Category: Art

Categories
copyright Music

Grey Tuesday

I read the headlines about Grey Tuesday last week as it approached but I didn’t bother to read what it was all about. I thought it sounded boring.

So today I read all about it and I downloaded a couple of songs from DJ Danger Mouse’s Grey Album this afternoon. While I strongly believe in the principle of Grey Tuesday, that is to say that copyright law needs reform, I have to say the songs themselves didn’t bake my cake. I guess I’m just not into that indie rap stuff. Anyway I do hope the attention that the Grey Album is getting will bring about some common-sense changes to copyright law.

For those of you unfamiliar with the situation, let me catch you up to speed.

DJ Danger Mouse has taken audio tracks from Rapper Jay-Z’s Black Album and remixed them with music from the Beatles White Album. The new album is cleverly titled The Grey Album.

Enter EMI and copyright lawyers. They claimed that he had not asked permission or paid for the rights to use The Beatles music and demanded that he stop selling his record. The DJ agreed to comply with the order and is no longer distributing the record, which was allegedly only intended for the ears of friends.

But the story doesn’t end there. In issuing the order, EMI has unwittingly thrust The Grey Album into the public spotlight, prompting guerilla music lovers to post MP3s on their websites and blogs specifically on, but not limited to, Tuesday February 24th. Considering that only 3,000 copies of The Gray Album were pressed and the fact that it has been banned pretty much guarantees a Holy Grail status among hip-hop fans and serious music collectors alike.

“Grey Tuesday” Civil Disobedience Planned February 24th Against Copyright Cartel

In protest of EMI’s action approximately 170 sites hosted a full copy of the Grey Album on Tuesday, in spite of the fact that many of those sites had received cease and desist letters from EMI’s lawyers.

So how successful did Grey Tuesday turn out to be?

“After a survey of the sites that hosted files during Grey Tuesday, and an analysis of filesharing activity on that day, we can confidently report that the Grey Album was the number one album in the US on February 24 by a large margin. Danger Mouse moved more “units” than Norah Jones and Kanye West, with well over 100,000 copies downloaded. That’s more than 1 million digital tracks.”

I think that’s pretty cool.

Categories
Music

Maid Queen Vs. May Queen

A couple have people have written the same basic message:

Just to let you know the correct lyric [in Stairway to Heaven] is ‘just a spring clean for the maid queen’ not may queen.

Actually folks, it is may queen, but if you looked up the lyrics before emailing me, you’d already know that. What is a maid queen anyway? I bet if I had one my house would be spotless.

Categories
animation

New Media Eye Candy Pieces that I Like

The Mazda Transformer – Shows one of their cars transforming into an Autobot.

Hell Boy Test Animation – Quick animation of the upper torso of Hellboy done in Mike Mignola’s drawing style but in 3D.

Tetra Vaal Demo Spot – It’s a neat 3D Demo from theembassyvfx.com about a futuristic robot that could be used to police developing nations.

Categories
Music

"We Know You’re Innocent"

Britney Spears might say she’s not that innocent, but some fans of Michael Jackson have put together a song that PROVES he was set-up. Ok it doesn’t really prove anything but a fun game when you are listening to the song is to try and figure out whether this is parody or not.

Categories
Art humor

The Rocketpack Guide to making…An Independent Film

In an effort to educate the masses via easily drawn stick figures my friend Gavin has put together a quick step-by-step explanation of how indie films are made. New Media students and Drama geeks alike — take note.

Categories
animation

All About Mormons

South Park ran a hilarious episode in November titled “All About Mormons”.

From the South Park Studios Website:

“A Mormon kid moves to South Park and Stan has to kick his ass. But when Stan and his dad meet their new Mormon neighbors, they become fascinated with how genuinely nice they are. Meanwhile the other boys mock Stan relentlessly for wimping out.”

If you’re in the United States (or have an IP address in the United States) you can watch the episode here:

Or if you want, you can check out the “audio only” version in 4 parts:

  1. SouthPark – 712 – All About Mormons1small.mp3
  2. SouthPark – 712 – All About Mormons2small.mp3
  3. SouthPark – 712 – All About Mormons3small.mp3
  4. SouthPark – 712 – All About Mormons4small.mp3

I think pretty much the greatest thing about this episode is that is gives people who don’t know anything about the church a background into how the church started. As someone that knows from personal experience, they tell the Joseph Smith story pretty much just like they do if you were to have the Mormon Missionaries come into your house and tell you the story, except for the part where they call Martin Harris dumb. Mormon Missionaries would never call him dumb — unless they were calling him dumb because he gave his wife the unpublished transcript, then they might but other than that — no way. This episode also portrays what nice people Mormons are — based on some of the Mormon families I know it’s so accurate it’s scary.

Categories
animation Disney

A New Direction for Disney

Disney Castle Logo

In the realm of feature animation, the hand-drawn no longer rocks the cradle. Thanks to the consistent success of Pixar’s five computer-rendered theatrical releases, coupled with Disney’s recent failure to produce popular hand-drawn films, it’s easy to see why folks are favoring bytes and pixels over ink and paint.

Slashdot is offering up a great article and discussion thread about Disney’s abandonment of traditional, hand-drawn animation (which Disney has sworn, for years, it would never give up), in favor of 3D, computer-generated work.

Supposedly, all of their animators—even staunch traditionalists such as Glenn Keane– are being trained on 3D computer animation techniques. The last hand-drawn high-budget Disney feature scheduled for release is Home on the Range, which is due out next April. It appears that Disney is bowing to the supposed pressures of the market, even though the hand-drawn Lilo and Stitch was considered a success and the all-CG Dinosaur (done at Disney’s now-defunct FX house The Secret Lab) was not. However, I believe there’s another factor at work: Pixar’s contract with Disney is set to expire soon, and the revered CG house has been making their own demands of Disney for the contract’s renewal.

(Slashdot Link)

It’s no secret that Disney feels threatened by 3D Animation. “For the first time in decades, the entertainment giant that pioneered feature-length animation with 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” has no traditional animated big-budget movies in production.” Disney has not only fired many of it’s traditional 2D animators, but it has also been auctioning off the tools of the 2D animation trade, a sign that they don’t plan on rehiring new animators. “Among the items listed [for sale] was an animation desk for $1,299; a story board for $54.15; and a 6-foot-tall cabinet for stacking scenes for $64.95.”

Categories
life Music

Go Deaf for Def Leppard Update

At the crack of dawn this morning Anna-Maria and I headed off to Rock 106 to try and win some concert tickets. When I got there, there was only one other contestant. Things were looking up, but then they got on the radio and asked more people to come down and be in on the contest. Well a few more people started to show up and after a slight mishap with dead batteries in the decibel reader they got things underway.

First off, I should explain the basis behind this contest. The idea was that whoever sang the loudest Def Leppard line would win tickets to the Def Leppard concert on Monday. They talked Anna into also participating and she sang at an amazing 101.2 decibels (or was it 102.1?) She sang Pour a Little Sugar on Me — which she said she didn’t even know and nobody else sang louder than Anna-Maria, in fact nobody else even broke 100 decibels, except for me. I yelled a spectacular 106.6 decibels of Let’s Get Rocked and then after the contest was over did an encore performance and sang at 108.1!

We won the tickets and now all that’s between me and a sweet free Def Leppard concert is getting out of my evening class on Monday night. We are pumped.

Categories
animation copyright Music

Girl 12, Settles Lawsuit

Recently, the RIAA laid charges on a 12 year old girl from New York State for copyright violations by downloading music over the Internet.

It has now been announced (CNN story) that the RIAA has rushed to settle with the young Brianna LaHara, after serving her with a lawsuit on Monday. It looks like her single mother will be paying a $2,000 fine to the RIAA for her daughter’s song-swapping, which they had thought was legal. They purchased the software that allowed them to swap files with other users.

Quoting Brianna: “I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don’t want to hurt the artists I love.” What a relief this must be for the huge bands like Metallica.

You might think that the RIAA was being excessive but see, downloading files is just a gateway crime… by the time this girl is 17, she’ll be sharing video games, and maybe by the time she’s in her early 20’s she’ll be giving away illegal copies of Microsoft Office! Thank goodness for American justice.

Categories
life Music

Go Deaf for Def Leppard – Rock 106 Radio Contest

I forgot to mention that this morning on the radio I heard them talking about free tickets for Def Leppard for the next 10 callers. Well I whipped out the cell phone and then Fraser and Rosie (the breakfast boys) explained to me that I didn’t win yet but that I had to come down to the studio on Friday morning and sing a short clip from Def Leppard. Whoever sings the loudest will win the tickets. Somewhat hesitantly I told them I would be there.

Update: Apparently I have quite the ability to raise my voice — see how the contest turned out.