I spent the whole of yesterday filming skaters going around a skate park on the outskirts of Liverpool. Had I known that all I needed to create an x-treme gnarly dude sweeeet dude sweeeet sports video was a piece of tarpaulin and a wide street, I could’ve stayed at home in bed a bit longer.

This ‘can you head it in the net?’ challenge for AT&T is the first time I’ve seen an AR game hosted within a banner. And whilst it’s nicely executed, the copy is dreadful. It sounds like it was written by someone who has never played or seen football in their lives, and then translated it into English via Babelfish. Which is a bit of a shame really.

(By the way, the reason that there’s a picture of Robbie Fowler at the top is because he was my footballing idol when I was at school – a true goal machine with despicably greasy hair.)

A couple of games-related videos that I’ve stumbled upon today.

First up is Super Mario Bros by Andreas Heikaus. It goes on for a bit too long, but it’s a pretty cool mixture of live-action and CGI:

And secondly, If games had super-easy mode courtesy of College Humor:

In a country rammed to the gills with weird things, the Japanese spider crab scores pretty highly, reaching up to 3.8m across and weighing up to 19kg. If I was out snorkeling one day in downtown Osaka and saw one of these bastards, I’d need a new pair of Speedos quick-smart.

Soiling aside, here’s a pretty cool time-lapse video shot over the course of six hours in Fujisawa, Japan. It’s the kind of thing that HR Giger probably dreams about, but is bound to give most sane people nightmares. So watch it now, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

via Pink Tentacle.

After the operation I took a couple of weeks off work, and then worked from home for an additional week. Since then I’ve tried to carry on with life as much as normal, and here’s a few things that I’ve learned:

• Six pints on a night out is my current limit. Beyond that, crutch-based travel becomes hazardous.
• If you’re flying on a pikey airline, pack some crutches and a spaceboot. It gets you straight to the front of the queue, skipping past the numpties who bought Speed Boarding tickets. You also get to travel on those little buggy things around Gatwick.
• You can still go to festivals. I managed to go to Glastonbudget, and drink and party till the early hours. Only downside is that camping in a field full of feral Midlanders is a sure-fire way to get an infection.
• Finding a good place to put your crutches once you’ve sat down in a pub/bar/restaurant/train carriage is nigh on impossible.
• Dressing up in a suit and going to a wedding isn’t very comfortable. Particularly when the spaceboot has to sit over the suit trousers.

And so, after nine weeks of speeding around on one leg and crutches (faster than 98.94% of all pedestrians), I’m now fully weight-bearing. This means that I now walk slowly and more weirdly than before whilst my withered Mr Burns leg attempts to grow some muscles and man-up a bit. I’m still wearing my ridiculous Iron Man spaceboot outside the house (as seen below, enjoying the luxurious comfort of Easyjet), but I think I’ll ditch it forever this weekend.

The only complication so far has been when the wound became infected in a field in Leicestershire, and the subsequent 17-day course of Flucloxacillin (Penicillin) which I’m slowly coming to the end of. And I had my first physio appointment this morning, although it seems that they don’t actually do much other than give me a list of exercises and stretches to do. Basically, it’s up to me to do as much as possible to rebuildthe muscles and tendons, which seems a bit of a fiddle, but hopefully they know more than me.

In the meantime, I have already begun construction on a time machine so I can travel back to make sure that Achilles’ parents dip his heel properly in the Styx. Twice, just to make sure.

In April 2010, Kodak launched a new HD video camera called the Playsport. Our brief was to create some video content to showcase the camera’s key features:

• Shooting HD video underwater
• 1080p HD and 720p HD at 60fps
• Rugged design so it can go anywhere
• Built-in image stabilisation

In conjunction with the videos, Kodak also ran a sweepstake on Facebook to win a Playsport bundle.

The solution

The Playsport isn’t only aimed at extreme sports fanatics and adrenaline junkies. Specialist video cameras already exist in this market which are smaller, lighter and a lot more expensive. So whilst our content had to look good, we decided that it also had to be a lot more rough and ready – achievable by anyone with a bit of imagination and some gaffer tape.

The key thing for us was that every single piece of footage (and sound) had to be shot on the Playsport. We also didn’t want any post-production, overdubs, video enhancements etc. So working within the constraints of a tiny budget, we shot all the footage ourselves (with the help of a small production company), and then edited it all in iMovie (I did all of them apart from At the Car Wash).

Feeding time

At the Car Wash

Gone to the Dogs

Gone with the Wind

We created a branded Youtube channel to host the video content…

as well as a tab on the KodakUK Facebook group to promote the campaign and host the sweepstake.

Yet another annoyingly simple but brilliant idea. This time it’s for a Skoda ad airing in Poland, where apparently they have more than one TV station. With advertising and everything. Who’d have thunk it?

Anyway, the ad takes a product benefit – a remote controlled boot (yawn) – and brings it to life in a clever and (slightly) interactive way. I’m guessing the media placement was fairly pricey, but the end result is pretty impactful.

Very cool idea. Very cool video.

“FREE FALL: World champion freediver Guillaume Nery special dive at Dean’s Blue Hole, the deepest blue hole in the world filmed entirely on breath hold by the french champion Julie Gautier.”

Probably the nicest and most heart-warming  Flash Mob I’ve ever seen:

On May 5th it’s Mukhtar’s, a bus-driver in Copenhagen, Birthday. In 2010 he had no idea that a large group of people had planned to celebrate him…

Must.

Not.

Cry…