RIP Alain Resnais

Occasionally, one must break the tradition of writing only about work that includes some form of animation, in order to recognize one of the giants of film.

With the loss of Chris Marker in 2012 and the loss of Alain Resnais two days ago, we may be witnessing the end of an era that will forever be inscribed as one of the most powerful and magical in the history of film, and in the history of film-informed mediums. Resnais, whose career sprung from Hiroshima Mon Amour, a film as poignant as it is inventive, often resisted labels and classifications.

Unafraid of tackling difficult topics, he directed Night and Fog, a documentary shot in Auschwitz some ten years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, as well as the bold and mesmerizing experimental film, Last Year in Marienbad. While his films were often perceived as French new-wave emblems, as films about the intermingling of war and memory, about subjectivity and love, about dream and loss, Resnais never made the same film twice. He was a film “auteur” only in the sense that he reinvented himself over and over again, with the same finesse, courage and fearlessness.

His film career may be one of the richest and most diverse ones of the Silver Screen. Exploring every role of production, Resnais seamlessly navigated between the roles of director, editor, writer, even cinematographer. He tackled all topics with intelligence, and tapping into the great minds of writers such as Jean Cayrol, Marguerite Duras, Jorge Semprún and Alain Robbe-Grillet. He was one of a kind.

“Voilà. Maintenant. Je suis à vous.”

 

Mr X – A Dark Short by Alex Nicholson

MPC work wonders on this dark short directed by Alex Nicholson. enjoy…

OFFSHORE Interactive

OFFSHORE is a interactive documentary created by Brenda Longfellow, Glenn Richards and Helios Design Labs that explores the dark waters of the global offshore oil industry in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion. OFFSHORE offers a vision of what happens when need and greed push this industry past a level of competence into a new world inhabited by questions we might not want the answers to. Sound Design by CypherAudio. More info HERE.

Susi Sie + CypherAudio : CYMATICS

Toronto’s CypherAudio is on another roll, tightly matching strong sound design to Susi Sie’s beautifully captured latest piece CYMATICS. “All scenes were filmed by using lycopodium powder, 50 Hz, a Canon 5D and a 100mm macro lens.”

Anthony Scott Burns : Manifold Teasers

Anthony Scott Burns has released two stark, tense teasers in crisp black and white in anticipation of his inaugural short film entitled Manifold…The film will be released at FantasticFest later this month.

Teaser 1

Teaser 2

Bradley G Munkowitz: Oblivion Screen Graphics

Joseph Kosinski’s latest feature, Oblivion, releases today in the US, and with it comes an impressive onslaught of screen graphics directed by Bradley “Gmunk” Munkowitz.

Like the work he directed for Tron, Munkowitz’s design for Oblivion is brimming with details. Munkowitz and his team oversaw the production of assets for scores of contexts, including an interactive light table, cockpit elements for the “Bubbleship” and HUD elements for various equipment and weapons in the film.

The briefing for the Graphic Language stressed functionality and minimalism while utilizing a bright, unified color palette that would appear equally well on both a dark or bright backdrop.

The function was to reflect the modernized sensibilities of the TET Mainframe computer and would assist the characters with the key components of their duties on earth; be it the monitoring of all Vitals on the ground using Vika’s Light Table, or the various diagnostics in the air using the Jack’s Bubbleship.

For good measure, the team also designed and animated all of the HUD UI for the various machines and weaponry in the film cuz they could, establishing a consistent graphic language that rendered all the interfaces with a loverly cohesion rarely seen in them massive-budget Sci-Fi productions.

Oblivion screen graphics
Oblivion screen graphics
Oblivion screen graphics
Oblivion screen graphics

Posted on Motionographer

Michael Clarke: Jiberish Fall 2011 Lookbook

Film based Lookbooks are turning up more and more … love the idea and this is a great example: NY based Michael Clarke directed the Jiberish Fall 2011 Lookbook for clothing label www.jiberish.com

Reid Gower: NASA ~ The Sagan Series

Reid Gower is a Canadian philosophy undergrad taking time off to explore science and media. Subsequently, Reid has developed NASA: The Sagan Series to promote the beauty in scientific values, based on the writings of American Astrophysicist Carl Sagan. Reid was inspired by NASA’s inability to promote and advertise itself and, in large, by Michael Marantz’s Earth: The Pale Blue Dot. After obtaining Michael’s permission to use Carl Sagan’s voice, Reid has gone on to produce 7 chapters of the Sagan Series. Watch them all at www.saganseries.com

Nando Costa: The New America

This is pretty damn cool … Nando Costa is putting together a new short film called The New America, where an advanced society experiences structural and financial collapse (good timing), re-emerging with values rooted in nature. Interesting enough on its own, but the extremely unique apsect of the short is that every frame of the movie would be engraved on wood – similar to Nando’s previous wood engraved artwork – and each person sponsoring the film would essentially keep a one-of-a-kind wood frames.

For more info on the project and how to become a sponsor check out: Nando’s Kickstarter page … or nandocosta.com

Marius Herzog: The Tale Of Mr. Rêvus

The Tale Of Mr. Rêvus is a University Of Applied Sciences graduation diploma film, animated and directed by Nuernberg based Marius Herzog. “The challenge of this movie was to reproduce the entire production process of an animated 3D shortfilm by myself including story development, concept design, modelling, rigging, directing, editing, animating, rendering and finally compositing.”

Tons of in-depth behind-the-scenes info, sketches, environment renders and technical information to see here.