Snorri Bros Feeds

LAUNDROMAT - A NEW PHOTO BOOK FROM SNORRI BROS.

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:10:57 -0700

"LAUNDROMAT" is now available from powerHouse Books. It is a 160 page book with 187 photographs of laundromats across NYC and an essay by D. Foy. From D. Foy's essay: "For all its squalor and despair, the laundromat has held a curiously elevated status in the global mind. Things happen in laundromats. People get hurt. People hide. People see God. People fall in love. People go nuts. People make plans. Or so TV and film have led us to believe for the last 40 years. Snorri Sturluson, one half of the Icelandic creative team known as the Snorri Bros., is certainly no exception to the laundromat's allure. Scarcely had he been asked to photograph some laundromats for the cafés a friend was opening in Reykjavík and Copenhagen than he was smitten with their charm. It was, Sturluson said, as if everything he'd learned about America over the years had contracted in a brilliant epiphany. The laundromat contains the loneliness and pathos in the films of Jim Jarmusch, the mysterious lack that pervades the prose of Paul Auster, the shade of Weltschmertz in the songs of Tom Waits, and the city's sense of gritty despair and taunting possibility that have drawn so many millions to it. There were literally thousands of laundromats in New York City. A few photos would be too many, but hundreds hardly enough. Taken over a period of four years and representing all five of the city's boroughs, the photographs in Laundromat constitute a portrait in montage. They present, as well, a history, an anthropology, and a sociology, an imagistic commentary on the economics and politics of America itself. Laundromat is an homage, on the one hand, to laundromats and the people who use them, and an elegy, on the other, to an America that used to be."

SNORRI BROS REPRESENT AT CULTURE COLLIDE IN LA

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:57:22 -0700

The Lucie Foundation curates an exhibition at Filter Magazine's CULTURE COLLIDE festival this year in Los Angeles. The exhibition focuses on iconic photographs of musicians and the Snorri Bros' contribution is no other than fellow Icelander Björk. The festival opens on October 5th and is open through to the 9th and takes place across various venues in Silverlake and Echo Park. The photography exhibition is located in Echo Park at: The Reform Academy, 1316 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026. See more information about the Lucie Foundation and the Festival at the links above.

EINAR SNORRI CUTS IN BERLIN

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:34:40 -0700

This just in. Our former partner and co-founder, Einar Snorri, has joined forces with Germany's number one editorial house; firsteight. Under the name SNORRICUTS. He exhibits some of his sharp cuts on SNORRICUTS.COM Einar is a world class editor whose innovative and fresh editorial style has been widely and critically acclaimed and much imitated. We can only give Einar our highest praise as an amazing editor. He can bring any project to a higher level and sometimes re-invents it completely in the edit suite. We wish him the best of luck and prosperity in his new home and look forward to cutting with him in Berlin at some point in the future. This is the press release from SNORRICUTS: SNORRICUTS is the home of the Berlin-based commercial editor Einar Snorri. Einar started out as a photographer and director in the early 90's. He went on to achieve great acclaim as one half of the dynamic filmmaking duo--The Snorri Brothers. As the pair evolved their revolutionary style of stop frame animation, Einar honed his skills as an editor--seemlessly weaving together the sounds and images that define their work. In recent years, Einar has narrowed his focus to the point that he is now exclusively a commercial editor. His style of cutting can be described as wholly unique and overflowing with creative energy.

LAY LOW STORMS THE MINI WORLD

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:36:54 -0700

Last year the Snorri Bros did a music video for Lay Low. The video has gotten a great response in the creative communities around the world, it's been featured on several major creative portals, including YouTube, Creativity-Online, Boardsmag and Motionographer, it's been accepted at numerous film festivals (including a coveted spot at the Tupelo Film Festival) and been awarded at some, including an "Award of Excellence" at the Canadian International Film Festival in Vancouver. The video has been screened at various locations including the Great Wall of Oakland, a large scale projection installation in downtown Oakland, California sponsored by the City of Oakland and the Oakland Museum of California. In the video Lay Low (Lovísa Elísabet Sigrúnardóttir) is seen travelling through a world of "Mini Planets". The idea was conceived late at night during one of those aimless scourings across the intertubes. A friend, Patrik Andersson, had brought the Mini Planet community on Flickr to the Snorri Bros' attention and their brains immediately started to animate them. The backgrounds for the video were shot in several locations around the world during the Snorri Bros' travels, Iceland, New York, South Africa and Namibia to name a few and Lay Low herself was shot on a treadmill in front of a greenscreen in the Snorri Bros' studio in Brooklyn. The technique behind the video is simple, the backgrounds are digital still time lapse sequences that are rendered into Mini Planet images via batch processing in Photoshop, the sequences then cut in Final Cut Pro, the P2 Footage of Lay Low was treated the same way and then the whole thing was composited in Shake. Thanks to Lovísa, Loo, Kári, Debbie Le Seuer, Bev Green, Joel Wynne, Gatehouse, Shade, Billy at CO3, Pétur, Patrik and everyone that put their hand on this project in one way or another.

PIXI MAKES A SPLASH

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:58:42 -0700

Just before the holidays of 2009 the Snorri Bros did a spot, the first in a series, for Palm out of Modernista! The long time relationship the Snorri Bros have with M! has resulted in great work through the years, most notably for Hummer but also for Cadillac and now Palm. The challenge for this job was to enter the very competitive and crowded smartphone-space with something fresh and innovative. The creative team at M!, lead by Tim Vaccarino gave the Snorris an open brief and loose guidelines but mostly just said: "Let's have some fun with this" That's exactly what happened. The Snorri Bros designed a brand new camera rig, Max Malkin handled the camera and shot beautiful film for this spot. The spot has been very well received and the Snorri Bros have just finished another round of spots for Palm where the Pixi rig played a small part. The rig is very unique, it is a small swivel rig that the talent operated as they moved the phone around. The 35mm film camera corresponded to the talent's every move while staying focused on the phone. The freedom of movement was amazing, the personal and intimate vibe from the rig and the allaround "feelgood" vibe of the commercial is largely thanks to the way the "Pixi Rig" handled. Max Koepke and Hank Corwin at Lost Planet did an excellent job at cutting the spot to Passion Pit's great song "Sleepyhead" and Brickyard finished the job up immaculately as they always do. The Snorri Bros are of course well known for their technical and innovative approach to work. In the 90s the designed and built a legendary rig called the "Snorri Cam" which Matthew Libatique used to shoot key footage for Darren Aronofsky's "PI" and "Requiem for a Dream". They've designed and built numerous car rigs, including the G-Force Arm they used on a world wide Hummer campaign in 2007.

SNORRI BROS CRASHED

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:00:19 -0700

September 18th a new season of the celebrated, original TV show Crash will premiere on the Starz Network. Starz's agency of record, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners, assigned the Snorri Bros to shoot a :30 spot as well as the print campaign for the show. "Working with the Snorri Bros. was exactly what you want from a creative relationship. Not only did they make the work better but they were true partners throughout the process. I don't think I've seen a director work as hard after a shoot as these guys did. I kind of feel sorry for the next director I work with as my expectations have been completely altered by those Icelandic freaks." Jon Goldberg Creative Director - KBSP "This was an exciting job to do, the creative was fantastic, a very moody and open brief was all we had to work with." the Snorri Brother Eidur Snorri said, and went on to say: "For the TV spot we came up with the idea that we would be panning with a long lens all over LA, finding our cast and all the random characters, freaks and bizarros in various parts of the city. Catching glimpses of all the little stories that are happening around the clock in LA. Then it culminates with a near Crash of the cast at the end. To do this we created a really big panoramic image of LA as the backdrop for the spot. Then we shot the people on greenscreen and put it together in post" On the Starz's end Rama Wong, Creative Director had this to say: "The Snorri Brothers' artistry and vision really helped bring our Crash campaign to life. Both Eidur and Snorri are so dedicated to producing high-end work, their passion shines through on everything they produce. For Crash, their challenge was to make a one-dimensional idea work in multiple dimensions. By simultaneously working in parallel mediums, they were able to add the depth and cohesiveness that have made this campaign so successful." The Snorri Bros worked with a high profile cast on the Crash campaign. Dennis Hopper to Eric Roberts to Moran Atias, Jake McLaughlin, Jocko Sims, Ross McCall, Linda Park and Dana Ashbrook play the leads on the show. "They're all fantastic actors and it was such a pleasure to work with them, each and every one. To work with amazing actors is a privilege but to get the opportunity to work with true legends is a whole other ballgame. We felt very blessed to be on set with Eric Roberts and Dennis Hopper and incredibly pleased to work with the rest of the cast as they are all very talented and true professionals, not to mention that they were such a fun group." Said Snorri Sturluson of the Snorri Bros, and added: "The whole shoot and the aftermath was challenging to say the least but everyone involved, from client to talent to agency to production to editorial to post were super enthusiastic about the project and it's evident in the final outcome. There is a lot of love behind it." The post was a complicated affair, the talent was shot on greenscreen, the background is a combination of stills and live action shot all over LA and the camera moves are created in post. Vico Sharabani CD at Rhino said: "It's always fun to work with the ever innovative Snorri brothers. This time, the challenge was working with a huge panorama of LA. Over 100,000 pixels long. The Snorris were hands-on, leading the process throughout delivery, a creative collaboration at it's best" Rhino weren't the only ones that needed to wrap their head around the technical aspect of the job: "This was such a unique and challenging project to cut because we had to populate and animate a 360 degree panorama of Los Angeles. The Snorris had such a brilliant approach to create this. All of our characters had to be individually placed and animated on these enormous panoramic backgrounds that we stitched together. Although there's actually hundreds of edits, we had to make the finished spot appear as if it were one, seamless move. Truthfully, this spot would have been much easier to cut if my computer were 14 feet long." Said Maury Loeb editor at PS260. Tune in to Starz to see the show ; )

NYPH DOCUMENTARY ON NYC TV

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:48:14 -0700

The Snorri Bros documentary about the first annual New York Photo Festival airs on NYC TV April 27th. The airtimes are 12am (midnight) with an encore the following morning at 11am. The film explores the curatorial insights of four leading photo editors, the festival’s founders, and the many cutting-edge artists who shared their work, asking curators, artists, and viewers to make their own aesthetic judgments on the state of modern photographic image making. The film is co-directed by Eidur Snorri, Snorri Sturluson and David Weinstock and gives a dynamic and engaging perspective on the debut of a world class event. Stay tuned.

SNORRI BROS DEBUT NY PHOTO FESTIVAL DOC

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:50:12 -0800

The Icelandic duo and director David Weinstock document the first annual New York Photo Festival.

BY: JEFF BEER PUBLISHED: NOV 20, 2008 As much of a surprise as it might be, given the city's strong photography community, this past May marked the first annual New York Photo Festival, held in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. Founded by Frank Evers, former managing director of VII Photo Agency, and Daniel Power, founder of powerHouse Books, the festival's goal was to be the first truly international photo festival in the United States and to celebrate both contemporary photography and the creative artists behind it. To document its first year, the festival enlisted the Snorri Bros and director David Weinstock to create a short film about the event. The Snorris worked with Power to publish their recent photography book Barflies: Reykjavik, and also put together a short promo film for the festival to shop to potential investors, sponsors and the photography community. The new film, New York Photo Festival '08: The Future of Contemporary Photography, debuted on October 23rd in New York, with wider distribution in the works. We spoke to the Snorri Bros' Snorri Sturluson about making the film and more.

How did you guys initially approach this project?

We just looked at the festival's structure and how it was set up and we realized that a strong way to approach it was through the four curators. They bring their unique vision of what photography is to the festival and pick the artists so that was where we started from a content standpoint. Then it was about the physical location of the festival in DUMBO. The three key points of the film are the curators, DUMBO and the art itself. The whole thing was a bit of a shot in the dark and we just went out and started it.

Is this the first documentary-style Snorri project?

We've done a little bit of it before, but it's been a long time. It was definitely a new thing for us and it was a great experience to not be constrained by the 30-second spot. Spots are a great challenge but it's nice to get away from it from time to time. It's also a challenge from an editorial standpoint, a project like this becomes so different because you can just let things breathe without worrying about the seconds. Our editor Ruth Mamaril was such a big part of this project and did a fantastic job. Overall, it was a very free-flowing process. We had our outline and framework of what we wanted to do and just crossed them off the list as they got done. We had the festival footage and the interviews but there were the more creative bits, the animation and stop-motion, which were like the project within the project. It was just about using DUMBO as the back drop and part of the experience. I think a lot of people came to the festival who weren't familiar with the neighborhood and left incredibly impressed with the location. They thought it was quite refreshing for this type of event.

What makes this festival an important addition to the New York arts calendar?

The festival was very pure in its essence. The curators were free to show whatever they wanted, without boundaries and it was just such a good expression of what's going on in photography.

SNORRI BROS DEVELOP A RAW WORKFLOW SOLUTION FOR STOP MOTION WORK

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:56:18 -0700

While working on a :15 sec V8 spot out of Y&R, New York, promoting the company's donation of over $1.000.000 to "Feeding America" the Snorri Bros developed a revolutionary new workflow. In the past the Snorri Bros have done several projects involving digital stills where they've shot RAW files with Canon digital cameras. The management of the media becomes a bit of headache on those jobs when, at the end of a shoot, you may end up with 10.000 RAW images. With the assistance of long time collaborator Aron Hjartarson, Lead Creative Director / VP at Method Studios NY, the Snorri Bros developed a proprietary software pipeline that logs RAW footage and generates matching movie clips for offline use, ready before the days' shooting is wrapped. When the offline is approved, the software auto-conforms the RAW files using an exported EDL and the conformed edit is finally delivered to the post facility as a sequence of high resolution DPX files. It has been a long term goal of the Snorri Bros to figure out a workable solution for this problem as it has often become a bit of an issue in post how to best handle the RAW files from the still cameras as they don't conform to the standard equipment in the post suites. But why shoot RAW? Snorri Sturluson answers that question: "The quality of the RAW files from the Canon cameras that we usually shoot these kinds of jobs with is so superior to the JPG format so we started that a while back. Most people advised against this because of the problems it introduces in post but we had an idea of how that could be done. It took us a few projects to finalize and complete the method and the software we wrote for this purpose but now it's pretty solid and turned out to be an amazing asset on the V8 spot where we first really implemented it. It was a good thing it worked so well as the schedule of that job was impossibly tight, we had 3 days for offline and 3 days for post. So we really didn't have time for long transfer and conform times." "The beauty of our pipe line" Sturluson continues "was the the editor, Ruth Mamaril at Filmcore had the dailies in her hands instantly after wrap as the offline files were being logged and created on the set. Once the offline was approved it was a breeze to locate only the necessary RAW files and spit them out as DPX sequences for post. Done deal." It was Smoke and Mirrors in New York that did the post and they were quite happy not having to conform after the offline as they didn't have much time for the post all in all and were able to focus on the creative. Because of the short timeline of the job Young & Rubicam, New York were pleased with the speedy delivery of everything and felt comfortable in the capable hands of the Snorri Bros and their associates. Tennille Loevenguth broadcast producer at Y&R had this to say about the project: "Working with the Snorris, we found the process of the production to be completely seamless. They infused dynamic creative ideas and brought so much to the table for this project. We appreciated their involvement with the project through to the end. The agency felt that they went above and beyond to ensure the best creative end product possible. We look forward to the next project we can work on together with them."

NYPH DOCUMENTARY AROUND THE CORNER

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:28:39 -0700

In the fall of 2007 the Snorri Bros produced a promo for the first annual New York Photo Festival. The promo was so well received that the founders of the festival, Daniel Power of powerHouse Books and Frank Evers (formerly of VII Photo), approached the Snorri Bros to document the festival and produce a film about the lead up to, and the experience of the festival. The festival was curated by Kathy Ryan of New York Times Magazine, Martin Parr, Lesley A. Martin of the Aperture Foundation and Tim Barber of tinyvices.com. The Snorri Bros teamed up with long time collaborator and friend, director David Weinstock, to shoot the activities of the festival and interview the founders, the curators, the artists and others that were involved with the making of the festival. The editing is in the hands of Ruth Mamaril at Filmcore NY, post production will be done at Snorri Bros, Company 3 and Method Studios. Artists from soundpets.com will score the music and audioEngine does the mix. So it's overall a very exciting collaboration from many industry heavyweights. The film is scheduled to screen at the PDN convention in New York October 23rd to 25th. Stay tuned as the story unfolds.

BARFLIES REYKJAVIK LAUNCH PARTY!

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:02:03 -0700

For all of you that are in Iceland on June 21st. Celebrate with us at Kaffibarinn and help us bring back the joy of the good old times.

PARTY! BARFLIES NEW YORK LAUNCH

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:23:23 -0700

Join us for the launch party of our book, Thursday June 12th 7pm at the powerHouse Arena, 37 Main Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY 11201. For directions CLICK HERE. RSVP to graham@powerhousebooks.com

BARFLIES RELEASED

Sat, 24 May 2008 08:42:04 -0700

A book of portraits from the Snorri Bros is out on powerHouse Books in New York. The book is called "Barflies - Reykjavík" and features portraits of 76 people that used to frequent the legendary "Kaffibarinn Frikki & Dýrið" in Reykjavík in its first year. The pictures were shot in the space of a few days and after the inaugural exhibition, that opened on April 23rd 1994 in Gallery 1-1 in Reykjavík, they have barely seen the light of day. The book is available in all better bookstores, online and offline and for worldwide distribution through powerHouse Books in New York.

WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR NAME

Thu, 22 May 2008 12:34:56 -0700

A Snorri Brothers project documents regulars at a Reykjavik bar

BY: JEFF BEER PUBLISHED: MAY 22, 2008 It's difficult to sum up all that is the Snorri Brothers under the simple moniker "directing duo," as they seem to shift their shape to fit whatever artistic endeavor strikes their fancy. The new photo book, Barflies, from powerHouse Books, is a prime example. Taken in 1994, the collection of black and white portraits introduce us to the eclectic regulars of a bar called Kaffibarinn in Iceland's capital city Reykjavik. Of course, you already know the one named Bjöaut;rk. We spoke to Einar and Eidur Snorri about their latest effort.

It seems you guys had a very specific and purposeful goal from the beginning. What sparked the idea for this project and what was the initial goal?

EIDUR: I was experimenting in our studio and I did a self-portrait (which is in the book) and then when we were asked by the owner of this bar to do a series of portraits of some of the regular guests, we thought this look and technique would fit the subject perfectly. I remember we decided to only shoot one single frame of each person. We were not looking for the perfect frame but simply freezing the people in time in whichever way they happened to be at the given moment.

Did you plan on holding on to the shots for so long before publishing them?

EINAR: We did at some point some years back talk about the idea of some day making a book out of this but in more of a fantasizing mode. I guess the time was never right until now. EIDUR: It is truly a miracle that they survived this long and didn't get lost somewhere. When we got the idea to create the book it took us awhile to find them. We finally found them all (in a box) wrapped up in toilet paper just the way we left them 14 years ago.

Why document this group from such a specific time and place?

EIDUR: I think this is a great document of a very special people who shared a special place to meet and plot some master plans and, of course, to get fucked up. Most of these people were and are doing very inspiring things.

BARFLIES ON STYLE.COM

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:23:24 -0700

What's Icelandic for "stool pigeons?" Another benefit to being internationally acclaimed members of the creative overclass: indulging in iffy-sounding projects like photographing all the regulars at your neighborhood bar. Of course, it helps if you're Icelandic trio the Snorri Brothers (who've directed videos for bands like R.E.M. and the Streets), and the watering hole in question is Kaffibarinn, owned in part by Damon Albarn. The resulting mug shots, compiled in Barflies: Reykjavik, include shots of hipsters with knotty Nordic names too difficult to transcribe (much less pronounce). Case in point: Gudmundsdottir, though we admit you might know her better as Björk. BY JARED PAUL STERN BUY BARFLIES >>>>>

WRECKS IN EFFECTS

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:05:34 -0800

The Snorri Brothers talk about directing Dell's destruction derby.

BY: JEFF BEER, PUBLISHED: DEC 4, 2007 With the latest Dell spot, "Out With The Old," Mother, New York adds to its creative revision for the brand. Behind the lens this time are the Snorri Brothers, who have taken what looks like IT department cast-offs and added high powered explosives to deliver a visual ballet of destruction. All the mayhem is slowed right down and set to the tune of Jennifer Terran crooning a soft and tender take on Doris Day's "Que Sera Sera." We spoke with the Icelandic directing duo about the goals, the challenges and, of course, the firepower of this delight of a demolition derby. As a directing team, what was your goal for the spot? To make something quite unique for our client, Dell, and to do something different for ourselves as well -- take on a new challenge and make something beautiful out of destruction. "The beauty in destruction" was sort of the brief from Mother NY and we tried to stay true to that. We wanted this to feel like an art installation and be more of an art piece then a commercial. (and of course we wanted to blow up a lot of shit). How many takes did it take? It was all done in one take except for one setup which we did two takes of. We shot each setup with multiple high speed cameras to get maximum coverage out of each setup. How many computers were harmed in the making of this commercial? We went to a recycling plant to source old computers for the job and we got about 150 pieces. We ended up using less than half of them and then all the parts and pieces were returned to the recycling plant. So no functioning computers were actually harmed, all the pieces were discarded hardware to begin with and the debris was all recycled again. What was used to blow up the computers? With explosives -- state of the art, Hollywood-style pyrotechincs. It was a very sophisticated system of timing the explosions to the camera moves and the action. What were the biggest challenges of putting the spot together? It was the risk factor. There was no room for mistakes anywhere as there was no turning back once we started exploding things. We really only had one take for almost everything. The preparation and planning from the ground up was a huge logistical challenge which we had much help with from our team, from production, through the edit and into post. In the edit we had a particularly challenging situation, dealt with beautifully by Avi at Bikini, as we had so much slow motion footage which we had to cut so drastically down, and then the finish from RhinoFx was stellar as always. Who were the unsung heroes of the spot? Definitely a big shout out to our producer Jeff Miller, DP Erich Treml, production designer Eric Troop, art director Bjorn Baldvinsson, editor Ari Oron and VFX company, Rhinofx. We couldn't have done this without them, obviously, and of course Mother and Dell, which deserve a high five for being a brave client.

SNORRICAM

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:12:24 -0700

We created the Snorri Cam for a music video shoot years ago for an all girl punk band. It has since become world famous as can be seen below. Snorri Cam video of Jill by Jonathan.