An Interesting Find...

Well folks, the latest development to hit chez Parvez is that our little peanut's now "got his ears on."

In preparation for this event, Tahera and I have been brainstorming over what the very first song Peanut hears should be. We came up with a bunch of great ideas, and finally decided on Heartbeats as done by Jose Gonzalez. I first heard this song through this fantastic Sony ad.




Details about how the ad was made, as well as a high-res quicktime version can be found on the Bravia advert site here. The ad was directed by Danish photographer Nicolai Fuglsig. The filming was done in San Francisco using 250,000 superballs and high speed cameras. I think it's awesome to see something done "for real," rather than using a bunch of computer generated images to create the effect. The motion is fluid, sometimes random, and breathtaking.

As for the music, it fits the flow of the video perfectly; warm, simple, and beautiful.

Jose Gonzalez is a Swedish born indie/folk musician. Heartbeats is a track from his 2003 album Veneer. The rest of the album tends to run in a similar vein and all-in-all is quite good.

Now here's where things get really interesting. Tahera, being the dilligent one did a bit of background research on the song and made a very cool discovery. Heartbeats was actually written by a Swedish duo called The Knife. They have their own video directed by Swedish Trio Andreas Nilsson, Johannesen Nyholm, and Bo Melin. Theirs (apart from being awesome in its own right,) lends some insight into the Fuglsig's vision for the Bravia ad. What's more, it's a terrific throwback to early CGI.



I really enjoy the contrast between these two pairs.

One is very organic. It uses almost no computer effects (either song or video) to make its impact. The other is entirely electronic. It's a deliberately rough-edged sort of animation that celebrates CGI's beginnings.

I go back and forth over which one I like better. I hope you enjoy both.