Dblog: June 2012

28.6.12

D's Faeobrs

A very rough concept for a family of neighbourly faeries.

27.6.12

Movie Trailers

Celeste and Jesse Forever Hotel Transylvania Frankenweenie Total Recall

Happytime Murders

Interview with Todd Berger; Director of the upcoming 'Henson Alternative' R Rated Happytime Murders

"In a world where puppets co-exist with humans as second class citizens, puppet private eye and disgraced ex-cop, Phil Phillips, is hot on the trail of the serial killer who murdered his brother and is now targeting the cast members of the famous 80s television show, “The Happytime Gang.” As the killings continue, Phil’s former flame, Jenny, is next on the list. It’s up to Phil and his ex-partner, Detective Edwards, to find the culprit, but as bad blood and old resentments resurface the clues start pointing to the only viable suspect, Phil himself. Now he’s on the run with only his wits and hardheaded determination, as he tries to solve, “The Happytime Murders."

Science Photography

The finalists for the Welcome Image Awards dedicated to scientific photography.

Illustrator: Blake Filli Suarez

Design Agency: Unreal

Award winning and broad based design agency: Unreal

25.6.12

Broken Houses

Broken houses are a series of sculptures by Ofra Lapid based on photos of abandoned and dilapidated structures.

24.6.12

21.6.12

As a designer in Adelaide I was producing my own T-Shirts... With the proliferation of sites like Threadless and TeeFuryI (but mostly because it's just damned fun) I've decided to get back into the business of designing (and submitting) Ts.

Here's my first one:The Severed Arms of Pop Culture (If you have any suggestions for a snappier title please email me or leave a comment on the Blog!) Oh... Spoiler alert!

Splat Attack

Good friend of mine, Bart Klepka and his fellow crew at Melbourne Video game developers Cupco Games have released their first title: Splat Attack. Currently available for an unBEElievable 99c on itunes

Movie Trailers

Dredd
Okay, you need to understand exactly how many hours of my life I dedicated to Judge Dredd and the comic 2000ad. Or maybe I shouldn't admit it but trust me, it was a lot... When Stalone stood up for the movie adaptation I trembled in fear and by the time I watched him take off his helmet and kiss Judge Hershey I was ready to be Judge Jury and Executioner myself! So when Karl Urban said that he WASN'T going to take the helmet off in this new version of Judge Dredd for the big screen my ears pricked up. Judgement's still out (see what I did there) but the trailer looks good, but right now, I'll settle for faithful... V/H/S (POV Horror) Chuck Norris - The Movie - 2012 Breaking Bad Season's 1-4 Recap Season 5 is almost here!

Graphic Design

Creative Director Oliver Maltby.

Designer, Typographer and Illustrator Stephen Bonner.

Photography

Scientific curiosity through photography (with no Photoshop) by Caleb Charland

I arrived here because of his Social Network series but make sure you check out the rest of Nicolas Ritter's Photography.

Short Animation: Little Quentin

Little Quentin (technically NSFW)

20.6.12

Song Writing Process

I am no muso... but I am interested in the 'creative' process in all it's forms. I heard a fantastic interview this week on RRR's Aural Text with Author and Professor Pat Pattison who runs various song writing workshops here in Melbourne. This guy was pretty fascinating and definitely very accomplished in his knowledge; a real inspiration even for someone not trying to write songs.

If you are a muso and your'e struggling with that whole 'verse/cord/bridge' thingo, I recommend you check out his classes.

All Songs Considered: Ethics & Music

Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered.

"Recently Emily White, an intern at NPR All Songs Considered and GM of what appears to be her college radio station, wrote a post on the NPR blog in which she acknowledged that while she had 11,000 songs in her music library, she’s only paid for 15 CDs in her life. Our intention is not to embarrass or shame her. We believe young people like Emily White who are fully engaged in the music scene are the artist’s biggest allies. We also believe–for reasons we’ll get into–that she has been been badly misinformed by the Free Culture movement. We only ask the opportunity to present a countervailing viewpoint."

Full Article

4 Things That Ninth-Graders Can Teach You About Risk-Taking Design

From Co.Design: If you want to be more creative, tap into your inner teenager, writes Stuart Karten.

"With perfectionism and professionalism instilled in people early in life, how do we ensure that designers of the future enter the profession with the right mindset? Catch them while they’re still young, before they learn many of those inhibiting rules in schools and in the workplace."

19.6.12

R18+ Passed Through Australian Parliament

Jason Clare, the Minister for Home Affairs has just announced that R18+ for games is set to become a reality, after legislation successfully passing through the Federal Parliament, having just gone through the Senate without amendment.

Check out the full link on Kotaku

Microsoft Surface

This is not an advertisement for, or endorsement of, but coming soon is the Microsoft Surface, tablet competitor to the ipad. Personally I'm happy with my Kindle Fire...

What The FONT!?

A great little website that can help you identify a font.

Movie Poster Concepts: Midnight Marauder

A god-damn gorgeous collection of Movie Poster concepts and reinventions by Midnight Marauder

18.6.12

22 Story Basics from Pixar

From the Story Shots Blog:

22 #storybasics I’ve picked up in my time at Pixar
I tweeted these forever ago, but the internet just noticed and I figure I should probably at least put them on my blog. I’m glad people are finding them useful.
Here they are, a mix of things learned from directors & coworkers at Pixar, listening to writers & directors talk about their craft, and via trial and error in the making of my own films (see link above)

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

13.6.12

10 Steps To Designing An Amazing Infographic

10 Steps To Designing An Amazing Infographic

Movie & TV Trailers

360 (Tense interrelationship drama)
War of the Buttons (An endearing tale about... Umm... Nazi occupation...)
T.V. Series Arrow(I'm a 'Marvel Man' but The Green Arrow is my one DC weakness'; Hopefully this series isn't the next Smallville...)

Illustrators

Tomi Um

Ben Sanders

Graphic Design

Almost impossible to post an image which sums up this prolific Singaporean Design Studio... Slint

Typographer Mads Burcharth

Visual Art

Taiwanese Nail artist Chen Chun-Hao

Some of the cool side projects of designer/artist Tommaso Guerra

Photography

Commercial and portrait photographer Haarala Hamilton

2 Things That Were Great!

I just finished two things that have suffered a lot of media discontent recently, a video game called Mass Effect 3 and Alien Prequel Promethus. No reviews or advice follow...

The Mass Effect Series is just simply one of the best franchises in video gaming history (certainly for me) I loved all 3 episodes. There's been a lot of talk about how much of a crime the finale was and quite frankly I just don't get the hate... I'll have to double back over a lot of spoilerific reviews I avoided for the last 3 months. Play it, play them all, it's art, it's genius it transends video gaming. Femshep for the win!

As for Prometheus... I don't think I've seen a good review for this yet, but I thought it was great! It is not without a few issues and (mostly minor) plot holes and I'm not sure how it fits into the series (Aliens is one of my all time favourite movies) but I enjoyed it a lot. It keeps a lot of the formula of the great Alien movies but it also does it's own thing and well worth a big screen experience.

One of the more minor 'holes' is nicely and amusingly summed up here in this 'spoiler' comic on Penny Arcade!

Decide for yourselves...