The Pacific Opening Credit Sequence

Have you been watching The Pacific on HBO? If so you can't help but be amazed at the gorgeous opening title sequence. Sketches transition seamlessly into black and white photographs and dust from breaking charcoal shards elegantly portray shrapnel and explosions in the sand.

Below is the animatic from director Steve Fuller for Imaginary forces that won the job.

The Pacific Opening Credits from Steve Fuller on Vimeo.

You can check out the finished product here on the Imaginary Forces website.

The Viral Factory's Solar Controlled Earth Hour Countdown

Earth Hour is upon us once again. This Saturday the 27th residents and businesses around the world will shut off for an hour in an act to conserve energy and unite in awareness of the energy crisis world wide.

The Viral Factory produced and created a light sensitive or interactive stop motion animation with music from Hot Chip for the occasion.

The version on the Earth Hour site senses the light level via your computer's web cam and dictates the version of the story told. Check it out for yourself here: http://www.myearthhour.org/lightsoff

The YouTube version has a built in toggle light switch so that you can jump back and forth between the story lines...very cool. i love this idea and the video is really entertaining too.

Diane Birch One Take Music Video

This video from Diane Birch for 'Valentino' directed by Dennis Liu of @radical.media is another great feat in choreography. Though the planning stages had to be extremely complex the end result has almost a sweet low-fi essence to it that reminds me of children performing in front of a tied up sheet for the neighborhood. The reality of the degree of performance couldn't be more different as is evident in the behind the scenes footage where the screen comes down.

Zappos.com - Powered by Puppets...err Real People

How can you not love these new ads for Zappos.com via their new agency of note Boston's own Mullen? Everyone loves some good puppetry, right? and if nothing else the lo-fi aesthetic stands out amongst the flashy car commercials and highly produced sport drink ads while staying making the simple point, Zappos.com has fantastic human customer service.

for those of you interested in some more about the creative process check out this video with thoughts from the creatives at Mullen, directors, character designers, and "zappet-iers."

Jamie Cullum Cry Me a River from the House of Blues

I had the pleasure of seeing Jamie Cullum perform at the House of Blues here in Boston over the weekend. One of the highlights, for me, was his amazing remix of Cry Me a River combining the original song from Ella Fitzgerald and the Justin Timberlake hit with the same name. Being a masshole i have to admit the Aerosmith cover off of Rock and a Hard Place is one of my favorite renditions of the heartbreaking Fitzgerald classic but this one is in tough competition, split into two videos below.



...and in true Two If By See style i have to share the originals for the full effect:

Pirelli Commercial Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

To celebrate the historic wins for Kathryn Bigelow last night at the Oscars I wanted to share her most recent commercial work, this short film starring Uma Thurman and shot by Janusz Kaminski for Pirelli titled, Mission Zero.

and check out this peek behind the scenes for a scope of the production, the stunts, and the special effects.

OK GO Plays Mousetrap with This Too Shall Pass

It's nice to see that OK GO has continued it's run of excellent, and hopefully virally successful, music videos. You remember Mouse Trap right? (the board game, not the movie) if not what about the breakfast scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure?

Well OK Go, with the help of director James Frost (Zoo Films) and Syyn Labs created a life sized, and extremely intricate, moving chain reaction machine that in itself took months of pre-planning to create before the camera choreography was even a thought - the end result - fun. really really fun. Check it out.

Here's some trivia for you, the actual name of such a machine is a Rube Goldberg machine, a machine that achieves a simple task in an over complicated or convoluted manner.

Want to see that Pee Wee scene? You got it!