Onelargeprawn
In this animated short film by Jacek Mazur, a team of soldiers aboard an aircraft prepare to launch an assault on an enemy encampment. As they jump from the plane, they’re met by a barrage of anti-aircraft fire from the ground. The soldiers skillfully and silently dance their way around the bullets as they descend to their target. But all is not what it seems…
Have a look at Operation White Widow below.
[via ufunk]
Since it debuted three days ago, this fan-made short film has been viewed over three million times! Directed by Dan Trachtenberg with special effects by John Chesson, Portal No: Escape was shown earlier at Comic-Con to much praise.
Based on the Portal universe, the seven-minute short blends live action and computer graphics superbly to tell the tale of a woman (played by Danielle Rayne) who must escape her cell with the aid of a handy Portal gun. It starts off a tad slow but it certainly picks up.
[via Super Punch]
I love bacon. Bacon comes from pigs, ergo I love pigs.
In this endearing animated short film, Ormie is a pig who has a hankering for cookies that are out of reach on top of a refrigerator. At first, the swine tries to knock the jar off with a broom, failing that, it tries to use a stool as a launch pad. It then constructs a rudimentary seesaw, and fails yet again. Each disappointment sees a more elaborate, slapstick attempt to get at the delectable treats. Will Ormie succeed in the end? Find out below.
[via +Joachim De Sutter]
Four students at the Utrecht School of Arts in the Netherlands spent a period of five months reportedly eating a bajillion peanut butter sandwiches. They also made an animated short film in that time. Filmed in the cartoon-like art style of Team Fortress 2, the story revolves around string bean who is on the run from a very bad man. The heart-pounding chase is made trippy through the injection of drugs. Check out Mac ‘n’ Cheese below.
[via The Given Collective]
You’ll remember Freddie Wong for his el33t VFX skills in Future First Person Shooter, First Person Mario, and many other videos (at the end of June, Wong posted his 100th video on YouTube!)
In his latest creation, he sends his geek cred into the stratosphere. Cowboys & Aliens director, Jon Favreau, invited Wong onto the universal set and provided all the resource to creates the video. Favreau appears in it and Wong gets to use the actual wrist gun worn by Daniel Craig, although he experiences an issue that constantly plagues gamers. Check out Cowboys & FreddieW below.
Cowboys & Aliens releases in the U.S. on July 29th. South African audiences will have wait until the film canisters cross the Atlantic ocean, the local release is only set for August 19th.
[via Wes Blackmore on Google+]
Everyone loves castles. Castles are the ultimate idea in lofty, elaborate architecture. Even better? Imaginary castles. If you don’t have to use actual bricks and cement, then neither money nor reality is any object. Some examples of beautiful, elaborate CGI castles after the jump.
20-year old Japanese film and stage actor Taichi Saotome is famous playing the parts of beautiful young men. He is also known for onnagata, a profession where male actors impersonate women in Japanese kabuki theatre. In this stage performance of “Dragon and Peony” that combines swordsmanship and some form of CGI shadow puppetry, Saotome assumes the role of a warrior locked in an epic battle against his very own shadow.
[via Geekologie]
Hans Rosling is a Swedish professor with a penchant for statistics and sword-swallowing (it says so on Wikipedia). And in an episode of “The Joy of Stats” on BBC Four the charismatic Rosling, with the help of some computer boffins, shows the life expectancy of people plotted against their income. He does this for 200 countries over the last two centuries using 120,000 numbers, and he does this all in four minutes, stopping at important junctures in the history of our world. Statistic is made that much more interesting and informative when it involves CGI and augmented reality. Check it out below.
Pretty neat, eh? Rosling also helped to create Gapminder, a Flash application that shows statistical data in the form of interactive bubble charts. Have a look at the data from the above video on Gapminder. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Rosling.
[via Blyzz616 on Twitter]
Alex Roman is tricksy. The artist from Madrid, Spain created a superb 60-second TV commercial for Silestone, a brand of quart counter tops. Have a look at it below.
Did you notice anything different about it? Yes, the commercial is entirely computer-generated. For realsies! I’m just shocked at how real those CGI lemons look. I wonder how long it will be before real actors get digitized and I can watch a movie starring the actor of my choice? It couldn’t come soon enough, I’d rather watch Nathan Fillion in the upcoming Uncharted flick. Yes, I’m bitter about Marky Mark being chosen, bitter like a lemon.
[via Ufunk]
BONUS:: If you liked Alex’s work, check out his 12-minute CGI masterpiece, The Third & The Seventh.
Taken from the Gorillaz‘ recent album Plastic Beach, the music video for the track Stylo has the cartoon band tearing through the desert. Murdoc’s at the wheel, 2D looks terrible, and Noodle is nursing a bullet hole through his head. The misfits are on the run from the police, but they have someone more terrible and sinister on their tail … the bald-headed badass, Bruce Willis.
Have a look at Stylo below.
[via The Awesomer]