Ken Burns' New iPad App Turns U.S. History Into Beautiful Mixtapes

Ken Burns finds meaning in the chaos of history in this short film created for his new iPad application. The Ken Burns App sets the stage for an innovative look at more than two centuries of American history from a curated look at selected excerpts from the entire library of Ken Burns films. The app can be found in the Apple app store at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ken-burns/id723854283?mt=8 With Florentine Films and Big Spaceship Kid Koala - Original Music Ryan Whittier - Original Music Finishing Effects - TraceVFX

The app, simply called “Ken Burns,” allows the user to surf an overarching timeline year by year, seeing how clips from each film line up chronologically with – and, as Burns says, “speak to” – each other. Zoom in on 1869, for example, and a cloud of clips from The Civil War, The West, and The National Parks orbit in parallax formation around one another; swipe to 1930, and it’s clips from Jazz, Prohibition, Baseball, Huey Long, Thomas Hart Benton and The Dust Bowl. You can also watch its six playlists straight through – they range in length from 20 minutes to an hour long – or select individual clips à la carte.
 

The concept came out of a conversation Burns was having two years ago with MacKinnon, who is the music entrepreneur behind Hear Music and has known Burns since they worked together on music components for 2001′s Jazz.

“Ken and I were talking about how his films were in the search engines of iTunes and Netflix, and they’re always the top-rated thing when they run on PBS, but there wasn’t a digital place where all of his films were presented as one thing, as an integrated body of work,” says MacKinnon. “Then he paused for a second, and looked at me and said, ‘I really love my iPad.’”

Download the app but only if you are prepared to lose your day to it. 

Icons, A Short Film Of Iconic Cultural Images

Watch the making of - http://makingoficons.com Director - Us Production Company - Academy Films Executive Producer - Lizie Gower Producer - Juliette Harris DOP - Ben Fordesman A&R Operator - Simon Wood Art Director - Alison Dominitz Hair & MakeUp - Lu Hinton Stylist - Rebecca Hale Casting - Hammond & Cox Editor - Dave Stevens @ Assembly Rooms Post - Electric Theatre Collective Grade - Aubrey Woodiwiss Audio post production - String & Tins Musical Composition - Tom Player Lead Actor - Gary Milner Agency - Grey Executive Creative Director - Nils Leonard Creative Director - Dave Monk Creatives - Jonathan Rands & Johan Leandersson Agency Producer - Debbie Impett

Promoting The Sunday Times’ Culture section refresh, the short film “Icons” by creative agency Grey London and directed by Us, features a shifting series of iconic cultural moments from Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump to Auguste Rodin‘s sculpture The Thinker.

Love this, short but really effective at conveying the breath and depth of culture. Here is the making-of, once again, let's celebrate the crew:

Behind The Scenes Stills, GIFS & More - http://makingoficons.com The Film - https://vimeo.com/85523671

Love In The Time Of Advertising, A Musical Short Film

An animated musical love story about a young man who lives inside a billboard and is charged with updating the advertisements. When he falls in love with a beautiful lady living across the highway, he has to use the only method he knows to get his message across - advertising. Production information Work Name: Love in the Time of Advertising Language: English Running time: approx. 8 minutes Production Country: USA Co-written, co-directed by: David Bokser & Matt Berenty Produced by: Kevin Shapiro, Matt Berenty & David Bokser Production company: Wolf & Crow(www.wolfandcrow.com) and Obsolete Robot Music composition and vocals: Hunter Curra Contact the film-makers at info@loveinthetimeofadvertising.com

Fantastic short film. 

An animated musical love story about a young man who lives inside a billboard and is charged with updating the advertisements. When he falls in love with a beautiful lady living across the highway, he has to use the only method he knows to get his message across - advertising.

Co-written, co-directed by: David Bokser & Matt Berenty
Produced by: Kevin Shapiro, Matt Berenty & David Bokser
Production company: Wolf & Crow(wolfandcrow.com) and Obsolete Robot
Music composition and vocals: Hunter Curra

Contact the film-makers at info@loveinthetimeofadvertising.com

Everything is a Remix, Case Study: The iPhone

Kirby Ferguson extends his fantastic series Everything is a Remix with a one-off case stufy of how remixing ideas and designs led to the iPhone. 

The New York Public Library Like You've Never Seen It Before

There has been a lot of talk about drones this week. This is a beautiful use of the technology, a unique look inside nypl’s architecture using ultralight, flying technology.

The New York Public Library is a stunning piece of architecture. Its Rose Reading Room has 51-foot ceilings and measures the length of a football field (that’s more than a Manhattan block), yet it has no columns, making it one of the largest open interiors in the world.

If you’re Nate Bolt--Facebook design researcher, amateur filmmaker, and friend of the NYPL’s skunkworks team--you get invited to fly a drone through the space. Bolt shot the video you see here using an ultralight setup--a DJI Phantom quadcopter drone loaded with a GoPro and an iPhone. That’s roughly $1,500 in equipment weighing just a bit over two pounds. It allowed Bolt to film with a god-like perspective as the camera floats over shoulders and through doorways to explore the nuance of such grand architecture.