I don’t surf. I would like to learn, but I haven’t yet done that. I snowboard. That’s my thing. It’s what I look forward to doing every single winter. 

But even as a non-surfer, I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoyed the movie View From A Blue Moon. A friend told me about it last weekend and I immediately rented it on my Apple TV. (That’s the only thing I have to watch things.)

It’s a movie about John Florence, who is arguably the world’s best surfer right now. He’s from Hawaii. But in addition to John’s incredible surfing abilities, it’s the cinematography and soundtrack that make this movie so special. 

As soon as the movie ended, I immediately went on Soundcloud to find all of the songs. Quentin Tarantino once said that when you pick the right song for a particular scene/movie, you can then never listen to that song ever again without thinking of the movie. That’s how I now feel about this song.

Here’s the trailer (apparently it’s the first surf movie filmed entirely in 4K):

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTqVqk7FSmY?rel=0]

If you’re at all interested, I highly recommend you give it a watch. There are also some great urban shots for all of the city geeks who read this blog. Let me know what you think if you end up watching it or if you’ve already seen it.

Image: View From A Blue Moon

There’s something powerful about seeing/hearing cities being depicted in film, TV, and other kinds of pop culture. It creates familiarity and does a lot to drive the brand of that place.

But how often are you just seeing one city disguised to look like another? Actually quite often.

Here’s an interesting video that talks about how the 3rd largest film production city in North America never actually plays itself.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojm74VGsZBU?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

I know that there are real economic benefits to being a cheap place to film movies, but I would love to see Canadian cities play themselves. There are also big benefits to that.

Thanks to Scott Bonjukian at The Urbanist for sharing the above video this morning.

There has always been a strong relationship between architecture and film. Next to actually being there, video is one of the best ways to experience architecture.

And that’s because space is not static. A big part of how we experience space has to do with what it feels like as you move through it.

For example, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was notorious for his sprawling horizontal houses and low ceiling heights. In his Fallingwater House (which is stunning), I swear that my head was rubbing on the ceiling in certain rooms (I’m 6'3").

But he did this to purposefully create a feeling of compression. Because then as you exited the room (in this case to go outside onto a terrace) the feeling of openness and expansion is all that more powerful. The contrast creates awareness.

In honor of the cinematic nature of architecture, below is a magnificent video of the Casa del Acantilado (House on the Cliff) by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos. Pay attention to the sliding planes and framed views throughout.

The image shown at the top of this post is from Architizer.

[vimeo 52162380 w=500 h=281]

Casa del Acantilado | House on the Cliff by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos from Fran Silvestre Arquitectos on Vimeo.