Iceland has had a drop in tourism since the volcano eruption. To counter this, the have launched the Inspired by Iceland campaign online – launched yesterday – the main video has already been viewed 120 thousand times (in 24h)! We like the concept of people who really like Iceland passing the video to their friends. At the core of the campaign is a call to action to the 320 thousand population of Iceland and it seems to be working! At this rate they will easily get 1 video view per inhabitant!
Here is the video and also check out their website!

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

Check out the openstreemap.org project – a wiki style map of the world!

Here is a video based on the edits to the map throughout the year – very cool:

OSM 2008: A Year of Edits from ItoWorld on Vimeo.

With the imminent launch of the iPad, all eyes are on what content providers and app companies will produce to make use of the extra screen size and CPU power. Also a very interesting is the making of the video shoots using a series of lower cost new technologies that provide professional quality results:

VIV Mag Featurette: A Digital Magazine Motion Cover and Feature for the iPad from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

A cool example of the capabilities of current graphics processing consumer hardware – millions of hair being simulated in real-time:

Created by our Brazil office, Gelatube is a promotional site for the Royal Jelly brand. On the site anyone can use their webcam to distort stretch and squeeze themselves to create the most fun video. The best entries win a chance to win a Nintendo Wii.

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For those who don’t know, Vimeo is a site that caters for the specialised video community. Similar to Youtube in functionality, but with a much more design and film-maker oriented design, it is the place to share your  video creations online in high quality.

Tostitos Restaurant Style Salsa created this ad, a luxurious world of greens and Salsa ingredients, thoughtfully engaging this niche audience of  film makers. And the result is viral worthy – click below to see:

Learn a bit more about this new internet phenomenon

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Our neighbourhood is popular with TV crews shooting for cinema and TV. Today we saw this lot shooting what seemed like part of a detective TV series. The shoot took place in Angel, London. See if you can help us identify who this shoot is for:

Easier to view it than to explain – go ahead and play the movie below and drag your cursor around (sorry about the autoplay!):

The latest developments in 3D video technology have brought us Immersive video. This technology is starting to make its way into mainstream media and advertising more and more. Initially developed for Google Streetview, Immersive Media, the company behind the technology have now adapted the technique to video. This is perfect for capturing what a place would have looked like in a certain moment in time.

Simultaneous camera feeds are recorded and then post-processed to be stitched together. Currently a CPU intensive and time consuming process, we will probably see this in real-time in the future as the technology evolves.

We expect this technology to become another mainstream option in the way events are presented. Whether it be live concerts, sporting events or in news coverage, it will be great to be liberated from only being able to look at where the camera is pointing.

Some more great examples here: http://360videoblog.blogspot.com/

Short videos are the perfect packages for a viral effect in the social media sphere. Now, what to put inside the package? How about one of those events that you would definitely tell everyone you knew if you saw it live at your workplace/school/Football field? That is exactly what Coke did. Within their new mantra theme – spreading happiness, they created an event at a cafeteria and transformed something simple and ordinary like a soft drinks vending machine into an unforgettable event:

You can be sure this video won’t need millions in adspend to reach thousands of people around the world.

Wario Land, from Nintendo pioneered the format,  now – in an attempt at gathering public awareness on environmental issues – Acciona has come out with another creative Youtube ad Re_Acciona. Both ads take over the Youtube experience by taking the familiar interface and, well, basically destroying it. These types of ads have enjoyed success on Youtube and seem like a good match for the medium. See the ad here.

A while back we headed of to Amsterdam for a lightning fast marketing video of the new album release of the Defected in the House – Amsterdam electronic music album. We had come up with an idea to light up a building in the red light district making it look like a music equaliser – here is the video showing what happened. This all took place within 24h (crazy!):

Making of clip Defected in the House Amsterdam 09 from W3haus on Vimeo.

And here is a the final video:

W3haus was asked to come up with a creative concept for the launch of the Defected in the House Amsterdam Album release. What we proposed was to light up the Amsterdam Red Light District windows in a way that would make them look like a graphical equaliser. In an epic journey, we drove to Amsterdam from London with all the crew and equipment and back in 24h! Once there, we took over the Grasshopper, a famous Coffee shop to be our main location for the shoot. The artists from Chocolate Puma and Hardsoul, were present to take part in the video shoot.

Creative idea by W3haus, production and editing of the video was done by Casual Films and lighting by Colour Sound Experiment. The video can be seen below:

The produced music video:

Driving to Amsterdam from London and Back!

Lighting setup inside the Grasshopper (hey! that’s me!)

Nick, from Casual Films adjusting window lights

Neil from Colour Sound experiment setting up door lights.

The artists from Chocolate Puma and Hardsoul:

Our location:

The Grasshopper lit up with our lights!

Before sending the Casio Exilim EX-FC100 off to our Brazilian office, we thought we might as well have a bit of a play with it! Here are some very mundane scenes from Regents Canal close to our offices in Shoreditch that look kind of monumental when played back in slow motion + soundtrack.

Slow mo! from It was in the Tubes! on Vimeo.