Title sequence for The Simpsons done with real actors
(via devour)
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
kottke.org posts about video
Parkour on a road bike
Martyn Ashton takes a carbon fiber road bike (the same bike Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France with) and does some trials riding with it. It’s a bit like recreating the Mini Cooper chase scene in the Bourne Identity with a Bugatti Veyron.
(thx, alex)
John Lennon’s poster
Peter Dean is a big Beatles fan. And so he set out to reproduce exactly — from photographic evidence only — an old circus poster owned by John Lennon. In true Sgt. Pepper’s fashion, he had a little help from his friends.
This is a reproduction of the poster that inspired John Lennon to write the song Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, which appeared on The Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It is printed in a limited edition of 1,967.
Lennon bought the poster in an antiques shop and hung it in his music room. While writing for Sgt. Pepper one day, he drew inspiration from the quirky, old-fashioned language and set the words to music.
A limited edition letterpress reproduction of the poster is available for sale.
OSU Marching Band tribute to classic video games
The halftime show of the OSU vs Nebraska football game featured the OSU Marching Band’s tribute to classic video games. This is a 9 minute video, and I surprised myself by watching the whole thing. Tetris at 1:25 is fantastic, and the running horse at 6:00 EXTRA fantastic.
(via @wilw)
You’ve got such beautiful remote control eyes
Want to turn the page on your e-reader? Just glance at the lower right corner of the page. And don’t worry about scrolling on a long web page. You just read, the page will know what to do. Pando Daily’s most excellent Hamish McKenzie shares the story of three guys in a garage who are turning your eyes into powerful remote controls. (Sorry, for now, you’ll have to click on the link to make it open.)
Demo of machine that can create anything
A recently uncovered video shows the true inventors of 3D printer technology demoing their fantastic magic machine that can create ANYTHING. It appears the video has been kept hidden due to the unnerving power of this invention. Until now.
For a better afternoon, open a tab and let the music from this video play forever. (via ★acoleman)
Downhill skateboarder hits deer
Videos of downhill skateboard racing make me nervous, here’s one reason why.
“Oh, deer.” “That skateboarder deerly missed an accident.” “Too bad the skateboarder couldn’t deer out of the way.” “Did you deer about the downhill skateboarder?” “Deer clear of animals on the track.” “Deer we go again!” “No ideer where that came from.” “Nothing to fear, but deer itself.” “Skateboarder should have been in a lower deer.” “Deered up and ready to go.” “Deer force of will.” “Happy new deer.” (via @carveslayer)
Stop-Motion Lego Dr. Strangelove
Two sequences from Dr. Strangelove done in Lego: Muffley’s call to Kissoff on the hotline in the war room and Dr. Strangelove’s increasingly erratic presentation of his plan to preserve humanity in a mine shaft.
This is really well done. (via bb)
Bo Jackson 30 for 30
I missed this when it was announced in August, but there will be a third series of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary films, and one scheduled to air in December will feature Bo Jackson.
A close look at the man and marketing campaign that shaped his legacy. Even without winning a Super Bowl or World Series, Bo redefined the role of the athlete in the pop cultural conversation. More than 20 years later, myths and legends still surround Bo Jackson, and his impossible feats still capture our collective imagination.
Good excuse to post this (again?):
(via @sportsguy33)
Molotov cocktail exploding in slow motion
This doesn’t look so impressive in slow motion but when it switches to super slow motion around 2:00, watching the gasoline attempt to outrun the flames is really cool.
(via devour)
This is what it looks like to fire a gun under water
Lovely photo of a gun being fired under water.
And here’s a slow motion video of the same. Gunfire starts around 2:10.
(via neatorama)
Lucky truck crash
It’s amazing how the guy in the one truck flies through the destroyed windshield and lands on his feet, with or without the assistance of a magic blankie (you be the judge).
(thanks, alex)
The soccer in Iran…is explosive
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this video of a soccer player picking up a piece of garbage and casually throwing it off the field COME TO FIND OUT IT IS SOME SORT OF EXPLOSIVE DEVICE THAT EXPLODES WHEN HE THROWS IT is crazy. I didn’t want to bury the lede on that one. The game was an AFC Champions League match between Iran’s Sepahan and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ahli at Foolad Shahr Stadium, and the lucky player was Sepahan midfielder Adel Kolahkaj.
Here’s another version with some more detail/slow mo. I’m not wrong, right? That was totally crazy and not something you would expect during a soccer match? And it’s not fake, is it? (via cosby sweaters)
Zero gravity yo-yo tricks
It turns out that yo-yos work pretty well in space. Astronaut Don Pettit demontrates from the International Space Station.
(via explore)
1000 years of war in 5 minutes
This is a time lapse world map showing all the battles that have occurred in the past 1000 years. Worth sitting through the whole thing to see Europe go absolutely bonkers in the late 1930s.
(via @DavidGrann)
All I really want is Girls
The second season of Girls is set to run in January 2013 on HBO. Here’s a short teaser for the new season:
Kwon Soon Keun steals the show
Normally, I’m fairly conversant on crazy Korean drummers, so I have no idea how I missed the boat on Kwon Soon Keun. Keun is the subject of A Drummer’s Passion, a movie about his life and wild playing style. This was the first video of Keun’s playing to get a lot of attention, and it is amazing, amazing, amazing, but the video below is sublime. Maybe it’s the stone-faced bass player, maybe it’s the environment, but at 1:10, magic happens.
Average Noah Kalina
Than Tibbetts took all the frames from Noah Kalina’s Everyday video and averaged them into one photo.
Those are some of the yearly averages…you’ll have to click through to see the overall average.
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em
The latest from the Made By Hand video series is about Martinez Cigars on West 29th St in NYC. The cigars they sell are hand-rolled right in the shop.
The A train: the Amazon of New York City
In a photo slideshow with jazz accompaniment, narrator Adam Gopnik takes us on a short tour of NYC’s A train, which runs from the top of Manhattan all the way out to the beaches of Rockaway.
From Harlem and upper Manhattan to Brooklyn, Queens and the Atlantic Ocean - New York city’s A Line subway route covers over 30 miles, takes two hours to ride from end to end, and is the inspiration for one of jazz’s best known tunes.
Here — with archive images and vibrant present-day photographs from Melanie Burford — New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik takes a ride on one of today’s A trains, and explores the communities living along the route.
(via @davehopton)
The story of Mars Curiosity’s gears
From Our City, Our Story, the story of a Rockford, Illinois gear factory that made all of the gears for the Mars Curiosity rover.
What might be more remarkable than creating crucial equipment destined for Mars? For a second time? Well, creating a thriving motivated company culture with a team of career employees — the kind who lie in bed at night thinking, “what can I do in the morning when I get there?” The kind who take on responsibility, impose their own high standards and like Amy Sovina, have the “mindset something I touched is now on the surface of Mars.”
I would love to have seen a live feed of these gear shop employees watching the landing.
Opening titles from David Fincher’s films
David Fincher has always started his movies right: with interesting opening title sequences.
The Art of the Title recently interviewed the director about his interest in title sequences.
The sequence for Se7en did very important non-narrative things; in the original script there was a title sequence that had Morgan Freeman buying a house out in the middle of nowhere and then travelling back on a train. He was making his way back to the unnamed city from the unnamed suburban sprawl, and that’s where the title was supposed to be — “insert title sequence here” — but we didn’t have the money to do that. We also lacked the feeling of John Doe, the villain, who just appeared 90 minutes into the movie. It was oddly problematic, you just needed a sense of what these guys were up against.
Kyle Cooper, the designer of the title sequence, came to me and said, “You know, you have these amazing books that you spent tens of thousands of dollars to make for the John Doe interior props. I’d like to see them featured.” And I said, “Well, that would be neat, but that’s kind of a 2D glimpse. Figure out a way for it to involve John Doe, to show that somewhere across town somebody is working on some really evil shit. I don’t want it to be just flipping through pages, as beautiful as they are.” So Kyle came up with a great storyboard, and then we got Angus Wall and Harris Savides — Harris to shoot it and Angus to cut it — and the rest, as they say, is internet history.
I don’t believe in decorative titles — neato for the sake of being neato. I want to make sure you’re going to get some bang for your buck. Titles should be engaging in a character way, it has to help set the scene, and you can do that elaborately or you can do it minimally.
(via devour)
Kubrick’s Use of One-Point Perspective
Wes Anderson likes overhead shots, Quentin Tarantino prefers to peer up from below, Darren Aronofsky uses sharp sounds, and Stanley Kubrick often uses one-point perspective.
An amazing Paralympics performance
Or rather, just an amazing performance, full stop. I was alerted to this video by Dunstan Orchard who tweeted “this must be the most remarkable track race I’ve ever seen”. I don’t want to spoil it too much but pay attention to the guy in last place coming out of the curve.
Like a freight train! I’ve watched this race about 8 times now and it never gets old. The runner, Richard Whitehead, set the world record in the race. He also owns the world record in the marathon, which, amazing! Oh, and this table tennis shot is pretty great too.
Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 12.5 years
Noah Kalina, one of my favorite photographers, has taken a self-portrait of himself every day for the past 12 and a half years. After six years, he released a video of the results, which video went crazy viral and brought the attention of the world to Kalina’s door. Now he’s released the 12.5 year version.
I hope I live to be 100 to see the 75th anniversary edition.
Alternate endings to The Dark Knight Rises
Spoiler alert, don’t watch this video if you don’t want to know how The Dark Knight Rises doesn’t end.
(via ★Interesting)
Squid’s membrane goes insane while listening to Cypress Hill
The crazy (and possibly high) folks at Backyard Brains hooked an iPod up to a squid in such a way that when the music played, it was converted into electrical impulses that triggered color changes on the squid’s skin, thereby creating the world’s first cephalo-iPod. Here’s a video of the squid’s skin pulsing along to Insane in the Membrane by Cypress Hill:
During experiments on the giant axons of the Longfin Inshore Squid (loligo pealei) at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA; we were fascinated by the fast color-changing nature of the squid’s skin. Squids (like many other cephalopods) can quickly control pigmented cells called chromatophores to reflect light. The Longfin Inshore has 3 different chromatophore colors: Brown, Red, and Yellow. Each chromatophore has tiny muscles along the circumference of the cell that can contract to reveal the pigment underneath.
(via colossal)
Ayrton Senna’s last duel with Alain Prost
Alain Prost retired from F1 racing for the final time in 1993, with his last race coming at the Australian Grand Prix in November. He finished second in the race to his fierce rival Ayrton Senna but handily won the World Championship to the runner-up Senna. But the two of them raced for one final time in December of that year…driving go-karts.
Predictably, the pair took it very seriously: four-time world champion Prost having tested extensively before the event; Senna, a three-time title holder, having a kart shipped to Brazil so that he could practise.
Super Mario Bros for the Atari 2600
This seems like a Soviet version of Mario:
Get the game here. (via bb)
Socials & More