Big Screen
We mentioned Lo’s List’s soft spot for podcasting gem Radiolab in our Complete Carry-On post from last year but the love just keeps growing for Jad and Robert. For those of you who aren’t up-to-snuff with the program’s format, the premise is as follows: each episode dissects — whether scientifically or philosophically — a topic, from Parasites to Parabolas, Mortality to Morality…
“Unfortunately in America, babies are not found in cola cans. I asked my mother when I was four and she said they came from eggs laid by rabbis. If you aren’t Jewish, they’re laid by Catholic nuns. If you are an atheist, they’re laid by dirty, lonely prostitutes. So this is where babies come from in America.”
Despite all our efforts here at Lo’s List to bring you the best of art, design and commerce on the internet, there should be little doubt of what the world-wide-web, regretably, is really for: the sharing of sneezing pandas, short-sighted manatees and, now, these adorable, tottering baby sloths. Shot at the Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica, this video features our Folivoran friends doing what they do best: sleeping, yawning, falling over, eating, sleeping, hanging from stuff while asleep, eating stuff while apparently asleep, scratching their butts and sleeping. No other creature that we know of has evolved quite this degree of somnambulatory excellence.
Last night I dreamed I was at the finals. I was dressed in full Oranje regalia with a cheese wedge hat. With an hour to go before the finals, nerves at all three Martin-Verhoeven camps are high and I keep getting random bouts of the goosebumps. I’ve been practicing my Roger Milla-inspired goal dance (with the hopes that I will be calling upon it at least once this afternoon) and am so hopped up on coffee I can’t quite complete a sentence. The final day of the cup is here and, although I clearly want my Dutch peeps to come out on top, it’s just a thrill to watch them fight for the chance.
The World Cup gets plenty loud (thank you, vuvuzelas) without the usual crop of blaring, testosterone-driven, slow-motion mashups that clog the half-time advertising slots, so we at Lo’s List were delighted to discover PepperMelon’s new ad for The Observer and The Guardian. The cleverly designed characters skittering around on their tiny legs, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, capture all of the gentle, obnoxious joy that we feel every four years when the Beautiful Game takes over our lives.
Yesterday, while frolicking through the visual wonderland of Nowness.com I found The White Room: an eerie & inspired video by Sharif Hamza which brings to life Kris Van Assche’s impeccable, desaturated fall 2010 Dior Homme collection. The sequence is choreographed to Sisters of Mercy’s “Temple of Love” which beside the terrible band and track names fits perfectly with the collection’s austere trenches, tailored tops, and rugged, Gangs of New York-ish leather boots.
I’m just loving Gravité, a visually breathtaking spin on beatboxing by Renaud Hallée (with the help of DP Simon Allard & PA Laurent-Dominic Chantal-Fortin). Ping pong balls, cutlery, glow sticks and sparklers — just goes to show that pretty much anything can be transformed into music!! Remember when you were a kid smashing the bejeezus out of the kitchen pots? Well, this seems to be the grownup rendition of that… Be sure to check out Renaud’s other music-in-motion video Sonar as well!
Argh! It’s been so busy here at the EP studio lately ( & exciting: we have a new addition to the team — badass, go-getting, design sidekick Nicky). But, with all this busy-beeing, poor Lo’s List has been getting the short end of the stick! So, while we keep trucking forth on these exciting new projects (rolling out this month!), we’ll be throwing a bunch of haiku-ed posts into the mix!!
With so much to tackle every day and to-do lists littering my digital and analog organizers, it’s easy to forget what a spectacular city I live in. Lucky for me, while browsing FreeWilliamsburg.com, I came across Sam O’Hare’s breathtaking time-lapse tilt shift video “The Sandpit”. The spectacular montage is full of those in-between Big Apple moments that lift NYC to the top of the metropolis crop. One of the fascinating aspects of the film is how elegantly pedestrians and cars dance around each other – and just how much foot-traffic we have here! The clips of our harbors and quays feel like they carry centuries of the city’s past with each lapping wave and bobbing sailboat. Quiet moments of our parks and rooftop gardens are contrasted by busy little Caterpillar trucks and forklifts that seem to predict a robotic future we’re headed towards. Be sure to check out the Q&A with the director (represented by Aéro Film) AeroFilm.com! And if you’re a total time-lapse tilt shift junkie, swing over to our NYC Marathon post for more!
YZ and I have been busy working on the title sequences for Beijing Taxi, a documentary by Miao Wang’s 3 Waters Productions which will be world premiering at this year’s SXSW festival in the Documentary Features category. The film is stunning – telling the stories of three Beijing taxi drivers as they face the tremendous changes of the pre-Olympics city. Miao, the film’s director and producer, took the time to answer some of our questions about the film and what it takes to drive a cab in the Chinese capital.
Okay, so this is a bit of a pat on the back but, hey – I’m lucky enough to sometimes art direct projects that I really love. Case and point: my talented client and friend Susanna LoCascio’s website for her indie film company/collective: Von Deren Films…