from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
An Ex-Pixar Designer Creates Astounding Kids’ Book On iPad:
“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” is like a well-written bedtime story and an immersive animated movie at once.
Amazing.
(fast company design via write for your life)
The animated music video for “Jubilation Day” by Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers. Get the album. Seriously – get it now.
Great typographic animation of Jonathan Coulton’s song Shop Vac by Jarrett Heather.
This gives my other favorite, an animation of Ben Folds’ Zak and Sara, a run for its money.
[via Waxy]
As you might have heard, UP is a real tearjearker of a movie (animated or otherwise). It’s beautifully animated and the storytelling – especially the first ten minutes or so – is exquisite. What really holds it all together is the score by Michael Giacchino. His music has all of the emotion and personality of another character, with some similarities in style to John Williams or James Horner in the use of a recurring main theme and true, period sound. It is totally unfair to Giacchino to compare him to those two, or any other, composer(s) because the work stands on its own.
Take a listen to the two tracks below. The first, “married life”, is a short sequence through which we follow a couple from courtship through their later years – my favorite. The other, “up with end credits”, is a medley of the various themes in the film.
Married Life:
Up with End Credits:
This soundtrack marks a departure for Disney that others are likely to follow – it did not have a physical cd release, only a digital release online. I’m totally behind this idea if it means we’ll get albums released that might have otherwise gotten shelved. I do hope that they’ll make some gains in the audio quality of the digital downloads so that we’ll be able to maintain that pure, uncompressed sound that a cd (often) offers. Otherwise, bring it on.
