Oklahoma City Museum of Art partnering in Doodle 4 Google contest
Four-year-old Evelyn Stirling concentrates on her painting as children and their parents create miniature Chihuly chandeliers during the weekly Drop-In Art event Saturday, March 12, 2011, at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. On Feb. 25, the museum will host a special Doodle 4 Google Drop-In Art. By Paul Hellstern, The Oklahoman Archives
From Wednesday’s Life section of The Oklahoman.
Oklahoma City Museum of Art partnering in Doodle 4 Google contest
The fifth annual competition invites kindergarten through 12th-grade students nationwide to draw their rendition of the Google logo for a chance to see it displayed on the online search engine’s homepage.
The museum has been chosen as a local partner for the fifth annual Doodle 4 Google contest, which invites kindergarten through 12th-grade students nationwide to draw their rendition of the Google logo for a chance to see it displayed on the online search engine’s homepage.
“We are excited to be the local partner for Oklahoma,” said Glen Gentele, the museum’s president and CEO, in a statement. “This is an amazing opportunity for students to attempt a redesign of the Google logo.”
March 23 is the final deadline for students to submit their drawings for the contest. The museum is hosting a special Drop-In Art event in which youngsters can work on their Google doodles from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.
“We’ll have the entry forms available, and we’ll have artists on hand to help the children create their doodles. We’re inviting everyone from the community to come to the museum that day and do their doodle submissions,” said Chandra Boyd, the museum’s curator of education.
The doodles should reflect this year’s contest theme: “If I could travel in time, I’d visit ….”
“Google, they have their team of doodlers that create all those fantastic drawings for special holidays and birthdays and occasions throughout the year, and then what they are asking now is that students K-12 create a doodle,” Boyd said.
“The idea is time travel, so they’re using that theme to kind of guide the designs. It’s a two-dimensional design, so they (children) can paint it, they can draw it, print, whatever media they want to use that creates a two-dimensional image.”
After March 23, a team of Google artists and guest judges — including pop star Katy Perry, “Phineas & Ferb” cartoon creator Jeff “Swampy” Marsh and “American Idol” Jordin Sparks — will help choose the top doodles from each of the 50 states.
On May 2, Google will open up online balloting for the contest, and one winner from each of the five grade groupings will be chosen by a public vote. First prize will be awarded on May 17, and the overall winner’s doodle will be showcased May 18 on Google.com.
In addition, the winning doodler will take home a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for his or her school. Crayola has partnered with Google this year, and the winner’s artwork will appear on a special edition of the 64-crayon box, too.
Google also has teamed up with art, science and children’s museums across the country to display the artwork of each state’s finalists. The Oklahoma museum joins prestigious institutions — including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Texas; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in California; and the National Museum of Play — participating in the contest.
Google representatives reached out to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and invited the institution to become its local partner and venue for exhibiting the works of the contest’s 10 Oklahoma finalists. The finalists will be shown this summer in the museum’s first-floor Founders’ Hall.
“They discovered we had a great community outreach program,” said communications manager Leslie Spears. “That made us very proud.”
Last year, the Doodle 4 Google contest received 107,000 student submissions from all over the country. Matteo Lopez, a second grader at Monte Verde Elementary School in South San Francisco, Calif., was picked as the victor.
The Oklahoma City museum is spreading the word about the contest through the state’s public school districts, private schools, homeschool organizations, parents groups and more so that as many state children as possible have the opportunity to participate.
“It really is such a benefit to them, the fact that they’re exploring their creativity, and they’re using this fun time-travel theme,” Boyd said. “Kids just have the best imaginations … and their brains get started and they have these great ideas.”
At the Feb. 25 event, the museum will help students submit their entries. Parents and teachers who want to submit a doodle on behalf of their children can get entry forms and submission information at www.google.com/doodle4google. Only one contest entry is allowed per student.
GOING ON
Doodle 4 Google Drop-In Art
When: 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25.
Where: Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive.
Cost: Free with museum admission.
Information: www.okcmoa.com or 236-3100, ext. 231.
Doodle 4 Google timeline
Feb. 25: Oklahoma City Museum of Art will host a Doodle from 1 to 4 p.m.
March 23: Deadline for all doodles to be submitted to Google
May 2: The best doodle from each of the 50 states will be displayed at the Google 4 Doodle website. Public voting will begin at 8 a.m. May and close at 7 p.m. May 10.
May 17: First prize will be awarded to the winning doodler in a ceremony in New York City.
May 18: The winner’s doodle will be showcased on Google.com.
Summer: The top 10 Oklahoma finalists will have their doodles exhibited at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art (Exact dates to be determined).
-BAM
Wednesday Video Spotlight: Kickstarter.com campaign raises $22,000+ for HD restoration of “Manos: The Hands of Fate”
The story I’m about to tell you is true. I promise. No matter how unbelievable it seems, this is happening:
A cinephile by the name of Benjamin Solovey is working on a high-definition restoration of the cult horror anti-classic “Manos: The Hands of Fate” for a future Blu-ray release.
Solovey has come by the original Ektachrome camera master of “Manos,” a low-budget horror film produced in 1966 by a small cast and crew in El Paso, Texas, and he wants to give film fans a chance to view a clearer, cleaner version of the movie than the blurry public domain VHS transfer ported to DVD now available.
Rumored to have been made on a bet, “Manos” is about a vacationing family who encounters a demon-worshiping cult led by the fearsome Master (Tom Neyman) and his freaky servant Torgo (John Reynolds). The movie had slipped into obscurity until “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ mocked it mercilessly in a 1993 episode that has become one of the most popular in the late, great TV series’ history. (It was actually re-released on DVD last year.)
Solovey started a Kickstarter.com campaign to help fund the HD restoration, with a goal of $10,000. The campaign has raised more than $22,000 and is continuing through Feb. 4. More than 300 people have backed the project.
Along with restoring the film’s visuals to their original, um, clarity – I couldn’t type greatness; my hands would not do it – Solovey plans on digitizing and restoring the soundtrack by an audio professional on a high-end mixing station. Yes, the haunting Torgo theme music will be new, improved and with us forever.
So, if the project goes as planned – and it seems to be going great guns right now – you will be able to buy on Blu-ray a copy of “Manos,” which MST3K’s Joel Hodgson described as “Every frame of this movie looks like someone’s last known photo.”
Wow.
-BAM
Video: The Project Imagin8ion short film “When You Find Me,” directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and produced by Ron Howard
Duncan-born two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard and his actor/filmmaker daughter Bryce Dallas Howard premiered their film inspired by Canon’s multiplatform “Long Live Imagination” campaign to the public starting today on YouTube. The 24-minute film will be on view at www.youtube.com/imagination until Monday.
“When You Find Me” is considered the first Hollywood film in history to be based on eight independently contributed photographs, selected from nearly 100,000 submissions in the “Project Imagin8ion” contest, according to a news release. The short film tells the story of two sisters who deal with a childhood tragedy in different ways.
“Yea, Though I Walk,” a striking photo of a gate at Tulsa’s Memorial Park Cemetery taken by Broken Arrow photographer Chris Wehner, was one of the winning photographs that inspired the Howards in the making of the “Project Imagin8ion” film.
In May, Ron Howard and Canon U.S.A. launched “Project Imagin8ion,” inviting photographers of all skill and age levels to submit their most imaginative pictures in eight different categories, each representing a core tenet of storytelling.
The winning images in each category — setting, character, mood, time, goal, relationship, obstacle and the unknown — came from across the country and were used to inspire the film, which Howard produced and his daughter directed.
Wehner entered the “Project Imagin8ion” competition after seeing TV commercials for it. He submitted four photos in various categories but thought his cemetery gate image was ideal for the obstacle division.
“Looking through the thousands of amazing photos that were uploaded from people all over the country, it was kind of daunting trying to figure out where your pictures fit in,” he told me in an interview back in August. “I felt pretty good about that one, but honestly not so good that I thought I’d win.”
Wehner and the other winning photographers, along with Ron Howard, the film’s producer, and Bryce Dallas Howard, the film’s director, attended the short film’s official premiere Nov. 15 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Having watched the 24-minute film, I found the end result of this user-generated filmmaking experience beautiful, moving and satisfying. The film is posted above, please take the time to see it while you can.
Look for more of my impressions of the film, plus more on Wehner’s take on the finished product Wednesday here on BAM’s Blog, on NewsOK and in The Oklahoman.
-BAM
Video: Project Imagin8ion film “When You Find Me” to make YouTube premiere starting Friday
Duncan-born two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard and his actor/filmmaker daughter Bryce Dallas Howard will premiere the film inspired by Canon’s multiplatform “Long Live Imagination” campaign to the public starting at 11 a.m. CST/noon EST Friday on YouTube. The 24-minute film will be on view at www.youtube.com/imagination until Monday.
“When You Find Me” is considered the first Hollywood film in history to be based on eight independently contributed photographs, selected from nearly 100,000 submissions in the “Project Imagin8ion” contest, according to a news release. The short film tells the story of two sisters who deal with a childhood tragedy in different ways.
“Yea, Though I Walk,” a striking photo of a gate at Tulsa’s Memorial Park Cemetery taken by Broken Arrow photographer Chris Wehner, was one of the winning photographs that inspired the Howards in the making of the “Project Imagin8ion” film.
In May, Ron Howard and Canon U.S.A. launched “Project Imagin8ion,” inviting photographers of all skill and age levels to submit their most imaginative pictures in eight different categories, each representing a core tenet of storytelling.
The winning images in each category — setting, character, mood, time, goal, relationship, obstacle and the unknown — came from across the country and were used to inspire the film, which Howard produced and his daughter directed.
Wehner entered the “Project Imagin8ion” competition after seeing TV commercials for it. He submitted four photos in various categories but thought his cemetery gate image was ideal for the obstacle division.
“Looking through the thousands of amazing photos that were uploaded from people all over the country, it was kind of daunting trying to figure out where your pictures fit in,” he told me in an interview back in August. “I felt pretty good about that one, but honestly not so good that I thought I’d win.”
Wehner and the other winning photographers will be invited to a red carpet event and get to meet Ron Howard.
“With Ron Howard, who knows, he’s such a creative talent, there’s no telling what they’ve got written up,” Wehner said. “They’re just amazing photos and it’s a real honor to be amongst those.”
Wehner and the other winning photographers, along with Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard, attended the short film’s official premiere Nov. 15 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
-BAM
Flaming Lips streaming their holiday music at Atlas Eets Christmas website
If you want to add some psychedelic sounds to your Christmas music playlist, Oklahoma City-based rockers The Flaming Lips are here to help. The Lips have launched http://atlaseetschristmas.com, where you can hear their holiday music – or as they put it, “Infinite Christmas Sounds” – streaming continually.
The name of the website – trying saying it out loud phonetically – comes from the Lips’ 2007 secret Christmas album, recorded under the guise of a fictional Iraqui jazz pianist Imagene Peise (again, try saying it aloud).
The Lips and New Year’s Eve co-headliners Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band have recorded a new version of “Atlas Eets Christmas” for the website, according to NME.com. The song is sure to be on the set list when the Lips and Ono’s band play Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 at The Flaming Lips’ New Year’s Eve Freakout #5 at the Coca Cola Bricktown Events Center.
For more information on the NYE event, click here.
Hear some of the new Christmas tracks streaming on http://atlaseetschristmas.com by clicking on the YouTube video posted above.
-BAM
Nice People Records offering free holiday music compilation
Norman-based Nice People Records is again offering a seasonal music compilation that you can download for free by clicking here.
Here is the tracklist for “The 2011 Nice People Holiday Companion”:
1. The Wurly Birds – Way Up North
2. Low Litas – Holidaze
3. Lizard Police – Xmas Song
4. Luna Moth – Winter Light
5. Chrome Pony and the Chromettes – This Christmas
6. Depth & Current – Lonely Special Day
7. Penny Hill – Wait for December
8. Naked Kids – Christmas Sucks (Without You)
9. Student Film – You Can’t Take The ‘Christ’ Out Of Jiminy Christmas
10. Kite Flying Robot – On Your Merry Way
11. Skating Polly – Just Be Cold
-BAM
Watch: Flaming Lips pay tribute to Steve Jobs with “Revolution” at the O Music Awards
The Flaming Lips (Photo by J. Michelle Martin-Coyne)
In case you missed it Monday night while you were out trick-or-treating, you can now watch Oklahoma City-based psychedelic rockers The Flaming Lips perform their trippy cover of the Beatles’ “Revolution” in memory of Steve Jobs on MTV’s O Music Awards at www.OMusicAwards.com/show.
The Jobs tribute is at about the 33:30 mark in this video. Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, introduced the Lips’ performance and praised Jobs as a visionary. The Apple co-founder, whose technological innovations like the iPod and iPad drastically changed the way we consume music and other media, died Oct. 5 at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
As promised, the Lips’ performance was recorded on and prominently featured Apple’s iPad. Steven Drozd even has one mounted on his guitar.
Lips frontman Wayne Coyne was nominated for The Digital Genius Award, but the prize went to Bjork.
Check out this video of the band working on its “Revolution” performance:
-BAM
Flaming Lips are streaming their 24-hour song for free today, playing the O Music Awards tonight
Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips (Photo by John Clanton, The Oklahoman Archives)
One of the most popular treats for music lovers this Halloween hasn’t been chocolate covered or individually wrapped. It’s been ear candy from Oklahoma City-based psychedelic rockers The Flaming Lips.
The Lips released today their new 24-hour song, “7 Skies H3,” which they are streaming for free at http://flaminglipstwentyfourhoursong.com.
The stream is limited to 999 listeners at a time, and it’s been maxed out much of the day. I’m currently on and listening, but it took a few tries to make that happen. If you’re a fan of the Lips, though, it’s worth the wait.
Oklahoma City-based Delo Creative, a “small collective of visual generalists” who works with the Lips, posted this afternoon on their Facebook page, “Sorry about the Flaming Lips 7 Skies H3 server overload. We’ll have another stream up this afternoon.”
As previously reported, the Lips are offering the option to buy the 24-hour-long song encased in an actual human skull. Thirteen of the skulls, which come topped with chrome “hair,” will be sold for the price of $5,000, which includes worldwide shipping.
“I would say nothing that we’re doing is bizarre or illegal,” Lips frontman Wayne Coyne said recently on the O Music Awards blog. “In parts of the world and even on eBay you can actually buy real human skulls. There’s a place in town (Oklahoma City) that’s called Skulls Unlimited that’s been here for almost as long as The Flaming Lips have been here, and it sells human skulls.”
“People heads come into this place and they have these flesh-eating beetles — I would have tweeted a picture of it, but they don’t allow it — literally eat every molecule of flesh off of these things and you’ll end up with a human skull,” he added on the blog.
The skulls will be packaged in elegant boxes, and inserted in each one will be hard drive containing the 24-hour-long song, according to the blog.
As for the song itself – what I’ve heard over the past 20 or so minutes is what I think of as classic Lips: otherworldly, contemplative and appropriately eerie for Halloween – Coyne told the blog, “It’s a song about death and it’s a song about f—ing and it’s a song about life… It’s another element of this Flaming Lips connection with death and beauty and all that.”
Along with today’s debut of the 24-hour song, the Lips have other big Halloween plans: They will perform a cover of the Beatles’ “Revolution” in memory of Steve Jobs on tonight’s MTV’s O Music Awards. The show starts at 10:30 Central tonight and will live stream at www.OMusicAwards.com.
The band’s Steve Jobs tribute will be recorded with an iPad for the broadcast, reports the Associated Press. The Apple co-founder, whose technological innovations like the iPod and iPad drastically changed the way we consume music and other media, died Oct. 5 at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
The awards show, which will take place in Los Angeles, “celebrates the artists, innovators and fans impacting digital music culture.” Other performers and presenters include Robyn, Kelly Clarkson, Demi Lovato, Travie McCoy and Tyler, the Creator, according to the AP.
Coyne will compete for The Digital Genius Award, along with Bjork, Girl Talk, Devo and music video director Chris Milk, at the second O Music Awards.
He has certainly earned his Digital Genius Award nomination this year. Throughout 2011, the Lips have devoted themselves to artistic exploration and kept a vow to release new music every month. Some of the new songs have come on flash drives contained in gummy skulls or gummy fetuses, while others have been accompanied by trippy music videos.
The 24-hour song follows the band’s six-hour track “Found a Star on the Ground,” contained on a USB drive within a newly developed toy called “The Strobo Trip,” which provides a psychedelic visual display to enhance the music. The band made the creation of the six-hour opus a charitable event, offering fans the chance to make a $100 donation in exchange for having Sean Lennon speak their names somewhere in the song.
The project raised about $20,000 for the Central Oklahoma Humane Society and the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma, according to The Oklahoman Entertainment Editor Gene Triplett.
-BAM
Miranda Lambert ends “Four the Record” Scavenger Hunt with “Safe”
Country music star Miranda Lambert, who lives in Tishomingo, is streaming the “Safe” today exclusively at CountryWeekly.com as her “Four the Record” Scavenger Hunt and Sweepstakes comes to its end.
To stream “Safe ,” click here.
Throughout the week, she has been offering fans a chance to hear a new track each day from her forthcoming album and collect badges at the various sites for a chance to win prizes, including a trip to see Lambert in concert. Go to www.MirandaLambert.com for more information.
“Four the Record” is due out next Tuesday.
Lambert started the hunt Monday with “Fastest Girl in Town” streaming at EW.com.
She co-wrote Tuesday’s featured song, the heartbreaking “Over You,” with her husband and fellow country star Blake Shelton. The ballad is about the death of Shelton’s older brother in a car accident. Lambert talked about the experience writing the achingly lovely ode in a recent interview with Ladies’ Home Journal; to read it, click here.
On Wednesday, she unveiled the breezy country-blues ditty “Easy Living.”
The ballad “Dear Diamond,” revealed Thursday, is one of six songs on the 14-track album that Lambert wrote or co-wrote. “Safe” and “Dear Diamond” paint a portrait of both sides of the relationship spectrum.
Lambert, who will be featured on the Nov. 14 Country Weekly cover, tells the magazine she wrote “Safe” on her own.
“I’m real proud of that song, the message and the words just poured out of me,” she tells the magazine.
“I try to write at least one or two songs on each record by myself, because I want to keep digging and finding that close connection to telling my story in my music. Co-writing is so awesome, and often it’s easier to me, than forcing yourself to finish a song by yourself. But I feel like people really get to know the true artist in you when you have a song you wrote all by yourself.”
She wrote “Safe” while engaged to her new hubby, and the romantic country-rock anthem is one of my favorite songs so far from “Four the Record.” Look for my review of the album coming next week.
In addition to the five songs revealed through the scavenger hunt, Lambert has let fans get a listen to the album’s sassy first single “Baggage Claim,” currently ranked No. 4 on the Billboard country songs chart, and the smoking “Mama’s Broken Heart,” which accompanied her recent Hipstamatic print contest. So far, the variety of music on the album has impressed me, and there’s still more to come.
“Four the Record” also will include a duet with Shelton on “Better In The Long Run,” her cover of the Gillian Welch and David Rawlings song “Look At Miss Ohio,” and album closer “Oklahoma Sky,” written for Lambert by her singer-songwriter friend Allison Moorer.
Lambert will do a live Q&A at 3 p.m. Tuesday at Billboard.com, and she has several TV appearances planned to promote the album release.
On Tuesday, she will kick off her album launch week with a performance of “Baggage Claim” on NBC’s “Today” show. On Wednesday, she will appear on “Live With Regis & Kelly,” where she will be interviewed and perform the song. Lambert and Jeff Bridges will appear on a new episode of “Austin City Limits” premiering at 11 p.m. Nov. 5 on local PBS affiliate OETA-OKLA.
She also will perform on the 45th Annual CMA Awards airing Nov. 9 on ABC.
In addition, Lambert is featured on the cover of the current issues of Billboard Magazine and Ladies Home Journal.
-BAM
Get in on BAM’s Blog giveaways!
In case you aren’t already, you need to befriend my BAM’s Blog Facebook page – www.facebook.com/brandybammcdonnell – and follow me on Twitter – @BAMOK – and not just because it gives you and I more opportunities to interact, dear readers.
It’s also because I give away free stuff!
I strive to do giveaways on a weekly basis but sometimes do them two or three times in a week. Most often I give away items on my Facebook page, but I soon will begin branching out and using Twitter more for giveaways.
I most often provide chances to win CDs and DVDs, but giveaways can extend to video games, books, hats, T-shirts and occasionally movie or concert tickets.
There are some fun items going into the freebies bin in the coming days; in fact, I’m doing a giveaway at 4 p.m. today!
So get in on the free stuff fun!
-BAM
