First off, this has absolutely nothing to do with advertising. I recently came across an interview with filmmaker Dustin Lynn on an arts and cuture blog (coolhunting.com), and because his visual style is so distinctive and such a counterpoint to most film and video work being done today, I thought it deserves to be shared. Lynn mostly makes short documentaries and has served as art director and creative director on several surf movies, usually working with Jack Johnson and the Malloy brothers as part of the Moonshine Conspiracy. His style and subject matter resonates even if you’ve never dipped a toe in the ocean. The surf films he’s worked on, including “The Halfway Tree,” “Shelter” and “Thicker Than Water,” aren’t even on the same family tree as the ADD influenced X-Games “extreme” sports videos most of us are familiar with. Mostly shot on 16 mm in natural light with detached off-camera voice overs and incredibly atmospheric soundtracks, they are reflective and give the viewer a feeling of watching a particularly well-shot home movie. His first film, “Tranquil Music,” was a documentary about his DJ brother in the days leading up to 9/11, and was the first ever film to be shown at Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Film Festival. You can see a lot on his website Blachrome.com (see link below) but if you haven’t seen either “Shelter” or “Thicker Than Water” pick them up from Netflix and enjoy.

www.blachrome.com/

www.coolhunting.com/archives/2007/05/dustin_lynn.php

2007

MP3: Angel in the Snow

Download a PDF here.
Read a tutorial here.

Nigel Holmes is one of the coolest people on the planet that you’ve never heard of. A former art director at Time Magazine, Holmes is a pioneer in the field of information (or explanation) graphics. In short, he distills extremely complex information and ideas into simple, interesting, and very well-designed charts, maps, and diagrams. He is expert at explaining how things work and showing the scale of things that would normally be impossible to comprehend (i.e. the size of the national debt, how steep the moutainous sections of the Tour de France are,
etc.). He is also very funny and you’ll always find a touch of humor in his work. So please spend some time with his website (if you use Power Point with any regularity you will want to have a look at his article on how to make a better presentation) and read this interview from Creative Refuge. If anything you’ll learn why people or snore and how to make the perfect Whiskey Sour.

“http://www.creativerefuge.com/pages/spotlight5.htm”>

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