Man Made DIY

Recently, filmmaker Brent Hoff and The Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging hosted the 1st Annual Love Competition. Contestants from ages 10 to 75 were invited to spend "five minutes in an fMRI machine, thinking deeply about love and allowing the imaging technology to measure activity in their dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin/vasopressin pathways. 

If you think this sounds unromantic, you’ll want to reserve judgment."

Click play to watch is (not really) surprisingly… read more

Are you a fan of the musician Josh Ritter? Because, I'd wager that after seeing the music video for his song Love is Making Its Way Back Home you will be...

The stop-motion animation uses photographs from over 12,000 pieces of construction paper used to animate a surreal… read more

I haven't tried this out for myself, but the video alone is worth a watch. It's a pretty simple deal, actually, but it seems to make sense. Get quality, generic-branded razors in the mail every month with a low subscription fee. At $9 a month for the fanciest blade, it's still cheaper than buying a pack at the store.

A bunch of brave souls went to Corona Arch in Moab, Utah and rigged up, presumably, the world's largest rope swing. The rope was anchored to the rock in five different places using some seriously heavy duty gear. The swing itself is 150 ft, and the intial free fall 130 ft. And the best part: they captured everything with stunning quality in this beautiful video.

Click play to watch this amazing footage, and then be sure to check out the equally interesting making… read more

Creative director Nessim Higson and animator/editor Joe Fleming have created Him Her, a delightful short filmabout the importance of communication in relationships.

The pair use simple kinetic typography and a sparse set of… read more

I live in a multi-unit urban building, and so share a small yard with three other folks/couples. We have a sidewalk on our street, and a little drive, plus a walkway that unites all of our doors. All concrete, and usually all shoveled when it's snowy out. (By me. You're welcome, guy on the end).

And yet, it never fails. One of my neighbors will walk through the yard when it's snowy out. I have no idea why. One, it gets your shoes unnecessarily wet. Two, it's safer and only takes ten extra seconds to walk on the sidewalk THAT I JUST SHOVELED FOR YOU. But, three, and most… read more

I am completely and utterly obsessed with this video. It's actually an advertisement for the Sony Bravia TV from 2005 [Edit: I had originally said this was from 2010, but was kindly corrected by a number of astute readers], however I never saw it, so it's new to me (and hopefully some of you). 

Here's the premise: 170,00 bouncy balls are bounced down a hill in San Francisco, creating a cascade of colorful chaos. It's truly a beautiful site to behold (slow motion helps). And for all you skeptics out there that are thinking it's just CGI: take a look at the video at the end of this post that shows how this super ball stunt… read more

OK, this is just plain awesome. Fashion photographer and filmmaker Jacob Sutton shot this eerie video of a snowboarder in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France in the dead of night. But the snowboarder was wearing a specialized suit that was completely covered in LED lights.

The illuminated "waves" of snow carved by the snowboard are so surreal. This counter-intuitive way of lighting a scene (or rather lighting the subject and not the scene) is really incredible.

Click play to watch… read more

These days, with the large storage spaces, cloud syncing, and incredible quality of smartphone cameras, there's every reason to use your phone to capture ideas and memories. And if you're anything like me, that means all the tasty food your making at home, creating with friends, or finding when you're out on the town.

Chicago-based food photographer Stephen Hamilton offers some great video tips for getting the best images possible with your smart phone, and making sure they look great, and become as blog/Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/Pinterest/Instagram worthy as… read more

If you go to any high-end kitchen shop and general goods discount store, you'll find any number of dedicated popcorn popping devices. Handle-cranked special pans, air poppers, campfire shakers, motorized stirrers, microwave options, and even tiny versions of carnival/movie theater style hopper poppers. (Isn't that fun to say?)

Turns out, their all unnecessary, and a waste of money and storage space. Cause the best way to pop corn at home, avoiding burning and popping every kernel, is likely already in your… read more

It's not that often that I'm wowed by a TV commercial, but today I am. This ad for Lurpak, a Danish brand of butter (margarine?), is really great. The narrator's voice is a little strange, but I guarantee after watching this you'll be singing "Chop chop chop… read more

You sit down. Read a magazine. Have some tea. Chat up that cute bookseller with the glasses.

And then, you go home, and the bookstore closes, and that, my friends, is when the real fun begins.

Watch the video below to see what really happens. (Trust me, you'll… read more

I'm not a big zombie movie person. I like Night of the Living Dead, and that's about it. So I was surprised when I found myself really liking walking dead, a lot. One thing that hooked me was how well they pulled off shots of a post zombie-pocalypse Atlanta.

This is the demo reel from Stargate Studios, the company behind The Walking Dead effects, highlighting how they composite in graphics and animation to make The Walking Dead look so good. It's awesome, and it gives a good sense of how much time goes into making those shots.

The video is a little long, but try and stick with it at least to 1:28, when they show how they did… read more

The world has Peanuts, the Muppets, and any number of 3D computer-animated movie characters, but those of us who were kids in the late 80s and 90s, we have Calvin & Hobbes.

Fans and filmmakers Jim Frommeyer and Teague Chrystie created this stop-motion tribute to Bill Watterson's amazing contribution to pop culture and art, recreating 3D models of some of the strip's most notable recurring themes - Calvin's joyfully demented snow creations.

Click play to watch this… read more