Toy Story 3 Teaser Pixar History

Image via CrunchBase

I admit I was excited to see the Toy Story Teaser from Pixar. I'm just a huge animation fan, and Pixar is one of the most amazing stories in animation. It started out as a research group with George Lucasinside ILM. Because Lucas was getting divorced he had to sell some stuff from his empire, and the research group (which was looking into computer generated animation techniques) was one to go. Steve Jobs stepped up then and bought the company. Actually Ross Perot almost bought it first. When Pixar was finishing on Toy Story, Jobs, who had a lot of free time on his hands and was going through a bit of a crisis after Apple and Next, became slightly obsessed with the project. To his name, he struck a 3 picture deal with Disney, but more importantly made sure that the Pixar Leader came in the opening credits . This created Pixar as the name in 3D animation when Toy Story was released in the early 90's. So much so that other movies following that used 3D animation, such as Dream Works, were in the public's eye attributed to Pixar. Good branding. If you would like to read more about that part of Pixar's history, you should check out the book The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. But he was a real tyrant as well. He almost moved the Pixar animation Studio acros the state so that his commute for the meetings would be shorter. This in the final months of production with a huge deadline, and the first time a 3D Full Length Feature was ever created by Pixar. Luckily this didn't happen.

Seeing as today John Lasseter is now running Disney Animation (Principal Creative Advisor), it will be very interesting to see how this movie comes out.

Toy Story 3 - Teaser by victorvharo

No MORE Twitter!

File this in the category: WTF? I log into my twitter today to see this:

MY FREAKN ACCOUNT IS SUSPENDED! FOR WHAT? And what pisses me off the most is the fact that there is no email to sent to me to give a "Head's Up!" or WHY? Nothing what so ever. I have to surf through the site for 30 min. to put in a request that will probably take a week or so for me to get through. Screw it. If this service treats it's users with such fascist authority, I'm out. Fuck Twitter, Fuck Biz Stone fuck the lot of you.... So I'll probably burn in hell for this. Might as well post my shitter video with Chris Sacca (one of the investors in twitter). Yes I can feel the burn now...

update: It seems that there was a glitch in the matrix with twitter. I again have access, but all the sudden I started following strange people in my account. Looks like I have to purge my followers. I beleive my twitter account was hacked actually. Marc believes it was Russians. Great, now I've got Russians hacking me to worry about. In the end I'm still upset and turned off by twitter as I still have no idea, no correspondence, nothing to what happened or what it going on. Come on guys! Can't you even explain what happened in 140 characters to me? I find this lack of communication disturbing.

A bike ride to Guggenheim in bilbao

video by Amsterdamize

Last month when I went to moderate a session about online video in Bilbao for the nonick conference. the day after the conference, Marc from Amsterdamize and I rented a couple bikes from the hotel to go explore the city. This video Marc edited as a part1 of that wonderful day we had together. I know he is working on more, with some fun action shots through Bilbao, but this sets a nice tone for the day.

If you do goto Bilbao, I highly recommend checking out The Guggenheim Museum. Besides being an amazing building, I really loved the exhibitions they had there. Marc and I spent close to 4-5 hours in the museum hanging around and checking out the work. At the moment they have some amazing Video Art pieces that you can sit and literally loose yourself in for hours. If you were not stoned before going in, the effects of these films will transport you to that state. Then head up to the top floor to see Murakami. An awesome artist that has been highly influenced by popular culture in Japan such as Anime, Manga as well as traditional artists. If you are into Anime, contemporary art or Asian culture, this exhibition is for you!

ATTN Universal Music Group, Lady GAGA wants 2 be Open 2 Viral!

I really loved the new campaign that Universal Music Group has put out. It starts with a segment from Lady GaGa "Poker Face". When you see the video on youtube it explains very easily that you must try to play the game. What is the game?

Watch 20 sec. of Universal Music Videos of artists and answer a trivia question of what you saw.

There are some great roots in the Viral and I suspect that the agency saw some viral hits like this awareness test video.

Test Your Awareness: Do The Test

Did you enjoy that? UMG feels it can capitalize on that idea and sell records. Great, do it. However It would be a HELL of a lot easier to spread this if they allowed people to at least embed the first video (the entry level) onto thier blogs, facebooks, etc. I'll put it in old school marketing terms for ya UMG so you understand. The first video in this sequence of interactively linked Youtube videos which create a game needs to have a point of entry. Not just people search Lady GAGA on youtube. Allow the mebed and it turns into an old school banner! You will not endanger the copyright more, you will not be loosing out. You will gain by opening up. Of course I admit I am proud of you for taking these first steps. Very good, you have your training wheels on now. Time for dad to take them off and push you down the hill. What are you afraid you will get hurt UMG?

A Day in Toledo, Spain

This video is a compilation of a daytrip to Toledo, Spain in the late summer of 2008 with Catalina, her cousin Jules and GabeMac. It was a beautiful day, with a horrific storm at the end. A day to remember.

Salamanca with Sabine

I had a wonderful weekend trip to Salamanca, Spain with Sabine. This is some video from the trip together with some live performance I saw of "The Script" in Pacha in Madrid, Spain.

Baby, Baby, Baby

So people think it is strange that I dance out on the street in the middle of the morning. If you do, then you must not be French. Check out this music video for "Make the Girl Dance". Although I am rather disappointed that none of the girls actually dance. Even still, I suspect it will go Viral. Why? Viral Recipe for Video: 1 shot Simple VFX of um... tracking... (I wonder where the uncensored version is) 3 naked women A juxtaposition of reality Plus I think I saw Tony Hawk's name there somewhere

Make The Girl Dance "Baby Baby Baby" ( official video ) envoyé par placeblancherec - Clip, interview et concert.

Advice from my DAD over Skype

Last week my dad was showing me his new toy the Logitec Pro Webcam over Skype. I grabbed a screencast of this hilarious and awesome video chat together with my father. All I can say is he is an amazing man, and I love him so much. He’s one of my heroes for sure! He talks about diet, surviving in the corporate world, credit crisis and tech support. My dad is just trying to keep it real in a virtual world. How do you communicate online with your family?

Vondel Park Music and Bikes

The Vondel Park is where we go to listen to music, rides bikes, and be Amsterdammers. It is part of the culture here. Many times the spring comes, easter time, time for friends and family. The video is from when I went one day with my friends and surrogate family Marc, GabeB, Stephan, Kim and Suze to the park. There is nothing like it. In the video we see the typical Dutch lifestyle with a variety of bikes zooming around, some stopping to listen to the music. It is so common to hear live music in the park. Like GabeB in an upcoming video. And the song is perfect. A version of Englishman In New York.

Like2Dance

One night in Spain, I just felt like dancing. It is something great to do when you are feeling down. I highly recommend it. Make a video of you dancing in your place and post it as well. Tag it like2dance!