iriver I’ve Made it Award

iriver ‘I’ve Made it Award’

iriver has announced Bipolar Badwise and Chas Mackinnon as the recipients of the iriver ‘I’ve made it’ award which recognises gifted young music and video producers.

The last winners, Dukes of Windsor, have had such success in the music industry, which made it hard for iriver to select another band which they believed could be Australia’s next audio and visual sensations.

Bipolar Badwise won the award in the music category section, they are a three-piece electro group, making a rapid rise from obscurity and building a steady following along the way. Self described as ‘young, bring, eager Melburnians’ Bondy, James and Brent, site a deep-seated passion for music and an appreciation of first-wave electro as the main influence behind their music. Recently topping the Triple J Unearthed Dance Charts, these boys are a massive talent and definitely one to watch for the future.

Chas Mackinnon won the ‘I’ve made it’ award in the video production category, he is a multimedia design student, who scripted and produced his piece with the ‘I do what I like’ theme firmly in mind. Edited from six hours of footage, Chas displayed an instinctive approach to angles and sequencing that judges are keen to see further developed.

iriver had no shortage of entries for this inaugural monster comptetion, with composition and video production amazing the judges; Mark Simpson, Director of Sydney based animation agency Sixty40; MTV’s James Rowlings, Woodstock Studios’ Cam Trewin; Ned Dwyer, Managing Editor of popular Australian dance music blog Electrorash; Clem Kennedy from CR Kennedy and Reece Hobbins, Creative Director of The Taboo Group.

iriver is a brand that prides itself on creating media-players that are beautiful in their simplicity and easy-to-use, designed with the consumer foremost in mind and that is why they are touted as the ‘music junkies choice’.

At a local level iriver have worked hand-in-hand with local companies and industry to uncover talented musicians as part of their indie initiative. As part of the iriver indie project in 2006, iriver sponsored indie band Dukes of Windsor, providing the band with the means to record their debut album, The Others.

In 2007 following the national success of TV Rock’s club anthem Flaunt It, iriver introduced the house music duo (Ivan Gough and Grant Smillie) to Dukes of Windsor, this introduction acted as a collaboration for the band’s first single, The Others.