Saturday, March 27, 2010

Handsome Hollywood

This is the best... simply the best.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Gibbons Experience



Have you ever heard of "the gibbons experience" at Bokeo Nature Reserve in Laos? Well, I'm planning on doing this sometime in the fall! You zipline from tree house to tree house deep in the rainforest and stay two nights waking up to this view...


The aim of this experience is to spot the endangered "gibbon".
All tourist dollars go to conserving the Bokeo Nature Reserve.
wow! this couldn't get any better.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Happily Ever After?

"dailyshite.com" posted some realistic endings to our favorite fairy-tales. sad but true? Click HERE to see the rest




Chatroulette

Heard of Chatroulette? Ben Folds serenades the internet while in concert !

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Granny DJ Ownes Paris

I swear. This is not a joke. A 69 year old funky-sparkly-sunglass-wearing-granny DJ is a big hit in Paris. She's also got some 'tude, if you know what I mean. If granny can, anyone can right?



Thursday, March 11, 2010

New Found Awe




In my film seminar today my professor introduced us to "Chris Landreth". And his work...well, it's on another realm of consciousness...

He is an utter genius. Landreth expresses the human psyche in a way I never thought could be possible. Here is a quick bio from the National Film Board Canada Website.

"Chris Landreth went into animation as a second career after a stint as an engineer. He received his MS degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois in 1986. For three years he worked in experimental research in Fluid Mechanics at the University of Illinois before making his leap into computer animation...
Now recognized as one of the animation world's rising stars, Landreth embarked on his most ambitious project yet: the animated documentary Ryan (2004), which marked Landreth's first co-production with Copperheart Entertainment and the National Film Board of Canada. Ryan, a portrait of animator Ryan Larkin, allowed Landreth to push the boundaries of the visual technique he calls psycho-realism – in which the body becomes a visual metaphor for a character's deepest inner states. Ryan immediately became a contemporary classic, and was honoured with more than 50 awards, including an Oscar®. Working with the same team of producers, Landreth has followed up Ryan with The Spine (2009), a film that continues his explorations in the use of unique imagery to represent human psychological turmoil"


Below is the stunning and surreal documentary about "Ryan Larkin"- an Oscar nominated animator who fell to drugs, alcohol and eventually poverty. When watching, Imagine the amount of time/ planning/ creativity that went into this short piece.

I wish it was in HD for me to share with you... but It is still 14 minutes of your life you won't regret. So without further ado, Please, sit down, relax and enjoy.



Watch the creative process: "The Spine"

Monday, March 8, 2010

Vancouver Dances in the Streets

Vancouver attempted a "Flash Mob" on the first day of Olympics. I've seen better "flash mobs", but definitely still pretty cool.

imagine1day's Official Dancing in the Streets flashmob | Vancouver Canada 2010 from Jered Love on Vimeo.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Barney! No you did-nt!


Below is a video of Barney rapping to TUPAC.

Ok, ok...of course he actually isn't, but the editing is great and it sure is believable.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Airplane Food


We know airplane food tastes like... cardboard, right? ...Well this customer complaint to Virgin Airlines has to be one of the funniest letters I have ever read. This man wrote the letter we all wish we had written to some airline or another.

Here is a sneak peak:

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image 1 below]

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in: [see image 2 below]

Click HERE to read the rest of this hilarious article

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Stop! Motion! Stop! Motion!

For my fourth year film seminar I have decided to take on a stop-motion film. But wait! What is stop-motion, you ask. Well, here is Wikipedia's definition:
"Stop-motion (also known as stop-action or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence."

AKA: a lot of work...and a lot of frames. Oh, what have I got myself into?
So far, this is my canvas... I'm shooting from birds eye view at an art studio. Filming is going stupendously. My poor roomie, Nicky, is getting a bruising from the floor! No pain, no gain right? She's a good sport :)




Of many stop-motion filmmakers, Jan Svankmajer has to be one of my favorites. Svankmajer was trained in puppetry and is dang talented at it. He is a surrealist filmmaker, interested in deep imaginings and dark-minded things. See below for yourself.


Virgil Widrich is also pretty awesome. He is an Austrian filmmaker. Watch "Fast Film" below. It might not appear to be stop-motion, but oh-it-is. Warning: it's unbelievable.

Olympic Madness

I'm sure you all know, but Vancouver, Canada hosted the Winter Olympics...and they sure did a fiiiineeee job!


I remember I was in grade three and my miniature classmates and I were all sitting at our miniature people desks. I was handed a brown paper bag and the teacher told us that we could design something "Olympic" on it. These brown paper bags would be going to the "Olympic Committee" who were meeting up in Whistler. I was only in grade three but I was already a fan of the Olympics. I remember exactly what I drew. On one side was a little girl doing a ballerina dance pose. It read, "If You Dream Big..." and on the other side of the brown-paper-bag, I drew the same little girl in a huge spotlight in skates in the same ballerina pose. This side read, "...Your Dreams Will Come True!". I don't know about you, but for an eight year old, that's pretty genius.

Ever since that moment, I have been waiting for the Olympics to come to my hometown. I remember when Vancouver won the bid I counted how old I would be... "22! That is SO OLD!!!". What I didn't realize at the time was that 22 would be the perfect age to experience the Olympics.

So on February 12, 2010, I went home for the Olympics...there was no way I could say no. My little- grade-three-self would have been so angry if I decided to go to Cancun instead..and I just couldn't do that to her!

AND THE OLYMPICS WAS THE BEST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. I have never seen Vancouver so brilliant. If I could describe it, the downtown streets were a mixture of New York, elbow-to-elbow madness and Las Vegas lights...The only difference is that everyone was so nationalistic, friendly and naturally happy. The sun was shining, the weather was great and the wandering Olympic athletes...well they were damn hot.




There are very few events that happen in this world that make us feel united...and I strongly believe that events like The Olympics help bring the world closer together. Nationalism was also re-introduced to Canada: people young and old swarmed the Vancouver streets in red and maple leafs; You were an outcast if you didn't follow suit. High fives, chants for Canada and happy Canadian Jigs were a regular sight. Sporadic belting out of "Oh Canada" was the definitely the cool thing to do. Overall, hosting the global event has reminded Canadians just how great Canada is...So much so that I believe Canadian Emigrants want to immigrate back into Canada.

Well done Vancouver, well done.

Monday, March 1, 2010

CANADA, I LOVE YOU.

All I have to say is: █ ♥ █



My Olympic Experience from Vancouver is coming, I promise!