Source: Digital Arts 21 August 2008

The promo for Kylie’s new single, The One, is a sexy, glamorous piece in black-and-white with flashes of primary colour and the pint-sized diva at her most sultry. To direct the promo, she turned to Ben Ib, who had also created her tour visuals. We caught up with him to talk about how the piece was created.

DA: What was the brief for the project?

BI: Kylie sent me a really detailed brief with loads of amazing images, from Man Ray to Rodchenko, through Donna Summer and The Jackson 5. We had worked together on her tour visuals, so she was familiar with the type of work I do. I came up with a treatment inspired by some of her references, heavily based on the era of the 1940s.

DA: What were your conceptual ideas and influences?

BI: Initially the idea was very Rodchenko. But the storyboard included various images of Carol Lombard and Veronika Lake, and it seemed to grow organically from this look that Kylie pretty much devised. So the whole Art Deco thing stemmed from this. We wanted the look to be 1940s Hollywood, but not retro — like a 1940s vision of the future. Personally my inspiration came from a wide range of places: Bauhaus graphic design, Art Deco architecture, Marcel Duchamp short films, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, The Wizard of Oz, Saul Bass’ title sequences. Basically all the things I like!

DA: How did you turn this into the final promo?

BI: We shot the video against greenscreen in Manchester, where Kylie had a day off in the middle of her X tour dates. The shoot was fairly simple with a few props and various costume changes. We also filmed two dancers, Jason and Nikki. Kylie’s performance was impeccable. Not one mistake!

DA: What was the biggest challenge you faced, and how did you overcome this?

BI: The post deadline was extremely tight — initially about a week. I tend to be pretty hands-on with my videos and do a great deal of the post myself, as my background is in 3D and motion graphics. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for punishment! But luckily I had a very talented gang of motion-graphics artists and compositors to help out this time. But it was still a serious amount of late nights and strong coffee.

DA: What software did you use to create the piece, particularly the motion graphics?

BI: The backgrounds were created in Maya using Mental Ray and the 2d work was done in After Effects. The keying and finishing was done in Flame.

DA: At times it looks very much like elaborate stage lighting, with characters appearing in front of these vivid, changing backdrops. Was the promo influenced by your stage design work?

BI: The influence was definitely on stage lighting, but really the film stages of the 1940s rather than the live stage. The look of real stages, such as those used by Busby Berkeley, Hitchcock (eg Spellbound), Fritz Lang etc I think have a beautiful sense of depth. The fact that they are constructed rather than built on a computer gives them something which is more imaginary and organic. The sense of scale is beautifully imperfect. So the inspiration was definitely from constructed stage sets — but of course, built on a Mac!

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Source: PromoNews August 13, 2008

Ben Ib has been away from promos for a while. As well as making a short film, he’s been occupied creating tour visuals for the likes of Paul McCartney, Mika – and Kylie. Out of that night-in, night-out collab with La Minogue comes this: a new video for The One which combines Kylie’s peerless style with Ben’s graphic sense to bring the glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age into Century 21.

Ben clearly worked closely with Kylie on this. They actually made it while on the road, and she’s credited with doing her own wardrobe, hair and makeup, no less (but sadly, she’s probably missed the deadline to enter the MVA for Best Styling).

Ben explains more below about his dazzling addition to the Kylie video canon – and he’s supplied us with his director’s cut. So check out this, ahem, Promo News exclusive…

Kylie Minogue

The One (director’s cut)

Prod co: Blink TV

Director: Ben Ib

Producer: Tom Colbourne

DoP: Alex Hemming

Stylist: Kylie Minogue

Hair and Make Up: Kylie Minogue

Dancers: Jason Beitel, Nikki Trow

Editor: Ben Ib/Amanda James

2D: Ben Ib, Gavin Davis, Dan Kitchener, Josh Michnik

3D: Ben Ib, Shaun Yue

Flame: Lorraine at Triangle

DCP: Sonny at The Farm

Commissioner: Kylie Minogue

Ben Ib on making the video for Kylie’s The One

“The video was shot in an evening in a makeshift greenscreen studio in the Manchester Evening News Arena, on Kylie’s day off between performing. The concept behind the video was inspired by some initial images which Kylie emailed me…Man Ray, Rodchenko, images of Carol Lombard and Lauren Bacall.

“It’s also influenced by Fritz Lang, Art Deco, Powell and Pressburger, The Wizard of Oz, and Busby Berkeley…. I thought it would be nice to approach it as if Busby Berkeley had been alive today…what kind of video might have he made? I came up with some extensive storyboards, and, lo and behold, ended up ditching them through lack of post time!!!

“Since leaving Colonel Blimp earlier this year I was lucky enough to get the job of working on tour visuals for Kylie, as well as for various other artists including Paul McCartney and Mika. The Kylie visuals involved working with William Baker and Blink TV right from rehearsal stage, planning out the visuals and creating imagery for a wide range of different tracks – particularly Heartbeat Rock (Stars and Stripes to the power of 1,000 000), Wow (a neon fest) and In Your Arms (the Testcard gone crazy).

“It’s great fun working with someone as iconic as Kylie. She looks great against any colour scheme!!!”

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Source: Becoming Bert Stern (2008) IMDb staff.

Fuelled by a raging libido, methamphetamines and a drive to find inner peace, Bert Stern is one of a few remaining Golden Age photographers still working today. This feature-length documentary, BECOMING BERT STERN tracks Stern’s dazzling rise, fall and remarkable comeback to reveal an important life, replete with untold truths and never-before-seen photographs. This film is the first to record the wild life of an accidental artist, from his humble beginnings in Brooklyn, to his rise from a mail room clerk at Look magazine, to sitting on the top as one of the worlds most sought after photographers. This iconoclastic artist is best known for shooting Marilyn Monroe in The Last Sitting and over 40 VOGUE covers where Stern employed vision and tenacity to produce his stunning innovations with impunity and hilarity.

See the trailer here

Yazzi: As a huge fan of Bert Stern’s work I’m very excited to find that this documentary is coming out…and it’s even better that our Kyle’s will feature in it! Bert is a legendary photographer and responsible for some of Kylie’s best shots. Check out the movie - it’ll show you ‘behind the scenes’ of an amazing artist and the world of stardom. (Ps) Thanks Tim Bo for the heads-up x 

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Source: Silicon Republic August 2008

Video saves the radio stars! A new music video web service out of Dublin could provide the music industry with the monetisation strategy it dearly needs. Big-four label Sony BMG has already signed up and the other labels Warner, Universal and EMI may join in the year ahead. The Muzu TV service launched in Dublin yesterday promises to create a personalised TV channel for music fans to manage their favourite music and present it on their various social networking sites, such as MySpace.

Users can also interact with bands and labels and share music legally and at no cost.

But what’s in it for the hard-pressed music industry? Muzu TV has created a platform that allows labels like Sony and bands such as The Ting Tings to develop a homepage but also generate revenue through an ad-supported model developed by the company where revenues from ads are shared 50/50 between Muzu and the labels/artists.

Another aim of the site is to allow unsigned bands to generate revenue from advertising and possibly sign record deals. The company’s Dublin headquarters boasts a recording studio where bands can drop in and create videos.

Muzu is the brainchild of Ciaran Bollard and Mark French, and so far a wide cross-section of the industry including artists, venues, festivals and music magazines have signed up.

These include over 200 labels and content producers such as Ministry of Sound, Defected Records, Cherry Red Records, Eagle Rock, Planet Rock Profiles, SPV, Hollywood Music and Ninja Tune, to name a few.

The site includes rare footage such as interviews and documentaries about Phil Lynott and Bob Dylan.

Artists from Sony BMG who feature on the site include The Ting Tings, the Foo Fighters, Kylie, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce and MGMT.

Muzu, which has offices in Dublin and London as well as an R&D base in Waterford, is quickly generating a buzz in the technology world, having already presented at TechCrunch.

The company in recent months has raised €6m in venture capital from Oyster Capital, Enterprise Ireland and a number of private investors.

Co-founder Mark French explained the company has spent the last two years building technology, negotiating with labels and artists, and having amassed a strong digital content library, is ready to hit the road.

“We are officially live in Ireland and the UK and the plan is to go live in mainland Europe in the third quarter and in the US in the first quarter of 2009,” French said, adding he is confident that the other big three record labels will join the Muzu TV revolution. “We are in negotiations.”

He said artists are creating a lot more content than the obvious DVDs and CDs and there is an important route to monetisation that must be grasped by a music industry anxious to arrest its decline in the face of threats such as piracy.

“Bands are creating a lot more content than what’s on albums. They are on the road, there’s behind the scenes stuff such as how a guitarist came up with a riff or bass line. In many cases, bands have a lot of content they haven’t had the opportunity to digitise yet which could be worth potential revenue through ads viewed by fans as they consume the content.

“The other beauty of the service is that it creates a platform for bands to manage their digital content, such as tagging it to be available in certain parts of the world or to users of a certain age.

“This is a great facility to get all of a label or band’s video content into one place for the first time. Fans can then take the content and broadcast it on different channels around the web.”

Co-founder, Ciaran Bollard, described Muzu TV as an artist-led initiative where artists’ and labels’ concerns about copyright and quality of content can both be addressed..

“We built this as a communications platform for the music industry. It’s unique insofar as we are a video site for fans that results in sharing revenue with the copyright holder.

“The key focus for fans is they can create their own music channel online and totally personalise it and re-broadcast it on their favourite social networking sites.”

Bollard said the company is currently working on optimising Muzu TV for the mobile phone and within a year predicts the service will be available on alternative platforms such as the Xbox 360.

By John Kennedy

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Source: PopSugarUK 15/08/2008

I love these pics of Steve Jones, they make me laugh. But why is he dressed as a builder?

Well, tonight 4Music launches as a spangly new channel, featuring music shows, exclusives, festival coverage (V is featured this weekend) and artist interviews alongside the usual fare of vids and countdowns.

Tonight lovely Steve and Davina McCall will kick off proceedings with their 20 Big Ones which sees Steve dressing up as a “camp builder” – a male version of those under-dressed women in Benny Benassi’s “Satisfaction” vid. Nice.

Here’s what Steve and Davina had to say about the launch:

Can you describe your opening show on 4Music?

Steve: “Think of Steve and Davina’s Big Ones as two hours of music labour where at the end where we give birth to Kylie Minogue (in concert – the world exclusive of KYLIEX2008 at 9pm). But without the pain.”

What’s it like working with each other again (after last year’s Big Brother special)?

Steve: “For me and Davina to present the first show… it’s a true honour. I love working with Davina and really enjoy being on screen with her.”

Davina: “I love Steve! He make it so easy and we’ve just got a very good rapport, the more I work with him the better it gets. I do hope I get to work with him again.”

For more from Steve and Davina, details of tonight’s schedule, more photos and the TV spot featuring McFly, Sugababes, Kelly Rowland, Duffy, Miquita Oliver, Alex Zane, Alphabeat, Alexa Chung, The Saturdays and others just read more

What is it about 4Music that you’re looking forward to?

Davina: “The live coverage of gigs. I don’t get to many gigs with three kids! I really miss the live aspect.”

How do you feel to be hosting the first ever show on the channel?

Steve: “I couldn’t be more honoured to present the first ever show on 4Music. The future is very bright for 4Music, so why shouldn’t it have its own channel?”

Davina: “Its brilliant …a real honour. I started my career on a music television channel so it felt rather good and to be the first people on the channel is pretty exciting. I am totally passionate about music and couldn’t live without it, so thank you 4Music!”

Here’s the launch night schedule (on Sky 360, Virgin 330 and Freeview 18):

7pm - Steve and Davina’s 20 Big Ones – twenty big hits from the biggest stars to celebrate the launch.

9pm - World exclusive footage of Kylie Minogue’s KYLIEX2008 concert at the O2. This will include all her hits and backstage footage.

1110pm – Live action direct from the Big Brother house.

1.10am – Repeat of Steve and Davina’s 20 Big Ones for those who have been out partying.

3am – 4Music Floorfillers, an eclectic mix of upbeat party tunes.

This weekend there will be exclusive live coverage of the V Festival with headline sets from The Verve and Muse. This will be followed by coverage of Bestival, featuring Amy Winehouse headlining. In September, 4Music will be teaming up with Vodafone Live Music Awards to celebrate live music in a star studded ceremony.

Other series that will appear will include Live from Abbey Road, 4Music Presents, T-Mobile Transmission and Shockwaves Album Chart Show. Concerts will include Kylie, Jay-Z in New York, N.E.R.D., McFly and The Streets. Highlights from The Sunday Night Projectand musical Star Stories will also be shown. Phew!

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Source: The Sun 16 Aug 2008
SOCCER hunk CRISTIANO RONALDO has been voted the Ultimate Gay Icon. The Manchester United and Portugal winger relegated pop queen KYLIE MINOGUE to second place. Wizard Of Oz screen legend and singer JUDY GARLAND was third. The results of a poll of 3,000 gay men were revealed by a website. A spokeswoman for www.gaygolddiggers.uk.com said: “Ronaldo’s ripped body, slicked-back hair, shiny white teeth and jewellery swung the votes his way.

“He looks like any gay man or woman’s dream.

“What with being Footballer of the Year, scoring 42 goals last season and former girlfriends saying he is talented off the pitch, he seems to have everything going for him.”

The full Top 10 was:

1. Cristiano Ronaldo

2. Kylie Minogue

3. Judy Garland

4. Elton John

5. Liza Minnelli

6. The Village People

7. David Beckham

8. George Michael

9. John Barrowman

10. Paul O’Grady

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Source: The Age Australia August 14, 2008

Kylie and Dannii Minogue have recorded an ABBA hit together. Kylie and Dannii Minogue have recorded a version of one of ABBA’s hit songs for a new British TV comedy series. The pint-sized Australian singers have teamed up to perform a version of The Winner Takes It All for BBC2’s new comedy Beautiful People, The Sun newspaper reported.

The series is based on the childhood of writer Simon Doonan, who now works as a designer for upmarket New York department store Barneys.

Dannii recently revealed how she had wanted to record a duet with her big sister after performing with Kylie on her latest concert tour.

“I really miss singing, so I am planning to do some more next year,” Dannii said.

“Doing the duet with Kylie on tour was amazing. It was nice to share that. I definitely want to do a duet, it’s just about finding the right thing and the right time.”

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Source: Sydney Morning Herald: August 12, 2008

As CD sales plummet and artists desert their music companies, new ways of doing business are the key to survival, writes Bernard Zuel. The music industry may or may not be dying but some parts of it are looking decidedly unwell. Take EMI. Please. Anyone? Late last month the Australian arm of the once giant record company, international home of the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Robbie Williams, lost its managing director and a stable of bands on which it had built its Australian success, within a week.

First, the company announced that its managing director, John O’Donnell, was to leave, joining several senior managers and even more staff from the Mosman head office who had become the latest in a world-wide decimation of employees since the venerable company’s takeover by the venture capitalist Terra Firma. It is expected that a third of the 5000-plus worldwide workforce of EMI will have gone by the end of this year.

Within days a press release went out from Eleven, the management company and label run by O’Donnell’s old friend John Watson, announcing that Eleven was taking its acts, including Missy Higgins and Silverchair, from EMI to the industry behemoth Universal Music, which controls about 30 per cent of the world market.

Higgins and Silverchair made up half the Australian acts in the Top 10 selling albums of 2007 - the other two were Powderfinger, already at Universal, and the wholly independent John Butler Trio. The next best-performing EMI albums were the High School Musical 2 soundtrack, at No. 35, and a Spice Girls Best Of, at No. 36. The next best Australian artist for EMI was Tina Arena, whose album was the 38th highest seller of the year.

In some ways, the loss of Higgins and Silverchair so soon after the decision by another cornerstone of EMI’s Australian roster, Kasey Chambers, to jump ship reinforced what was happening overseas.

No one is prepared to comment on the record, but it is widely assumed that Eleven moved its operations from EMI only partly because of instability within the company and pessimism about its long-term future. A bigger difficulty was that EMI no longer had the staff or resources available to best serve these acts.

EMI is not the only problem child of the industry, it’s just the most visible. Though its cuts are more drastic, every record company internationally has been down this path in recent years as CD sales declined precipitously.

To understand what is happening in the industry you need to acknowledge the difference between the record industry (in decline) and the music industry (continually growing).

The marketing and selling of recorded music was not always the dominant element in the music industry. First, it was publishers of sheet music and providers of piano rolls who controlled the income, then broadcasters, agencies and promoters of live music.

In the second half of the 20th century, as the revenue from sales of recorded music grew and grew, the record companies became the all-encompassing providers of services for artists. They recorded the songs, manufactured the records, made sure the records were in stores, promoted them to radio stations and marketed them through other media.

In the 21st century, compact discs are much less in demand, but interest is growing in tickets for live music, merchandise, licensing in films and advertising and content provision in new media, alongside a technology-driven explosion in media. Ten years ago music marketing essentially involved print, radio and free-to-air television alone. These days there are phone companies, online music providers such as iTunes, pay TV, online media and film and television production houses.

The Catch-22 for record companies is this: they have little or no access to money being made away from recorded music and have cut staff to remain profitable; but with much fewer staff, working twice as long and twice as hard as a decade ago, they are struggling to meet the basic demands of marketing recorded music, let alone providing extra services to earn extra income.

The biggest acts, such as Radiohead and Madonna, see recorded music as a diminishing segment of their income and are questioning whether they should entrust the marketing and promotion of their wider interests to companies that are shrinking before their eyes. Maybe as an artist it makes more sense to bring in your own people or hire freelancers as needed (rather than incur the massive overheads of keeping a large staff, offices and networks on hand) to provide what record companies cannot offer in the areas of digital services and marketing.

Once you’ve taken that route and you have an album and a tour coinciding, as did Silverchair and Powderfinger last year, does it make more sense to centralise your marketing and promotion for all your interests? If so, what do you need a record company for?

If you are not interested in being a popular act that crosses markets, and you don’t need marketing and distribution for music that’s any more sophisticated than an online download or receiving house for orders, maybe you don’t need a record company at all. A thriving low-profile scene does just that, from the folk act Ani DiFranco and Western Australia’s John Butler (who had the seventh-highest-selling album in Australia last year) to a thousand bedroom/garage acts the world over.

The solution, as one company head put it, is for record companies to ask themselves what services they can provide to artists. That might sound like a more polite way of saying, “How can we get our cut of the money being made elsewhere?” But since power resides more and more with the artists, record companies need to justify their value.

One route record companies could take involves developing the 360 contract, where artists sign deals that give the record company a cut of all income earned by the artist in merchandise, live performance and licensing as well as the standard manufacturing, development, marketing and distribution.

But will this be attractive enough to an artist - especially if the record company, running on skeleton staff, can’t really provide these services thoroughly?

The other option is for such companies as Universal to buy into management companies and labels (such as Eleven), merchandising companies, and sooner or later, touring companies, which are themselves buying up artists - witness the Live Nation deal with Madonna last October.

For acts with sufficient clout, a record company essentially becomes your partner rather than your owner. It pays for a share of your company/management/label, helps to bring together the various parties in any production, contributes to the costs of promoting and distributing your material, and takes a share rather than the bulk of the profits. Then it repeats the process with another act.

If that business model sounds familiar, that is because it is how the film industry evolved. Sixty years ago the film studios owned all the elements of a production, from the film stock to the actors to the distribution. These days they are more often packagers of individual projects, bringing together finance, the creatives and the distribution from a variety of sources. The power and the income is more diffused but the income keeps coming.

In other words, while the record industry will not survive as it stands now, the music industry is looking very healthy.

EXITING EMI

• Radiohead declined to re-sign, preferring to release albums online themselves and to sign with a small distribution label for disc sales.
• The Rolling Stones switched back to Universal.
• Paul McCartney left for the Starbucks label Hear Music.
• Kasey Chambers moved to Festival Mushroom.
• Australian indie label Eleven signed an agreement with Universal involving Missy Higgins, Silverchair, Little Birdy, Paul Mac and Kisschasy.
• Robbie Williams did not commit to further recordings under the current regime.
• Kylie Minogue, signed to EMI in Britain but Festival Mushroom in Australia, is said to be considering an exit.
• Coldplay stayed under strict conditions including the use of outside promotions staff.

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Source: news24 12/08/2008

The Australian singer - who will soon be seen judging hopeful music acts on the new series of UK TV show The X Factor - would love nothing more than to vocally collaborate with Kylie again soon. She said: “I definitely want to do a duet, it’s just about finding the right thing and the right time. I miss singing so I am planning to do some more next year. I did a duet with Kylie on her tour last year - we sang Kids which was amazing.”

“Every time we watch it back, we fall about laughing, especially when we are swinging each other around because we used to do that on roller skates when we were young.”

Would give up everything

“To us, that’s us as kids, and as sisters, minus everything else. It was nice to share that. People think I don’t like talking about Kylie but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I understand why people ask about her.

“She is incredibly famous and loved by everyone so people want to know what it is like being her sister. That’s normal. We are really different people so there has never been any competition.”

Dannii also revealed despite being happy as a single woman, she would give everything up for “the right man”.

She added to Britain’s Cosmopolitan magazine: “I would for the right man. I curse my parents though. I say to them, ‘It’s your fault I’m single!’ They gave us such a great childhood - my mother stayed at home while my dad went to work and I have such high hopes to recreate that.

“But at the same time, I love my career so I would struggle to choose between the two. And I spend six months in the UK and six months in Australia. Where am I going to find a man who will do that?”

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Source: MyParkMag 12 August 2008

Kylie Minogue is reportedly set to release a cover of Barry Manilow’s hit ‘Copacabana’.

The Australian singer - who has been performing the upbeat track during her ‘KylieX2008′ tour - is planning to record the track for release, but is said to have angered the lyricist Bruce Sussman by asking for the woman’s name in the song to be changed from Lola to Kylie. 

Kylie wanted the lyric, “Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl” to be changed, but Bruce refused.

A source told gossip website MSNBC: “Bruce was furious. He told Kylie, ‘No way. Her name’s Lola. Not Lola Minogue, not Kylie.’ ”

Kylie’s sister Dannii recently revealed she wants to vocally collaborate with Kylie again in the future.

Dannii said: “I definitely want to do a duet, it’s just about finding the right thing and the right time. I miss singing so I am planning to do some more next year. I did a duet with Kylie on her tour last year - we sang ‘Kids’ which was amazing. Every time we watch it back, we fall about laughing, especially when we are swinging each other around because we used to do that on roller skates when we were young.”

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