More LXD goodness

We’ve talked about them before here, but I woke up this morning, saw someone’s post on Facebook (oh the power of social media!) about them, started searching for more videos on YouTube about them, and here we are.

The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (or LXD) is an online-only series that unfortunately is only available to viewers in the States on Hulu. Created by director Jon M. Chu (Step Up and Step Up 2 the Streets – bad movies but great dancing!), it’s about a group of ordinary dancers with extraordinary powers (of dancing, I reckon). The premise of the show sounds paper-thin, but I’m pretty sure the dancing will make up for it! (Yes, I’m not very deep. I like watching good dancing.)

Anyway, I just thought I’d share the amazing LXD’s dance routine on So You Think You Can Dance. It was so good, I watched it twice in a row:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ3j_GW2LFY

I went on a spree thereafter, and I found this – Mad Chadd as Oscar the Academy Award Statue:

And then (I promise this is the last one here today), I found the trailer for the online series. Doesn’t it look like a really cheesy show?! Hurhur.

Are you inspired yet?!

This post is part of the series.

Inspiration: Tim Burton

What if all the posters of Tim Burton’s movies were re-imagined in his style?

Can’t get enough of these brilliantly simple, yet perfectly apt posters. A hint of the macabre here, a dash of nonchalance there.

Some of my favourites:

This post is part of the series.

Dancers Among Us

New York City photographer Jordan Matter one day decided to photograph dancers, set in everyday situations, and the results are inspiring and motivational all at once.

There’s something about red that’s so sexy.

Matter said, “I began to photograph these dancers as everyday people. In the photographs they are away from the stage, yet they cannot leave dance behind. As they go about their daily routines, they do so as dancers. This speaks to the power of a passionate life; if you’re fully invested in something, it is always with you.”

This resonated with me, because I am part of Generation Y, the generation of people that cannot function without feeling something – the generation that has been called spoilt, pampered and expecting too much out of life.

But how can one excel without being passionate? More importantly, how can one be happy without passion?

These photographs show us how we can be passionate about what we do all the time, even in something as mundane as taking the train to work on Monday morning.

They also show us how work-life balance has shifted. The definition of work-life balance isn’t “no work outside the office”, it’s now “work = life”. How can one then put up with doing something he absolutely detests for a living?

Matter also said, “I believe in the strength of a life’s mission. If you dedicate yourself to a career that inspires and excites you, this commitment will be your foundation.”

How true.

All photographs from Jordan Matter

This post is part of the series.

Storytelling in the 21st Century

In ages past, storytelling was the domain of revered storytellers around campfires and taverns. The art changed dramatically with the advent of the printing press. With books, one didn’t need to be a master orator to be a good storyteller. And as towns and cities grew, travelling bands of performers gave rise to theatre which everyone knew overcame its transient form and became celluloid immortals with television and cinemas.

But what will happen in the 21st century? Sure, books and movies and the odd grandfather spinning tales over dinner will still be a fixture. I’m referring to the new boundaries that the art of storytelling will explore.

Avatar was a marriage of digital imagery with film making but it was still a film nonetheless. What if you went the other way? What if you placed film making, and with a stretch, storytelling, into all things digital (think interwebz connectivity where the user has control through clicking)?

What you’ll end up with is interactive storytelling. Now, that’s not terribly new. For decades dice rolling nerds have played out Dungeons and Dragons where they weave their own stories. And recently, companies are injecting trawled info from the viewer’s Facebook profile into ad campaigns. However, 21st century tech has enabled digital offerings on an entirely new level. One that is gorgeous to behold and gripping in its delivery, not staid and mimicking still life.

You can already see baby steps being taken by this new form of delivery in video games (yes, dead horse. *beat*). Companies such as Bioware, the creators of epic fantasy sagas Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, offer a tantalising peek to a potential “what if?” The following is a trailer for Dragon Age, best described as an epic tale (takes you 50hrs+ to finish the game) worthy of D.Eddings.

It’s not just about looking good, though it definitely doesn’t hurt. The name of the game is storytelling and another title that carries that mantle fairly well is Mass Effect. It feels like you’re watching a movie, where you get to decide what the main protagonist get to do (and who to romance). In fact, the cast gathered to provide the voice overs for the characters hail from Hollywood themselves. Some are more familiar than the others, but none of them can be said to be Bolo Santosi.

So, storytelling via cinemas will not be extinct anytime soon no matter what anti-piracy advocates will have you believe. Not until a new method for absorbing media is invented (wifi enabled 3D virtual glasses anyone? or perhaps cornea implants by Apple called iEye?). Even then there’ll still be the television via iPad and the wrinkly grandfather. What may very well change is how stories will unfold depending on user  input. No, you don’t have to write out each ending. We already have algorithms for that.

What do ballpoint pens and dead artists have in common?

The answer is Girl with a Pearl Earring, Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece that inspired the novel and subsequently, movie of the same name (in 1999 and 2003, respectively, for all you trivia freaks).

I don’t know about you, but I think this is an uber cool rendition of the original painting.

The best thing about this is that it was drawn entirely using only a BiC pen! A BiC Cristal Medium pen, to be precise, for the BiC Challenge, which aims to show participants how long lasting the BiC Cristal pens are – 2 times further than other ballpoint pens, apparently!

So artist James Mylne accepted the challenge, and promptly decided to recreate an entire masterpiece using a single BiC ballpoint pen, taking an approximate 90 whole hours to complete (respec’, mon.)

There’s a moral point to this story, boys and girls, and if you’ll bear with me I’ll get to it.

You see, I was never a fan of ballpoint pens. The ink does not fade in water, yes, but it’s so faint and….dull. Not to mention ballpoint pens are also usually the cheap cousin of the water-based ink pen (Pilot G2, anyone?), meaning it just doesn’t look as good – yes, I know, I’m weird like that.

However, after seeing this, my esteem for the humble ballpoint pen has gone way up. Well done BiC, you not only have proven that your ballpoint pens do last longer than most others (90 hours straight, yo!), you have also successfully educated at least one consumer. Now that’s what I call effective marketing.

And if you’re interested, BEHOLD! the BiC Challenge Masterpiece in action: