Links published in October 2009 — Most recent at top.
This question is so 2002, but as I was re-watching the LOTR trilogy recently, I was curious as to how they made the hobbits look so small when filmed with other characters. You don’t know the answer either, thankfully the Internet does. The technique is called forced perspective where the optical illusion of various scales and distances is simply adjusted by the distance between the subjects and the camera. Two short videos of the technique worth watching: forced perspective in LOTR and forced perspective with a moving camera. Impressively realistic. •
Nobody does it like Influence and Stardoll: if this is your thing, check out the full runway coverage of all Spring and Summer 2010 fashion shows from New York, Milan, London & Paris.
I tend to forget the clothing and simply check out the scenography (which, most of the time, isn’t all that different), but sometimes, you get fantastic setups: like the all barn Chanel show. Or my favorite: über-simple yet so effective, Viktor and Rolf’s runway shrinks the models into pretty little dolls while Roisin Murphy is sings on.
•Give’em thanks for music videos. A few good picks for your holiday monday: Justice & Lenny Kravitz play the credits in Let Love Rule; editing and direction of Mum’s Sing along is as tight yet non-sequitur as it could be; and Röyksopp [feat. Fever Ray] do bare and wild with This Must Be it (here the hi-res fat Quitcktime verison). •
Fantasticly gorgeous, funny and foxy: Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox looks like it’ll win my heart. I had no idea this was based on a book by Roald Dahl. (By the way, he’s also the author of many other successful book-to-movie stories: Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Willy Wonka and the Choclate Factory, the Witches…) •
The Colander table by german design Danuel Rohr is manufactured the exact same way as Apple’s new MacBook’s unibody: by milling an aluminum block to its final shape. Both Rohr and Apple have a video of the manufacturing technique. And though it’s all computer controlled and the exactitude of these machine is evidently guaranteed, it’s nevertheless jaw-dropping to see the mill works its way though the piece with such precision every single run. •
The BLT flow chart. One of my favorite sandwiches deconstructed to its agricultural roots. I heart it.
This bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich won the “Best overall BLT” of Micheal Ruhlman’s BLT from scratch contest. Other categories included “Best BLT interpretation” and “most inspiring BLT”.
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