Stop-Motion Lego

There's no marketing connected to this video what-so-ever, I just thought it was really, really sweet.

The Hunt for Gollum Movie

A close friend emailed this over to me yesterday, and to say I was impressed would be a serious understatement. Pretty much everyone loves the Lord of the Rings movies, and they have been the inspiration for many fan-based projects. Unfortunately most of these are usually extremely low budget, low production value endeavours.

This, however, is very, very different. “The Hunt for Gollum”, a movie made by the fans, is a $3000 project that looks as professionally made as many million dollar Hollywood blockbusters. Everything from the lighting to the special effects are extremely good. The script for the movie comes from the appendices of the Lord of the Rings books themselves, pieced together into a coherent movie by writer and director Chris Bouchard. Chris was also responsible for putting together the cast and crew. All filming and post production was done in the UK.

The story follows the Heir of Isildur; the "greatest huntsman and traveller in Middle Earth" as he sets out to find the creature Gollum. The creature must be found to discover the truth about the Ring, and to protect the future Ring-bearer.

The movie is 40 minutes long and available to watch online for free. I seriously recommend giving it a go.

Playhouse at Liberty Hall

This Wednesday is the launch event for something really special taking place in Dublin next month. As part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, Daft.ie present Playhouse at Liberty Hall. Playhouse will transform Dublin’s tallest building into a giant digital canvas for all of us to play with and animate our thoughts across the city skyline.

From the 24th of September until the 11th of October 2009, Dublin's Liberty Hall will become a 50 metre, low-res, digital screen powered by 100,000 low-energy LED lights that operate in full 24-bit colour. The LEDs have been installed across the 330 windows of the south and west faces of the building effectively turning each window into a pixel for the giant display. From Wednesday (26th August), members of the public will be able to download a special bit of software that allows you to create animations (with sound and music) and submit them to be broadcast on Liberty Hall.

The 100,000 LEDS in use are super-efficient, and the whole project has a tiny power consumption. During the project each floor of the installation will use less energy than a standard kettle. The narrow strip of LEDs are installed along each window frame with a small control box. These control boxes then connect to a central computer through the existing CAT5 network in the building, therefore avoiding any additional wiring.

Ahead of the project the folks over at The Bubble have produced a behind the scenes look at exactly how all of this will work. This exclusive footage from last Wednesday (19th August) shows the LED system being tested for the first time. John Callaghan and Julien Clancy can be thanked for this great footage. The music they have used is from Solen.

Social Media Addicts Association

Are you one of the millions of web users who just don't know when to stop poking, to quit Tweeting or to take a break from Facebook. Then the Social Media Addicts Association is just what you need. Run by former social media addicts who have had the strength and courage to admit to their problem, the SMAA will help you leave alone all those people you haven’t seen since college, and possibly never really got on with anyway!

To start with you will need to follow the 5 steps to kicking the habit:

1. Admit you have a problem but don't tweet about it.
2. Accept that you don't need upvotes to feel validated.
3. Understand the risks of poking strangers.
4. Repeat after me: "Twitter and alcohol don't mix".
5. Don't go cold turkey! Just delete one friend a day.

The SMAA is the latest viral campaign from Sony VAIO.

The Walking Dead

Checked my emails this afternoon and was seriously happy to find out that I am the lucky winner of a signed copy of 'The Walking Dead' from Venntertainment.

Rob Cumiskey, the man behind Ventertainment and a regular at Culch.ie, did a ‘Fantasy Bazaar – The Walking Dead Week’ last week to celebrate the release of the latest volume of The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard. As part of his zombie week, Rob was given a signed copy of the release by Sub City Comics (@SubCityComics).

A massive thanks to Rob for the great week of posts, and the brilliant competition. Cheers dude!