The Film Before the Film: An Introduction to the History of Title Sequences in 10 Minutes

in Animation, Art, Film | April 11th, 2013

Some watch the Super Bowl for just the com­mer­cials. Oth­ers watch films for the title sequences that book­end a movie. Title sequences can be “engag­ing or wild­ly enter­tain­ing … or sim­ply drop dead beau­ti­ful.” They can “ooze with visu­al poet­ry and sophis­ti­cat­ed imagery,” or they can put the audi­ence in the right mood for the movie, or close it in the right way, writes the web site For­get the Films, Watch the Titles.

But it has­n’t always been this way. Dur­ing the ear­ly days of cin­e­ma, title sequences were often crude and infor­ma­tion­al. That start­ed to change with the advent of sound film, when title sequences took on aes­thet­ic dimen­sions they had­n’t known before. By the 1950s and 1960s, they became a high art form, espe­cial­ly in the hands of the icon­ic graph­ic design­er Saul Bass. The his­to­ry, phi­los­o­phy and aes­thet­ics of the title sequence — espe­cial­ly the open­ing cred­its — all get cov­ered by The Film Before the Film, a short, infor­ma­tive film born out of a research project at the Berlin­er Tech­nis­che Kun­sthochschule. It runs 9 to 11 min­utes, depend­ing on whether you count the clos­ing title sequence!

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Artist Shepard Fairey Curates His Favorite YouTube Videos

in Art, Music | April 10th, 2013

In a video for MOCA, the “defin­ing muse­um of con­tem­po­rary art” in Los Ange­les, Shep­ard Fairey, the graph­ic design­er and illus­tra­tor best known for the Oba­ma Hope poster of 2008, spent a few min­utes rap­ping about the YouTube videos that have inspired him, both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly. He starts with one we’ve fea­tured here before  — Saul Bass’ Pitch for the Redesign of Ma Bel­l’s Logo. Read all about that fas­ci­nat­ing 1969 project here.

Next up comes the 1981 music video for Blondie’s “Rap­ture” — momen­tous because it was the first rap video ever aired on MTV and because it fea­tures an appear­ance by graf­fi­ti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who stepped in for Grand­mas­ter Flash when he inex­plic­a­bly went MIA.

Now let’s roll George Clin­ton’s video for “Atom­ic Dog” (1982), an inspi­ra­tion to Fairey because it lay­ers 1980s-video game imagery on top of prison scenes, cre­at­ing a “tem­plate for what a lot of gang­ster rap­pers would embrace lat­er.” Call it the ur-gangs­ta rap video.

Final­ly, Shep­ard refers to videos by The Sex Pis­tols, the Eng­lish punk band formed in 1975. But when it comes to select­ing a par­tic­u­lar clip, he leaves us hang­ing. So, giv­en that curat­ing YouTube videos is our every­day gig, hope you don’t mind if we lay some “God Save the Queen” on you. Enjoy.

via Boing Boing

 

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The Personality of Parisian Neighborhoods Expressed Through Typography

in Art | April 9th, 2013

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Havas Worl­wide Paris, a glob­al design agency, reawak­ened fond mem­o­ries of my days liv­ing in Paris. They did it by cre­at­ing this artis­tic video that cap­tures the char­ac­ter of Parisian neighborhoods/metro stops through typog­ra­phy. The Marais, Latin Quar­ter, Mont­martre, Père Lachaise, Bastille — they all get a cre­ative nod.

The video was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed as a New Years Greet­ing card, and it comes to us via Pret-a-Porter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Le Fla­neur: Time Lapse Video of Paris With­out the Peo­ple

Names of Paris Métro Stops Act­ed Out: Pho­tos by Janol Apin

It’s 5:46 A.M. and Paris Is Under Water

David Lynch Talks About His 99 Favorite Pho­tographs at Paris Pho­to 2012

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Italian Photographer Maurizio Galimberti Creates Cubist Polaroid Collages of Artists & Celebrities

in Art, Media, Photography | April 9th, 2013

Five years ago Polaroid announced that they would no longer make ana­log insta­mat­ic film. At that moment, if one lis­tened care­ful­ly, one could almost hear some of the 20th cen­tu­ry’s most famous artists wail in despair, even from the grave. Ansel Adams loved Polaroid and shot some of his famous Yosemite images in that for­mat first.

But a tech­nique with that kind of fol­low­ing doesn’t die off eas­i­ly. Two ardent Polaroid fans—ardent enough to actu­al­ly attend the clo­sure of a Polaroid fac­to­ry in the Netherlands—met and came up with a plan to save the fac­to­ry and Polaroid instant film. They called their plan the Impos­si­ble Project. They leased one of the Dutch fac­to­ry build­ings and even­tu­al­ly fired up the machines again, turn­ing out new instant film.

Lucky for us. Artists like David Hock­ney have long made beau­ti­ful use of Polaroid instant pho­tos to con­struct cubist col­lages. One of the best at this is the Ital­ian pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mau­r­izio Gal­im­ber­ti who cre­ates ter­rif­ic celebri­ty por­traits using a Polaroid.

close Galimberti

Gal­im­ber­ti con­sid­ers him­self a painter who uses a cam­era. Watch­ing the video of his pho­to shoot with painter Chuck Close, it’s inter­est­ing to observe how sim­i­lar Galimberti’s pho­to col­lage (above) is to Close’s own paint­ed self-por­traits.

Gal­im­ber­ti also has pret­ty good access to celebri­ties, hav­ing shot the por­trait of John­ny Depp and this one of George Clooney at the 2003 Venice Film Fes­ti­val.

Gal­im­ber­ti posts a num­ber of more recent celebri­ty por­traits on his web­site, where he also dis­plays his abstract city pho­to col­lages.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site: .  

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Flashmob Recreates Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” in a Dutch Shopping Mall

in Art, Business | April 8th, 2013

The Euro­pean bank­ing sec­tor may still be on shaky foot­ing. But it’s not stop­ping Euro­pean banks from putting togeth­er a good flash­mob. Last year, the Span­ish bank, Ban­co Sabadell, brought togeth­er 100 pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians and singers to per­form the anthem of the Euro­pean Union — Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his Sym­pho­ny No. 9. And mov­ing­ly so. It all hap­pened in the Plaça de Sant Roc in Sabadell, Spain, a lit­tle north of Barcelona.

This year, we trav­el north to the city of Bre­da in Hol­land, where the Dutch multi­na­tion­al bank ING paid per­form­ers to recre­ate Rem­brandt’s famous paint­ing, The Night Watch, in a shop­ping cen­ter. The occa­sion? The re-open­ing of The Rijksmu­se­um in Ams­ter­dam on April 13 after a long 10-year ren­o­va­tion.

via The Guardian

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Rijksmu­se­um Puts 125,000 Dutch Mas­ter­pieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art

Imag­in­ing Rembrandt’s Face­book Time­line

16th-Cen­tu­ry Ams­ter­dam Stun­ning­ly Visu­al­ized with 3D Ani­ma­tion

Google “Art Project” Brings Great Paint­ings & Muse­ums to You

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Horses Wearing Nick Cave’s Soundsuits Stampede Into Grand Central Station

in Art, Life, Theatre | March 30th, 2013

Pa, the hors­es got out of the barn again, and dan­ged if they don’t appear to have passed through the Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry on their way to Grand Cen­tral.

The oth­er­world­ly beasts are occu­py­ing the famed New York City tran­sit hub’s Van­der­bilt Hall this week as Heard NYC, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between artist Nick Cave and Cre­ative Time, which com­mis­sions work for pre­sen­ta­tion in pub­lic spaces. For his lat­est feat, Cave took his Sound­suits—wear­able sculp­tures with an organ­ic son­ic component—in a direc­tion both equine and ethno­graph­ic. Six­ty dancers from the Ailey School bring the herd of thir­ty to life, stamp­ing raf­fia-sheathed legs and toss­ing black heads aug­ment­ed with fes­tive Rajasthani embroi­dery. Their twice dai­ly per­for­mances occur dur­ing off-peak hours. Chance inter­ac­tions with mid­day trav­el­ers are one thing, but an unscript­ed encounter with an exhaust­ed com­muter rush­ing for the Metro North bar car? That’s a horse of a dif­fer­ent col­or, my friend.

They’ve a far bet­ter like­li­hood of cross­ing paths with your aver­age, unsus­pect­ing Joe than actress Til­da Swin­ton, a‑slumber in her glass cof­fin at the near­by Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (see below), but as of yet, the mon­sters are not viewed as con­sti­tut­ing a major secu­ri­ty threat.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wear­able Sculp­ture by Nick Cave (But No, Not That Nick Cave) Invade Microsoft

The Cre­ators Project Presents the Future of Art and Design, Brought to You by Intel and Vice Mag­a­zine

Pi in the Sky: The World’s Largest Ephemer­al Art Instal­la­tion over Beau­ti­ful San Fran­cis­co

Ayun Hal­l­i­day, hav­ing com­muned with the hors­es, is off to cel­e­brate her birth­day at Spa Cas­tle. @AyunHalliday

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William Faulkner’s Newly-Discovered Short Story and Drawings

in Art, Literature | March 29th, 2013

New Faulkner story

Just when it seemed, after decades of schol­ar­ship, crit­i­cism, and com­men­tary on the life’s work of William Faulkn­er, that there was noth­ing more to say, along comes The New York Times with a report of an ear­ly unpub­lished sto­ry and a batch of let­ters to his wife Estelle, recent­ly uncov­ered in a box found in the barn at the Faulkn­er fam­i­ly farm in Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia. The new work, dis­cov­ered last year, will go on auc­tion at Sotheby’s this June, along with hand-cor­rect­ed man­u­scripts, a hand-bound poet­ry book, Faulkner’s 1949 Nobel prize medal and diplo­ma, and a hand­writ­ten draft of his accep­tance speech.

The Times com­ments that the Nobel items are “like­ly to be the most sought after” by col­lec­tors, but for schol­ars and us lovers of the writ­ing, it’s the unpub­lished work that holds the most inter­est. Says Faulkn­er schol­ar Sal­ly Wolff-King: “In lit­er­ary cir­cles a new­ly dis­cov­ered first draft of a famous sto­ry or nov­el can be as sig­nif­i­cant as an ear­ly ver­sion of the Get­tys­burg Address to Amer­i­can his­to­ri­ans.”

New Faulkner

In addi­tion to his Nobel-win­ning lit­er­ary skill, Faulkn­er was quite the illus­tra­tor, often includ­ing pen-and-ink draw­ings in his let­ters and post­cards, such as the self-por­trait at left, drawn on the back of a draft of a sto­ry, with new­ly-grown beard and pipe. “My beard is get­ting along quite well,” he writes. Faulkn­er sent illus­trat­ed let­ters and post­cards to his par­ents from his sojourn in Paris, sign­ing them “Bil­ly.”

The image at the top shows the unpub­lished story—about a fur trapper’s trip to the city—typed on the back of Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­sis­sip­pi let­ter­head, where Faulkn­er was a stu­dent for three semes­ters between 1919 and 1920.

via The New York Times

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William Faulkn­er (Who Died 50 Years Ago Today) Reads His Nobel Prize Speech

William Faulkn­er Explains Why Writ­ing is Best Left to Scoundrels … Prefer­ably Liv­ing in Broth­els (1956)

Sev­en Tips From William Faulkn­er on How to Write Fic­tion

William Faulkn­er Audio Archive Goes Online

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

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Clever Animation Brings Figure Drawings to Life

in Animation, Art | March 27th, 2013

The cre­ative team of Tom Wrig­glesworth & Matt Robin­son went to an art class at The Book Club in Lon­don, and there cre­at­ed an ani­ma­tion that breathes life into a series of fig­ure draw­ings. Every easel in the class cap­tured a nude mod­el from a dif­fer­ent angle. The film then gath­ered them all togeth­er, pro­duc­ing one won­der­ful­ly ani­mat­ed com­pos­ite fig­ure. Pret­ty neat stuff. If you’re in Lon­don, you can check out the next Life Draw­ing class on April 6.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce’s Draw­ing of Leopold Bloom: The Sto­ry Behind the Sketch

Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky Caught in the Act of Cre­ation, 1926

Famous Lit­er­ary Char­ac­ters Visu­al­ized with Police Com­pos­ite Sketch Soft­ware

Oxford’s “The Ele­ments of Draw­ing” in our Col­lec­tion of 700 Free Online Cours­es

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