Mike Una has written up a fantastic mini-tutorial on how to make your own mic flag — that is, the little oldskool decorations broadcasters put on their mics. (Well, anyway, the oldskool ones looked coolest.) This one seemed a bit better-suited to createdigitalmusic.com, so it’s over there, but imagine it may interest some of you doing your own video production — or get someone to interview you as the VJ superstar you are.

How to Build a Mic Flag and Look Like a Real Broadcaster

Image: Bob Gowa at the wonderful vintagemicflags.com.

Today on the VJ-U netcast we’ll be interviewing Aleksej, director of Circus of Now, a large-scale multimedia event design company. Among other things, we’ll discuss their Intelligent Media Composer, a polymorphic HD projection system that can dynamically mix timelines of pre-produced content with live feeds. Join us in the studio to ask questions or watch in the player below.

Nov. 6, 2007, 5 PM EST - Big visuals for big events: the Circus of Now (interview)

I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed by the new video for Bjork’s latest single, Earth Invaders. I loved the initial imagery: an organic, swirling background, textures mapped over Bjork’s eerily floating head, and marching figures dressed like trees and branches. Somewhere in the execution, the concept falls a bit short, though. The dancers tend to look like dancers, and the stylized movements (jazz dance? Alvin Ailey?) miss the violent underside of the song. My significant other pointed out that floating, singing heads are a bit of a music video cliche. And then there are moments of disappointment, like when Bjork’s head appears in front of a pristine, mountainous landscape, looking like some sort of ad for bottled Icelandic spring water.

Enough of what I think. What do you think? Think you can do better? Think you’re more awesomely visually talented than Bjork’s inner circle of friends. Great news: you’ve got a shot at making her next vid.

Bjork provides the lyrics, photos, photos of the costume as used for album cover, and audio to the track Innocence. You shoot a video. If you’re a winner, you get to use the original costume in the video, and collaborate with Bjork herself on the finished work. Why? Because, as the website says, “We just love the sculpture!!!”

Innocence is to be made as video [Links to contest page, Bjork.com]

Bjork isn’t alone, either. Modest Mouse and Apple have a green-screen contest for producing their video. (via TUAW) All of this is clearly promotional gimmick, but hey, it’s a lot better than sealing a band in an inflated bubble. That’s just … weird.

What I find interesting is that artists haven’t quite gone all the way with the participatory concept. I’m not one of those people who thinks artists need to open-source all of their music if they don’t want to. But if you are going to invite participation, why not go all the way? Why not provide free access to the material for use? Why not let fans choose which video they like best?

Actually, let’s spell this out. In my ideal world, artists:

1. Open up video production to fans, and let fans decide which are cool.
2. Hire live visuals for their tour. No DVDs. Great visualists alone. Music videos can be live.
3. Make videos so awesome they make the rest of us look bad.
4. (Repeat.)

Of course, if any of you do win this and get to hang out with Bjork, send us some Polaroids or something. We salute you.

Closing thought: if the official video doesn’t do it, Icelandic papercut animator Birta produced this unusual take on Earth Intruders, with this … um … creature, looking like he/she escaped from outtakes of Yellow Submarine. In a good way.

Earth Intruders by Birta [Free video -- no need to pay iTunes]

Via the Create Digital Noise forums, Japanese electronic artist Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada) has some terrific videos from director Koichiro Tsujikawa. Tsujikawa has not surprisingly racked up some awards for his work over the last few years. Via Getty Images:

A highly regarded and inventive director, Koichiro Tsujikawa is a self-taught filmmaker whose reputation as an artist and designer is what initially led him to film. Most recently, Tsujikawa won best music video of 2003 at RESFEST’s Audience Music Choice Awards for “Drop (Do it Again)” featuring music by Cornelius.

And he’s an After Effects user. Okay, not terribly enlightening. More enlightening: watching the videos.

Getty Images also features his 2003 winner Eyes, plus a making of featurette.

Cornelius is stateside; the music is equally focused and lovely. I hope to catch the act on the NYC stop.

Got other music videos that you’ve enjoyed lately? Let us know.

Let’s cut through the marketing. Adobe has a new, giant box of software. It’s a giant box of software you’re probably going to get if you do visual work. It’s finally a box of software that runs on Intel Macs at speeds that don’t make you feel like your Mac Pro is a blue&white G3. And it does a bunch of stuff that you’ll have to, well, learn.

We’ve got enough of a preview, though, to see that there’s a lot to be truly excited about. Most importantly, Photoshop finally understands time and animation, enabling all kinds of artistic effects working directly with animations and video and painting on frames. And After Effects finally eases some animation tasks, opening up some unique effects with vectors and 2D. For visualists wanting to build better materials for live and interactive production by creating more original footage, all of this opens up some interesting new possibilities. (Disclaimer: what looks great on paper means nothing until you’ve tested this. So consider this a preview until we get out review copy.)

So, getting straight to it, what’s cool for visualists in CS3? We’ll be answering that question over the coming months, but here’s the shortened version, plus the arcane and bizarre ways CDMotioners intend to warp Adobe’s tools beyond their PR firm’s wildest expectations:

Flash, All Integrated Up

1. Native Photoshop and Illustrator import. Finally, you’ll be able to work with full-fidelity, seamlessly-imported files from other tools. Some people love Flash’s own vector tools, of course, but no one won’t love the ability to link up with Photoshop and import, complete with layers. CDMo is excited about: insane, multi-layered graphics for VJing in Flash.


2. Edit audio cues easily. Part of why I’m excited about Soundbooth CS3, Adobe’s new audio app, is that it’s perfectly-suited for editing audio for Flash (and, other marketing ideas beside, I’m fairly certain that’s how the tool came about in the first place). More on Soundbooth over at Create Digital Music.

After Effects, Now Better at Animation

1. Shape Layers. Draw and animate vector shapes in After Effects, without leaving the program. CDMo angle: I could see doing a whole gig’s footage with this feature alone.
2. Puppet. Manipulates and warps 2D images for animation. CDMo angle: Your challenge is to use this without looking like all the other motion graphics artists who are about to overuse it. I’m sure it can be done; I love the impact of manipulating 2D and quasi-3D After Effects.
3. Brainstorm. Generate and preview “animation variations.” Again, AE goes to better animation.

Reasons to get your electronic music career / video directing gigs on track: you get to use enormous, cavernous studios for chroma key shoots with people dancing around in bunny outfits.

Warning: NSFW, sophomoric bunny-on-bunny action. Not that it matters much to me: their shooting studio is what makes me blush.

Keying outfits that nice makes me want to put on a bunny outfit and jig. Sure, most working VJs don’t get to produce footage this way, but … we can dream. Or look for an empty warehouse.

Thanks to the excellent electronic music site Filter27. New Groove Armada album is due April 30. Technically, that’s Create Digital Music news, but I’m guessing the beats will also be useful for keeping yourself going as you work on new projects with Photoshop CS3.

Any favorite new music videos? Send them our way.

It seems that the wait is almost over for those wanting to shoot cinema-quality footage digitally with a camera that looks like a gun from Aliens. RED have just released their pricelist.

This was never going to be a cheap endeavour. Yes, the camera body is an incredibly affordable $17,500, but that won’t let you shoot a single frame. You’ll also need a power pack ($1,650) to give the thing juice, viewfinder ($2,950) or LCD ($1,700) so you can see what you’re doing, and a Red Drive (320GB, $900) or Red RAM (64GB, $4,500) to capture those frames. Oh, and you’ll want a lens, otherwise the frames you’re capturing may be a little fuzzy, the most affordable option would be a Canon or Nikkor 35mm adapter ($500)… HD4Indies has a big analysis, including comparisons with other pro options.

I don’t see myself picking one of these bad boys up for quite a while yet, but when I get the spare cash I’ll definitely be looking at Red first.