Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial footage from Survival International on Vimeo.
American Apparel Does Something Likeable
I don’t care much for the American Apparel branding and marketing philosophy, but this video is awesome.
Shot by Tony Kelly and featuring the absurdly talented Lil Demon (yes he’s really doing that breakdancing himself) and Jalen Testerman, also a break-dancing 9 year old, against the downtown LA skyline.
Like No Other
There’s no way this video/ad won’t put a smile on your face. It made me so happy I almost cried.
Maybe y’all have already seen this, as it was on TV, but I don’t watch TV really (except whatever my dear roommate has on in the background while I blog, or series that I get way obsessively sucked into via Netflix instant, but then there’s no ads) so I miss out on all the ads that get raved about. And I don’t really care if you’ve already seen it. Watch it again.
The team (who I think are brilliant) behind this spot for Sony Bravia TVs wanted to connect people to the product in an emotional, rather than rational way, which is SO smart– it’s what Apple does all the time. TVs are traditionally sold by bragging about the specs and high tech this or that. This spot said absolutely nothing about the product other than “Color like no other,” as part of their larger “like no other” branding campaign, and they made you feel something instead of telling you something.
I also loved this behind the scenes/making-of video, as I was very curious about the details! Here are the basics: 250,000 bouncy balls, 23 cameras. (Tangentially, did anyone else get really thrown off when the theme music from NPR’s On Point came on??)
Also, the images at top are available for purchase as prints– photographer Peter Funch was at the scene and captured these amazing shots.
PS- Happy birthday to my sister Kaki and my niece Ginny! Festive post for your birthday, no?
via WTF
The Festival of Holi
The images above and the video below are from the Festival of Holi, also called the Festival of Colors. I really cannot claim to know anything about this festival (despite some basic research) other than that it is a Hindu tradition that involves throwing colored dust everywhere (awesome) and on some level celebrates the arrival of spring.
There are other, more complex and religiously-based parts to it also, so I don’t mean to over-simplify, but I have to be honest– the colors are the part I like.
And I have to believe that some of the 50,000 people that show up to the temple in Utah– yes, Utah– seen above to celebrate the festival might be there mostly for the colors too. (The temple doesn’t seem to mind the tourist/commercialization aspect, they sell t-shirts saying “I survived Holi, Spanish Fork, Utah.”)
Video (and stills) by Brian Thomson, and the music in the video is by cellist Zoe Keating.
If you need to see more of this thing (I did), there’s another good video of the same event here.
Also, it’s official, I have a thing for colored dust in the air (previously: 1, 2; and there’s another related post in the works!).
Going Solo
Designer Brandt Botes recently decided to go solo with his design business, and he asked a few respected colleagues in the industry who had done the same thing for a little advice. With that advice, he created this stop-motion animation video for the Toffie Festival 2011.
Very useful if you’re a freelancer, and even if you don’t work for yourself, there are some really useful little bits of advice that are relevant no matter your job, and they’re just made more interesting (and credible) by the fact that they were given by people who have successfully gone solo.
