YouTube, Sundance, and filmmakers Kevin Macdonald and Ridley Scott team up

This is wonderful promotion and effective use of freely available tools to generate buzz, get fans actually invested in the success of an idea, and ultimately make some great content.

What does your Life in a Day look like? Everyone has a story. Every day has a story. And we want you to share your story with the world. Get your cameras ready.

Sundance Institute joins YouTube and filmmakers Kevin Macdonald and Ridley Scott to create the the first-ever user-generated film shot in a single day.

Film your own Life in a Day on July 24 and submit your footage by July 31 here. If your footage is selected for the completed film, you’ll get the chance to attend thepremiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Be part of cinematic history!

Visit www.youtube.com/lifeinaday for the full details.

The contest says "The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film." It will be interesting to see how they filter down all the footage received. Of course some filmmakers will get and promote their submissions (and in so doing, the contest itself - the way these things should work.)

Outside of the marketing aspect, I'm stoked to see some actually cool short films come out of this. In fact, it would be great to open up ALL of the submitted content to participants and see THEIR version of the final movie vs. director Macdonald's.

Print's going Pixels: "Got Milk" ad campaign geting the iPad treatment

 MediaPost has a nice article about the further pixelification of print. This time it's the venerable "Got Milk" ad campaign geting the iPad treatment, created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners with music by Elias Arts.

The new digitally based efforts cost-effectively make use of opportunities to film new Got Milk? (a/k/a "Milk Mustache") campaign stars while they're being shot for print ads, explains Sal Taibi, partner/general manager of Deutsch Inc., who has led the agency's management of the integrated campaign since its inception.

Print's going Pixels indeed.

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

Buzzcocks vs. Magazine :: Lipstick vs. Shot by Both Sides

Pete Shelley’s the man. I haven’t been able to get the Buzzcocks out of my head lately (insert Harmony in my Head joke here). When you listen to Pete Shelley, you can’t help but move along to Magazine, fronted by ex-Buzzcocker Howard Devoto.

The great thing about having two artists who were once creative partners split to make their own bands  is this: you occasionally end up with two unique takes on an identical piece of art. In this case, both Shelley and Devoto riffed on the same guitar riff.

Here’s Shelley’s take in “Lipstick”.

Now, here’s Howard Devoto and Magazine’s version in “Shot by Both Sides”…

So, who do you think did it better?

5 Hit-Testing Algorithms

There are plenty of folks talking about the efficacy of tools claiming to predict the financial success of artistic endeavors. I thought it would be fun to aggregate a list of some of the algorithms out there, so here goes. In no particular order:

http://uplaya.com/
uPlaya claims to give artists the ability to upload a song and "an immediate assessment of its Hit Potential." It even includes a 2 Free Song trial. uPlaya also offers an assortment of marketing tools and services to help get your song(s) noticed. Chuck D liked it so much he's their spokesman now.

http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/
HP's Social Computing Lab "focuses on methods for harvesting the collective intelligence of groups of people in order to realize greater value from the interaction between users and information." So with this idea in mind they went out and decided to predict box office receipts using Twitter. While you can't buy the service yet it's pretty interesting to read about.

http://www.epagogix.com/
Epagogix claims to "assist in identifying and developing scripts, and in transforming scripts with low Box Office revenue potential into properties that can be profitably produced and distributed." This is the company wrote about in his article "The Formula" and is discussed in the MIT article "What People Want (and How to Predict It)".

http://www.musicxray.com/S2O
Platinum Blue Music's product, Music X-Ray, couples their music-parsing algorithm with a platform to facilitate communication between artists and industry professionals, making it easier for both to find the content, tools, resources, and advice they may need.

Any other good algorithms floating around out there?