Notes From Afar

Category: Articles (page 36 of 73)

Blade Runner Revisited

This is fantastic.

From Vimeo:

An experimental film in homage to Ridley Scott’s legendary futuristic film “Blade Runner” (1982).

Created by extracting 167,819 frames from ‘Blade Runner’s final cut version, then assembling all these images to obtain one gigantic image of colossal dimensions : a square of approximately 60,000 pixels on one side alone, 3.5 gigapixels.

A virtual camera was then placed above this big picture which creates an illusion, because contrary to appearances, there is only one image. It is in fact the relative movement of the virtual camera flying over this massive image that creates the animated film, a kind of “zootrope effect”, like a film in front of a projector.

The whole concept echoes one of the signature scenes from the film where “Deckard” (Harrison Ford) analyzes a photograph via voice recognition software.

Windows Phone 7 – Really?

Does any of this look familiar to you?

I have to admit it does to me. Of late I’ve become more and more aware of how frequently I check various social networks and apps on my iPhone.

Oddly I’ve found it’s the times I didn’t have the phone with me that made me most aware of when I would have checked it. It’s almost unconscious; standing in a queue – reach for the iPhone, waiting for the kettle (at work not home) to boil – reach for the iPhone. I have clearly formed a habit.

On a recent day out I hadn’t charged my iPhone and so my use of it was dramatically limited. My wife commented that it was “nice to have me there” and I could only agree – it was much more relaxing and rewarding to fully “be there”.

But I digress. I clearly fully recognise the the syndrome this advert describes, but I don’t see how it works to promote a new smartphone. I’ve read that it is targeted at non-smartphone users, but don’t see how will highlighting behaviour that is a potential annoyance to that audience will encourage them them to buy a smartphone, and quite possibly become a heads-down smartphone user.

That being said – it is a great ad.

BBC Radio 6Mix : Underworld Special

This Sunday Karl Hyde of Underworld joined BBC Radio 6 DJ Dave Pearce for a 6 Mix Underworld Special.

Karl shared and talked about music he loves and that influenced him as well as tracks from the new Underworld album Barking. The show ends with three massive live tracks from Underworld’s set at Creamfields 2002.

This special is only available on BBC iPlayer until Sunday 19 September so run, don’t walk, to your nearest internet outlet and listen now.