A quick hit of assorted news from around the intarwebs while I’m around the world.

Band makes video out of CCTV footage. The Get Out Clause, out of Manchester, performed in front of some of the UK’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras, then requested the footage under the Brit equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act, and edited it into the video for their song “Paper” (that’s the vid, above). There’s some question about how much of it is from CCTVs, but it’s still a pretty cool idea. Also, file this one under ‘new business models’ – getting taxpayers to involuntarily fund your promotion efforts (via Hypebot).

Amanda Palmer makes $19K on Twitter in 10 hours. A few weeks ago, we mentioned Amanda Palmer’s online Twitter auction, and we totted up her numbers to report that she made more than $4000. She wrote a letter to Bob Lefsetz, detailing the auction, sales of the #LOFNOTC t-shirt, and a concert. It was a hell of a lot more than $4K (via amanda fucking palmer).

Speaking of Twitter users, apparently we’re valuable to the music industry. A new report by marketing firm NPD reports that Twitter users are heavier consumers of music than Twitter users on a number of axes: they’re about twice as likely to have purchased music downloads in three months prior to the study (and they spend more money), are much more likely to listen to Internet radio, and more. Ars Technica suggests that these differences may be due to Twitter users being tech-loving early-adopter neophiles, although neither they nor NPD seems to make any attempt to correct for household income, which seems like an obvious possibly confounding factor.

Hype Machine publishes names of bands who tried to manipulate charts. Hype Machine recently reported on bands (or PR teams) attempting to manipulate its ‘popular‘ page, and the efforts they took to limit this. But I thought that the most interesting element, at least sociologically, was that they named names: an alphabetical list of the artists “who[they] believe have attempted to manipulate the charts on the Hype Machine. [They] thought [they]’d publish this list to let everyone make their own judgments about quality, integrity and marketing strategies.” You can see the list for yourself here.

Who is the best band in the world today? The Guardian asked a bunch of musicians to name the artist they thought was the best in the world. Geddy Lee of Rush replied, “Describing someone as “the best” is something you do at school in grade 5,” which made me smile, and Rush would probably have been my answer in Grade 6 (not in sixth grade). He did eventually reply with ‘Radiohead.’ You can read the full list here.

The intro to the Fully Flared skateboarding video is amazing in all it’s slow-motion, explosion glory. It perfectly matches M83’s Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun.

Moving on to official music videos, Radiohead’s open data laser music video for House of Cards is a nice change of pace.

The making of The Ting Tings’ Shut Up and Let Me Go looks wildly fun.

This video for Santogold, N.E.R.D. and Julian Casablancas’ collaboration has an interesting paper cut out effect.

The concept for this Late of the Pier video is a crazy Portal-like effect.

Finally, The Get Out Clause filmed their music video in the most incredible way – performing in front of CCTV cameras and then aquiring the video.

Esta semana ha sido fácil elegir canción, he descubierto a este grupo inglés y su canción Paper y la verdad que no suenan mal, habrá que seguirles de cerca. Versvs nos cuenta como se grabó el vídeo, todos unos hackers sociales.

Buena semana y sonrían, quizás les estén grabando.

A lack of funds didn’t stop The Get Out Clause from making a pretty cool looking music video, and in the process gain fame around the world. Fortunately for them Britain has more than 13 million closed circuit television cameras around the country so the band set-up in front of about 80 of them and shot themselves. Then under the Freedom of Information Act they requested the footage from the various camera owners and actually got 20 of them to comply. The result is an effect other bands (or their labels) would have paid serious money to achieve. Amazing how creative you can get when most of the resources you can afford have to be free. 

Since WordPress isn’t allowing me to insert the You Tube player for some reason, you can see the video here.

Take a bunch of obtrusive, ineffective at stopping crime CCTV cameras…..

Add a local band too poor to afford the proper equipment to make a music video

UK band can’t afford to shoot music video. Answer: Play the song in view some of the country’s 13 million surveillance cameras, then use the Freedom of Information Act to get the footage, and mix together. Voila, a music video.

A week ago we posted an article on The Get Out Clause shooting a video in front of surveillances cameras. I think it’s a wonderful idea by it’s originality. People recall and admire such initiative and clever thinking; what made it viral is that it’s fresh and appealing. Well here is another fresh and appealing idea. Take a typical ‘black cab’ from London, put some cameras inside, invite some bands and record them playing one song in one take. Then throw it on the internet and this gives you the Black Cab Session. Of course the taxi is driving during the sessions engaging the viewers in a little trip in London and it’s whereabouts.

So anyone can apply! Hope some of you are from London…Check it out:

If you haven’t heard of them yet, The Get Out Clause is a band from Manchester who are getting massive exposure and recognition from their latest music video. You’ve all seen Ok Go’s Here We Go Again video I suppose, generating over one million views in the first six days after it’s release (they’re over 34 million now…), well The Get Out Clause’s videos is kind of in the same vein. The band not wanting to spend any money whatsoever on the production let the city of Manchester take care of it. All shoots were captured by surveillance cameras in eighty different locations around town. Ingenuous! Not much trouble at that you might think, The UK has over 13 million CCTV cameras all round the country (lots of millions in this post…). Then they legally requested the footage under the “Freedom Of Information act” or whatever. It can’t get much more DIY2.0 than that. They also launched their single in a nicely wrapped hand-made CD package through their website. Talk about owning ROI.

If bands could get to No. 1 on the charts for ingenuity rather than record sales, then the amusingly irreverant unsigned trio The Get Out Clause would win hands down. An English indie band, The Get Out Clause has exploited a legal loophole to make an innovative video for their single Paper on the cheap.

“We wanted to produce something that looked good and that wasn’t too expensive to do,” says guitarist Tony Churnside, 29, who met the other band members at The University of Salford in Manchester. Desperate to make a video for their new single Paper, but with no budget to hire a crew, the Manchester guys decided to let the state do the filming instead. The band used footage from some of the the many CCTV surveillance cameras stationed around their home city of Manchester to create their own music video. The Get Out Clause played in front of CCTV cameras at 80 locations (out of the 13 million CCTV “security” cameras currently deployed throughout England), including at Deansgate, on a bus, on a zebra crossing and in the Castlefield Amphitheater. They then approached the companies who owned the cameras and used England’s Freedom of Information Act to obtain the footage.

The images were then pieced together and used as the video for one of the band’s songs, Paper. James Thomson of the band said, “You can’t help but go somewhere and not see one of these CCTV cameras, so we just thought we’d regurgitate what was available to us.” Tony Churnside, the band’s guitarist, said: “Legally, you are supposed to be able to get this footage back as it is information that is held about you. The vast majority of these places didn’t respond, so there was only a few we managed to get footage from in the end.” In all, the band had played in front of 80 CCTV cameras, and managed to get a quarter of the tapes back. The video ended up showing the band playing in 20 different locations throughout Manchester.

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The Get Out Clause: Paper

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The BBC Interview: From CCTV to MTV

Technorati: The Get Out Clause, Paper, English band, Manchester band, Manchester, England, Great Britain, Britain, United Kingdom, art, photographs, photography, music, indie music, indy music, songs, entertainment, multimedia, video, music video, culture, cultural, social, social life, society, BBC, CCTV, MTV, BBC television, television, news, entertainment news, world news, world

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The Get Out Clause played their song in front of 80 security cameras around England and then requested the tapes as part of the Data Protection Act. They put them all together to make their video. Music is a bit beige but the idea clever…

Link via Crunch Gear.

 The Get Out Clause from  Manchester (UK) have found and exploited a legal loophole that has enabled them to make a brilliant video for their single ‘Paper’ for very little cost.

• The Get Out Clause – Boxed Up (album: Cracks & Lines)

Hab hier nen nettes Musikvideo (The Get Out Clause – Paper) gefunden. Es ist mit den CCTV Kameras gedreht xD. Schaut es euch einfach an.

Video: Link

We heard this week that there are an estimated 13 million surveillance cameras in Britain. One unsigned band from Manchester decided to use them to their own advantage. They played their set to cctv cameras all over the city and then wrote to the companies asking for the footage under the ‘Freedon of Information Act’. Although not all of them replied, they had enough to produce a great looking video and for free. Cheeky, creative and good music.

The Telegraph is finally reporting that the Manchester, UK band The Get Out Clause couldn’t afford to put together a music video, but it didn’t stop them.

No director, cameras, lighting, make-up or production? No problem.

These rockers decided to record themselves for free on local CCTV cameras. Then, in a stroke of brilliance, requested the video from operators using the Freedom of Information act. They weaved it all together and, ta-da, they had a music video.

I remember seeing this video a while back and thinking it was a really cool gimmick. I never got the full story of how the band brought this all together, but it does add something to the video. Say what you will about the music or the lead singers mustache, the video they created is pretty cool.

Check it out: