As I watched I couldn't help but wonder:
1. Why is there a marching band?
2. Why is she doing that arm aerobic thingy all of the time?
3. Fish? What is the deal with the fish?
I don't quite understand it. But I am mesmerized nevertheless.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
うさうさＰＶ／嗚呼うさの道
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The Top 5 Best & Worst Sci-Fi Television Series Opening Sequences...EVER.
All of this recent blogging about opening title sequences got me thinking. So I geeked out and put together this uber-funtastico list.
The Best
Star Trek
Absolute perfection. It's like I'm in 4th grade watching the old reruns after school. It's enough to make a gal nostalgic for warp speed engines, tribbles, and pointy ears.
Twilight Zone
A classic. It goes without saying.
Battlestar Galactica (70's) Intro
Gosh, it's all so pretty and majestic.
The Jetsons
Brilliant.
Lost in Space
"Looooost...iiiinnnn....Spaaaaace...." Nuff said.
Roswell
Memorable because of the standout song that skyrocketed Dido's career.
The Worst
Automan
So bad and so retro that maybe it's come full circle and it's actually good now. Err...nope. Still bad. I am willing to admit I watched this show. It was the coolest...when I was like 10 or something.
Land of the Lost (70's)
Yeah, baby. Dinosaurs are scary. Run for the hills (which look suspiciously like cast offs from the old Star Trek set). If nothing else this sequence should serve as a PSA against the dangers of rafting.
Buck Rogers (Original Intro)
What??? Buck Rogers spends most of this incredibly long intro feigning sleep and having what ultimately turns out to be a trippy, somewhat naughty, absurdly sexist dream. It's enough to make you wonder if Hugh Hefner was working as a consult on this project.
Wonderwoman
Sure, she's hot but I still dare you not to laugh. Does Hollywood really think a premise like this will translate with today's audiences? Um, good luck with that (especially now that Whedon isn't attached).
Firefly
I loved the series. And I love, love, love Joss Whedon. So this one hurts. But that song? Is it any wonder that no one stuck around to watch the show after the opening sequence?
Friday, August 17, 2007
Mad Men Opening Credits & Saul Bass
As creative types we are often influenced by the work of our peers and the work of our creative predecessors so it wasn't surprising that after a bit of research (ahem..googling) I discovered the source of the creative influence behind the Mad Men opening title sequence was the influential graphic designer Saul Bass.
From M.A. Peel at http://newcritics.com/
But even if you aren't familiar with Saul Bass you are probably already familiar with his work. His portfolio consists not only of famous logo designs and posters, but also an impressive body of opening film title sequences, including Psycho. Among his later work was the title sequence for The Age of Innocence (which I watched again recently). At the time I remember admiring how beautifully the opening was done. I especially loved the subtle touch of the overlay of Victorian lace. Ah, but now I'm just rambling ...I agree with with M.A. Peel. The Bass influence on the Mad Men opening title sequence is unmistakable.
Anatomy of a Murder - Opening title sequence
Here's a great quote from the man himself talking about his work.
"My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it."- Saul Bass
Conditioning the audience? Yep, that's one I'll have to remember.
Mad Men Opening Credits
I love AMC's new period series Mad Men. It's slick and smart. I especially love their opening credits. The simple black, white, and red palette and typography contrast perfectly with the colorful, oversized vintage ad artwork. Seriously, can you beat that music? I get a little chill every time I hear it.
Check out the creative team who created the sequence at http://www.imaginaryforces.com
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Some Yummy Firefox Extensions
I thought I'd share some extensions that I have found handy and a few, recently discovered, that I'm taking for a test drive.
Loop
Upload, convert and combine your files to PDF from a tidy toolbar, without the conversion getting in the way of your Web browsing. LOOP for Firefox allows you to convert and combine files to PDF with the click of a button.
Firebug
Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page...
Snipshot
Edit any picture on the web with one right-click. The picture will be brought into the online image editor Snipshot where you can crop, resize, rotate or recolor it, then save it into a variety of formats (JPG, GIF, PNG, PDF) or to Flickr or a free image host.
Who Is This Person?
Highlight any name on a web page and see matching information from LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Google News, Technorati, Yahoo Person Search, TailRank, ZoomInfo, IMDB, MySpace and more...
LinkedIn Companion for Firefox
LinkedIn is an online network of more than 10.5 million experienced professionals. LinkedIn helps you be more effective in your daily work and opens doors to opportunities by helping you develop and manage your network of business contacts.
ColorZilla
Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.
Palette Grabber
Creates a color palette for Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP, or Flash based on the current page.
Friday, August 03, 2007
The Graphic Avenger
Because it's Friday and I feel silly. And this cracks me up. Comic Sans??? Say it ain't so.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Nice Things People Are Saying About The New Zoto.com Website
While it's true that at Zoto we don't usually go around tooting our own horns, we are always gratified to read the positive things people write about the newly redesigned version of our website (this is especially true when you consider the fact that we haven't been advertising or seeking any press for months). Here are some nice snippets I've come across lately.
Stewart Butterfield (Co-founder of Flickr.com)
"Zoto's recent redesign with all ajax photo pages was really cool and well done - quite zippy and something that created a great experience for photo uploaders and viewers."
From :
http://www.flickr.com/groups
Killer Startups
"Unlike other photo sharing services, Zoto zeros in on powerful application-like features so that you can organize, store, and share each and every one of your photos online. Zoto features the latest technology to deliver you fast results."
Read more at :
http://www.killerstartups.com
Webdev 2.0
"Zoto is the best way to share and organize your photos. Zoto's site works like a desktop photo sharing application, letting you quickly share your favorite photos with friends and family, and making sure they are all securely stored."
From:
http://www.webdevtwopointzero.com
BG's Blog
"I’m really impressed with Zoto Photo Sharing. It does just about everything that I want it to do, and a lot more besides. I’ve had accounts with Flickr, Zooomr, Photobox and some others, but they don’t match Zoto when it comes to flexibility.
Features that I’m particularly impressed with are:
- Options for setting the order of pics (by date/time taken, date/time uploaded, title, an exif parameter etc.);
- Options for setting the number and size of thumbnails for each album;
- The facility to group pics into multiple albums, and to group albums into multiple sets;
- Options for setting display colours and template colours (Background, text, link, link hover, border etc.), these can be set independently for each album;
- The bulk uploader;
- The options for setting permissions;
- Bulk editing for things like dates, tags, text, privacy, moving pics between albums etc.;
- The overall ease of use."
http://beardedgit.wordpress.com/
Funkmaster Fish's Big Bad Blog
"Zoto offers a wide variety of features to its members such as drag-n-droppable homepages, sortable liquidized light-boxes, highly customizable albums, 50% larger image detail photos, extremely fast photo tagging, powerful photo searching, unlimited storage, and no advertisements."
Read more at :
http://gottadropablog.blogspot.com
Mashable
"Zoto, the photo-sharing service, will launch version 3.0 tomorrow...The new stuff includes a new logo, a pretty new interface and plenty of slick ajaxy features - in fact, the whole site has been rebuilt from scratch with some big improvements."
Lo-fi Librarian
"Very pretty and customisable photo hosting, options to upgrade to a paid account, widgets available and zoto uploader can be used to upload bulk lots of pics."
From:
http://www.lo-fi-librarian.co.uk/?p=624
The new Zoto has been a labor of love that has been in progress for the past year and 1/2 and everyone on the team has put in so much time and hard work. It's nice to be acknowledged. So thanks, guys.
Take a 2 week test drive of Zoto at:
http://www.zoto.com
Technorati Tags : zoto, zoto.com, photo sharing, web 2.0
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