geekosystem

The Slow Mo Guys are returning to their childhoods this week, if only to blow up whatever they find there -- and film it in slow motion, of course. I mean, that is kind of their thing. While the duo's initial experiment -- detonating a picturesque LEGO house, wookiees and all -- doesn't go exactly as planned, the frustration it induces results in an unlikely work of art. So if you've ever wondered whether a box full of children's building blocks being blasted into the sky and then raining down in dreamlike slow motion is kind of beautiful, this is your chance to find out. (Spoiler alert: it totally is.)

What does it look like when you dunk explosives into buckets of paint and set them off? Well, it looks like an unholy mess, of course. When you're filming at 1600 frames per second, though, even an unholy mess looks rather beautiful. Straightforwardly named Intertube filmmakers The Slow Mo Guys have broken out their Phantom camera again, this time to capture the spectacle and splendor that is a bunch of paint buckets exploding, confirming once again that every knucklehead stunt you and your dumb buddies pulled off in sixth grade would have been art if you had had a very nice camera to film it with. We're especially fans of the shots where it looks like the paint is running away from an exploding car like it is in an action movie, but by all means -- check out the results for yourself below.

Skateboarding is a complicated act. I long ago accepted this and also that I would never be any good at it. Thank goodness for other people that know how to do things I don't. Adam Shomsky happened to record a series of uncommon skateboarding tricks on a Redlake N3 high-speed camera then slowed the motion down and set it to an apt soundtrack to provide what is potentially one of the best skateboarding videos I've ever seen. They might not be the most impressive tricks, sure, but the video makes it look like magic.

First you see what it looks like when a water balloon impacts someone's face and doesn't explode. Then you see it in slow motion, which might make it art. (via Viral Viral Video)

Admittedly, I am not a fan of 3D, but if I ever saw a video that might be done justice by it, it's this video. Apparently, it's a music video of some sort, speculation about what sort abounds on this reddit thread. It's hard to figure out without being able to read Japanese. What's for sure though, is that it's absolutely mesmerizing. It's from way back in the Stone Age, 2009, but definitely worth resurrecting in case you missed it, which you probably did. Sit back and enjoy. Welcome to the weekend.

(via Reddit)

You've seen slow motion jello, now check out this slow motion cymbal crash. Oddly similar, yet quite distinct. Compare and contrast, make a T chart and have it ready to be graded on Monday. Class dismissed.

(via Reddit)

The American breakfast: full of pastries, fruit, various fried meats, eggs. Just look at those eggs benedict on Canadian bacon; that, friends, is perfection. Boy, it all looks so beautiful laid out like that on clean white linen. I can't wait to dig in! Be shame if something happ- No. NO. (by Bruton Stroube Studios via Tasteologie)

You've probably been around Jell-O at some point in your life, and observed how they jiggle and jostle in an amusing (though not always appetizing) way. You probably haven't seen Jell-O like this, wiggling around in slow motion filmed at 6,200 frames per second. It's rather astonishing to see the familiar cube of gelatinous deliciousness seem to splash outward like falling fluid, only to rebound and reform in midair. A veritable flubber ballet. (via Gizmodo)

Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo. What happens when a cameraman spends the night in a Vegas hotel room with a state of the art slow motion camera? ...Pretty things. (via Laughing Squid.)

Everything looks excellent in slow motion, especially animals. They are regal, proud warriors, even if they're domesticated cats and dogs catching a treat. When shot on high-speed film then played back to dramatic instrumental music, they are just the finest examples of their kind that ever existed. Behold! Animals in majestic slow motion!

This is what a waterdrop dropped onto water looks like when filmed at 10,000 frames-per-second. It behaves similar to a bouncy ball, called the coalescence cascade, in that the droplet dumps about half of its water into the pool of water below, then bounces back up into the air, and repeats until there's nothing left.

(via Best of YouTube)

Here are some big bubbles being blown at a beach, shown in slow motion and in reverse. For the sake of bubble posterity or something.

(via reddit)

The epic music video sorcerers of OK Go just might have some serious competition in the form of Dancing Pigeons, a French electronica group. Their latest music video, directed by the always-fascinating Tomas Mankovsky, features a slow-motion battle between a flamethrower and a fire extinguisher. It is as awesome as you would expect.

Lightning researcher Tom A. Warner takes very high FPS videos of lightning as it's forming, to better document "lightning's beauty, power, and fierocity using an array of optical and electromagnetic sensors in hopes of better understanding its behavior."

In the 9000 frame per second video below, two seconds of real time from a recent lightning strike are stretched out to a minute-and-a-half, to hypnotic effect.