DanPerezFilms.com

Movie Poster REDUX: Kill Bill

Dan Perez — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:00:20 +0000

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This week's movie poster comes to us from artist Tyler Stout who created this electrifying piece for the first public screening Quentin Tarantino's masterwork "Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair"

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Classic Movie Poster REDUX: Chinatown [1974]

Dan Perez — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:00:06 +0000

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Roman Polanski's 1974 classic crime thriller "Chinatown" starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway gets a remake by acclaimed Polish artist Andrzej Krajewski

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Photographer Showcase: “Distorted Gravity” by Anka Zhuravleva

Dan Perez — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:00:48 +0000

Today, I'm kicking off a new (monthly?) series called "Photographer Showcase" which will feature works from some of the great photographers and digital artists I come across on the web (thanks, tumblr!).

Kicking off the series is the lovely Russian photographer Anka Zhuravleva.

Born in Moscow on December 4, 1980, Anka spent her childhood with books on art and her mother's drawing tools. She entered the Moscow Architectural Institute in 1997. Later that year, she lost her mother to cancer and her father only a few years later. In the years that followed, she worked as a tattoo artist, modelled in Playboy magazine and sung in a rock-band, but now Anka Zhuravleva is making waves with her magically surreal photography.

Enjoy...

View additional works at anka-zhuravleva.com or on her flickr page.

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Video of the Week: “Man vs Fruit Jelly”

Dan Perez — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:00:55 +0000

This week's video comes to us via the fun-loving folks over at London-based iceniTV. They performed a test with the IDT Redlake Y5 super slow motion camera using fruit jelly and...well...people's faces.

Just watch it...

Man VS Fruit Jelly from iceni TV on Vimeo.

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Classic Movie Poster REDUX: All The President’s Men [1976]

Dan Perez — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

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via Tumblr

In honor of President's week, today we take a look at artist Adam Juresko's redux of Alan J. Pakula's Academy Award winning "All The President's Men" starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

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Leadership, God, and Darwinism: An Observation

Dan Perez — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:00:41 +0000

Are you familiar with #Leadershipchat? It’s a twitter chat that takes place every Tuesday night at 8pm ET. It’s moderated by two swell people in Lisa Petrilli and Steve Woodruff and it attracts some really nice folks who say some of the darndest things. It also makes me nucking futs sometimes.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about #Leadershipchat but this time I simply want to express my prevailing views without the limitations of 140 characters, once and for all, and then return to the dark musty cave I crawled out of. Promise.

So why does #Leadershipchat (and other similar twitter chats) drive me batshit crazy? For one, there’s a tendency to discuss perfect leadership scenarios. The ones where the leader makes everyone on the team feel empowered; where the leader’s door is always open, he (or she) always has time to listen. A world where the leader makes everyone on the team feel they matter, and the team then goes on to make everyone else around them feel like they matter, too. It’s about believing in people, trusting them, nurturing them, winning over their hearts. It sounds so damn good, doesn’t it? Too good.

Let me make one thing clear. Leadership responsibilities are given to a person over a team to attain an outcome; a result. In sports, it’s winning games and/or a championship. In a nonprofit organization, it’s raising more money. In a church, it’s saving more souls. And in business, it’s all about the Benjamins; the cold reality of shareholder returns. Oftentimes, the consequences of failing to achieve said outcomes is being replaced or even fired. With great power comes great responsibility, yes?

So now the leader (a good one) has to outline a plan for success (and, quite possibly, his own livelihood), review his team members, consider their strengths and weaknesses, and assign responsibilities accordingly. And that’s where the fun usually begins.

The Awful Truth

Now, at the expense of sounding like an unreservedly jaded bastard (which I’m really not), allow me to offer up a sobering reality: People will, more often than not, let you down. On #Leadershipchat, we’re always looking at the leader’s responsibilities and we tend to forget those of the team. Yeah, the team. You know, the ones that have to execute the plan that the leader so carefully and lovingly laid out to them. It’s the team that usually determines a leader’s success or failure…

and people will, more often than not, let you down.

Why? Because human beings live in a complex world with an infinite number of habits and beliefs. We’re inherently competitive and destructive; we have a propensity for pride, selfishness, gossip, greed and deceit. We’re quick to judge one another; we try to remove the speck from our brother’s eye while a beam is lodged in our own eye. We split off into “packs” for self-preservation and wage “war” on other packs. Ultimately, we abide by the Darwinian principle of “survival of the fittest”.

Do you see now what a leader (also a flawed human being) has to deal with?

The good news is it isn’t our fault. That’s just how God made us. As soon as He let Adam and Eve run around in the Garden of Eden by themselves, our true nature was revealed. The serpent helped Eve realize that nobody should be the boss of her (“You gonna let God tell you what to do?”). Eve, realizing she might have screwed up, drags poor Adam into her mess (“Here, eat this apple. It’s all good.”). Adam then lies to God (“Apple? What apple?”), then throws Eve under the bus (“But she gave it to me!”) and then tries to divert the blame back to God (“If you had never created her in the first place, this would never have happened!”). Sounds like just another day at the office, doesn’t it?

The "Good" People

So are there good people in this world? People who believe that caring, support and trust can still flourish? People who can suppress their innate human tendencies and actually be sensitive to the well-being of others? Sure there are. If there weren’t, we certainly would have destroyed ourselves a long time ago. We’ve come close but not yet.

In any “team” environment, there are several people who really love what they do; who tackle their responsibilities with enthusiasm. Their intentions are ultimately self-serving but carefully disguised. You see, these people want to succeed because they want to move up to a higher position, to a thicker paycheck. They want to buy a nice house in the suburbs, buy a nice car, put their kids in the best schools, then take out another mortgage on the house to send them to the best colleges, then sell the house and hopefully have enough left to retire to a small ocean front condo on Miami Beach. Survival of the fittest at its most admirable.

Alas, many times these noble souls have to endure the envy and resentment of the others; the “normal” people. The people who hate to see another team member be praised over them (Dang! Susie’s making us look bad!”); the people who resent the fact that their one-time co-worker has now been put in charge of them (“Bob’s gonna now tell us what to do? Not me he ain't!”). Should I tell you the story of Cain and Abel? The story of Joseph and his eleven brothers, perhaps? Let’s just blame God again, shall we?

This is why being a leader is so hard. People.

This is why there are so many dang twitter chats wishing impossible things about leadership, business, customer service, and life in general. Because it’s the nature of people to make a mess of things.

And this is why the leader gets the cash, the new car, and the girl when he can get a group of ultimately self-serving people to just do what they’re supposed to do for an extended period of time to achieve a goal. Despite their jealousy, hypocrisy, pride, selfishness, egos, and religious beliefs. It's a reason to celebrate! Pop the champagne bottles! All of us actually worked together and did something! Hallelujah!

Whether it’s done via intimidation, patience, love, hook or crook; whether at the end of the day people hate their leader, love their leader or fear their leader; the successful leaders know it’s all about the results.

And people.

[Digital artwork by Stefano Bonazzi]

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Video of the Week: “Sweet” > One Man, One Woman, One Fantasy

Dan Perez — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:00:44 +0000

"Sweet" is a bittersweet tale of urban alienation between a man and a woman who constantly fantasize about each other. The film was shot in digital video format in 2000 (using the Sony VX-1000 mini-DV camera) by five-time Academy Award nominated cinematographer Allen Daviau (E.T., Empire of the Sun, Fearless, Bugsy, The Astronaut's Wife).

In this day and age, where the latest DSLR HD cameras are all the rage, "Sweet" reminds us that the recording medium has far less impact than excellent composition, editing, pacing, and great sound.

Enjoy...

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Movie Poster REDUX: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [2004]

Dan Perez — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:00:58 +0000

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via deviantART

Celebrating Valentine's Day with one of my favorite romantic films (yeah, I like some romantic films, you got a problem with that?), "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" [2004]. Designed by artist Mitchel McKenzie

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The Bastardization of Pinterest has Begun: A Rant

Dan Perez — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:00:59 +0000

Ah, Pinterest. We hardly knew ye. There was a time when we could open you up on our computers and view cute baby pictures, adorable furry little critters, the latest “bling”, pictures of exotic locations around the world, recipes, art, our favorite rock stars. It was the age of Pinterest innocence. Alas, it was all too brief.

Suddenly, Pinterest became the Fastest Growing Site Ever! It began to drive More Traffic Than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn Combined! Pinterest became a social media revolution! Those of us who were already pinning started to feel special (yeah, I pin. You got a problem with that?). The secret was out, somebody let our little kitty out of the proverbial bag.

Now, the serpents have arrived in Eden. Run little kitty.

The Usual Suspects

The social media “experts”, who held back thinking Pinterest was just an online women’s Tupperware party, have gotten themselves into the game. They've loaded up their Pinterest boards with über lame social media quotes (their own, of course), their Favorite Social Media Books (with their own book included, of course), social media stats, and the dreaded social media infographics. Oy vey.

Spamming. That’s what it is. Plain and simple.

Oh, and it's only just beginning. Once the Pinterest Gold Rush is in full swing, all the sheep will see what the shepherds are doing and say, “Well, gosh darn it, if they're sticking their social media marketing propaganda on Pinterest, so will we!” And then the self-indulgent social media shitstorm will really hit the Pinterest fan and splatter all over our cute baby pictures. Our innocence lost.

There's A Storm Coming

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” [Matthew 23:13] Yeah, I’m almost as pissed off as Jesus was. Even my wife (who has finally found an interactive online platform she enjoys) has noticed the influx of social media related content. Sorry honey, that's just the way it is when lots of eyeballs come into play.

So prepare to see more social media hyperbole creep into your Pinterest experience a little more each day (where have all the cute puppies gone?). I mean, with 10 million monthly visitors, how can the social media pundits possibly resist? Choose to unfollow them if you wish (I certainly will) and hopefully they’ll realize why we were there in the first place and stop trying to bastardize yet another online platform with their social media malarkey.

Heck, there’s always tumblr.

Video of the Week: “A Short Love Story in Stop Motion”

Dan Perez — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:00:22 +0000

With Valentine's Day arriving next week, today's video is, well, a short love story (duh?). This heart-warming stop motion video comes to us from writer, director, animator, illustrator, painter and photographer Carlos Lascano. After watching the video (which also features music from Sigur Rós), head on over HERE for some interesting notes on the making of this unique video.

Enjoy...

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