Agents of Secret Stuff

Hi everyone


Today I am writing about a Youtube short movie I saw recently.  The movie is called Agents of Secret Stuff and runs for 35 minutes.

http://agentsofsecretstuff.com

The movie is about a teenage spy.  He is a part of the group calling themselves Agents of Secret Stuff(or ASS for short, and yes there are a lot of puns included).

The story is about Aden(Ryan Higa) a teenage spy who has to go on one final mission before becoming a full agent.  He has to go undercover to a highschool and protect Taylor from the S.I.N.S(Society Involving Not-so-good Stuff).  He goes undercover as José, although mispronouncing the name written on his hand introduces himself as "Josie".  He has never had any real friends, so he finds it hard to fit in.  He is also very jumpy about protecting Taylor from possible SINS agents, attacking other students to try and protect her.

 Eventually she discovers that he is a secret agent, and agrees to help him become a "Normal" teenager(and teaches him how to ride a bike).

When the villain is revealed, and abducts Taylor Aden goes in pursuit. This leads to Aden and the villain facing off with some really amazing Kung-fu.

For an example of one of the humourous conversations:

Taylor: Look out Aden, It's a Trap

Aden Nooooooooooo

Villain: No it isn't

Aden: Oh, Ok

Taylor: No, it is a trap, look

*Aden looks down and sees a mouse trap*

Aden: A trap?

*Aden empties all of his gun's bullets into the mouse trap*

Aden: I destroyed your trap, it's over...

Villain: Oh is it? I beg to differ.  If anything it is the exact opposite.  It is "under".  See we have already won...

The hero, Aden is played by Ryan Higa (Youtube's most subscribed performer with 3 million subscribers as NigaHiga) .
He is very good at his comedy role as he is very expressive with his face.
He also manages some surprisingly good martial arts for the final fight scene.


He wrote and produced the film with the help of Wong-fu Productions.  Each actually brought everything they had to the production.  Ryan brought his action skills fans, and organised for a lot of other Youtube stars to make cameos in the film.  Wong-fu brought their professional film making staff and equipment to really add polish to the film.


It was made on a very slim budget and filmed in 8 days.  In one of the behind the scenes clips you can see that to get a panning shot during one of the fight sequences, a camera man lay on his back on a skateboard while someone pulled his feet.  The effect of the above shot is really impressive, rivaling some Hollywood cinematography.

imdb.com

Taylor, the heroine, and love interest(was that really a spoiler?)
She plays off Ryan Higa very well as the slightly shocked school girl thrown into a world of espionage and intrigue.
She even has some surprises up her sleeve.














Some of the Youtube Celebrity Cameos

myspace.com

Rawn Erickson plays Tracey, Aden's mentor in ASS.  He only has a small part, but sums it up quite well with the line:

<squeaks> "Tracey can be a man's name too"

youtube.com

Smosh, Famous for their Pokemon theme sing along, also make an appearance as two other students.
Interestingly they both end up being attacked by Aden, but that is another story...










Melvin, another classmate is played by the dancer, Dominic Sandoval.  He plays a geeky classmate really well.




















Well I thought it was a really well made funny movie.  There is a particularly funny scene regarding knocking
 people unconscious using pressure points.
Overall I would give this movie 9/10 for effort, and quality.


The video is here:

Let me know what you think of it.
Question for the day:
Who is your favourite youtube comedian?

mflow

Hey everyone

I would like to tell you all about a cool new website that I found recently. It is called mflow. It is a social music webstore.

The premise behind the website is that you can recommend music(by creating "flows") to your friends, allowing them to listen to the full song. The really unique point on the website is that if someone who just listened to one of your referrals buys the track, you get 20% back as a commission to buy more music.

Currently they are running three promotions to get users to join:

• While most flows only display on their website, the first 5 songs which you choose to post to either your twitter or facebook will be available as free downloads to you.

• In order to further promote the site they also give you a bonus £1 if you sign up from a referral emailand confirm your address. This also gives £1 to the person who referred you.

• While most tracks cost 99p each, as a promotion with promo code "20x20" for the next 20 hours you can get any tracks you want for 20p each. (they frequently post other promo codes on their blog)

Their music selection seems pretty decent so far with over 5 million songs. While not all songs are available yet(who would ever think 5 million songs could "not be enough"?), some popular artists/songs are not available yet(Greenday etc) but does have some surprising artists (Dozi anyone?)

Another unique feature is the people wall which allows you to find new people to follow:

To keep the wall exciting it has different people each time you refresh, and a pair of "snake" like coloured boxes that stream around the screen.  It is kind of like a Where's Wally? of music listeners (can you spot me?)

If you are interested in joining the website you can sign up with the following link if you want the bonus £1

mflow.com

What is your favorite band?  And the second part of the question is are there any hard to find songs/singles that you are looking for?

Hands All Over

This is my first post in my music themed blog.

Maroon 5 released a new CD at the end of 2010 Called Hands All Over.

The albums first track(and also first single) is Misery. It is about about the singer singing to a girlfriend he has just broken up with. It makes surprisingly good use of the line "I am in misery". Generally I am not a fan of bad English use, but this line just evokes such feelings that I think that it works rather well. One other line in it which I think works quite well is "So scared of breaking it, but you wont let it bend". One of the things that makes this song interesting is it has an upbeat beat to the song.

The title track (Hands All Over Me) is about the singers insecurities. He needs his girlfriend to comfort him that everything will be okay. This song probably has the second best tune to follow(after Misery)

One very surprising track I found was a cover of Alicia Keys If I Ain't Got You. This is a very powerful song about how much he wants his girl, instead of anything else.

The last track is a cover of Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love. This song always makes me think of the 50's and Grease

Let me know what you think of these tracks