virtualDavis

Powerful, poignant and totally innovative storytelling! And a bit of a tear-jerker (of the happy variety) too… Long live the flashmob! Echoes of Improv Everywhere, don’t you think? Tell me you didn’t find yourself longing for this emotional welcome the next time you land at an airport?!?! Kudos to T-Mobile for super innovative storytelling.

Aside from the emotionally charged experience and story, the underlying idea that life is for sharing is compelling, timely and powerful. We live in the digital age when it is easier than ever before to share an event like this “spontaneous” welcome home concert in Heathrow airport. Indeed the video cuts repeatedly to travelers recording the event on their mobiles. Photos, videos, phone calls… this is the age of immediate, virtually universal sharing. And the powerful message underlying this advertisement for T-Mobile is that connecting with others to share beauty, to share happiness is magical and humanizing. It’s a universal desire. Too often we all fall into ruts of isolation passing through each others’ lives like ghosts, like passengers in an airport. But moments when our isolated, insulated bubbles pop and we are connected, even temporarily to others is what makes life worth living. We are inherently social creatures, but we’ve been socialized to wear blinders, to limit connection with those around us. Storytelling — and, in this case, T-Mobiles communication tools and network — bridge the divide between us. Okay, time to lay off! I’ve become gushy and repetitive. (The sign of an effective advertisement!)

Jeff Scher’s Memento Mickey (video via NYTimes.com)

“Memento Mickey” is a Halloween memento mori. Latin for “remember you will die,” it is also a genre of art that uses death to remind the viewer that life is indeed fleeting. This is not necessarily morbid or macabre, but life-affirming in that it also reminds us that we’re not dead yet. There’s still time. So make it count. (NYTimes.com)

This mesmorizing video, painting and soundtrack deliver an invitation to reflect on our mortality about as subtle as getting hit by a commuter train. Repeatedly. In slow motion. And I love it! Go figure…

Jeff Scher is a painter and experimental filmmaker with a philosophical bent and a gift for blending media. Enjoy the video.

Check out the Movellas backstory! (via youtube.com)

Have you heard about Movellas? New to me, a curiosity fished out of my Twitter stream… But intriguing. Attractive video. Simple, straightforward site. Unfortunately this Danish startup seems to attracting primarily (almost exclusively?) non-English language storytellers. So, I’m not able to vouch for the quality of the “mobile novel” ostensibly born of at Movellas. I searched for a language filter to sort out novels I could read. Doesn’t seem possible at this time. I’ll check back…

Although the visual effect is clever (and ultimately compelling) it tires the eyes and pushes the concept too far. That said, Stephen Fry’s reflection on the increasingly overlooked wonders of language (as well as the tendency for critics to harp on language fouls and blunders rather than celebrating the extraordinary richness of words) is delightful. A welcome tune for many wordsmiths, and a reminder that we should emphasize the power and beauty of language rather than beating up the language manglers. I remember my mother telling me as a boy, “You’ll get more flies with honey.” Right?

Trailer for The Double Life of Veronique (video via youtube.com)

This is an exceptionally poor trailer for a remarkably good film, Krzystof Kieślowski‘s The Double Life of Veronique (La double vie de Véronique). I watched it for the second time a few nights ago and was dazzled all over again. Irène Jacob, who also stars in Kieślowski’s Red (Three Colors Trilogy), plays both leads, Weronika, a spritual and somewhat mysterious Polish soprano, and her doppelgänger, Veronique, an often melancholic French music instructor. Both women are intuitive and inexorably fueled by conviction and curiosity. Despite intriguing bookends to the film in which Weronika and Veronique overlap obliquely for a few seconds, their lives echo — almost rhyme — without knowing one another. The audience is left to decipher the uncanny link between them.

Cover of The Double Life of Veronique

Despite Kieślowski’s death in 1996, his films continue to provide essential oases in the Hollywood-saturated film industry. He ignores dramatic cliches and conventions in favor of a more stripped-down, more honest storytelling. As drawn to character as to plot (if not more so) Kieślowski invites us to wonder and question and yearn. The Double Life of Veroniqueis filled with this yearning. What am I talking about? In Annette Insdorf’s film commentary packaged with the Criterion Collection DVD of the film, she describes “rich characters moving through landscapes and situations that force them to grapple with something beyond their immediate circumstances…” Insdorf, a professor in the Graduate Film Program of Columbia University’s School of the Arts and author of the Kieślowski biography Double Lives, Second Chances returns to this idea in an interview with the Columbia University Record:

“you’re made aware that there is something more at work than what the eye can see. At the risk of sounding fuzzy, I’ll suggest that there is a spiritual dimension embedded in his sensual textures… There’s a kind of yearning nostalgia for a world beyond the reach of the characters.”

Kieślowski’s unique screenwriting, directing and editing are complemented in The Double Life of Veronique by Zbigniew Preisner‘s mesmerizing operatic composition. This ethereal, haunting score weaves Weronika and Veronique’s parallel stories — as well as several layers of storytelling (puppeteering, children’s fiction, adult fiction, musical performance) — into a hypnotic and haunting tapestry. A tapestry that can be taken down from the wall when the film ends and taken to a chair by the hearth, wrapped around you while you ponder what you’ve just experienced, while you hum and question in the afterglow. Unless, of course, you can’t resist the temptation to leave the tapestry on the wall to watch all over again. I did!

Related articles

• doppelgängers in the double life of véronique (cmlt280.wordpress.com)
• Krzysztof Kieslowski – interview for Three Colours Blue (guardian.co.uk)
• the december project: the decalogue (saturdaynightscreening.wordpress.com)
• The White Stuff (slate.com)

Pour yourself a cup of tea and toss a few pop rocks down the hatch. Now lean back and enjoy this quirky visual tale about the power of stories. Dabbling in childish imagery but presented in a decidedly adult collage, this video ditty is an enjoyable reminder why storytelling is so compelling. Although I need a little help with “devine”…

“Happy Hour FAIL” video via youtube.com

If you’re tempted to dismiss the content of this digital story (DWI, designated drivers, etc.), think twice. You’ll be missing out on an innovative and pretty darn slick digital story. And the sobering tale of what happens after earning a DWI is also well worth the slightly over two minute digital pastiche. Check it out!

Clever, clever, clever! A slightly annoying yet surprisingly compelling digital story about Mark Zuckerberg (the face behind Facebook), his web progeny’s appetite and the dietary choices Zuckerberg makes for said progeny. I’ll leave the conclusions up to you, but take a moment to experience this digital storytelling gem.

Update:

Activist efforts to green social networking giant Facebook appear to be gaining traction. Corporations around the world are watching and learning from Facebook, not just how to grow a business in record time, but how to respond to global pressure from the very social network you’ve created. Tolerance and dialogue are key, but so is weighing and responding to the needs of your constituents. The following stories are a good barometric reading. What will tomorrow bring?

• Facebook Under Pressure to Be Greener “Facebook, the giant social networking site, is under fire from Greenpeace International, the environmental campaigner, over its construction of a data center in Prineville, Oregon, that will be powered by PacifiCorp, a company that gets 58 percent of its energy from burning coal…”
• Facebook Saves Face, Joins Verizon, Sony, Microsoft in Green Coalition “Facebook is the latest digital giant to join the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a nonprofit launched in 2008 that brings together leaders in the information technology industry to work on environmental and energy consumption issues. The social network joins Intel, Verizon, Sony, Cisco, AMD, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard in the campaign, which works on sustainable best practices for large technology companies…”
• Facebook Kicks Off A Weak Green Offensive “Facebook has been repeatedly called out for not doing enough to promote renewable energy for its new data center, so what is the massive social network doing with this public relations dilemma? Launching its own Facebook page and joining groups to demonstrate its green cred, of course…”
• Facebook friends the environment … or does it?“Facebook announced today it’s going green. The social networking giant unveiled “Green on Facebook,” [and] … joined the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign, a group that works on public policy and setting standards for energy efficiency. In a way, the move marks Facebook’s position as a top, global company — it’s certainly trendy, if not mandatory, for all large, big-name companies to sign onto green initiatives…”
• Facebook enlists in pro-green coalition “Facebook on Thursday unveiled “Green on Facebook,” a page dedicated to spreading environmental awareness and other “green” news, and in tandem announced its participation in the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a nonprofit coalition of large technology companies and trade groups designed to solving the problems of environmental degradation and energy consumption. It’s organized by the Information Technology Industry Council…”

Kurt Vonnegut on short story writing (video via youtube.com)

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Do you ever find yourself wishing you could shoot Ernest Hemingway a quick email to ask for a few tips? Or Jack London? Stephen King? Well, Kurt Vonnegut’s not such a bad fall back, so listen. Then re-listen. Then get to work!

I had the good fortune of spending several weeks in Costa Rica in February 2010. The first ten days on Peninsula Papagayo revolved around family time, catching up with my nephews and lots of windsurfing.

In the middle of week two my in-laws headed back home and my wife and I headed down to Tamarindo where we met up with friends who write, create beautiful art.. and surf! This goofy little vignette was my first dabble with iMovie. A bit of surfside fluff for your amusement.

Pura Vida!