tiny small update

 

my future blogs might show up in such format

Toni Kukoc sightings

Kukoc is awesome, I wish he’s still playing today.

Former Bull Toni Kukoc made an appearance at practice in Chicago on Monday and offered advice for Luol Deng, Roger Powell, and Thabo Sefolosha, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

Kukoc was visiting from his nearby Highland Park home, but the players appreciated his help.

”It was really good,” Deng said. ”Just trying to ask him a few questions, what he thinks about some stuff, how I could be more effective out there, stuff like that. He’s been through it. He’s a great player.”

”That’s my buddy — Toni and I were roommates when we played together in Italy,” Bulls’ Coach Vinny Del Negro added.

Source

Who wants a iMai?

A conversation between my friends after they heard my new single Big Ass Booties:

6:39:05 PM john: hahaha.
6:39:06 PM john: I love this kid.
6:39:10 PM john: I wish he was in my pocket.
6:39:25 PM josh: hahahaaha
6:39:31 PM josh: they should make a pocket mai
6:40:30 PM john: I would pay a lot of money for a pocket mai.
6:40:37 PM john: I would pay a lot of money for a little technology mai thing.
6:40:40 PM john: I mai iphone app!
6:40:40 PM josh: hahahahaa
6:40:41 PM john: A.
6:40:45 PM josh: YES
6:40:53 PM josh: iMai. New from Apple.
6:41:07 PM josh: An Asian In Your IPhone
6:41:36 PM john: Haha yes.
6:41:44 PM john: Or it would be awesome if it was just like a magic 8ball.
6:41:50 PM john: It would be easy to make, and awesome.
6:41:58 PM john: Shoot video of him just like on green screen.
6:42:00 PM john: or white bg.
6:42:03 PM john: Something funny/asian.
6:42:07 PM john: Like cheesy.
6:42:13 PM john: Then, ask him like 50 questions.
6:42:22 PM john: Or rather, think of 50 answers to basic questions.
6:42:25 PM josh: hahaha
6:42:30 PM john: Loosely formed around yes, no, maybe.
6:42:40 PM john: Extremes like FUCK YEAH DO HER IN DA BUTT.
6:42:46 PM john: And things like “wha?!? u crazzzy”
6:42:49 PM josh: hahaha
6:42:57 PM josh: and, “Big Ass Booties.”
6:43:40 PM john: Yep.
6:43:43 PM john: So this is what it does.
6:43:46 PM john: launch app.
6:43:53 PM john: Mai “how can I hep u?”
6:44:01 PM john: type or ask him a question.
6:44:03 PM john: shake the ihone.
6:44:18 PM john: We do an “earthquake” shot.
6:44:31 PM john: Like shake the camera and have him be all “WOAH WAH WTF?!?! CUT IT OUT!!”
6:44:34 PM josh: hahahaha
6:45:02 PM john: then it’s like “ok I have a ansa”
6:45:05 PM josh: hahaha
6:45:07 PM john: Then he reacts.
6:45:12 PM john: And it’s just video clips of him doing whatever.
6:45:16 PM josh: simple and beautiful
6:45:22 PM john: We could do funny stuff too like sometimes he runs up and smashes into the “glass” on the camera.
6:45:30 PM john: So it looks like he’s trying to get out of your phone.
6:46:55 PM josh: “How di I get in hea”
6:46:57 PM john: Yeah.
6:47:02 PM john: and some of them he can like dance.
6:47:05 PM john: Be in different costumes.
6:47:06 PM john: etc.
6:47:11 PM john: Like randomly he’s dressed up like a ninja.
6:47:19 PM john: And is like “coyote punch dat shit”
6:49:47 PM josh: do you remember what we had him do for “Oops I Did It Again”

Degree Project: Week 2 + 3

REPORT

I continued my research. I focused on creating the fictitious artist, came up with a back story detailing the artist’s career so far. I decided to go with a hip hop artist. For my English speaking audience’s sake, I chose the setting to be both the American and Hong Kong music scene. After I have created the artist, I start to think about the album. I listened to many mainstream rap songs to find out what is popular. I compiled a list of ten songs and composed one song to work with. Then I researched about album packaging and came up with the contents for the album packaging. I chose to exaggerate the packaging to bring out the parody effect.

Emcee Hao

BUILDING THE CHARACTER

Emcee Hao is a Hong Kong hip hop star, song writer and producer. He has been one of Hong Kong’s most commercially successful musicians since the late 1990s. Emcee started his music career with the Cantopop boy band called Heavenly Kings in the mid 90s. The band was an one hit wonder and achieved only a little bit of success. In 1999, Emcee left the group and started his solo career while the other Heavenly KIngs eventually left the music scene. Teaming up with big names in the HK hip hop world—DJ Tommy and MC Yan, Emcee’s first single was an instant hit. By early 2008, Emcee became the best selling male artist of all time in Hong Kong. With his success riding high, Emcee will try to expand his fan base to an international level by releasing his debut English album in the winter of 2008, simultaneously in Hong Kong and America. The album will be produced by both DJ Tommy and Emcee himself. Snoop Dogg, Jay Z, Three 6 Mafia, and many more American hip hop artists are set to make an appearance on the album.

MAKING THE ALBUM

Style
mainstream rap songs with catchy tunes

Selling points
ridiculous amount of guest appearances, deluxe packaging, a bonus DVD with music videos and behind the scenes footage, access to exclusive contents online.

The Tracklist
CD

1. Juicy
2. Big Ass Booties
3. Money Money Money (feat. Snoop Dogg)
4. One Night in Pure (feat. Usher)
5. Hello, Kitty (feat. Paul Wall & Mike Jones)
6. Straight Outta Canton (feat. Jackie Chan)
7. HK Hoes (feat. Three 6 Mafia)
8. How We Do (feat. Jay Z, Snoop Dogg, & P Diddy)
9. Chinese Gang$tar
10. Luv Will Let You Down (feat. Outkast)
11. Big Ass Booties (Mega Booty Mix)

DVD

1. Big Ass Booties (music video)
2. Juicy (music video)
3. Money Money Money (music video)
4. Behind the Mic (making of)
5. Interviews with guest stars (Snoop Dogg, Usher, Three 6 Mafia, and Outkast)

ALBUM COMES WITH

1. 24″x18″ poster
2. photo booklet
3. secret password for online site to download 9 more remixes and unrated versions of the music videos

VIRAL MARKETING

I started working on the MySpace page. Opened up a musician account.

Emcee Hao's Official MySpace

TIMELINE*

*subject to change

09.18.2008
+building the artist
+creating the album contents and
packaging specifics

09.25.2008
+list of deliverables
+develop concepts for design

10.02.2008
+1st mock up of album package

10.09.2008
+1st revised album package
+mock up of poster and billboard

10.16.2008
+2nd revised album package
+1st revised poster and billboard
+mock up of online interface

10.23.2008
+3rd revised album package
+2nd revised poster and billboard
+1st revised online interface

10.30.2008
+3rd revised poster and billboard
+2nd revised online interface
+start building social networks contents

11.06.2008
+4th revised album package
+4th revised poster and billboard
+3rd revised online interface
+continue social networks contents

11.13.2008
+final deliverables

11.20.2008
+show

11.27.2008
+mock up of process book

12.04.2008
+revised process book

12.14.2008
+final process book

TO DO LIST

• Photo shoot for album arts
• Package design
• Poster
• Billboard
• Online interface
• Social media promotions

Degree Project: Week 1

Shit son, school started already? Where the fuck did my summer go? Oh right, I didn’t have one. Now onto the biggest project of my life: degree project. I need to pass this to graduate so it’d better be good. Damn good. Here’s the first draft of my topic.

SELLING CRAP

In today’s Hong Kong music industry, a no-talent hack can sell more albums than a true musician. What the fuck? How is this happening?

There are still talented musicians in the HK music scene but they are not ones who are selling. Majority of the sales come from shitty artists who can barely sing. These artists have behind-the-scene musicians writing songs for them. And the songs are usually trendy and catchy. They range from pop, RnB, to mainstream rap. Once the artists have the songs, they will rely on the marketing team to do the rest. The HK music audience are mostly in the teen and pre-teen age. They are easy targets because they will buy whatever is considered “cool” or “in”.

There are a couple tricks the marketing does for these artists, one is selling the image. If the artists have good looks, the marketing would have them appear sexy because sex always sells. Other than sex, they can also sell cuteness. Young HK people are suckers for anything cute. Also, if the artist has some connection with other famous people, the marketing would use that as the biggest selling point.

Another trick the marketing team would use is overly excessive album packaging. A typical mainstream album would come with tons of added values. It’s never packaged inside just a jewel case. It usually comes in an irregular size. And the extras stuff that comes with the packaging range from bonus dvd with music videos and behind the scene clips, posters, clothings, action figures, to LP records. Also, more usual than not, an album comes out in a number of different versions. Each version with different design and extra stuff. It’s double dipping, but people are still buying.

I want to apply these marketing tricks to my degree project. This is what I want to do: Create a marketing campaign for an up and coming ficticious artist’s debut album. The artist has no musical talents but has good looks/image and marketable songs/formulaic guaranteed hits written for him. The designer must promote the artist by mentioning anything but his musical talents. The marketing materials should utilize a variety of mediums which include billboards, posters, album packaging, online downloads/sales, and social networks.

I hope to apply humors to my project and parody the marketing for HK mainstream music.

Example of HK no-talent hacks:

Twins' album with 4 different covers, double dipping assholes.

Joey Tang

Rip the guitar, JOEY! One of my favorite rockers from Taichi:

Wainy Days

one of the funniest web series of all time, check out the season 3 finale!!!

episode 26: Shelly II

Lack of updates

Tired and unmotivated, I’ll just show you a few funny videos. Sorry I can’t write anything.

NPH on Sesame Street

Tribute to Arrested Development

Jan Lam – Your Boss

Buy my art

Hey peeps, if you like my designs, you should check out this page. Hope you can help out a starving artist.

Youtube annotations

Maybe this isn’t news to anybody, but I discovered this today. Apparently, you can add interactive comments on top your youtube videos. This feature is stolen from the mega popular Japanese video site nicovideo.com. A feature like this would make things much more hilarious or it could get outta control. Maybe that’s why the viewers can’t use the feature yet, only the uploader can. But check out what I did with my own video, it’s pretty fun:

NOTE: the comments don’t show up on the embedded video here, you have to go to the actual page.