I Have PSD. Clever Short Film Shows How To Photoshop Your Life.

If you use Photoshop as frequently as I do, you find yourself wishing you could use the same set of software tools to edit, undo or re-do many aspects of your own life. Undoing a crazy night, editing blemishes on your skin, altering the color of your wardrobe, even lightening your over-toasted bread.





Julia Vakser Zeltser and the folks over at Hyperakt did just that with their fun "I have PSD" short film, which shows what it would be like to apply Photoshop tools to your real life.





Photoshop dexterity (PSD) is a skillset acquired by proficient users of Adobe Photoshop, the world's most ubiquitous digital tool for creating visual ideas. Qualities of PSD include supernatural powers of imagination and an overwhelming desire to constantly make the world more beautiful. PSD affects people from different walks of life. In fact, there is a high probability that you have PSD.

CREDITS
Hyperakt
Julia Vakser Zeltser, screen writer, director, producer
Deroy Peraza, co-director
Jason Lynch, senior designer
Catherine Catanzaro, interactive designer
Eric Fensterheim, junior designer

Friends:
Justin Weinstein, film advisor
BJ Formento, photographer, Formento + Formento, fandf.org
Richeille Formento, stylist, Formento + Formento, fandf.org
David Dimeola, animation, The Brigade, brigade.tv
Joe Beshenkovsky, editor
Shawn James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida, music, Lullatone, lullatone.com
Joshua Formento, gaffer
Craig Keirce, gaffer
Tyrone Rhabb, grip
Jeremiah Boncha, junior designer

Actors:
Johan Matton, lead actor
Nikki le Villain, Egyptian
Ezili, boa constrictor
Lily la Vamp, pin up girl
Chris, gangsta
Kate Hasting, makeup, French maid

Special Thanks:
Whitney McCleary & Adobe Systems
Lenny Zeltser
Jenna Shapiro

Follow PSD:
twitter.com/​hyperakt
ihavepsd.com
facebook.com/​Photoshop

Stop Motion Laser Burnt Toast For OK Go's Last Leaf Video.

The latest video for OK Go's "Last Leaf" is a lovely and sweet stop motion animated video featuring the illustrations of artist Ge­off Mcfetridge on actual toast.



The charming video was made by burning toast with a laser and shooting still images of each piece of toast. It took 15 still shots for every second of video and 2,430 pieces of toast were used. And if you're wondering.... all 215 loaves of bread were past their sell-by date & rescued from certain disposal for the shoot.



Di­rect­ed by OK Go, Nadeem Mazen and Ali Mo­ham­mad of Serious Business Design. Produced by Shirley Moy­ers, the piece was made in part­ner­ship with Sam­sung NX100 iFn, and Create Your World.


above: Los Angeles quartet OK Go

See more videos by OK go here
An­i­ma­tion art by Ge­off Mcfetridge, Cham­pi­on Stu­dio



Be sure to check out how you can burn your own image on a piece of toast here

Meet Marcel The Shell With Shoes On.

If you haven't yet met Marcel, you're missing out. So let me introduce you.



Marcel the Shell with shoes on is a delightful little character in this stop motion animated short directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp and voiced (not enhanced) by actress, comedienne, writer and 2009-2010 SNL cast member Jenny Slate. The short film was written by both Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp.

Sweet and sad (in a Charlie Brown sort of way), Marcel has gone viral in a big way. And you can see why. Just watch the 3 minute and 20 second video below.




above left: Jenny Slate, the voice and co-creator of Marcel the shell, above right.

Marcel is so adored, he even made the New York magazine matrix - in the HighBrow/ Brilliant quadrant!

Marcel:


"Bestie by Bestie," is a web series about friendship that the former SNL star and her comedy partner (and life long bestie) Gabe Liedman screen at their weekly stand-up show. The video series is also directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp and the premiere episode can be viewed here.

Special thanks to my friend Jean Rhode who turned me onto this little guy.

5 Hours Of Work Per Second. The New Video For Tim Knol's When I Am King.

Here is the new stop motion video for When I Am King by Dutch indie rocker Tim Knol. The video was painstakingly put together by Sverre Fredriksen who spent 2 months soldering tons of timber to create the images, and stop motion to animate them – averaging five hours of work per second shown.



the making of the video:


more stills for you:





Credits (music video):
Director: Sverre Fredriksen
DOP: Per Sveinung Larsen
Gaffer: Joost Meeuwig
Assistent director: Mireille de Koning
Production co.: Yellow Submarine
Producer: Ellen Hoffmann
Production manager: Olivia van Leeuwen
Production assistent: Marah Haan
Technical assistent: Tom van der Heiden
Make-up: Mirjam Venema
Manager Tim Knol: Matthijs van Duivenbode

Credits ("Making Of"):
Director: Geert van de Wetering
Production: SubmarineChannel

Lego CL!CK: Short Film, Art & Free iPhone App For Lego Lovers

Lego CL!CK is a newly launched site from Lego® that inspires people to share the Lego Love. The site has featured content, videos, photos and more.



The site welcomes inventors, explorers, tinkerers, artists and ideas from people of all ages. A little place on the Internet devoted to the moment when your brain suddenly finds the answer you’ve been seeking. The moment all the pieces come together.

They invite you to share what makes you CL!CK… Tweet using #legoclick and tag your photos on Flickr with legoclick.

Below are a few examples from the site:

FILM
A short film by Thibault Choay utlizing Lego®s

The film is shown above (screen grab below)


ART

above: Part of an exhibition of young artists at the National Gallery in Oslo, this work is by Olafur Eliasson. Outside in the carpark behind the main gallery, 3 tons of Lego bricks were dumped onto the floor next to a large table area. The public have been invited to build their 'dream gallery/museum" and the area was full of adults and children sitting about building and playing with Lego bricks.(via Nick Scando)

PHOTOS

above: To kick off National Inventors’ Month, which is celebrated each August, the Lemelson Center collaborated with LEGO Systems, Inc. to build the supersized light bulb, the universal symbol of a big idea.
Learn more about how the lightbulb took shape.

APPS
A fun free Lego app for your iPhone!
screenshots:

get it at the iTunes store.


visit Lego® CL!CK here

Other Lego links:


•Full Sized Legos For Grown Ups: LunaBlocks by Lunatic Construction


•New LEGO Architecture Series By Adam Reed Tucker


•Lego® Replicas Of Eames, Corbusier and Michelle Kaufmann Homes


•All Things LEGO. Except for LEGO® Bricks.

Newly Released Fantastic Mr. Fox Trailer And Tons Of Never Before Seen Stills!

One of my personal favorite writers and film directors, Wes Anderson, who directed Rushmore and Bottle Rocket and wrote The Royal Tenenbaums, has reinterpreted the Roald Dahl classic (along with Noah Baumbach), the Fantastic Mr. Fox, into a stop motion animated movie set to be released in the US on November 13th, 2009. There is to be a premiere in London in October.

Here's the first released trailer from the 20th Century Fox movie which has just been completed And later in this post are over 30 amazing stills from the movie.

The voice cast includes Willem Dafoe, Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Anjelica Huston, Brian Cox, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Bill Murray, who is perfect as a lovable badger in a suit. Even Chef Mario Batali voices the Rabbit.

A synopsis of the film from IMDB:
"Boggis and Bunce and Bean, One short, one fat, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean."

Mr. Fox, Mrs. Fox, and all their fox babies live under a hill under a tree, along with Badger, Rabbit, Weasel, and all of their families. To make ends meet, every night, Mr. Fox steals a meal from one of the three crooked farmers--Boggis, a chicken farmer, Bunce, who has a little bit of everything but only eats duck liver, and Bean, who farms turkeys and apples and subsists solely on apple cider. With his keen sense of smell, and the farmers' distinctive diets, Mr. Fox has no problem evading them.

After so much treatment, the greedy farmers band together to end Mr. Fox. They ambush him at the base of his hole in the hill, and while Mr. Fox survives, his tail does not. Thus begins an obsession on the part of the farmers. They first try to dig the foxes out, but they are outdug by eight sets of paws. Then, they move to starving them out. This is unfortunate, as no other creatures living under the hill (though now more of a valley; a bulldozer was involved at one point) can get out, either. Mr. Fox is not a very popular figure until he chances across the idea of digging under the farmhouses...

I've got a bunch a wonderful brand spankin new stills for you:































All images are © 2009 20th Century Fox and courtesy of The Rushmore Academy

The official site has a great gallery that includes a lot of behind the scene images like these:




so, be sure to check that out here.

A foxtail necktie handed out at Comic-Con 2009 to promote The Fantastic Mr. Fox.:

© IMDb staff photo

The official The Fantastic Mr. Fox movie site.



For those of you with children, a new version of the classic book has been released with images from the movie. You can pre-order it now.



Or, if you prefer, you can choose from classic editions of Fantastic Mr. Fox books and audio tapes here.