Becoming Steve Jobs

Just started reading Becoming Steve Jobs this morning, and it's already showing insight and great writing. Loved these two quotes particularly, which I imagine set up the rest of the book.

His was a truly Shakespearean tale, full of arrogance, intrigue, and pride, of perceived villains and ham -handed fools, of outrageous luck ,good intentions, and unimagined consequences. 
We can learn as much, if not more, from failure, from promising paths that turn into dead ends. The vision, understanding, patience, and wisdom that informed Steve’s last decade were forged in the trials of these intervening years. The failures, stinging reversals, miscommunications, bad judgment calls, emphases on wrong values— the whole Pandora’s box of immaturity— were necessary prerequisites to the clarity , moderation, reflection, and steadiness he would display in later years.

Akira Kurosawa - Composing Movement

Wow. Another great video from Tony Zhou, this guy should start his own film school. I wish I had films like this when I was studying film. Boils everything down so simply and with perfect examples to illustrate his point. 

Really makes me want to watch some Kurosawa all over again. Vividly remember some big movement in Kagemusha, all that rage expressed in a sudden violent move. 

First and Final Frames

What a great idea, to compare the first and final frames of films. I love observations like this, really shows the beauty of these films and also highlights how much detail great directors go into with their work. 

This is so well put together and with some fantastic film choices by Jacob T. Swinney, who I linked to before with his film Evolution of Batman in Cinema, and is reflectingly scored with Thomas Newman's "Any Other Name" from American Beauty.

I picked out some of my favourite stills from the edit below.

Do something Millennial

Thought this pretty much summed up the whole conversation around using YouTube creators in branded content, whilst also summing up marketeers seeming obsession with speaking to millennials (who don't really buy much yet!).

Via Marketing Week (Paywall)

Podcasting

I've had the idea of starting a podcast for a while now, and love that I've been able to make a start with some friends at work. Speaking to the design team at Across the Pond, we often discuss things quite deeply, even just about one film we'd just seen. So it felt like a no brainer to start with a design focused podcast. We kicked off in February with our first podcast which covered Art of the Title's Top 10 Title sequences of 2014. Was a buzz to have Art of the Title and their editor tweet it and say some nice things about it.

Across the Pond Design Podcast #1

Across the Pond Design Podcast #1

This week we recorded our second one, this time about a personal film from Mike Brookes, our Head of Design at Across the Pond. It was really fun to hear why he made the film and what inspired him during in the process. 

Across the Pond Design Podcast #2

Across the Pond Design Podcast #2

I'm doing all the editing and the accompanying blog post, and it is weird to hear yourself at the best of times, but when you're fumbling over your words or trying to remember that interesting anecdote you heard/read/saw on a podcast/Twitter/YouTube, you can't help but kick yourself. I have made the error of doing the podcast with a Jackhammer, which is a delicious beer, but with a 7.2% alcohol volume it hits you like a proverbial Jackhammer in about 10 minutes, so it's no wonder I'm losing my thread. (Note to self, water during, beer after).

Anyway, looking forward to doing more and branching out to some other subjects in the future.