As I sat here contemplating this blog, Christchurch experienced its most violent aftershock.

Since Saturday morning’s earthquake, we’ve had over 150 aftershocks – some as strong as magnitude 5.5. Another website puts the aftershocks in the 300s. But it was this morning’s 5.1 that I would say was the scariest. It was sharp and assured – like a house going over judder bars or a dozen heavy trucks – too heavy to be on the road – hitting your building one after another.

It struck at 7.49am, and our flat had not long said goodbye to my brother-in-law who was cycling to work. We told him to ‘be careful out there’. Of course our first reaction, after hovering under a door frame together in a frantic panic, was to call him. Relief came once we finally got through to him but the phoneline got cut just as he said he’d been thrown off his bike on Moorhouse Ave and I could hear in the background someone saying to him ‘are you alright, mate?’  The longest ten minutes of our life came as we tried to get through to him again, and my sister had decided she was going to drive and find him – but her car wouldn’t start. This is where I should explain that my car was totaled in Saturday’s quake by our next door neighbours chimney, so I too had been relying on their car to get around.

My car after Saturday’s quake…

Once we finally established contact with him, and the rest of our family, we immediately turned to Facebook and Twitter to see how everyone else fared. Some had been in the shower at the time, others threatened to leave town if it continues. But what is it about social networking now that makes us instinctively turn there when something happens?

I can only answer from a personal point-of-view in regard to the quake, as I’d rather speak from my perspective than research what academics might say. For me it’s the immediacy of social networking that I like because I can instantly see how everyone else is, where they are and what they were doing at the time; I want to see if anyone or anything has endured more damage; and I want to share my experience with everyone as they do with their other Facebook pals too.

Not longer after the quake on Saturday morning I was called in to cover the natural disaster for Newstalk ZB. It was definitely all hands on deck for such a big event. It was a full on weekend, but a truly humbling experience seeing all the damage around town. It turns out the damage to my car pales hugely in significance to what was out there beyond my home.

Here’s some pictures captured by my flatmate, Danny Knight-Baré, on Saturday:

Twitter was also a flurry of activity after the quake. I of course tweeted about what we’d just experienced, and as we were out exploring the city streets I was called by a Twitter ‘follower’ who works at the radio station Life FM in Auckland to do a live cross from the scene.

During that one, and others later for Newstalk, I experienced several aftershocks as I spoke live on air. Rather scary when you have to keep talking, but it just goes to show that us journos are in fact human after all and feel the same way as everyone else in a natural disaster. My tweeting about the quake also alerted media outlets in the UK, as per a tweet from a former colleague from London:

Because Twitter is an open forum, anyone can send you tweets, so getting messages from people you don’t know internationally in an event like this is truly meaningful:

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:

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:

When thinking site-search engines, the obvious one is Google, right? According to Geoff Brash from SLI Systems, Google is an excellent tool, but SLI’s searches go more in-depth.

Say for example you were looking for something really specific, like purple jellybeans, SLI’s search engine would no doubt be able to help you find them. They have developed a learning-based search and navigation technology for publishers, Ecommerce and corporate sites that Searches, Learns and Improves the user experience, making it easier to find really specific things.

Here’s an interview we had with Geoff Brash from SLI as part of Fresh Ideas:

In 2008, it won the APRA children’s song of the year, and now a new accolade – the New Zealand Post Children’s Choice book award.

So, what makes Craig Smith’s children’s book and song The Wonky Donkey so popular? It might have something to do with this little question – What do you call a donkey with only three legs, one eye, likes to listen to country music, is quite tall and slim, smells really bad, gets up early in the morning and hasn’t had any coffee, is always getting up to mischief but is quite good looking?

A…. spunky, hanky panky, cranky, stinky dinky, lanky, honkey tonkey, winky, wonky donkey – of course!

Catch the interview we had with Craig this week, as part of our Fresh Ideas section:

Craig doesn’t just make content for children. He recorded part of his album, 45 South, at Tandem Studios. He has also signed to another book with the song Willbee the Bumblebee. That’s due to be released in October 2010. In the meantime, stay entertained with The Wonky Donkey:

When it comes to gaming, Christchurch’s Wil McLellan from Stickmen Studios knows what he’s talking about.

Stickmen is a casual gaming company which, together with CerebralFix, produces original, break-through games for social networking and the download space. They work with people from Nintendo, Sony, Facebook – to make products which are original.

Their next launch is Kung Fu Funk – a game for the Nintendo WiiWare platform – and can be downloaded from Nintendo’s online store. Tandem Studios recorded the soundtrack for this game, one which Wil calls a fun party game – with the theme of 1970s Kung Fu. They’ve even licensed the classic song Kung Fu Fighting for it!

Another project they have on the go is Doc Clock The Toasted Sandwich of Time. It’s a game where the player can take control of the inventor, Doc Clock, and where you can invent anything you want from anything you find. Doc Clock will be released on a number of platforms – including WiiWare.

Watch our interview with Wil from Stickmen as part of our Fresh Ideas series:

Kineta Knight chats with Logan McMillan (Gorilla Pictures) – Christchurch’s regional winner of the 48HRS Furious-Filmmaking competition with his film Death in the West.

Gorilla Team Gorilla also won sexiest short and best cinematography.

The 48HRS Grand Final is this Thursday, 9.30pm on C4

Part One…

Part Two…