I have set myself the task of writing 18 or so short scripts for the Multimedia at NTU first years students over the next ten weeks or so. They are about to embark on a module (Jan 2010) that is to introduce them to the Moving Image discipline. Interpretation is a key element of film-making I feel so I want the students, in groups of four or five to have to interpret a script taking it through the production stages. This I think will give them a good grasp on film-making and its concerns. I have written one so far and plotted (loosely) two others. They are only going to be of three to four minute duration so not very long.  I want a mixture of silly and serious, some clearly genre some not. I’ll be working on them when the new year begins.

Seems Ermone from the Uk has been making some dope canvasses. Check out this interview via the Soup Gallery, Cornwall.

http://www.thesoupgallery.co.uk/2009/08/featured-flickr-artist-4-erms/

Featured Flickr Artist – 4. ERMS

Eh up Peeps!
Its time for round four of our Flickr Featured Artist series!

This time we managed to catch up with globe trotting, style captain ERMS!

No matter if ERMS is hittin’ Canvas, Wall or Sketchbook he never fails to drop the mad fresh flavour that has writers slingin’ props and eye candy enthusiasts going Mmmmm.

We reached out to see if the funk master would flex lyrical and tell us a little bit about what graff is all about for him and where he is at right now, both stylistically and geographically……

“I started writing in the very early 90s aged 12, doing a Daze piece outlined in duplicolor brown and filled with olive green, after meeting and hanging out with some older writers. Inspiration came from the local scene, which was strong but fading out, and from Sheffield which was really bombed at the time.

I’m into graff for the experience of painting, I just love the way it looks, everything about it. Graffiti works best when it’s illegal but I’ll paint legal walls too sometimes. I’m not into generic graffiti, or being in one place stylistically, for too long. I try to be experimental and work loose(ish), not taking too long over getting lines right or having a few drips here and there. Recently I’ve stopped sketching, instead drawing big tags when I want to do a piece, and building them up until the vibes right. I want my pieces to live and move a bit, and to have that fresh x-factor.

I’m into painting interesting spots, exploring and not painting the same places over and over. I’ve traveled around the world painting in many countries. I’ve met some amazing, talented people on the way, who’ve kept a gringo safe from harm, fed me, dropped knowledge and been super cool. I’m based in Paris right now, and there’s a banging graff scene here… so much inspiration that it’s impossible not to want to paint.

I’m also trying to create work on canvas - graffiti inspired but more than just a piece on canvas. I’m interested in using the classical elements many writers work with – drips, splats, arrows, connections, the little things that bring drama to a piece, and of course letters.

In the future I’d like to continue traveling to see and paint more of the world.

Influences: Blade, Ale, Ajax, Tracy, Iz, Phase 2, Tuff Artz, Non Stop, TCA, Horfé, Haring, Warhol, my crew and everyone I’ve painted with, google image search, graphic design & advertising of the 70/80s.

Crazy shouts to my crew FMB: Rialto aka Skrew Face, Alter aka Boxcar Joe, Coek, Mune, Jova. XXXL props to Tyser, Vets & Chek. Yes TNQ30, Frote, Hork DSK, SagaUno, B+, Diksa, Manik, Beam, Blackdice, and my man Doitall. One love to all the other peeps I’ve painted with, at home in England and around this planet…WERD!”

Mad thanks to ERMS for taking the time to get back at us.

Be sure to go and check his ¡doʇ uo ʞɔoɹ flickr. The man has the whole lot on smash-its chucked full of enough treats to make yo eyes pop!

Erms also slings out his hella dope canvases out at a very reasonable price.

If you have some spare cheddar – hell, even if you ain’t, plunder your rent money – go check out his site and see if you can’t get yo grubby mitts on one!

BBC documentary on the legend of kids TV, Oliver Postgate.

Ill Bill – My Uncle

Cool video too, very nice.

Intensely crazy stop motion and live action 1996 pilot for Czech film ‘The Golem’ by Jiri Barta

A 2002 interview where Jiri Barta talks about the film here.

For more works by the masters of Eastern European animation check out Mike Brent’s site here.

…And it is well worth a look some amazing pieces. Crazy as hell.

Concrete Jumble, a series of animations about the history of New York City, by Gary Leib.

View it here.

…lets hope so.

“Simon is an interesting character. He seems to have profited greatly off humiliating people on live television and has a unique position of capturing the attention of people on television, but also the airwaves. We see this [campaign] as a necessary break of that control.”

-Zack De La Rocha

“People are tired of being spoon fed one schmaltzy ballad after another,” “They want to take back their own charts. We’re honoured they’ve chosen our song to be the rebel anthem to topple The X Factor monopoly.”

-Tom Morello

‘Killing In The Name’ recently became the bookies favourite to bag the Christmas Number One slot.

Simon Cowell has slammed the campaign, calling it “stupid”, “cynical” and “very Scrooge”. Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello has publicly given the campaign his backing.

Stolen from here.

We are proud to present:

Asaviour & DJ IQ No Days Off feat (Sir Smurf Lil &TB)

The Music Video to the single “No Days Off” taken from the album by Asaviour & DJ IQ entitled The A Loop Theory out now on Saving Grace Music. We helped get the team together to produce the video, we’re very proud of the result! Chris Hees and the team in York did an excellent job, the vid looks top quality.

Get your copy of ‘The A Loop Theory’ in double CD pack (dope!) here.

Part 2 of 8. You can find all but part 1 on youtube, though some of the parts don’t have sound. I think its taken from a documentary called ‘The Mark of Cain’. Well worth a purchase to see the whole thing properly. The guards dancing/rapping in the talent contest is the only funny bit, the rest is horrific, especially considering how recent it is. Really interesting look at prison tattoos, life and conditions. Hearing the prisoners and administration talk so openly about conditions is certainly eye-opening.

Some of my all-time fave music videos, though there are many more here’s a little selection…

MICHAEL JACKSON – THRILLER Directed by John Landis

THE PRODIGY – SMACK MY BITCH UP Directed by Jonas Åkerlund

THE PHARCYDE – DROP Directed by Spike Jonze

SCRATCH PERVERTS. FOREIGN BEGGARS. STIG. DR. SYNTAX. WILL CLARKE. WILL COHEN.

ROOTS MANUVA – WITNESS (1 HOPE)

CHEMICAL BROTHERS – STAR GUITAR Directed by Michel Gondry

CHEMICAL BROTHERS – LET FOREVER BE Directed by Michel Gondry

DAFT PUNK – AROUND THE WORLD Directed by Michel Gondry

DAFT PUNK – VOYAGER Directed by Leiji Matsumoto

DAFT PUNK – ONE MORE TIME Directed by Leiji Matsumoto

THE GETO BOYS – MIND PLAYIN’ TRICKS ON ME Directed by Richard Hunt

THE BEASTIE BOYS – SABOTAGE Directed by Spike Jonze

RADIOHEAD – JUST Directed by Jamie Thraves

U.N.K.L.E. & Thom Yorke – RABBIT IN YOUR HEADLIGHTS Directed by Jonathan Glazer

APHEX TWIN – COME TO DADDY Directed by Chris Cunningham

APHEX TWIN – WINDOWLICKER Directed by Chris Cunningham

BLUR – COFFEE & TV

公私兩忙忙還跑一轉新加坡，主要是為了《慢性中毒》．．．

我們是榮獲提名而已，不是去拿獎啊！不過這個經驗倒不錯！:)

30 sec ident for Havaianas

Sound by Caco Villares Law

Designed and animated by Fabiana Serpa

Special thanks to André Nogueira

Got into work this morning, and got dragged over to my workmates computer to ‘watch this! watch this’.

Have to say, it’s one of the most awesome pieces of stopmotion I’ve seen for a long time. The amount of care and attention that has gone into it is staggering! While I’ve sworn never to have anything to do with moving image after my last sojorn with it, this piece is worth a mention and all the glorification I can muster.

And I also highly recommend seeking out and reading the book. Actually, I might just go and do that… and along with it, maybe revisit some locked up primary school memories.

From Bigger Picture’s blog (which is so awesome it’s going in the blogroll!)

We’ve been doing some work-spotting in the office to see what our hard-work goes into creating!

The most recent project we’ve found was for Knorr Stock Pots – the latest type of stock-cube to hit the market.  We were approached to put together a 30 second animatic – basically, a moving storyboard – where the chef walks through a field of cardboard cows to get to his home, before using a Knorr Stock Pot to cook a delicious cottage pie for the family!

The finished ad even features Marco Pierre White!!

You can see the full TV ad on visit4info.com – compare how similar it is!!

Photo credit: Max Bellamy

Single channel projection

This work was made as a result of a two channel video projection of images that I had been accumulating throughout the duration of my MFA. Some were my own ‘snapshot’ type images, most were sourced from the internet, and a large number were re-photographs I had taken of existing work from sources like books and magazines. The occasion for this presentation was my first MFA seminar at the Otago School of Art, which took place in September. Each individual image had been spliced with various types of colourful images, Photoshop produced geometric abstractions and monochromes, and through to patterns I took from the web. All photographic and ‘painterly’ images were rum through a movie program and given 0.1 second each on the screen. What resulted was a fast, schizophrenic run of visual overload that was extremely difficult to look at on the large scale, heightened by the multiple screen installation.

Hellvis developed out of this work, and in an ongoing interest in using imagery and material that already exists, looking at concerns from Lawrence Lessig’s Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy as well as an interest in the writings of Nicolas Bourriaud, especially his book Postproduction, and his ideas on artist as a type of cultural deejay. In this context, the use of Elvis Presley in a video downloaded from YouTube becomes something of a cultural referent that pre-exists. It is argued in fact by Lessig that the use of such culturally recognisable forms within a work is what allows it to actually function. By this argument, the idea of hiring an actor to play the role of Elvis to make the work, for example, does not perform, or function, in the same way as that which is already located within the cultural or sociological psyche.

The decision to use the image of Elvis within Hellvis was for this very reason articulated by Lessig. Elvis, for me, represented celebrity definitively, and his rise to fame, burnout and death is well known. His celebrity being a rock-star made it necessary, or logical to use his film, for my film.

Hellvis is, to use Lessig’s term borrowed from music production, a mash-up. Two clips have been sped up in an editing program, which have subsequently been broken down to a series of cuts that are all 0.1 of a second. From here the individual fragments from both films are spliced together in alteration, where the speed is then dropped to run at what was the original speed. This caused the imagery to jolt more frantically on the screen, whilst at the same time bringing the two totally disparate sound elements to work together more cohesive, or better, with less audible jerkiness. This speeding, then slowing back down unified the film, forcing to differing audio and visual elements to function as one work.

As I am very much interested in Remix as a working methodology, as well as the social, cultural and legal implications it entails Hellvis was a good work for me. It also succeeded in giving myself hands on introduction in digital editing, for as the ‘videoing’ already happened, the making of this work was pure editing. This has given me a strong desire to follow up with other video works, and more purposeful imagery, in that I seek out and film my own material before editing. However Hellvis did work well within the Maybe, In the End, It Was a Dream exhibition because it was a strong link that brought the individual works together. I could not get “Elvis has left the building!” out of my mind when looking at Stay Forever whilst ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ epileptically squalled behind me.

Another element that Hellvis introduced me to that had not been present in my work up to that point, which is surprising in that music sub-culture forms a strong part of research interest, is sound. The sound, as it worked within the space of the show, outside of the jerky ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, was the formal qualities given that pervaded the exhibition. This work was presented as a single channel projection on the wall directly opposite Bridget Pistol Sex Riley and Stay Forever, but it had an obvious resonance throughout the gallery. Taking the audio alone in of Hellvis, and coming to terms with the form influenced the decision to include a sound component into AM as I was working on it within the space. With Hellvis, it did have me thinking of future possible works, which does frustrate me somewhat as it has clouded my ability to objectively look at Hellvis, of which I know is not just a gateway work, there is value in its own right, its just problematic at this stage for me to work through.

Photo credit: Max Bellamy

There is the benefit of putting on the exhibition, and furthering this through the blog, that allow one to confront work that is made very directly. Mounting an exhibition does this forcibly, whereas blogging requires an altogether different evaluation of the work made; the exhibition is de-stalled, which allows for objectiveness through distance and medium. Value that I see, with Hellvis now neatly packed onto an external hard drive, is in this grey area of Remix. As the image of Elvis is so recognisable, it is also one of copyright control. Here is a legal notice posted on elvis.com:

Elvis, Elvis Presley, Elvis Week, Graceland, and Heartbreak Hotel are Registered Trademarks with the USPTO. ©2000 – 2009 EPE, Inc.

One can only assume that an Elvis video of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ downloaded from YouTube would fall nicely within the elvis.com legal category posted. Musical artists, think reggae and hip-hop, have been sampling other artists songs in their production for nearly fifty years, often with culturally significant results. And this is where I felt Lessig’s writing gave the potential to actually do something with this material, to take information that has been forced upon us unrelentingly, with the purpose to turn some of it, a micro amount of it really, into something new.

‘ The extension of time in moving image reveals a microcosm of/for immersion ‘

A brief explanation: It has to do with the term of Immersion in relation with the technique of Slow motion (overcranking). The stretch of time in the field of moving image gives us the opportunity to see a different world, a microcosm ( derives from the Greek word mikro-kosmos ). Slow motion can make the image shows us ‘the moment’ and depict other actions that take part in this microcosm. How the viewer inside an installation can be immersed by this depiction of inner (digital) microcosm.

Hope, it works !..

]]> http://fabianaserpa.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/opening-credits-for-sisters/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:28:47 +0000 Fabiana Serpa http://fabianaserpa.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/opening-credits-for-sisters/

Visual Piece for my Dissertation on Film Remakes and Homages (Psycho ,  Cape Fear and  Sisters).

This animation is a remake of the opening credits for Brian De Palma’s 1973′  Sisters.

Designed and animated by Fabiana Serpa, Sound by Caco Villares Law and Samuel Ferrari

This is from the typenowhere blog, but i loved it so much i wanted to post it here as well.

BBH London has created a six minute film for Johnnie Walker, featuring the actor Robert Carlyle, who tells the story of the whisky brand while walking through the Scottish Highlands.

Written by BBH’s Justin Moore, the tale takes the viewer through the entire history of the brand, which is narrated by Carlyle in one single shot of six minutes.

As he delivers the story, he passes objects relating to the tale along his path.

According to production company HLA, the film took 40 takes in total.