Boing Boing Video Videos

Boing Boing presents a music video from the N.A.S.A project: "Spacious Thoughts," featuring Tom Waits & Kool Keith, directed by Fluorescent Hill.

Watch video: Download MP4, YouTube, subtitles at Dotsub. Boing Boing Video proudly debuts a new piece from the "great god almighty could it get any more awesome?" N.A.S.A. music project, this one from two personal music heroes: Tom Waits, and Kool Keith. The track is called Spacious Thoughts, and you can pick it up on the project's debut album, Spirit of Apollo (Amazon link.) NASA, short for "North America South America," is a music collaboration project assembled by Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel, brother of film director Spike Jonze) and DJ Zegon (Ze Gonzales, professional skateboarder). The music video embedded above was created by Montreal-based Fluorescent Hill, and I asked collaborators Mark Lomond and Johanne Ste-Marie a few questions about how all that crazy magic came together. Below, and after the jump, are their replies. BB: Tell me a little about Fluorescent Hill? Who are you guys, where are you, what do you do? Fluorescent Hill: Well, we're a very small collective of artists, basically myself (mark lomond) and johanne ste-marie. we started working together while in school here in Montreal, along with some other friends. So we've been together for almost eight years. We do design, illustration, animation, live action, basically anything artistic, but with a primary focus on film. BB: How did the NASA video project come together, and what were your first thoughts when you learned what track and what musical artists would be involved? Fluorescent Hill: We got an email one day describing the entire NASA project, the musicians involved the visual artists involved and it just blew our minds. As soon as I saw the list of musicians, deep in my brain I already was hoping to work on the Kool Keith and Tom Waits collab. They're two artists that I go way back to my early tape buying days with. So when we finally got on the phone, and they said it was this track "Spacious Thoughts" a small peice of my brain exploded. Then when they sent the track I was absolutely just ecstatic. Then came the realisation that our work would be seen by such artists as Marcel Dzama, Syd Garon, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, etc.. and panic set in. So we had to step it up in every way. BB: Can you tell us a little about the characters we see in the video? I love the anthropomorphization of Tom Waits' voice -- it's as if the very sound of his voice, not Waits as a person, is being brought to life. Same thing with the bouncing, spherical ball critter. How did these beings take form? Fluorescent Hill: Well the characters went through a couple stages of redesign. At first he was more of a giant oninon, and then cleaned up into a drop of oil. We initially were going to do the character in 2D and the backgrounds would be 3D. But then we just flipped everything 180 degrees as a challenge to ourselves, because we had never really done a fully animated 3d character and it would force us to rethink how we approach everything. Also the challenge of going from 2d drawing to realizing it in 3d changed the overall design adding more to it and streamlinig other aspects. We also wanted both Tom Waits Oil Drop/Bouncing Ball character and Kool Keiths' to essentially be the same in design but different in movement and colour, like different aspects or personalities of the same person. The giant Cloud in the chorus was the first thing we came up with. We felt the chorus had to be big, and Waits' voice is just so huge you just have to go with something towering over the rest of the video, and in this case the city....which ended up working out really well for the lyrics in that section. Also we didn't want to do caricatures of the singers, it had been done before with waits, I believe Ralph Bakshi had anmiated/rotoscoped him, so to try and just get at the quick pop of Kool Keith and the growl and bark of Tom Waits. BB: How did the project progress, how long did it take? Can you talk us through a little of the "making of"? Fluorescent Hill: For the video we tried to mix as many mediums as possible. We had access to the shipping docks here in Montreal and so we went down and photographed all the nooks and crannies, then made collages out of th photos, then redrew the collages. The character animation took a long time,one because we had never done 3d before, and two because it's just the two of us. OUr friend and frequent collaborator Jacques Khouri modeled and rigged the character, he's a wizard.... and also teaches at Savannagh college of art and design. The cloud character is made up of so many things it'd be pretty hard to explain 3d 2d vector hand drawn particle etc. you name it, we did it. This was the longest production we've ever done. BB: What do you love most, and hate most, about animation? Fluorescent Hill: I love everything about animation, sounds cheezy, but it's true. You can really do everything you can think of and more. The only thing we hate is the amount of time it takes, but i guess if we had more people it would go faster, but we like the control we have over every frame. BB: Favorite part of this project? Fluorescent Hill: Our absolute favourite part is the mix of the music and visual. We think it's a really fun mix, and hope people get some enjoyment out of it and will want to watch it over and over again. Previously:"A VOLTA" from NASA Project: Narco-Cholo Game Ultraviolence BB Video: The People Tree, David Byrne feat. Chali 2Na, Z-Trip ... BB Video: Way Down, N.A.S.A. feat. RZA, Barbie Hatch & John ... (Special thanks to Susan Applegate and Syd Garon)

Boing Boing presents a music video from the N.A.S.A project: "Spacious Thoughts," featuring Tom Waits & Kool Keith, directed by Fluorescent Hill.

After a live recording session of the Carolina Chocolate Drops at Village Studios, Santa Monica, an impromptu jam with visiting "nouveau oldtime" guests. Blind Boy Paxton, Dom Flemons (of the Carolina Chocolate Drops), and Frank Fairfield.

After a live recording session of the Carolina Chocolate Drops at Village Studios, Santa Monica, an impromptu jam with visiting "nouveau oldtime" guests. Blind Boy Paxton, Dom Flemons (of the Carolina Chocolate Drops), and Frank Fairfield.

(Watch video: YouTube, Dotsub, or download MP4.) A quick little goodie from Boing Boing Video. Last night, I sat in on a live recording session at Santa Monica's Village Studios with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, described as "African-American string band revivalists." They were amazing: I have never been so emotionally moved by someone playing a musical jug (and banjos, fiddles, cow bones, and kazoos). Their performance was witnessed by a handful of music biz folks and oldtime music enthusiasts, and made me feel deeply homesick for Appalachia (I'm also craving cornbread and butterbeans today - there's a song for that). The Chocolate Drops have a new record coming out in 2010, and Boing Boing will be all over it like gravy on grits. If you dig R. Crumb, Smithsonian Folkways recordings of pre-blues and pre-bluegrass banjo music, and love folks who bring new life to authentic American music, you will flip out. So, the video above: after the Drops' performance and recording session ended, Dom Flemons (of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, seated in center in the video), Blind Boy Paxton (seated at left in the video), and Frank Fairfield (seated far right) sat down together and jammed pure, sweet magic for a spell. I wasn't prepared with a proper camera or crew, but I grabbed my iPhonetraption out of my pocket and got to shootin'. I hope you enjoy it as much as everyone in the room did. Pure magic, these guys. (Special thanks to Joe Henry; Jeff Greenberg of Village Studios; Tom Osborn, Warner Bros. Records; David Bither, Nonesuch Records, and to Boing Boing Video's tireless editor, Eric Mittleman.)

Boing Boing talks with the creators of the Electrobite, a DIY art-vehicle in the form of the prehistoric trilobite creature.

Boing Boing talks with the creators of the Electrobite, a DIY art-vehicle in the form of the prehistoric trilobite creature.

Watch: MP4 download, YouTube, Dotsub (with captions/text translations). In this episode of Boing Boing Video, we test-drive "Sarriugarteis (Odontochile) trilobiteis," also known as The Electrobite. This trilobite-shaped DIY vehicle was created by "Oilpunk" enthusiasts Kyrsten Mate + Jon Sarriugarte, with help from fellow makers Amy Jenkins and Tansy Brooks. Pesco previously blogged about the little bugger here -- it's even been to Burning Man, where it no doubt terrified some trippin' hippies. We shot this inside the Tcho Chocolate warehouse (thanks, Timothy!), with help from Boing Boing pals Eddie Codel and John Behrens. Special thanks to Karen Marcelo, who also shot the incriminating photo below. Previously: Boing Boing Video: The Boiler Bar, Oilpunk Creations + Sexy Burlesque Gyrations Sarriugarte and Mate s trilobyte vehicle Jon Sarriugarte s fire and metal art VW Beetle conversion into giant snail Oilpunk Fun in SF Bay Area This Saturday: Boiler Bar

"Man in the Sand," from Gordon Gano and the Ryans' new record "Under the Sun." Video dorected by Matt Mahurin.

WATCH: MP4 Download, YouTube, or Dotsub. Boing Boing Video proudly presents "Man in the Sand," from Gordon Gano and the Ryans' new record "Under the Sun." Video directed by famed illustrator, photographer, and filmmaker Matt Mahurin. Read Cory's review of the album: Gordon "Violent Femmes" Gano's solo album "Under the Sun" is out!

"Man in the Sand," from Gordon Gano and the Ryans' new record "Under the Sun." Video dorected by Matt Mahurin.

(Download MP4 video or Watch on YouTube, or view with subtitles on Dotsub). Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing Video to co-host the Digital Open, an online tech expo for teens 17 and under around the world. We're publishing an 8-part series of videos profiling the winners. Today, meet 16 year old Harry Lee of Melbourne Australia. He talks with us about his "Sneaky Card" game concept, which explores social interactions between people. He was inspired by ARG and indie projects like "Bite Me," by Gamelab, and Jane McGonigal's Top Secret Dance-Off, both of which we've covered previously on Boing Boing. "I love index cards," says Harry, "And I was thinking -- hmm, how can I incorporate them into a project?" So he designed and printed these game cards, and "spread the seeds of sneakiness and espionage" into the unsuspecting pockets, math books, binders and bags and jackets of his schoolmates. I tracked most of the cards and found, with much satisfaction, that a majority of them had been passed down at least three times. The most successful story is of the card passed from student to student three times before ending up in a math teacher's jacket. The teacher found it and gave it to another math teacher, who inserted it into a student's corrected test before giving it back to him. The card passed hands once again before I lost track of it. Below, some sample cards in Harry's game. (Link to PDF). More after the jump. Previously: Digital Open Winners: Teen Designs Eco-Home of the Future Digital Open Winners: From pocket-sized Altoids tin hack, big dreams emerge Digital Open Winner: A Living Diorama, to Change the World. Digital Open Winner: teen creates a robot shop Digital Open Winners: "Hybrid Airship," by teen robotic blimp builders. Digital Open Winners: A student website by and for teens. BB Video: IFTF, Sun, and Boing Boing Launch Digital Open Youth ... Digital Open: online tech expo for young people - Boing Boing Digital Open tech innovation expo for global youth: 10 more days ...

Harry Lee, 16, of Melbourne on his "Sneaky Card" game, which explores social interactions between people -- a winning project in the Digital Open, an open tech expo for youth from IFTF, Sun Microsystems, and Boing Boing.

Harry Lee, 16, of Melbourne on his "Sneaky Card" game, which explores social interactions between people -- a winning project in the Digital Open, an open tech expo for youth from IFTF, Sun Microsystems, and Boing Boing.