A bloody good yarn

“It sits uncomfortably between exploitation gore and art-house films.” That’s filmmaker David Blyth’s verdict on his latest feature, Wound. Blyth reckons he has an American eye but a European soul, and it’s an aesthetic audiences seem to love. Despite incurring the wrath of a vocal chorus calling for Wound to be banned on account of its extreme violence, the film has been greeted enthusiastically at horror festivals around the globe. And as he tells Stephen Jewell, it’s a refreshing break after 30 years spent in the sweatshop of Tinseltown.

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Toward a better future

Cantabs will get a chance to speak up about the future design direction of their post-earthquake city through an exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery starting tomorrow. Architectural Ambassador Ian Athfield , who was appointed following the September quake, says it will inform professionals, councils and individuals, enabling them to reach the best conclusions for the community. Before After: Let’s Build a Better Canterbury focuses on environmental planning; urban design; heritage; residential options; and transport and infrastructure. Weekly panel discussions will also be held, in which public feedback will be sought.

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Battle it out for best of the Best

No joke: Entries for the 2011 Best Awards, also known as the Oscars of the design industry, will open for business on April 1. As always, Black, Gold and Purple Pins will be dished out to the very best in graphic, spatial, product and interactive design. Better brush off those portfolios. In the meantime, you can check out video interviews with last year’s winners over at Design Daily.

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The credit crisis, visualised

GFC. Three letters that rocked the world. Yet how many of us truly understand all of its causes and the nuances involved? Jonathan Jarvis, a design student in California, wanted to “give form to a complex situation like the credit crisis”, and delivered this video as part of his thesis.

Lawrence's legend

Actor Bruno Lawrence’s charisma was key to many defining NZ film, TV and music moments. Lawrence — aka ‘Bruno’ — is one of a handful (Buck, Billy T, Crumpy) of local icons who can lay claim to single-name fame (heck, word is Jack Nicholson himself had Bruno envy) and he would have turned 70 this year. To honour his birthday, this week NZ on Screen launched the Bruno Lawrence collection. It includes excerpts from the roles that made him a screen legend: race car driver Al Shaw (Smash Palace), man alone Zac Hobson (Quiet Earth), and shotgun-toting settler Williamson (Utu), to name a few.

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Gather round

Want to find out how to be in two places at once? Science hasn’t quite cracked that one yet, but you can certainly get pretty close with the help of technology, as you’ll hear at the first Design Assembly event for 2011. Along with discussion on the recent escalation of idea-sharing and working with wanderlust, you’ll find out just what went into creating the first Make Something group art show, held in November. And as goes without saying, plenty of time to mix and mingle with fellow designers. February 23 at Artspace on K’ Rd, Auckland from 6pm.

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High performance

These days making music doesn’t actually require you to play music yourself. Performer, a new iPad app, is certainly proof of that. In this case, you’ll need real musical instruments to hook up to your device, but from there, it’s up to you to manipulate graphics onscreen to control the sound. Zoom, turn, drag, distort and skew shapes across the screen and in no time at all you’ll be calling yourself a DJ.

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Slow and steady wins the race

For those with dreams of completing a marathon but no motivation to train for one, perhaps living vicariously is the solution. Japanese robot research and manufacturing firm Vstone is to put on the world’s first marathon for our mechanical offspring. The Robot Challenge will see bots racing around a 100m track for 422 laps; they’ll either be remotely controlled or operate autonomously by following a painted line. Perhaps it’s not as exciting as, say, robot roller derby or robot rugby might be, but as Aaron Saenz points out, reliabity should be our main concern if we hope to one day have robots do our mundane and dirty work.

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Making of a Moleskine

Ever wondered just what goes into the crafting of these iconic notebooks? Get a close-up look at the customisation process in this quick video.

Quote of the week

Hollywood is a sausage machine but after a while it all starts to taste like cardboard.

- David Blyth on the dark side of the big time