The Story Of Stuff

This is probably one of the best animated shorts I've seen in awhile to explain why modern consumerism is not sustainable. A very light-hearted approach to understanding why buying locally and making good decisions when buying products is needed. I've posted the first part here, but it's a 7 part series, and the author has dozens more similar videos.

They are supported by the Tides foundation and the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production & Consumption.

Note from Plisko:
I liked this so much that I went and made a playlist so that the whole series should now play as one video. Each segment is only about 2+ minutes, so it's around 15-20 minutes total runtime.

Short Film: iFilm - 405

405

Posted Jun 06, 2001

iFilm is the web video site that validated my interest in internet video waaay back in about 1999 or so. This is the place where my mind was first blown about the potential of this media on the internet. At the time it resembled a 24 hour online film festival where anybody could send in their work and get comments and ratings by thousands of people in the iFilm web audience. They would then rise or fall on the rating scale and the best performers would be on the front page. Sound familiar? It is today but back then it was like: "holy shit!" There was no uploading , you sent your DV master in directly. The idea was all in place though. These guys had the right ideas before Google was God and before YouTube was born.

The site is a lot more commercial than it was back then. It was bought by Viacom in 2005 which means they hawk all kinds of commercial stuff and the online film festival aspect has become much less significant in their business plan. They are much lower on my list of places to visit today but they are survivors from the era when everyone was failing at web video efforts because it was a little too early. YouTube came along about 5 years later I think. I am sad to see that they basically sold out to the dark side but they have historical significance and they are doing the YouTube approach now so I might still poke around from time to time.

This short home made action film, 405, is one of the first shorts I saw on iFilm, it is now a classic web video (circa 2000). The two guys that made it had experience in the special effect industry but they wanted to do an independent effort with minimal tools. It it ended up being one of two huge viral hits that put iFilm on the map in my opinion. It landed them a Creative Artists Agency contract and, for me, it was part of that "aha!" moment when I saw the potential of clever experienced people with the right tools and the right concept using the web to reach people. This is who many of us want to be today. This video has had a little more than 5 million views in the 7 years it's been available.

Food and Drink: Tiki Bar TV - Drink Bot

Tiki Bar TV is a mixed drink show that has a really high production value for a low tech production and they use very clever editing to effectively to cover for what looks like increasingly drunk actors. They perform a new skit every episode (while drinking) that takes place at their apartment sized tiki bar and revolves around a particular mixed drink that they will eventually tell you how to make yourself. There are 3 main characters: A cute girl, Lala a goofy bartender, Johnny Johnny and Doctor Tiki who eventually prescribes the drink to solve the problem of the day. These are supported by a huge cast of guest appearances by nobody anyone has ever heard of. . . but it all looks like a blast and God bless em for it!

I have always thought this podcast was an amazingly clever approach and it is a very popular iTunes subscription. I am subscribed to it myself because it is very inspiring to me as an example of a snappy delivery using the basic tools of editing, color manipulation and composition as the primary engine for it's motion. There are people with some skillz on this team.

This is one of their most famous episodes. Some might call it a mini epic.