The film Sound of My Voice opens today, after several months of buzz.  A large driver of that buzz was the release the first 12 minutes of the film, in an expanded and enhanced experience.

I wanted to embed that video in this post, but apparently Fox Searchlight beheaded WordPress’s father or something, because they refuse to play together nicely. You can find the 12-minute experience here.)

Here’s the movie’s trailer instead:

Mmmmm, culty-wulty, timey-wimey goodness!

(Aside: I confess that I am tired of terms like like “enhanced experience,” “bonus content” and *shudder* “transmedia,” that try to describe something without really giving you any useful information.  Not that it stops me from using these terms almost every day. Oh, buzzwords. I can’t quit you. )

Watching the film’s opening online gives you access to the expanded world around the film – youtube videos, multiple websites, and recurring cult indoctrination every Thursday at the Ukranian Cultural Center.  All put together in a very well-design, intuitive interface.

Looks like somebody learned some lessons from the Jejune Institute.

The work I do is usually lumped into the ill-defined space called “Transmedia.” It’s a term that’s hotly debated, with no clear agreeable definition, and nobody really likes it.

Alas, the need to label and define and categorize creative work is a constant.  For example, a stray joke made by a couple of house music producers turned into an entire subgenre called Witch House.

Witch House features downtempo music with heavy goth elements, as well as creative punctuation and syntax in their band names that makes Prince look like Strunk & White — i.e. oOoOO (pronounced “oh”), /// ▲▲▲ \\\  (pronounced “void”) and § (pronounced “Silver Strain”)

Witch House came to my attention through a compilation of songs and videos based around samples, themes and imagery from the witchiest TV show of all time, Twin Peaks.  While the quality of these tracks vary greatly, the one that stands head and shoulders above the others is §’s hypnotic video for A Blue Rose.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to have to brew some black coffee, buy a box of donuts and fire up a Twin Peaks rewatch.

(For bonus Twin Peaks-inspired music points, check out this video for Camper Van Beethoven’s “That Gum You Like is Back In Style,” wherein lead singer David Lowery explains how in the alternate universe where the record is set, Twin Peaks is the most popular TV show of all-time.)

Thanks to the HSA crew for inviting me to be a guest editor. The negotiations were tense, and carried out over several different forms of media, including telegraph, pneumatic tubes and sempahore. Mutually beneficial terms were reached, and I’m glad to say that they were able to provide adequate compensation in barrels of whale oil.

The new YouTube original content channels have been rolling out — Geek and Sundry and Nerdist have recently launched. They’ll be joined shortly by the Fine Bros., launching the MyMusic channel on April 15th. Here’s an extended trailer.

I’m sad to say that I agree with everything that Indie says. And hey, Gorgol looks kinda familiar.