NYT Magazine - Year In Ideas

New York Times Magazine - Year In Ideas from Sean Pecknold on Vimeo.

The Long-Life-Span Smartphone. A great idea, as I am tired of getting a new phone every 2 years. Check out all the Ideas here http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/12/19/magazine/ideas2010.html

From the article:

"In the United States, a cellphone’s average life span is 18 months, and yet fewer than 1 percent of these phones are estimated to be recycled. As an antidote to this pattern of rapid obsolescence, the British design-consulting firm Kinneir Dufort developed its Revive smartphone concept, proposing a device that can evolve over time rather than be cast aside when it breaks or something newer and shinier hits the market. Unlike existing products on the market, it would be designed for easy disassembly, so the end user could replace or upgrade components without tossing the entire phone.

Service providers and manufacturers would be able to charge for these improvements, replacing revenue they would have earned from selling new phones. To help it age gracefully, Revive would be made from materials — leathers, metals and plastic composites — that acquire a patina from wear. A service subscription, meanwhile, would offer the user credits the longer he held on to the phone, making him a “stakeholder” with an investment in the longevity of the product." JESSE ASHLOCK

Credits:

Sean Pecknold: Director, Writer, Animator,

Britta Johnson: Editor, Props, Set Design, Art Department

Justin Braegelmann: Sound Design

Train of Thought by Leo Bridle

Train of Thought from Leo Bridle on Vimeo.

A short film in paper by Leo Bridle & Ben Thomas.

Train of Thought was made as our graduation film from The Arts Institute at Bournemouth. Although we used digital compositing software, all the animation and models were done by hand, not with CGI. The film took approximately 9 months to complete, from storyboards through to the final edit.

The music is by Portico Quartet arranged by Jack Wyllie

http://porticoquartet.com/

and sound design by Andrew South http://vimeo.com/andrewsoundesign

Making of here: http://vimeo.com/5704398

Official film website - including full credits: www.train-of-thought-film.com

The Art of Conversation

I was having this discussion with a friend yesterday...

We talked much about the negative connotation of self consciousness VS. the positive benefits of self awareness. But the interesting part was not so much the topic, but the structure of the conversation itself.

Wednesday evening at my favorite coffee shop in Hollywood, Solar de Cahuenga...

...a couple glasses of wine and a great atmosphere never fail to spark a good chat.

It was one of those conversations that just flowed effortlessly from topic to topic, touching on this, and ranting on that. A constant stream of appreciation for one another's perspective. One of those meetings where from time to time, I'd find myself shifting my weight back in my chair and thinking... "wow, this is a really great exchange. I feel GOOD about this." It's a shame that real, conscious human interaction is such a rare commodity, but I feel like this kind of conversation should and could happen between more people, more often...

(Photo by: Marc Van Dalen)

...but why doesn't it?

Why is open, conscious, uninhibited human interaction such a rare occurrence?

Are we so deeply intertwined and depressed with the autopilot, emotionless, playing out of our own lives that we're just TOO guarded to let this happen? Yes. ...and rightfully so, I mean you can't just open up to anyone, right? If we went around spewing our guts in every conversation, not only would we be emotionally drained, and people would write us off as crazy... but that's just not proper etiquette.

Part of the art, is seeking out and identifying those people in our lives that we can conversate on a deeper level with. Many of us find those people, and stick with them forever, as we should. Those are our best friends. Those are our soulmates. But why should we be limited to just one or a few? I think it's just politics to say that we're limited to creating real conversation with only a few select people on this planet.

I feel like conversation is an art form, because it's constant creation.

It's a collaboration piece.

It's two people poking and prodding eachothers' minds to more fully understand and appreciate one another. It's the kind of shared perspective that leads to the MOST genius ideas. Sure, we're all brilliant in our own respects and we all come up with good ideas on a daily basis... and when we meet people we truly want to create with, why WOULDN'T we work with the same people over and over again... Tim Burton and Johnny Depp? Takashi Murakami and Marc Jacobs? Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly??? JAY AND YEEZY???

Obviously creative connection between two people over and over again is tremendous... but my point is that we should not feel limited to just the few people that we meet by proximity alone.

If we all made more of an effort to carefully treat each and every conversation as if we you're creating a masterpiece of body language and spoken word... I feel that we would all be a bit happier with each and every relationship formed in this lifetime.

It Might Get Loud

A good friend of mine, Cameron Chambers (awesome guitar player) and I watched this documentary on netflix the other day. I used to play guitar a lot more than I do now, and the music is still a huge influence in everything that I do...

This might be one of the best opening scenes

to any documentary I've ever watched.

Can't TELL me you don't want to watch the whole thing now...