This is some of the beautiful and graceful puppetry of Hungarian puppeteer Andras Lenart. I love the innovative puppet controls he uses. Here’s some more of his tiny, intricate puppeteer work:

Via Puppet Builder Blog.

Over the past month or I’ve been watching and enjoying Dan Stevers‘ Christian-themed motion graphics videos on Vimeo. Two of my favourites are The Light of the World and Life With God. Some of Dan’s videos are artistic interpretations of Christian scripture, while others simply illustrate basic Christian principles.

You can see all of Dan’s videos on Vimeo. His work is available to purchase from Worship House Media.

Up was the number one movie at the box office this weekend, which is pretty unsurprising since many critics are calling it Pixar’s best movie yet and because, well, it’s a Pixar movie. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m looking forward to checking it out this week because everyone seems to be raving about it. If you want to see some absolutely beautiful conceptual art from the film, head over to the blog of Lou Romano who has put together a huge post featuring his design and production work from Up.

Pixar’s next film is Toy Story 3, which is slated for release next year. A teaser trailer has just been released and it’s predictably perfect (I imagine it’s probably playing in theatres in front of Up).

Happy Memorial Day to all my American friends! (Here in Canada, it’s just another Monday…)

Whether you have the day off today or not, find sometime soon to watch Sita Sings the Blues. It’s a feature length animated 2D film that was written, directed, produced and animated entirely by Nina Paley on a single computer in her apartment(!). As if that wasn’t cool enough, she’s decided to release the film under Creative Commons for free and is trying to make money on the film through voluntary payments, ancillary products, sponsorships, public screenings, and limited DVD sales. According to some reports, her somewhat unorthodox distribution strategy has already made her money than a conventional film distribution contract would have.

You can download Sita Sings The Blues for free and learn more about the film at www.sitasingstheblues.com. If you enjoy watching the film, please show your appreciation and consider giving Nina a small donation for all her great work.

I made the oddest, most wonderful (and also tragic) discovery recently and I wanted to share it as this week’s Monday Morning Inspiration.

When I first became interested in digital puppetry and started my Machin-X blog, someone told me about a program at Carnegie Mellon University called Creating Virtual Worlds. They suggested trying to get in touch getting with the professor who founded the program because he was incredibly passionate about things like virtual reality and real-time computer graphics. I eventually tracked this professor down online, pestered him a bit and he was kind enough to indulge a bunch of my questions and suggest some really good resources to look in to.

His name was Randy Pausch.

What I didn’t know at the time – and actually only discovered a few weeks ago completely by accident – was that Randy was fighting a battle with cancer and was on the cusp of becoming an accidental celebrity. After he was told he had only months to live he decided to embrace Carnegie Mellon’s tradition of doing “last lectures”, a usually hypothetical exercise where Professors are asked to give the lecture they’d want to if they thought it would be their last. Randy knew that his “last lecture” probably would be his last, so he presented Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.

The lecture was given to 400 faculty and students at Carnegie Mellon, but Randy really did it for his three young children. The lecture – which is really about how to live your life – was recorded, posted online and became a viral sensation that was watched millions of times and generated a ton of media coverage. Randy even gave an abridged version of his talk on Oprah (I really have no how I didn’t hear about all this sooner, except that possibly it was because I lived in Mexico at the time).

Randy sadly passed away last summer, but he spent the final months of his life inspiring millions of people around the world. He didn’t let cancer slow him down and he kept living life. I didn’t know him at all – we just had a very brief exchange of emails – but I wish I had. What an interesting, amazing guy. And what a great gift he left the world with.

If you have an hour or so to spare sometime this week, watch Randy’s Last Lecture. You won’t be sorry.

I haven’t checked the weekend box office, but I have little doubt that J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie was a massive hit. Friends have raved to me about J.J. Abrams for years, but I’ve been a late, somewhat reluctant convert to the cult of J.J…I don’t watch Lost, didn’t get Alias and I haven’t seen enough of Felicity to truly appreciate it (I thought Regarding Henry and MI:3 were fine movies though).

I didn’t get seriously interested in checking out the man’s work until I saw the Cloverfield trailer and then again when Andrew Kramer mentioned on his blog that he was working on the opening titles for a cool new show called Fringe. That in turn led me to J.J.’s inspiring TED Talk about “the mystery box”, which drops some big clues about the “secret sauce” that makes his work so captivating to so many people. This month’s Wired Magazine includes an essay that further explores his thoughts on the power of mystery.

Thanks to the internet, these days the answer to almost every question is literally at our finger tips. As more and more becomes known to us I wonder, will the unknown – the “magic of mystery” – become even more compelling than ever?

The Hunt For Gollum may be the greatest fan film ever made. In fact, I hesitate to even call it a “fan film” because it’s just so well done; there are professional movies and TV shows that don’t look this good. The 40 minute production was inspired by the appendices of JRR Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings and acts as a bridge between the Tolkein’s The Hobbit and the LOTR Trilogy. It looks absolutely stunning and was shot on a budget of just £3,000 (about $4,500 US). Although it has a few weak points – mostly some of the acting in the early scenes – it’s an incredible achievement for so-called “fan cinema”.

If someone can make this for less than $5,000, what’s preventing you from making the movie you want to?

Alright, how adorable are Erin Glaser’s Sock Zombie puppets? Very I think. Get one of your own in her Sock Zombie Etsy shop.

Chris Guillebeau is the author of The Art of Nonconformity, a blog about personal development, entrepreneurship and unconventional work. Last year Chris set himself the goal of becoming a full-time, self-employed writer and launched his blog. His “overnight success” took less than a year to achieve and he expects to have a (mostly) passive income of over $40,000 this year. And he’s done it without running ads on his site, posting on Digg or doing all the other things that the “experts” say you have to do to have a successful website. And no, it’s not some kind of gimmick or get-rich-quick scheme (the real secret is a lot of hard work, dedication and patience).

Chris has written a really interesting manifesto called 279 Days to Overnight Success that tells the story of his website, how he’s making his living and offers free advice on how to be successful with your own project if you’re an artist, entrepreneur or just a little unconventional. Also worth checking out is his World Domination Manifesto (also totally free). Both contain lots of good, unconventional advice about doing unconvenntional work in unconventional times.

Via Seth Godin.

In my current “day job” I design opening credits and title sequences. When I’m searching for inspiration I often watch the work of one of my favourite animators, Jamie Caliri. His amazing credits include the title sequences of Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (see previous post) and The United States of Tara. He’s also helped pioneer the development of Dragon Stop Motion, a stop motion animation software package I’m dying to try (a free 10 trial version of Dragon is available to download).