Synapse

I LOVE the idea of using use-gen sites to run creative contests. Define the limits, and people come up with the most fascinating ways to interpret them.

This is an example of the latest Cannes initiative (they’ve run some very successful contests in the past).

The idea is that at midnight on May 15 all those interested received a brief for an ad for a charity (in this case Oxfam). Entrants had to conceive and shoot the ad in less than 48 hours, upload it to YouTube and submit it to the YouTube Cannes Young Lions 48 Hour Ad Contest.

The next step is to spread the word: Try to get as many people to view your ad, as often as possible in 14 days (the first phase of the contest wraps June 1).

The above is the ad Spencer Black, my dear friend (and talented Art Director for ad agency, zig) made. This blog post is one way entrants (and their supporters) can get the word out. While views play a major part in determining the winner, so does creativity. The winners get an all-expenses paid trip to Cannes, to represent YouTube in the Young Lions contest. This is where the second phase of the contest begins.

The two winners will be teamed up to rep Team YouTube and compete against 37 other teams from around the world in the Young Lions Film Competition.

Discovery’s run a similar competition for the Planet in Focus Film Festival last October, named Film Snacks. Our emphasis was on 2-minute environmental shorts.

We’ll likely be doing it again this year, and we have a more robust platform via our newest addition to the site, Planet You.

These and other contests are a fantastic way to tap into emerging talent.

With SprintCam V3 HD:

I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

The cam allows the user to capture from 500 to 1,000 frames per second and to replay them without delay.

This new technology has applications in live sports and other live TV productions, but also in the production of commercials, documentaries, and movies.

Makes me think of Discovery’s Time Warp.

It’s hard to follow the Boom De Ah Dah phenom, but this might do it.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory recently snapped the image of this unusual hand-shaped nebula.

The by-product of a star gone supernova, its energetic particles span 150 light-years.

This is big considering their source (a pulsar) spans a mere 19.3 km. The particles have had such wide reach because the pulsar spins incredibly fast: seven complete rotations every second.

The particles that form the fingers appear to be transferring energy to a nearby gas cloud (the part that glows orange and red on the image).

Dubbed B1509, the pulsar is believed to be 1,700 years old. It’s about 17,000 light-years from Earth.

This simple, elegant use of an informative online vid is what gets me excited about the web:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Another one of Jarvis’ projects:

OverPowered - Losing Control is an exercise in controlling power…strike too hard, and you bring the system down…

OverPowered - Losing Control from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&#038;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&#038;showPlaylist=true&#038;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage" rel="nofollow">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

Makes you forget about the economy…almost.

So I’m a bit late on this one (Daily Planet covered it a few days ago), but it’s so amazing, it’d be a travesty not to repost this vid…NatGeo did a great job with the explainer.

Out with the old, in with the new: DiscoveryChannel.ca/

The site launched a little over a week ago, and while there’s still some tweaks to be made, I can’t stop raving about how much I love it…MUCH easier to navigate (and populate), and easy on the eyes…

It also allows us to start afresh, in terms of content…

We have several great new additions (including the Daily Discovery, pictured bottom-centre), and The Daily Chase - a quick behind-the-scenes look at what’s coming up in the evening’s Daily Planet. Here, you’ll get to meet the team who stitch the show daily, +more.

Jeff Berman, one of the fantastic segment producers at Daily Planet, is working on a behind-the-scenes piece for this upcoming IMAX 3D feature, directed by Howard Hall.

I’ll be working on the web-side version, for our soon-to-be-relaunched site, www.DiscoveryChannel.ca.

Digging around on the doc site, I found this neat widget.

I spent a large part of my childhood by frolicking by the Mediterranean, and thus have an undying admiration for the Big Blue and its derivatives (another reason why it was an incredible privilege to chat with underwater explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau, earlier in 2008).

Looking forward to watching Under the Sea, and doing a review in the upcoming weeks.

Our site designer, Matt Carson, first brought this to my attention last week…Like the hordes of people who subsequently brought Bergman’s site down, I was in awe…One might wonder about the security implications of these types of shots.

You can view the image, and the specks on Gigapan.org. Here’s Bergman’s How-To. He used a version of the GigaPan to make it (forwarded to me by friend and photographer, Marcel Dee). Make sure to also check out Bergman’s portfolio..he’s portraits, etc. made me ooh and aah.

Lookout for Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson (who also happens to host Daily Planet on occasion; Go here to check out some pictures from his C130 Hercules with notes from Ed).