The Society Of The Spectacle

This project, premiered at TED 2012 in Long Beach last week. Creative Director Cesar Kuriyama, quit his job, and is now recording one second of everyday in his 30′s. (Which will equate to a 1 hour film of that decade). The video above edits those clips together from 2011 – Feb 2012 (I assume the day of the TED talk itself).

An incredibly simple idea, this is heartwarming, honest and deeply intriguing. The simplest thing to come out of this is something that you forget quite easily.

Alot can happen in a second.

In Cesar’s year, you can instantly pick up real human emotions that feel familair to all of us, but are experienced in unique ways too. Laughter, joy, relaxation, tension, boredom, contemplation, the end moments with his sister-in-law are particularly raw. Kuriyama admits. “We take our cameras out when we’re doing awesome things; we rarely do that when something horrible is happening.” . I’m not sure why this is so inspiring”

I took something else more personal out of it. Do more with your time. Each second counts.

(H/T @nicowen There doesn’t seem to be a TED video up on this yet, when there is, I’ll update.)

A prime slab of 1980′s nostalgia spliced and diced over the top of an excellent electro-house-disco style mix that The Magician does so well. (Or as the Vimeo blurb puts it: “Koyaanisqatsi for a generation raised on late night television and B-movie VHS tapes” Well worth a watch, and well worth a listen. Lots and lots of cool visuals here, they really bought the pain in the 1980′s…

(Via Coops)

Here’s a couple of interesting takes on that well worn formula on the Skate/BMX video.

The first one, is all about the angles, shot by Joe Simon, for Mutiny Bikes, makes awesome use of a contraption call the ‘Helicam’ with a mounted Canon 7D, it presents a uniquely queasy perspective on riding the BMX.

The other uses the more traditional, but no less captivating slo-mo (1000FPS) technique. A series of skaters crashing to the ground attempting tricks. It’s a testament both to the bravery inherent in the pursuit, (I’ll admit, I’ve never skated). And somewhat bizarrely, acting as a great promo to the durability and strength of the human body. Hypnotic.

A nice selection I’m sure you’ll agree.

Via @tonykingnyc & @tim_nolan

I’ve been thinking about California (And L.A in particular) alot lately. What it would be like to live there, to enjoy the sun, and the open space, and experience that very particular brand of American cultural life. So it’s quite timely that I stumbled upon the delights of this timelapse film of 1 day in California, as it seems to surmise all that you could imagine is great about living there. Produced by Ryan Killackey, it had awesome art direction, as well as The music choices being pretty spectacular too. An awe-inspiring film, that is far superior to the ads that California itself did a few years back in my opinion.

UPDATE >> Here’s another timelapse, this time focussing solely on LA. Looks amazing, and also has a very different perspective on LA with it’s focus on downtown. Beautiful.

Creating new spins on retro styles is nothing new. So the question is how do you hold someone’s attention with something they are already familiar with?

Well, in the example of these two videos, the answer is simple. Craft. The first video is a music video for the concert season at Bellavista Social Pub (Jesus, what a name…). Ignoring the lameness of the name, the Jazz theme of the season has led the team to create a supreme re-interpretation of some of Blue Note records most beautiful record covers. The attention to detail is exquisite, and I mean exquisite. Even if you aren’t familiar with the content of the records themselves (although I would highly recommend you check some of these out). You cannot fail to be impressed with the level of homage, as well as the bravery of taking this design/moving image challenge on.

While the classic designs of Blue Note were getting a makeover, there appeared another video that took it’s cues from a lower form of entertainment, but nailed this homage just as brilliantly.

A speculative music video made for Buck 65 by Travis Hopkins, it reinterprets the lyrics of this rapidfire tune into a visual assault of the senses taking it’s cue from the 1960′s/70′s/80′s Exploitation scene. There’s so much pop cultural referencing going on here that really, you just have to watch it. But again, the craft, the dedication and the sheer nuttiness of it makes it really stand out.

Inspiring stuff.

As an owner of a Leica camera (OK, a Lumix, but’s 99% a Leica, so, whatever). I can’t speak highly enough of the quality of even their most ‘basic’ cameras. As ever with luxury products such as Leica, the story is only half about the camera. It’s the craftsmanship behind the scenes. This film, shows the level of detail and craft that goes into the lens. Wow.

(Via Freshness Mag)

More great work combing music (from the band Mathon) and gesture technology to create a multi-touch sound visualisation. There are some nice touches here, and is a cool example of how technology and music are converging in more and more diverse ways. Would love to have a play of this, but for now, we’ll just have to work with the video above.