Our old mate Benet, AKA Dr Hitchcock who runs the website Starlifter TV posted this video from TED. Wikipedia describes TED as… “TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences curated by the American private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading”. Since June 2006,[1] the talks have been offered for free viewing online, under a Creative Commons license, through TED.com.” (Read more here)
So back to Dr Hitchcock, where hes just posted this video from TED on Copyright. Wow! This lecture is particularly relevant as the NZ Parliament is currently discussing new Internet laws, with a strong focus on punishing those who infringe New Zealand and International copyright law. So please watch the video and then think about how the oppressive focus of current, and soon to be, copyright laws stifle creative freedom and categorize an individual as a criminal for exploring that creativity. Tandem doesn’t believe in taking someones work and on selling it, but we do believe in creative freedom where you can take whatever is around us to inspire and create something new, to express your voice and your view.

“Smell like a man, man,” – that’s the message spicing up YouTube at the moment.

It’s a very clever viral-marketing campaign on an old spice – Old Spice. The Isaiah Mustafa-hosted ads have been ranked YouTube’s number one most-viewed of all time in the Sponsors rank, holds this week’s and this months most-viewed top spot – globally.

Old Spice is keeping its customers interested by releasing the ads slowly over a period of time.

Here’s what all the fuss is about:

‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’:

The point-of-difference with these commercials is that the Old Spice’s Isaiah Mustafa personally responds to those who leave comments. Watch:

@aplusk (actor Ashton Kutcher):

He even does marriage proposals:

And responds to pretty much anything:

Life In A Day is a world-first global experiment to create the largest user-generated feature film – a documentary, shot in a single day, by YOU.

On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film, executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.

For more information, visit youtube.com/lifeinaday.

Kevin Macdonald is an Oscar-winning director of films such as The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and One Day in September, and Ridley Scott is the director behind films like Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner and Robin Hood.

Life In A Day will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere.

Check the trailer out here:

Tandem is sad to see the loss of the man known as the ‘Waimate warrior’.

Eric Batchelor, one of New Zealand’s most highly decorated World War 2 soldiers, died in Waimate, South Canterbury, on Saturday, and is being buried with full military honours today.

Sergeant Batchelor, who would have turned 90 in August, was twice awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for conspicuous bravery during the Italian campaign, an award second only to the Victoria Cross.

He was mentioned in dispatches, and fought at El Alamien in North Africa, and Monte Cassino in Italy, both key battles for New Zealand troops.

Mr Batchelor was promoted to sergeant in the Italian campaign, gaining a reputation as an effective search and destroy operator with the nickname “The Ferret”.

Leading a platoon of mainly West Coast South Island infantrymen, he became a specialist in working many kilometres behind enemy lines at night, a skill he owed to his New Zealand childhood.

In later years, long after the war, he admitted he had not been a “very bright” school pupil and spent much of his younger days roaming the hills in and around Waimate shooting rabbits or “sneaking around at night raiding orchards”.

His first DCM was awarded after he captured a group of Germans after a fierce close quarter fight in a small house behind enemy lines.

His second came from a similar engagement two months later when he and three New Zealand soldiers, working well behind enemy lines at night, came upon a remote house.

Tandem met Eric when filming the documentary ‘Citizen Soldier’ last year. Eric and his wife welcomed us into thier home, made cups of tea and offered biscuits, with Eric then warmly sharing his experiences in World War Two. This video is with Eric from that documentary. (Full story at the ODT)

May he rest in peace.

Using Tandem’s wide experience in new media has seen the creation of the website www.inthehouse.co.nz for the New Zealand Clerk of the House.

This website is the first in the world to present each individual speaker within Parliament’s debating chamber – online in searchable segments offering the chance to view, share and comment on that speaker using a mix of website, and social media such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Tandem created the concept, built the site and manages the site from its Christchurch studios. This has meant the employment of one full-time and three part-time employees. The website users an In The House YouTube channel which is regularly in the top 10 most-viewed YouTube channels in New Zealand and occasional as high as No 2. In fact, many members of parliament – including John Key, Bill English, Annette King – list the In The House website as one of their ‘likes’ on their Facebook pages.

This project was a major goal and achievement through 2009 and will see the forms and template for the site offered to other parliaments, city councils and large companies as a communication system for them and their key stakeholders.

Here’s a couple of high-ranking, high-hitting videos on our site:
This is a question from Hon David Parker to the Minister of Energy and Resources – Has he received my invitation dated 14 December to accompany me, after Parliament rises, on the Gillespie Pass tramping circuit in the north-eastern parts of the Mount Aspiring National Park, so that he can inspect first-hand areas in the conservation estate included in his stock-take of mineral resources, and will he accept it?

And, a motion without notice – Trevor Mallard congratulating Steven Joyce on his academic career:

Mark Hadlow’s one of New Zealand’s most recognisable faces and voices, and he’s been ruling the stage, radio airwaves, and the big and small screen for years now. If that wasn’t enough, he also runs one of Christchurch’s most creative teams.

If you’ve ever wondered who one of the creative geniuses behind the TV2 Kidsfest is, well, Mark’s your man. We’re lucky enough to have him running our city council’s events team. The Kidsfest is on in the city right now and he says it’s the most successful ones they’ve ever run. He says kids are turning up in their droves to have fun these school holidays.

The great thing about him is that not only does he hold down this day job, but he keeps his finger in all the creative pies. He recently won a radio award for his highly characterised voice, he’s starting rehearsal for a professional Court Theatre production shortly, and, what’s more, he’s gearing himself up to shoot a film next month.

Let us say no more, and check out what he has to say as part of our Fresh Ideas:

The story dates back five years.. When Christchurch musician Amy Bowie was involved in a songwriting competition for television, she wrote and recorded a song inspired by Alice Sebold’s book, The Lovely Bones.

At that time, Amy wasn’t aware Peter Jackson had plans to turn that novel into a movie. Fast forward those five years, and the film was launched. With encouragement from friends, Amy decided to stick the song on YouTube. “Basically it was an experiment to see what would happen and if I could make any money out of it.”

Amy says she was embarrassed that people might think she was some “nutty YouTube girl” so she loaded it onto the video-sharing site anonymously under the username booksRgr8.

She didn’t have a proper video camera and was “way too embarrassed to ask my filmie friends for help”, so she went around every cemetery in Christchurch taking photographs of angel headstones and the like.

She also drew a few pictures, scanned them in and edited them together into what she calls “a stupid little video”. She titled it “The Lovely Bones Song” and away it went. To her surprise, people started asking for a download link so she started her own “Amie” (pseudonym) iTunes store – with most of the downloads and video views coming from the United States.

Thousands of people have now watched the video and it’s getting anywhere between 500-1000 hits per day, without really pushing the song at all.

Watch the beautiful, yet haunting, The Lovely Bones song here:

To download the song off iTunes, go to Amy’s iTune page – Amie

Wanting to capitalise on her success, Amy researched her followers on YouTube and found that most of them were ‘Twihards’ – often with usernames mentioning vampires and Twilight. So, she went and bought the book and discovered that one of the most mentioned songs in the book/movie was ‘Clair de Lune’ by Debussy. Amy did some further research and found that it was inspired by a poem by Paul Verlaine, which led to her decision to do a word-set adaptation/arrangement of the poem to Debussy’s melody – as she couldn’t find one to that particular melody. She has now loaded that one on YouTube and is working hard at promoting it on the sute through comments etc.

Amy finds the whole film-book-song-fan-video mix a fascinating study of culture and has even had someone make a fan-video of her song, “which I thought was way too weird and funny”.

Check out our interview with this interesting Christchurch muso as part of our Fresh Ideas:

Tandem’s voice agency is the largest in the South Island. This rich resource for clients sees Tandem offer voices for TV and radio commercials, DVDs and online videos.

The wide range of New Zealand and international voices are used by clients who market internationally into China, Japan, Australia, USA and Europe. Recently, Tandem was selected to provide the voice for the Flight of the Conchords radio commercials throughout the USA to promote their current tour. The voice was recorded at Tandem Studios and sent to the band’s agents in Los Angeles.

Choosing the right voice:

At Tandem we also run a unique educational course. It’s called The Voice School and we train aspiring voice-over artists in how to use their voice correctly and how to go about finding work in the industry. This course is also valuable for broadcasters and presenters in general. More info can be found on our sub site voiceschool.co.nz

Here’s a snippet from the last course we ran:

Tandem are experts when it comes to providing voice recordings. With over 90 voices in our agency, we have a voice for every need, and world class recording facilities to record, mix and master your production. Check out a full list of our voices here.

To enquire about being listed in our voice agency email us a MP3 sample of some of your work.

It had to happen. Just when you thought vampires would rule the movie screens forever, along comes a film about something just as ubiquitous as vampires – social networking.

The Social Network is a comedy-drama directed by David Fincher about the founding of Facebook. The cast includes Jesse Eisenberg, Brenda Song, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Rooney Mara and Armie Hammer.

It was written by Aaron Sorkin and adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.

Unfortunately, none of the Facebook staff, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, will be involved with the project. However, one of the co-founders, Eduardo Saverin, was a consultant for Mezrich’s book.

Interesting cast, interesting topic. Watch the trailer here:

The Christchurch Music Industry Trust, or perhaps more known as CHART, is an industry representative body for contemporary popular music in Christchurch.

But its appeal is much broader than that. CHART’s very active website – www.chart.org.nz – which had almost 40,000 visits during May music month alone, lists articles of multi-media interest, has reviews, lists job opportunities, and of course has an extensive gig guide.

Jeff Fulton is the full-time manager of CHART and has a dedicated Board made up of passionate local music advocates with extensive industry experience. CHART also acts as a support and advice network for the Christchurch music industry.

CHART hosts regular professional development events, live music showcases, seminars and workshops and manages www.christchurchmusic.org.nz – Christchurch’s number 1 music web portal which promotes the Christchurch music industry and showcases the city’s vibrant music scene.

At last month’s CHARTFEST, Tandem worked with CHART during the festival and offered the winner of the best up-and-coming local band competition a recording session.

Here’s an interview with Jeff Fulton as part of our Fresh Ideas section: