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Martin Solveig Takes On Stadiums, Headbands

admin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:56:02 +0000

This post is syndicated from Yahoo! Music AS HEARD ON.

Dance music impresario Martin Solveig released the third episode of “Smash” last week, the high-budget, ongoing video series leading up to the release of his new album by the same name.

The series is a cool way of creating video while simultaneously letting fans preview music from the release. Each episode is a minimovie meets music video, sometimes nearly 10 minutes in length. The storyline features Solveig alongside the dapperly-dressed fictional ‘manageur’ LaFaille as they devise elaborate hijinks for exposing Martin’s music to the masses.

The production quality of the series is top-notch and the writing brings to mind the quirkiness of Wes Anderson paired alongside the mocumentary-style of Spinal Tap. It’s an internet gem perfectly sized for viewing, sharing, then possibly even bookmarking to watch again later!

In the most recent episode, LaFaille imagines a stadium-sized stunt to grab the world’s attention. Taking over the Stade de France – France’s biggest and most prestigious football stadium – the crew shot the final, over-the-top scene in one take at the France vs. Croatia friendly on March 29th.

The premiere episode accompanied the hit single “Hello” and was shot in front of a live audience at the Roland Garros tennis world championships in France.

The video series also creates a new benchmark in creativity for music videos. This is a series worthy of blowing up on the big screen at home rather than streaming from a phone or viewing within the confines of a cubicle. It breaks the form of what we normally expect from a music video, a trend we’ve seen lately with other long form music vids (Lady Gaga, anyone?).

Watch all the episodes

See a Qwiki on Solveig to learn more about Martin:

Audio Gadgets and Interactivity At CES!

admin — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 05:19:40 +0000

Excerpts Syndicated from Yahoo! Music Blog: As Heard On…

Known as the center for consumer technology, the Consumer Electronics Show happens annually in Las Vegas and is undoubtedly the largest of it’s kind–it’s the ultimate place to be for those who crave the latest and greatest in gadgetry! The 2011 show was no exception. It drew around 2,700 technology companies with over 140,000 industry folks in attendance.

This year, we saw lots of 3-D in the form of TV sets, cameras, and game consoles. We saw many many tablets, from the Motorola XOOM to the BlackBerry Playbook.

Perhaps the most buzzworthy debut was made by none other than Lady Gaga, Creative Director to Polaroid’s Grey Label lineThe new line, announced by Gaga in person at CES, includes an Instant Mobile Printer, the GL30 Instant Digital Camera, and most strikingly, the GL20 Camera Glasses. Users of the goggle-like specs can instantly capture or upload photos–then display the images on the glasses’ LCD screens for others to see.

We also saw streaming devices, portable players, and lots and lots of headphones. Following the success of Beats by Dre, both 50 Cent and Ludacris debuted headphones of their own. Luda unveiled the 5-model line Soul by Ludacris, while 50 debuted wireless ‘phones dubbed Sleek by 50 Cent.

From the mobile arena–literally, a huge arena-like space at the Las Vegas Convention Center–came the newest developments in smart phone gadgetry. Notably, many developers took advantage of the open-source ANDROID platform (as opposed to the DROID, the actual phone by Motorola– thanks A.S.!) to build products of their own.

We also saw the introduction of “Super Phones”, phones with dual-core processors running on the 4G network with the ability to run apps galore. With mega speed like this, users can shoot and watch HD video, and even render console-level 3D graphics! Pretty cool, right?

And while the future of Internet TV depends on whether the cable and satellite distributors can get along, we came one step closer this year. Samsung has made strides through recent partnerships with Adobe, Comcast, and Time Warner in an effort to bring more streaming content to the ‘tube. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the day when I can stream S.N.L. in glorious 1080p perfection–and simultaneously live-snark with friends!

Is 3-D just a passing trend? Will Internet TV be the next big thing? Which gadgets are you most excited to see in 2011? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!

Miro and the Enabling of Community Media

admin — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:54:23 +0000

One of my favorite online video platforms to emerge in the last few years is the open-source service Miro.

Formerly known as the Democracy Player, Miro is an Internet tv application developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation.

I’m a big proponent of open-source. It drives innovation by allowing developers to build on each others’ work, and makes creating and sharing content easy for everyone (and to support the service, you can adopt a line of code. How clever is that?!).

You can imagine how stoked I was to find out about Miro Community, an ancillary service created for publishing videos.

Dubbed “The easiest way to make a video website”, Miro Community provides groups like local media organizations and schools with the templates they need to create their own video-based experience.

The service makes it easy to run presentations from your own domain, automatically import and publish RSS feeds, and it works with most free video services and a wide-variety of hosts. In short, Miro Community does most of the heavy lifting for you, so your organization doesn’t have to.

Seems simple, right?

That’s the point. It makes publishing content easy for everyone, encouraging video from a wide variety of sources and enabling sharing of local media.

Basic Community sites are free for everyone. Premium accounts are available on an application basis.

A Look At Miro
How Public Access TV Evolved into Community Media Centers (PBS Mediashift)