The Making of a Mashup

Well, I guess the theme of this week is creativity and originality, so, here’s my contribution:

The dreaded Glee returned to television this week and while there are so many things that are wrong with that show (don’t hate me Cyndie), the one thing I can thank them for is introducing a larger audience to mashups during season 1.

What is a music mashup, you ask? It’s when some clever DJ (or lay person) takes two disparate songs and masterfully weaves them together; it usually involves lacing the vocals of one song over the tune of the other. The creativity involved in mashups is very questionable, I mean, how creative does one have to be to take something that already exists and merge it with another? Yes, mashups involve a keen ear, some unique editing, and oftentimes a sense of humor, but they’re not exactly creating original work…or are they? I suppose one could argue that with the amount of time and work that goes into each song, the musical mixture comes out looking very different on the other side.

Truthfully, the only criteria I judge a mashup by is, does this make me wanna dance? And, does it flow seamlessly? I hate when mashups feel forced together.

Brian Campbell has a collection of very tasteful mashups that he listens to in order to get pumped up, ask him about it sometime.

I’d love to link you to my favorites to share in the joy…but you know words like “legality” don’t really fare well in most subcultures. So I’ll show you a music mashup, a video mashup of my all-time-favorite things, and implore you to visit home of all mashups : Bootie Mashup and listen to their top 10. Fireflies Goin Down, Young Joc v. Owl City is particularly amazing.

SF+Breakfast Club +Lisztomania = Magic

Phoenix – Lisztomania (SF BRAT PACK MASH UP) from chinorockwell on Vimeo.

Happy Friday!

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Piggyback Writer

Photo by Travis Nicholson

Just so you know,  I’m stealing Gary’s idea.

While trying to sort out a suitable post for this fine Thursday, I took a moment to read about Gary’s simple, but ingenious (and free!) iPhone app and after busting out a few straight lines of my own, I found myself compelled to bogart his idea. Well, sort of.

I firmly believe that in any creative endeavor, stealing happens. It’s inevitable, whether deliberate and all devious-like (boo to that!), or driven completely by our sneaky subconscious.

[Tangent!  English illusionist Derren Brown illustrates a pretty amazing example of subconscious creative thievery in the form of a magic trick. Definitely worth a watch.]

So if stealing is going to happen, whether we notice it or not, why not consciously try to elevate its form and treat those ideas like building blocks rather than something to flatten and photocopy?

Rather than rolling in the mud and muck of imitation, lately I’ve been grabbing my fellow creatives and piggybacking.

Sadly, what I’m discussing here has nothing to do with throwing my arms around someone’s neck and demanding they run me around the office – that’s reserved for the holiday party – but instead describes the process of modifying, altering, and growing a co-worker’s idea.

I feel this happens pretty naturally in most brainstorming sessions and may seem pretty obvious, but as I find this process of creative piggybacking to be so hugely beneficial to me in terms of idea generation, I’ve increasingly placed more focus on it as a deliberate, practiced technique.

For me, this boils down to a couple of internal reminders.

One. Refuse to let any idea be sacred. It’s easy to save a great idea, so there’s really no harm in breaking it apart. Once you’ve got it, it’s not going anywhere. So don’t let it be intimidating. Keep building on it, attacking it, messing with it. Maybe those subsequent ideas won’t stack up, but perhaps it’ll grow into something even greater.

Two. Give bad ideas. I’ve lost count of the amount of times that the words coming out of my mouth in a brainstorming session have culminated in a queer emotional blend of both embarrassment and inspiration. But so often, I find that it’s my terrible ideas that lead to my best.

While those first ideas may be absolute garbage, by offering them without fear, it allows them to bounce off other heads in the room, and while some may point and laugh at you (seriously, Beti, stop it) it gives others the opportunity to piggyback, to strip that idea down to its core and see if there’s some good there or some foundation to build upon. There really is no way of knowing whether that uninspired offering is just a few steps away from the mind-blowingly fantastic solution you need.

So obvious or not, be sure to offer up your bad ideas, pick apart the good ones, and build off Gary’s writing, because I can tell you from experience there’s some simple and great ideas in there you may have overlooked.

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VHS Gets Second Life Online!

Image via Wikipedia

I have found my new favorite website! By no means is it helpful in any way… it won’t update you on the latest tech trends and will certainly not inspire any creativity, but I guarantee you’ll be mesmerized as soon as you enter.

Found Footage Festival describes itself perfectly as “a celebration of odd and hilarious found videos”. For those of you who already have stumbled upon it, what are you doing here!!? This awesome collection covers everything from cheesy 80′s workout videos to the oddest HR tutorials you have ever seen. All I have to say is thank god the geniuses at “FFF” have not only taken the time to collect these rare garage sale gems, but had the awesome foresight to know that an online audience would eat this content up and ask for seconds.

I have to give props to my good buddy Wes Pratt who was kind enough to send me the link with no warning of how addictive this VHS world of horrible overacting and purple star wipes would be! Makes you wonder what they’ll be doing with our work 20 years from now!

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Free Application for Frustrated Artists!

"Meow, prrrr"

Listen up you artist types.  I generally don’t share this kind of knowledge with just anyone.   But, yesterday afternoon, I heard yet another story about Oscar, the nursing home cat who can predict people’s deaths (kudos to NPR for being the first to expose me to this important story two years ago).  Oscar‘s moribund talent prompted some reflection on my own eventual demise and how I need to build up the whole good-karma thing.  So, here goes… some free know-how, motivated by hopes of securing better real estate in the great beyond.

I know there are a skagigazillon apps out there (that’s a lot), many of them useful but, also an equivalent number of disappointments, duds and outright disasters.  I honestly think my mosquito app attracts the little suckers.

Fortunately, the iPhone application I’m about to share is one of the few items I’d personally recommend without any equivocation in terms of effectiveness and reliability.  Anyone who’s ever faced the daunting task of trying to make a straight line while drawing will quickly understand what I’m talking about.  Nothing undermines a good sketch like erratic, uncertain lines.  All that eraser mess!  Sure, you could attempt to keep a drawing ruler handy at all times.  But how realistic is that?

As promised, a remedy exists, and the best part: it’s free!  Unfortunately, the iPhone application I stumbled across isn’t found in iTunes or any other download site (at least as far as I’ve been able to determine).

Here’s how it works.  Whether your phone is 3G or one of the older models, it shouldn’t matter.   Just make sure you’ve got your drawing implement ready.  After all, the phone can’t do everything.  I’d recommend starting with a number two pencil and only tackling tougher media like pen and ink once you’ve had experience with the nuances of the application.   Okay, you’ve got your phone.  Now it’s time to put it to use.  Place the phone on top of your drawing surface.  Take your pencil and hold the graphite tip next to the phone.  Now, with a firm, consistent pulling motion, move the pencil from one end to the other, along the edge of the phone.  Remove the phone and reveal the perfect straight edge.  Congratulations! A flawless edge ready any time your phone is within reach.

There, that felt pretty good.  Now that I’ve started giving free insights, I feel more coming on.  Be on the lookout for tips on the free “Rectangle with Slightly Rounded Edges” drawing application, and the “Oscar: the Virtual Death Predicting Cat” app  (okay, that one’s likely to be in development for a while).

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Last Week’s Posts

In case you may have missed any of our posts from last week, here they are:

To make sure you don’t miss any posts, remember to subscribe through any of our “socialize” icons on the upper-right.

Thanks for reading, and keep sharing your thoughts!

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The Cost of Authenticity

One of the mantras espoused by the so-called gurus is that authenticity is the key to grow your influence. While this is not necessarily false, I think the mantra lacks definition, and when defined, exposes an inherent difficulty that is often overlooked.

While I would never condone being anything but authentic, and I do believe in this day and age you only gain influence if you are willing to show yourself as you are, authenticity can also be the reason your influence caps off. Allow me to explain.

Note: I apologize for strongly correlating “influence” with successful social relationships. It’s Dale Carnegie’s fault.

Most people that affirm the mantra think about influence/authenticity as almost directly proportional. If we could graph it, it would look somewhat like this:

Again, as they see it, the closer you are to acting and speaking 100% honestly, according to who you are, your influence skyrockets in proportion.

Now here is the one element that the masses tend to forget: People are more likely to follow and admire others that share similarities with them. Not exactly like them, but common traits do help people stick together better. People who like Lost don’t necessarily follow Kabuki-geeks. Kids that are Justin Bieber freaks don’t exactly look forward to the next Wynton Marsalis seminar. And in each of these examples, at least as far as our times go, the prior group grossly outweighs the latter one in popularity.

In this other graph, I’ll assume that everyone is authentic in their expressions and conduct, and I’m replacing the horizontal axis with the level of any character trait. By that I mean, the answer to “from 1 to 100, how ____ are you?” or “from 1 to 100, how much do you like _______?”.

In my opinion, if the average person would respond “+/- 50″, the graph would look like this:

The way I see it, your influence will peak at wherever your character trait coincides with the majority of folks. The person that is authentically at the yellow dot (roughly 50%) will enjoy much more influence than those at the green and blue dots. Those that after sincere consideration realize they’re at those points will find that their ability to influence others will be capped.

This poses an interesting problem for those seeking to gain influence, and who acknowledge themselves as being in the green or blue dots, or anywhere in between. Should they compromise authenticity in order to gain influence? Or should they rest satisfied with the max level of influence they will attain where they’re at?

Put in more simple terms: Should you sincerely make yourself more like the average person in order to gain their attention?

This is a question I’ve had to deal with seriously in the past decade. Laser-quick bio: I was born in N.Y., at age 7 dropped in the Dominican Republic hardly knowing any Spanish, and then “immigrated” back to the U.S. 10 years ago, having to then “re-learn” English and the U.S. way. I did not only become bilingual, but also what I call “bi-cultural”, meaning that I am culturally neither American nor Dominican, but some weird mixture in between. I can shift easily between my two cultures, but I can’t remain on any side for too long. That is my authentic self.

Now naturally, in many aspects I find myself right where I placed those blue and green dots, and I’ve had to wrestle with the temptation to conform to the majority surrounding me, given that I don’t easily “fit”, if you know what I mean. For example, I’m terrible with slang, I can’t pick up sarcasm easily, etc..

Now, I’m sure that although you may not have a crazy cross-cultural story in your background, most of you find yourselves in similar situations, at least in some aspect or other. (Bright lights, maybe in the end I AM catering to the sentiment of the majority! ;) )

I don’t want to make this post longer than it already is, so I’ll close by saying this: I’ve reached peace with being authentically myself, and letting the whole influence thing work itself out organically; however, it’s very clear to me that by being authentically who I am, I limit my reach towards certain population and cultural segments. Then again, could other segments be easier to reach because they can “tell” people who are sincere?

What do you think about this? Do you think this is a real issue? If so, how have you dealt with it?

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The Fashion “Project” that Became an Internet Movement

You know how too many good ideas come together in one place and you feel like your head is going to explode? No?! Ok, stick with me through this entire post and I promise you will come to know the sensation.

There’s this woman named Sheena Matheiken and Sheena has a friend named Eliza Starbuck. And Sheena had this idea.

She decided to wear the same Little Black Dress (or, rather, seven copies of the same dress) for an entire year as an exercise in sustainable fashion, and Eliza made it for her (trust me, there was a lot of thought involved in making a dress someone can wear for an entire year).  This, ladies and gentlemen, was the birth of The Uniform Project.

Through her website , twitter, vimeo message and facebook page, Sheena’s “project” has become more of a movement with a simple message: fashion can be simple (yet fun), sustainable and serve a greater purpose (more on that later).

Sheena is allowed to accessorize to her hearts desire, but the “uniform” remains standard and most of her accessories are donated and/or vintage pieces (that she credits daily), which furthers the idea of sustainability.

Sheena posts a picture from every day of the year and viewers are allowed to comment on the looks, filling in their own adjectives like a modern-day madLib.

Oh, wait…it gets better. The Uniform Project is also a yearlong fundraiser for The Akanksha Foundation, which provides schooling to slum children in India, and so far they’ve raised over $69,000 supporting nearly 200 kids. Events have been hosted in countries from Australia to Ireland.

With only 21 days left of the actual uniform project, Sheena & Co. have taken it to another level, selling the trendy, handmade LBD (little black dress) to the online masses and auctioning the various accessories she has worn on EBay. They have also instituted LBD Monday’s where viewers from all over the world can send in pictures of themselves sporting their black dresses. One young viewer from Massachusetts won a $500 grant from her church by pitching The Uniform Project and Akanksha as a charity that they should support and sent in a picture of herself, little black dress on, check in hand.

As the end draws near, I’m following closely to see what Sheena’s next great idea is.

How about you? Mind blown yet?

(All images courtesy of The Uniform Project and Small Sight at WordPress)

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5 things that got me linking

Creatively, this has been a pretty solid week for me. I feel good about it. So now, I have to ask myself. What made it a good week? Did I get more sleep? Less sleep? More time for showers? Order the right sandwich? What are the variables involved in the equation, or is it all completely random? I have no idea.

One passing hypothesis lead me to question the importance of peripheral input – creative or interesting things I see, even for just a moment, that accent or break up a given day or evening. While not sources of specific and direct inspiration, these things give me cause to pause, to ponder, and to pass along.

Working music, annoying electronics, pocket art and a double dose of cuddly teddy bears, here are 5 things that got me thinking, linking, and acting this week.

The Penelopes’ cover of Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”

Music is a constant in my life, and often a big part of my workflow, donning headphones and working to a beat as often as possible. The Penelopes’ cheeky, irreverent take on Beastie Boys’ sabotage dominated the ear canal this week. I can’t yet attest to the quality of the French dance-rock duo’s other work, but this song has left me unconsciously chair-dancing on more than one occasion.

Lately, I’ve felt saturated by a slew of deliberate, slow, emotional covers to a degree that the process now feels formulaic. This made the Penelopes’ synth-pop strangeness all the more refreshing and infectious to me, though its video pales in comparison to Spike Jonze’s epic work on the original.

BONUS! The Penelope’s main site offers a sweet flash-based mixing board to remix one of their new tracks. Simple, but well-executed and fun!

King Panpan

This site makes me all sorts of happy. A friend and former collegiate cohort, Julius Santiago took it upon himself to illustrate a teddy bear a day. For a year. Each bear has its own style, and many are rooted in all sorts of cultural fantasticalness, pairing these adorable stuffed creatures with its viewers fond, nostalgic recollections.

Zombie bears, 80′s cartoon icons, Marvel characters, a bear in a darth vader helmet, there is just so much to love here. Juls has set the bar high for himself here, but if the recently wrapped ‘robot week’ (a personal fave) is any indicator, there’s a lot of awesome left to come. As of this post, King Panpan features 88 bears.

The Annoy-O-Tron 2.0

A slightly delayed April Fool’s day prank, this handy piece of case-less gadgetry taught us that Ryan Glidden, our director of operations, can pick out the location of a sound pretty damn well, even when it requires a ladder to remove the digital cricket from his airvent. While largely a gag, this did get me thinking about potential opportunities to introduce some randomization into upcoming projects (the Annoy-a-tron’s selected tone chimes at random intervals between 2 and 8 minutes). It’s at least something to think about while I brace myself for Ryan’s inevitable retaliation.

Erica’s Pocket Art / Artist Trading Cards

Apparently something much more prevalent than I was aware of, illustrator Erica Sirotich introduced me to Artist Trading Cards, miniature pieces of art measuring roughly the size of baseball cards. Pocket art like this is nothing new (‘portrait miniatures’ were particularly popular in the 14th century), but I hadn’t realized they’d made such a resurgence.

I think playing off the convention of card-trading is brilliant, as is small, affordable, and easily tradable original art. I’d already been a fan of Erica’s work, so when I saw the opportunity in her store to get an original piece, I was really excited. I immediately picked up Erica’s ‘Ruddy Bear’ piece, and while I’m definitely considering the idea of starting a modest collection and even trying my hand at making some, this first card won’t be up for trade.

Cryiak Harris’ Cycles

I don’t want to comment on this one too much. Just watch it and let it hurt your brain like it did mine. His other work is equally strange. I will say that it reminded me vaguely of Michel Gondry’s video for The Chemical Brothers’ “Star Guitar” - if you’ve not seen it before, it’s definitely worth checking out.

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Power To The Period!

Very few campaigns these days make you stop in your tracks, laugh and maybe even think…but the latest shot fired from JWT offices for client Kotex is damn close to a bulls eye! I would argue it’s even more of a rarity when the campaign is in the feminine hygiene category! Yep that’s right….Kotex, specifically the new “U by Kotex” tampon brand from Kimberly-Clark. The fresh thinkers from JWT finally bucked the system and asked why can’t we just have some honesty, authenticity and god forbid a small dose of humor when it comes to this taboo topic.

The spots are instant classics and poke fun at the traditional approach of soft, white& clean but rather depict  a woman’s period with a honest approach. The old metaphors of long walks on the beach and morning yoga in all white spandex is thrown out with a almost “SNL” type testimonial that cuts the old standard images with the precision of a surgeons scalpel.

Image by myyogaonline via Flickr

The question isn’t so much will the public accept this new brand personality in such a traditional vertical, but rather how long will the competition continue to play right into Kotex’s parody. Big props to Kotex (never thought I’d put that in a sentence) and JWT for seeing an obvious space where innovation was needed but avoided for so long. I can honesty say although I have no personal need for the Kotex product line I am now a true fan of the advertising!

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The Wing Velocity of a Bundt Cake

It was the finale of our Easter feast.  Time for the unveiling of two beautiful mega-caloric bundt cakes: one chocolate-n-fudge drizzle, the other, fluffy-white with a snowfall of coconut.

After the obligatory oohs and ahs, someone finally had to say it:

“It’s a bundt cek.  A bun?  A bundt. A bohnt?  BUNDT, BUUNDT!! “

A round of knowing laughs. Then, another dinner guest picked up on the shared joke.

“There’s a hole in the cake.  Put a flower in it!   There, perfect!”

More laughs, and a few confused looks.

Sure, a few family members didn’t get the reference to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”.  Too bad for them.  We, the initiated, had seen the right movies and, more importantly, had retained the requisite dessert-appropriate bits of quotable dialogue.  And, while it’s true we didn’t write the lines, we sure could deploy them at the appropriate moments.

This experience prompted some reflection, not so much about bundts (what more can one say?), but about shared fictional experiences and the social capital that comes with memorizing the right bits of script.   Films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding provide rich, easy material.  Forget the cake already.  Windex anyone?

Many films have been so quoted that the lines have lost their currency.  Trying to see if people are paying attention?  Don’t ask “Bueller, Bueller?  You’ll just validate why you’re not getting attention in the first place.   Out fishing?  Don’t say, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” Your friends will question why they invited you.  If you stand on the bow and yell “I’m king of the world!” then they’re obligated to toss you in with the bait.  Golfing?  Well, you can never really exhaust the guffaw-rich material from Caddyshack.  You’re still safe on that one.

Then there’s the holy grail of all quotable films.  No, really.  It’s the Holy Grail.  As in, Monty Python and…

It’s a curious thing that a film so minor upon its initial release could have such a major and lasting impact on so many generations.  Indeed, the quotable-quotient of the Grail seems to be without end.  Just go up to the latest crop of teen boys and ask in a gravelly voice, “What’s your favorite color?”   Instant goose-honk laughs will ensue, sure to be followed with return volleys of: “It’s only a flesh wound”, “Bring me a shrubbery”, “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries” and – the king of them all – “What’s the wing velocity of an African Swallow?”  Strangely, this phenomenon of Python quotables seems to be mostly a guy-thing.  Though, I have known a few otherwise-sensible females to succumb as well.

Which brings me back to the bundt cake.  In my post-Easter food coma, I began thinking about this easy trade of quoted lines, and our shared experience as a media-consuming culture in general.  At times, it seems the things we have in common have much more to do with our make-believe world than our real world.  We all share a media space that exists without significant walls or ideological divides.  In fact, we hope people have seen the movies we’ve seen, heard the songs we’ve heard, played the games we’ve played and gone to the same preposterous web sites we’ve gone to.  It gives us a platform for dialogue (even if it’s stolen) where, otherwise, the common ground would be shaky and unsure.

To me, this indicates a deep, prevailing yearning for togetherness, despite all the divisions the “real world” throws at us.  Even in the fractured funhouse of the Internet, it seems the sites that bring us together, the ones that allow us to share, are the ones that ultimately rise to the top. This is good. Perhaps our collective experience in the virtual world we created can ultimately prevail in a positive way on the intractable divides of the real world we didn’t create.

Peace in the Mideast?  No problem.  Just send them a bundt cake!

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