"Birth of a new art form..."

It's not often you hear that phrase. I don't think I've ever used it myself, but a few people have been tossing that around when talking about Kutiman's work at Thru-You.com who does video remixes of musicians around the world to create amazing new musical/video pieces. The one that is getting the most blog exposure is called The Mother of All Funk Chords. However, the one I think more clearly demonstrates the subtlety and intricacy of this artistic contribution is below entitled "I am new":



There have certainly been many video remixes before, but this steps it up a few notches in several directions - in no small part facilitated by abundance and wealth of YouTube performances. One of the earlier examples of musical/video editing that I really enjoyed is work by Lasse Gjertsen. He started with "human beat boxing", but really stepped it up in the following video. It's worth remembering that he doesn't know how to play these instruments:



On the topic of the great examples of creating musical mixes with video, this is another wonderful example of what one individual with a camera, video editor, a few instruments, and some determination can create:



Trying your hand at making something like this would be an excellent procrastineering project.

´GTA´ developer warming to Wii

Here is a brief update. In relation to some exclusive information I gave you some time ago, my guess regarding Silicon Knights was wrong. Just to make up for it, though, I can reveal that publisher Take 2 and developer Rockstar are warming to Wii.

When developing the DS game ´Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars´, they were very happy with Nintendo's third party support and are considering a `Grand Theft Auto´ on Nintendo's newest. I had asked them last year whether a GTA on Wii was a possibility and they had categorically ruled that out. Now, it simply hinges upon the success of ´GTA: Chinatown Wars´. If the DS title performs well enough, Rockstar will be swayed by its success and bring the franchise to Wii as well. Whether they would invest in an original installment running on a dedicated graphics engine is another question.




On a personal note, please excuse the recent lack of updates. The Falafelkidkid is a lot of work and it is hard for me to find time to write decent articles. I have a number in the pipeline, though, including a lengthy examination of controversial developer Nibris (`Sadness`), which should be online within the next two weeks. So please stay tuned.