September 10, 2012

Pause Digital Festival 2012 Program Guide!

Photo: The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here! We're extremely excited to share the Pause Digital Festival Program for 2012! We've worked hard to bring you the best and freshest of all things digital across 14 screenings, 6 workshops, interactive projects and our premiere conference event PauseStage. For all the info you'll need to get around the festival and detailed event descriptions head to http://issuu.com/pausefest/docs/pause2012program Psst...all the links are clickable and will take you to Eventbrite where you can buy tickets. Don't miss out on early bird ticket prices - check it out now!













Introducing the Pause Fest 2012 Program Guide! Inside you will find everything you need to know about the festival including tickets and festival features. The interactive guide is displayed on an amazing Issuu spreadsheet and has 77 pages of Pause-y goodness.

Pause Fest is throughout the Melbourne CBD, November 8-11th. If you're either looking for inspiration or just simply want to be amazed, buy a ticket to one of the many events going on.

This is finally happening!

Program Guide Link: http://issuu.com/pausefest/docs/pause2012program?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

July 18, 2012

Cosmopolitan//Digital Kitchen

Here's where I make up some lame excuse as to why I haven't been posting. Something that you'd accept but don't really buy, because we both know I've just been lazy- but I mean well and that counts for something.

You can have this Nero song about Promises and we can pretend it's relevant.



Making news, Andrew Hibbard of Pause Fest has been OS doing something kickass and workrelated. During his travels he's been lucky enough to stay at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas,.

cosmopolitanpenthouse

The hotel partnered with Digital Kitchen, to create an interactive experience through innovative digital content.

Last year the hotel took home the prestigious Grand Prix at Cannes 58th International Festival of Creativity, as well as the Gold Pencil Award at The One Show.

The Columns in the lobby seem to be a crowd favourite, Michael Bay and Martha Stewart re among its admirers. Eight Columns made up of digital screens broadcast content non-stop but the kicker is that it's ad free. What the what?! Talk about creative possibilities. Curating the content for that would be insane, in both a negative and positive way.

digitalkitchen_1

The most recent production by Digital Kitchen is a series of vignettes set in an elevator featuring "a cast of eccentric characters". The viewer catches only a moment of each story, much like the elevator experience where the only clues about each person are revealed in the 30 seconds of shared space. The Cosmopolitan are using the footage as part of their TVC.



There's so much more to say about the hotel, but I've never been there so I really don't know. Digital Kitchen have a whole profile on their work here including press and the like.

Andrew, you stayed there, hit us up with a little review!

June 26, 2012

Autodesk 'Blockbuster Tour 2012'


The Autodesk Inc. 'Blockbuster Tour 2012' is happening in Melbourne and Sydney in early July! The tour features film superstars Alex Kim from Industrial Light & Magic Singapore and Ian Cope from Rising Sun Pictures discussing the visual effects behind films such as 'The Avengers' and 'Prometheus'. Colin Renshaw from Alt.vfx, will also be there sharing his experience with the award winning Tooheys Extra Dry commercial ‘Nocturnal Migration’.

Register now for the opportunity to meet the guys and be inspired.


http://www.digitalmedia-world.com/VFX/2012-autodesk-blockbuster-tour-stars-ilm-singapore-rsp-and-altvfx

Article via Digital Media World.

(Direct registration link: http://bit.ly/OkCGsx)

June 17, 2012

AutoDesk M&E: Meet the Expert

Why hello Buyologers, we meet again. What say you to another scheduled date, say Friday the 22nd of June? Come join me for Autodesk M&E Webinars- Meet the Expert Series.

Photobucket

Friday's webinar will feature Smoke 2013. ANZ Creative Finishing Specialist Rob O'Neill, will talk you through the in's and out's of Smoke 2012. By then end you'll be a whizz bang pro at getting a professional editorial finish out of Smoke for high quality commercials and broadcast projects. Wee!

So if Final Cut X just didn't do it for you, or you'd like to pack that CV a little more. You'd better register. Go on ~Gain Wisdom~

Smoke 2013 Reviews?
Sure! Find them here & here.

Youtube Videos?
No Sweat! Nyan Cat.

June 7, 2012

The Story So Far... GLOSSY

I always watch stop motion and think "Holy Jeebus, that is so tight. I'm wanna do that." Then I realise that I'm probably not cut out for the workload, tediousness and precision shooting of stop motion. Which makes each little film I watch that much more enjoyable.

Here is a behind the scenes of Julia Bourke's short film GLOSSY.



Can you imagine crafting 288 hands? That means shaping 1152 fingers!!! Yeah... I'll definitely be leaving the animation to her.

GLOSSY will be screening at MIAF in Panorama #4: Australian, on Friday 22 June, 6.30pm. Get tickets here. Go on, get cultured.

June 5, 2012

Getting The Book Invented



This little animated gem by Gavin Edwards was an entry into the Literary Platform's international competition which asked creative to animated Douglas Adams' audio clip recorded for his publisher tracking the evolution of the book.

The winner was named Eleanor Stokes with her animation. The scroll bit is pretty lolworthy.



Check out the Sourcery for the full story and more linkage concerning 'prophecies'. The Francis Ford Coppola one is particularly eerie/interesting.

May 31, 2012

THE STREETS OF THE INVISIBLES

streets

Don't you love it when you start a post about one thing, then while searching for links/references/whatever, you get swept up by something completely different?

This video is so just so freaking cool! It's only just popped up on my radar (and you know I'm such a tastemaker...) despite being out for a good few months.

The level of creativity, and the concept of taking google earth creating a dramatic piece with it is just astounding. I've got no idea how he did it, and so well! The audio is linked brilliantly with each frame. I'm not sure why this is so awesome, I think I'm still getting past the fact that he used Google Earth! Whaaaat?!

Alright, I'll stop raving. Watch This. Seriously It's Cool.

Artist: Remo Raucher

Sauced

The Viral Factory

Oh my gosh, what a hectic work week but despite that let's get to it. I took an extended weekend so don't hate me for that. Let's get into it shall we?

There's a video doing this rounds at the moment created by The Viral Factory for Diesel (that should be enough information for you to google it) that's piqued my interest in this company. They've touted themselves as a social video agency and on their wiki page a full service viral marketing agency. After clicking around I was surprised to learn that they were the geniuses behind this brilliant Westfield campaign, which I watched at least 5 times despite not living even remotely close to London.



As well as the HUGELY popular Skype Laughter Chain.



Now simply naming yourself The Viral Factory raises eyebrows. Obviously you'd want to be able to deliver on that promise and it seems that The Viral Factory have got a firm grip on the dynamic nature of what makes a video go viral, but what makes a video go viral? This is a fundamental question that not many can answer and that's probably because each viral video is so different.

In researching this little post, I came across thousands of articles and even research papers (I read the abstract and if you've got time definitely give the paper a once over) which makes it painfully clear that this concept has been done to death and there's still no definite answer. However this article by Stephanie Buck gets a pretty good run down from Beau Lewis of creative agency Seedwell. Lewise identifies three common factors among viral videos.
"Theme: Most “viral videos” fit into one of three thematic categories: 1) parody of something popular and timely, 2) cute as hell, and 3) did that just happen? (It usually didn’t.)

Structure: There’s a compelling case for a progression that starts by surprising the viewer, avoids interjecting much advertising, and takes the viewer on an emotional roller coaster. Viewers’ screen time may be going up, but attention span appears to be going down, which means that the video needs to repeatedly earn the viewer throughout its duration.

Tastemakers: Almost all viral videos get their legs after being discovered by tastemakers and digital influencers. These are celebrities with built-in audiences the size of cable channels. Kevin Allocca gives a good TED talk on the subject, and the Kony 2012 video was perhaps the best example of engineering it to date."
The aforementioned Kevin Allocca does indeed give a great TED talk on viral videos and the ingredients he defines of a viral video overlap with those of Lewis'. Allocca credits, tastemakers, communities of participation and unexpectedness. So let's takes Westfield's 100 years of style as a little case study shall we? And because we're all short on time let's dot point it.

Theme/Uniqueness- Style Progression through Music and Dance. What a winning concept. The marjority of Youtube's Most Viewed videos are in fact Music Videos so we're off to a flying start here AND backtracking, the title itself is a drawcard. To see 100 years of style trends in 100 seconds? That's a challenge that people were intrigued to see. Need more proof? Evolution of Dance. Yep. Ya Burned!

Structure/Communities of Participation- It's pretty damn cool to see the change in clothing style and dance. You could probably take it a step further and take a look at how the clothes affected the dance or vice versa. Either way the story has a beginning (The 1910's), a middle (...self explanatory), and an end (today! wee!). Ba-Da-Bing Ba-Da-Bum!

Tastemakers- Youtube sites the Boing Boing as it's "As Seen On" but the video was also featured on Forbes resulting in 194 FB shares, 38 retweets, and 21 LinkedIn share (who shares on LI?). As well as The Guardian (188 FB shares and 117 retweets) and Buzzfeed (1000 FB shares, 184 retweets, 46 +1google), just to name a few.

All in all The Viral Factory are definitely doing something right. I think the most interesting thing for me is that, I've seen and shared so many of their videos and not realised that they were ads. In marketing terms, that's got to be a good thing. They've got a hold of my subconscious mind. In terms of being an active consumer... that's kind of scary... Keep an eye out for these guys cos they'll get you.

Oh and for the TL;DR crowd, here's Kevin Allocca's TED talk. You love a good TED Talk.

May 25, 2012

James And The Giant Apple

Our friends over at Bored Panda have compiled a list of Mac decals for your laptop. Unfortunately for my I own an iMac and not a macbook so this is kind of irrelevant to my interests. But how weird is this, seeing these actually makes me want to BUY a macbook. Man that branding is strong.
May the force be with you.
cool-macbook-stickers-vader
cool-macbook-stickers-superman
cool-macbook-stickers-banksy-1
[VIA]

The Lights That Stop Me

It's that time of the year! Vivid Festival is back and it officially opens today! Huzzah! If you're in Sydney over the next two weeks, you'll definitely come across many of the public events on show but if you can grab a ticket and check out a show. If you're not in Sydney, fear not my child, because through the power of technology you can stream shows on YouTube.
I for one will be tuning in to see Imogen Heap, Temper Trap and also check out Seekae's latest offering. In the lead up to the festival, the band has released this stunning sunrise session.

UUUGH! SO GOOD! CANT HANDLE!

But really now, head on over to Vivid's site to get the low down on events and what's on around you.