Links and write-ups about beautiful things from around the web!
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Mia Doi Todds Open Your Heart Directed by Michel
Mia Doi Todd’s Open Your Heart directed by Michel Gondry, the master of making absolutely joyous videos using sublimely simple ideas.
(Via Coudal)
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Nanothermal Trumpets
Converting heat energy directly into sound using tiny electrical conductors is a 100-year-old idea for an alternative to the mechanical voice coil wire + moving diaphragm design of traditional speakers, but new research recently submitted to Applied Physics Letters demonstrates a new, actually feasible approach to making these speakers-on-a-chip. Still way too quiet and underpowered for use as a loudspeaker, but might have some novel applications in the near future as research progresses.
I like the name given to the 100 year old invention, though: the thermophone.
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Dagwood: No! No! No! This Can‘t Be Happening!!
From today’s Blondie strip, proof that even the boring legacy comics can be delightfully weird and fun sometimes. Maybe they’re trying to out-Sluggo Sluggo?
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Kottke Linked to This Time Stitch Stretch Video
Kottke linked to this time-stitch-stretch video, which is kind of fun to watch. Reminds me of the 1990’s video morphing work done using Elastic Reality, especially Michel Gondry’s video for Björk’s “Joga” (which I think was done with ER…anyone know?)
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Google Wave Was Built to Show Younger People How
Google Wave was built to show younger people how older people feel when they try to use the Internet. (@shiflett, via Swiss Miss)
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Rumor That Mysterious Bird of the Spirit Was the
Rumor, that mysterious bird of the spirit, was the first radio that Homosapiens invented.
—Nam June Paik. “High Tech/High Art in the Oriental Tradition.” Center for Advanced Visual Studies, M.I.T. 1987. Translated from German by Katherine Scott, 1986.
(Via Eye Level)
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Mechner and Chahi on Inspiration
From a recent interview with legendary game designers Jordan Mechner (the original Prince of Persia) and Eric Chahi (Another World) on being an auteur in the modern game development environment. Jordan Mechner’s advice to the young designer:
A good friend in another field gave me this piece of advice recently. He said that most people approach things “1-2-3.”
One is the first inspiration, the vision, the excitement. One is gold. One is touched with magic; everyone wants a piece of it.
Two is all the reasons it won’t work, or won’t sell, or could get screwed up; all the difficulties – technical, financial, logistical – that need to be solved.
Three is doing it.
Most people get stuck on two. My friend’s advice was to go in a different order: “1-3-2”. Skip two and go straight to three. I’d never heard it phrased quite this way before, but looking back, the things I’ve done in my life that I’m most glad of, I did them 1-3-2. So that’s my advice too.
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BBC Winter Olympics animation by Studio AKA
[Video no longer available]
A very nice animated spot for the BBC coverage of the Winter Olympics directed by Studio AKA’s Marc Craste, co-directed by Jon Klassen (aka Burst of Beaden, where you can read more about the video). I wish our tv spots looked more like this.
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Sylvain Chomet‘s The Illusionist
The Illusionist, Sylvain Chomet’s first new animated film since The Triplets of Belleville (not counting the ill-fated Tales of Despereaux production) will finally be released soon, at least on the festival circuit. Hope it comes out in a wider release before too long!
(Via The Ghibli Blog)
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Animascope Automated Animation Process
A circa-1966 industry ad for Leon Maurer’s Animascope process for producing animation on the cheap: animation without drawing and with fewer pesky artists! Similar to but different than rotoscoping, this process used high-contrast photography and actors in contrasty costumes with their skin painted white and contour lines painted on. The performers would then be filmed dancing around under bright light on a black-lined stage, and the resulting photography could be composited onto traditional background plates. Weird, but sort of a primitive version of mocap, and done for the same economical reasons.
(Via Cartoon Brew – for more info on the process, a good place to start might be this comment left by Brew reader Kustom Kool)