Come Swim with OK Go!

Google and partnered with OK GO and a dance troupe to create another great music video. This take of "All is Not Lost" is a playful HTML5 music collaboration that lets you embed a message in the music video while the troupe dance to it. Sometimes the dancers seem underwater; other times, they seem to be water bugs or frogs scooting across the surface of a pond.

According to Google's daily blog, the site was built in HTML5 for use with the browser Google Chrome. As you'll see, various video clips move, or are rendered, in multiple browser windows that move, re-size, and re-align throughout the piece as the music changes.

In the Google blog post by Keiko Hirayama, a marketing manager for Google Tokyo, the collaboration had a "special significance" for the Google team in Japan. Apparently, the team worked alongside OK Go, and the message "All is Not Lost" is in support of all the people who were affected by Japan's earthquakes.

You can see our special message in the image with this post! For The Herald's coverage of OK GO, click here. For more information about the code behind this effort, click through to the Google Code Blog.

The Engineering of OK Go

The band OK Go is an old band from Chicago, Illinois. They are now in Los Angeles. The band has four members, Damian Kulash (lead vocals and guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and backing vocalist), Dan Konopka (drum and percussion), and Andy Ross(keyboard, guitar, and backing vocals).

In 1998 OK Go released 2 albums and "Here It Goes Again" won the band a Grammy Award. In 2007 they got "Best Short-Form Music Video."

The band came to be by meeting when they were 11 years old. They called the band OK Go because their art teacher would say "OK Go" when they were drawing. They kept in touch after camp and sent each other mix tapes. They met Andy Duncan in high school and who was replaced later by Andy Ross. They met Dan Konopka (a drummer) in college. OK Go formed in 1998.

The following video shows a lot of science and engineering in their work. Do not be afraid of the red-splattered band member at the start -- he's been splattered by paint. As you'll see, the band members all get splattered by different-colored paint.

Remix Contest — Remake a Song

Assignment: Zack

Remember OK Computer? The band that The Hillwood Herald wrote about last spring? (You can re-read the story here or watch the video below.) The band is running a remix contest, in which contestants can remix one of their songs. Below is contest information from the band's email newsletter:

Hit Us With Your Best Shot

Today the guys have launched their first (?) ever remix contest for their rocktastic new single 'White Knuckles'. Don't know how to remix a track? Don't worry, Indaba has free software to make it easy for you! If you're an old remix pro, you can download the stems and do with them as you may. We'd beg you to go crazy but we already know you will... so do it! Also, did we mention that the winning remix will get mastered for Rock Band and the winner will get a complete Rock Band set up to rock out with their friends to their remix? Well we did now!

Zach, lead the charge for The Herald's entry. Read the band's website regarding the contest, and then log and begin experimenting with both the website and mixing the song. Once you do this, check in with Ms. Moorhead. For the assignment for the week of September 18, you will need to write a news story about both the contest and The Herald's participation. 

To long on, have Ms. Moorhead type in her email address; the password is the same as when you log on to The Herald.