Maps & Atlases - Solid Ground from FatCat Records on Vimeo.

Here's a video from one of my all time favorite bands; Maps and Atlases. This video was directed by Taryn Gould and Emily Kowalczyk.

There are a couple of reasons why I posted this video even though it has nothing to do with sex or how women are portrayed in most music videos. The most obvious being that this was directed by two women, and secondly, this video is beautifully captured without the use/need for sex appeal. That's what I really like about this video is the fact that it's all about the art, the ability to make a music video where it tells a short story, has innovative, creative shooting techniques, and is visually aesthetically pleasing. What this does is allow the viewer to focus on the music, which is the whole point of making a music video! Not the idea of releasing a single, then making a video for that song which isn't really about the song, more so of a way to show off, either girls, money, power, or all of the above. In the video for "Solid Ground" the music is integrated with the video. (See the description below the video on the Vimeo site.)

Social Media Campaigns

Personally I am a fan of ad's that use social networking sites like Facebook and Youtube to promote their ideas and products because it changes things up. I'm all for change, especially when it comes to seeing an advertisement. Americans are blasted with thousands of images everyday so whenever a company can mix things up to present their ideas differently, I say go for it! My favorite example of an internet company who utilizes every possible outlet is Threadless a very awesome t-shirt company where the basic democratic system it operates from relies on people to submit designs, then other people vote on those designs, and whatever shirts are voted 5 and a $Buy$ (0-5 scale) wins and gets printed for a limited time. Not to mention the designers win up to $2,500, which makes the competition worth the while for all involved because it makes designers design harder, thusly making the shirts awesome and awesomer. (it's a blog, mistakes will be made!) Threadless's ad's can be seen throughout the internet on sites such as Facebook and the like.

Here's my favorite shirt design by Sebastien Heintz

"Renaissance"

Favorite Ad Campaign

My personal favorite ad campaign is from a Chipotle radio marketing campaign in which two guys compose one minute short songs about burritos. The lyrics are witty and catchy like in the song "Life is Burritoful" with a chorus of "Life is burritoful, life is fajitaful, everything's keen with rice and some beans, life's okie dokie, getting down at Chipotle. Chipotle will brighten your day!" It's just a nice and clean ad, no pressure, everything is "keen" as they say and that's what I really like about it. It's not a high priced, flashy, and expensive ad, it's just a good old toe-tappin tune can sing along with and that is very appealing to me. My other favorite songs lyrics make no sense but it doesn't really matter;

"Burritos make you crazy
Burritos get you high
Burritos make you happy and you don’t know why

They full of rice and beans
They can set your sould free
They’re almost as good as swimming with manatee

But why would you even go swimming in a no wake zone
When you can have a nice burrito right here at home
So go swimming if you want to with or without a manatee
don’t forget the best burritos come from chipotle
the best burritos come from chipotle
the best burritos come from chipotle

You can go swimming if you want to with or without a manatee
don’t forget the best burritos come from chipotle"

Now who doesn't love a fun song about burritos and manatees?

TV News What to do?

I would like to be a part of a creative team who produces a series of short segments. I would really like to produce one segment, then shoot a different show (or more than one). Basically I want to make awesome interesting shows that might live up to the expectations of the most professional news team pictured above.

TV News

What would you like to say?

I think that I would prefer to have a creative role in this class by shooting, and producing a series of short stories focusing on either local people and how they are an integral part of the Shepherdstown/Shepherd University community, or to highlight specific issues relating to Shepherdstown. I'm a big fan of programs that tell stories by using the people that are most passionate, or have a unique take on a certain idea or issue. For example "This American Life" which started out as a radio show on PRI, produced two TV seasons which featured different people and their interesting stories in a series of acts all focused on an overall theme. one of my favorite episodes is called "My Way" where one of the stories features a politician named Brad Blanton who's main platform is "Radical Honesty", the idea of never telling a lie, always speak the truth, no matter what. TAL is really great at showing different ideas, from a unique perspective and that is the kind of angle that I would like to work from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0zg05N2tuY