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City of Sound is about cities, design, architecture, music, media, politics and more. Written by Dan Hill since 2001.

1Xtra Taggerz Toolkit

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Dan Hill

Taggerz is a new animated drama from BBC 1Xtra, following the lives of a crew of graffiti artists. It’s carried on the 1Xtra website, and wrapped neatly into on-air too.
One of the most interesting aspects for me is that we managed to get the download rights to the tunes as mp3s (from 1xtra-affiliated artists like Skitz, Panjabi Hit Squad etc) but even better, put many of the basic components of the animated series up there for you to download and reassemble. That’s the backgrounds, flash files etc. You can grab em, rebuild things, and send them back to 1xtra – who will do, er, as yet unspecified things with them. But I’m really pleased we’ve been able to get this far, in terms of letting people pull the media apart, component by component, in remixable form.
Taggerz
Major props to Dan Heaf and Jamie Cason, as well as everyone else who helped on it and worked it. You need to sign in to use it, due to some of the content, but once you’re in, head over to the ‘Downloads’ section.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/taggerz/

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2 responses to “1Xtra Taggerz Toolkit”

  1. Curmudgeon Avatar
    Curmudgeon

    While I applaud the technical prowess that’s gone into the ‘Taggerz’ I can’t help feeling this is a prime example of the BBC getting all (as was once said) ‘yo’. Who is this supposed to appeal to? It’s some mighty fine content poleaxed by woolly liberal thinking about what middle class media types think ‘da kidz’ want after talking to about 3 ‘young people’ from inner London. Graffiti? Death? Teenage pregnancy? It reads like bad sixth form poetry. It features a guest appearance by Alan Yentob ferchrissakes!! Also I can’t help thinking that the whole ‘download and do it yourself’ idea is pitched too low for real would-be animators out there.

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  2. nick Avatar
    nick

    ties in with what i’m hoping for soon: a collage/mix artist to release a dbl-disc album, the 2nd disc containing the original pieces/samples used to make one of the tracks off the first disc.
    ie amon tobin releases a disc with all the pre-edited loops/tracks used to produce “marine machines”. (in standard or mp3 format..)
    liscensing nightmare, but bleeding edge art.

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