If you’ve seen Koyaanisqatsi,
Powaqqatsi, Naqoyqatsi or Baraka you know just how spectacular a motion picture time lapse can be. More contemporary timelapses are seen on "reality television" intros such as the Apprentice and Survivor.  You know, the shot where the sun sets in a matter of seconds…

If you’ve ever tried to re-create this look you know that it’s quite difficult to do properly.  Shooting a real time lapse on a large format motion picture camera is prohibitive in terms of equipment and cost.

My friend’s solution is to shoot high resolution digital images on a digital slr camera and then animate the images in After Effects.  This technique uses the same persistence of vision concept that films are based on to create movement.  Here’s an example of a time lapse he shot out the window of my apartment.  It’s a big file (~15mb) because I wanted to keep the quality alive.  That and I don’t know how to use good codecs properly…

More of these to come soon.

Video interview with Milton Glaser by Hillman Curtis.  VIA Kottke (I don’t know how Jason does it)

This is probably the sickest breakdancing I’ve ever seen.

(~7 MB .wmv) VIA Compfused.

Courtesy of the ol’ ACGang list.

I was browsing the torrent of emails from the VideoBlogging Yahoo Group and I came upon this email:

Friends…

Didn’t know where else to get this out there, thought it was definitely worth sharing.  I read Francois Truffaut’s biography in the fall, and wrote this down, well before I knew anything about vlogging, it was something I was trying to achieve in my own films, and now I realize he predicted vlogging well before digital technology became so readily accessible (he died in 1984).

For those of you interested, here’s the quote:

"The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary.  The young filmmakers will express themselves in the first person and will relate what has happened to them:  it may be the story of their first love or their most recent; of their political awakening; the story of a trip, a sickness, their military service, their marriage, their last vacation…and it will be enjoyable because it will be true and new…The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure.  The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has.  The film of tomorrow will be an act of love."

                        –Francois Truffaut

much respect…

Erik Nelson

This e-mail led me to what has to be my favorite video blog post of all time.

I enjoyed it so much I did my own little remix (I simply put the original track over top of the video)

Much respect to you Erik.

You know how people make shapes on buildings at night by using the lights in the building?  These dudes took that idea to the next level and hacked together a system that lets you play video games like Tetris on the side of a building using your cell phone.  (watch this animated .gif)  Pure genius.

Via The Abbott.

Videos here.

Images here.