Tonight is the premiere of One Strange Rock, the National Geographic television series to which we contributed coral & marine life footage. The Darren Aronofsky-produced, Will Smith-hosted 10-part series explores the fragility & wonder of planet Earth from the perspective of eight astronauts who spent time onboard the International Space Station.
“This is the story of Earth, from the only people who have ever left it.”
Watch the full episode of ‘Alien’, featuring our cinematography contributions:
We are psyched to share Coral Morphologic is a contributor of coral & marine life footage to the Darren Aronofsky-produced, Will Smith-hosted National Geographic television series One Strange Rock. Filmed in space & locations across 45 countries, the series explores the fragility & wonder of planet Earth from the perspective of eight astronauts who spent time onboard the International Space Station.
The 10-episode series debuts March 26, 2018; watch the trailer above.
During the 2018 NBA All-Star weekend, adidas held a two-day celebration of basketball culture at ROW DTLA in Los Angeles. The event, called 747 Warehouse St, brought together creators from the worlds of sports, music, fashion and design. To represent the oceans and rally new champions for the cause, Parley created an adidas X Parley X Coral Morphologic experience focused on the beauty and fragility of the oceans, featuring a CM video installation aimed at generating environmental awareness. Watch a highlight video from the event below.
Coral Morphologic makes a cameo in the new Arcade Fire music video, ‘Signs of Life.’ The vid follows two paranormal investigators through the weird world(s) of South Florida.
We are pleased to share the release of a series of apparel recycled from post-consumer plastic bottles, in collaboration with our friends at Waterlust. The ‘Cosmic Coral’ line features Coral Morphologic zoanthid, man o war, and flower anemone prints, and are now available to purchase from the Waterlust online shop. The leggings are 86% RPET (recycled polyester), 14% lycra, giving 10 post-consumer plastic bottles a positive future. Additionally, they are printed using dye-sublimation, an environmentally friendly process which uses no water and minimizes waste. 10% of profits go toward our efforts to research and document Miami’s imperiled coral reefs.
It’s a treat to share Flower Garden Banks, an Animal Collective x Coral Morphologic collaboration featuring “Michael, Remember (Jam May 12, 2015)”, the first warm-up jam for Animal Collective upon getting together to practice for the first time in a year and a half. It features Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and Geologist, and was recorded at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, NC. The accompanying underwater video was recorded in July 2014 within the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary over two nights by Colin, with additional camera and lighting by Deakin and Geologist of Animal Collective. The raw jam and video were later shared, and the resulting video was edited by Jared.
The Flower Garden Banks are located about 100 miles offshore Galveston, Texas in the Gulf of Mexico and are the northernmost coral reef formations in the continental United States. The reef begins at about 60’ deep and is characterized by massive brain coral heads and a lack of branching or soft corals. The corals were filmed with special blue wavelength lights and filters that capture the natural fluorescence of the colonies. While the evolutionary purpose that this fluorescence serves corals is still not fully understood, the directed application of the corals’ fluorescent proteins by geneticists was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 by serving to accelerate (and literally illuminate) the field of genetics and biochemistry.
We are proud to have filmed the corals of the Miami Coral Rescue Mission for a new BBC three-episode television series on the Atlantic Ocean titled Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth. Watch the Coral Morphologic-shot coral fluorescence sequence above, which features in the series’ third episode, ‘From Heaven to Hell’, airing August 13th on BBC Two in the UK.
We are very psyched to share Coral City, a half-hour documentary accompanying the Coral Morphologic cover story in last August’s VICE Magazine. The movie, directed by John McSwain and shot by Jake Burghart of VICE Media, documents our efforts to highlight the urban corals of Miami as resilient pioneers adapting to a rapidly changing world.
Coral Morphologic is proud to announce the digital release of the remixed and remastered Natural History Redux today, March 6, 2014. NHR compiles our original Natural History series of videos (that were previous only available online individually in 720p) into a digital 1080p collector’s edition. NHR sees these 23 films hypnotically datamoshed together into a half-hour odyssey of the sea. Watch the official film free above, @ https://vimeo.com/showcase/naturalhistoryredux, or purchase the film @ coralmorphologic.bigcartel.com/product/natural-history-redux-digital-hd-film
The release of Natural History Redux represents the closing of the early chapters of Coral Morphologic. The ‘Natural History’ series represents our early ‘demos’, as the acquisition of the landmark Canon 5D Mark II in 2009 had suddenly made high-definition macro videography an affordable prospect for us. At that time we were still based out of our original home-based lab, where we made do with miniaturized aquarium sets that we hand-crafted in DIY spirit, challenging ourselves to make living portraits of our local invertebrate marine life. Colin did the filming, and J.D. composed original soundtracks (except ‘Man O War’ which was scored by Animal Collective’s Geologist) to accompany each film. We charged ourselves to film and release a new portrait every week on this blog, which for the most part we delivered under self-imposed Monday morning deadlines. After filming ‘Man O War’ we found ourselves in a position where we felt constrained by our home-based lab, and took the gamble to move into a dedicated facility where we could expand our vision. It would be another two years before we had the time or resources to film anything new (the new Lab was considerably more expensive to set up and operate). 3 years later, we are pleased to offer a remixed and remastered compilation of these films as an audio-visual album. Enjoy!
Coral Morphologic is proud to announce the digital release of the remixed and remastered Natural History Redux this Thursday, March 6, 2014. NHR compiles our original 23 ‘Natural History’ videos (that were previous only available online individually in 720p) into a digital 1080p collector’s edition.
We are psyched to share that our short film Fungia Food was included in the ‘Nature’ episode of Adult Swim‘s showOff The Air. Check out the episode above.
At last month’s screening of the FUTUREHISTORY program, we debuted Into the Cosmic Flower Garden, a triumphant ode to the sex cycle of the Phymanthus crucifer sea anemone, as well as a remixed compilation of Jean Painlevé’s seminal aquarium-based films. Enjoy!
We are excited to share that Coral Morphologic has contributed film and images to Coral: Rekindling Venus, a full-dome digital planetarium motion picture directed by artist Lynette Wallworth. Coral: Rekindling Venus explores the magnificence of the coral reef and its organisms in a high definition, 360 degree view with a score including Antony Hegarty and Christian Fennesz. The film premieres in twenty-four (24) planetariums around the world on June 5th, which coincides with the Transit of Venus. The movie’s title equates the significance of coral reefs in the 21st century to this historic astronomical event.
Check out the video from Colin’s TEDx talk, where he highlights Miami’s urban corals – specifically a rare hybrid “super” coral that may help in future rehabilitation of Florida’s fragile reefs.
This past week our short film ‘Oyster Vision’ was included in the second episode of Adult Swim‘s new ten-minute mind-boggle of a show, Off the Air. The episode is titled ‘Food’, check it out above.
