Posts Tagged ‘video’

In addition to celebrating this past Sunday’s fourth birthday of Rock Band with a massive DLC giveaway, Harmonix is also giving us other treats, as well. The video they uploaded a short time ago to YouTube talks with some of the major stakeholders in Rock Band’s creation at Harmonix, and gets some interesting stories on the massive undertaking that is the Rock Band franchise. You’re not going to want to miss it!

[Thanks @ElektraFi for the heads up!]

PAX is serious business

Presented in its entirety, below is the video of Harmonix’s “Reverse Q&A” panel video from PAX 2011. The whole video comes in just shy of an hour, much like the previous PAX videos we have featured here on the site. As it is Harmonix, and they’ve got other products besides just Rock Band now, the video also talks about Dance Central, and their new iOS app Vidrhythm. Check out the entire video below, and as Anon said in the comments, the Rock Band discussion starts about 36 minutes in.

Outside of the music within the Rock Band franchise, one of the other things that stands out to me is the artwork, both in the game itself, as well as in promotion and internet content. One of the most iconic artists at Harmonix is Fish McGill, whose official capacity at Harmonix is Associate Producer. Fish’s artwork style is unmistakable, and can frequently be seen on most of RockBand.com’s blog items and podcast entries. A very good example of his work is featured in the header image above (click to see bigger).

Yesterday, G4TV featured Fish in their “Will Work for Games” segment. Check out his appearance below!

There have been some interesting ways in which artists, authors, and record labels have promoted their tracks in Rock Band in the past, but I think this is the one that probably makes the most sense. Cleveland metalcore band Affiance recently released a their music video for their song “Call to the Warrior,” where they take their RBN single for a spin in the game.

While I certainly don’t expect many bands to devote this type of exposure for Rock Band and their songs in game, but it’s a refreshing change from the sea of average music videos that are on YouTube nowadays. And it appears to be working, as the video has already garnered nearly 9,000 views since its debut on Friday.

“Call to the Warrior” by Affiance was originally released on the Rock Band Network this January. Check out the video in it’s entirety below, and then pick up the song to see if you can beat their score!

If I had a English accent, I would wonder to myself if I had made this whilst blacked out from a recent bender, but this is a surprisingly simple-to-use video on how to deal with Rock Band DLC. In a decidedly “Zero Punctuation” esque send-up, the folks from GameJournos.com pulled this simple, yet effective guide for those Rock Band players with the most finicky of music tastes.

And it wouldn’t be a Rock Band DLC video if there wasn’t at least one mention of Muse in it…

[GameJournos.com via @MrPope]

Not sure how the rest of you feel, but I think the live action opening cinematic for Rock Band 3 perfectly complimented the tone and new innovations added to the latest title in the franchise. Gone were the CGI “car-bands.” (Well, kinda. You can still see the car go by in the background of the very beginning of the intro.) With the addition of Pro mode, the cinematic had to reflect the tone that the game now lets you play REAL instruments. In fact, after seeing the opening cinematic at E3, it was one of the main pieces of inspiration behind the redesign here on the site.

Visual artist Bryce Wymer directed the cinematic along with Rama Allen and Ryan McKenna. On his blog, Bryce explains that the intro was shot over two nights on the streets and rooftops of Dumbo (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), NY. The image in the header was one of the storyboards used in the production process, and the one below was a concept board used. Notice one of the guys from Daft Punk added for additional flair! (And before you ask, this doesn’t mean Daft Punk was supposed to be in Rock Band 3.)

Directly below is a short “Making Of” vignette of the opening cinematic, followed by the cinematic itself… in case you needed reminding.

[Bryce Wymer's blog]