If you’re not familiar with the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks, prepare to be delighted. TED brings together some of the brightest minds of our time, once a year, to give “the talk of their lifetime” in under 18 minutes.
Every year 3 individuals are chosen for the TED prize. In addition to receiving $100,000, they are granted one wish to change the world. These wishes have lead to amazingly successful collaborative efforts. Sylvia Earle was a TED prize recipient of this year’s conference (held earlier this month). She is a renowned oceanographer and “ambassador for the worlds oceans”.
She’s not the worlds most eloquent orator, but I think she’s pretty badass. Also, somewhere in this video there’s a 2 second clip of a whale shark, which I would argue, is the most badass of all sharks. Take that, great white, you showoff.
Apparently I have something for bands that form in Alaska and move to Portland. My friend Bri recommended The Builders and the Butchersto me probably three times before I took the time to listen. Since then, theirs has become my most listened to album. I’ve not yet seen them live but have heard that their shows are ridiculously fun. Not only does lead singer Ryan Sollee have wonderful stage presence, but the band has been known to pass out washboards and tambourines to the crowd. During their cd release show in 2007, they led the audience out of the venue and onto the street where the entire crowd sang Find Me in the Air. I can’t wait for them to put out another album of wonderful depression era sounding songs.
You can catch them March 1st, but you’ll have to drive to Boise.
In the past month I’ve seen two films that have caused me to fall helplessly in love with stop motion animation. The first was a Sundance opener by Adam Elliott called Mary and Max.
Mary and Max is a hilariously written story about “friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, trust, copulating dogs, sexual and religious differences, agoraphobia, and more” (according to the film-makers). Max is voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mary by the Australian actress, Toni Collette.
The film was in production for 5 years. A crew of 50 people and 6 animators, were able to create about 2 1/2 minutes of animation a week. 133 sets and 475 miniature props (including a functional typewriter) were designed for the film. The team also constructed 212 clay puppets with 1026 mouths and 886 hands, to give the characters full expression. The list goes on and on and can be found in the “Behind the Scenes”->”Production Fakts” section on their site.
Mary and Max is a wonderful, insightful film and seems to me, a true accomplishment (although the quality of this trailer is pretty shoddy).
The second movie that tethered my heart to the craft of stop motion was Henry Selick’s 3-D film, Coraline, which is based on a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman (The Sandman).
There are very few moments in my adult life that I’ve been able to completely commit to my imagination. Coraline evoked feelings of wonder that I haven’t felt since watching Alice in Wonderland and The Never Ending Story, as a child.
Coraline employed around 450 crew members including 30 animators. A woman who specializes in knitting miniatures was hired to construct clothing for the tiny models. Each model had tiny flexible joints and interchangeable parts. Innumerable attachable parts were created, including 1000 different pairs of hands for the characters, as well as 38 hair pieces for Coraline alone.
The set was also made of interchangeable parts and spanned about 25 square feet. My favorite moments were spent in the other father’s garden, where the colors were highly saturated and everything moved with a life of its own. Nearly 1000 flower models were used to create the fantastic floral landscape. The night sky was fabricated by layering a dark blue backdrop in front of artificial lights to create an eerily realistic twinkling sky.
Coraline was filmed in both digital and 3-D. When interviewed, Selick credits digital for improving the process since shots could be viewed and deleted immediately if they weren’t quite right. He also admits to using CG, but only for a small number of the shots, including the mice circus and for some of the in-between face forms, to create more fluid expressions. Creating human-like expressions is one of the major challenges noted when constructing a stop motion film.
I found this cool clip that shows a small amount of the behind the scenes filming. Hopefully there’ll be a longer one when it comes out on DVD.
Because I didn’t have this blog at the end of last year, I thought I’d post a list of my favorite albums of 2008. I would probably rearrange the order and swap some out with other albums now, but I’ll post them as I did at the end of December.
A few friends and I went to the Monster Truck Jam at the Energy Soloution arena last night. I was hoping to soak in some white trash glory and watch a lot of crunching and smashing of items under big tires. While it was fun, I have to admit that I was pretty underwhelmed.
Not only did I see just one non-ironic mullet, but there were quite a few women in nice heels and functional looking families. Boohoo. Well I did see one guy kick his kid in the ass while the wife yelled at the kid. This made me want to throw 3.2 beer in both of their faces, so the functional families were probably a good thing. But my major complaint was that there was very little crunching and smashing of items! The trucks spent most of their time racing one another and jumping the same set of cars. I don’t know what I expected. A monster truck demolition derby? Maybe. A monster truck that converted into a giant robot and smashed through section AA of the arena? Maybe. I need to lower my expectations.
I was however, incredibly impressed with the amount of dirt they transported into the arena. How do they do that?
Below is some footage of the most exciting part of the night.
I’m not going to pretend that I have any musical expertise or even that my taste is all that great. But! I do love to search for new music and share it.
The members of Portugal. The Man hail from the Northwest, but I would have never guessed it. It’s difficult for me to place them in a genre. But I can say that whether a particular song is steeped in classic rock or jazz, it is always soulful. Plus, they get points from me for speaking out on their site against that impostor, Sarah Palin, back in September.
According to their myspace page, you can catch them in Salt Lake on March 11th @ The Urban Lounge.
Today is the 200th birthday of the father of modern biology, Charles Darwin. Darwin introduced us to a new human history. One in which humans are not divine creatures, created and chosen by god, but just another species of animal that evolved from a common ancestor. This, of course, was incredibly influential in how we view ourselves today. Hopefully, with Darwin’s help, we can fully realize the importance of other animals and help to preserve them instead of continuing on this path to an inhabitable world.
To aid in this realization, I’ve posted a few pics of some creatures that have evolved in very strange ways. I’ve spruced-up a few of the “less attractive” characters (to help them in the process of mate selection, of course). I think Chuck D would be proud.
Orchid Mantis
Sperm Whale
Siamang
Blobfish
Gerenuk
Bald Uakari
Pygmy Seahorse
I’d also like to recommend a wonderful book by one of my heroes, E.O. Wilson. The Creation: An appeal to save life on earth is a plea for the religious and scientific communities to find the common ground that will be imperative to breathing health back into our planet and stopping the mass extinction of plants and animals that is happening today.
Mary and Max is a hilariously written story about “friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, trust, copulating dogs, sexual and religious differences, agoraphobia, and more” (according to the film-makers). Max is voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mary by the Australian actress, Toni Collette.
Battle Bunny 