THE FITZROY TITLE SEQUENCE

Title sequences—well, good ones—are so fun to watch! While I have not ever seen The Fitzroy, I did come across its title sequence (found on The Art of the Title website) which won two awards at SXSW, 2015: Special Jury Recognition/Prize for Excellence in Title Design, and the Audience Award for Excellence in Title Design. It is well-deserving of these awards, in my opinion.

THE FITZROY TITLE SEQUENCE

It's very entertaining and clever, and it has a great deal of movement from scene to scene which actually directs you to both the mini-vignette and the credit being shown. The bright colors and music are great and fit what the story seems to be about. And, I love the characters. Also, the type is just right for this. You can really tell that so much work went into creating this! Very creative and technologically beautiful! I'm intrigued now. :)

From Vimeo: "The Fitzroy - a submarine hotel is the last resort for a traditional holiday seaside holiday in an alternative post-apocalyptic 1950s Britain - is set on a course of destruction when Bernard, the hapless bellboy, falls in love with a murderous guest. To find out more visit thefitzroy.com, twitter: @the_fitzroy. Designed by Chris Tozer and Marko Anstice. Music by Green Rock River Band. Sound Design by Dave Gritzman."

Here are some screenshots but please do watch the footage!

 

 

PIXAR STUDIOS!

I was reading through some of the online New York Times articles on film and culture, and I came across some cool videos that pertain to motion design and animation. The one I chose for this post is "A Rare Look Inside Pixar Studios" which I found at http://www.nytimes.com/video/movies/1248069625002/a-rare-look-inside-pixar-studios.html?playlistId=1194811668553

I thought some of you Pixar fans might appreciate this short video in which The Carpetbagger's show host gets a tour of Pixar studios. I definitely enjoyed watching it. It was extremely informative and somewhat mind-blowing! I can't even imaging how cool it would be to work there! Can you imagine working somewhere that creates the most high tech animations anywhere? Where there are huge budgets and all of the latest technologies? And, the designers go through all of the same basic processes that we do, from sketchbooks, to critiques, to proofs and revisions and revisions and revisions...

I'm sure it's a super fun but also stressful job, and the employees are supplied with all kinds of stress-relieving activities, such as ping pong and Foosball and probably much more. (When I worked at Wolfram, they had a Foosball breakroom! I never saw anyone using the table, however.)

It's only about six minutes long. Give it a look! PIXAR

Also, here is an example of a cool Pixar scene:
PIXAR SHORTS TRAILER 

And here are some screenshots of the video:

 

 
Enjoy!

The Merging of Human Faces With Animation

So when you read the title of this blog post, you probably had something come to  mind...but I'll bet it wasn't this! This is an official video for a song by a well-known-in-New-York-City-but-not-the-Midwest artist, and she chose a medium that somehow really fits the song.

ANIMATED VIDEO

This is a very personal pick by me because Leah Siegel has been, for ten years or maybe more, one of my favorite recording artist/songwriter/singer/guitarist/performers. I happened to discover her on MySpace when I was using it a lot for music networking and also for finding new and interesting artists and bands. I'm a huge fan and have all of her recordings. She's amazing, in my opinion. She has a voice that you either love or hate. I happen to love it, as well as her songwriting and her amazing execution of her creative ideas.

This music video for her song "A Day At The River (With You And Your Lover)" is creepy and strange—unnerving. It's like the characters are old, broken down dolls or puppets with human faces. Then there are the craggy trees and spider webs everywhere. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on! The description on the Youtube page is, "New York City's singer/songwriter Leah Siegel propels us into a fantasmagorical world where puppets live, love, and rock in this groundbreaking music video." I love it, and I want to get other opinions because I'm obviously quite biased when it comes to artists I love. I think the video is really creative and achieved what she was going for. It's such an upbeat sounding song musically and rhythmically, but the lyrics are so dark and sad; the story is dark and also pretty bitter! She sings, "Everyone knows that it's done. Everyone knows but me. Everyone knows but me."

One of my favorite lines of the song: "Oh, what a lovely day. The river was rank with your betrayal. How sweet of you to let me spend the day with you and your lover."

Another of my favorite lines: "Drag the river for my heart. Search in the deep and search the dark. And if you happen to retrieve it, leave it by the riverside, bury it below, tombstone of my pride. A sacrificial gift of love but not for mine...keep it for you and your lover..." Pretty bitter, I'd say. And, the video somehow portrays that bitterness disguised with somewhat happy things happening on the outside. The contrasting elements illustrate the mixed feelings one has when in love with someone who turns out to be in love with someone else.

Here is Leah performing the same song live at the Bowery Electric in NYC, in case you're interested.

LIVE PERFORMANCE

One more song, if these grab you at all. This is probably my favorite song by Leah Siegel. It's called "Pin Down," and I find it hauntingly beautiful.  

PIN DOWN 

Here are some screenshots of the animated video.

 

OK, one more. This is a public service announcement for which Leah was asked to write a song. It's not animation; it's time lapse. It shows a woman who has AIDS who agreed to be videotaped every day for 90 days. From the vimeo.com page: "This is a PSA that we did out of South Africa. It promotes a drug that can reverse the effects of the AIDS virus, in the most prevalent strain of the virus..." It's pretty remarkable to watch.

PSA VIDEO

Please tell me what you think about the first video or anything else on this post. Thanks!

The Answer To Our Universe?

I found this video just by doing a Google search for "symmetrical animation." I've seen some really amazing kaleidoscope-like animations, and I wanted to see what I could find for myself. Well, this is pretty remarkable! I could tell it had something to do with fractals and string theory—it gets pretty deep, the very, very little I know about it.

It's on Youtube, and it's called, "Deepest Mandelbrot Set Zoom Animation ever - a New Record! 10^275 (2.1E275 or 2^915)." The discussion/comments below the video are interesting, although I can't understand a lot of it.


VIDEO LINK
(By the way, scroll down for screenshots.)

For example, one person commented, "A string in string theory is about 10^-35 m and the radius of the visible universe about 10^26, so that's 61 orders of magnitude, this has 275 orders of magnitude!! So if you would start viewing the scale of the visible universe at the end of the vid you would get down to something a lot smaller than a string, even a lot smaller compared to the string than the string is compared to our universe. Think about that."

Some of the comments were really funny. "I'm a scared to watch. It's so much math. I might see the face of God. Or, I might go into a deep hypnotic state. What I'm about to see is Real. It does exist. I'm about to turn my mind inside out. I'm about to travel to a place so deep, so far away, so hidden, so dark that not even light can reach, unless I allow myself to imagine, and then conceive, and then believe, and then materialize in the light of my mind. Lets Go!"

Here's another interesting one. "What I'm thinking, is that if this is a 2D representation of a fractural zoom, then this could be the answer to our universe. I know it's a big stretch (pun unintentional) but this could be the way our universe works. Unless, of course, that's the perception or illusion? But, how I see it, is that our universe isn't expanding as there is an end to everything. Sure, if Hawking's hypothesis is correct, then we are yet to reach the end of the universe; we haven't got there yet. In, my opinion the universe is one infinite fractural 'world' if you like. Going in itself over and over and eventually coming back on itself. Therefore that the illusion that the universe is ongoing when in fact it isn't. It's just the illusion :) But, is the illusion, the illusion? Quite possibly. What +WhatUwant? is saying could be plausible in that 'anything is possible'. We, are just in The Matrix which is a perception of reality. What's 'reality'? An illusion. What's an illusion? A perception of the unsure of mindfuck. Cheers."

So the Mandelbrot equation, when seen visually in a 2D presentation, seems to create this crazy design that looks like we're going further and further in or through something. It's mind-boggling. It's also really relaxing in a way (if the music isn't annoying to you).

Here are a few more Mandelbrot Zoom videos if you're interested.

1. Mandelbrot Ultra Hard Zoom
2. Pinwheel of Infinity - Mandelbrot Zoom 9.336x10^341
3. Trip to center of hybrid fractal
4. Best fractals zoom ever
5. 2010: A Mandelbrot Odyssey

Have fun!


Even without knowing or understanding anything about what the video is supposed to convey, it's super hypnotizing and trippy, and I really enjoyed watching it! I have no idea how this is done! Maybe it is the answer to our universe. ;)

Here are the screenshots:

 

VIDEO LINK

TV LAND—WILD, WACKY STUFF!

I found this 15-second spot for TV Land on motionspire.com. It's really crazy and colorful and very nicely done! I enjoy seeing how much somebody can do in only 15 seconds! However, I have to wonder how long it actually took to create this. It's amazing.

The colors and shapes, the morphing, the timing—everything is really interesting to watch. Also, it's called "The Hand of God," which is strange, but also interesting.

Seriously, check it out. Some people have the most interesting imaginations! You'll find you'll want to watch it more than once.

Found on motionspire.com