Can you believe that Camp Magic Macguffin has only 2 weeks left? Before you know it, your parents will be here to pick up up, will they even recognize you? In this week we explore the ideas of remixes and mashups, the artistic recasting of existing media into new forms by creative combination and editing. This will build off of your previous work in all media forms. And we will even remix assignments. Crazy!

Read below the fold to find out all the details of what you must complete by midnight on Sunday, July 22.

What is Remix?

We’ve already had a brief taste when you watched last week part 2 of Everything is a Remix when we examined the idea of originality. As part of your understanding, you are tasked with reviewing at least two of the references listed below on the concept and analyzing at least 3 of the examples listed.

Write up a blog post summarizing your understanding of remix, and explaining how the examples you watched demonstrated the form. Share your thoughts on whether this is a creative act and as well explore what it means for the entities that retain copyright over the media forms that are remixed. Include links and/or embeds of any media you reference.

Tag your blog post RemixThis.

References on Remix

Everything is a Remix http://www.everythingisaremix.info/

http://vimeo.com/14912890

http://vimeo.com/kirbyferguson/everythingisaremix3

Let Us Never Speak Of This Thing Again resources and audio from a ds106 session in 2011 from Brian Lamb

RIP: A Remix Manifesto a documentary on mashup culture featuring the work of Girl Talk

For some interesting perspective on art and remix, see Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist a book based on a compelling blog post

Disney used to Explain Copyright

Examples of Remix

Below is an assortment of remix examples, review at least 3 of them for your assignment or feel free to locate your own examples, just be sure to justify how they are remixes.

• Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed – two different sources re-edited to be coherent story
• Two Gentlemen of Leobowski mashing up Shakespeare and the Big Lebowski
• Star Wars Call Me Maybe a remix/recut mashup of Star Wars dialogue to tell a new tale
• Don’t Tase Me Bro/MC Hammer – news event mashed up with music
• Scary Mary (recut movie trailer – family movie reversed to Horror)
• The Shining Recut (recut movie trailer – horror movie reversed to be love story)
• Star Trek Meets Monty Python – redubbing

• Kel McKeown: Instructional Video – creating new sounds from recut instructional videos
• Hitler Downfall DMCA Takedown – retelling via captioning
• Literal Video Versions – music videos form literal interpretation of lyrics
• Odd Kid – lip sync and remix
• Sweded Films – low/no budget remakes of hollywood films
• Weird Al Yankovic Bob parody plus a twist, lyrics are palindromes
• Comic Strips Mashups
• Datamasher create interesting combos of data, rendered as visuals
• Overlooked ReMIX remixing video game music
• Make your own Obamaicon and read more about the issue of copyright claims on this well known design
• 30 Classic Music Albums Recreated With Lego

Mashup Assignments

Complete at least 7 stars of assignments from the Mashup Category of the assignment bank. Most of these require video editing and are are not trivial to complete. Start early!

If you don’t see an assignment you like, and you have an idea for one, submit it (Remember: Submitting 2 assignment ideas is a class REQUIREMENT for UMW students!)

Remix An Assignment

For this week, we are going to experiment with a new appliance in the ds106 cupboard–a remixer of exisiting ds106 assignments.

Here is how it works… go to the new ds106 remixer site at http://remix.ds106.us/ The new tool we have created is called the Remix Generator. When it loads, it will randomly choose one of the hundreds of ds106 assignments; as well it will serve up one of what we call “Remix Cards” which is a certain twist or variation to apply to the assignment.

Your task is to then interpret this as a new assignment- and do it. Not only that, we want you to look at the examples that were done for the original assignment, and use media from one of these as your starting point.

For example, one combination is combining the Wiggle Spectroscopy (visual assignment) with the Go Emo remix card – so the challenge there would be to create a wiggle visual that features an emo type character. To do this I might download the GIF created at http://www.generousworld.net/?p=101 and try to edit it to change a character.

It’s tricky! (And some combinations may not even be possible!) We are not as interested in what fabulous creations you can make, but how you can write up your and justify your interpretation of the remix assignment. If the remix generator gives you something that does not make sense, just reload.

For this week, you must complete and write up one Remix Assignment from this collection. If you are behind on any work in ds106, this is a place where you can make up some ground by doing an additional remix assignment. Most important is that you use the media from someone e;se’s work listed in the example section- be sure to link to their original assignment

Daily Creates

Complete at least 2 daily creates this week!! Make sure you blog about them at the end of the week. If you have taken on the Daily Create Seven Day Challenge, there is an new mashup assignment for you!

Letter Home

Your letter home this week should a video that incorporates some element of remix (maybe you can match your voice to a film clip?) We expect this to include at least three clips (these can be from your completed assignments or elsewhere) edited into the video of you talking about your week’s experiences.

Also, like last week, make sure there is some context to your blog post when you post the video, it should make sense to explain what the video represents (e.g. an introduction to the video). You should also have links to the blog post that you reference in the video.

All work is due Sunday, July 22 at Midnight.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2012 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.