The SPOKE Daily » Media

From Class to Crass; Final High/Lo lights from SXSW

Rachel Noonan — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:55:56 +0000

Music is coming to SXSW. It starts slowly; the hair gets longer, the button downs are now distressed vintage t’s, and the beards multiply. Before you know it the geekfest turns into a city wide rock concert. Bands are performing in every nook and cranny throughout the city. Music is spilling into the streets from all different directions. People are jumping on trucks, sleeping on the street and looking to do two things; drink and vibe. It was kind of weird thinking of nature vs nurture paired with the juxtaposition of the Interactive, Film and Music crowds. How people communicate and why. From a hyper tuned in group of over communicators to another group who communicate through instruments and song lyrics, it made me wonder who is getting their message across in the most effective way. Then I remembered interactive is about connecting and music is about feeling. We can’t really exist without both. Well, we could, but it would be a pretty boring. I know I will be swallowed soon by the rock locks and dirty bass lines. In an attempt to create some space in my brain I took a mental look back for my final SX highlights.. What were the awesome new discoveries? The inspiring talks? The newly created connections with the international “Futures Community” (I just made that up and will now create a wiki page for it)? Perhaps the next level bionic style partying that took place? Here are the top 10, in no particular order: HIGHLIGHTS Crowdtap Party. Good product. Good people. The most amazing chocolate fountain EVER. FROG Design. AWESOME. Joseph Kahn’s new Movie Detention. He did a bunch of Britney’s vids. Detention is a real-time pop culture satire time travel horror comedy. The script was crazy tight, the story was funny and the pop culture references were plentiful. Stylistically it felt like a series of single shots. The music video DNA is embedded in Kahn. He made no apologies for it in the Q&A. He does what he does and knows his audience. Talk with Pete Cashmore and David Crowley from Four Square. Crowley did some serious tap dancing around Cashmore’s pointed questions about selling foursquare. Chevy making life a little easier with 30 cars providing complimentary rides throughout the city. They also created the best photo experience I’ve ever seen in the history of photo experiences! Check it: http://social-gen.com/sxsw11/index-v.php?u=eC6. Checked out their new electric car, VOLT. It’s nice to see a “Dinosaur” surprise the scene with a product the future gen may actually like. Feel free to judge me on this, I don’t care. Mashable events. You could tell they cared and they worked really hard to make it fun. They were missing their actual content integrated into the activities, which was a bit of a bummer. GE’s Carosolar. A beautiful use of solar energy. A white on white old era carousel outfitted with slick neon lighting sat in a large parking lot inviting people to take a ride. Powered by solar energy, the carousel moves around and around, throwing people back to a time of fun and magic. Beyond the slick activation, this new solar technology seems to have legs. I’ve been trying to decide what to invest in. Something that’s part of today while constantly evolving to reflect new technologies, the environment and our constantly decreasing shared space. GE’s new solar technology is IT. Andrew WK talked. It was inspiring. I wish he was my big brother. Check out the venue Santos he opened with some friends in Manhattan. PARTY HARD. Artists you have to hear; Sheepdogs, Cold War Kids, Dikta from Iceland, The Kills, Kawarka, Malajube, Defences, Does it offend you, Yeah?, The Naked and the Famous, Phantogram In closing; SXSW Interactive was has the largest concentration of the most amazing thought leaders, trend setters and visionaries I have ever come across. SXSW Film was good, wish I had seen more. They need to separate film from Interactive. SXSW Music is dirty, loud and one of a kind. SPOKE will be back in 2012 ready to learn, play and connect. SIDE NOTE: For the ladies who are reading: Geeks are hotter than music dudes.

Noonan @ SXSW: Day 2

Rachel Noonan — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:51:47 +0000

I start today’s SXSW blog with a musical reference. Day two was like the Beth Ditto song ”I wrote the Book“. Fast paced, interpretive and tons of fun. Highlights include an interactive session on Visual Storytelling for the Deaf. It was interesting to see how beautifully animated people can be with sign language and the use of visuals to tell a story. They went through some examples of deaf people jokes, the benefits of being deaf and a really cool music video. Check this out (http://d-pan.org/index.php/this-is-d-pan/who-are). Amazing content. My only challenge with the session was ALL of the stories in every form were about deaf issues. It would have been nice to see a story about families, love or teenage issues in an everyday life setting. Onto film; Pen to Paper – Creating Conceptual Marketing Campaigns . Charlie Loft from All City from the UK lead the charge. It was awesome. The whole room worked together to make two movie posters for a thriller. A conceptual poster and one for the hollywood market. We talked about Black Swan and their campaign using both conceptual (link conceptual poster to: http://www.designworklife.com/2010/12/06/black-swan-posters/ ) and mass market creative. Someone in the audience said ” we never saw the conceptual art in the US, I guess it’s because the UK is perceived as a more intelligent audience”. Wow, I wonder why that may be? Watching Loft go through his creative process was fun, unfortunately random people kept killing the flow with really junior league questions. Come on guys, ask those questions on blogs where you can be both lame and anonymous. Next: Keynote. SCVNGR inventor Seth Priebatsch (http://www.scvngr.com/about/team). He talked about how the foundations of gaming can rule the world. Think Groupon, Fab Find, Foursquare, etc. Using time mechanics, group participation. He is on point and quite entertaining with his ever present and unnecessary Oakley Glasses and cartoon like shiny face. Did I mention he is 21 and raised the first million in capital for SCVNGR on his own. Insane. Next was a little comedy repose. I”m not making this up. We saw Dave Foley, Kevin Pollack, Michael Ian Black, Howard Kramer and Brett Gelman all on one stage. INSANE and amazing. Geek jokes were flying! Ok, now party time. We hit a record number of parties, but will only mention two because they ruled. FROG DESIGN hit it out of the park…..OUT OF THE PARK and Syncapse took SXSW party sophistication to a new level with a killer photo booth, custom branded everything and an amazing drink menu. My eyes were bleeding by Syncapse, so I crawled home to grab a few hours before going back into the fray.

TIME KILLERS: Sound Explorations

Karen Lo — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:15:19 +0000

Are you looking for something to do while your call is put on hold, or waiting for the last 10 minutes of work to run out at the end of the day? Here are a few inspirational sites that will make the most of your time with interactive sound exploring tools. Record Tripping An immersive gaming experience that begins with the scratch of a record. Incredibox Create your own beatboxing jam.

Isle of Tune

Begin a musical journey by creating street layouts using roadside elements as instruments and cars as instrument players.

BMW: Getting Inside Heads

Jeff Greenspoon — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:12:46 +0000

How BMW used basic science to get inside the minds of consumers, without actually showing them anything.

Bushmills “Since Way Back” ft. Chromeo

Karen Lo — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:15:30 +0000

Way back in April this year, Bushmills launched their “Since Way Back” campaign to mark their brand as the “Seal of True Friendship” by telling the story of several groups of buddies whose friendship led them on to shape the music and arts scenes in NYC. The execution is integrated through the use of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and a series of interviews and events. This time features Chromeo with their story told through a seamless animation by Kate Anderson.

SPOKE to Sponsor nextMEDIA

Karen Lo — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 22:07:25 +0000

nextMEDIA is just around the corner and SPOKE is an official sponsor as a “Friend of the Event“. Our Director, Brand Strategy — Rachel Noonan, also joined the Jury for this year’s Awards. Since its inception in 2007, nextMEDIA has been the launching pad for the newest products in the digital media industry and the top networking and business development platform for the next-generation marketplace. Click here for more details. SPOKE’s Founding Partners, Kai Exos and Jeff Greenspoon will present onstage for a Best-of Award! See you on the carpet! UPDATE: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nextmediaevents/5227102715/in/set-72157625521910000/

Amazing 4D Ralph Lauren Light Show

paula.sommerz — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 01:29:46 +0000

UPDATE: Behind the Scenes

Hatsune Miku – Holographic Concert

Karen Lo — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:18:59 +0000

She is one pop star who will never be confronted with bad plastic surgery, rehabs, and scandals. Meet Hatsune Miku, the latest J-Pop sensation. Miku started as just a voice in Yamaha’s Vocaloid synthesizing technology developed by Crypton Future Media. The consumer software has gained so much popularity since its release in August 2007 that Miku was able to hold her first concert in March this year in Tokyo – in the form of a dynamic hologram. Thousands of enthusiastic fans came out and sang along to the digital vocalist. Unlike the Gorillaz 2005 MTV Awards performance, this holographic animation was 3-dimensional, as opposed to being a back screen projection. With this holographic technology on the rise, I wouldn’t be surprised if a holographic broadway show is on its way, and I just can’t wait to see it.

YouTube Play Top 25

Inga Rumun — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:21:27 +0000

Developed by YouTube and the Guggenheim in collaboration with HP and Intel. YouTube Play showcases amazing talent in the online video realm. More than 23,000 videos were submitted and the top 25 videos have been announced. My vote goes off to:Die Antwoord-Zef Side (because I’m cool like that), Strindberg and Helium at the Beach (because I’m emo like that) and of course Toronto’s very own animated film, I Met the Walrus (because I’m Canadian like that).

SPOKE is attending TEDx Toronto

Rachel Noonan — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:16:50 +0000

SPOKE has been selected as a delegate for TEDx Toronto this Thursday, September 30th. We are excited to see how the organizers do at representing the TED banner in TO. We have collectively spent weeks on TED.com soaking up the amazing speaker talks that make us think about the way we live, love and learn in our new world. TED has been put on a pedestal by freaks, geeks and awesome people around the World. Let’s see if Thursday’s installment will have delegates blogging, tweeting and Facebooking from dawn to dusk. Hourly reports will come via SPOKE Daily. http://tedxtoronto.com/