The Milky Way’s Glimmering Core Captured in a Timelapse Video by Adrien Mauduit

Mauduit explains in a statement about the project that from a young age he has been interested in the natural wonders of the environment, and by “showing the true beauty of the universe I could contribute in my own limited way to bringing the real dark skies to the hectic and light polluted urban jungle.” The resulting film includes dramatic shots of shooting stars, silhouetted mountains, and rushing clouds foregrounding the shimmering night sky. You can see more of Mauduit’s work on Vimeo and Instagram. (via Vimeo Staff Picks)

Amazing Budget Versions of Basketball Trick Shots Using Marbles, Wood, String, and Small Contraptions

Swimming with a turtle.

Surreal Stop Motion Timelapse of Objects Being Sanded in Half

A Hypnotic Timelapse Showing a Uniquely Designed Coral Reef Lushly Springing to Life

 

Century-Old Film Footage Edited to Present a More Dynamic View of New York City Life in the Early 1900’s

Videographer Guy Jones edits century-old film to more accurately match the video standards of the present day. For the black and white clip of New York City in 1911 shown above, Jones slowed down the film’s original speed and added ambient sound to match the activity seen on the city’s streets. The subtle additions allow for a more engaging experience when viewing of the 20th-century footage, and presents the urban milieu in a more realistic light.

Underwater Photographer Swims With Graceful Giant Manta Rays and the Fish Who Hopped Aboard

Colorado wildlife and underwater photographer William Drumm captured exquisite footage of enormous “mythical” manta rays in the waters of Isla Socorro. As he swam alongside the magnificent creatures, Drumm also captured sight of various fish as they got on and off the mantas, hitching a sweet ride across the water.

The Mythical Mantas of the Socorro Islands. …I use underwater lasers to measure the huge manta rays of the Socorros. …The last two years I have travelled to the Socorro Island, hoping to swim with and film the world’s largest manta rays.

https://www.instagram.com/williamdrumm/

Tesla Could Learn Something From This Lego Car-Building Factory

Tesla’s hit a few speed bumps in getting all the pre-ordered Model 3's out the door and onto customers’ driveways. But perhaps the company can learn something from Daniele Benedettelli, who created a fully autonomous Lego car factory using the iconic building toy.

Now, I’m not saying Musk should consider rebuilding his factories out of brightly colored plastic bricks, but Benedettelli’s Lego car factory even lets customers choose various color options before their vehicle rolls off the line. Like real factories, this one relies on many pre-built components to get vehicles rolling off the line quickly, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to see in action. It also makes me wonder how long it will be before Lego’s own factories will just be made from Lego.
[YouTube via The Awesomer]

The Heart of Sky, A Short Animated Sci-Fi Film About How Life Might Have Been Created on Earth

by Justin Page

The Heart of Sky is a short animated sci-fi film, brought to life in 2016 by the creative visual storytellers at Mirari & Co., about how life might have been created on earth. They drew their inspiration for the film from ancient Mayan mythology and references from the cultural narrative, Popol Vuh.

In the past two years, we’ve been working on this short film as a chronic background project. We have come across hundreds of problems and limitations during the production process and used to think we might never be able to publish it. By pushing our creativity and with the curiosity to see how far we can go, we made our way here.

Taking inspiration from Mayan myth, we have initiated this story about how lives might have been created on earth, in a science fiction style. Most of the references, which helped our design are from a book called Popol Vuh. The book is a corpus of Mytho-historical narrative created in post Classic K’iche’ kingdom, which is also considered as Mayan bible.

Simultaneous Plane Landing

Ascending and descending a ladder

Underwater Choreography Performed in the World’s Deepest Pool by Julie Gautier

AMA is a short film performed and directed by deep sea diver and underwater filmmaker Julie Gautier. The work follows Gautier through several uninterrupted minutes of underwater choreography, gracefully performed in the world’s deepest pool near Venice, Italy. She holds her breath as she uses controlled movements to twist and glide through the calm water, eventually rising up to the surface with the release of one giant air bubble.

Spectacular Fans of Feathers Define the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise Courtship Ritual

from. memolition

This short video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology documents the spectacular plumage and mating dance of the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise. In order to catch the attention of its female counterpart, the male Bird-of-Paradise flips its cape of black feathers into a large ruff that surrounds its head, while also fanning out an iridescent azure blue skirt of feathers from its breast. In a paper published by Timothy G. Laman and Edwin Scholes, this Indonesian bird was recently confirmed as a separate species based on its courtship behavior. You can learn more about the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise in another video from Cornell and watch more videos about all things avian on the Lab’s YouTube channel. (via The Kid Should See This)

Light Leaks: A Shimmering Room Filled with Fifty Disco Balls and Hundreds of Reflected Points of Light

Kyle McDonald and Jonas Jongejan filled a darkened room with fifty disco balls and created colored and timed lighting sequences to cast mesmerizing reflections that surround visitors.

However, rather than simply relying on scattershot reflections, McDonald and Jongejan used hundreds of structured light scans to capture the volumetric position of every pixel being projected by each of the three projectors. The pair then used SketchUp to predict the reflected pixel positions.

The Movement of Air: A New Dance Performance Incorporating Interactive Digital Projection from Adrien M & Claire B

Artist duo Adrien M & Claire B have lifted the curtain on their latest acrobatic dance performance utilizing digital projection titled The Movement of Air. Seen in this video is a handful of moments taken from an hour-long piece performed in France last month by a trio dancers. Unlike more common uses of digital project mapping where a recorded animation or scene is projected in a space, Adrien M & Claire B instead utilize fully interactive “scenes” that respond to human interaction. Nothing you see on the set is animated beforehand.

‘The Art of Flying’ Captures the Shape-Shifting Wonder of a Murmuration of Starling

Yōji Kuri - The Midnight Parasites, 1972

Hieronymus Bosch inspired animation from 1972, created by animator Yōji Kuri.

Yōji Kuri - The Midnight Parasites, 1972 from Aeron Alfrey.

A brief page on Yōji Kuri can be found on Wikipedia.

Strange Beasts, A Short Film About an Augmented Reality Video Game That Can Grow Virtual Pets

Magali Barbé has created Strange Beasts, a short sci-fi film about an augmented reality video game that allows you to “create and grow your own virtual pet.” Magali shared more about how the film was created on her website.

KOOKY LADY CONVINCED HER TOASTER POSSESSED BY SATAN

This classic example of WTF vintage television originally aired on The Today Showback in May, 1984.

The “Richard” this lady keeps referring to off camera is Richard Dominick, a guy who later worked as a producer for Jerry Springer, a fact that will surprise absolutely no one who watches this amazing clip.

You’ll note the distinctive lack of skeptical follow-up when she presents the “Satan Lives” toast to the camera. I guess what happens afterwards vindicates that approach.

It’s only a minute long, just play it…

‘A SHORT VISION’: THE GORY ANTI-NUCLEAR CARTOON THAT TRAUMATIZED AN ENTIRE GENERATION

from: Dangerous Minds

A Short Vision is one of the most influential pieces of animation ever created; it is also one of the most disturbing and controversial. In 1952, the very first successful hydrogen bomb was detonated, and it was over 450 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Horrified at such potential for destruction, Hungarian-British animator Peter Foldes and his wife, Joan, began working on a short cartoon in their kitchen, and in 1956 A Short Vision was aired on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan attempted to prepare his audience for the horror of the film, but his introduction stopped short of warning viewers they were about to watch an interpretation of the nuclear holocaust, complete with bloody, melting faces:

“Just last week you read about the H-bomb being dropped. Now two great English writers, two very imaginative writers—I’m gonna tell you if you have youngsters in the living room tell them not to be alarmed at this ‘cause it’s a fantasy, the whole thing is animated—but two English writers, Joan and Peter Foldes, wrote a thing which they called A Short Vision in which they wondered what might happen to the animal population of the world if an H-bomb were dropped. It’s produced by George K. Arthur and I’d like you to see it. It is grim, but I think we can all stand it to realize that in war there is no winner.

While the short received a lot of praise from audiences and critics, many were angry and disturbed by such graphic depictions of the apocalypse. To be fair, most viewers were probably expecting something more along the lines of Julie Andrews, or at leastSeñor Wences. Undeterred by the backlash, Foldes continued producing groundbreaking, socially conscious animation throughout his career, including the first computer-animated film to be nominated for an Academy Award, La Faim in 1974. The short is a violent tale of inequality in which a gluttonous man is eventually devoured by the starving masses—you know, for kids!