YouTube Rewind 2012. The Top Watched Videos and A Mash-Up Of The Most Viewed Videos Of The Year.

This year, Korean Pop music transcended boundaries and took the world by storm. Cover songs, parodies, and "do-it-yourself" music videos from all genres entertained us in countries near and far. And you participated in conversations at a global scale, uploading videos to share ideas on everything from nonprofit campaigns, to political satire, to new and surprising voices and talents. Plus, all over the world, you tuned in for the most up-to-date news footage of presidential elections, natural disasters and more.

Rewind YouTube Style:


2012 was a big year for YouTube. You’ve been watching over 4 billion hours of video a month. Millions of creators are using YouTube channels to experiment with innovative forms of entertainment, explore their passions and interests, take creativity and pop culture to new levels. 2012’s top trending videos and top channels showcase this creative ingenuity in ways we'd never before thought possible.

Here's a "Behind The Scenes" video featuring a look at the making of the Rewind YouTube Style 2012 video:


Globally, here’s what we were all talking about in 2012:

Top Trending YouTube Videos (playlist):
• PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V
• Somebody That I Used to Know - Walk off the Earth (Gotye - Cover)
• KONY 2012
• "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen - Feat. Justin Bieber, Selena, Ashley Tisdale, etc.
• Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney. Epic Rap Battles Of History Season 2.
• A DRAMATIC SURPRISE ON A QUIET SQUARE
• WHY YOU ASKING ALL THEM QUESTIONS? .. #FCHW
• Dubstep Violin- Lindsey Stirling- Crystallize
• Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen.
• Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall from 128k' - Mission Highlights

Top YouTube Channels of 2012:
• boyceavenue
• ERB
• HolaSoyGerman
• JennaMarbles
• lindseystomp
• PrankvsPrank
• TheFineBros
• ThePianoGuys
• theslowmoguys
• Vsauce

METHODOLOGY and FAQS:
How they determined the top video list:
This year, YouTube looked not just at views, but also shares, searches, likes and responses to identify the 10 videos that everybody was talking about in 2012. On YouTube people don’t just view a popular video, they remix, share, and parody, building a fan community that extends far beyond the watch page. They took all of this into account to ensure that they truly captured the “watercooler moments” of the year.

Is "Gangnam Style" the most viewed YouTube video of all time?
Yes. Currently, "Gangnam Style" is the most viewed video on YouTube and it will likely become the first video to hit one billion views.

Where you can see the trending videos that were popular in other countries this year:
You can see the top trending video lists for each country that has a list on the 'Browse' tab of the global YouTube Rewind channel. You can also choose from this list of country channels to visit the channels in their native languages.

Why isn't a top trending video list available for every country?
YouTube tried to make top video lists for as many countries as possible based on available information. YouTube is popular globally. 70% of views come from outside of the United States, so their global list is also representative of what people all around the world were watching in 2012.

Just how much YouTube were people watching this year?
An astounding four billion hours of video every month on YouTube.

Why they decided to make "YouTube Style" and what went into the making of this video:
For the last few years YouTube has made a video to highlight the top videos of the year. This year talented YouTube creators had billions of views on their channels and they helped entertain the world all year long, so YouTube wanted to celebrate these creators and have a little fun while they were at it.

A full list (and links to their videos) of the stars who appeared in this "YouTube Style":
PSY
Walk off the Earth
AlphaCat
KassemG 
DailyGrace
MysteryGuitarMan
DaveDays
DeStorm
PyroBooby
BarelyPolitical
RealAnnoyingOrange
FreddieW
CorridorDigital
RhettAndLink
Smosh
FeliciaDay
ChesterSee
iJustine
EpicMealTime
MyHarto
JennaMarbles
ShitGirlsSay
JuicyStar07
GloZell
ClevverTV
SmoshGames
RyanHiga

all information courtesy of YouTube

Director Dannah Nayblat Could Use A Little Help To Heat Things Up.

Director Dannah Nayblat could use your help and support to finish her labor of love, a stop-motion animated music video. It's true, I get many submissions about projects on kickstarter, but it was her explanatory video asking for help, and the goodies with which she rewards her backers, that got my attention. Of course her personal note to me, gushing with praise about my blog and my readers, didn't hurt.



Some Like it Hot is the song title of an animation music video that she's been working on in her spare time (and sleep time :) for the last couple of years, for a band named Club Des Belugas. The technique she's using is stop motion, but rather than taking a series of still photos and editing them in a sequence, which is traditional stop motion - she takes photos of the actors and place them in virtual sets that she designs on her computer.



There are several stages to the process - first she selects the photos she'll be using and edits a sketch of the scene (they shot hundreds of photos for each little scene). Then she does the artwork. Aside from creating the backgrounds, she may need to place items in the actor's hands, change the color of their shirt, re-style their hair or change their whole head... There are also many adjustments that need to be made in terms of scale and color correction so that all the components work together. Finally, she exports the final frames and place them in the video.

The whole thing is EXTREMELY time consuming (as many creatives know)!

You can see part of her work process, in the video below, to better understand what takes so long... and hopefully you'll think that the results are worth it and help fund her on kickstarter.



"Visually striking, imaginative & funny stop-motion animation video for a great song!" is the description of her kickstarter project that launched a couple of days ago and instantly became a STAFF PICK.



The band - Club Des Belugas - is based in Germany, the singer, Brenda Boykin, with her unique (award winning) deep voice, is American, and the band members are from different countries. Danna is based in Israel, but the leading male, Starskee Suave and Gilad Koriski, the photographer who captured him, both live in Los Angeles (she directed those sessions in the middle of the night, via skype...)



The israeli team includes photographer Shiran Carmel and the lovely Ester Rada, who is the female lead. Ester is a known Israeli actress, and though she isn't the performer of this song, she's a great singer in her own right (her single Save a Little Love for Me from the new Club Des Belugas album, is one of the rewards offered for your pledges). The hair and makeup artist is Zion Ashkenazi and the wardrobe was contributed by Hila Aharon.


above: Director Dannah Nayblat

Learn more about her project here, and help her turn her dream into a reality, on kickstarter.

Incredible Sound Mix and Editing Give New Life To Pixar's Monsters, Inc. in Boo Bass

This three and a half minute visual and audio re-invention really impressed me. Boo Bass, an awesome remix by Nick Bertke, is a catchy composition using sounds from Disney Pixar's 'Monsters, Inc.' with fantastically edited footage from the 2001 movie by David Kabisch.





Nick, known as Pogo, records sounds from his favourite games and movies and pieces them together like a jigsaw puzzle to create completely new music. His videos have collected over 40 million views on YouTube, and he's produced remixes for Disney Pixar, Microsoft, Showtime, the United Nations and more. See his work here.

And check out more of the editing work of David Kabisch aka goldpikpikcarrots on his YouTube channel here

You can download this great remix here

Rango Designer Debuts Super Bizarre Super Doggies First Music Video With Obama.

This is so odd, I simply had to share it with my readers. Super Doggies are a musical and 3D visual project created in 2012. The project depicts a "virtual band" of cartoon characters. This band has three animated dog members: Buffy, Abby and Bo and their universe is explored through the band's website and music videos, the first of which debuted today -and includes an appearance by President Obama. Other media will follow, such as short cartoons and an upcoming ‘live’ 3D tour.



Super Doggies are pursuing the dream to perform around the world, with the involvement of local communities, focusing on children. Concerned about their future, Super Doggies has focused its attention on the global issue of youth poverty. The Super Doggies are ‘good citizens’ who want to bring attention to the issue of poverty and work with local communities to highlight their plight. Super Doggies’s citizenship principles are founded on the conviction that the arts, business and social initiatives can, together, contribute to making a better world.



The press release:
The guy behind Rango – which just won an Oscar for best animated feature film – will help introduce a new cast of animated characters with a political bent for this election season – the Super-Doggies.

The trio of singing Super-Doggies includes Barack Obama’s dog, “Bo,” Vladmir Putin’s dog, “Buffy,” and “Abby,” the dog of a South African girl, Imani, who lives in the slums of Johannesburg.

In the 3:45 music video, Imani watches from her house how both Obama and Putin care for their dogs. All Imani has is a raggedy stuffed animal. At one point she writes to both men asking them for a real pet – and in a fantastic scene that climaxes into a dance party featuring both dancing world leaders and their dogs – she gets her wish (Obama joins the action at 2:47)



The story is timely on multiple levels. Both Russia and the US have national elections coming up (March 4th for Russia and November 6th for the US). In fact, there have been several stories in Obama’s campaign promoting how well he treats Bo considering his competitor, Mitt Romney, once placed his dog in a kennel and strapped it on top of his car for a cross-country trip.

The work of Rango’s character designer, Eugeniy Yelchin is familiar to many of us. He designed Coca-Cola’s iconic polar bears, worked on the Film, “The Brothers Grimm” and also designed the opening for HBO’s “Rome.”

For this project, Yelchin teamed up with Grammy Award winning producer Neal Pogue who works with musicians like Nicky Minaj, Lil Wayne, Outkast and Pink. The effort is also getting guidance from marketing veteran Bruce Kirkland who directed The Beatles Anthology project, and has produced albums for the Beastie Boys, the Spice Girls, Radiohead, and Everclear. The overall project is the brainchild of producer Eugeniy Kuritsyn of Global Media Line, a Moscow-based creative producing house with an impressive line of talent to realize this vision. Eugeniy wanted to create a new entertainment product that would ensure collaboration between the best representatives of international entertainment industry.

Later in the year, the Super-Doggies will go on a world tour, featuring holographic dancing and singing dogs combined with the world’s best dance talent and circus performers. A portion of the proceeds will go to animal welfare organizations to encourage people to adopt dogs.

Tour dates and other information will be announced later in the year on the Super-Doggies website: http://www.super-doggies.com/ where you can sign up for the newsletter for updates.

Stop Motion Laser Burnt Toast For OK Go's Last Leaf Video.

The latest video for OK Go's "Last Leaf" is a lovely and sweet stop motion animated video featuring the illustrations of artist Ge­off Mcfetridge on actual toast.



The charming video was made by burning toast with a laser and shooting still images of each piece of toast. It took 15 still shots for every second of video and 2,430 pieces of toast were used. And if you're wondering.... all 215 loaves of bread were past their sell-by date & rescued from certain disposal for the shoot.



Di­rect­ed by OK Go, Nadeem Mazen and Ali Mo­ham­mad of Serious Business Design. Produced by Shirley Moy­ers, the piece was made in part­ner­ship with Sam­sung NX100 iFn, and Create Your World.


above: Los Angeles quartet OK Go

See more videos by OK go here
An­i­ma­tion art by Ge­off Mcfetridge, Cham­pi­on Stu­dio



Be sure to check out how you can burn your own image on a piece of toast here

Mod Miniatures & Videos for Chillout Sessions XI & XII

above: An homage to Frank Lloyd Wright & Neutra in miniature graced the Chillout Sessions XII CD and a California style hotel with a lagoon graced the cover of the Chillout Sessions XI CD

Designer Andrew van der Westhuyzen of Collider has created album/CD covers and designs for Australia's Ministry of Sound for years.

For music compilations, Chillout Sessions XI and XII, he combined several of my favorite things - music, architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Swimming pools, and miniatures. The results are little worlds of escapism that when photographed and filmed up close have a tilt-shift look.

The models were shot close-up along with supers pointing at the figurines naming various artists on the albums for tv promos (shown later in this post).

Chillout Sessions XII:








video promo:

stills from a longer video promo:  
Chillout Sessions XI:

The video promo:

Chillout Sessions XI photography by Sarah Nguyen and cinematography by Brycen Horne You can see Andrew van der Westhuyzen's previous designs for Chillout Sessions 7 here. and his design for their Ministry of Sound Annual 2006 here.

Lights Fantastic. New Video & Interactive Site For LG dLite Mobile Phone.

A cool song, animated video and interactive website are all part of a marketing effort for the new LG dlite phone from Tmobile, a slim mobile phone in bubble gum pink or bright blue that has a customizable external screen with an LED matrix and fun sound effects.



The Animated Video:
To promote the new mobile phone, LG dLite, Sophie Gateau, of Paranoid US, directed a playful music video to showcase the phones character-based digital display. The video, via DOJO SF, tells a classic love story to the track, “White” by electropop artist, LIGHTS. The campaign features a website, the video, and other interactive elements.

Using the LIGHTS’ track as a basis for the pixelated boy meets pixelated girl storyline, Sophie created a 3.5 min animated piece. Sophie utilized her CG and motion graphic background, for the LED narrative. Sophie collaborated with Paranoid Design Studio’s Lead Artist Vincent Rogozyk to first develop the story as an animatic.




This solved the production challenge of finding a way to duplicate a few phones to appear as if they were in mass. Utilizing motion control to shoot the available 45 pre-production models , Sophie shot twenty passes--moving the phones along in each pass. The Paranoid Design Studio team then assembled the passes, tracked animated characters and environmental drawings, and composited them into the scenes. The LED look was then finished on Flame by Paranoid Design Studio VFX Artist Seb Caudron.



DOJO Executive Creative Director’s, Geoff Edwards and Mauro Alencar, share why Sophie was handpicked for the project. "Sophie has a unique way of creating a relationship between the audience and the story. Her work is personal and feels like someone is talking directly to you," said Edwards. "The combination of her willingness to collaborate with us and LIGHTS made Sophie the right choice for this program,” added Alencar.

The Website


But that's not all... To accompany this marketing effort, an interactive website allows you to create your own story by dragging and dropping animated lights to the tune of the song "White" and then share it with your friends.




You also have the option to allow the site to access your webcam and microphone and create your own music video by tapping and playing.




credits:
Title: LG dLite Brilliant Together
Client: LG Electronics
Assoc. VP, Consumer, Trade & Insights Marketing: Tim O’Brien
Agency: DOJO
Executive Creative Director/Partner: Mauro Alencar Executive Creative Director/Partner: Geoff Edwards
CFO/Partner: Jeremy Brown
Art Director: Chris Masse
Copywriter: Michael Leibowitz
Senior Producer: Annie Uzdavinis
Partnerships: Audrey Santamarta
Production Company: Paranoid US, Los Angeles
Director: Sophie Gateau
Executive Producer/ Partner: Claude Letessier
Executive Producer/ Partner: Cathleen O'Conor
Head of Production: Matej Purg
VFX / Animation: Paranoid Design Studio, Los Angeles
Head of Post Production/Producer: Guillaume Raffi
Lead VFX Artist: Vincent Rogozyk
VFX Artists: Michael Tavarez, Jahmad Rollins, Derek Hansen, Andrew Cook, Naime Perette, Joe Ball, Maggie Balaco, Alexandre de Bonrepos
Production Assistant: Julie Amalric
Track: “White” by LIGHTS
Mix: Lime Santa Monica, CA
Mixer: Sam Casas Asst.
Engineer: Jeff Malen
Executive Producer: Jessica Locke
Color: New Hat Santa Monica, CA
Colorist: Bob Festa

Award-Winning Animated Short Film "Love & Theft"

This seven minute animated short film has been the recipient of numerous awards for both music and animation. With script, direction and animation by Andreas Hykade and artwork by Natalia Eck. (Full credits at the end of this post)



The name of the film, Love & Theft, was inspired by the Bob Dylan album:

 

"And I'm still carrying the gift you gave, It's a part of me now, it's been cherished and saved, It'll be with me unto the grave And then unto eternity." (Bob Dylan)

 

Stills from the video arranged by colored backgrounds, courtesy of Andreas Hykade:
    

CREDITS
Script, direction: Andreas Hykade Design, animation: Andreas Hykade Animation assistance: Angela Steffen Art work: Natalia Eck Compositing: Christof Hoffmann Sound, Music: Heiko Maile Funding: MFG and FFA Production assistance: Simone Fischer Production: Thomas Meyer-Hermann Studio FILM BILDER 2010  

Awards:
Sacem Award for original music Vienna Independent Short Film Award Music Award, International Film Festival Annecy, 2010 Music Award, International Short Film Festival Hamburg, 2010 Special Award, Animafest Zagreb, 2010 Music for Animation Award, Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart, 2010 Honorable Mention, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria, 2010 And the short film has also been nominated at the Fantoche Festival, Animator Festival, FEST Espinho and Anima Mundi Festival,