I had a quick flick through the Apple Quicktime site to see if there was any cool trailers for upcoming films over the summer. Unfortunately it seems that yet again Hollywood seems to be churning out film adaptations of comic-book superheroes?! I understand that by doing so they tap into an already established fan base and so potentially stand to make more money - BUT (with a couple of exceptions) they are generally ALWAYS rubbish?!

Whether it’s sequels (Hellboy 2), film versions of minor superheroes (Ironman), or remakes of previous superhero films (Hulk) it always seems to guarantee an interesting trailer and a boring film? It seems particularly ridiculous that the Incredible Hulk has already had a bad remake a few years back and yet the 2008 CGI-Hulk seems to look just as unbelievable as the 2003 CGI-Hulk?

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UPDATE: This spoof news report by the Onion sums up my feelings nicely I think!

I’m really loving this post on CDM of some guys who have remade the tron movie without the use of any computer generated imagery! Watch the video here - Genius!  

Then again when you combine ‘homemade’ with ‘tron’ you’re always bound to come up with a winner - who can forget good ‘ol Tron Guy a few years ago (incidentally I forgot just how tight those trousers are around the crotch - ewwwww!)

Creative Review have written a great post featuring some current cool new music video’s. My favourite of which is this one, directed by Keith Schofield for the Supergrass song ‘Bad Blood’. It basically features a wicked trick of locking the camera axis point to random objects and actions in the video … though rather than trying to explain it’s better to actually just watch it.

Wow, this is amazing - like good ‘ol Quicktime VR but with video instead of still images … check out the demo here (be sure to move your mouse around over the video)

Found on the Protein blog

What would have happened if design legend Saul Bass had made the titles for Star Wars - Ace! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z25t-PQDn5A

Wow, that was pretty amazing - reminds me of that first time of going to see Jurassic Park in the cinema! Anyway didn’t really want to blog too much about the film (apart from that you should see it … now), but what I thought was really interesting is just how much “seeding” went on to promote it, i.e planting little clues in various places other than an official website to generate excitement.

I think ‘Lost’ did a similar thing when it was first released, but if you don’t want to spend hours wading though the characters myspace pages, weird japanese soft drink sites and translated manga comics - then this article seems to cover most stuff which has been going on behind the scenes!

This is interesting: Alfonso Cuarón, director of “Children of Men”, and Naomi Klein, author of “No Logo”, present a short film from Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” Watch the film here (warning: contains some disturbing imagery) or find out more info at http://www.shockdoctrine.com

A friend of mine has recently completed a short film about an incident which happened shortly after the Rwandan genocides involving a group of school children. It’s an amazing film, even more so because it was made with virtually no budget and using real Rwandan school kids as actors.

Anyway last night was the premiere at the Bafta film academy in Piccadilly, I was fortunate to have a part in the project by creating the opening titles, setting the scene for the rest of the story - it was very very cool seeing something you made in After Effects on your laptop projected onto a massive cinema screen!

I think the next step for the film is to be sent around several film festivals, if you get a chance to see it I would definately recommend it - you can find more info on the website and production blog.