Here's a short interview with J. Rick Castaneda, Director of the short film The Golden Egg. See more shorts from Rick and his team at Psychic Bunny.
Firefox spinoff Flock calls itself the "social web browser" because of its tight-knit integration with social websites like Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter. The new Eco-Edition comes pre-loaded with a lovely green theme and self-updating content from environmentally-focused blogs and media sources from all over the web.
Flock Eco-Edition is a free download, and Flock has pledged to donate 10% of search proceeds to an environmental charity chosen by the Flock community.
(via Drew Olanoff)
Our friend Steve Garfield, the videoblogging pioneer who first put video on his blog on January 1, 2004, was interviewed recently by another friend, Paul Armstrong of MySpace. It's always a treat when someone we respect shouts us out when asked about the people and shows pioneering in the world of online video. Thanks, Steve! :)
Reformat the Planet is a documentary about the "chiptunes" music scene and its premiere event -- the annual Blip Festival in New York. Chiptunes music is inspired by video game and computer soundtracks of the 80's and 90's -- when music was synthesized in real-time by a sound chip capable of only a limited number of sounds.
In this interview, Zadi speaks to Paul Owens, the director of the film, and Chris Burke, one of the most recognized chiptunes artists in the scene. Chris also gave us a private live performance, which you can watch in its entirety.
Just before we spoke with Chris Burke and Paul Owens about the Blip Festival documentary, Chris (AKA Glomag) gave us the pleasure of an impromptu live performance in an atrium of a hotel. Aside from being a pioneer in the chiptune scene, Chris is also the creator and host of the Halo machinima talk show This Spartan Life.
Over the next week I'll be posting a few segments that didn't make it on the show. In this first installment, Zadi sits down with the creators of the new film Super High Me, which follows comedian Doug Benson as he pledges to smoke pot every day for 30 days.
Flickr user Joe D! refaces U.S. bills to resemble pop culture icons in his collection: Refacing Government Tender. Aside from the humorous aspect of the refacing -- the project makes you think about the real value of paper money -- an important question nowadays as we watch the value of the U.S. dollar plummet.
As a side note, I wonder what would happen if he tried to spend his art. Would merchants would accept the bills? Legal tender is legal tender, although I'm not versed in the legality of "refacing" currency.
(via Super Punch)
This cartoon never gets old. I remember watching it as a kid, but it was already retro by then (the toon was released in 1969). Classic pwnage at its finest.
(via shey.net)
For anyone in the LA area who feels like getting out this Thursday night (4/17), let's hang!
Here's the event on Upcoming.org.
Our friends at MobLogic.tv are in town and we thought it would be fun to get together at the usual videoblogger gathering spot, Canter's Deli on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles.
Moblogic will be doing interviews at the meetup, so if you're around let's make it a date. :)
In case you missed the crash heard round the world -- John was having a problem with his iTunes crashing, so he filed a wordy crash report prefaced with the phrase "John Mayer here." He then took screenshots of said report and posted it on his blog.
Apple quickly responded to the report (I've never heard of a major software company personally responding to what is typically an anonymous bug report) and the world cried out in jealousy. "Why should he get special service just because he's famous?"
The complaints didn't last long, however, once people realized they could simply pretend to be John Mayer when in need and similarly receive 5-star service.
Week in Review offers weekly hand-drawn images of the week's top news stories -- created by groups of local correspondents who gather at bars and talk about the stories that are important to them. The illustrations are informative, charming, and 100% unique. They offer a great deal of insight into the collective mindshare of participants.
Right now 4 editions are being generated from chapters around the world: Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Ireland, and Singapore. Unfortunately, those last 2 seem out of date.
Brooklyn's Santi White (AKA Santo Gold) is often compared to fellow proghopper M.I.A. The video is an homage to the 1973 cult film The Holy Mountain. I expect to see more dancehall/reggae influenced hip-hop artists rise up over the next few years.
Because when you look down at cars passing by on the highway of life, you totally think of guitar hero! I do! :)
4.11.08. we all belong. from paul dateh on Vimeo.
Paul Dateh recounts his personal experience with friends who were victims of gang violence. I wanted to pass this on because in this online web 2.0 world of ours, these are stories we often times don't get to hear (or speak about), but are all too familiar. These are the stories we need to share with each other.
Look, I am not a f**king retard like Michael Bay, or other people running around in the business... or Eli Roth making the same shitty movies over and over again.
The infamous director Uwe Boll, best known for his unpopular video game adaptations, has responded to the online petition that seeks to permanently stop him from making movies.
Whether or not this video is a joke, it's so good that it almost, almost excuses him for whatever filmmaking sins he may have committed. Regardless, somebody out there listened to him and created a pro-Boll petition, which as of right now, has about 800 signatures. The anti-Boll petition, on the other hand, recently passed the 150,000 signature mark. Good luck Boll, I look forward to your next response video.
Video on Flickr has only been active for a day, and already a subset of the Flickr community has banded together against it. The We Say NO to Videos on Flickr group has 20,000 members and has submitted over 1,200 photos to the group's photo pool -- most of which carry an anti-video sentiment like the one above.
The introduction of 90-second video clips has many members worried that their beloved photo site will turn into a YouTube clone.
Personally, I like the idea of videos on Flickr -- especially considering the ultra-short nature of the clips. But I wonder if they should have a better way of distinguishing between the 2 types of media (e.g. video clips still have the word "photos" in their URL's).
What do you guys think? Will Flickr be forever changed?
M83's forthcoming album Saturday = Youth is supposed to capture the essence of teenager angst in the 1980's. The band's sole member, Anthony Gonzalez, has specifically referenced John Hughes movies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. Watch the video for Graveyard Girl and tell me you don't see a Molly Ringwald resemblance.
(via Stereogum)
Just received a message from Vance (Behold the Mundane) alerting me to these super cool Super Mario Drum Pads for Rockband! He and his friend/co-creator Jennifer toiled long and hard on these, so show some love. There are also Flickr pictures.
[Thanks Vance]
The 2008 Webby nominations were announced today, and we're happy to report EPIC-FU was nominated in the Variety category of Online Film & Video. The 12th Annual Webby Awards celebrate the best of the web and have been called "the Oscars of the Internet."
It's incredible to think we stood out amongst the thousands of entries, and to be included in the same category as the NY Times, Danny Devito, our friends at GOOD Magazine and Revision3, and others is simply amazing.
The Webbys are a big deal to us, because they bring a lot of attention to an indie show like EPIC-FU. And we need all the attention we can get! Last year we managed to snag the People's Voice Award when the show was known as JETSET.
If you have a moment we would really appreciate if you registered on the People's Voice website and voted for us. We're up against some very popular competition, so every vote counts!
We've mentioned this on the show a couple times, and the response has been so great I had to blog about it. Last January, MIX member Michael Jahn created an interactive Google map to show where EPIC-FU viewers live around the world, and the project is still going strong. Anyone can add their location, and Michael even created a tutorial for those who aren't familiar how Google map markers work.
It's really amazing to see the global impact of the show. As of right now, almost 13,000 people have viewed the map. So if you haven't already, please add yourself and let the community know where you call home. Who knows.. you might find another FU'er in your hometown. Thanks again Michael!
Ouch.
Our friends at Moblogic did some interesting street interviews in New York to see what people thought of Martin Luther King, Jr's legacy today.
How do you think his legacy is doing today? Seems to me it's a mixed bag. I don't know if it's progress, but economic factors seem to be the most dividing elements of today's world. There's more tolerance on the surface between the races, but if you scrape your fingernail along the surface of America, what you find underneath is pretty ugly.
We were watching this yesterday at Epic-Fu HQ and almost forgot to post it.
Here, the boys of South Park end up at the Department of Internet Money attempting to collect the riches they've made from their successful web video: What, What in the Butt. In the end, they learn a valuable lesson.
Reblogged from Rick's blog:
Dave Chamdeides is just over 90 days into a year-long project to store all of his trash in his own basement.
From Dave's frequently asked questions:
Why are you doing this? Did you lose a bet or something?[Via OMGRick]
Actually believe it or not, this was an idea that a friend and I came up with (although it is hardly a unique one) that I really wanted to try. We were talking about the idea of throwing things "away" and how "away" is just that, somewhere other than here. It occurred to us that it is easy to waste because we are not confronted with that waste since it goes "away" and then began to wonder how our choices would differ if we had to keep everything in a pile in the backyard. So the idea is to keep everything for a year and in doing so, be able to see how much waste I create and how much I can avoid.
If you scrub to about :53 you'll see that we're now forever stamped in Rick Rolling history. Later in the video you'll see Tim Shey from NNN who was Live Rick Rolled by Rocketboom. LOL.
Is it finally the death of the Rick Roll -- or does this now mean I'll start getting Rick Rolled by my mom? Ooh boy...
Whether or not you're a fan of singer/songwriter Ryan Adams' music, I'm sure you can appreciate the honest, provocative, and insightful nature of his Tumblr posts. His video Shopping is Genius is an inspired narrative on how a newly sober rock star spends a day enjoying life's more mundane pleasures.
This is why I love internet video. Multimedia artist Paul Slocum accumulated footage for this Full House homage over a period of 3 years and found actors across the globe (via Craigslist) to depict the classic confrontation between Joey and DJ.
Aside from the obvious humor of a corny scene being depicted over and over again, it's really quite interesting to see just how many ways it can play out.
(via A.V. Club)
A lot of us are on Twitter these days -- making new online friends and connections, but what exactly is the distraction/production ratio? How much time do you spend on Twitter each day? Does Twitter keep you from doing other things, or does it help? How many Twitter friends have translated to other areas of your life/work? How many people do you follow and how do you personally choose who to follow? How do you use Twitter?
[image via dieselsweeties.com]
The Rickrolling phenomenon has reached epic status on the web, so in response we at EPIC-FU have declared the entire month of April as International Rickrolling Month. There's nothing like the feeling of rickrolling someone for the very first time, and the second, and third, and so on.
Read the official press release and watch Zadi's personal video statement about the announcement.
I saw Andy Carvin link to this little trick on Twitter and I thought it was pretty damn cool. It's a script that matches regular characters to their flipped equivalents. Unless you're a web coder, you might not realize just how many tons of characters can be generated on a computer.
There's another script here, in case the one I linked to (above) goes down in the future.
[Via Andy Carvin on Twitter]ThinkGeek is finally taking preorders for the groundbreaking Wii game Super Pii Pii Brothers, featuring a bundled Wii remote strap-on peripheral. Finally, a game that really captures the spirit of the Wii system. What do you say guys... Pii Pii party at EPIC-FU HQ?
From the product page:
According to the Japanese text on the box "Super Pii Pii Brothers promotes good bathroom skills and allows women to experience for the first time the pleasure of urinating while standing."
WARNING: Not appropriate for younger viewers!
Looks like Blizzard is trying to take advantage of all the Guitar Hero/Rock Band success with the upcoming "Bard" character class. On paper it sounds great, but will my Xbox 360 guitar be compatible or will I have to buy another plastic guitar peripheral???
From the WoW website:
Armed with a trusty axe, killer riffs, and a ton of attitude, the guitar-wielding bard is the second hero class to be introduced in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft. The bard excels both as a solo performer and as part of a solid group lineup, able to front in a number of roles as varied as his musical repertoire.
Now here is something I can get behind! How many times have you forgotten a birthday and just wished your Gmail account had a feature like this? With Gmail's Custom Time you can send that email back in time and it'll appear in your recipient's inbox in the correct chronological order. You can even mark it as "read" so now you have them thinking they're going crazy! Brilliant. No more awkward phone calls insisting that your email must have gotten lost -- now you can prove it. Yes, it's not right. But sometimes that's the cost of a saved black eye. Plus, think about how many first-come/first-served beta invites you can get! :)
BTW, does anyone remember how AOL had a sorta-similar feature back in the day? You could send an email and check if it had been read, and if it hadn't you could cancel it. It wasn't time travel, but it was actually a pretty cool feature.
Check out the new creation from the peeps at Aviary. It's called Dodo and it's a "new [web] tool which will allow you to age and de-age people, places and things from any browser with Flash 9 enabled." It actually looks pretty damn cool. You can sign up on their site to beta test the sucker.
I guess the pixel calibration ratio is in direct proportion to [insert clever yet something something here... I can't think straight right now...oh God help me, it's 4am and I'm still up...]
Are you guys ready for a ride? Because today just feels like it will be filled with many... but that's just a hunch.
