Starfish Stories on Red Maps

Back in the tail end of 2011, I received an email from a company called Red Maps. They found our ‘Surfing on Solar Winds’ track at SoundCloud.com. That track had reached its download limit, so they asked if I could send them the file.

Actually I had overlooked their email. When I realised my oversight, I quickly replied to them and pointed them to our 2009 digital album, One World One Moment, where the same track could be downloaded.

Here’s how our music was featured. So cool that we have another music video!

I thought this was a very nice business model they got there. Its about creative opportunities, collaboration and reciprocal publicity. I also appreciate how they gave full credits to the collaborators (which is a lot more detailed that many videos where our CC music has been featured).

Thanks Red Maps.

For helping put this little band on your map.

From the YouTube video description:

“Los Angeles” is from Red Maps Independent Filmmakers City Series.http://www.redmaps.com

Our Series asks creative individuals to make a short film that captures the life, style and vibe of a city…using a Red Map.

The Filmmaker: Cristi Silva of ThatSoRad Productions
Santa Barbara, CA
http://www.ThatSoRadProductions.com
We met Cristi via seeing her photography work in California. She captures people and scenes that result in incredibly fresh stories.
So, it was a no-brainer to ask her to make a film, and to see how she might visualize one of our favorite cities. Cristi Silva’s LA makes one feel as though they’ve never seen the city before.

The Music: “Surfing on Solar Winds” by Starfish Stories :: The Band
Singapore http://StarfishStories.wordpress.com
Ivan, Adrian and I-Ling are three Singaporeans who have up and gone pursued their dreams of creating music for the world under the Creative Commons program. Their music is available for all to hear, enjoy and download. We met them via SoundCloud.com under the name ramblinglibrarian. The music was the perfect match to give the film its soulful tour of LA.

Red Maps is a small, NYC-based company, making unique city maps that are smart, beautiful and easy-to-use. But our interest is not only maps, on our blog we highlight design in all its forms, including autos, furniture, architecture and more…we don’t see a reason to limit ourselves. These short films are a way for us to collaborate with some very talented people. And if they help inform everyone about Red Maps…that’s cool too. It’s about having fun.

Filmmakers Wanted
If you’re a filmmaker and would like to work with Red Maps,
please contact us at:
http://www.redmaps.com
jimleniart@redmaps.com

~ Ivan

My Lunarin Remix #2: “Time of Apollo 2010”

My second Lunarin remix, titled “Time of Apollo 2010”. With a music video thrown in!

This music video mash-up is dedicated to the men and women of the Apollo Program (1963 – 1972).

I decided to make the music video as an afterthought, after I completed my 2nd remix (btw, the first remix, here).

Here’s the remixed track, posted to soundcloud:

In that remix, I extracted part of the spoken audio from the 1975 NASA documentary, “Time of Apollo”. Then I decided to make a music video with the NASA documentary footage.

CREDITS:

1. “Time of Apollo (1975)” – NASA. Public Domain – www.archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava03129vnb1
2. “Duae Trailer 1” & “Duae Trailer 2“. Credits: Clare Lee, Jeanette Ng and Lunarin. Used with permission from Lunarin.
3. Music remixed from “The Sky (Algiers)”. Released by Lunarin under a 2010 Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. www.lunarin.com

If you liked the video, leave a comment!

And thanks again to Lunarin, for making the music remix possible. They have compiled the submissions of their remixes into a digital album titled, “The Void: A collection of remixes of Lunarin’s ‘The Sky (Algiers)“. Be sure to check that out.

Enjoy!

~ Ivan

Deftones – Hole In The Earth

Discovered Deftones after watching a link (posted in Facebook by someone else, which another friend linked…)

This particular song is all these at the same time: melodious, sad, uplifting, gritty/ rock.

Sweet.

Wished I could write songs like that.

Maybe I should try.

Deftones is at www.deftones.com. YouTube channel, here. This Wikipedia entry covers more about their history, influences, and discography.

~ Ivan

Music video: “There’s Us”

Came across this MV by chance, while browsing through Youtube.

Gave me the goosebumpy “I can save the world” feeling when I first heard it.

Still does.

Had to look up “The Runaways“.

~ Ivan

Featured in Rocklah!

Thanks to Rocklah! for featuring our latest music video! I appreciate that they made effort to credit the CC-licensed material properly.

They added this too:

The music video is made up of other Creative Commons Licensed video material and is a testimony that CC-licensed music can be just as good as the typical recording industry licenses.

Wah sey! Thanks for the compliment! 🙂

From the Rocklah! About page,

Rocklah! is a music blog that tries to aggregate South-East Asian music news all in one site. “Lah” is also a colloquial term used by mostly Singaporeans and Malaysians to emphasize the word before it. So, “Rock Lah” is basically about all things that ROCK!

If you have any news that you’d like us to cover, please feel free to drop us an e-mail at news@rocklah.com

Check them out at rocklah.com.

~ Ivan

New Beginning 2009 – Music Video

This Music Video is dedicated to Siena Malia Silverburn. I wonder if YouTube will still be around by the time you’re old enough to make sense out of this. Anyway, welcome to the World! BTW, you have very cool parents. See if you can spot your mommy in the video
🙂

LINK

This MV is based on the song “New Beginning (2009)” by “Adrian Loo & Ivan Chew. StarfishStories.wordpress.com“. This MV is licensed under a Creative Commons ATTRIBUTION 3.0 Singapore license. You are free to use/ distribute as long as you credit this MV as follows:
======================
“New Beginning 2009 (Music Video)”
by Ivan Chew – MyRightBrain.wordpress.com
======================
Feel free to email me if you’ve further questions. RamblingLibrarian@gmail.com. The full video can downloaded at www.archive.org.

Not least, my thanks to the generosity of the following (credits in order of appearance in the MV):

1. “Summer Play Time“. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5
2. “Driving under the Golden Gate Bridge“. By: Ivan Chew. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Singapore
3. “Josh Street Movie“. Creative Commons license: Attribution 2.0
4. “Graffiti artists – Street Art in LA“. Public Domain.
5. “Festival of India – Extras“. By: bh Ezequiel. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5
6. “Streets of San Francisco: view from a tram (2008)“. By: Ivan Chew. Creative Commons license Attribution 3.0 Singapore
7. “A tuk-tuk rallye in streets of the Bangkog city, Thailand. (2002)“. By: “amateur creator”. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5
8. “Pattaya in the night. Amateur short movie. (2001)“. By: “amateur creator”. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5

~ Ivan

Music Video: ONE WORLD (2008)

I completed the song, One World, in May this year. I knew in my heart I had to make a music video for it.

I finally completed the music video over five evenings last week, including a weekend.

Link

Music Video: One World (2008) by Ivan Chew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at starfishstories.wordpress.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://StarfishStories.wordpress.com.

Initial vision for the music video
In my mind, I saw this lone guitarist, holding a Les Paul Standard, walking up to the edge of a canyon. The camera pans around him and out into the vastness. Snap the view to the guitarist hitting the first note. And the video pans to scenes of soaring clouds, fly-overs of mountains, water falls, and then to city-scapes. And the video was about people, of all races and creeds.

One World, as the song title goes.

I couldn’t possibly shoot that kind of video. And I didn’t have the inclination to start anything. Until about a week ago.

Creative Commons
Went to Flickr.com and Archive.org to search for materials licensed under Creative Commons (attribution). Picked out 115 photos and 15 videos. Used most of them.

It’s not 100% what I had in mind (e.g. couldn’t find that rock guitarist video footage). But it’s close enough.

A huge thanks to those who’ve shared their works under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

It’s their generosity–those who have shared their work under the CC license–that I could make this music video at all.

---

CREDITS
Heh, just making a record of the credits took me two nights!

Photos, all 92 images, listed in order of appearance. Names are linked to the individual photos, so there would be repeated names. My friend, Kenneth, had so many excellent photos I ended up using many of them:
noahg | Chris Gin | Kris (ATX) | Darwin Bell | hypertypos | Ilan’s Photos | Ingorrr | Lourdes Nightingale | notsogoodphotography | angela7dreams | Rob | Rob | Haintso Rakouth | HK James Ho | J Pod | DMahendra | Elizeu Santos-Neto | kalandrakas | s.tormod | Nathalie_Renaud | soylentgreen23 | s.tormod | HK James Ho | Yoshimai | Ed Yourdon | stephane_tougard | MatterEnergy | jackol | Two Roses | chefranden | athomson | malias | freeparking | josh-n | dlkinney | gregor_y | Ahron de Leeuw | stephane_tougard | Two Roses | Vanessa | stephane_tougard | Ed Yourdon | kamshots | davco9200 | stephane_tougard | iZZomv | stephane_tougard | etoile | Ed Yourdon | stephane_tougard | pedrosimoes7 | Mr. Kris | yeowatzup | 2493TM | mrhayata | scumfrog | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | dogfrog | ryuuji | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | schillergarcia | acroamatic | Tawheed Manzoor | freeparking | stephane_tougard | acroamatic | masochismtango | freeparking | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic |acroamatic | acroamatic | soham_pablo | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic | schillergarcia | acroamatic | acroamatic | acroamatic |

VIDEOS (in order of appearance):

• United States Forest Service. Of Ice and Fire: The Mono Basin (1992)
• USDA. Vision of the Wild (1990)
• Ivan Bridgewater. Lightning Strike (2007)
• Ryan Mast. TangentIdea Productions. Lancaster clouds 05/14/06 (2006)
• Universal Studios. Anti-War Demonstrators Storm Pentagon, 1967/10/24 (1967)
• Christmas Tree Burn (February 4, 2006)
• Obsidian – Footprints (2008 )
• Eva Vikström. View From a Train, Heby-Morgongåva in August 2006 (2007)
• Chicago

The full-quality MPEG-4 video can be downloaded, here.

If you enjoyed this video, please feel free to leave a comment 🙂
~ Ivan