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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbpBdMUrqV8
Apple’s new ad for its iPhone’s Memories feature is called The Archives, and it features an endearing old archivist assembling film footage. Via Hypebeast:
Apple may be known for its pristinely homogenous designs, but the tech giant is also trying to pull at our heart strings and tap into our personal histories with its latest video ad. Titled “The Archives,” the short spotlights the iPhone 7‘s Memories function from the Photos app, which automatically creates slideshow movies out of the photos and videos in your camera roll. Backed by a sentimental soundtrack featuring a cover of “Unchained Melody” by Lykke Li and “Her Dreams” by Luca D’Alberto, the short visual opens with an elder man sifting through physical photos in a large library, later using old-school techniques to compile a film roll of memories. The ad then forwards to modern day to demonstrate how said memory roll can essentially be recreated in a matter of seconds on one’s iPhone.
We’re not sure if we’d bother to make these auto short films ourselves, but we’re looking forward to the iPhone 8, which apparently will have wireless charging and be waterproof:
Recently, Robert Hwang, the CEO of iPhone manufacturer Wistron Corp, has confirmed that the upcoming iPhone 8 will be both waterproof and feature wireless charging capabilities. “Assembly process for the previous generations of [iPhones] have not changed much, though new features like waterproof and wireless charging now require some different testing, and waterproof function will alter the assembly process a bit,” Hwang told the Nikkei Asian Review.
The Magic of Animation with Hayao Miyazaki is an exclusive snippet released by GKIDS as part of the Studio Ghibli Fest. Check it out! Via DesignTaxi:
Good news all Studio Ghibli fans in the US: this summer, the studio’s renowned films will air in theaters across the country as part of the Studio Ghibli Fest.
In line with the event, Ghibli distributor GKIDS has released an exclusive 90-second snippet from the 2013 documentary The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness. It focuses on a moment shared between Hayao Miyazaki and filmmaker Mami Sunada during the production of The Wind Rises. Miyazaki notices a neighbor watering his plants, before his imagination rapidly takes over to conjure a scene comprising an epic chase across rooftops.
“Suddenly, there in your humdrum town is a magical movie…isn’t it fun to see things this way?” says Miyazaki inside the clip.
Studio Ghibli Fest will air My Neighbor Totoro in June, followed by Kiki’s Delivery Service in July, Castle in the Sky in August, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in September, Spirited Away in October, and Howl’s Moving Castle in November.
Also, surprising no one, Hayao Miyazaki has come out of retirement to make a new feature-length film. We’re waiting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3VbkBsMw-M
Kedi is a film about cats in Istanbul that’s been described as the “Citizen Kane of cat documentaries”, and it’s showing for the next couple of weeks at ACMI in Melbourne! We know what we’re doing this weekend. Via the Guardian:
Film-maker Ceyda Torun grew up in Istanbul until the age of 11 and is now based in Los Angeles. Her feature-length documentary debut Kedi (Turkish for “cat”) is about seven of the street cats that roam Istanbul. They are cared for collectively by the community in exchange for mouse catching, affection and “good energy”. Each cat has a distinct personality: Sari, “the Hustler”, is a tabby who inventively seeks out food for her kittens; Psikopat, “the Psycho”, is a fierce black and white cat with a strong sense of territory; Gamsiz, “the Player”, is a resourceful short-haired who has charmed the neighbourhood baker with his moxie.
A surprise box-office hit (the film has made more than $2.7m in the US), Kedi has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was described by IndieWire as “the Citizen Kane of cat documentaries”.
-What did growing up with street cats add to your childhood?
I was a happy-to-be-alone kind of child and the cats were companions in the heavily imaginary little world I would create in our back yard. I learned a lot from them, about my own strength, my own physical capabilities. One cat came into my life when I was seven; she stayed on and kept giving birth to kittens and I took care of them. She’d walk on the top of a wall and I’d walk behind her and I’d do all these things I may not have had the courage to do without her. I also learned about companionship and setting boundaries – cats definitely set boundaries for you.
Neil Blomkamp, the director of District 9 fame, has released a short postapocalyptic science fiction film involving space lizards titled Rakka. Verge interviewed him about the film:
A couple of weeks ago, District 9 and Chappie director Neill Blomkamp unveiled Oats Studios, his new project focusing on experimental short films. At the time, Blomkamp described the studio as an attempt to remain creative in a film industry that rewards endless sequels and franchises. Through Oats, he’ll be developing a range of potential projects, from serious science fiction to wackier concepts, with the hope that some of them may eventually make the leap to full-length feature films.
The first film from Oats Studios, Rakka, is now available for streaming on YouTube and Steam, and it depicts the aftermath of an alien invasion. The year is 2020, and aliens have enslaved humanity, and altering the Earth’s atmosphere. But Rakka isn’t a conventional short film. Instead, it’s a series of scenes depicting various points of view. Some scenes show what the aliens are doing to humanity; others track a resistance movement led by Sigourney Weaver, and an escaped prisoner named Amir. Later, in a climactic battle, resistance fighters shoot down an alien aircraft and track down its pilot.
We love this IKEA campaign! Called Cook this Page, you literally place ingredients where marked on the printed baking paper and pop it into an oven. Via Huffington Post:
It’s hard to tell which company is winning the fight for world domination: Amazon or Ikea?
A Toronto-based advertising agency created Cook This Page recipe sheets for Ikea, and they actually seem like the easiest instructions ever to come out of the Swedish company. All a home chef has to do is put ingredients on their corresponding images stenciled on parchment paper, wrap it all up, and place it in the oven to bake. Really, this is a pretty great cooking tip everyone should know about.
Thankfully, this hack is simpler than that bookshelf you bought.
We can’t give Ikea too much credit here – parchment recipes have been around for a long time and are notoriously easy to make. It’s also a fairly healthy style of cooking because the food is steamed inside the “bag.” And it’s probably the easiest way to make seafood.
The real benefit of these sheets is that they make cooking approachable. Plus, the mess is contained to a parchment paper that can get tossed away quickly.
Cook This Page was a promotional item for the company’s big kitchen sale, so don’t expect them in stores anytime soon.
But rest assured, there are plenty of ways cooking can be easy. Parchment paper and slow cookers are just some of the ways a beginner can get a healthy and homemade meal.
This epic Hari Raya ad (Eid al-Fitr) is brought to you by TNB Careline, a Malaysian power company. Remember to turn on the captions. The festival of Eid, also known as Aidilfitri or Hari Raya Puasa in Malaysia and Singapore, marks the end of Ramadan, the month of feasting. It’s a major holiday in several parts of the world, particularly in Southeast Asia. Some things to know about the festival if you’re in the area:
- Hari Raya Puasa marks the end of a month of fasting for Muslims. It is a day of joyous celebrations. Some think that Hari Raya Puasa is the Muslim New Year but that is not true!
- Muslims fast to appreciate what God has bestowed upon them. Through fasting, they believe that one learns self-control and develops empathy towards what the poor undergo on a daily basis. Fasting is an important religious duty in Islam.
- Ir was originated by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It is observed on the first of the month of Shawwal at the end of the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims undergo a period of fasting.
- While Hari Raya Puasa is a day for celebrating the end of the fasting month, Hari Raya Haji, which occurs usually about three months later, marks the end of the pilgrimage (Haj) Muslims make to the holy city of Mecca.
- On the day of Hari Raya, Muslims wake up early, visit the mosque and thank God for the blessings they have in life. They also seek forgiveness from their elders and receive ‘green’ packets of money. While dressed in their best, people visit family and friends and dig into delicious food!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6j2cLEwRsY
Sony’s Toio is a craft set for the coding generation: the purpose is “Moving hands. Thinking crazy. Coincidental discovery.” Via FastCo Design:
In an era of STEM “toys” that forget toys are supposed to be fun, the weird side of Sony has showed up to save the day.
Toio is a new game console by Sony, but it’s not for your typical video games like the PlayStation 4. Instead, the cartridges are AI programs. The controllers are motion control rings. And the thing you play is really a pair of tiny robotic cubes on wheels–which you can dress up in papercraft, or even snap on Lego.
Spotted by Spoon & Tamago, it’s essentially a coding game–or maybe, a post-coding, crafting game–that never uses the phrase “learn to code.” Instead, the purpose is “Moving hands. Thinking crazy. Coincidental discovery,” the project page says. “To the children making the future, an original experience of ingenuity.”
At the heart of Toio live two core cubes. They can sense the exact position of one another and move with incredible precision. (Seriously, watch the videos to understand just what it means when two robots move like gears of a fine watch.) The cubes themselves aren’t really the toy. They’re more like building blocks of a toy. Tape them to a single piece of paper, and they’ll crawl along like an inchworm. Add a paper pair of pants and they look like feet taking careful steps. From building organic-looking paper organisms, to creating “craft fights” with shooting, puzzle-solving, chasing, and sports, the limitations are only in your imagination–and, okay, optional add-on packs, too.
Manus Island is the setting for this unique collaboration between an Iranian-Kurdish journalist detainee and an Iranian-Dutch filmmaker, made with footage from a mobile phone. Having opened to rave reviews at the Sydney Film Festival, it’s showing in Melbourne today and this weekend at the ACMI:
Over a period of several months, journalist and Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani had access to a phone. In secret, he collaborated with Iranian-Dutch filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani on the outside to create a film which portrays what he describes as “the coarsening banality and repetition” of indefinite detention.
Inside the camp, the film reveals sobering first-hand accounts of harassment, belittlement and mistreatment. Beyond the camp’s perimeter, it considers the legacy of the island’s foreign occupations and the implications of that history for Manusians who question the role they have been recruited to play in Australian politics.
Co-director Arash Kamali Sarvestani was a student of Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami and from that formative experience he sought to make this collaboration. Arash writes, “All this movie that I made came from Abbas Kiarostami’s film workshop, the sea.”
Chauka refers to a bird unique to Manus Island, a symbol that Manusians regard with deep pride. In a cruel twist, it is also the name given to the prison’s solitary confinement unit.
ICYMI: Playstation Japan built a rotating, Inception-esque rig to film this incredible short film called Gravity Cat for an upcoming game. Please turn on subtitles! Via The Verge:
At first, Gravity Cat may seem like your average kitten. It crawls on laptops when you’re trying to work. It knocks over liquids with a troll-like speed. It gets into trouble, strutting on the ceiling and then flipping your entire apartment upside down.
This video is an ad for Gravity Rush 2 (also known as Gravity Daze 2 in Japan), in which heroine Kat and her actual cat manipulate gravity. If Gravity Rush 2 is the first great game of 2017, this is 2017’s first great trailer. Scratch that: this is one of the greatest game trailers in recent memory. Its first-person perspective provides great close-ups of the cutest kitten I’ve seen in a minute. Oh, there’s also a lot of cool gravity-flipping effects viewed through a soft and gentle Instagram filter.
There is one downside to all this: You may come away feeling unsatisfied with your own feline friend. On a good day, my cat can provide decent leg-warming services. One time, he fished a live cockroach out of my trash can. This was cool because I didn’t know such a monster even existed within five feet of my apartment. It was not cool because he didn’t actually kill it — he played with it for 10 seconds and then sauntered off to nap while I screamed. Now I’m wondering why he didn’t just eject it into space.
The Making Of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWTFFl_D3Ag
Samsung and R/GA have filmed a Billion Colour Film to promote Samsung’s new QLED TV. And of course it was filmed in Paris! Via Adweek:
How many colors can a person count? How many can a human eye even see? And perhaps more important, how many can the brain comprehend? A few dozen? Hundreds? A thousand? A million? A billion?
And even if we as humans can’t, what if we could?
While working on a campaign for Samsung’s new QLED TV, which boasts the ability to display 1 billion unique colors, agency R/GA wondered if it could create a film using 1 billion colors. They went to Paris, “The City of Light,” and filmed at dawn to show all the lights and how it affects color.
“The light in Paris is actually beautiful,” says Eric Jannon, a group executive creative director at R/GA who lived in Paris for 17 years. “You have a lot of architecture, the water, a lot of lights in the middle of the city.”