In 1939 23 yr old designer, Alex Steinweiss, convinced (as the first Art Director) Columbia Records to allow him to design the first real album cover for “Smash Song Hits” by Rodgers & Hart.
By doing so, Steinweiss basically came up with the idea of creating album & cover art. Up until then, the albums were generically designed. Someone at Undependent picked up the album off eBay for under $30.
Before the LP (Long Playing) record, 78 records were usually 10 inch platters that held around 3 minutes of music! In other words, this Rodgers and Hart collection of Smash Song Hits includes 4 separate platters! More bulk than a modern CD box set!
After complaining with many friends about the lack of decient movies on Netflix Instant,
I’m starting a list of good things that are on there. I’ll even separate it by genre.
I’m starting the list, but I’m counting on you to help me add things. I’ll keep this post updated with all your comments, and make it easy to find again on my sidebar.
FYI here is an organized list of everything available on Netflix Instant.
And, Streaming Soon, which has a list of movies organized by when they will be released to instant. If you haven’t been here in awhile, here are all the most recently added movies to the Netflix Instant List.
p.s. any comment that is not relevant to adding material to the list, will be deleted
——————————————————————————————————————————— Ian MacKinnon and Peter Saunders, the artists behind The Fantastic Mr. Fox, (also did stop motion animation for Nick Park’s Chicken Run, Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride, and Henry Selick’s Coraline) talk about the tiny details in the making of.
Read the full article in Vanity Fair, which includes a slideshow of sketches.
Favorite quotes from the article below.
The animals’ fur was a combination of artificial fur, plucked off toys, and real goat’s hair, which was dyed using everyday supermarket hair dyes. Getting each character’s hair coloring exactly right required specific, individual dying times. The human characters’ hair, meanwhile, was harvested from the scalps of studio employees.
“We’d go around the workshop and find someone who had matching color hair and take clumps out of it,” says MacKinnon, “and then we’d punch it into the surface of the puppet.”
“Every last detail was made by hand, including screen printing particular fabrics that Wes was very keen to have.”
Mr. Fox’s suit, which was made from the same corduroy as one of Anderson’s signature get-ups. “He sent us his trousers so we could match the corduroy,” recalls MacKinnon. “He said that he wanted Mr. Fox to wear a yellow corduroy suit, ‘the sort of suit you’d see on any man walking down the street in Paris.’ And we were in Manchester, thinking, Well we don’t see many men walking down the street in suits like that!”
——————————————————————————————————————————— We Have Band – You Came Out
New video for We Have Band, is stop frame animated from 4,816 still images (see on flickr) without a single moment of video footage. Directed by David Wilson with collaboration by Fabian Berglund and Ida Gronblom from Wieden + Kennedy. Produced by Blinkink
——————————————————————————————————————————— “Away We Go” : Trailer
This movie is going to make me cry. And I can’t help it, but I think Roo
looks like John Krasinski
Directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”) from an original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, this funny and heartfelt film follows the journey of an expectant couple (John Krasinski [“The Office’] and Maya Rudolph [“Saturday Night Live’]), as they travel the U.S. in search of the perfect place to put down roots and raise their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover “home” on their own terms for the first time. The movie features the music of Alexi Murdoch.
——————————————————————————————————————————— This is how my zombie costume turned out, my chin is still stained with all the blood. Roo made a pretty kick ass Wolverine.
(photo by Sarah Maxwell English)
——————————————————————————————————————————— Efterklang is like a human orchestra.
The Copenhagen band is made up of brilliant harmonies and big swells of music. Beautiful.
Check them out on their website and on myspace. Caravan – music video – from the new album Parades
Illuminant – music video – from the new album Parades
Mirador – music video – from the new album Parades
La Blogotheque also did some take-away shows, I cannot embed them, but it’s something worth watching and listening to as always.
