Oskoui+Oskoui Blog 2012-06-26T16:03:36Z http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?feed=atom WordPress barrett <![CDATA[The Music Video in 2012]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4334 2012-06-25T17:54:51Z 2012-06-26T16:03:36Z MIA Bad Girls
The role of music videos seems to have changed over the past couple decades. Television stations such as MTV, VH1, and BET have slowly pushed away their music video slots and replaced them with game shows, reality TV, and other similar programs. Music videos themselves are still being released on a daily basis, but now it’s mostly through the web using sites like YouTube and Vimeo. So how exactly has this changed things?

Obviously the TV operates quite differently than the web. When turning on a station on your television, you’ve basically decided to absorb and digest whatever content has been preselected. If MTV decides a new artist is worthy of your attention, then they might have slotted said artist’s new music video into their next time block. Much like the radio, you’re given a sampling of an artist they believe you may enjoy.

On the web, however, you have power and control over what you type in or click on. I feel that this dramatically changes what exactly you’re going to end up hearing or seeing, because certain listens simply won’t be attempted. What you yourself have selected to sit through has automatically become more personalized, which I believe has raised our own standards for what will actually impress us. By having our own standards set by whatever we’ve previously seen, combined with the power to stop, pause, or entirely skip a video, our current attention deficit generation has made it more vital than ever to increase the overall quality of music videos. Videos that feel “cookie cutter” are out. We want something that first intrigues us, then continues to be interesting or amusing throughout the entire duration.

So what exactly have videographers been doing to achieve this? With so many artists in this viral age basically being introduced to the world through a stellar music video on YouTube, aspects such as creativity, technique, and strong execution are more imperative than ever. I decided then to briefly discuss a selection of the most striking videos I’ve come across recently. Feel free to comment with other suggestions I may have left out!

M.I.A. - “Bad Girls”
My favorite music video that’s come out recently certainly has to be “Bad Girls” by M.I.A. The sheer amount of regal attitude and swagger here is simply off the charts. Take away any politically-driven message she’s trying to make (which only adds depth once you delve into that area) and we have a stunning feature complete with an army of traditionally dressed Arab men performing perilous car stunts, being led by the chic-dressed outcast pop-star M.I.A. This engaging visual definitely shoots for eye-candy to the max.

M83 - “Midnight City”
The music video for “Midnight City” by M83 brings us into a story surrounded by a hazy mystique. Dark and dramatic slow-motion shots of creepy children moving things with their minds, help draw us inside a world that just seems a bit off-kilter (and surprisingly partners itself well with the 2012 film “Chronicle”). Combined with the audio track, the music video for “Midnight City” creates what feels like a united manifesto we should all be pledging loyalty to.

Sunbeam Rd. - “Lucy”
If you haven’t heard of Sunbeam Rd., they’re a Bay Area based four piece that have no fear of letting their music “fall apart completely exploring the margins of harmonic rock.” Quite fittingly, the music video for their newest single “Lucy” embodies this aesthetic like a tailored glove: geometric seizure-inducing patterns flood the screen, while the band finds themselves disintegrating amid their own spacey visual effects. Throughout the chaos is a negatively spaced feline that offers a solid constant among the variegated landscape of video clips, nudging you towards your own contemplative synopsis of “what it all means.”

Nas - “Nasty”
Nas has been rapping for a long time. While this aspect alone often earns great amounts of respect for a hip-hop artist, it just as often can be equally detrimental to the quality and relevance of the music and videos they continue to create. Nas decided to upset this trend. “Nasty” features some of the best bars we’ve heard from the New York artist in some time, and quite fittingly is accompanied by a Jason Goldwatch directed music video. The opening scenes may be well executed though typical for a rap video, but then Nas does what many hip-hop artists don’t dare; he steps out of the limo he was riding in and back onto the streets of Queensbridge that raised him. Watching the people around him respond to his visit is pretty awesome.

Beach House - “Lazuli”
I love the combination of goofy digital effects and beautiful real footage this video displays. One moment we’re staring at raw street imagery of melancholy humans, and the next we’re rocketing through a radical CGI outer-space realm; this pattern continues throughout the video, intertwining to spawn a phantasmagorical visual journey for us to enjoy.

Lana Del Rey - “Born to Die”
This video just has such enticing hypnotic visuals. Flanked by a pair of tigers in an opulent cathedral, we find Lana perched on a throne wearing a crown of flowers exhibiting an attitude of timid authority. Continuing on we find a complicated romance taking place between the pouty songstress and a mysterious, extremely tattooed man. Setting any attempts at a linear storyline aside, I feel that this piece could stand strong purely through intriguing visuals. The video for “Born to Die” just feels extremely luxurious and grand.

]]> 0 JB <![CDATA[Monsters University Teaser]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4441 2012-06-20T17:14:57Z 2012-06-20T17:14:57Z
The new Monsters University teaser from Disney•Pixar was dropped today on YouTube. There are four different versions for YouTube, Yahoo! Movies, iTunes Trailers, and the Huffington Post. Movie looks great!

]]> 0 Alice L <![CDATA[HTML5 Boilerplate: A Rock-Solid Default for HTML5 Awesome]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4388 2012-06-20T16:22:30Z 2012-06-20T16:04:49Z
HTML5 Boilerplate was developed by Paul Irish and Divya Manian. This project took almost three years to be completed having first been announced on August 10th, 2010.

It’s essentially a good starting template of html and css and a folder structure that works. [...] And if you think there’s too much? Delete key that badboy.

- Paul Irish

HTML5 Boilerplate is a starting off point for front-end development professionals. Its main purpose is to help fix annoying compatibilities issues, mainly with the web developer’s worst nightmare: Internet Explorer.

This starting template provides the developer with a huge variety of tools. Let’s take a closer look at some of them:

  • Faster page load hack
<!--[if IE]><![endif]-->
  • Conditional body tag to target different IE browsers
<!--[if lt IE 7 ]> <body> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7 ]>    <body> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8 ]>    <body> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 9 ]>    <body> <![endif<]-->
<!--[if (gt IE 9)|!(IE)]><!-->  <!--<![endif]-->
  • jQuery fallback: almost every website uses the jQuery library today, and more specifically Google’s hosted version. Using Google’s hosted version allows the user to not load the library at all, since it is most likely already in the cache. Thanks to HTML5 Boilerplate, if there is an issue with Google’s servers and you cannot load the library, a fallback allows you to load it locally.
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="js/libs/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"><\/script>')</script>
  • CSS fixes: HTML5 reset, font normalisation, aligning labels, print styles and many more.
  • .htaccess snippets
  • And one of my favorites… Modernizr is included! Modernizr (“front-end development done right”) is an open-source JavaScript library that helps with cross-browser and cross-device compatibility issues. This library detects features available on the device that the user is currently on, allowing the developer to support different levels of experiences.
    Example:
/* Simulated box shadow using borders: */
.box {
   border-bottom: 1px solid #666;
   border-right: 1px solid #777;
}
.boxshadow div.box {
   border: none;
   -webkit-box-shadow: #666 1px 1px 1px;
      -moz-box-shadow: #666 1px 1px 1px;
               box-shadow: #666 1px 1px 1px;
}

If the .boxshadow class exists, then the browser supports the box-shadow property, which is used. Otherwise, a box shadow is simulated using borders.
Modernizr is a powerful tool, and one can see that, by putting it by default in HTML5 Boilerplate, the team insisted on giving the front-end developers good development habits.

HTML5 Boilerplate can help front-end developers resolve one of the main issues in web development: cross-browser and cross-device compatibility. Since today people are accessing the web from a wide variety of different devices, it is difficult to have a uniformly perfect experience on each one of them. It is even more difficult for the front-end developer to insure the same product quality on every device. This template might not resolve all issues, but it helps developers avoid the most common of them.

As stated on HTML5 Boilerplate official website, “the HTML5 Boilerplate is delete-key friendly.” This means that the template is not supposed to be fully used unless necessary. It is not a good idea to use HTML5 Boilerplate if you are not a trained front-end developer and are fully aware of the issues that it might generate. You should always be careful when it comes to using code that is not your own. Before using this template, take the time to look into the details and be sure to fully understand them, otherwise you might have a tough time trying to resolve unknown issues.

]]> 0 team <![CDATA[Movie Quote Cards – Part 2]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4321 2012-06-19T16:33:52Z 2012-06-19T16:04:36Z A Fistful of Dollars
Here is Part 2 of our series of movie quote cards. Can you figure out where each quote is from? Look at the tags if you need help.

If you missed Part 1, you can check it out here.

Apocalypse Now
Inception
Saving Private Ryan
The Rock
Top Gun
Unforgiven
Yojimbo

]]> 0 jo http://www.oskoui-oskoui.com <![CDATA[Fashion Line – Mattel’s Fijit – Interactive Toy]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4106 2012-06-20T16:23:09Z 2012-06-18T16:21:48Z
Going through the archives, here are some cool concept designs that Los Angeles based fashion designer and illustrator Katharina Pretl developed with us for Mattel’s cool interactive toy.

Mattel - Fijit

]]> 0 barrett <![CDATA[Hanging Bed]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4211 2012-06-14T16:27:14Z 2012-06-14T16:27:14Z Hanging Bed
Here’s a unique way to hang around the house. Made from reclaimed Douglas-fir and handmade hardware/brackets, this bed is actually suspended from the ceiling by ropes at each corner. Click below to check out more photos and see more original furniture crafted by Ben Riddering:

Ben Riddering Furniture and Doors

]]> 1 JB <![CDATA[E3 – My Recap and Rundown]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4248 2012-06-12T17:34:54Z 2012-06-12T17:17:54Z E3 Main Image
Last week, I had the good fortune to attend E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It was a great experience to see all of my favorite developers and companies all in one place, showing off their products and their visions for the future. I thought I would share my thoughts on what I found to be the most compelling exhibits at E3 and why.

Aliens: Colonial Marines

ALIENS: Colonial Marines
The Alien franchise has had some pretty awesome games, especially the Aliens vs. Predator series released for the PC in 1999. I remember playing those games as a kid and being fully immersed in the universe. Another Aliens vs. Predator was released in 2010 and was pretty lackluster, so when I saw the trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines, I got extremely excited at what looked like a return to form for video game outings of the Alien franchise.

The game looks like SEGA has really fixed the issues that plagued their last outing using the Alien canon, from the major to the minor. The atmosphere looks incredible, realistic, and faithful to the property. Definitely excited to get this game as soon as it hits. The only problem is I have to wait until next February 12, 2013 to shoot xenomorphs and yell Bill Paxton quotes at my television set.

Aliens: Colonial Marines Gameplay
SEGA Sign

Resident Evil 6


After the extremely hyped but poor performance of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, I was uncertain of the next time I’d get my fix of the series. Resident Evil 4 and 5 were both fantastic games, pushing the genre past the old days of sluggish controls and slower gameplay - though the tension of the difficult control scheme did somewhat add to the frightening atmosphere.

In any case, if you’ve watched the trailer above, then you already know what I’m about to tell you right now: this looks incredible. It has all of the makings of an awesome Resident Evil outing including the original zombies, familiar faces, and even more cool settings and additions to the series (snowmobiles, anyone?). I’m really looking forward to this one, and luckily we only have around four months to wait with a release date set for October 2nd, 2012.

Resident Evil 6 Missing Posters

Dishonored


If you thought BioShock was the only franchise nailing the steampunk vibe, E3′s Dishonored trailer is about to take you for a spin. Bethesda’s Dishonored comes to the States October 9th, 2012. The environment looks killer and the gameplay reminds me of the Thief series, which is definitely a good thing. It looks like all of the right influences for this game are there so I can’t wait until October to give this one a ride. Full expectations for Bethesda to knock it out of the park.

The Elder Scrolls Online


First Skyrim and now this? Don’t do this to me Bethesda. I’m too young for my social life to die. No firm release date yet, but I expect that I’m going to have to buy a new computer sometime in 2013.

Runners-Up

As you’re probably aware, there were a lot of games that showed their faces at E3 this year. Some honorable mentions for me are actually some of the bigger dogs - Black Ops 2, Halo 4. It was also good to see that Castlevania is still making appearances, and it’ll be interesting to see how famous Belmont characters get woven into the rebooted series.

All in all, it was an awesome time and it looks like we have another year of great gaming to look forward to. If you want to see more pictures of E3, check out our Pinterest page.

]]> 0 jo http://www.oskoui-oskoui.com <![CDATA[Best Soccer Ads]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4104 2012-06-11T16:41:43Z 2012-06-11T16:41:43Z

Now that EURO 2012, the second largest soccer tournament in the world, has kicked off in Poland and the Ukraine, here are some of the best soccer ads. Most ads were created specifically for either one of the big two soccer tournaments - the World Cup or the EURO - and showcase some of the greatest soccer players in the world..

Nike’s “Airport” (1998) showcases the finesse and talents of the Brazilian seleçao in an airport setting. Ronaldo, Denilson, Rivaldo, and Co. show off their spectacular skills. This ad which was created for the World Cup tournament in France in 1998, is still considered by many as the first great soccer ad that started it all. Mas que nada.

Nike’s “Good vs. Evil” (2002) features an all star-cast and is remains an all-time favorite among all ads. The all-star cast, including Cantona, Figo, Henry, and Maldini, fight a team from hell that seeks to destroy the beautiful game.

Nike: Take It To The Next Level (2008)
Here’s the NIke ad from 2008 following the fortunes of an unknown Dutch teenager from a youth team to the national team in first-person perspective.

Carlsberg: “Pub Team” (2006) features English soccer legends Bobby Charlton, Jack Charlton, Bryon Robson, Bobby Robson, and Peter Shilton playing a local team.

Another Carlsberg ad “Dreams” (2002). In an impressive (and highly improbable) run, the Irish Republic’s soccer team finally wins the elusive World Cup trophy. Cheers!

In Adidas “José + 10″ (2006) two boys pick their favorite street teams, including Zindine Zidane, Kaka, David Beckham, Cisse, Ballack, Steven Gerrard, Oliver Kahn, and even Michel Platini, and even Franz Beckenbauer.

Another gritty series of Nike ads. In “The Cage” (2006), the best players in the world play a tournament in a cage.

Here’s a Coca Cola ad from Argentina that is a bit different. No soccer players or fancy dribblings. What do a fly, a laboratory rat, a chicken, a lumber jack and a cook have in common? Their love for soccer.

]]> 0 team <![CDATA[The Post-it X-Men: Wolverine]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4100 2012-06-11T16:44:51Z 2012-06-11T16:27:34Z Wolverine
As a bonus to the Post-It Avengers, we also created a template for Wolverine in anticipation of his upcoming solo flick The Wolverine in 2013. Hope you enjoy!

]]> 0 team <![CDATA[Prometheus – Alien Facebook Story]]> http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=4207 2012-06-08T19:41:41Z 2012-06-08T16:04:44Z
After much anticipation, Prometheus was finally released in the United States last night. We thought now would be a good time to share the story of Alien, entirely recreated in social media before the release of Facebook Timeline.

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