As a cautionary tale about the waxing and waining relevance of various online properties, remember that Kina Grannis was more or less launched on Digg:
The fact that they had to finish shooting the whole thing to have something worth showing makes this even more impressive. They couldn't just stop halfway through and say good enough.
For nearly two years they kept working on it and she couldn't really put on any weight, couldn't really age too much, etc. It really is dedication!
They do show her in front of a green screen in the behind the scenes video....so technically, they did use the tech, but not for the actual video, of course. But great effort.
The grammar nerd in me is also impressed how, for two years, no one managed to notice that the repeated phrase "we'll lay," although it rhymes in context, uses completely the wrong verb. (It should be "we'll lie.")
I noticed exactly the same thing. I've become increasingly alarmed at the decline of the lay/lie distinction in English, even in educated speech. In this case, though, I consoled myself that at least it created a rhyme. Contrast this to the chorus of "Truly Madly Deeply" by Australian pop-rock group Savage Garden:
I want to stand with you on a mountain.
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lay like this forever,
Until the sky falls down on me...
They missed an opportunity. Here the grammatically correct lie gives a lovely rhyme between the middles of lines 3 and 4:
I want to stand with you on a mountain.
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lie like this forever,
Until the sky falls down on me...
No MVP here - they went all the way the first time. Be sure to switch to 1080p and go full screen, it's breathtaking. But it makes me wonder, what is the ROI on this? Will they really make back the wages of 30 people for 22 months, and how long will it take?
Will they really make back the wages of 30 people for 22 months
The actual people moving the jelly beans into position were, according to the making-of video, unpaid. Music is like video games, movies, journalism, political campaigns, etc: grunt work gets done by an undercaste of young people "paying their dues" with the promise that they will be allowed to graduate to the interesting, high status stuff if they just stick with it a little while longer. (This is a lie.)
The ROI is creating something incredible that you can be proud of forever. This is art! I hope people will always have the courage to create amazing things without worrying about the financials.
That's not true, there were several versions to prove the concept. Before they went all out, they created a story board of each scene, then they animated it and then they went for it.
Producing art? Isn't that seen as a goal to aspire to? To create a society where nobody wants for anything, so that people are freed up to spend all of their time in the pursuit of art?
This is the plot line of several Star Trek episodes as well as many SciFi short stories/novels.
I think the beauty comes from the simplicity of it. To a casual viewer, it's just a cute music video. It's when you realize the amount of work and attention to detail that went into it, that you have the emotional reaction that says "wow, they really cared about this". It's the same reaction I have with many of Apple's products. They look simple from a distance, but when you zoom in, you see a team of 30 people hand placing jelly beans to make something beautiful.
If you consider that big budget music videos can have ~100 people working on it (casting, production crew and post crew) each putting in at least 12-16 hours, this falls right in line with the amount of people hours that's typical for a music label.
This is the type of thing that you wouldn't have done 10 years ago because noone would have found out about it.
Reminds me of the Amazing Honda Accord commercial - the Cog... Rube Goldberg machine all done without CGI (5 months of pre-work, then 605 takes until they got to one that didn't screw up somewhere)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo
They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be?
Making of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh4zWeUDW-E
Another good one that is similar in the sense that they went through a whole lot of trouble is the Sony Bravia commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NymcQJjPCs
They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be?
Stop motion animation is quite old (Wikipedia says 1897). I did an animation course in the nineties and mixing stop motion with "pure" animation was considered a shortcut used in long animation films (usually for TV children films which are long and have low budgets). Granted this is an extreme case where stop motion (the sequences with Kina) is a complement to the full animation in the background thus not a time saving mechanism. The effect is impressive due to the bright colours of the jelly beans and the attention to detail in her sequences.
This work is comparable with sand art and sand animation and anyone who liked this should search for the nearest animation festival and check it out. One of the best ones in Europe is in Annecy, France but there many all over the world (search for animation festival). Many people dismiss animation (it is for children...) but these festivals are an emotional rollercoaster of short films that bring you to tears and laughter in under two minutes at a time.
If you attend one of these you will also be able to compare traditional animation with CGI. Each can be amazing on its own and, in my opinion, are two different things.
All these are predated by the 1987 video "Der Lauf der Dinge" (The way things go) by Fischli and Weiss. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGhVsMmkAM . I think that also before youtube these type of things were done and people found out about it.
> This is the type of thing that you wouldn't have done 10 years ago because noone would have found out about it.
Stop motion videos and music has been done before. Probably the most well known is 1986's "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. Interestingly, it was filmed by the folks who would later bring us Wallace and Gromit.
See this post is a testament to Hacker News's decline.Not because I think that post doesnt have something interesting or intellectually arousing to say.It absolutely does.I create things too and I understand the importance of creation especially when it takes two years to make something.
The reason is because of how this post got on the front page of Hacker News.In normal circumstances I can bet that this post maybe would get like three votes in five hours.But in this case the poster is "swombat" who has a huge following on twitter and a lot of them are hnusers.I noticed an instant upsurge in votes after he posted this on his twitter page.
Another reason is because "swombat" himself is also one of the top Hacker News users and when people see his name there chances of upvoting increases significantly.This I think is actually fair and he probably deserves a little more attention than the average hnuser.But what I vehemently object to is the use of twitter to gain traction.
Here are some possible solutions that I can think of.
1) If a post gets a lot of traffic from twitter and other such social media websites ,it should work against it in the rank calculation algorithm.
2) Users be advised to not use their twitter or facebook following to gain traction on HackerNews.
I voted this up and I didn't even notice that swombat posted it. I voted for it because of the artistry, but also for the attitudes towards craft and long-term projects in the making-of feature.
>1) If a post gets a lot of traffic from twitter and other such social media websites ,it should work against it in the rank calculation algorithm.
If you could find a way to do this, I think it could make HN better in general. The problem is that it'd be a whack-a-mole situation. This is just how publicity works. If you know people, and you are trying to get the word out about something, you tell the people you know, and they help you out. This is what it means to have a network.
I mean, it's kindof interesting; I mean, I talk about the problems of "who you know rather than what you know" but you know what? when I go to look for a job, who do I ask? the people I know. And it usually nets me a pretty good job. When I want to hire people, where do I look? the people I know, and often it gets me good people.
But yeah; in other situations, that's called nepotism, and has some rather large perverse incentives. I mean, in my case, I wholly own my company, so if I want to hire my siblings, well, it's my money, right? And sometimes, I think it makes sense. I've been trying to outsource my bookkeeping type work for some time now. But the primary qualifications are trustworthiness and diligence, and, well, switching bookkeepers when you want to do as little of the bookkeeping work as I do is rather hard, so I'd also like someone who will stick around longer than most people stick with me. Certainly for the first, who can I trust more than my sister? and I know she's pretty diligent; we grew up together. Add to that, she has a degree in fine arts and few job prospects that can pay more than I can, so it's all around a win.
Technically, of course, this is time-lapse video, not stop-motion. Stop-motion slows things down (hence the name); time-lapse speeds them up, which is clearly what's happened here.
Terminological pickiness aside, this is very cool. I wasn't aware of Kina Grannis before, and probably would have stayed that way but for this video, so it seems to be accomplishing its purpose.
That's just wrong. Overcraking (running the film through the camera faster than normal) slows motion down. Undercranking speeds it up.
Stop-motion doesn't slow things down; it's a technique where you expose one frame of film, move something (usually a model) slightly, and expose the next frame.
Stop-motion animation examples include the original King Kong, Sinbad and all those other Ray Harryhausen films, the AT-ATs in Empire Strikes Back. (And there was also a technique called "Go motion" animation where the puppet was moved during the frame exposure, thus causing motion blur, and making for a much more realistic animation, which was used for the dragon in DragonSlayer and I think some of Return of the Jedi.)
If you want to get really pedantic, probably the best term for this jellybean video is "pixilation". I know we use that word differently nowadays, but before computer graphics were common, "pixilation" was the term for stop-motion animated real-world objects.
[+] [-] thom|14 years ago|reply
http://indigitalmarketing.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/digg-help...
[+] [-] xpose2000|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hmigneron|14 years ago|reply
For nearly two years they kept working on it and she couldn't really put on any weight, couldn't really age too much, etc. It really is dedication!
[+] [-] dasil003|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] invisiblefunnel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manojlds|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorrr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kpozin|14 years ago|reply
The grammar nerd in me is also impressed how, for two years, no one managed to notice that the repeated phrase "we'll lay," although it rhymes in context, uses completely the wrong verb. (It should be "we'll lie.")
[+] [-] mhartl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wlievens|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dholowiski|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|14 years ago|reply
The actual people moving the jelly beans into position were, according to the making-of video, unpaid. Music is like video games, movies, journalism, political campaigns, etc: grunt work gets done by an undercaste of young people "paying their dues" with the promise that they will be allowed to graduate to the interesting, high status stuff if they just stick with it a little while longer. (This is a lie.)
[+] [-] alexwolfe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daenz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelApproved|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juiceandjuice|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grusk|14 years ago|reply
Coldplay - Strawberry Swing (shot on sidewalk chalk)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9X5jMofEo
Maxmaber Orkestar - Malinkovec Valzer (500 People in 100 Seconds - stop-motion video is a movie within a movie)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqSZSO_sSE
Clarika - Bien Mérité (French stop-motion video with photographs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SF9pMjfrpI
[+] [-] Tloewald|14 years ago|reply
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-25142343/eurythmics_mission... ( doesn't play on is devices)
[+] [-] queensnake|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyre|14 years ago|reply
This is the plot line of several Star Trek episodes as well as many SciFi short stories/novels.
[+] [-] joshfraser|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelApproved|14 years ago|reply
If you consider that big budget music videos can have ~100 people working on it (casting, production crew and post crew) each putting in at least 12-16 hours, this falls right in line with the amount of people hours that's typical for a music label.
[+] [-] henryprecheur|14 years ago|reply
8 hours a day * 200 working days = 1600 hours
With 30 people working just a week (5 days), we're already at 1200 hours.
Maybe they got their hours wrong? Or it's not that impressive (I'm a grumpy old man).
[+] [-] jwcacces|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ralfd|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jquery|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antirez|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pitdesi|14 years ago|reply
Reminds me of the Amazing Honda Accord commercial - the Cog... Rube Goldberg machine all done without CGI (5 months of pre-work, then 605 takes until they got to one that didn't screw up somewhere) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be? Making of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh4zWeUDW-E
Another good one that is similar in the sense that they went through a whole lot of trouble is the Sony Bravia commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NymcQJjPCs They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be?
BTW, it seems Jelly Belly was in on the fun a little bit... http://www.jellybelly-uk.com/bean-world/page/?id=47 At the very least, I'd imagine that she didn't pay for the jelly beans
[+] [-] cfn|14 years ago|reply
This work is comparable with sand art and sand animation and anyone who liked this should search for the nearest animation festival and check it out. One of the best ones in Europe is in Annecy, France but there many all over the world (search for animation festival). Many people dismiss animation (it is for children...) but these festivals are an emotional rollercoaster of short films that bring you to tears and laughter in under two minutes at a time.
If you attend one of these you will also be able to compare traditional animation with CGI. Each can be amazing on its own and, in my opinion, are two different things.
[+] [-] route66|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] estel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zimahl|14 years ago|reply
Stop motion videos and music has been done before. Probably the most well known is 1986's "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. Interestingly, it was filmed by the folks who would later bring us Wallace and Gromit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqyc37aOqT0
[+] [-] elliottcarlson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derrybryson|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] georgieporgie|14 years ago|reply
Not to detract from it, but is the 1,357 hours combined man-hours, or start-to-finish hours?
[+] [-] suivix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freemarketteddy|14 years ago|reply
The reason is because of how this post got on the front page of Hacker News.In normal circumstances I can bet that this post maybe would get like three votes in five hours.But in this case the poster is "swombat" who has a huge following on twitter and a lot of them are hnusers.I noticed an instant upsurge in votes after he posted this on his twitter page.
Another reason is because "swombat" himself is also one of the top Hacker News users and when people see his name there chances of upvoting increases significantly.This I think is actually fair and he probably deserves a little more attention than the average hnuser.But what I vehemently object to is the use of twitter to gain traction.
Here are some possible solutions that I can think of.
1) If a post gets a lot of traffic from twitter and other such social media websites ,it should work against it in the rank calculation algorithm.
2) Users be advised to not use their twitter or facebook following to gain traction on HackerNews.
[+] [-] scott_s|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsc|14 years ago|reply
>1) If a post gets a lot of traffic from twitter and other such social media websites ,it should work against it in the rank calculation algorithm.
If you could find a way to do this, I think it could make HN better in general. The problem is that it'd be a whack-a-mole situation. This is just how publicity works. If you know people, and you are trying to get the word out about something, you tell the people you know, and they help you out. This is what it means to have a network.
I mean, it's kindof interesting; I mean, I talk about the problems of "who you know rather than what you know" but you know what? when I go to look for a job, who do I ask? the people I know. And it usually nets me a pretty good job. When I want to hire people, where do I look? the people I know, and often it gets me good people.
But yeah; in other situations, that's called nepotism, and has some rather large perverse incentives. I mean, in my case, I wholly own my company, so if I want to hire my siblings, well, it's my money, right? And sometimes, I think it makes sense. I've been trying to outsource my bookkeeping type work for some time now. But the primary qualifications are trustworthiness and diligence, and, well, switching bookkeepers when you want to do as little of the bookkeeping work as I do is rather hard, so I'd also like someone who will stick around longer than most people stick with me. Certainly for the first, who can I trust more than my sister? and I know she's pretty diligent; we grew up together. Add to that, she has a degree in fine arts and few job prospects that can pay more than I can, so it's all around a win.
[+] [-] freemarketteddy|14 years ago|reply
EDIT: Okay I get it.
From HN Guidelines
"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"
Sorry I was not aware of that.
[+] [-] jaequery|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jluan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ScottBurson|14 years ago|reply
Terminological pickiness aside, this is very cool. I wasn't aware of Kina Grannis before, and probably would have stayed that way but for this video, so it seems to be accomplishing its purpose.
Edited to add: the song is pretty, too.
[+] [-] robterrell|14 years ago|reply
Stop-motion doesn't slow things down; it's a technique where you expose one frame of film, move something (usually a model) slightly, and expose the next frame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion
Stop-motion animation examples include the original King Kong, Sinbad and all those other Ray Harryhausen films, the AT-ATs in Empire Strikes Back. (And there was also a technique called "Go motion" animation where the puppet was moved during the frame exposure, thus causing motion blur, and making for a much more realistic animation, which was used for the dragon in DragonSlayer and I think some of Return of the Jedi.)
If you want to get really pedantic, probably the best term for this jellybean video is "pixilation". I know we use that word differently nowadays, but before computer graphics were common, "pixilation" was the term for stop-motion animated real-world objects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation
Thank you for letting my nearly pointless film degree not go entirely to waste.
[+] [-] sukuriant|14 years ago|reply
[They set up a scene, took a photo]*numFrames. This is stop motion photography as much "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is.
[+] [-] derrybryson|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]