Ivan Maximov created these opening titles for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for a school project. Relatively simple, compared to some of the intricate excellence you see on Art of the Title these days, but I think they are extremely well executed. I really like the combination of live action underwater footage with some slick After Effects motion overtop. Would love to see a longer version.
I guess I’m going to continue the theme of food posts a bit further with this two videos from husband and wife duo, Tiger In A Jar. I decided to title these videos ‘moving recipes’ because they’re more about the ingredients than some personality you’d see on a cooking show. This is leaving, breathing, moving, imperfect food porn at it’s best. Both of these recipes are rather unique as well, the top being a recipe for Ribboned Asparagus Salad and the bottom being Beet Cake. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, wait to watch these videos, that’s when you really start to drool.
Bobby
I might be in over my head a bit, but I love cooking and new ideas, so this is a no-brainer. The trailer above is for a new documentary profiling and examining Spanish chef Ferran Adriá and his restaurant El Bulli, arguably one of the best restaurants in the world. Adriá has been cooking at El Bulli since 1984 and was put in charge of the kitchen shortly thereafter in 1987. They became famous for their outlandish meals related to molecular gastronomy and their wait list, it was near impossible to get in. As it turns out, they’re going to be closing El Bulli down for two years in order to transform it into something else entirely.
“On July 30th 2011 elBulli will have completed its journey as a restaurant. We will transform into a creativity center, opening in 2014. Its main objective is to be a think-tank for creative cuisine and gastronomy and will be managed by a private foundation.”
The documentary will go behind-the-scenes of El Bulli and let you in on some of the magic, which is always fun to see. These chefs are like the NASA of cooking, making the craziest things imaginable like lobster foam or licakble wallpaper… ok, maybe that was another guy. They’re in the same ballpark!
Bobby
I don’t think we give enough credit to animators. It takes a long time to create a polished, well thought out, good looking, and cool video. This effort and pride isn’t just for feature length pieces, but for shorter length pieces as well. Mac ‘n’ Cheese is one of those short little nuggets of a film that reminds you just how difficult and amazing the process of creating animation is.
Created by students at Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands, the little video is simplistic enough and–basically–is a chase sequence between a large, brooding guy and a little, squeamish guy. The two obviously are superhuman and even, at one point, use a supplement to make them quicker, warping the world a few times, recalling moments from Enter The Void. The little film is really cool, but is also an achievement for the people behind it: the animation was created by four students and “took about five months to make, and about a bajillion peanut butter sandwiches” as they detail on their site. The result is funny, visually remarkable, and equipped witha brilliant LOL ending.
For those of you video game nerds out there, these guys look familiar? That’s because they are totally inspired by Team Fortress as the animators themselves note. So, yes, that is definitely Heavy you are looking at.
KYLE
Humans and animals and nature have a lot in common, which is a fact that constantly fascinates and infuriates many. On one hand, you have people fighting day after day for animal rights and for the protection and conservation of nature. On the other, you have people who blatantly disapprove of global warming and deny the scientific ties between what humans are doing and its affect on nature.
The World Wildlife Fund has been crusading for decades for the conservation of nature. They’ve made it their mission to keep the world safe for all wildlife. For their fiftieth anniversary, WWF has launched a new campaign entitled My World, which is intended to heighten global awareness of issues and hopes to solve them.
To promote the project they created a wonderful video entitled The World Is Where We Live, which compares everyday, human occurrences to that of their natural and animal counterparts. From architecture to locomotion, it’s very clever how they’ve drawn lines between man made happenings and natural, animal made occurrences. The video is really, really great and makes you want to help out and save the planet as much as you can.
Take a look at the video and, if you feel so inspired, please help WWF celebrate it’s 50th anniversary by getting involved in the cause by click here.
KYLE
Sometimes, my favorite part of a movie is the title sequence. In this instance we have a very clever title sequence for a movie that doesn’t really exist: a documentary about the history of the title sequence. Directed and edited by Jurjen Versteeg, A History of the Title Sequence pays homage to the influential designers that have changed how important the titles are, and how they can contribute to developing a story. From an interview with Versteeg:
“It seems like the film industry needed fifty years to realise the importance and effect of a good title sequence. The fact that the curtains in most cinemas were closed during the title sequence, signifies how much of an underestimated medium it was. Then you start to realize the impact that designers such as Saul Bass have had. Seeing his work in this context made me appreciate his titles even more.”
It seems bizarre to me that titles used to play behind closed curtains, because it snubs more than just the early illustrators who lettered the titles, it ignores everyone in those titles that actually made the movie possible. Ok, a lot of those folks are in the closing credits nowadays, but the title sequence has really become integral in some instances; setting the scene, the mood or the tone for what we’re about to see. I don’t always remember bad ones, but the good ones certainly stand out.
Alex
Back in the day I used to watch a lot of skate videos. All of my friends in high school were skaters, so today I still carry on an appreciation for the art. When I saw this video that Oxelo Skateboards put out of their recent trip to India, I was really excited. Their team visited the cities of Bangalore, Jaipur, Delhi and Agra, skating different areas of the cities and thrilling many local residents. I can’t say this with any certainty, but I’d imagine there’s not a huge skateboarding scene in India, so I imagine a bunch of white dudes coming flying out to skate a brand new park would be quite a spectacle. It also seems like they gave away a bunch of blank boards to local kids, which is awesome, maybe the next Tony Hawk will come from India?
Big props to Guilhem Machenaud and Studio Ores for putting this video together. Be sure to watch till the end, the last scene is so extremely beautiful.
Found through FORTPORT
Bobby
I didn’t think I’d like this video as much as I did, but it’s honestly pretty clever. On a whim, a young filmmaker decides to buy something called “Plot Device” off of Amazon, hoping that it will improve his filmmaking skills, but he has no idea what it does. It is in fact, a physical plot device button, inserting the protagonist into all kinds of stereotypical situations like the runaway brides, zombies and alien invasion flicks.
The whole thing was made with the new Magic Bullet software, which is probably like Photoshop filters on crack. The video does look pretty real, I mean I can’t imagine that they had that much of a budget to work with. If this kind of stuff interests you be sure to check out the making of video posted below.
Bobby
You may or may not know about the super famous Barcelona chair, which was designed by Mies van der Rohe for the German Pavilion in 1929, but after watching this video you will definitely know more about it than most folks. You’ll also be able to point out the fake ones you see across town, which may very well outnumber the real ones considering the price. It’s a beautiful chair, and although I can’t imagine myself dropping five thousand hard-earned dollars for a modernist chair anytime soon, I’ve wanted one for most of my adult life. The ottoman is two thousand dollars.
Alex
This is an awesome video infographic about the computer virus Stuxnet. It was created by Patrick Clair, a motion designer from Australia. I’m not sure which was more captivating for me, the visuals or the information. From a design perspective, this is gorgeous, but it’s also a fascinating description of Stuxnet, the first “open source weapon.”
