Motion control finds its killer app
Finally! :
Philips “Carousel”
I love a good tracking shot in a movie. I guess it’s a degree of smugness where I felt I’ve identified something that’s cleverly constructed even though it’s not made really obvious to the audience that it’s clever stuff. Rather like the opposite of a grandiose special effect which is a sort of “Hey! Look at me guys!!” banner-waving bit of film-making designed to impress the audience.
Scuffling around the internet I spotted this promotional film, designed for the web, for a Philips 21:9 ratio ‘true cinema’ TV range. The version below has no audio and is worth watching more than once for reasons you’ll appreciate when you get to the very end of the tracking shot.
If you like this, then I’d encourage you to head over to the Philips website where there’s audio and also some very nice ‘time-outs’ you can activiate during the playback where the action stops and a member of the production crew gives some commentary/acts over the particular frame and details its construction.
And, if that’s not enough, there’s a short YouTube behind-the-scenes commentary with more down-to-earth details on the production process of this short film.
Enjoy.
Air New Zealand
You know, watching this video makes me quite interested in trying them out for some reason. They certainly seem a jolly bunch of folks..
If you can’t take it..
..then don’t dish it out!
It’s been observed on more than one instance that cats are sociable creatures for the sole reason that it’s impossible to ignore someone if they’re not there. Cats often seem to delight in making their presence felt and then acting with apathy and indifference to those attracted to them.
Best tactic to show a cat up? Give it a taste of its own medicine!
Post it
It’s great to see someone come up with a post-its-as-pixels novelty that dares to be more original than doing the same old schtick of recreating a sodding NES Mario sprite!
Enjoy.
Anti Natal
As someone with the crazy idea that good gameplay design makes a game worth playing over something like a gimmicky way of controlling it I’ve never been convinced by the Wii (and it’s shockingly low average scores for its software aren’t really doing much to support the “gimmicky controller is a silver-bullet solution to F U N” either) and so it was with disdain that I saw both Microsoft and Sony wasting huge amounts of time and money in producing gimmicky controllers of their own.
Whilst Sony admit the effort they presented at E3 is a work-in-progress, Microsoft’s work-in-progress effort is already being pimped as the Second Coming of a revolution that hasn’t proved to be all that revolutionary in the first place. Within days of its announcement various high-profile shows in the US have all shown us how much fun it is to pay $400 (TV not included) to kick a virtual ball around in a virtually unsatisfying way. The notion that spending less than a tenth of the money for an infinitely more satisfying genuine experience seems to have eluded most people. Heck, you don’t even have to limit your movements to standing in a small square on the floor with a real soccer-ball either.
So, it’s with great satisfaction and not a small amount of relief that at least one USA show, The Colbert Report, can tell it like it really is:
The merriment starts at about 1:40 and I defy anyone not to laugh out loud when he pushes that red button when asking if the time is right to invest in Microsoft.
Enjoy!
Wad of Gore
Wow, it feels like old times. 🙂
What can I say? Although there’s no genuine gameplay, it looks totally badass and it also looks like the sheer scale of the environments the gameplay will take part in should be as awesome as the earlier games.
If you don’t know by now..
..you’ll never know.
Enjoy!
I saw this..
..and thought of SledgeHAMMER 🙂
..zany to the max!
If you see Sid, tell him
That synth melody gets into your head disturbingly quickly and, although Calvin Harris is trying too hard with the whole kitsch 80’s theme (he would have been, what, 12 years old or something?) 80’s mood + high pitched catchy melody = memories of C64.