It was great to see a big bunch of Wellington-based Weta digital artists getting nominated today - for their work on Avatar - in the prestigious Visual Effects Society Awards in the US. The nominations are here.
Weta had nine nominations, more than any other effects house working on the movie. Weta Digital was also the only effects house to be mentioned by director James Cameron in his Golden Globe best picture acceptance speech last week.
It’s been a privilege working with Weta’s digital artists over the past 12 months and fantastic to see them getting recognised for their groundbreaking work.
A good read here about the marketing efforts of the Big Day Out organisers and whether their ‘controlled kaos’ is really giving the finger to mainstream society as inferred, or is just another slick commercial money-making machine in poor disguise; and in today’s marketplace, where ‘authenticity’ is the name of the game, the article is a good dissection of where the BDO’s marketing authenticity really lies.
I’ve found a pen that records and remembers what it writes and also records sounds and then links the recordings to the words that were being written at the time … when I first read about it I was blown away by the concept.
We don’t generally use this blog for product promotion, but as a writer and a regular interviewer who needs to record conversations, the Livescribe pen is one very cool piece of high-tech equipment.
But at $500 I won’t be buying one. Why? Well, when I can buy a full-spec computer for less than twice the price and a good quality digital voice recorder for well under half the price, I can’t see the value in that price point. If I could I would snap one up because it’s a neat toy, but unless the price drops a bit below its new-technology price, I’ll be sticking to my trusty blue biros and my hard-working, hard-wearing voice recorder.
“I need the sound of the keys, the keys of a manual typewriter. The hammers striking the page. I like to see the words, the sentences, as they take shape. It’s an aesthetic issue.” Not many people will have as sensory and physical a relationship with their keyboard as one of our favourite writers Don DeLillo.
The article is oddly apocalyptic in its view of the future of good writing but it raises some interesting questions to think over … I don’t know if I prefer reading from paper pages to reading from a screen, but there is something to be said for standing in front a shelf of familiar books, running your eyes aross the titles and authors on the spines and letting the fonts and colours and design of the cover help shape your memories and emotions as you work out what to read next.
A common query we get is how we get clients in to the media, and then how can we trust that the media won’t distort or twist our clients’ messages.
We think it’s simple: our clients that get into the media do so because they have a good story to tell, a story that’s worth hearing and worth airing. Our job is to help present the story to the media in a way that is clear, attractive and easily understood by a busy newsroom. The media in New Zealand are, by and large, responsive and responsible towards a good story honestly told; and our ongoing experience is that our clients are well-served by targeted media attention.
That is not to say they don’t get it wrong on occasion … and here’s a good read, a Canadian blogger’s list of media mistakes and corrections for 2009: The Year in Media Errors and Corrections.
Have you ever noticed that a large number of Hollywood movie posters have blue and orange as their two main colours? Blue for tranquility and orange for action and energy.
It’s the best combination of colours to lure people into the cinema, they reckon. Think that sounds far fetched, check this page out!
I’ll never be able to look at another movie poster again … but it does shows the power of colour in communication.
Last week we talked about one of the icons of modern technical communication design — the London tube map — and how its simplicity and readability was key to its success. Thanks to a reader for this week pointing us towards the Londonist and its take on an even more pared back approach to a pared back approach!
Having worked with Weta Digital over the past year on its Avatar (the latest movie from James Cameron, the Titanic and Terminator director) project, it’s great to see all the movie’s amazing digital art work from Weta’s seriously talented and dedicated crew finally being seen in public before the release mid next month. There are clips all over the internet.
One of the most famous communication tools of the last century may be on its way out. Not because it has been overtaken by anything better but because progress has made it too small to hold all the information officials say it requires.
The London tube map was created in 1931 by Harry Beck, a London Underground draughtsman. It turned a clumsy geographic map into a circuit diagram and quickly become an instantly recognised symbol not just for the underground trains but for London itself and, for many visitors, the frisson of a visit to one of the world’s great cities (Circle Line pub crawl, anyone!). Nearly 70 years on, it is still as relevant and vital as the day Beck drew it.
With a design that millions of people stare at every day but that few might stop to think about, the simplicity and beauty of the map has made it a pin-up star for all technical communicators!
Earlier this month we had Friday the 13th. Did it make you worried? You might have paraskevidekatriaphobia, apparently!
Now that’s a far more interesting word thanunfriend, recently named Word of the Year. It means the act of removing someone as a friend on social networking sites such as Facebook.
Facebook might be phenomenon of the year but, heck, that word is lifeless.
