Embrace Life

After mentioning it during lunch, I realized I never posted this here: Embrace Life is the name of a brilliant short, written and directed by director Daniel Cox and produced by Sarah Alexander, for a British safety campaign back in 2010. Far from the usual shocking images, it chooses to convey its message through a metaphor and yet manages to deeply move the audience. The film uses slow motion, which was made possible by shooting with a Phantom HD camera.

“I wanted to create a visual metaphor addressing how a single decision in a person’s day can greatly influence both their own and their loved ones’ lives. Choosing to film the story inside the family living room represents the feelings many people equate with their own car, in that it represents a level of safety and protection from the ‘outer’ world. So to create the emotion of this dramatic moment, I wanted to tell the story using slow motion to allow the audience the time to be drawn into the film’s world and to let them connect with and project their own feelings onto the scenario playing out before them. I wanted to give the audience the time to breathe, to absorb our message and using slow motion was the right technique to allow this to happen.” (Daniel Cox)

Unfortunately I have never found a HD version of it.

Skateboard, urban exploration and light

Skateboard, urban exploration and light: this combination makes a surprisingly warm atmosphere. There is no soundtrack in this short by Juan Rayos, the only music is the sound of the skater, Kilian Martin, performing in this big abandoned building.

The natural light of the Sun through the windows, the dust getting up in the air as the skate hits the wooden floor, the emptiness of the place, all build a very warm and quiet mood, while on the opposite the raw editing conveys all the tension due to the difficulty to achieve the tricks.

A lot of care is shown in the composition and the use of light. Most shots are flawless in that regard.

The Breitling Jet Team

This one is for flight enthusiasts.

The Breitling Jet Team (Patrouille Breitling) was founded in the early 80s and had its name changed a couple of times as its sponsor changed. According to the Wikipedia article, Breitling invested in 2003 and allowed the team to grow from a four ships formation to a seven ships one.

In 2010 the paint scheme of the aircrafts was redesigned, and since then various videos have been recorded and made available. For anyone interested in aerobatics, they’re a delight to watch. In the first of these two you can hear the team leader driving the execution, giving it a moody atmosphere. The team performs on a regular basis, especially in Europe, so you might be interested in checking its display dates.

Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 12.5 years

Noah Kalina has been taking a self portrait every day for over twelve years, and uploaded yesterday on Youtube a new time-lapse video of this work in progress. There are a couple of such videos on Internet, but this one is the longest time span I am aware of. During seven minutes, you can not only see how his face evolves as he ages, but also get a glimpse of his outfit style as well as his professional and personals lives.