Spotify iPhone App preview

It's nearly upon us. Quite possibly one of the most anticipated music apps, and from what I've seen, and heard, in my view one of the best. Set to be available for premium subscribers via the App Store.



Video - Spotify iPhone App in action


As Spotify continues to grow, now at 2.15M UK unique users alone, the Spotify application will allow users to listen to individual songs, full albums, or even create playlists, which users can store songs to listen to offline.

Problems

     I've been trying to put the video (probably over an hour of HD video.  Those are big files.) from the basketball games I've been shooting the past couple days on my computer.  I'm log-ging and transfer-ing with Final Cut Express, and it imports about 5 out of 30-40 files, then freezes.  It did that about 6 times.  That is one of the most frustrating things ever.  I have looked everywhere on Apple's support forums, and have had no luck.  If anyone has any thoughts on this, please leave me a comment.  If not, I guess I'm gonna have to figure something out.

Reflections on Harry Potter

     Two days ago I saw the new Harry Potter movie.  It was good (that's one thing about me: as long as a movie is entertaining, I usually like it.  I rarely call a movie bad, unless it's totally uninteresting or just flat out stupid.  I also have a hard time picking favorites.), but what really stood out were a few scenes that were shot/edited wonderfully.

     The scene in which the characters are having their little chase/fight scene through the field at the Weasley's house blew me away.  The cinematography in that scene was amazing. I especially liked how they used both the rushed, shaky, close up shots like the ones you see in films like "The Bourn Identity", and the farther out, steady shots.  The combination of these two styles gave the scene the excitement factor from the close up shots, but also let you know what was going on.  I loved it.  Another thing that made that scene so cool was the lack of background.  You saw the character, the grass/wheat/whatever that was, and nothing else but blackness.  That gave it a cool effect.  And also, looking back, it seems like they partially desaturated the film.  I've never really thought about using partial desaturation as an effect, but the way they used it really worked.  

SPOILER ALERT!

     Another part I liked was after Dumbledore was killed, and everyone morned, and there was the dramatic orchestra music, then it went to a silent, black screen.  It stayed black for what seemed like the perfect amount of time, then opened, still silent, on the dining hall, with sunlight shining in.  that short sequence is what I consider amazing editing.  I don't think there was a better way they could have dealt with this main character's death. 

     I'm going to try to keep this kind of thing in mind for when I'm making my own stuff, and try to learn from all of the movies I see.

Long Movies

I watched "'Salem's Lot" last night, the (apparently) made for tv movie based on the novel by Steven King. A few notes:
1. It wasn't an awful movie, but
2. It was 4 hours long (including commercials, but still.)
3. I should not have started watching a 4 hour movie at midnight.
4. If I ever want to make a 4 hour movie, I want someone to slap me upside the head and make sure I know what I'm doing

Harry Potter Casts 'Twitter Spells' on your followers

This is a brilliant little app for all those Harry Potter fans out there, which just can't get enough of the box office smash 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' released Worldwide last week. 'Hogwarts Wizarding Class' (Found here: www.harrypottertweet.com) allows Twitterers out there to cast spells on their unsuspecting follows, giving them the option to send in a flock of birds (See below), shroud their page in darkness, or send them a love potion.


Pic 1 - Harry Potter Tweet

I think this is a really nice idea, and is very in the spirit of the movies. Developed by Warner Brothers the app is certainly one of the best uses of Twitter I have seen from a brand and hope fully raises the bar to a new level.


Pic 2 - Harry Potter Tweet (Photo Credit Revolution)

My only reservation is on the subject of how comfortable the Twitterverse is in divulging there login details to every new app that appears, but I guess we will see as more and more of them appear.

Challenge

My brother just said to me "If you could do one video a week, you could actually make this blog work."

I took that as a challenge.  I'm going to try to make one movie a week.  It may be a little documentary, a comedic short, or a video I do for a gig.  But I will do it.  I'm going to try my best to make an original movie once a week, and try and learn from it.  And hopefully, I (and, hopefully you, the reader) will see an improvement every week.

Here we go.

OLD stuff.

 Here are two videos that my brother and I made a long time ago.  We've always been a filmmaking team, but now that he has a "real job" and is out of high school, he's never around.

This first one includes two of our friends, and is, technically, one of a tiny number of actually completed films.  I'm sorry for the editing and sound effects at the end; that's usually my job, but Andy did it for this one.  It's called "The Sting"

EDIT: I seem to have had some issues with this movie. Apparently Youtube can sense that this movie has a copyrighted song in it (How does that work?!).  Well Youtube, being Youtube, muted the entire video.  !?!?!?  You can watch it for the magical visuals still if you like.  

This movie is called "Aftermath". At some point, we did have a story, but it kinda went down the tubes. This doesn't have any of the story in it, and is basically just an action movie.

When I actually make a new movie, these are going to be 

the first ones I compare them to, just to give me a little 

confidence boost.

Second Paid Video Gig

     Yesterday I found an add on Craigslist for a job video-ing some basketball games.  Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity.  It turns out that this person wanted me to film her son in this national basketball tournament for a "highlight reel".  So today I went to a basketball tournament with my camera.  Three problems:

      1. I'm not a big sports fan.  I felt awkward and out of place.

      2. I felt creepy, because I was following one guy (amongst two teams of five) even when he didn't have the ball.  Those were my instructions.  

     3. Shooting a basketball game is harder than I expected.  With all the constant motion, it was hard to stay on my one specific person.  It turns out I probably should have lubricated my tripod, because it wouldn't turn smoothly, and made a slightly jerky shot.

Now I know.

P.S. About this being my second gig- I'll talk about my first sometime or another.

The beginning

     I've always been interested in film.  Since my parents let my brother and I use the movie camera when I was about 8, I've been messing around filming things.  When a contest/TV show gave me the equipment needed to make a quality film (Hi Def Camera, lighting equipment, green screen, microphone, 24" iMac with editing software, etc.), I decided to try and become a better filmmaker.  I'm trying to learn, through experience and practice, how to make movies like the best of them.

     I've made several videos for school (all entertaining, though not necessarily professional), countless attempts at comedy films with my brother (keyword: attempts), and other random videos; now it's time to get serious.  I've been scouring Craigslist for videographer jobs and I'm in preproduction on my first serious movie (It's currently being written by a friend), and I'm trying to learn more about the business (and the art) of film. 

YouTube Tests 3D Videos

Firstly a warning, this probably will give you a headache, it did me. But yes it is true, over the weekend YouTube began experimenting with 3D videos. Although this only appears to be the pet project of one Googler, "developer working on the stereoscopic player as a 20% project", it is still pretty cool, and gives us something interesting to talk about. To read up on how to achieve this on YouTube view here.



Pic - Photo Credit www.seroundtable.com


Via - Gizmodo

Banned German Sprite Advert

This is an ad doing the rounds today which was banned in Germany for... well I think it's quite obvious why. Pretty random, and I'm sure quite uncomfortable to watch if you're one of Sprite's younger 'teenage' demographic watching TV with the parents, with a Britney Spears lookalike getting a 'Sprite Necklace' during the ad break.

UPDATE: It turns out that, yes, it was a fake all along! Although the original ad was pulled from YouTube, you can view below courtesy of Young Turks, and The Huffington Post.


Video - Banned German Sprite Ad

'Three Keyboard Cat Moon Shirt'

Okay so first there was the 'Three Wolf Moon' shirt, which rather epically entered our lives a few months ago, with the classic reviews on Amazon.com which sent sales soaring 2,300%. Then there was 'Keyboard Cat' which featured 'Fatso' owned by Charlie Schmidt, wearing a blue shirt and "playing" an upbeat rhythm on an electronic keyboard. Well now there is the 'Three Keyboard Cat Moon Shirt', have we seen enough? Probably yes, but as always with the Internet you never know.



Pic - Three Keyboard Cat Moon Shirt



Pic - Three Wolf Moon Shirt



Video - Keyboard Cat


Via - threadless

Durex - 'Condoms That Generate Desire' New advert

This is a new ad by Durex in France which certainly gives you a hint of the power contained within this prophylactic. Works brilliantly to the sound of ABBA, as the wrapper floats through the streets causing havoc, revealing the tag line 'Les préservatifs qui donnent envie' or 'Condoms That Generate Desire'.



Durex - "Les préservatifs qui donnent envie"


Related Posts:

Get it on - Durex Balloon Animals
Get it on - Durex Balloon Animals "OUTTAKE"
Top 10 banned ads - Shortlist

Fosters 'Ozometer' Twitter App

As part of their latest campaign Fosters have launched their new 'Ozometer' Twitter application to try and work out just how 'Aussie' us Brits really are. According to the Fosters site, the 'Ozometer' Twitter App works by scanning thousands of Tweets every minute, and determines whether they are 'More' or 'Less' Aussie when compared to a predetermined list of words and phrases.



On the site users can view the live feed of Tweets as their fate is decided with a percentage grade, search for their own Twitter account, and view the current rankings by Celebrity, Place, or People. Although this does not necessarily seem like something radically new, I really like this. Dipping into the positive Vs. negative Tweets is actually really entertaining, and similarly to Twistori (Shown below), can easily sap up minutes of your time.



I'm curious to see how this campaign evolves, and will certainly be looking out for my Tweets in the charts. For further information on how the app works, all info is on the Fosters site here.


Update:

I've just in an article on Revolution, that further to this Fosters have partnered with Nuts.co.uk to give users a fully 'Aussie' experience complete with advertorials, quizzes, updates, and competitions (As if 'Assess My Breasts', 'Beach Babes getting wild' and the 'Naked Chanelle special' wasn't enough already). You can view the full article here: 'Fosters launches Twitter app: find out how Aussie you are'.




Enjoy!

Original Ghostbusters Car on eBay

It seems that quite rightly so the World still loves Ghostbusters. The original movie released in 1984, and then was responsible for two sequels (1989, and one coming in 2012), countless cartoons and toys, a fully casted computer game, and countless other tributes including that of the UK Directory service 118 118.



Anyway now it appears that yes, you to can own a piece of Ghostbusters history, with the release of the 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor ambulance limo that was transformed by Universal Studios into the Ecto-1 Ghostbusters car, now being auctioned off on eBay. Those interested can view the auction here: Original Ghostbusters Car on eBay




BTW the bidding currently stands at $45,100.00!!

Office 2010 The Movie Trailer

This is certainly an entertaining way to round off my Monday afternoon, the 'Movie Trailer' for Microsoft Office 2010.





Enjoy!

A Successful Presentation!

So, my lecture on "The Christian Elements of Harry Potter" was a success. I'm surprised that no one had to leave after it passed an hour (it went about an hour and twenty minutes), but that's the magic of the Potter series and the audience was extremely polite. There were about 20-25 people who attended. I do hope that they get some of the books I referenced which are critical to a literary analysis of the Potter series. But more importantly, I hope everyone had a good time. I think they did - I've heard some positive reviews.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in theaters, and my family and I will be at the midnight release at our local theater on July 15th (if you recall that midnight belongs to the AM - that's so annoying). Even the theater says Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, to clear up any confusion (lol). Yesterday I was looking at www.fandango.com to look at tickets and saw that my local theater had two screens showing it at midnight, and one was sold out already. But then I thought "hey, that's okay, the other theater with 22 screens has seven showings and they haven't sold out yet." Not the case this morning. When my father and I logged on to purchase advance tickets for the other showing (we got them, thank goodness), can you believe that all seven showings were already sold out. That's the juggernaut that is the Potter films.

I can't believe I haven't blogged yet about "A Very Potter Musical." I've been singing along to the songs and enjoying this for the last few weeks (when it was initially posted and when it was re-posted), and it's just so good... I hope that everybody checks this awesome thing out on www.youtube.com. It's becoming its own phenomenon, a soundtrack should be released and another reviewer suggested the cast and crew go on tour with the show - I agree, I think they should as well.

If I don't post again until after the new movie comes out, I hope everyone who goes has a fun (and safe) time at the midnight releases or whenever you go to see the film. Thanks again to all who attended my presentation this morning.

A Successful Presentation!

So, my lecture on "The Christian Elements of Harry Potter" was a success. I'm surprised that no one had to leave after it passed an hour (it went about an hour and twenty minutes), but that's the magic of the Potter series and the audience was extremely polite. There were about 20-25 people who attended. I do hope that they get some of the books I referenced which are critical to a literary analysis of the Potter series. But more importantly, I hope everyone had a good time. I think they did - I've heard some positive reviews.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in theaters, and my family and I will be at the midnight release at our local theater on July 15th (if you recall that midnight belongs to the AM - that's so annoying). Even the theater says Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, to clear up any confusion (lol). Yesterday I was looking at www.fandango.com to look at tickets and saw that my local theater had two screens showing it at midnight, and one was sold out already. But then I thought "hey, that's okay, the other theater with 22 screens has seven showings and they haven't sold out yet." Not the case this morning. When my father and I logged on to purchase advance tickets for the other showing (we got them, thank goodness), can you believe that all seven showings were already sold out. That's the juggernaut that is the Potter films.

I can't believe I haven't blogged yet about "A Very Potter Musical." I've been singing along to the songs and enjoying this for the last few weeks (when it was initially posted and when it was re-posted), and it's just so good... I hope that everybody checks this awesome thing out on www.youtube.com. It's becoming its own phenomenon, a soundtrack should be released and another reviewer suggested the cast and crew go on tour with the show - I agree, I think they should as well.

If I don't post again until after the new movie comes out, I hope everyone who goes has a fun (and safe) time at the midnight releases or whenever you go to see the film. Thanks again to all who attended my presentation this morning.

Evian Roller Babies Advert

Personally I find this slightly terrifying (Ally McBeal has scared me for life), but everyone's raving about it and it is kind of cool. On youTube the original Evian Roller Babies Advert video currently stands at 3,349,133 views since the beginning of this month, and looks set to continue.





The ad has been accompanied by a website jam packed with interviews, videos, making of's, music, and loads of other goodies. The website is www.evianliveyoung.com/babies.





Enjoy!

Apple App Store Turns 1 (a good excuse for a fact or two)

Happy Birthday to the Apple's iTunes App Store which turns 1 today. Apple has celebrated the fact by highlighting it on the iTunes front page, and putting together this page (below) with a rainbow arrangement of apps, similar to the Pulsing Wall of iPhone Apps posted last month. In the full spirit of all things app related I thought that it was the perfect excuse for some app related facts (as much for your amusement, as for giving myself a place to find them all again in the future).




Apple iTunes App Store Trivia:

1) The App Store first opened its doors on the morning of July 10th 2008

2) The most expensive app sold in the App Store was the 'I Am Rich' app released in August 2008, this was "a work of art with no hidden function at all", with its only purpose being to show other people that they were able to afford it. It cost a whopping £599.99 ($999.99). The application was removed from the App Store the day following its release, on August 6, 2008, however Six people had allegedly already bought it before it was pulled.

3) The one billionth app downloaded was "Bump", created by Bump Technologies, was downloaded by Connor Mulcahey, age 13, of Weston, who was hailed the grand prize winner of Apples one billion app countdown contest.

4) US blog 'Busted Loop' revealed after some research that in order to buy all 55,732 apps that were available as of 7th July 2009 you would need to fork out $144,326.06 (An average of about £1.60 per app to you and me).

5) In May 2009 Pinch Media analyzed 30 million iPhone app downloads and discovered that only 5% of users will open either a free or paid app 30 days after the initial download.


Related Posts:
Apple Celebrates 1 Billion App
Pulsing Wall of iPhone Apps

Lego 'Making History' Campiagn: Ali, Tank, and Brandenburg ads

Here are a few ads from the Lego 'Making History' campaign which I've seen today, and so thought I'd share them with you all.



Lego 'Making History' Campaign: Ali advert



Lego 'Making History' Campaign: Tank advert



Lego 'Making History' Campaign: Brandenburg advert

Xbox Shockwaves Guitar Hero 100

Shockwaves together with Xbox have launched the Shockwaves Guitar Hero 100 "Summer of Music 2009" to find the Ultimate Guitar Hero here in the UK. Offering a wide range of prizes and free content to users getting involved. In order to enter download the Shockwaves gamerpics (either play and win, or tournament), then play along to your favourite World Tour tracks (Tournament tracks: Motohead - Overkill, Oasis - Some Might Say, The Enemy - Aggro).



A nice idea, plus free stuff always works in grabbing a bit of attention. This is also a good way of hitting the Summer festival scene, with XBOX always having a good presence at the key festivals. Footage of the "Shockwaves Summer Of Music" will also be made available for everyone to keep up to date, which if anything like the below YouTube example is sure to be strangely amazing.

Samsung 'The Last Call' 24-Hour Dance Off

This evening will see the start of a 24-hour dance-off as part of 'The Last Call' campaign for Samsung's BEAT DJ music phone. As of 6pm tonight 100 people from all across Europe will compete in a 24-hour silent disco as part of the campaign listening to music on their phone with the aim of dancing uninterrupted until 6pm tomorrow night.





If at any time throughout the 24-hours one of the competitors receives a call or text, they are out. The prize for the last man or woman standing will be €10,000 to take the Swedish singer September out to dinner, and keep the left over money.





The whole event can viewed on the www.thelastcall.tv, and viewers are also able to tweet during the event, view the playlist on Spotify, and upload images to be projected. Over the last few weeks, the dancers have been busy making their pleas to not receive calls or texts during the dance, so Good Luck team GBR!!





Update:


... and the winner is:

Liz McClarnon stars in Andrex Shea Butter Ad (for lingerie... oh and toilet tissue)

Together with British lingerie designer Ayten Gasson, Andrex have created a limited edition range of Knickers, for new product Andrex Shea Butter. The ad sees Atomic Kitten Liz McClarnon strutting her stuff in front of the famous Andrex Pup. Liz showing off her pants, the puppy showing off his luxurious toilet tissue.

Michael Jackson's memorial today tipped as Largest online event in history

Today may see the memorial service for Michael Jackson become the largest online event in the history, as Worldwide, news networks and media companies set to cover the event including CNN via Facebook Connect (first used on a mass scale during President Obama's inauguration). The CNN Facebook Connect coverage will allow users to watch live online, as well as comment, and update their pages at the same time. The live event can be viewed at 12pm ET here: http://CNN.com/Live





Over the last week and a half since his death, traffic across the Internet has exploded, with figures relating to tweets, blogs, and YouTube viewings going through the roof. Michael Jackson's Facebook fan page is even currently sat as the most popular on Facebook over taking that of Barack Obama (the previous number one) with 6,708,180 (up from 80,00 before his death according to Times Online). You can read more about how Michael Jackson nearly broke the Internet here on Nick Burcher's blog: 'Michael Jackson nearly breaks the Internet - Total traffic, Searches, tweets etc all showing massive volumes'

Eternal Moonwalk: Michael Jackson tribute

A little late to post about the death of Michael Jackson as I was on holiday in Las Vegas (with what seemed like every casino blasting Jackson hits onto the strip) I felt like I had to write something, and this is the best of what I've seen.





EternalMoonwalk.com gives fans the opportunity to pay their respects in the best way possible by Moonwalking of course, the videos are then joined together to the sound of Jacko's music. Also I know there are some people out there who like me cannot moonwalk to save their lives, and so users can also find a 'How to Moonwalk' video on the site too.

Harry Potter Lecture: July 12th at 11:00 AM

I am quite delighted to have the honor of delivering a presentation on Harry Potter on July 12, 2009 at my church, three days before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released in theaters. The topic of the lecture (as it will be in a church) is "The Christian Elements of Harry Potter." I expect a decent-sized crowd will be there, as my town was the 9th Harry-est town in America (according to amazon.com), and I'm sure many of the churchgoers have read all of the books. (I have forewarned through the bulletins, etc. that there will be spoilers for those who haven't read the whole series).

I have prepared my notes that draw from my own thoughts and also what I've studied from various HP analysis books on the subject. Hopefully this will get some of the people who attend to read these wonderful works, and maybe even get the local library to stop stocking the companion guidebooks/encyclopedias of the series and turn to books that focus on academic analysis. One can only hope!

I've prepared this presentation for about a month, as it is not the easiest thing to explain the Christianity of a 4000+ page book series in an hour, but it is possible. I have the utmost respect for people like John Granger who manage to speak about alchemy, Christianity, the five keys to Potter and eyeballs in about an hour and a half (as I heard his last talk up in Forks at the Twilight conference? was).

I'm working some more on his some new essays and the continuation of my essay on the music of the Potter films (which I'm holding off on until I hear the score to Half-Blood Prince), so I hope to post on that soon. At any rate, I hope all is well!

Harry Potter Lecture: July 12th at 11:00 AM

I am quite delighted to have the honor of delivering a presentation on Harry Potter on July 12, 2009 at my church, three days before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released in theaters. The topic of the lecture (as it will be in a church) is "The Christian Elements of Harry Potter." I expect a decent-sized crowd will be there, as my town was the 9th Harry-est town in America (according to amazon.com), and I'm sure many of the churchgoers have read all of the books. (I have forewarned through the bulletins, etc. that there will be spoilers for those who haven't read the whole series).

I have prepared my notes that draw from my own thoughts and also what I've studied from various HP analysis books on the subject. Hopefully this will get some of the people who attend to read these wonderful works, and maybe even get the local library to stop stocking the companion guidebooks/encyclopedias of the series and turn to books that focus on academic analysis. One can only hope!

I've prepared this presentation for about a month, as it is not the easiest thing to explain the Christianity of a 4000+ page book series in an hour, but it is possible. I have the utmost respect for people like John Granger who manage to speak about alchemy, Christianity, the five keys to Potter and eyeballs in about an hour and a half (as I heard his last talk up in Forks at the Twilight conference? was).

I'm working some more on his some new essays and the continuation of my essay on the music of the Potter films (which I'm holding off on until I hear the score to Half-Blood Prince), so I hope to post on that soon. At any rate, I hope all is well!

New Book by John Granger!

Oh, I'm so excited! I just ordered John Granger's new book, Harry Potter's Bookshelf from BarnesandNoble.com, which has free expedited shipping this weekend! Hopefully that means it'll arrive on its official publication date, Tuesday the 7th, and I'll have it read before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released in theaters. Anyway, here's the specs. on that book:

ISBN: 0425229793

Publisher: Berkeley Trade

Page Count: 336! How freaking awesome is that?

Anyway, if you've read John Granger's books before, you know they're some of the the best Harry Potter critical analysis out there, and this is another priceless one to add to the collection.

New Book by John Granger!

Oh, I'm so excited! I just ordered John Granger's new book, Harry Potter's Bookshelf from BarnesandNoble.com, which has free expedited shipping this weekend! Hopefully that means it'll arrive on its official publication date, Tuesday the 7th, and I'll have it read before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released in theaters. Anyway, here's the specs. on that book:

ISBN: 0425229793

Publisher: Berkeley Trade

Page Count: 336! How freaking awesome is that?

Anyway, if you've read John Granger's books before, you know they're some of the the best Harry Potter critical analysis out there, and this is another priceless one to add to the collection.