Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
Directions is a series of 11 Short Films inspired by the 11 tracks on Death Cab for Cutie’s grammy nominated album Plans. This week features Rob Schrab’s video for Crooked Teeth—a DIYtastic mix of cardboard and rubber band puppets, stop-motion animation, and post-production graphics. When you consider it has dragons, pirates, mummies and robots, what more could you really ask for?
In the mid-nineties Rob Schrab wrote, illustrated and self-published the cult comic book Scud: the Disposable Assasin. Along with Dan Harmon, he also wrote and produced the TV pilot “Heat Vision and Jack” which starred Jack Black and Owen Wilson, with directing by Ben Stiller. Unfortunately the network decided to pass on the show, something about it being “too funny”, and it was never aired.
This led to Rob and Dan creating Channel 101, a monthly competition to create 5 minute pilots for fictitious TV shows. Rob started mixing puppets and greenscreen to create his shows in a technique he calls “Draw-less Animation”.
I’ve been a fan of Rob’s work since I first saw his short film Robot Bastard, a carboard robot sci-fi epic. However, Crooked Teeth is close competition for the title of best cardboard robot film ever. I’ve probably watched it about a dozen times already, and each time I see something else I want to ask him about.
Fortunately I’m going to be doing some work with Rob over the next few weeks, and might be able to trick him into sharing some of his secrets with me. I will of course, share those tips with you.
Stay tuned!
Tags: designmeme, film, music
Posted in designmeme | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 9th, 2006
I still haven’t rebuilt my iTunes library since the major hard drive failure during the summer (hey kids—remember to backup!), so my digital music collection isn’t as extensive as it used to be. Here are some hilights from the music I’m currently listening to, to go along with the iTunes Meme many bloggers are posting about right now.
Sort by song title:
First: 1959 by The Sisters of Mercy
Last: You could feel the sky by Boards of Canada
Sort by time:
Shortest: Kaini Industries by Boards of Canada, at 0:59
Longest: And then there was silence by Blind Guardian, at 14:06
Sort by artist:
First: Apoptygma Berzerk – Electricity
Last: Wumpscut – Hate is Mine
Sort by album:
First: A Night at the Opera by Blind Guardian
Last: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips
Top 5 most played songs:
1. Unicorns L.A. by My Barbarian
2. DaddyuWarbash by Skinny Puppy
3. Eclipse by Apoptygma Berzerk
4. Lucretia by The Sisters of Mercy
5. Circling Overland by Front 242
10 Most recently played songs:
1. A Pain that I’m Used To by Depeche Mode
2. Millenium by Killing Joke
3. Burning Heretics by Apoptygma Berzerk
4. Lightning Man by Nitzer Ebb
5. Louise by Clan of Xymox
6. Pro-Test by Skinny Puppy
7. Unicorns L.A. by My Barbarian
8. Mirror Mirror by Blind Guardian
9. Precious by Depeche Mode
10. Lovesong by Snake River Conspiracy
While not part of iTunes, I’m listening to various Rob Zombie CDs in my discman for the walk back and forth from work. No iPod for me—I’m so retro.
Tags: music
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Sunday, December 4th, 2005
I was talking with my friend Aron West on Friday using the new Skype 2.0. It had been a while since I last used Skype… probably not since talking with Joey Manley back in the early spring. I remembered it being pretty good sound quality at the time—but not as good as the phone. The new Skype was much clearer. Maybe it was just the connections Aron and I were using, but it was easily as good as the phone. I can see myself using this more regularly now.
Aron is the drummer for MOAI —an Alt-Rock-Electronic band—and like mosts bands these days MOAI has it’s own MySpace.com page where you can listen to their music and get info what they’re doing. I haven’t spent much time with Myspace, but it apparently gets more hits than Google and has become very important for music marketing.
Tags: music, web
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Thursday, February 3rd, 2005
It seems that despite years of rumours to the contrary, not only is Portishead still together – they’re almost finished their third album! I can’t believe it’s been 8 years since their last new release.
Tags: music
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Friday, July 30th, 2004
In this forest far away
Three strawmen stand on display
For spiteful crows to attack
To rip apart their straw filled sacks…
A Murder of Scarecrows is a hauntingly beautiful game by Vincent Marcone. If you like the music that accompanies the game, make sure to check out Vincent’s band Johnny Hollow on Saturday July 31st at THE 360 in Toronto, along with Tepid Lust and The Birthday Massacre.
Tags: design, music, spooky, web
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