Posted by Nicole in Opinions on January 31, 2012 - 6:37 pm
I’ve said it once, twice, three times in my blog posts; I love animation. Animation has a unique ability to translate and speak to our emotions. The only thing comparable to animation is music. When the two combine? Magic. Plain and simple. Below are a few animated music videos that I feel most effectively translated abstract emotion.
Credit
Animator: Sean Pecknold
Song: The Shrine
Band: Fleet Foxes
It’s that time of year again. Hundreds of thousands of music lovers across North America are gearing up to camp out for multi-day music festivals across the country. This year, the field of music festivals competing for attendees is denser than ever before. Festivals have to put together a strong digital presence and a comprehensive online marketing strategy—in addition to a killer lineup—if they hope to draw in the numbers.
Starting off with the “big one”, the Bonnaroo Music & Arts festival sold out of tickets for the 2011 festival season. Taking a look at their web presence, it’s not hard to tell why. In addition to having a deep website with a wealth of content and information, Bonnaroo has been aggressive in its social media push. Both their Facebook and Twitter accounts are regularly updated multiple times a day with content geared towards drawing in new attendees and maintaining a level of enthusiasm for those who have already purchased tickets (encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations). Bonnaroo is a fantastic example of how digital marketing, done right, can reap substantial rewards in the music festival scene.
Next up is Summer Camp. This music festival has been pushing social media harder this year than in years past. Half of its homepage is dedicated to social outlets for you to use to network with the festival itself and fans/attendees. Updates via both Facebook and Twitter, ramping up in frequency as the event approaches, serve well to foment interaction. Although the scale of the Summer Camp is only a fraction of Bonnaroo, they have been able to successfully utilize social media outlets for promotion and communication.
Finally there is Electric Forest. The spiritual successor to Rothbury and in its own inaugural year, Electric Forest faced stiff competition from other well-established music festivals this season. In order to build momentum and awareness of the event, Electric Forest festival leaned almost towards a “crowd sourcing” model of social media outreach. In addition to the typical offerings of updates via Twitter and Facebook, Electric Forest pushed its fans to create original video content & poster artwork, and in exchange for prizes ranging from free tickets to spots dancing onstage during the headliners sets. Despite the more limited scope and size of Electric Forest, social media promotion has greatly helped to build awareness of the festival.
At this point, I predict the number of music festivals we will see in 2012 will increase to an even larger number. As a result, the competition over potential attendees will become even more fierce. As social media increases its role as part of the marketing mix, expect to see even more novel and original ideas coming out of these outlets from event promoters. If you’re interested discussing more with a social media team that can deliver kick ass results, head on over to Oneupweb.com and take a look at what we can do for you.
I ran across this little Flash gem today while surfing the world wide web and I must admit, it’s quite addictive. Trust me, you’ll have a blast! The ToneMatrix is a free music synthesizer that lets you create your own audio sequences by selecting steps on a 16×16 matrix. Simply select steps with your mouse across the whole matrix. The sound plays from left to right, based on your selected sequence of steps. Click once to select, click again to deselect. Press the SPACE key, to clear all.
The ToneMatrix was created back in 2009 by Andre Michelle after he played with a Yamaha TENORI-ON, which I had no idea existed until now (I know what I want for Christmas next year). Andre Michelle got his start in 1998 with Flash 4 as an autodidact and has repeatedly pushed the limits of Flash possibilities in gaming, interactivity and music. Currently he is working on Audiotool (which is genius), an online music application entirely developed in Flash.
I’ve always thought it was strange that techno music, a genre based on progressive technology, is still using dated equipment like turntables. Yet, as a collector of vinyl records and fan of the record player, I love how analog recordings have survived and are still being used today.
Currently most DJs use: a CD turntable like the Pioneer CDJ-1000, which manipulates a CD much like a vinyl record; Stanton’s Final Skratch, which allows you to use your laptop’s library of mp3s, while playing special vinyl records pressed with a digital timecode; or the more traditional, direct drive analog turntables.
Now a new possible contender has surfaced—the Attigo TT touch screen turntable. A DJ can scratch, loop and sample wave forms just like a record, but they can also access a computer screen, play list, and more directly from the touch screen itself. The possibilities for this type of technology are almost limitless and it seems the logical way to go, thanks to the introduction of Apple’s iPad. The Attigo TT is only a prototype and has some flexibility issues, but as touch screen technology continues to advance, I think we’ll see a major electronics company pick this idea up and run with it.
The band Ratatat has done something amazing and unexpected. They have composed a music video for their song Drugs, made of stock video from Getty Images. As a designer, it’s always hard to find the right stock footage for your project, without coming off cheesy or lame or out of place. Ratatat does a great job at exposing those challenges and embracing them to their fullest.
