Pixel Mirror

yet another gem from Random International.
Amazing

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Reading Festival

Having to give up both my Glastonbury and Bestival tickets this year, this Sunday is my only little gem of summer festival time I'll get to experience this year.
However, due to the nice people at Directors Notes I'll get to do so for free (check it out! I'm kind of opening the festival (film wise) - I don't know whether this is a good thing or not, considering usually at festivals, the lower down the bill, the shitter you are, but hey, at least I'm there!). They're running a film tent ever night at the festival, and tonight they'll be showing my promo for Moray McLaren "We Got Time". I could have gone to the festival today, but instead I did a little swap with Kristofer Strom (whose promo for "Animals" by Minilogue is being shown on Sunday), and I'm going to go on and see the likes of...Radiohead, Bloc Party, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Metronomy, Passion Pit, Adam Buxton, Jeffery Lewis, and The XX (to names just a few) ALL in one day!
Plus, if last year's anything to go by, the crowd should be one of the liveliest in the UK. Exhausting, but fun. Awesome.

Of course, this isn't my first time at Reading Festival...



... OK, so what you can't really see here is the 21 year old me, walking onstage in a big black wig (I was supposed to be Nick Zinner) and fucking up my words infront of 50,000 people. Yes, I have the footage from the BBC broadcast, and no, I'm not going to put it online.
BUT what I am going to do is this! Forgive me, but this is still the HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE! so I'm gonna milk it 'til the cows come home...







Rock n' FRIGGIN' ROLL

(that said, I still think I would have made a HOT Karen O)

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8-Bit Trip

Lego mayhem! Take THAT Gondry.



Thanks to James Bretton for forwarding this my way.
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Inventing Worlds

I've just watched the new trailer for Spike Jonze's "Where The Wild Things Are"...

Where the Wild Things Are Trailer #2


and what I really took from it is this sense of imagination. It really brought home one of the really truely wonderful thing about directing, and that's the ability to completely run into your imagination, and create a world through the screen. You can then share it in a way that the viewer can not only see and hear, but also be emotionally touched by. It's a really romanticized view, and sometimes you want to portray the real world, and other times you just want to run away from it and create your own.
Inspiring stuff. It just makes me want to sit down with a pen and drawing pad and escape.

Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak Featurette

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The XX

I got really into The XX's debut album (entitled "XX") this weekend, and I reccommend you check it out ASAP.
Hopefully I'll get to see them this weekend at the Reading Festival as well.

Check out their video for Crystalised, which is available for free download from iTunes this week. GO FRIGGIN' GET IT (and then buy the album)!


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Pixel Roller

Random International's rapid-responce printing tool. It still seems as if it's in its developmental stage but....


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Shilo

Director Shilo and creative director Andre Stringer come together to create this visual stunner for Australian duo band, BrotherSister.

Christopher Smith

I am thoroughly enjoying Christopher's work at the moment. His passion, and the fun he has creating his projects really shines through. This is truely inspirational stuff and HIGHLY recommended browsing...

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TalkTalk

So, Noah Harris' TalkTalk commercial came out at the weekend.
Just as a little factual nibble; the animated doves and fox are all drawn from my designs. In fact I very nearly went out to South Africa to shoot this with them, but then Little Boots came along (talk about a win-win situation huh!!)

Noah Harris is stop-frame king (click to view commercial)...


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Johnny Kelly

I'm sure I've posted Johnny's work on here before, appologies to Johnny if I haven't yet because I really should have.

Here's his talk he did for It's Nice That. It REALLY makes me want to learn 3D software - it would make my life a hell of a lot simpler.

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Little Boots Remix

Bangin'!!!!

Thanks to Tim Nash for this one.

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New Radiohead

Mmmmm.... new Radiohead track "These Are My Twisted Words".

Always welcome.

Enjoy the sunshine!

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Robot High School

Awesome music video directed by Roel Wouters. The simplicity of the first half of this promo is great, I just can't help but feel that a brilliant visual concept has been damaged by having to include the artist in the video.

(Massive appologies to Roel if this wasn't a label descision to include the artist, I'm sure you had your reasons, but especially when it's a song about robot, surely it'd just be super awesome to leave it as this balloon killing machine, constantly churning away)

Big thanks to Justin Bonnet for this one

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Pieter Hugo

I just discovered the work of Pieter Hugo last night (via a facebook link from the wonderful Chris Pell (although apparently they were in the Sunday Times recently aswell)). Some of it's pretty hard hitting, and well worth investigating. Please pay special attention to his latest collection of slightly more surreal work entitled "Nollywood".

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Japan VS Harry Potter

A young japanese girl's wish was recently granted; to meet the cast of Harry Potter on the set of the new film. Watch out for the super excitement over Rupert Grint's (Ron Weasley) eyelashes (including the touching and smelling of Ron's eye). The whole things as bemusing as it is hilarious.

BIG thanks to Sally Hancox for this one

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Sausages

Dear BBC,

Can we have more men making their dogs talk on TV please, maybe we could make a choir?

Many thanks

David

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She Wolf

Is it just me, or is Shakira's performance FUCKING INCREDIBLE in this video. Legs over her head, and then don't get me started on that "dislocating her shoulder" bit (3mins in). You don't get these kind of performances ever day!

IGNORE THE FIRST 10 SECONDS - IT'S A YOUTUBE AD

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Samantha Beeson

This has been spread ALL around the design community this week.

Samantha Beeson (a recent graduate from Falmouth University) has just become the design community has a new poster child of hatred. Plagiarism in its most extreme; her degree portfolio was found to be created almost entirely from other illustrators work (such as Lauren Nassef, but also my friend Jez Burrows). Having passed it off as her own, she went on to win a huge award from Textprint for pattern designs filled with Lauren Nassef's drawings. She even made a fake sketchbook with many of Lauren's drawings traced or pasted in.

It is simple cut and paste, and when viewing this girls work against the illustrators she stole from, her actions are just sickening.

I urge you to read more about this subject here...

http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/fineart/a-sad-story-must-read

http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/?p=3896

Argos Lovin'

It's been a hard couple of day, and I'm in need of some Argos lovin'...

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Bears

So, I went to Pride in Brighton on Saturday, and I came across something I totally wasn't expecting. Amongst all the rainbow flags and pink banners I saw some flags that weren't so flamboyant in colour.
It was only on closer inspection I came to the realisation that the "bear" community now have their own pride flag, and this is it...



For those of you who don't know what a "bear" is (in regards to homosexuals), here's John Waters with a brief explanation...



... nothing better than John Waters talking about "ultimate nudity" and "blossoms" to gross out your Wednesday morning.
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Superjail and Psychoville

Ah, TV (aka the brain-numbing (but occassionally amazing) box in the corner of most living rooms). Gone are the days are rushing in at certain times in order to catch your favourite show; god bless TV on demand, I don't know how I existed without it. One of the best series on TV this year has been the superb Pyshcoville, create by the team behind The League of Gentlemen, this twisted comedy just gets better with every episode.

WARNING: you do need to watch every episode to appreciate the storyline and developing humour. Episode 1 is available for only 2 more days, so if you haven't seen it yet - watch it NOW (click on the image below for a link to the first episode)...

On the flipside I discovered Superjail at the weekend. I find the WTF humour of Adult Swim so hit and miss, but this looks AWESOME.

NB (10/08/09) on completion of all viewing all the episodes of series 1 of SuperJail, this show is in fact AMAZING. Thank you

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Spielberg

BIG thanks to Motionographer for this. It makes complete sense, and I wholeheartedly agree with Spielberg's mentality.
(except what he fails to mention is that animation and live action are two very different kettles of fish, and it's just impossible to keep the same level of detail in live action as you would in animation, but hey - starting with that huge level of attention to detail and then whittling it down from there is definitely the best starting point)


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