Can We Change our Behavior to Make Us Happier?

This is a fun and creative title sequence for “The Happy Film” (scheduled to be released in 2012). It was directed by reknown designers Stefan Sagmeister and Hillman Curtis, produced by Ben Nabors, and cinematography by Ben Wolf.

Notes about the movie (from official website):

The Happy Film takes a look at the strategies serious psychologists ‘recommend to improve one’s personal well-being and overall happiness. Questions such as ‘Is it possible to train our mind in the same way’ that we train our bodies?’ and ‘Can we change our behavior to make’us happier?’ will be put to the test in this highly visual documentary.

Designer Stefan Sagmeister will attempt a long list of various strategies – ‘from the sublime to the ridiculous – and report back on the results. ‘The documentary’s experiments and explorations are loosely based on Stefan’s book Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far. Though the focus will be on the ability of meditation, cognitive therapy, and pharmaceuticals to significantly alter well-being – the maxims from his book will ‘serve as access points to a larger exploration of happiness, it’s cultural’ significance, our constant pursuit of it, and its uniquely ephemeral nature. Throughout these experiments, our team will work closely with a group’ of health professionals to properly define and assess Stefan’s happiness.

Links via: Film stills © The Happy Film Link via Boooooom  &  

Illusion.com

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Augmented Reality Cinema App Brings Movies to Real Life

via (Gajitz)

True movie lovers know that there aren’t many things more thrilling than visiting the very locations where your favorite movies were shot. Call it cinematic tourism or just giving your movie experiences a brand new layer; either way, it can be a fun and interesting way to enhance both your movie experiences and your vacation. A new smartphone app called AR Cinema will use the power of GPS along with augmented reality to actually bring you into your favorite films.

Visit a street corner or landmark where a movie was filmed, hold up your smartphone and the app will show you the scene(s) shot there. The demo video shows films set in London, but the developers want to add additional cities. Of course, the people who live in those cities might not be thrilled with the cinema tourists holding up their phones in the middle of the street to watch movie clips, but this awesome idea could add a whole new layer to the tourism trade in cities like London, New York, Toronto and other frequently-used shooting locations.

via read more here: http://gajitz.com/augmented-reality-cinema-app-brings-movies-to-real-life/

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Klipp Future Camera by Mac Funamizu

Mac Funamizu is back with a new concept.

 

Highly inspired by the WVIL concept camera demonstrated is CES 2011, Mac conceived of a similar device that looks smaller and thinner. Klipp, the future camera concept by Mac Funamizu is totally idyllic. The idea is pretty clear. The lens has a clip behind it so that you can place it over various places. The lens system is literally self-contained with all the necessary things required to take SLR high-quality photos. Regardless of where you clip it, the lens system sends the pictures to a hub device – a transparent screen, wirelessly.

Designer : Mac Funamizu

via: http://www.tuvie.com/klipp-future-camera-by-mac-funamizu/

Great Stop-Motion Video

The animation is made from coins : painstakingly made frame-by-frame by Daniel Larsson and Tomas Redigh.

Film stills © Daniel Larsson and Tomas Redigh
Link via: http://www.bitrebels.com/geek/world%E2%80%99s-most-kick-ass-insert-coin-animation-with-real-coins/

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Sintel: Stunning ShortMovie created with Free OpenSource Software From Blender Community.

“Sintel” is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film.

This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. In addition to that, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world.www.sintel.org.

If You haven’t already seen this beautifully created ShortMovie : Sintel, created by artists from the Blender OpenSource Community, You should go watch it immediately. 

A ShortMovie, Brilliantly created and possibly with the most emotions displayed in just under 14 minutes.

The end soundtrack (oh, sigh)Soundtrack from “Sintel” Short Movie, by the Durian Open Movie Project.
Composed by Jan Morgenstern, Lyrics by Esther Wouda, performed by Helena Fix.
All Credits go to the Composer/Writer/Performer(s) and the Durian Team.

Blender is an OpenSource 3D Software programme, you just have to try:

Go Over here to download it or just satisfy your curiosity first: http://www.blender.org/

http://blenderartists.org/cms/content/view/12/30/

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• Blender Foundation Releases Open Source Movie Sintel (newteevee.com)

A few of the best, Must-See, short Animations around

(for info about the Artists, click the titles)

 

THE PASSENGER

Sebastian’s Voodoo

The Monk and The Monkey by Francesco Giroldini

francesco giroldini

THE PEARCE SISTERS

pearce sisters

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/the_pearce_sisters/

Setting Up Your Digital Camera For HDR Shooting

(via link)

Introduction

You’ve probably heard of High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography, it’s made quite an entrance into the world of digital photography.

If you haven’t, the HDR process is accomplished by taking multiple exposures of a high contrast scene (usually a landscape or cityscape), at different levels of brightness, and then combining the best light from each exposure into one image.

The end result is a stunning image that very closely resembles how the human eye views a scene. This process of digital manipulation has caused a bit of controversy and debate in the world of photography, especially with images that are “over-cooked.” One thing is for sure though, HDR is here to stay. When done right, this unique and in depth processing technique can produce beautiful works of art that mimic the way we view and remember a landscape or scene.

The above image is an example of what HDR processing can produce. This image, taken from the Big Island of Hawaii, would not be possible without HDR processing. It was taken around noon, the harshest light of the day. The first image is the best image my camera could produce given the situation. While still beautiful, there are obvious problems. Get ready, this article is going to show you how to take your digital camera and turn it into an HDR shooting machine!

Step 1: Locate Your Camera Manual

 

I know, we all hate manuals. But if you want to become the best photographer you can be, you need to become best friends with your cameras manual. Spend time with it, take it with you on trips, read it in the airplane, memorize every setting on your camera so you know it inside and out, make your significant other jealous of it. And for this lesson, have it handy as a decoder in case you have a different camera model. If you don’t have your manual, simply do a Google search for: (your camera model) manual. You should be able to easily find a pdf version to download.

Step 2: Discover Auto Exposure Bracketing

 

Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) is the main component in creating an HDR image. Bracketing is the term used to describe taking multiple exposures of a scene, the key element to capturing all of that wonderful light in a scene.
Why is this necessary? Well, take for example your typical post card from Hawaii, with a silhouetted palm tree hanging in from the side of the frame, and a beautiful sunrise as a backdrop. While beautiful, the silhouette is actually caused by the failure of the camera to produce the full dynamic range of light in that scene. The sunrise is simply too bright and there is too much of a contrast between the sky and tree. Therefore, the tree is reduced to pure black.

Your cameras AEB setting will take an exposure for the sky in the background, an average exposure of the entire scene, and finally an exposure for the palm tree in the foreground. Or in technical terms, a bracketed sequence of exposures listed like this: -2, 0, +2. This sequence simply means one exposure that is two stops of light underexposed, a proper exposure according to the cameras light meter, and one exposure that is two stops over exposed. Depending on your camera model, you may only be able to do 3 exposures in AEB at the most. Others will allow 5, 7, 9 and up. The more exposures you can get, the better, because the potential for capturing all the light in the scene increases. A bracketed sequence of 7 exposures would look like this: -3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3.

Go into your cameras menu settings and find the option for AEB. On a Canon 5D Mark II for example, AEB is located under the second menu screen, and is labeled “Expo.comp./AEB.” To change from one exposure to three, highlight the menu setting, click the SET button, then turn the dial on top of the camera to the right.

 

Step 3: Set Your Camera to Av Mode and Determine an Aperture

 

Aperture Value (Av) Mode is really the only setting that will work for HDR shooting. This setting lets you determine the aperture of the exposure, and the camera determines the shutter speed. When shooting multiple exposures, you have to consider what needs to stay the same during the brackets.

If you set the camera to Time Value, the camera will make sure the shutter speed stays the same through all the exposures. Therefore, in order to create dark to light images, the camera will adjust the aperture, and that is no bueno. The aperture controls depth of field, or how much of your scene will be in focus. If that value is different in every frame, combining them later just won’t work.

The manual setting won’t work either, as the camera will still possibly change the aperture through the bracketed sequence. Set your camera to Av Mode and forget the others.

Once you are in Av mode, it’s now time to determine what aperture you want to shoot at. Again, aperture controls depth of field. So for a landscape, you will most likely want the entire image to be in focus, with no blur in the background. When determining your aperture, remember this: The higher the aperture, the greater the depth of field. Want to know a little trick you can use to determine aperture (although it isn’t 100% accurate)? Imagine you have 20 people in a line, and the line is going away from your camera.

The people are staggered so that you can see each of them, but each person is further and further away. If you want just the first person in the line to be in focus and all the rest to be blury, set your aperture to 1. If you want the first 10 people in focus, set your aperture to 10. If you want all 20 people in focus, set your aperture to 20. Pretty simple concept right? With that said, just about any aperture value above 11 will have your entire frame in focus (most of the time). Start at f/11, and experiment your way up and down from there.
 

 

Step 4: Determine Your Metering Mode  

Metering is one of the more complicated settings on your camera, and one that I get a lot of questions on from new photographers. In a nutshell, your metering mode is simply how your camera samples light to determine the proper exposure for the image. The camera has to see the scene before it, analyze the light in the scene, and determine what your camera settings should be.

If you are new to photography, you should know that in most cases, Evaluative Metering will work just fine. But don’t take that bit of knowledge and forget about metering. There is also partial, spot, and center weighted metering. Each of which have their time and place where using them will drastically improve your image. Make sure you take the time to understand each setting, but for now, set your metering to Evaluative.

 

 

Step 5: Set your white balance

 

  

Again, this is a topic that confuses some people. It’s also a topic that some photographers get lazy with. White balance is incredibly important to your images color balance. If your white balance is off, your entire image will be off. Auto White Balance (just like Evaluative Metering) will work most of the time. Cameras are smarter and smarter these days, and the automatic settings work more often than not. But just like the metering modes, you need to know the different white balance settings.

If your camera fails to capture the colors in the scene like you see them, it’s time to change the setting. The quickest and easiest way to correct white balance is using Custom White Balance. Simply find something in the scene that is pure white (a white wall, a piece of paper, a white shirt, etc) and take a close up picture of it so that the color white completely fills the frame.

On a Canon 5D Mark II, go to your menu, scroll to the second list of settings, select Custom WB, and follow the prompts to select the last image taken on the card. Your camera will then take that image and use it to create a color balance where that image is pure white. Your next picture of that object should look as white as snow. Remember, white is your foundation in color balance. Get white set, and the other colors will fall into place.

 

 

FOR STEPS :6 to 11   Head over: HERE

 

 

 

Related Articles

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YouTube Brings Easy Video Editing to the Masses

Want proof that anything that can be done on the desktop can be done in your web browser?

YouTube has just announced its brand-spanking new online video editor–allowing anyone to make simple edits and improvements to their uploaded videos.

You’ll find it located inside of TestTube–how cute–because it’s a little rough around the edges, but the functionality includes:

• Combine multiple videos you’ve uploaded to create a new longer video
• Trim the beginning and/or ending of your videos
• Add soundtracks from our AudioSwap library of tens of thousands of songs
• Create new videos without worrying about file formats and publish them to YouTube with one click — no upload necessary

OK, so maybe not quite as sophisticated as Adobe Premier or iMovie, but I suspect the above features represent about 80% of most video editing needs.

read more via http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/06/youtube-brings-easy-video-editing-to-the-masses.html

Make Your Own 3D Glasses in 10 Seconds

You’ll need a pair of 3D glasses with red and blue (to be more precise, cyan) lenses to watch any of the 3D videos that are available on YouTube or this pool of 3D images (anaglyphs) that’s on Flickr.

For instance, here’s a 3D clip from the popular Avatar movie that you’ll only enjoy if you have the right colored glasses.

Create 3-D Glasses at Home!

The basic 3D glasses are available for around 99¢ on eBay but if you want them right now, you can build your own using a spare CD jewel case and some permanent marker pens.

Just scribble the transparent side of the jewel case with red and blue marker pens* large enough to cover the width of your eyes. The blue (or cyan) color lens is for the right eye while the red color will cover the left eye.

photo via labnol.org

read more:  http://www.labnol.org/home/make-3d-glasses/13776/

Rayqual adapters get your Canon and Nikon lenses on Sony NEX compact cameras

Finally, interchangeable lens cameras that are compatible with other brand-lenses. Being a bit of a Canon-freak myself i’d say: ‘Canon, why don’t you?”’

One of the biggest (and most overlooked) advantages of mirrorless cameras is that they can be adapted to work with almost any lens there is. The short distance between the throat of the lens-mount and the sensor means that there is a lot of space for an adapter. Rayqual, a Japanese manufacturer, has just announced a range of these adapters for the new Sony NEX-3 and NEX-5 cameras.

Lens adapters for 35mm SLRs don’t really work well as the extra thickness pushes the lens forward and prevents it from focusing at infinity (you can still shoot close up, though. In fact, macro-extension tubes exploit this focus shift to do their job). But there is a good inch of room to play with on mirrorless cameras, so the adapters work well. I use one on a Panasonic GF1 to attach Nikon lenses. You lose auto-focus, but otherwise it works great.

Rayqual’s new adapters let you mount Nikon, Canon FD, Pentax and Leica lenses onto the Sonys. If you are using modern lenses designed for crop-sensors, you will have minimal changes to the focal length, as the NEX cameras also have APS-C sized sensors.

Shipping next month, the adapters will run from ¥19,950 to ¥25,200, or $220 to $275.

Read More http://tinyurl.com/23rpuwt via wired.com

and

read more here: http://tinyurl.com/266k2fy via gizmag.com