Our client Sungevity has recently released a brilliant website providing a solar iQuote for none other than the White House.
The site includes a Sungevity iQuote for the Obama family, as well as a timeline of solar panels at the White House, detailing Presidential solar history like the solar-free Reagan years and surprising solar investments by George W. Bush. Additionally, the site allows visitors to sign a petition asking the President to invest in solar energy for the White House for those who want to get involved.
Now, the question is, are the Obamas ready to go solar? There have been similar calls to action by sites like Renewable Energy World, urging readers to email the President to install solar panels on the White House. Additionally, Obama has been a vocal supporter of alternative energy sources, placing grants for solar investment in the Recovery Act.
Still, Obama has made no publicly announced plans to add a solar array to the White House. But that might all change, as Sungevity’s push puts their money where their mouth is, with the donation of a free Sungevity solar array for the White House to spur the President towards a solar-powered home. It’s a bold move from Sungevity, and a sizable incentive for President Obama to share the power of the sun.
The love for our new Tempo No Tempo video just keeps spreading. Like Parkay. Or a flesh-eating virus. The latest to share some of the love is Wired. More specifically, their blog the Underwire (don’t try to search for it on Twitter, you’ll only get tweets about bras). Here’s some of the awesomeness they’re unleashing upon their readers:
“A claustrophobic basement becomes a trippy house of mirrors in this slick new video from San Francisco indie-rock band Tempo No Tempo and French Press Films.
The beautifully shot video takes a simple idea and executes it well. On top of that, it really fits with the energy of the music.
San Francisco production house French Press Films ‘took our really vague ideas (performance-based, visual, psychedelic) and gave us the pitch for this M.C. Escher-like moving space,’ Tempo No Tempo singer Tyler McCauley told Wired.com in an e-mail. ‘Which turned out way crazier than we had expected. They managed to do all these crazy effects with camera angles and sets, which had us doing a few weird things as far as angles and moving around tight spaces, including shoving me around with a dolly and dropping me onto crash mats.’
Wait, you haven’t seen it yet? Good GOD, man! Watch it here:
Last week we began initial shooting for our work with Three Sticks Winery in Sonoma. Here are a few images from the shoot, documenting a short-order bottling process at Three Sticks, and an interview with one of its founders, Don Van Staaveren. It was pretty exciting to observe; it’s not often you see wine bottled by hand.
Hoo boy, we’ve got a lot going on, and we couldn’t be happier. We’re in the middle of shooting another video for our friends at Sungevity in Oakland, we’re knee-deep in pre-production plans for our client Three Sticks Wines, and our video for Tempo No Tempo is already grabbing attention from various blogs, among them LaughingSquid, Canon Filmmakers, PopMatters, and most recently, The Tripwire.
Tomorrow starts the San Francisco International Film Festival, kicking off with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Micmacs,” whose trailer has been on repeat here at French Press Films. “Micmacs” is Jeunet’s first film in five years, and carries on his eclectic style from “Amelie” and “City of Lost Children.”
Other festival highlights include interviews and awards for Robert Duvall, Brazilian director Walter Salles and animator Don Hertzfeldt, who will be showing a retrospective of his short films. Additionally, cash prizes are awarded for excellence in documentary features with the Golden Gate prize, including an award for the best Bay Area Documentary.
Perhaps the most exceptional event, however, is Roger Ebert making a public appearance for “An Evening With Roger Ebert And Friends,” where Ebert’s career will be celebrated alongside a showing of his film selection for this year’s festival. As recent press from Esquire and Oprah have shown, Ebert’s recent surgeries have left his face dramatically altered, and this is a rare public appearance from the film critic.
Not only are we excited to have an amazing film festival happening in the Bay Area, but any time we can post about how much we love Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Roger Ebert and Don Hertzfeldt is a exciting news for us.
Since we posted some vintage Spike Jonze over the weekend, it only feels appropriate to post his new video for LCD Soundsystem’s “Drunk Girls,” which dropped on the internet today.
The video has some serious charm, in the form of mildly frightening, cultish stagehands in ‘panduh’ masks. Interestingly enough, the video features the on-set audio for the duration of the video over the studio cut of the album, adding an odd karaoke feel to the video.
Ending our music video-themed week here at French Press Films is a post about the new video from SF’s Sandwitches, shot by the cinematographer on our recent Tempo No Tempo video, Jesse Dana.
The Sandwitches, who are fresh off a national tour and a successful run at SXSW, have been busy since they released debut record “How To Make Ambient Sadcake” last year. The video below is for their excellent jam “Kiss Your Feet,” directed by Joey Izzo.
Here it is! Shot in two action-packt days with a fantastic crew (among them our Director of Photography Jesse Dana, and our amazing Art Director/Set Builder Andrew Sellen) in locations in San Francisco and Oakland.
We wanted to play with live, in-camera transitions and effects around a performance-based video. This involved a painstaking amount of choreography, mapping and planning, and it couldn’t have been more worth it.
Directed by Andrew Juncker
Director of Photography: Jesse Dana
Art Director: Andrew Sellen
Assistant Director: Roman Honeycutt
Steadicam: Vincent Cortez
Gaffer: Keith Pikus
Grip: Juan Robles
Edited by Chris Walters & Andrew Juncker
there’s been a rash of this kind of movie lately– Tetris blocks falling from the sky, anyone?– but I haven’t seen it done quite like this. “Pixels”, by Paris director Patrick Jean, takes these ideas and melds them into an 8-bit apocalypse. And is it just me, or is there a lot of viral apocalyptic films out there right now? Buck up, you FX artists! Step away from the cold embrace of your computer screen, and embrace LIFE!
while we’re on the subject of video game animation and the end of the world, let’s check out the 16-bit realm of animation from artist Paul Robertson, who’s garnered so much attention for his sprite work, that he’s been asked to design the upcoming Scott Pilgrim movie’s video game. this apocalyptic masterpiece, “Kings of Power 4 Billion %”, is like being punched in the face over and over by nostalgia. It’s overwhelming, disgusting, and incredible all at once (NSFW):
What is it that makes these Cheeto-stained effects animators see the End of the World as a pixelated overdose of nostalgia and name brands? Have we smothered ourselves in technology? Are we stifling ourselves in th–ooooooo, iPad.
