Sure, the name of the site may be Create Digital Motion, but don’t get me wrong — we know digital is evil. Or, specifically, digital gets real evil at certain times. There are the latency-inducing, problem-causing HDMI cables when VGA or S-Video or Composite would do the job, the “look at our brand, new storage format” trend that turns out to be “look at the hideously onerous, new copy protection method we’ve just invented.”

We know a little bit of our soul died when we brought in all this digital tech to our work. (Happy side note, though: my eyes now glow red. It’s totally awesome at parties.) So, we now proudly present The Battle for Analog, a completely nonsensical look at the analog world we might leave behind. (Well, unless you carry some mobile VHS decks to a gig, which could be a great idea … a little magnetic distortion live, anyone?)

And to kick things off, we’ve got a look back at VHS’ stand against the puppy-killing DVD, via our friends at the All Retro, All The Time, Retro Thing. So, at the risk of “boneheaded nostalgia” as someone described this in comments on RT, I present this mock VHS PSA from musclebeaver, with music from the Transformers music proudly playing in the background:

And, uh, yeah, it does appear to have been crafted in After Effects. Where is that Export to VHS option in CS3, anyway?

PS - I think Blu-Ray winning out over HD-DVD is finally Sony’s revenge for losing on superior Betamax.

It’s happening. Slowly, slowly, VJ as term that means “host of silly music video show” is being supplanted by VJ as “master of live visual performance at a club or other venue.” In the meantime, though, we get to enjoy unintentionally hilarious images, like this one, found at music video cable network Fuse.

Okay, hilarious to a tiny segment of the population that is us.

Hey, I remember right before my first-ever Eyewash (NY party), crying into my diary…

Message to FUSE: if we put this on a t-shirt, will we hear from your lawyers?

If you’ve been staring at After Effects too long, you’ll really love this one: common motion effects, painstakingly recreated by real people — jumping on trampolines. There’s even a status bar and, my personal favorite touch, an I/O error and — okay, I won’t give it away.

Directed by Roel Wouters a.k.a. Xelor. Here’s the full blurb (see also cast & crew on the YouTube page):

zZz is playing: Grip is a video for the band zZz. Its a one take, top shot videoclip with trampoline gymnasts simulating typical video effects. The video has been recorded live as part of the opening ‘Nederclips’ at the Stedelijk museum ‘S-Hertogenbosch SM’S (curated by Bart Rutten).

The project was commissioned by the TAX-videoclipfonds and an important criteria was that the audience of the opening was be able to witness the whole shoot, another criteria was that it should be added to the exhibition imediately after the shoot was done. So we had no option to reshoot or edit if something went wrong. This made us so focussed [sic] that we did better that any of us have could imagined.

Thanks to star blogger Christine Huang at PSFK, from whom I stole this, before she lost the draft of her blog post. Also seen on the excellent Motionographer.

Your challenge: recreate overused VJ effects using real people. Hmmm… kaleidoscope effects? (Oh, and by the way, those of you using sample clips from apps like Resolume and Onyx-VJ? We’re watching. We’re at the club. We know your secret. Stop it. Or go recreate it on trampolines.)