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May 08:
Young blood in the local film industry.

Our good buddy Quark along with rocket boy Avid are among the MTV Pilipinas 2002 nominees for directing the music videos of Monsterbot and Cheese, respectively:

Quark Henares puts a surreal comedic slant into Monsterbot's "Explosive" by casting the band's vocalist Diego Mapa as the host of a cheesy infomercial, an off-kilter style that recalls Spike Jonze' work with Weezer and Fat Boy Slim.

Avid Liongoren on the other hand, makes full use of his experience as an award winning webmaster and illustrator to Cheese's "Mottaka", employing individually painted frames and stop-motion animation.

Two words: Young blood! (Definitely what the local film/video industry needs more of.)

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"Ooo-wee-oo, and you're Mary Tyler Moore..."

Speaking of Spike Jonze, I do love all his pre-Weapon of Choice/Praise You quirky videos, most notably Weezer's "Buddy Holly" and Sean Lennon's "Home". I remember telling my Arnold two years ago that if Rent was to be turned into a movie, Jonze should be the perfect director for it*.

Note: Spike Lee will direct the movie, if and when production pushes through. (His name is, after all, mentioned in the "Light My Candle" sequence.)

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"I see a lot of designers with good software skills, they know the latest effect, the latest style and the latest eye candy... there is a difference between design and style... I see a lot of stylists. There's only a handful of true designers. Conceptualization is sorely missing...", says fellow Weaver AJ Dimarucot re the common mistakes designers make. Read his entire interview.

Good point. As a designer, I've often felt the need to acquaint myself with whatever the kewl new DHTML or Flash trick is -- you know, just to keep up with the young ones -- but then again, at the end of the day, it's the content (and loading time!) that matters, not the fancy effects.

Update: To further stress this point, Luis P suggests a visit to Miniml, proof that functional and elegant design under 10k is possible.