Geek Chic

How awesome is this Puma ad:

Not that this is uncharted territory (it’s building off of Michel Gondry’s work, and most likely countless others before him), but it’s definitely pushing the boundaries further than I’ve ever seen them pushed before.

What’s amazing about this, and the kind of work that Gondry does in ‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground‘ is that the spectacle itself is theatrical in nature.  It’s not something that could only be done on video and edited together in post.  It’s something you could experience live — but which you happen to be watching on film.

This ad takes the theatrical paradigm a step further — it’s a very post-modern interaction with video, complete with Noh theater style invisible stage hands (Kohken) moving the projection surfaces on and off the stage.

This is the kind of work I want to do in terms of using projections and video in theater.  It seems like a pretty limitless frontier.

Now I just need a little bit of money… and I should be all set. :)

Thanks DesignNotes for pointing this one out.

UPDATE: I just changed out the video embed code.  For full effect, switch to HD and watch it in full screen.  It’ll blow your mind.

Oh man.  I have died and gone to nerd-tertainment heaven.

Michel Gondry is apparently directing an upcoming episode of Flight of the Conchords (airs Feb 15th — the valentine episode).  You should be dying of excitement, just as I am.

Here, tide yourself over with this (Michel Gondry directs Radiohead’s video for Knives Out)

And this (one of my favorite FOTC songs from the first season):

Ok… You talked me into it. You can have this one too:

Thanks VSL

This is Dick Annegarn’s new music video directed by Michel Gondry.  And like all of Gondry’s work, it’s amazing.  And I have almost no clue how he did it:

I mean, I can guess.  It looks like stop action. But did Gondry use some sort of hocus pocus to make it look like he has stop action from what looks like several weeks of shooting?  And that he pieced it all together in the editing room?  Or is there some sort of trick?

(more…)