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Wow. This hand-painted anamorphic sculpture by Thomas Medicus is called ‘Emergence Lab’, and it’s made out of six images inside a large transparent cube, spread out over 216 laser-cut acrylic glass strips that perfectly align when viewed head on from the side. Filled with silicone oil to give it the look and feel of solid glass. It’s beautiful!
More Thomas Medicus
Behind the scenes photos
Thomas’ Instagram
What is Anamorphic Art?
It’s one of the more popular optical illusions in art history: work that requires the user to have special devices or occupy certain special vantage points in order to reconstitute the image. As a form of art, it’s been in existence since the 1500s. More recent examples include Jonty Hurwitz’s work, which can only be seen through a mirrored cylinder: without the cylinder, the work is often so distorted that you can’t make out what the final image actually might be. Jonty’s process involves him 3D scanning an object and then using special software to nut out the physical forms. The renowned artist William Kentridge has also had an installation along this line, particularly with his film ‘What Will Come‘: some of his work can be found at the NGV.
Still curious? Illusion will sort you out.
Ozo: A $60,000 VR camera by Nokia…? Sure, let us get back to you on that one…
Surprise at the price tag aside:
Until now, many camera systems used to produce VR have created 360-degree video by stringing together a number of individual cameras. Now Nokia has created a purpose-built system that captures not only 360 degrees of video, but also sound. The Finnish company—once a global giant dominating the cell phone market, but more recently an afterthought in that business—has built the Ozo, a brand-new high-end, professional-quality camera it hopes will become the standard for shooting VR in the film, sports, news, and music businesses, among others.
More here.
Update
The camera has started shipping for the people who preordered it, and Nokia is extending third party sales to OffHollywood, Radiant Images, and AbelCine. Nokia previously sold its cellphone business to Microsoft for $7 billion, and currently consists of Nokia Networks (broadband infrastructure network) and Nokia Technologies, which is behind the Ozo camera:
“AbelCine, OffHollywood, and Radiant Images are vital to helping Ozo reach the professional VR creation audience, especially in the primary markets they play in,” said Guido Voltolina, head of presence capture at Nokia Technologies. “We have carefully selected these first three partners because of their expertise in the space, their relationships with our core customers and their affinity with our vision for VR.”
Pond5, a stock media company, is getting in on the Star Wars marketing tsunami with a series of hilarious ads about Star Wars characters running against each other in faux elections. Funnier if you’re up to date with American political trivial / ads, as they play off jokes from classic American political ad campaigns: the Han Solo-Chewbacca ticket, for example, is running off Hillary Clinton’s now infamous ‘3am’ commercial from her 2008 run against Barack Obama. Also, we admit we just like Star Wars stuff. According to Pond5’s blog:
It’s widely known that Pond5 media is often used in political campaign ads, so that got us thinking: What if our favorite Star Wars characters were running campaigns of their own? Then we scoured our library for video and audio that could bring these parody campaigns to life through a series of imaginary TV spots.
From intergalactic spoofs of classic ads for Hillary Clinton and Ronald Reagan to an Ewok-language Green Party campaign, all of these videos were created exclusively with footage, sound effects, and music from Pond5.
A microsite was also created for each ‘campaign’, where viewers could vote for their favourite. The film will be out on the 17th of December.
Volvo has done it again, following up their hilarious and massively viral’ Epic Split‘ ad with Jean Claude Van Damme with this equally hilarious ad about a 4-year-old test driver. Naturally some doubt has surfaced over the internet whether this ad was in fact legitimately filmed, but it’s hilarious nonetheless. A Volvo FMX truck was rigged up to a remote control to demonstrate how indestructible it really is, and young Sophie really does seem to put it to the test: especially when she gets distracted.
The point of the test was to show how well the truck could cope with demanding conditions. Via the Daily Mail:
‘To show what the truck can do, we want to give it a real challenge. What test driver is more reckless than an unpredictable four-year-old?’ says Ricard Fritz, Vice President Volvo Trucks Brand. Sophie steers the truck on the construction area in the film, and the truck takes unpredicted ways, among others, the truck ends up climbing a steep, soft slope, before rolling all the way down in a full 360-degree roll.
‘The test demonstrates beyond question the ability of the truck to cope with the most extreme environments. To help it do so, it has functions such as the new, Automatic Traction Control, keeping it going even on severely sloping and soft surfaces.
Meanwhile in Paris, Brandalism hijacked over 600 ad spaces in Paris, replacing them with climate change related art:
Organized by the Brandalism project, the citywide sweep is meant to challenge the corporate takeover of the Paris climate talks, forming ads that target the link between corporations’ advertising with consumerism, global warming, and fossil fuel consumption. The posters reference many of the climate talks’ corporate sponsors including Air France, Dow Chemicals, GDF Suez (Engie). Many of the Photoshopped images use the same branding and voice as the original advertisement, forcing the audience to take a deeper look at the content of the hundreds of posters dotting their daily commute.
“By sponsoring the climate talks, major polluters such as Air France and GDF-Suez-Engie can promote themselves as part of the solution – when actually they are part of the problem,” said Brandalism’s Joe Elan.
More here.
Founded in 2012, Brandalism is an anti-advertising movement that began in London. In their first project, 26 British artists ran a ‘subvertising’ campaign, covering billboard adverts in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and London with art. It’s since been taken up across the world, including in Australia and the USA. It was nicknamed ‘Brandalism’ as it fed into the ‘graffiti vs vandalism’ debate.
The makers of the award-winning documentary The Cove are back, with a guerilla-filmed documentary Racing Extinction.
“Most documentaries feel like you’re going to a medical lecture, where you’re just getting a lot of facts but there’s no story. The goal is to be a fly on the wall,” he tells me at a Santa Monica hotel, after a late night spent at the Port of Los Angeles projecting blue whale images from the Tesla. (Between 1988 and 2012, there were 100 reported cases of large whales struck by ships along the California coast.) “But if you can wrap that around a tale of adventure, of thrill and redemption, and tell a really goddamned good story, people will listen to almost anything. When people see our films, I want them to feel like they landed in a different world, like, this is not my beautiful life. We’re trying to wake people up to what is actually going on.”
More here.
The film has been well-received, scoring 79% on film review site Rotten Tomatoes to date. The New York Times called the imagery ‘shocking but necessary’. Variety, however, didn’t feel that Racing Extinction was as good as its predecessor The Cove, suggesting that it was too dense.
Happy Friday! With the new Minions Mini film, “Competition” …. 😉 Have a great weekend everyone.
Minions? What?
If you’ve never heard of them… you probably should watch the film they first appeared in right now: Despicable Me. It’s about an evil villain, Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell), whose latest plan for world domination gets derailed by a far younger and obnoxious villain upstart. He ends up having to adopt three little girls to steal his tech back, and in the meantime, his priorities (predictably?) change. The real hero of the film are the Minions, Gru’s strange, podlike henchmen who do his bidding and help run his underground secret laboratory. Despicable Me has since then spawned a second film and a standalone Minions film, both of which had been hugely funny, but we have a special place in our hearts for the very first.
Distributed by Universal Pictures as its first offering from its new animation studio Illumination Entertainment, the first film earned mostly positive critic reviews, with Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes giving it a rating of 81%, based on 191 reviews. It grossed over $543 million worldwide, against a budget of $69 million. A third Despicable Me film is due to be out in 2017.
This Christmas lottery ad ‘Justino’ by Leo Burnett Spain just gave us Pixar feels. How…? About the ad:
The holiday season in Spain unofficially kicks off with the much-anticipated annual ad for the Christmas lottery. A national tradition since 1812, the Christmas lottery is more of a group affair than other lotteries—it’s traditional for people to share the winnings by buying shared tickets with colleagues, friends and family.
The new Burnett spot captures this sentiment beautifully through the story of Justino, a lonely overnight security guard at a mannequin factory. Justino passes the time by playing with the mannequins, and setting them up in poses for the factory’s daytime staff to enjoy. And in the end, they repay his kindness in an unexpected way.
Via FastCoCreate:
The idea of a shared festive lottery win has specific relevance in the Spanish market and informed the thinking behind the ad. Leo Burnett Madrid chief creative officer, Juan García-Escudero explains, “The Spanish Christmas national lottery (Lotería de Navidad) is unlike any other lottery in the world. The reason is that numbers are divided into tenths so it has become a tradition that families, friends and colleagues buy tickets with the same number. If they win, they win together. That’s what makes it so unique and it was the reason behind the concept.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=84&v=k_NMGHlCAX8
This impressively choreographed ad for the Samsung Gear S2 features over 150 performers, showing off the graphics and functionality. Created by R/GA for Samsung, the upbeat soundtrack is ‘Kiss the Sky’ by Cash Cash, and the short film’s already broken 10 million views. The Gear S2 is rolling out just ahead of Christmas in the USA.
Credits:
Client: Samsung Electronics
SVP, Global Branding & Marketing: Pio Schunker
Senior Manager: Jay Kim
Manager: Stella Lim
Assistant Manager: Christine Kim
Cost Consultant: Caroline Reed
Agency: R/GA, New York
Executive Creative Director: Chris Northam
Executive Creative Director: Eric Jannon
Associate Creative Director: Eduardo Quadra
Senior Copywriter: Paul Wood
Director Film Production: Kat Friis
Senior Film Producer: Lyra Rider
Executive Producer: Lisa Greenleaf
SVP Managing Director: Robin Forbes
Account Director: Elizabeth Bourke
Group Planning Lead: Dennis Claus
Director Operations: Erin Rabasca
Director Business Affairs: Nancy Espinal
Director Business Affairs: Jennifer DeCastro
Production: Partizan Entertainment
Director: Michael Gracey
Exec. Producer: Jennifer Gee
Line Producer: Russell Curtis
Director of Photography: Denzil Armour-Brown
Choreographer: Cheyenne de Miranda
Editor: Stuart Bowen
Production in Prague: Stillking Films
Executive Producer: Michal Skop
Production Manager: Michal Cerveny
Production Coordinator: Vojta Ruzicka
Post Production: Union Editorial
Executive Producer: Caryn MacLean
Senior Producer: Susan Motamed
Assistant Editor: Joseph Garst
Motion Graphics/Animation: Nadine Müller
Senior Flame Artist: Jason Ortenberg
Additional VFX: Adam Stockett
Flame operators: Kirk Balden, Todd Gutridge, Steve Koenig
Flame assistant: Molly Tomecek
Music Supervision: Beta Petrol
Music Supervisor: Bryan Ray Turcotte
Sound Designer: Peter Lauridsen
Executive Producer: Dayna Turcotte
Color Correction: Company 3
Colorist: Tim Masick
Audio Mix: Heard City
Mixer: Keith Reynaud
Here’s a cool 4K video of coloured liquids in space, courtesy of NASA:
Once again, astronauts on the International Space Station dissolved an effervescent tablet in a floating ball of water, and captured images using a camera capable of recording four times the resolution of normal high-definition cameras. The higher resolution images and higher frame rate videos can reveal more information when used on science investigations, giving researchers a valuable new tool aboard the space station. This footage is one of the first of its kind. The cameras are being evaluated for capturing science data and vehicle operations by engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Read more here.
What is 4K resolution?
“4K” resolution refers to a horizontal resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. The use of width to characterize the overall resolution marks a switch from previous television standards such as 480i and 1080p, which categorize media according to its vertical dimension. Using that same convention, 4K UHD would be named 2160p. The first commercially available 4K camera was by Daisa Origin in 2003, and YouTube began supporting 4K video since 2010, with improved support (VP9 video compression format) since 2013. VP9 format was developed by Google.