Below are some pretty inspiring examples.

if piano is your thing check out Pianola

if beats are your thing check out this simple beat layering by Project Two

if glitches and cuts is your thing check out Glitchscape

if simple chords and rain dew drops sounds enticing check out this from Lullatone

you can even make music using our planets in the solar system with Solarbeat

and for you visual/aural pleasure check out this form of music making using movies cut/clipped/pasted using instruments like the pioneer dvj-1000. This is by a artist called Pogo (a video disc jockey) made with mixers similar to cd turntables but these are mixed with dvds. The music is not bad but its the way that its put together which is great.

There are a lot of  other sites as well to consider but these are the ones that sparked my interest.

If you know any sites similar to the ones above please feel free to share.

http://kantarmediamix.com

sometimes opportunity comes twice. we just re-launched the second version of a nice little project visualmerc did with our creative partners at cult 360. a few months back we launched the US version and now we just released the european version. since i never wrote about it the first time, here’s my chance.

using art that was part of a larger rebranding campaign - along with the ‘Our Insight. Your Inspiration’ tag line - that cult 360 developed for kantar media, we helped design and program a cool microsite and game/contest. the concept is simple: using kantar’s multiple media analytic business units, marketers and agencies can make correct decisions in their creative campaigns. the more data, the better and the more you mix them the more insight you get. so using that concept, the site is a painting game - developed in flash - where the colors represent kantar’s media units. how you mix them it’s up to you.

the kantamediamix mug

so although the contest is only open to our european readers for now (US contest closed), trust me, it’s fun and even kids love it. so go create some art and use the social tools to tell your friends to vote for yours. you can even make it in the colors of your favorite world cup team 2010 team in the spirit of the season.

visual mercenary green screen shoot for TransitChek

so this is one of those posts that has come about because of a past project. last year, one of our partner agencies - stein rogan + partners - commissioned us to shoot and edit a green screen demo for their client, Transit Center. they are the makers of TransitChek. if you’re a commuter in new york, it’s a good thing to know about.

TransitCheck Calculator

last year we shot veronica and then masked her out and made flash movies of her. the developers are stein rogan then assembled the clips for the TransiChek Savings Calculator they were building for Transit Center. and so flash forward to today and what brought this post up. we’re just wrapping the last of the pre pro logistics for our shoot tomorrow at american movie company. this time we’re doing a spanish version for all the latinos here in the big apple. esperar para más información, por favor.

'share this' social media sites

i wrote a quick post about this exactly a year ago (i’m writing this on 04/29) and in this past year social media has exploded even more. twitter gets a billion tweets a day (please RT this lol), facebook is dominating the interweb and there are more social sites than you can stuff in a jquery drawer script. click on the photo to see the big picture.

i mean, hey we have a ’share this’ function, but we didn’t throw the kitchen sink in there. i won’t embarrass the site that i found this lot on, but does anyone really share on ‘html validator‘?

http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/

if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s brilliant and this one in particular had us ROFLMAO (should really be ROFLOAO). doesn’t come up to often i think as we only saw it once. the rest is self-explanatory.

we rule from plus+

first i want to say that it’s radian’s fault that i’m hooked on this now. I wasn’t sure if this post should be an iPhone app review or if it should be a ‘favorite (or just new) time suck’ (see last one here). it’s a little of both.

we rule is a pretty cool little game created by plus+, that is basically a virtual kingdom that you build and manage. think of it as simpler sims for the iPhone. it’s pretty easy; you have land, a castle and some gold to begin with and you just start building. you add farms to grow and sell veggies for gold coins. you build houses so you can tax the residents that move in. you add shops, schools, mining camps  - that all make you money in the end - and decorate your land with trees, fences, banners and other medieval accoutrements.

my kingdom on we rule. don't let my handle fool you.

the funny thing about this game - and the one that draws you back - is that it takes time for things to happen. if you plant carrots it takes 24 hours for them to grow in order for you to sell them. strawberries take 12 hours. it takes 12 hours to mine gems and a few hours to produce clothes at the tailor’s. i find myself logging in just to collect taxes from my lowly peasants (work harder you bums, i need a bigger castle!) and to make sure that my crops don’t wither and die before i can sell them.

as all games on the iphone, i showed this to my daughter and she loves to play it although the time factor doesn’t give her quite the instant gratification. plus, she doesn’t actually have the phone in her hands when she needs to maintain the land. she was, by the way, the one who chose the user name when we registered for the game together.

radian's kingdom. all nice and orderly

we rule has a nice little interface and there’s also a social networking aspect that allows you to ‘hire’ your friends (or soon to be new virtual friends). new friends show up on the map and you can visit their kingdoms and see how they have them set up. radian has a wizard in his and i want one too, dammit. overall i’d give this game 3.5 stars out of 5. so come on, you know you want to join and be my medieval friend in our virtual serfdoms.

this guy again

i wrote about this guy in a previous post. i think this is either the owner of the company or the writer. this must be a bad joke. as an internet marketer, i would love to find out the click through rate of this campaign.

this guy again

now he’s showing up on facebook - and notice how the ‘dislike’ button is no longer there so i can’t even vote him out. has anyone EVER clicked on these banners? i for one haven’t - but then again i’m not a big on clicking on banners and it’s my business to create them. go figure.

ferndance

there are times that some of our projects are of a purely creative nature. through our association with the wesport academy of dance - whose website & blog we’ve designed and programmed - we have been introduced to many individuals and groups in the dance world. one of them is ferndance run by choreographer david fernandez. last month we put our two newly purchased sony ex1-r hd cameras (yes our credit card company was thrilled that day) to good use by shooting a short promo piece for david at the rehearsal studio at the mark morris center in brooklyn. we’re editing the video and will post it soon, but i just needed something to write about and thought i’d tease you with a couple of photos.now i know you’ll come back because you really should see these beautiful and talented ladies dance.

ferndance

last week though, I saw the movie Julie/Julia. if you know, it was an oscar nominee in a few categories. i always thought it as a chick flick from the ads (kinda was but on a totally different level). anyways, the main theme that i got out of it was simply: inspiration. and sidebar: truth be told, the acting was superb too.

so, in this post there are no photos or text links, nothing that i’m forcing myself to produce just for social media’s sake. just a bit of transparency into what’s on my mind today. after all, I’ve been talking about transparency all day so I may as well start it here and now.

I was saying that I think it’s important for clients to actually know a little more about individuals/companies they work wih in order to forge better relationships. by using social media, whether it’s twitter or linkedin, it becomes a means to an end. as long as the work gets done, if my clients know I enjoy a full bodied cabernet with my dinners, all the better.

but hey, if you’re shady to begin with, you’d be hiding anyway. yeah talking to you west VA mining companies. that’s all for now.

and happy birthday lauren cook.

On  August 16, 1960 Joseph Kittinger ran one of 3 series of tests for the U.S. Air Force called Project Excelsior.

Jumping from a hot air balloon at a world record of  102,800 feet (31,333 meters) to test high-altitude parachutes and the effects on the human body. His descent took almost 14 minutes and reached speeds of  614mph. Reaching temperatures of -90 degrees and nearing the speed of sound.

This has to be one of the most amazing recordings as he  jumped with a camera at hand. Till this day Joseph Kittinger holds the record for the highest jump in history.

Below is a clip of the jump. The clip is edited after 2:20, as it was used in one of my fav  Scottish electronic music duo,  Boards of Canada.

Recently, Red Bull sponsored Felix Baumgartner at an attempt to break the 50 year  record.