1w36 LA Time-lapse by manhattancoffee

Here’s a nice time-lapse by manhattancoffee, found on youtube.  Some elements are similar to my own work, namely the observation of traffic and some factory scenes.  Particular favourite scenes of mine would have to be the airplanes coming in to land at LAX, with nice composition and good fluid movement.  Over all, I think it is a nice clean, crisp showreel with some fairly well composed scenes.

1w30 Earth Hour 2010

Earth Hour is a campaign designed to highlight the agenda of global warming.  Organised by the WWF, last years event was staged across 88 countries and more than 100 million people participated by turning off their lights for one hour in a symbolic pledge to tackle the current state of our environment.  Landmarks across the globe will again be turned to darkness for the event tonight, including the Sydney Opera House, Rome’s Colosseum and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Check out the Official Earth Hour 2010 video below…

1w29 Koyaanisqatsi

Directed by  Godfrey Reggio and with some astounding cinematography by Ron Fricke, Koyaanisqatsi was released in 1982.  The word translates from Hopi Indian to ‘life out of balance’ and the film explores the possibilities of apocolypse by contrasting the environment against technology and urban life.  As an example of pure cinema, the film consists of timelapse stock footage shot of landscapes and cities in the United States and juxtaposes the sequences with the help of the score.

1w26 An Inconvenient Truth

An Oscar winning 2006 documentary film directed by David Guggenheim and features former US Vice President Al Gore.  Gore presents his campaign on global warming and offers some startling facts and figures.  His passionate research details the patterns of nature that the planet endures and looks at predictions of the Earths imminent environmental collapse.

What I found particularly interesting were the charts and graphs that Gore presented, looking at the patterns of temperature over millions of years, this one showing the concentration of co2 levels measured in Hawaii over  a fifty year period

1w26 Environmental Risk Assessment Rover-AT by EcoArtTech

Produced by EcoArtTech in 2008, the Environmental Risk Assessment Rover-AT (ERAR-AT) is a mobile networked video installation, powered by GPS and solar power. When placed in a selected environment, the unit will collect data from its immediate surroundings, evaluate the threats and risks posed by global warming in the vicinity and then deliver its assessment through a projection that is displayed on the current surroundings, whether it be an architectural or organic space. Below is a typical projection showing a tiered threat level, along with a data recording and another view of the installation

More information can be found at http://www.ecoarttech.net/erar/index.html

1w24 The 11th Hour

The 11th Hour is a 2007 documentary produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, and explores the current state of our environment on Earth.  It includes contributions from key figures such as Stephen Hawking, Mikail Gorbachev and the Nobel prize winner Wangari Maathai and aims to highlight the jeopardy that the current World faces in the light of Global warming, overfishing of the oceans and mass deforestation.

TBC…

1w23 The Age of Stupid

Although I previously wrote a little about climate change, I feel this is an area that I should explore in more detail.  It’s an issue in the minds of almost everybody; we see it in the news and the media but what are they actually telling us?  What is actually happening?  What is actually being done about it?  How does it affect us?

The next document I will look at is the film “The Age of Stupid’ (2009) by Franny Armstrong  which explores the effects of climate change.  The film is set in 2055,  when the World has become a baron and hostile place due to climate change and looks back to the early 2000′s from the view of an archivist (played by Pete Postlethwaite), who protects a collection of data on the Worlds history, 300km off the coast of Norway, housed on a man-made platform out at sea.  Searching through a touch-screen and voice interactive computer, he looks back at what could, and should have been done to save the World from the effects of climate change – before it became too late.

The film employs a hybrid of animation, fictional and actual television footage from the past, in a seamlessly endless database.  The unnamed archivist descends upon the stories of six individuals in the 2000′s, and the radically different lives that the characters lead, influenced by the demand for oil.  One man has launched a budget airline in India, allowing air travel to become accessable to all, but at massive costs to the environment.  Another is a wind farm developer, passionate about renewable energy, yet keeps being knocked back by local people and their ‘nimbyism’ regarding the aesthetics of wind farms in their idyllic space.  Another is a woman from Nigeria that suffers in poverty because of the oil supply her country yields, one of many that are becoming victims of the supply and demand trade.  Another is a hero; a local man of New Orleans that rescued survivors of hurricane Katrina.  Another  is a French man that guides tours to the depleting glacier that has always been his home.  The last is two Iraqi children who fled their homes and headed to Jordan for safety, losing their father and having to leave their older brother behind.

The story follows their agony and attempts at survival in the face of global devastation caused by the exploitation of the planet at the hands of the human race.

The film made its premiere on London’s Leicester Square in March 2009 from a solar powered tent, and was transmitted by satellite to another 62 cinemas around the UK.  This marketing feat lead to a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest film premiere, due to the number of screens employed.  Also, because the event was solar -powered, it was estimated by an independent assessor that the carbon emissions produced by the premiere reached a mere 1% of the normal level emitted during the premiere of a blockbuster movie.

1w21 Archives

Image Log Location=Moscow River, Moscow, Russia   ISO=200   Aperture=f5.6   Shutter speed=1/80  White Balance=auto  Delay=3″   Long=1″   Interval=2″   Date=23.12.09   Frame count:200

Image Log Location=Moscow River, Moscow, Russia   ISO=200   Aperture=f5.6   Shutter speed=1/80  White Balance=auto  Delay=3″   Long=1″   Interval=2″   Date=23.12.09   Frame count:200

Image Log Location=Kiev, Ukraine   ISO=200   Aperture=f5.6   Shutter speed=1/80  White Balance=auto  Delay=3″   Long=1″   Interval=2″   Date=23.12.09   Frame count:200

1w20 From Russia with Love

Although these next additions are lacking important detail where the smoke and sky blend together, I think this will improve when processed in High Dynamic Range.  Also, now that I have left Korea (where a company thought it was acceptable to use my work without permission) I have decided to opt for a less obtrusive watermark on my blog posts!

Image Log Location=Moscow River, Moscow, Russia ISO=200 Aperture=f5.6 Shutter speed=1/80 White Balance=auto Delay=3″ Long=1″ Interval=2″ Date=23.12.09 Frame count:200

Image Log Location=Power plant, Moscow, Russia ISO=200 Aperture=f7.1 Shutter speed=1/125 White Balance=auto Delay=3″ Long=1″ Interval=2″ Date=23.12.09 Frame count:265

1w18 Archives

Here’s a couple more additions from my archives, not previously posted…

Image Log Location=Han River from 63 Building, Seoul, South Korea   ISO=200   Aperture=f5.6   Shutter speed=2″  White Balance=auto  Delay=3″   Long=2″   Interval=3″   Date=…  Frame count:250

Image Log Location=Han River, Seoul, South Korea   ISO=200   Aperture=f10   Shutter speed=1/250  White Balance=auto  Delay=3″   Long=1″   Interval=2″   Date=…   Frame count:250