Artist Research

Aron Baxter


My process of finding an artist was roundabout and convoluted. I am applying to internships with Under Armour, mostly because I find that their ads are very compelling and I want work with their advertisement team. I decided to use that as a jumping off point for my research for this project, both because I want to try to create something that compelling and because I admire many of the visually impactful elements in the ads. I found this article (http://great-ads.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-under-armour-prepare-spot.html) that referenced Aron Baxter as the creative director for the Under Armour ad “Prepare” which features a number of Baltimore teams, wearing Under Armour which you can purchase at your local Dick’s. (I also found a number of other artists through this article, including Rip Lambert who directed many of the Under Armour ads. http://producers.tv/services/shoot.php and http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96DE1FC708A0B1F2)

Aron Baxter works for a company known as “Nice Shoes,” a “full service, artist-driven design, animation, visual effects and color grading studio specializing in high-end commercials, web content, film, TV and music videos” (http://www.trustcollective.com/portfolio/content/bio.php?client=niceshoes&bio=21). According to this article, Baxter has over 20 years of experience in film related industries. He has worked for a number of notable industries (and people), including Under Armour, Timex, GE Capital, Kaplan University and Kanye West, among others. Baxter has been with this company for close to nine years and most of the information that I could find detailing his experiences were filtered through the company website. He graduated with his undergraduate degree in “graphic design and visual communication” from Nottingham Trent University in ’92. He also has training from the Ravensbourne College of Art, located in London. He has gained a considerable amount of expertise through his experiences and sometimes lectures in New York on digital visual effects and animation. (All from http://www.trustcollective.com/portfolio/content/bio.php?client=niceshoes&bio=21).

Most of Baxter’s experience is in advertising. He utilizing a pretty consistent style throughout all of his ads that I have seen so far (except the clip promoting Kanye’s album/single “Power”). I think that the ad that I would look to as a mashup example would be his ad for Nautica and Ecko (http://advertfan.com/2011/05/timex-repositions-nautica-and-ecko-unlimited-brand-watches-with-a-new-ad-campaign/). While I think that the ad is somewhat cheesy and not as powerful as his work for Under Armour, it uses strong visuals and background music to convey a message (that this kind of watch is akin to nature in its design and quality). I think that the changing of the images matches well with the music, but I do think that the concept is kind of cheesy. I do not know if he had any input in what the concept was, and I am sure that he was limited by the wants and demands of the companies, but it may have been a little out of his control. His video for Kanye is so bizarre; I am not going to analyze it. The ad that he creatively directed for Under Armour struck me in its emotional or energy-like evocativeness. As with most Under Armour ads, the combination of the building music, deep male voice over and high contrast visuals makes for a compelling and adrenaline-filled advertisement. I like the quick cuts from team to team and the alternation of close up detail shots and those further away. He also cuts back to the same image/scene multiple times for about a second at a time to continue a message throughout. I thought that was pretty solid. I was a little disappointed by how the narrative ended in a Dick’s store, but that was one pretty obvious limitation in the sponsoring of the advertisement. (http://www.niceshoes.com/news/nice-shoes-makes-things-frigid-for-under-armour/)

While this is not as obvious a connection to what I want to eventually accomplish, I would like to explore the conception beyond Under Armour ads more. I find the combination of fast-paced, powerful clips, strong music and powerful voice-over convincing and would like to explore it more. While I may stick with an image mashup like Baxter exhibited in his Nautica commercial, I would like it to have the same image quality and attitude of the Under Armour ad. I think that the poetry can have a profound impact and so, I definitely do not want to emulate the attitude of the Nautica commercial, but I also do not want to focus too much on one concept, as I feel the Dick’s commercial does.

Other Sources:

http://www.niceshoes.com/news/aron-baxter-returns-to-nice-shoes-as-new-creative-director/

His videos:

http://vimeo.com/22825195




http://www.kyte.tv/ch/mashuptowntv/party-rock-of-the-year/p=lp&c=661&s=1586697&l=2195 1:35. Greatest moment of this video. (Also, this is just a random aside.)




DJ Schmolli

So, it's pretty cool that we can watch videos for this class and learn about new and cool music and write about it and do some projects and then get credit. I stumbled upon a music mashup artist who does a fantastic job of editing the videos to fit the music and the voices. I watched most of his collection last night. DJ Schmolli is from Austria. His roots are in music and he started performing with full bands. As he starting mixing, he realized that it was something that he was good at and loved and eventually became the “resident DJ” in a number of clubs. His portfolio contains over 200 mashups and many remixes. When reading his bio, I was a bit confused at the difference and so looked it up. Mashup is defined, by Wikipedia, as mixing two or more songs together to create an entirely new song from various different elements. A common synonym for “mashup” is bootlegging. This is something that I never realized. Remix, also defined by Wikipedia, is the editing of one song through subtraction or repetition of certain sound elements. DJ Schmolli started experimenting with mashups in 2000 but really had success when the internet took off with mashups in 2005. DJ Schmolli is known throughout Europe and, although less so, in the United States. He has been mentioned in several prominent publications (such as the Washington Post) and now performs in front of live audiences. His name comes from a childhood nickname. (http://djschmolli.com/info/)

DJ Schmolli gets most of his tracks directly from the labels. I imagine that this would help significantly in his creative process since it allows him to work with crisp, high quality sounds. He says, when asked to define “mashup”, “The easiest definition would be to take an instrumental track and put an acapella track of another song on top. To make the mix more interesting it’s good to use different musical genres. Of course you can also use many different source tracks in one mashup or lay different elements on top of each other. But this is for advanced mashup producers as it’s not easy from the production aspect.” (http://djschmolli.com/faq/)

My understanding is that DJ Schmolli specializes in music and various random artists make the videos for him. Critiquing the actual video would not be a comment on him, per say, but rather on the artists he allows to mix video for him. However, I am going to run through the main concepts in his music and videos that I find convincing and then will choose one example to critiquing.

I think that DJ Schmolli does a good job of taking older music and mixing it with new beats. He manages to either slow one or quicken another in order to get mismatched rhythms to match. The lyrics of the songs he chooses usually match up. In the case of this song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AqV5YFrfgvw, he pairs old orchestral jazz with the lyrics of “Rage Against the Machine.” When listened to separately, these are completely different kinds of music. However, he takes the jazz music and just overlays the lyrics of RATM on top. I would like to learn how to split the audio tracks like this to isolate audio elements that I wish to use. I think that this song can be a bit repetitive, but that the song works well together. I also think that the grainy black and white of each of the two mashed videos works perfectly together…

I love the visuals in this mashup a lot!

Ideas:

-          Poetry mashup

-          Song mashup

-          Collection of word images with a computer voice-over. Robot reading poetry.

IN CLASS WORK:

I never knew that Wilco took its inspiration from Dickinson and other major poets and authors. In fact, Tweedy admits to taking a number of verbs from Dickinson poems when in the process of writing songs in the album The Whole Love (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/10/emily-dickinson-music_n_1140778.html#s534157&title=Jeff_Tweedy_Born).
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/10/emily-dickinson-music_n_1140778.html#s534157&title=Jeff_Tweedy_Born
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilco#Musical_style_and_influence