Datagram was thrilled to be able to offer its optimized Internet Access and datacenter services to the TED Conference for their TEDGlobal event held in Oxford, UK, from July 12-16. http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2010/program/
Crowdsourced Johnny Cash Project hosted by Datagram
July 15, 2010
This is a really amazing site that @Rad
When mega-producer Rick Rubin was putting the finishing touches on Johnny Cash’s final album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave, he had trouble thinking up a visual to accompany the single “Ain’t No Grave”, the Man in Black’s final recording.
Music videos for posthumously-released music tend to fall into two categories: a stock footage retrospective or an animated adventure. Fortunately for Rubin, director Chris Milk happened to have an idea on the back-burner that inventively combined both archival imagery with animation in a manner befitting of Cash’s defiant-to-the-end attitude.
Along with creative technologist Aaron Koblin, Milk pitched The Johnny Cash Project, a crowdsourced web film that allows fans to create original drawings based on archival frames of the deceased country legend. Pieced together in sequence and set to “Ain’t No Grave”, the artwork becomes an ever-evolving, abstract portrait that never looks the same twice.
The website was built by @radical.media using the prodco’s own content management system (CMS) platform and runs on donated bandwidth from hosting provider Datagram. Its design balances simple instructions with a solemn, black-and-white aesthetic.
“Rick Rubin and Chris Milk wanted the site to feel more like an art gallery exhibit then a technical web site,” says @radical EP Evan Schechtman. “The art should speak the loudest and we wanted to create a reduced simplified structure for the idea.”
The project’s drawing tool, developed by Flash wiz Mr.doob, lets contributors illustrate over single frames of archival footage cut together by Final Cut’s Akiko Iwakawa. Users can undo or redo brush strokes, customize brushes and zoom in on their creations to finely-hone details.
Once complete, fans have the option of categorizing their creations as “abstract”, “sketchy”, “realistic” or “pointillism”. Viewers can then choose to watch versions of the ever-evolving video comprised of work that falls into one of those categories or the most recent frames or the highest-rated frames. So far fans have contributed more than 4,600 frames.
For Milk, a seasoned music video and commercial director who’s worked with artists such as Gnarls Barkley, Kanye West, U2 and Green Day, The Johnny Cash Project was an opportunity to move away from traditional broadcast work and think creatively for a new medium. Boards spoke with the director to find out how the project evolved.
http://www.boardsmag.com/community/blogs/behindthescenes/index.php?p=1236
Digital Agency Requires Reliable Hosting Partner
”Both our company and our clients require reliable, dedicated hosting in a secure environment for our websites,” stated Brandon Ralph, the Executive Creative Director of Code and Theory. “We have never heard the word ‘can’t’ during our five years of working with Datagram.”
Datagram Supports Crowdsourcing and the Arts
June 24, 2010
When the team members of Datagram were faced with the opportunity to not only support the explosion of user-generated content, but also a creative artistic venture, they jumped at the chance:
When mega-producer Rick Rubin was putting the finishing touches on Johnny Cash’s final album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave, he had trouble thinking up a visual to accompany the single “Ain’t No Grave”, the Man in Black’s final recording.
Music videos for posthumously-released music tend to fall into two categories: a stock footage retrospective or an animated adventure. Fortunately for Rubin, director Chris Milk happened to have an idea on the back-burner that inventively combined both archival imagery with animation in a manner befitting of Cash’s defiant-to-the-end attitude.
Along with creative technologist Aaron Koblin, Milk pitched The Johnny Cash Project, a crowdsourced web film that allows fans to create original drawings based on archival frames of the deceased country legend. Pieced together in sequence and set to “Ain’t No Grave”, the artwork becomes an ever-evolving, abstract portrait that never looks the same twice.
The website was built by @radical.media, a global transmedia company that creates some of the world’s most innovative content across all forms of media. Datagram donated the bandwidth, a decision made by company principals immediately upon learning of the project.
“When Evan Shectman, CTO of @radical.media, approached me with the idea for this site, I knew this would be something groundbreaking and that we wanted to be a part of it,” states Datagram’s VP of Sales Mike Dietze. “User-generated content is what the web is about, and letting users build their own video frames makes this one of the best music videos I’ve ever seen.”
PAPER Magazine chooses Datagram
June 14, 2010
PAPER MAGAZINE CHOOSES DATAGRAM FOR ITS HOSTING PROVIDER SOLUTIONS. Datagram’s Managed Hosting Service Allows NYC-Based Independent Magazine to Deliver an Immersive, High-Quality Website Read more…
Disaster Recovery Case Study
January 19, 2009
A New York City-based investment advisory firm with over $4 Billion in assets required a fully secure, highly reliable Disaster Recovery solution to ensure against catastrophic failure of their core network and provide immediate and reliable access to their information database. Read more…
Datagram Ranked One of the Highest Hosting Providers for Blogs
November 20, 2008
DATAGRAM IS RANKED ONE OF THE HIGHEST HOSTING SERVICE PROVIDERS AMONG THE WORLD’S MOST POPULAR BLOGS
NEW YORK, NY– November 20, 2008 – Datagram, the Internet Solutions Company, announces today its ranking as one of the top two hosting providers for the top 100 most popular blogs, otherwise known as ‘Rock Star’ bloggers.
