the fictional operating system that M16 uses in Quantum of Solace – this involved desiging all the interfaces for all the screens (computers/phones) shown in the film.

Joe Wigdahl

Chicago-based photographer Joe Wigdahl has some seriously nice work. When he’s not roaming the globe taking pictures of landscapes and people - or paying the bills with his editorial and advertising work - Wigdahl likes to chillax with some lazy glassblowing. How can you not like this guy? His portfolio of people and landscape has a moody, almost cinematic aesthetic.

View some of Joe Wigdahl’s work in the gallery below and view more at his website here.