Second To None is a new short film by Irish writer/director Vincent Gallagher that I can best describe as "What if the first 20 minutes of UP was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino?" Here's the official synopsis:

Frederick Butterfield has always been runner up to his twin brother Herman. When Herman, the older by a mere minute, becomes the world’s oldest man, Frederick finally sees an opportunity to be first place.

Frederick will stop at nothing to claim the top spot in the most inventive way possible.

It's a delightfully bleak dark comedy. I found myself actually laughing out loud numerous times as the children's book-like characters moved silently from adorable ultraviolence to adorable ultraviolence, while still being delightfully crotchety old man. On a technical level, the intricate stop-motion work is truly impressive as well; it took them six months just to make a 7 minute short film.

If you're still not convinced to spare those seven minutes of your time, Second To None has already garnered a ton of awards, including "Best Animation" at the Irish Film and Television Awards, as well as recognition at the Austin Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, and even Whoopi Goldberg’s specially curated animated shorts program at Tribeca. It's currently a Staff Pick at Vimeo as well.

Second To None [Written and directed by Vincent Gallagher; animated by jason Watts; character design and fabrication by Pierre Butler; sets by Aoife Noonan of Bowsie Workshop]

Image: Vimeo screenshot Read the rest

This is exactly how I've felt while cooped in my house these last few weeks and yes I mean "exactly."

The 2-minute film was created by AJ Jeffries, a 3D illustrator and animator based in Norwich in the UK. The only description or explanation given for it is this: "A horse struggles to exist." That feels like it's vague or underselling, after watching this mesmerizing cartoon several times over, I think it's actually perfect.

Horse [AJ Jeffries / Vimeo] Read the rest

Unicorn Riot is a media collective that formed in response to the lack of media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tar Sands Blockade; their news comes direct from the front lines of some of the most significant and under-reported conflicts in the world, in the form of unedited livestreams from the conflict zone, and edited highlight reels after the fact. Read the rest

Rick Prelinger writes, "Today I've released my 2013 feature film NO MORE ROAD TRIPS? to the world for viewing, public screening and remixing." Read the rest

Tim Powers' outstanding fantasy novel The Anubis Gates has been adapted for the stage and it will premiere at Loncon 3, this summer's World Science Fiction Convention. I've been excited as hell about having a Worldcon in town, but this is some awfully nice icing on the cake!

The Anubis Gates

(via IO9) Read the rest

Den Lennie posted a video to Vimeo that compared the Rotolight Anova to a competing product, the Kino Flo Celeb, and found the Rotolight product inferior. Rotolight responded by filing a perjurious, fraudulent DMCA takedown notice with Vimeo (who, to its shame, honored it), claiming that the review violated Rotolight's trademark. This is pure copyfraud: first, because the DMCA is only available as a remedy for copyright infringement (not trademark infringement) and second, because product reviews are not trademark infringements, full stop.

Using a Copyright Infringement claim to shut down the opposition

(Thanks, Dave!) Read the rest

Katie Metcalfe from the video publishing/sharing community at Vimeo says,

I'm reaching out from Vimeo where we are currently working on the Vimeo Festival + Awards, which is happening in June in New York. The festival is a series of workshops, panels, conversations, screenings and parties to celebrate the dynamic and exciting work that is being created by filmmakers, and also to educate and inspire beginners to get out and make incredible films. Categories include Motion Graphics, Captured, Lyrical, Narrative and many more.

We are under a week away from closing our submissions (deadline is 20th Feb) so shouting out to ensure filmmakers are aware of the awards. All the information we've released so far is up at at www.vimeo.com/awards and you can follow our news via Twitter @Vimeo and @VimeoFestAwards.

We recently announced new judges which include James Franco, Nick Knight and Colin Greenwood (Radiohead bassist) with more to come, so it's worth keeping an eye on that too!

There's a $25,000 grand prize, and $5,000 category prizes. Read the rest

Brandon sez, "Earlier this year a friend and I produced a self-financed music video for a song we loved, with permission from the band. After several months work, we posted the video online, where it drew viewers for a week before we unexpectedly received a takedown notice from the band, who were reconsidering the rights usage for that song. Not wanting all of our work to vanish, we decided to turn this setback into a creative opportunity, and created They Call Us /Animals/. We've made the edited visuals of the film, without music, available for download, under Creative Commons license, for musicians, sound designers, and remixers to re-cut, use and share, in the hopes that these collaborations could produce even better works than our original video. I've also made an explanatory video for the project, with music courtesy of NIN's Creative Commons album Ghosts I-IV."

THEY CALL US ANIMALS . COM

(Thanks, Brandon!) Read the rest