Archive for the 'Film on Fusion View' Category

I can’t decide if this Evian YouTube ad with skating babies is freaky or cute….

At any rate, it sucked me in enough to help advertise Evian by embedding the video on my blog… that’s the sneaky power of viral marketing for you!

Since I took up running a little while ago, I’ve been on the lookout for ways to improve my form and stamina as well as speed. I heard that strengthening your core can help as a lot of power comes from the mid-body rather than just letting your flailing limbs do the work. So I went on the prowl on the internet to find some core training exercises.

Wait, don’t switch off if you’re not a runner. There’s good stuff to come - especially if you like to oggle at beautifully honed and toned muscley six pack abs….

To my delight, Runners World does a series of videos to show you how to do core strengthening exercises. This is one of them with a rather gorgeous blond runner flexing those muscles and working up a lovely golden glow.

Go ahead, watch and learn. Or just watch and drool…

I had lunch with my old friend Matthew the other day. Matthew started running about 18 months ago and this year, 2009, is running two marathons. He’s just done Tokyo and is up for London on 26 April.

He told me over lunch that he is hooking up with another college friend who is turning 50 this year and they are going to the Ironman in San Diego in 2010. An Ironman is a swim (2.5 miles) followed by a bike ride (100 miles) and then a marathon (26 miles). Matthew says he hates swimming but is looking forward to buying the new toys - a super duper bike, in particular.

I found this amazing, inspirational, scary video on YouTube about Ironman to inspire Matthew along his Ironman journey:

So, now, I’m thinking - there are a number of seniors on the video who’ve done the Ironman, someone with one leg, a guy in a wheelchair… if they can do it, could I? I certainly wouldn’t mind having the kind of abs and superfit body that some of these Ironpeople have. But then again, the pain, the agony, the collapsing in a heap… I’m too much of a wuss! I shall have to do it vicariously through YouTube - and my mad friends like Matthew…

YouTube, the video sharing site, sent out a call for musicians from around the world to audition for the first internet symphony orchestra in the world. Performers sent in videos of themselves playing a piece by a Chinese composer Tan Dun, specially composed for the event. The winners were selected, based on their YouTube performance and the winners were invited to perform the piece live at Carnegie Hall in New York.

This is one of the many reasons why I love the internet and social media!

Here is a mashup of the symphony made up of clips from the audition “tapes”:

This is the performance at Carnegie Hall:

You can also find out more and watch videos about the whole process at the YouTube Symphony site.

Click to Play

The soundtrack is “Hotcake Syrup” by Derek K. Miller from the Podsafe Music Network.

I used to worry that I’m the only one who mis-hears pop songs. I heard a cool band playing in a bar once and couldn’t work out why they were singing “Another day with Jesus Christ” - it turned out to be the Phil Collins song “Another Day in Paradise”. There was also the time I was surprised by the intellectual pop line, “You’ve such amazing brains” and was disappointed to learn later that it was actually “You’ve such amazing grace”.

Now, I’m relieved to see that other people have this affliction too - check out the subtitles on this video to help people like me…

Thanks to CC Chapman who first shared this on Twitter

Happy New Year, everyone!

This is a beautiful little time-lapse video that shows the passing of a year through the changing seasons in a woodland setting.

The only trouble is, it makes me feel that my life is passing before my eyes…!

Barack Obama continues to use social media with confidence and style. Within weeks of becoming President-Elect, he is maintaining his presence online with the ease of a 21st century man, reaching out to Americans - and the world - via a weekly YouTube address.

Previous US presidents and the leaders of other nations have used radio and television - was it Roosevelt who instituted a weekly radio “fireside chat” with the nation? Today, social media allows anyone to deliver their message to a national and global audience unmediated by the press or advertisers. It makes sense for Obama to use YouTube during the transitional months - there can only be one President at any given time so he cannot broadcast a weekly address on the traditional broadcast media without undermining the sitting President. YouTube is the perfect alternative, enabling him to continue communicating his agenda in this hiatus period while connecting with the younger demographic his campaign was so successful in capturing via a thoroughly 21st century, up to the minute, “hot” medium.

Here is his Thanksgiving address.

More to explore

The Social Media President

Barack Obama’s ChangeDotGov YouTube channel

This clip from Al-Jazeera English on YouTube reminds me how much I enjoy the acrobatics in Chinese Opera - but how I have difficulty appreciating the music, acclimatized as I am to the Western harmonic scale. It’s also great fun that the female roles are played by men - which was of course poignantly dramatized in Farewell My Concubine.

OK, I have to admit it here. I’m a great fan of Jackie Chan movies. The plots may all be a bit silly but his action stunts are balletic and witty in the way they use the natural environment. And he also does them all himself for real with no stunt doubles or CGI. They are literally death-defying.

Here is a video documenting some of the injuries that he suffered while filming some of those amazing stunts. It’s a miracle he’s still alive let alone walking, jumping and karate-chopping.

Hat tip to One Inch Punch for first alerting me to this video