The Methuselah Generation is a new documentary by David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg. It is a very impressive subject to capture: The science of living forever. The moment you say “forever” naysayers jump out of the woodwork. So, let’s just pretend the forever part is a long way away, but living much longer in a much healthier state is relatively close, like 2045 (the date Ray Kurzweil anticipates for the Singularity). The documentary will talk about implications of this change and the change itself in terms of science, family, faith etcetera.
One of the Filmmakers, David Alvarado, I have know very well from our time at the University of North Texas in the film program. He recently flew into Hong Kong from New York to film Aubrey de Grey, who was a keynote speaker at TEDx Hong Kong as well as Hong Kong’s first Humanity+ conference. For the filming, I did location scouting and helped ensure the shoot and other logistics went smoothly. Impressively, about $40,000usd has been raised for the film. Well, that’s impressive for fundraising for regular sorts of things but for an independent documentary film it’s just over half way there. They’re also doing a campaign on Kickstarter, where they’re already over 100 donations and $18,000usd. Check out their campaign here and donate. The last project I blogged about, Hildegunn Gjedrem’s new album, was fully funded on kickstarter!
From the film Another Earth, here is the beautiful story of the Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin – the first human in space. It’s embellished greatly, but still amazing. See video below, and the cosmonaut’s portrait. Read more about Yuri Gagarin here.
I had breakfast this morning in Yau Ma Tei with HK Honey’s creator Michael Leung (he’s my neighbor). We were chatting about creation and use of sound by bees, but digressed into two newish long-form music videos. The first was a comedic one by the Beastie Boys, and the second one by Kanye West is below along with stills from the video highlighting some of the moments I felt were best captured by the cinematographer Kyle Kibbe. Amazing music, though some funny lyrical clashes with the high concept art direction and photography.
Sarah Renfro has new undies a new song called “Save Me” that she’s debuting online via Me In My Place, a site featuring “Real girls in their own place. Not too crazy and just a pinch of naughty.” It’s quite PG, really, but a very sexy look at real women chillin’ at home. Something cool about Sarah’s music is she could be wearing a Parka + Galoshes or be completely bare and the music would have the same effect. Expect more fun Renfro-vocalizations at the second half of the tune. There’s always a surprise or two about which way the melody is going.
Hello, Future is a music video challenge through the band Moby and agency Saatchi & Saatchi challenge now at the stage of having selected its finalists. These are my favorite three videos:
Here’s a black & white music video by Spoek Mathambo, directed and shot by Pieter Hugo and Michael Cleary. I can’t exactly say I like this music video, I just can’t seem to get some of the images out of my head and there’s high production value, which is very cool.
Control is a cover of Joy Division’s “She’s lost Control.” Shot in Cape Town, South Africa.
The video game sensation of the 90s is back in episodic shorts on youtube. Mortal Kombat Legacy reveals the stories of the individual characters who fight each other for reign over parallel universes, including earth and other kingdoms. My favorite part other than the actual videos are the descriptions:
“This video will show you…
How to perform a lobotomy
How to use a tazer
How to be committed to a mental asylum
How to escape a mental asylum
How to play Mortal Kombat”
fun!
Check this out: “World champion freediver Guillaume Nery special dive at Dean’s Blue Hole, the deepest blue hole in the world filmed entirely on breath hold by the french champion Julie Gautier.” More Guillaume’s channel here:
CANADA [not the country] is a production company based in Spain. I’ve been trying to come up with an adequate genre name for their music videos. So far it’s bizarre semi-erotic European hipster. What’s your take? Gotta love the director of photography Marc Gómez del Moral.
Here’s my own attempt at the bizarre hipster vintage vibe. My art direction, photography by Oscar Azahar:
