The Abyss

The Abyss (1989) is a James Cameron film, he also directed Titanic and Avatar among many other famous films.  the technical effects were the most advanced at the time. Industrial Light and Magic created the special effects. The water alien was a ground breaking special effect and was the same program used for the T-1000 in Terminator 2. The movie relied heavily on special effects, and it was heavily edited to shorten the running time because it was feared audiences would not like a movie nearly 3 hours long with lots of special effects. I never liked the movie because I am a bit claustrophobic and the submarines in the movie felt cramped. I do remember the special effects were down right beautiful at the time and the scenes with the aliens were fascinating and made suffering with the closed in feeling worth watching the movie.  By today's standards many of the effects appear dated and rough in comparison to what is being produced today. The Abyss was the first movie to use a version of Adobe Photoshop.  

Hillman Curtis short film about David Byrne and Brian Eno

I choose the short film about David Byrne and Brian Eno, mostly because my mother loved the Talking heads and I was curious as to what was up with them now and why they were being featured in a Hillman Curtis film. I vividly remember the art used on the albums Little Creatures in 1885 and True Stories in 1986 and how fascinated I was with it, I could look at the Little Creatures cover for hours, there was so much going on. I didn't know why, but the cover of True Stories was so incredibly interesting to me. Perhaps my interest in album art in general was because I was extremely active in art at that time and I recognized something in the design that appealed to my inner graphic designer. I was pleased to see the creative process for music was somewhat similar to the creative process for other forms of art. The collaboration was amazing due to the integration of technology in their efforts, sending mp3's back and forth and fixing the notes from a less than perfect recording using computers. I was fascinated.  I was also aware of the types of camera shots, editing techniques and framing of the subject throughout the film. Mr. Curtis did some interesting camera moves and cuts that held my attention, which is not an easy task sometimes. I also think the semi-emotionlessness of David Byrne in conjunction with the barely contained kinetic energy of Brian Eno was fun to watch, you wouldn't pick them as a team if they were standing in a crowd. Yet they perfectly complement one another and have created amazing music.  Mr. Curtis's sense of timing and visual balance made this an informational and fun short to watch.

http://hillmancurtis.com/artist-series/david-byrne-brian-eno/