All of the internet has been raving over the latest entrance video for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks hockey team. With Leather was fortunate enough to get in touch with one of its co-creators. Jon Dorfman (not pictured) is a native New Yorker and one of the minds behind HiFi3d, a multi-platform digital media shop. Jon was good enough to answer some of our questions.

WL: You co-directed the entrance video for the Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks hockey team. What the hell is a nanook? Is that like a dystopian breakfast nook in the Arctic?

JD: “Nanook” is an Inuit word for the Polar bear, who they consider the “Master of the Bears.” I whole-heartedly agree.

WL: How did you get involved in the production of what’s being called on Twitter “the greatest film our species has ever created”?

JD: I recently co-founded a computer animation studio called HiFi 3D (www.hifi3d.com) with my co-director Szymon Weglarski. We were looking to create a sample project to get the word out, and we came across a craigslist ad for a sequel to the original “UAF Hockey bear”. We both
loved the original intro, and even though the budget and time frame were absurd, we had to take on the project. We contacted Mike Martinez, who created the original and was producing and writing the sequel, and things took off from there.

As soon as we got the job we started brainstorming ways to make it as over-the-top as we possibly could. We tried to take every idea, push it as far as it could go, and then make it explode. It’s really exciting to see people respond so positively to it and point out the little obscure references that we threw in. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: One of the directors sent us this higher-quality video.

I had heard that the Alaska-Fairbanks hockey program was planning to re-do their excellent entrance video, featuring a polar bear that has the ability to fly through space and I thought, “That would be just like painting bangs on the Mona Lisa.” But they did re-do the video, and somehow it’s even more awesome. Just enjoy it. It’ll be the only video of a polar bear in a fighter jet nuking the planet, only to travel back in time to crash through the roof of an ice rink that you see all day. Probably. –as seen on MGoBlog.

Today, we’re bringing you the Best of WL from 2009: my favorite posts, and yours, from the last year. It’ll be an excellent precursor to your rampage of irresponsibility on New Year’s Eve.

This is the intro video and music for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks men’s (and women’s?) hockey team, and if you don’t think it’s the greatest thing ever, then we can’t be friends anymore. For future reference, anything with an exploding polar bear terrorizing satellites and detonating airports will get posted here. As long as the polar bear isn’t Muslim. Hey, we have standards around here. via.

Originally published October 1, 2009.

This is the intro video and music for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks men’s (and women’s?) hockey team, and if you don’t think it’s the greatest thing ever, then we can’t be friends anymore. For future reference, anything with an exploding polar bear terrorizing satellites and detonating airports will get posted here. As long as the polar bear isn’t Muslim. Hey, we have standards around here. via.