David Archuleta “Something ‘Bout Love” a review

by Sami Ponoroff
David Archuleta
“Something ‘Bout Love”

Albeit they do not provide a new perspective, the visuals and vocals of David Archculeta’s “Something ‘Bout Love” video are fresh and visually appealing. Also, Director Declan Whitebloom provided the audience with both widely popular and artistically appropriate details in his composition: the video is full of short clips of strangers doing altruistic, love-inspired deeds and is sprinkled with solar flares and shadowing.

Archuleta’s message — that love is all-powerful, etc. — is successfully carried throughout the video. Acting as a third-person omniscient narrator, Archuleta serves as the video’s semi-invisible, all-knowing observer who knows, understands the effects of love on people. By creating a divide between Archuleta and the nameless characters, Archuleta is in turn closer connection to his viewers.

“Something ‘Bout Love” is a successful music video because Director Declan Whitebloom created a relationship between Archuleta and the viewer; the viewer is instantly attached to the catchy song and appealing video.

The Kodak Zi8 Review

by Diana Ciuca

I have a few too many video cameras at my disposal recently (I’ll post a video to show you). Given that, I was able to compare the new Kodak Zi8 to them and help you, the loyal consumer looking for a great gift this winter, find the best product that fits your needs Remember when Motorola Razr phones were all the rage? I do. Every 7th grader had one that fit nicely into their pocket while I had an unpopular yet better quality, bulky Nokia phone – my brick. Now that I’m older, I have a purse and don’t worry as much about the huge bulges in my pocket, so I will naturally opt out for better quality, yet chunkier things – much as our society now does with phones. One of those things is a camera. My mom bought a nice Canon camera that was affordable, large, and great quality.
Now, back to video cameras. People tend to treat the new Flip Cam as they treated Razr phones. They’re cool, hip, desireable — BUT the quality is sub par. Sure, it has a USB jack like the Kodak Zi8, but it hardly has the quality. The Kodak Zi8 features both Macro and Distance shooting (which doesn’t work as well if you’re right in between both). It also has a feature that sends it miles apart from the competition: a mic jack. No, not necessarily so that you can hear sound (although I’m sure you can do that), but so that you can have better sound quality in your videos as opposed to a dissonant sound from afar.
I also compared the Zi8 to my red flip HP v5040u (gosh, that’s a mouthfull) and the professional Canon we use to shoot our interviews. All of these offer HD recording at 1080p (p = pixels, presumably). Although the Canon fares way above the rest, it is also the most expensive and least pocket-worthy. I would not randomly throw it into my purse as I would with my HP v5040u or Zi8. Those are camcorders meant to be sold to the populace, for the common man, the average joe. And for that reason, you need to know that you are getting the best product for the most appropriate price.
According to Tiger Direct, a website perfect for comparing electronics, the Zi8 is around $180 (but only $150 at Walmart). and the Flip UltraHD is $140. From the HP Direct site, the v5040u is $150. Thus, you get what you pay for. I find the Flip Ultra HD not user-firendly given its tricky touch screen and multiple options, and it also lacks in video and photo quality. The HP camcorder is similarly difficult, although cool with its flip-out capabilities and light for dark situations. By far, I prefer the Zi8 since it is easy to use, has great quality video and camera, and fits the best in my purse. I guess its not the fancy name that counts, but the use you find out of it. By far, I would go with the Zi8.
If not, just use your bulky digital camera’s video capacity to get the job done – although it won’t have the massive storage capabilities (each camcorder comes with a memory card with a heft GB memory like 40GB) or quality of the aforementioned products. Try out the products at a store nearby, but whichever fits best is your hand, purse, or pocket is ultimately the right fit.

Check out the Kodak Zi8 at: http://store.kodak.com/store/ekconsus/en_US/pd/Zi8_Pocket_Video_Camera/productID.156585800
And don’t forget to look for my videos that I’ll be posting soon.

Ice Ice Baby by Diana Ciuca

Ice, Ice, Baby.

Cool, clean, cute: ICE. Ice watches are simple, silicone, and stylish. I apologize for all the alliteration but these watches really have got me amped. I have a watch: it’s black, metallic, Kenneth Cole, but it doesn’t particularly stand out. However, it is functional, as watches are. I suppose that is another often overlooked point; not only are watches fashionable, but they conveniently tell you the time.

Now, instead of having to dig in your purse or pocket to whip out your cell phone to check the time, you can easily look at the nice accessory on your wrist known as a watch. I hope they haven’t lost their practical value since cell phones have rapidly replaced them.
Now that you’re convinced that life without a watch is meaningless – and that a cell phone is not a watch – allow me to demonstrate why an ice watch is the hottest new thing to grab. While working, I complimented a customer whose watch seriously stood out (prior to being introduced to Ice watches) was one with a studded faceplate and braided-texture silicone band akin to an ice watch.

Similarly, a week later I read an article in Neurology Now featuring Cindy McCain, John McCain’s wife, sporting a similar item in white. I was given a purple one to review. That’s the beauty of these ice watches: they come in such a variety of colors that they can be easily matched or mixed up. While I’m bland and prefer black, nothing stopped my mother from “borrowing” my watch and receiving some praise about it, too. Even if my fancy customer and Cindy McCain might have worn different brands than Ice Watch, only this brand has so many different colors, from plain white with different faceplates to a plethora of band colors to match the season (check out their new winter line!). Buy them and wear them like skittles, or have only one that makes you stand out every day.
For more info, check out www.ice-watch.com.  My video is coming soon!!

Drowning Pool Interview

Drowning Pool Phone Interview:

Paige: Well, first I would like to thank you for taking the time to talk with us (Rock Star Stories) today.
Drowning Pool: Yeah, not a problem.
Paige: First why don’t you tell us how you first got started in performing music? Did you always know as a child that this would be the career path for you?
Drowning Pool: Um.. You know honestly we didn’t think about it as a career for a long time, we just enjoyed doing it always. You know Mike and I had a little garage band at the end of High School you know it was just something we did for fun… and then we started doing it for the four of us.. you know me and Mike, CJ and Dave around Dallas to really have fun play clubs, earn money you know in our younger days it was mostly revolved around the parties.. Have a big fun.
Paige: So you would say this was mostly for leisure and the crowd’s pleasure?
Drowning Pool: Yeah, and you know slowly but surely just over the course of a year… every time we played it would turn into a mad house and one of our songs goes to a local radio station and everyone goes crazy so then here we are the four of us living in this little tiny crappy one bedroom apartment together and every label in the country is calling our old school roaders phone. It was just a real time that went from not taking anything then BOOM it’s a real career.
Paige: What was your first song that became widely played on the radio?
Drowning Pool: Well the first song in Dallas was a song called Tear Away, and that was the songs that lead us to a record deal. Once we had that record deal, the label decides that the first song should be Bodies, and that was our first nationwide song.
Paige: And what is that song about?
Drowning Pool: Bodies? Its about kids in a mosh pit. It was a song we wrote about our live show. It was kind of like our prospective from the stage you know seeing kids moshing, stage diving and all that crazy stuff.
Paige: So would you say you are happy that the Nation recognized you by that first hit? Were you happy to be known as the group who sang that song Bodies?
Drowning Pool: Yeah of course. You know here it is, we’re ten years later after that song came out and every night we played it, people would just lose their mind you know? I don’t know what it is that’s so relatable about that song, but you know ten years later people still go nuts every time we perform that song. You know every time we play it just seeing the crowd react that way it just gives the song energy for us.
Paige: With writing song you must have some inspiration from somewhere. Do you get it from a certain object, or other bands that you look up to?
Drowning Pool: Most inspiration comes from facing your idea that what you want to do and what you want to write as a kid and what you used to listen to and for us, it was a lot of Metallica, Anthrax, Motley Crew, and mostly the bands big in the late 80’s. That’s mostly where the bands identity I would say evolved.
Paige: What have you guys been up to now? Are you out across the nation touring?
Drowning Pool: Yeah we’re on tour with Five finger Death Punch and God Smack right now.
Paige: What city are you currently located in?
Drowning Pool: Today, we are in Sacramento.
Paige: What would you say your favorite venue to play there is? Or in general?
Drowning Pool: Today we are at the Arco Arena, but theirs a lot of cities we do really well in Kansas city, Dallas, Denver, but there is one venue though that I love that Ive been to but we’ve never been able to play a show there called Red Rocks in Denver. Have you heard of it?
Paige: Actually, no I haven’t? Tell us a little about why you like it.
Drowning Pool: It’s like this outdoor little amphitheater that’s kind of built into the mountain.. it’s an awesome place. If you watch U2, they have a live video shot at Red Rocks. It’s just a really awesome place.
Paige: When you aren’t touring, what do you tend to do on your down time? Do you spend it with the band, family friends?
Drowning Pool: Well, we are all huge football fans so we spend a lot of time on the bus watching games. We even have our own Drowning Pool fantasy league. A lot of stuff is very sports related for us.
Paige: So being from Dallas, im assuming you’re all big Cowboy fans?
Drowning Pool: Absolutely, living in Dallas my whole live im a huge Cowboys fan.
Paige: During the tour do you have a way for your fans to follow you and see news updates from the band?
Drowning Pool: We have all that cool stuff: Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and our own personal website. We are all into Social Networking for our fans.
Paige: Thank You very much for taking the time to talk with us today and good luck with the rest of your touring.
Drowning Pool: No Problem, Thank you for talking with me.