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Best Thing I Saw Today #53: Chabon on Telling Stories
“A mind is not blown, in spite of whatever Hollywood seems to teach, merely by action sequences, things exploding, thrilling planetscapes, wild bursts of speed. “Those are good things. But a mind is blown when something you always feared but knew to be impossible turns out to be true; when the world turns out to ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #52: Project Projection
The wisdom and practicality of Sony’s plans to make their latest PlayStation 3 matinee blockbuster, Uncharted 2, playable at movie theatres across America remains to be seen. Either way, I think there’s great potential in the idea of creating bespoke interactive experiences that can play out across building facades using the kind of projector technology ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #51: Onwards
I have no idea how something like this gets funded. Perhaps Nike has a pot of money set aside specifically for abstract, stylish but ultimately niche animations in the hope they are linked to and embedded on sites such as this one*. Still, I have no qualms posting the video here as the light advertising ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #50: iNudge
A sort of melodic scribblepad, iNudge allow users to jot down their musical ideas on a proto-8-track sequencer. By limiting the available notes to a set scale, everything fits with everything else, so that even the least musical amongst us can feel tuneful and smart within minutes. Of course, push a little and you’ll find ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #49: Three Frames
Created by linking together and looping a series of low resolution still images, the animated .gif is something of an anachronism in today’s internet. Streaming HD video is available to anyone with a broadband connection, so what need for these digital flickbooks-cum-zoetropes, whose raison d’être (to provide animation in a time when internet speeds meant ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #48: Post-It Notes and Patience
SCAD student Bang-yao Liu’s project, ‘Deadline’, is a 1:54 tribute to glue, organisation and tireless patience. I especially love the section in which he’s driving down an OutRun open road, while the clouds inch left across the wall high above: the post-its behaving as pixels writ large. It’s a wonderful example of where cute concept ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #47: Cookie Splash: Got it in One
If you think you need a fancy studio to take a shot like this well, um, think again. The making of video below reveals how so much beauty can be found in the daylight of the mundane. I mean, it probably helps that the dude has a camera that cost more than your education, and ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #46: “Don’t Fall!”
Most gamers will be skeptical of any claims that this kind of technology might change interactive entertainment in any meaningful way. After all, virtual reality has always been a term synonymous with grand but ultimately vacuous promise. But even if it is yet another a tech demo gimmick, the evidence that this test subject’s brain ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #45: The Caspian Sea Monster
“The Soviets had a monopoly on this fascinating technology, relying on a little-known principle of physics – the “ground effect” – in which a dense cushion of air hugging the ground can provide more lift to a vehicle than air at higher altitudes. Hovering about 3 – 12 feet above the ground, these vehicles resemble ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #44: The Seed
Johnny Kelly’s short animation, The Seed, mixes motion graphics and papercraft to chart the life cycle of an apple seed. From being torn from the womb of a piece of fruit down through a maze-like intestinal tract and out through the winding plumbing of a Western town its a simple story told with style and ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #43: Thru You
Kutiman just won remixing. He’s painstakingly collected YouTube videos, edited them and then mixed them together to create an ingenious 7-track record. Part of its joy comes through his creative matching of diverse clips from around the world, but Thru You’s enduring worth rests in the raw quality of the compositions, which reward repeat listens ...
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Best Thing I Saw Today #42: R2D2 Subbed
This is how you make the Star Wars prequels watchable. Also: Subtitles possibly not safe for work. Soundtrack too, come to think of it. See Episode 1′s treatment here.