Read Between the Parallel Lines

Firstly I would like to offer my apologies to the readers of allonethought (there are literally tens of you out there), it has been a bit quiet on here for a while, I would love to say its because I’ve been getting some much needed rest but that would be a massive lie… anyways…

After the unprecedented success of Carousel last year, Philips have teamed up with Ridley Scott Associates to create the next wave of cinematic innovation. Parallel Lines is the brilliant concept set by Philips which, until recently, was shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

All they let on initially was the directors involved and little hints of what was in store. With names like Jake Scott, Greg Fay, Carl Erik Rinsch, Hi-Sim and old tutor of mine Johnny Hardstaff, fans were left salivating like a pavlovian dog spying a pavlova. Writing on the 25th February Hardstaff commented:

“As you already know, all five films are linked, but I cannot say how just yet. What I can tell you about my film is that it’s a thriller. That is a future film noir in a sense, and that there’s a dark secret at its core.”

In the last 12 days Philips have leaked that the release date is 8th April and, more importantly, that the films are linked by all having an identical script. Each director was given said script and allowed to give it there own unique treatment, resulting in 5 hopefully brilliantly diverse films. Below is a still from Hardstaffs thriller ‘DarkRoom’, plus the latest trailer for all you greedy beasts.

Süveyda

Süveyda is the latest offering to come from Ayhan Cebe, the designer and director mainly does work for TV and as some of us know that working with clients can be restrictive at the best of times. Süveyda shows us exactly what Cebe is capable of, the dark haunting short, which has dark tendencies not unlike the work of the much reference Chris Cunningham, is about life cycles, beauty and decay. Taken from his site Cebe says “we know our journey is not random chaos but a journey where every shouting supernova, every trembling cell, returns to the one perfect mystery from which we all come and go”. End result, beautiful darkness.

Mini Cooper S by Krink

NY based Krink hit again with the trademark dripping icons with this brilliant short for Mini Cooper S. The effect it has on the car is really striking and the whole short is directed well too. If it wasn’t probably massively illegal and utterly dangerous to have a car tricked out in this fashion I think my blue bullet would undergo the same treatment.

Flensburger Kurzfilmtage 2009 Trailer

After the 24 Hour ad challenge we have massive respect for anything that is made in a day, including this film shot in one day in Flensburger Germany. The trailer is for the 9th annual short film festival in said Flensburger and is shot on the glorious machine that is a canon D5. Collaboration between Pepe Lange and Joachim Freitag.

The Yes Men Fix The World

As its a Sunday something a bit light hearted I think. Reading an old issue of Dazed & Confusedyesterday I noticed an article that I had missed on previous visits to the strange glossy. The Yes Menare Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, two men with a taste for donning sharp suits, blagging their way into corporate events and posing as top executives from international companies. Once in, they parody the companies they ‘represent’ with outrageous claims at speeches to wake up the corporate world to their greed.

One of their biggest stunts to date was with Bichlbaum, posing as a DOW Chemical Spokesperson, appears on the BBC news stating that Dow will finally take responsibility for the Bhopal disaster (a disaster that Union Carbide, now owned by DOW, was responsible for) and pay out over $12 billion dollars in compensation to the victims and families of the catastrophe, something that DOW themselves have failed to do to date. The result was people worldwide celebrating for a faceless corporation doing the right thing for once and DOW’s stock loosing several billion dollars. Nobel and Genius (Nobius?). Their latest film screened last week in the US and has just come out at selected theaters in the UK. Check out their site for trailers and screening dates.

Umeric

Twitter follows normally mean someone is clicking follow every which way but loose on anyone to make them buy something from them or read their rants on the latest blockbusters. However when we saw that Umeric were following us we decided to check out their (rather brilliantly constructed) site and were greeted with some really nice work. Below are the idents they were commissioned by MTV for, rather interesting takes on the classic MTV logo. Having gained gold and silver at Promax earlier this month for the MTV idents, Umeric seem to have an undeniable style that is getting some serious media attention. They also have a fine collection of Maneki Neko cats if your into Japanese porcelain figurines.

Lenny Kravitz vs Justice

The epic song remixed by Justice which is good enough to warrant a blog post on its own, but the video is also quality. Filmed in super duper widescreen it has a new use for the otherwise boring credits. Directed by Keith Schofield.

Tom Fun Orchestra – Bottom of the River

Directed by Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney (both look like typo’s but have double checked), Bottom of the River is the latest offering from Trunk Animation. The music video for the Tom Fun Orchestra has interesting uses of silhouettes, done in such an organic fashion that you forget they are just black shapes quite quickly, leaving your mind free to conjure imagery. Trunk are worth a look too as they seem to be an organization with quite a few strings to their bow.

Speechbreaker

I may not be the most informed when it comes to politics, but I know a great bit of negative campagining when I see it. Created by Lean Mean Fighting Machine the interactive site lets you rearrange words uttered at speeches by the leaders of the three main political parties (CR wisely observed that it was probably funded by the lib dems as the only utterance that you can make sense with them is “choose the liberal democrats”). Its genius for the simple fact that they are not saying anything bad about any party, they leave that joyful honour to you. Found via Gavin Lucas at Creative Review. Try it athttp://www.speechbreaker.co.uk. Below is my rather poor attempt.

Vivisesja Audio Visual Festival 09

When fwd_ctrl were asked if we would like to contribute to the Vivisesja Festival in Poznan, Poland, we were more than happy to send our showreel off to be screened at this years event. The festival runs from the 18th to the 20th of November and there is a wealth of audio/visual delights for participants, from VJ live performances to short film and animation screenings. Unfortunately there isn’t a English version of the site up yet but we have been informed it should be up soon so keep checking for updates. Below is last years video summary and the promo for this years event, for more information visit http://www.vivisesja.pl.

La Blogothèque

Found via It’s Nice That, La Blogotheque Take Away shows are beautifully honest films of Musicians doing what they do best. Be it on the street, in a cafe or just generic Parisian backdrops, the Take Away shows are a rare treat for music fans. They have a massive archive that will leave you (as it did me) putting off all the tasks of the day in favour of glimpsing into the world of La Blogotheque. Additionally the copy that accompanies these films is really well composed and not just a quick queeb about when, where and how, Claude would love this.