Five Great Movie Opening Credits

Below is a re-post of a guest column I did a while back for Fletch at Blog Cabins:

Upon receiving the assignment of guest blogger, I was a bit overwhelmed. I’m not a movie blogger, nor nearly the film geek that Fletch is. Then I remembered, write about what you know. So the topic of today’s rant is about good … no … make that great design in opening movie credits. These are the (mostly) unsung graphic heroes who create the coolest movie credits, but are lucky to have their name listed in them, really tiny, at the end.

5. Casino Royale
by Pauline Hume

Fractal geometric patterns of flowing playing cards, lyrics sung by Chris Cornell is a nice bonus too.

4.5. Fight Club
by Custom Film Effects

These folks also did the fantastic effects for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Watch Fight Club : opening title sequence in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com


Bonus video: typography!

4.25. One Hour Photo

by Imaginary Forces

A beautifully delicate treatment of flash bulbs and film — stark and antiseptic, just like the movie. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be video available for this one on the interwebs, so the poster will have to suffice.

4. Se7en
by Kyle Cooper

A scratchy, twisted glimpse into the mind of a serial killer.

3. Around the World in 80 Days

by Saul Bass

Simplicity at it’s best. Considered a master title designer, Saul Bass is one of few truly famous designers in this genre.

http://www.notcoming.com/saulbass/caps_around80days.php

2. Thank You for Smoking
by Shadow Play Studio

The credits are set up like old-style cigarette packs, complete with the little tax stamps. Very cool. Great music too.

1. Catch Me if You Can
by Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Deygas

Nexus Productions must have cloned a modern-day Saul Bass.

It might be time to add a few more movies to your NetFlix queue.

Open Records Request Reveals a Shocking $2 Million Price Tag for State of Wisconsin Web Site

There's some interesting news coming out of Wisconsin about state government contracts. It appears some web peeps were charging a bit more than usual for their services. To the tune of about $2 million dollars.

The state of Wisconsin didn't seem to bat an eye at the price tag, and for that kind of money it could at least have been a well-designed site, but no. They didn't even choose a company from their own state ... it seems they'd rather spend their money in Connecticut.

The author, Dan Cody of "Left on the Lake", was nice enough to allow us to reprint a portion of his article:

February 3rd, 2009 by Dan Cody

In late December of 2008, the Journal Sentinel carried a somewhat frivolous story about the new Campaign Finance Information System (CFIS) web site developed for the Government Accountability Board (GAB) which had a picture of the Minneapolis skyline instead of the Madison skyline on it’s front page. It was a somewhat embarrassing snafu by caught by State Senator Jeff Plale of Milwaukee, summarily mocked, and everyone moved on.

However, after reading in the story that the CFIS web site had cost Wisconsin residents “nearly a million dollars” to build, I decided to dig a big deeper and found out that the company who ended up getting the CFIS contract, PCC Technology Group, resided in Connecticut. As someone who works in the tech industry and has several close friends and many acquaintances in the web development industry, I expressed concern that 1.) such a large amount of money was spent on a web site with what appeared to be very limited functionality and 2.) that a firm outside of Wisconsin had been chosen to do the work, despite a large number of qualified local firms.

So in early January I filed an open records request with the GAB to find out the details of the Request for Proposals (RFP) the GAB put out and just how they came to chose the eventual winner of the contact for the CFIS, PCC Technology Group of Connecticut. In late January I received a response to my open records request from the GAB and was surprised to find that the total cost of the CFIS web site - again, a site that myself and other industry experts have pointed out is limited in functionality and complexity - wasn’t $1 million as originally reported in the original Journal Sentinel article, but double that!

A $2 million price tag for the web site that first gained attention because it had a picture of the wrong city’s skyline.

To say $2 million is a ridiculous price for a web site that has less functionality than my weblog is an understatement. After spending a considerable amount of time going over the documents I got from the GAB in response to my open records request, it became clear to me that PCC Technology Group was, to put it mildly, fleecing the people of Wisconsin.

Read the full article here >>

Word of the Day, "Volvelle"

After searching Google high and low for "circle chart" and "wheel chart", we finally found the proper term for the little bugger... "volvelle".

Some of the more standard examples are those less-than-thrilling engineering dials that are full of numbers and formulas. But we also found some absolutely beautiful examples dating back to the 1300's. Some other great images and historical info can be found on the Eclectica blog.

A volvelle template is pretty tough to set up. You've gotta be sure it all lines up right when you spin the little dial, or everything can get messy real quick. Can you imagine what people had to go through to make a detailed astrological dial before the days of computers? Makes me love my Mac even more.

Thanks to Google and all the information on the interwebs, our volvelle is now spinning happily.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

It's Official, We're "Good People"

They've checked us out, and we're squeaky clean. RIPE Creative is now accredited by the Better Business Bureau! In a nutshell, this means the BBB has determined we meet their principles of creating and maintaining trust in business.

Until we looked into it, we didn't even know that they also offer a lot of great resources for small businesses, including:
• Tips on protecting your customer's personal information
• Business tax resources
• Weekly newsletter with info to help small businesses build trust with their clients

• Plus, lots of great programs and events

Membership also gives added peace of mind to existing and potential clients that they're working with a reputable company.

If you'd like to learn more about the Arizona chapter, check out the Better Business Bureau of Central, Northern & Western Arizona.

Hardees Ad -vs- Franchisee

Looks like Hardees is also trying the humor route with a commercial for their new "biscuit holes", and one of their franchisees isn't too happy about it.



What's your take? Personally, I don't think it's in the same league as the offensive BK ads (see the BK post below). The humor is a little rough around the edges, but I think it's pretty funny for what it is. Also, the spots only air after 9pm, so the kiddies aren't getting much of a chance to see it.

The Hardees campaign also includes an online presence at NameOurHoles.com. You can find out which kind of hole people really do prefer.

Is Burger King pissing people off ... on purpose?

It looks like the people at Ad Age are on to something... a conspiracy of sorts. It seems Burger King might just be happy about all the negative PR they've been getting from some of their recent ad campaigns.

Why should we think they're OK with it? Because they keep doing it.



First they pissed off Mexicans, then got a little too sexy with their new "7-incher" ad in Singapore, and now have moved on to disrespect the Hindu religion. Their latest ad shows a Hindu goddess sitting on a ham sandwich with a caption that reads "a snack that is sacred".


Check out the full article: Burger King's MO: Offend, Earn Media, Apologize, Repeat (and some really good feedback comments) on Advertising Age's Global News.

The new iPhones are here, maybe.

Rumor has it a new iPhone will be announced at today's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

• Will we finally be able to copy/paste?
• Will Flash finally work?
• Maybe a better camera?
• The plot thickens...

For more info, check out CNN's article.