“Like Burning Man Gone Wrong”

That’s what Vulture has to say about the trailer for the new movie Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth film in the Mad Max franchise by Australian director George Miller. The series has been a big inspiration behind the costumes, art cars, and overall post-apocalyptic steampunk anarchist vibe of Burning Man.

Vulture:

The New Trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road Is Like Burning Man Gone Wrong

WIRED was effusive in its praise and excitement:

mad-mad-fury-road-comic-con-posterAfter watching this clip we wanted to file this under “Greatest Movie Ever Made” even though it’s probably a little too soon to make that call. That said, we’ve got a feeling, deep in our bones, that this movie will be spectacular. George Miller looks like he’s out for bloody vengeance, seeking to rain down hate on anyone who’s dared make an “action” movie since he left the post-apocalypse behind. The Godfather of the original Mad Max trilogy has had a weirdly touchy feely resume since going beyond the Thunderdome 30 years ago. His last four projects have been:Lorenzo’s Oil, Babe: Pig in the City, and two Happy Feet movies. Apparently, handling such sentimental fare has built a swirling tempest of rage inside Miller, because Fury Road looks like it’s not just here to build on the steampunk hellfire deathrace legacy of the first three Max movies. The new Tom Hardy edition of Earth-gone-wrong wants to double down, take eight shots of Absinthe, and inhale a dozen rails of meth before plunging an adrenaline needle into its own heart. Considering we have computers now and they do everything, Fury Road and its very real explosions don’t even feel possible. Who let this happen? Did Miller film on Mars? How many undisclosed on-set deaths will we hear about 10 years from now? This is horrible to say, but if the feature film is even half as good as these first two trailers, it might be worth whatever price was paid—in blood or treasure—to get it made. The only thing left to do between now and May 15th is build a screen big enough with definition high enough to do it justice. We’ll be waiting.

The future belongs to the mad:

Mad Max Mastermind Miller

Mad Max Mastermind Miller

George Miller went on from Mad Max to make such Hollywood classics as Happy Feet and Babe: Pig In The City.

Burners of a certain age will remember Tina Turner’s epic role in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, part 3 of the series, which was released in 1985 – the year before Burning Man was born. That’s right, when the last Mad Max movie was made, there was no such thing as Burning Man. Will there be any references to the event in this new installment? It seems like the special effects might have improved, and Tina has been upgraded to Charlize Theron, but otherwise, it’s more of the same good stuff that has made the franchise a cult classic, and inspired generations of Burners to go mad in the desert.

Check out a still youthful Mel Gibson:

If you don’t remember the movie, you probably know the song:

Personally, for my post-apocalyptic, cavemen in rags driving dune buggies soundtrack, I prefer 2-Pac and alleged Burning Man mastermind Dr Dre:

Although there’s something to be said for the Zion rave scene in Matrix 2: Reloaded

 

mad max fury road cars

Is that the Mad Max version of Robot Heart?

Art cars galore!

mad_max_4_fury_road_speaker_truck_wtf___2_by_maltian-d5okx0d

Is this the Mad Max version of Robot Heart?

MadMax4set1small

 

Video

Phuck The Banks

The Bondi Hipsters take a leaf out of Rap News‘ book with this amusing song (NSFW):

Bonus:

Video

See The Music

The best thing about science is that to the uninitiated, it can look like magic

Nigel Stanford from my home town of Wellington, New Zealand, presents Cymatics. It’s spectacular.

thank you 🙂 it was a lot of work, I’m glad that people like it

His double album is called Solar Echoes.

From Nigel’s blog:

Nigel Stanford

Nigel Stanford

The most unusual part of making Cymatics was the fact that the music was written after the video was filmed.

In 1999 I watched a documentary on ‘Synesthesia‘ – a disorder that effects the audio and visual functions of the brain. People with the disorder hear a sound when they see bright colors, or see a color when they hear various sounds. I don’t have it (I don’t think), but I have always felt that bass frequencies are red, and treble frequencies are white.

This got me thinking that it would be cool to make a music video where every time a sound plays, you see a corresponding visual element. Many years later, I saw some videos about Cymatics – the science of visualizing audio frequencies, and the idea for the video was born.

In 2013, I approached my friend Shahir Daud, a talented film director working in New York, and asked him if he was interested in collaborating on the video with me. I don’t think he really knew what I was talking about, but happily he said yes, and in July 2013 we started researching the experiments and buying bits and pieces online.

Read more here.

Cinematographer Timur Civan also discusses filming the video here.