Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

If you’re looking for the list of Oscar Nominees, go here.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at some low-tech high-quality filmmaking courtesy the iPhone’s always wonderful, always improving, budget friendly camera.

MUSIC VIDEOS

The video for XFYA’s Technologic Overkill by Steve Ellington holds the claim to the first music video shot with an iPhone 3GS. It’s alright and gets the job done, but there’s room for improvement.

Nancy Lee by Vintage Trouble nails the vintage look and was shot in a day using the iPhone 4.

Kevin Kaho Tsui’s This is the Moment appears to be more an experiment than a true MV, but does show some great images in low-light situations.

KOREAN INVASION

One excellent Korean filmmaker is experimenting boldly in cinematic language with the iPhone 4: Park Chan-Wook, director of Old Boy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengence, and Thirst. His new film, a 30-minute thriller loosely translated as Ups and Downs, was shot on a budget of $130,000 and used up to 8 iPhones at a time, usually with lenses and adapters attached.

NOT-on-an-iPhone-But-Still-Low-Budget

Lazy Teenage Superheros is a short film by Michael Ashton, and claims to be budgeted at $300. He claims to have used off-the-shelf visual effects programs, demos, etc., to create the wonderful effects in the 13-minute film. That is all well and good, but he is also a trained visual F/X artist who has access to thousands of dollars worth of equipment on which he can use and learn these programs. Also, his direction of dialogue and his writing skills need a lot of improvement.

My problem with a movie like, and “hype” over the “tiny budget” is that there is always more than they’re telling you. For instance, what did they spend the $300 on? His crew probably worked for free, but he had to feed them, right? In that case, what did he shoot on, and how could he pay for that? Even most companies that will help you with free or cheap equipment would require some sort of insurance plan, one that would run you thousands of dollars.

Other than those “little details” that are left out of headlines and other forms of minor publicity, the film mostly works and is a great example for the dude’s reel.

For a who plethora of music videos shot on the iPhone, visit http://mashable.com/2010/12/02/iphone-music-videos/

You are Dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

This week, I thought I’d show you a look at some interesting concepts in home design. Perhaps we are on the verge of a movement that is similar to the time when washing machines, refrigerators, and electric stoves first became available to households. The truth is that there are lots of innovations and gadgets that are going to make your home more customizable to your needs. One department where this is definitely the case is the proliferation of complex cell-phones and their effect on home computers. Another avenue that is worth exploring in the homes of the future is furniture design. Further, I will look at how modern considerations over the ecological impact of a home have shaped the way home-makers build our shelters.

The cell-phones of today are so much more capable than the phones of twenty-years ago. Even a scant thirteen years ago, Doctor Cellus had his first retail job at Staples in Orange County, CA. At the time, cell-phones had just become a viable option for business people and well-to-do families. I remember being told excitedly by my boss that the top of the line phone could even answer calls out as far as Las Vegas! Not Nevada. Just the highway out to Las Vegas and the city proper. Coverage was also available all the way up to Los Angeles County! There was certainly nothing that the device could do other than make calls. Compare that with the latest smart-phone and there is no comparison. Phones today are almost at the computing power and memory storage of a cheaper net-book. A product like this Gigaset works by turning your cell-phone into a land-line phone even if you don’t have a land line. This product works a little like common skype technology (click this link if you are unaware of skype) except that instead of making calls through the internet, you are using your cell-phone provider. A short lived product (cancelled after just six weeks) that was trying to bridge the gap even further between phones and home computers was the Microsoft Kin. This phone posted all of the content acquired by it onto a website that users could access from any computer. The biggest problem with this platform was that it had no application store and no way to add third party apps. Here’s a product that gets closer to what I feel is going to be the wave of the future. These docks are widely available for all kinds of smart-phones, but they enable you to play music, watch videos, watch photos, and charge the mobile device. This device here enables users to transfer video and audio from their laptop to their TV wirelessly. If you have rigged up a surround-sound system to your TV, then you are able to wirelessly play all of your music through that same system. Ultimately, I feel that the phones of tomorrow are going to possess as much processing and memory storage as a laptop, so these products that link today’s laptops to the rest of your home are a step in that home gadgetry evolution paradigm.

Moving on to furniture, there are a lot of exciting developments that are coming right around the corner. Here’s a video from an Italian furniture company (Resource Furniture; check out their link here) that has really pushed the limit in terms of clever engineering and designing:

But Doc, what about all those super-cutting-edge-future-furniture designs? Yes, they are out there. Here’s the Sonic Chair which actually lets you sit inside a massive speaker tube. Check out their website here. The price is remarkably steep, but the concept is cool and the design is very neat. I really like this next group of furniture; it is the series from Kenchikukagu. It is remarkably well engineered pieces of kit that fulfill multiple functions. Check out this video for a better explanation.

As urban centers become more and more crowded and living spaces become smaller and smaller, furniture innovations like these will make life easier and more efficient for everyone.

The final exploration I will delve into is the way in which homes are being physically built. This website has some of the features that I will cover in sustainable homes. The very first thing that home-builders consider now is the quality of the frame of the home. The more gaps that are made between insulation and sustaining walls means that the home is far less efficient when it comes to heating and cooling. This means that only quality craftspeople can build a truly efficient home right from the get-go. Materials like Safecrete AAC give alternatives to less efficient insulation while providing a pollutant-free (almost) process that makes it more viable than most of its competitors. There are also cool innovations like tankless water heaters that cut down on inefficient heating methods. Here’s a list of products that do just that job. Some homes are even switching to personal rain-harvesting systems that use clever water catches, filters, and pumps to gather all the rain that hits your roof, filter it, and use it. The best use of power right now for a home-owner is the solar panel. There are many stories of people who have eliminated their electric bills by switching over to solar panels. The trend makes sense at an individual residence level, but it is also spreading to businesses. Here’s the website for Stefano’s Solar-Powered Pizzeria. And for you beer-drinkers out there, you should all be aware of Anderson Valley Brewing Company, the first solar-powered brewery in the nation. Here’s an article that talks about the process.

So what does the future hold for homes? I think that these present-day techniques and concerns will continue to be proliferated. In addition, I would love to hear what you think the future of home design holds. Give me your thoughts. Next week, I’ll describe what I think the ideal homes of one hundred years from now. I’ll catch you all next week.

I love Macro Photography. I find them to be one of the most interesting of photos to look at because they give you a glimpse into a smaller world that cannot see with you naked eye. There are also some things like big spiders that you just wouldn’t want to  put your face up close to even if you could see the detail without the need of a nice camera lens.

So what is Macro Photography?  This has to be one of the simplest definitions. Macro Photography is close up photography. Wow some definition. How bout we just enjoy some great macro photos now.

If you feel inspired after seeing some of the pictures above well then here are some great tutorials.

If you have an iphone then your in luck. A lot of people are posting great tutorials for getting macro photos using the iphone and the solutions are fairly cheap and easy to do.

Code Retard: Using a telescope lens

If you feel like busting open your iphone then this is the tutorial for you.

DIYPhotography.net have one of my favorite tutorials.

So there you go. You should now have enough info to go out and take your own macro photos now. Be here next week for another geek of the week.

Welcome to November!

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about digital comics. This was inspired by two things; first, I just got an iphone, and it is rockin’ my world. Second, on Friday Marvel comics began making their comics available digitally through a number of sources. You can read more about Marvel’s deal here.

Now, I’ve ranted before on motion comics and webcomics, but today I wanted to talk to all those smart phone holding comic book readers out there about your options for reading comics on the go. There are a number of choices out there, so you all should know what you are getting into.

iVerse: Of all the comic readers available for phone use, iVerse is the cleanest and most professional. The store is simple and easy to navigate, and the reader itself is intuitive to use. For those who need a tutorial, iVerse has videos on it’s website to show how to navigate both the store and reader pages.

Several companies have signed up with iVerse, including Red 5, IDW, and Boom! studios, as well as Marvel. Currently, the company has not decided to produce the iVerse application anywhere other than for the iphone, but press releases state that the company does have an eye towards eventually developing apps for other smart phones. Perhaps most importantly, while the comics themselves may cost you 99 cents or so, the app itself is free.

Comixology: Comixology is also a comic viewer, but the focus for this company less about the reader and more about the comic shop experience. The Comixology app and website both try to give subscribers a more connected feeling than other apps do. With Comixology, subscribers can read and write reviews, create virtual pull lists, read columns,listen to podcasts, and find the local comic book shop. Comixology is also working on a virtual subsciption service, but it’s still in beta testing. The app itself is easy to navigate but the reader is not as good as the iVerse reader, but the browsing capability is better. Comixology is also paired up with Marvel, as well as Vertigo, Aspen, and Top Cow among others. The Comixology app is currently only available for the iphone, but Blackberry and Android versions are on the way. The full app costs $1.99, (as well as the comics themselves) but there is a lite version for free as well.

Panelfly: Another of the companies that Marvel has partnered with, Panelfly is a pretty neat app. Like Comixology, Panelfly gives a community feel, allowing subscribers to rate and review comics, and post their feelings onto facebook and twitter, straight from the app, as opposed to Comixology, where a lot of the features are available from the website. The reader itself is basic, but neat, and the store is well arranged and easy to navigate.

Aside from Marvel, Panelfly doesn’t have a lot of big name publishers in it’s stable yet, with SLG, Antarctic and picturebox being about the biggest names you will find available, but that is sure to change with Marvel signing up. Panelfly, like the other apps I’ve mentioned so far, is currently only available for the iphone. The panelfly app is free, which we all love, and there are a large number of free books available to download.

Comic Zeal: The Comic Zeal comics reader is very different than your other comic apps. The app itself is $3.99, and then there are a number of steps that one has to go through to make the comic books readable on the application itself. The goal of Comic Zeal is to create more of a library effect, like the way people have their music set up in an ipod. This app is still a ways from being something to really think about for on the go comic enjoyment.

Uclick: Uclick’s focus has been creating the best comic book reader available. The difference with Uclick is that there is no app to download, you just download the book you want to read, and Uclick makes the story readable. The approach is great for those who don’t want to be bothered with downloading another app, but for those who want to browse, this is not the way to go. Uclick has partnered with brands like IDW, Mirage, and TOKYOPOP, and is currently available only on the iphone.

Clickwheel: The new kid on the block in the comic reader market, click wheel is still finding it’s place. Clickwheel is pretty standard, nothing spectacular, or terrible about it. The one thing that Clickwheel has that other companies do not is 2000AD, home to stories like JUDGE DREDD.  The company’s biggest drawback is a dearth of big publishers involved. As of right now, Clickwheel is only available for the iphone, but other platforms are being looked into. The app is free.

There are a lot of choices on the market for reading comics from your phone, and the great thing is, you can try most of them out for free. None of these reader apps are exclusive to any particular company which means that you don’t have to go to company A for Marvel, company B for DC. People can choose a reader based on what they want most out of the comic book experience, and that is what is so neat about all of these companies, they all offer readers something different. I am sure that eventually there will be one app that becomes the standard, but this moment, with the amount of choices available, the winners are comic book fans.

Thanks for stopping by folks, see you tomorrow.

Adobe’s first logo

Hello peoples. Street Fece here again after last weeks LBCC. This week is going to be all about the up and coming CS5. If you are doing anything in the design field then you what CS5 is. Everyone else CS5 stands for Creative Suite 5 which is the latest version for the next major software update from Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe whether you like them or not produce some amazing tools for artists and developers. These tools give you the ability to create almost anything you can think up.

Some quick facts about Adobe taken from their own website. Adobe Systems Incorporated offers business, creative, and mobile software solutions that revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information. Adobe customers include enterprises, knowledge workers, creatives and designers, OEM partners, and developers worldwide. The company was founded in December 1982 by Charles Geschke and John Warnock on a mac. Yes even back then designers liked macs. They are named after Adobe Creek which ran behind Warnock’s home in Los Altos, California. The company has had great success and last year generated $3.58 billion. If you can’t get enough adobe history then check out this PDF for a lil more history.

OK so CS5 is what we all want to know about. Well I was getting kind of anxious about when this next version would be upon us so I did some searching and found CS5.org. When I first went there only a couple of things had been posted but I kept checking back now and then as newer posts came in. Now if you go to the site there are some really cool videos and developer info about the new stuff being implemented. Keep reading because below you will find my favorites so far from the blog.

Adobe Photoshop is getting some updated content aware scaling features and new brushes. Content aware scaling is something few new about in CS4 and it is very useful. The basic description if you don’t want to watch the video is that an image could be scaled and Photoshop would do its best to not distort certain objects like people. Once again this is better seen in action. The brush tools are getting a much needed update. Were talking actual bristle brushes with a 3d preview and the ability to mix paint and colors. You just have to see what I am talking about in the videos below.

Flash is dominating this blog with the most posts. Flash is getting so many cool and MAJOR updates. The two that really interest me the most are the direct to Iphone publishing and physics. The Iphone publishing is something that is going to be very nice. Many online games are done in flash and flash does not currently run on the IPhone. So to now have the ability to publish straight to the Iphone is really cool. Phyisics is not new to flash. Physics was only available to you if you were a coder. If you were a flash designer you were SOL. Not anymore now we designers can partake in these new Physics features. That lady’s voice in the beginning of this video is very annoying. Watch it to the end if you want to see the new physics features.

If you want to keep up on these updates then do what I do. Check the page once a week and there is sure to be something new to Nerd out on. Oh and just so you know the new version of CS5 will be out in April 2010.