Tuesday, April 29, 2008

4 Minutes to save the world

Madonna and Justin Timberlake's 'new' track. The clip is directed by the people who made the clip for Justice's D.A.N.C.E (mad rotoscoped t-shirts), Jonas & Francois. These guys are incredible. They also made the Kanye West 'Good Life' clip in collaboration with So-Me. Very different, specky animation in this one, but watch for the supermarket musical massacre-inspired scene in the supermarket. Dancing on conveyorbelts? Rad.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Friday, April 25, 2008

More Model Rigging

Ok Ok Ok @ The Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival

Modern jazz band Ok Ok Ok, featuring our good friend Josh Holt, is playing at the Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival's 'Big Arse Sunday' this sunday (27/04/08).



It's at the Northcote Town Hall, and Ok Ok Ok start at 3:00PM.

The day includes seven other bands following Ok Ok Ok, going late into the night. Other artist playing include: Ren Walters’ ‘This’, Sam Keevers, Matt Keegan Trio (Syd), and Ben Winkelman Trio to name a few.

Tickets are $25/20 concession. remember that's for 8 hours of music!!!!

For more details check out:
http://melbournejazzfringe.com/
http://melbournejazzfringe.com/Content/program/

Ok Ok Ok are also following this up with a live to air radio performance with 'The Twoks' on 3MBS (103.5FM) at roughly 1:30 on Tuesday (29th of April). Tune in to hear good tunes!!!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sunday, April 20, 2008

University: Episode Six

It's a triple feature this week! Enjoy:



This last one is dedicated to Jack!

In more serious news, sorry for the lack of updates folks! We've been working mighty hard on SMM. Only five weeks left! Check back for some animation stills coming up in the next couple of weeks!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Friday, April 11, 2008

Adding Texture

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We've been gradually working on the assets for the animation side of Supermarket Musical Massacre. There's a few stages involved in this: firstly drawing the designs, then scanning and working on the lines in Photoshop, before the object is masked, coloured & textured.

The next phase is rigging the finished model in After Effects!

Don't worry, teddy doesn't get massacred!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

New Gear @ all of the above

Our friends at all of the above have just dropped a bunch of new stuff, including new tees, new Imperial denim, and their new in house womens line.




Get down there at check it out: ground flr, 109 Victoria Street, fitzroy, melbourne.

Hot stuff yo. alloftheabove.com.au

Monday, April 7, 2008

The Nathan Liow Quintet - Debut Gig (14/04/08)

Our very talented friend Nathan Liow is performing his debut gig with his new quintet next Monday night. You may be familiar with some of Nath's more electronic work (he won last year's Triple J Bloc Party Remix Competition), so this is a great chance to see some of his more jazz based work!


The gig is from 9pm on Monday the 14th of April, at 303 High St Northcote. Entry is a modest $5 (totally worth it ya'll!).

Get down there and check it out!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Music Video Joy

Micah P Hinson - Yard of Blonde Girls


Beautiful song, interesting animation, parts are slightly odd but some parts are lovely. The background effect behind the black line drawings reminds me of an effect titled the "Mirror Train" that Steph and Chris worked on whilst I was away. But really I'm just posting it because of that bat. It's all about the bat.

Yael Naim - New Soul


Yep it's that song from the Mac Book Air advert from a quirky French-Israeli singer called Yael. Despite it's success being due to a big old fat commercial it is definitely a very smile-making pop song. And a cute video clip - who wouldn't want a room on a lake? Unless that lake has crocodiles...

Apple definitely knows its demographic and has some very intelligent marketing strategies - first Feist, now this, they seem to be hitting the wave of other artist's emerging/peaking careers just at the right moment. Well, they haven't sucked me in with their cunning advertising ploy! (...as she types on her Mac Book Pro listening to Yael.)

Ok Ok Ok @ The Paris Cat (8/4/08)

I accidentally posted the wrong details for the Ok Ok Ok gig.

It's actually on the 8th of April, starting about 9pm.

My bad! Get down there and check it out!

Friday, April 4, 2008

They Might Be Giants - Friday Night Podcast for Kids

Keeping on the topic of stuff for kids, my uncle recently showed me some of the video podcasts by the band They Might Be Giants. I haven't listened very extensively to the TMBG back catalog, but I have to say that this stuff is really great.

Each podcast features the two dudes using puppets (things are already looking good!). The songs are great fun and feature some really cool animation.

As you'll see, there is also a fair bit of humour in there for adults. (Check out the start of the second video I posted. Straight up awesome!)





You can sign up for the podcast through iTunes. Go to the iTunes store and search for They Might Be Giants. It's free to join and there's a new podcast (for kids and families) every friday night (in whatever time zone TMBG is in).

I am very very impressed with what these guys have put together here. If only children's television was like this.

You can buy the TMBG kids album at amazon!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Spiderwick Chronicles

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I just saw the Spiderwick Chronicles and I have to say, I thought it was pretty awesome. It's been a damn long time since I saw a live action children's movie I liked this much.

Yes, the film is to some extent formulaic. I could predict the emotional movement of the film, and Spiderwick shares similarities with plenty of other childrens films/stories. But it was still a lot of fun.

The magical characters are fun and have great personality. It was very entertaining to watch them interact with the human characters. The design of the magical creatures was also very well done. The goblins etc were a little different than the stereotypical designs I'm used to seeing, and I think that was a great move. It was refreshing to see something a little different, but in and of themselves the designs were very cool and imaginative. This applies to both the goblins and the fairies. One scene involved fairies that looked like dandelions which was a really beautiful contrast to the ugly frog-like goblins. Really stunning.

In true children's story fashion, the magical story also had a human/personal one running parallel to it. I thought this element was also very well done. It brought up issues about divorce and also child behavior problems without being cheesy.

All this points to a film that doesn't talk down to children. This includes some scenes that were a bit scary, and even a bit of violence. It was a real pleasure to see a children's film that didn't feel dumbed down, as this is a problem I see with almost all the children's TV I see at the moment. In my opinion, we don't need to talk down to children. If we keep producing stories that are dumb we're only going to breed less intelligent future generations, or at the very least teach kids that ignorance and stupidity is something to be accepted and revered.

If I hadn't know it was based on a book series I would have thought the story was custom made for film. In my opinion, Spiderwick suffered none of the adaptation pitfalls apparent in the Harry Potter films and the The Golden Compass (which also don't talk down to children, but have a few other problems trying to squash so much information into a feature length film). The narrative was presented quickly & directly but without feeling rushed. I felt satisfied with the amount of information and character development I got from the film. It didn't feel underdone, or overdone.

The Spiderwick Chronicles might not be totally groundbreaking, but it was certainly very enjoyable - both visually and narratively.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Ok Ok Ok @ The Paris Cat (8/4/08)

Our good friend & collaborator, Josh Holt, is playing at the Paris Cat next week with jazz/improvisation ensemble, Ok Ok Ok.


Ok Ok Ok consists of Nick Martyn (drums), Josh Teicher (guitar), Josh Holt (bass), and Sophia Exiner (keys). It will undoubtedly be a quality gig, so get down there and check it out!

The gig is from around 9:00PM, Tuesday April 8st, at the Paris Cat Jazz Club (6 Goldie Pl, CBD).

You can check out their myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/okokokband

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Be Kind Rewind Website

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I just checked out the official website for Michel Gondry's new film "Be Kind Website". I gotta say, the website might actually be better than the film!

If you don't know the basic premise of the film, it involves Jack Black & Mos Def "sweding" classic films, i.e. making new 20 minutes ultra low-budget versions that star themselves.

The website takes this premise one step further by sweding the internet. You really have to see it for yourself! They've got trailers for the films they made in the movie (in the sweded version of YouTube). You can even swede real websites yourself and submit them to the sweded version of google.

I'm not kidding.

A lot of work (and fun) has gone into this website. Check it out at: http://www.bekindmovie.com

(The version of the official Be Kind Rewinded trailer that's sweded by Gondry is pretty awesome. If you've seen the movie you will definately get a kick out of it! Garbage matt anyone?)

Skipping Girl Vinegar - One Chance



Some nice work here. Melbourne-based band too!