Film Adaptation: A Form of Remix?

During my visit to the movie theatre over the weekend, I was presented, as per usual, with a series of trailers for upcoming films. One of which, entitled ‘Red Riding Hood’ I found to be quite interesting as it was a remake of the traditional children’s story "Little Red Riding Hood". This particular adaptation was not an exact replication of the original, however borrowed a number of recognizable themes and characters. Although primarily based around a love triangle between a young woman (Amanda Seyfried) and two men, the film also incorporates the traditional character of the wolf, and the several key props (red cape and picnic basket) that anybody who read the story would be instantly familiar with. I started to think about this concept of ‘borrowing’, and concluded that this, as well all other film adaptations, could be considered remixes. Whether the director chooses to stay true to the original text (original text meaning a story, a poem, another film, a real life event etc.), or use the general idea as a platform for a new concept entirely (for example ‘Red Riding Hood’), he/she is creating a remix of someone else’s work.

Just as any other remix (whether it be a song, a fan fiction video, etc.), the viewer walks into the film adaptation with preconceived ideas and judgments based on their opinion of the original work. For example, if someone had never seen the story prior to watching ‘Red Riding Hood’, they would interpret it much differently than someone who had childhood memories of reading Little Red Riding Hood. Despite these differing opinions, the director of the film adaptation is creating a NEW meaning from an old text. Rather than sticking with the original ‘girl walks to grandma’s house and encounters a wolf’ storyline, the director recreates meaning by incorporating a love story, by giving the setting a historical context, and also by creating new themes and characters entirely. The debate over which one is better – an original or its ‘remix’ – is up to the individual viewer.

Here is a link to the trailer for those of you that are interested in watching! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM8V3cHdSC4

Film Adaptation: Form of Remix?

During my visit to the movie theatre over the weekend, I was presented, as per usual, with a series of trailers for upcoming films. One of which, entitled ‘Red Riding Hood’ I found to be quite interesting as it was a remake of the traditional children’s story. This particular adaptation was not an exact replication of the original, however borrowed a number of recognizable themes and characters. Although primarily based around a love triangle between a young woman (Amanda Seyfried) and two men, the film also incorporates the traditional character of the wolf, and the several key props (red cape and picnic basket) that anybody who read the story would be instantly familiar with. I started to think about this concept of ‘borrowing’, and concluded that this, as well all other film adaptations, could be considered remixes. Whether the director chooses to stay true to the original text (original text meaning a story, a poem, another film, a real life event etc.), or use the general idea as a platform for a new concept entirely (for example ‘Red Riding Hood’), he/she is creating a remix of someone else’s work.

Just as any other remix (whether it be a song, a fan fiction video, etc.), the viewer walks into the film adaptation with preconceived ideas and judgments based on their opinion of the original work. For example, if someone had never seen the story prior to watching ‘Red Riding Hood’, they would interpret it much differently than someone who had childhood memories of reading Little Red Riding Hood. Despite these differing opinions, the director of the film adaptation is creating a NEW meaning from an old text. Rather than sticking with the original ‘girl walks to grandma’s house and encounters a wolf’ storyline, the director recreates meaning by incorporating a love story, by giving the setting a historical context, and also by creating new themes and characters entirely. The debate over which one is better – an original or its ‘remix’ – is up to the individual viewer.

Here is a link to the trailer for those of you that are interested in watching! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM8V3cHdSC4

Movie trailers - premature, determinist remixes?

(SPOILER ALERT: In this post, I discuss the movie 127 Hours, involving some revelation of key moments of the film. Moreover, as I'll get to, I found the second linked trailer to be an offensive spoiler of the film itself, so, with this in mind, navigate this post with caution) :)

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how the process of watching movie trailers can really affect the process of watching a movie itself, and the case of the fantastic 127 Hours, which I watched yesterday, proves a definitive example.

The film was marketed by two very different trailers, one which I saw countless times before watching the movie, and one which I (thankfully) saw after having already watched the film itself.

Here’s the first one, officially referred to as the ‘teaser’.

This, to me, proved the perfect example of a trailer setting up the audience for the experience of watching the film while ultimately divulging little in terms of content or plot – the bulk of the film starts right when the trailer ends - thus serving to pique interest without excessively slanting expectations.

In contrast, here’s the second trailer.

As you can see, the second trailer focuses extensively on the process of Ralston’s actually being trapped by the rock, and the eventual ‘testament to the human spirit’ interpretation of the film. This shift in focus of the trailer was likely reactionary to early controversy of audience members fainting due to the graphic content of the film, with Fox attempting to stress it as a tale of human perseverance rather than an exploitative story of entrapment and torment.

Nonetheless, this second, more ideologically guided trailer irritated me for not only spoiling what I found to be the best part of the film (Ralston’s on camera ‘confessional’) but also shaping the interpretation of the film for viewers too overtly. The joy and emotional impact of the film for me lay in experiencing Ralston’s stream of consciousness ‘journey’ alongside him and arriving at the interpretation boasted by the trailer as a process, rather than coming in with such a preconceived agenda in mind.

I found this to be relevant to the blog because we’ve talked extensively about the process of remix as something done after the fact: taking texts that are understood as ALREADY KNOWN by audiences and, through juxtaposition and editing, ascribing new meanings or interpretations to them. That said, a movie trailer is, by definition, a remix of the film itself, but in the case of the latter 127 Hours trailer, it seemed almost as if that process of recontextualizing meanings was being done in advance rather than after the fact.

I don’t presume to take a hard and fast position on the ethics of remix and its reprocessing of meanings and readings of texts, but I did think it would be worth speculating on premature textual remix, and whether it almost defeats the purpose of reworking the ‘message’ of a text when it is done before consumers have had the chance to experience the original text itself. I know this might not be the best example necessarily because 20^th Century Fox assembled the trailer in the hopes of luring in larger audiences, but I did find it worth speculating on how intrinsic being retrospective is for remix.

Similarly, to momentarily cite Walter Benjamin, I started to wonder whether remixing past texts might jeopardize the intended ‘aura’ or meaning for those who aren’t already familiar with it as a text in the same way that I would have found 127 Hours entirely ruined for me had I watched the latter trailer before seeing it. Should there be some kind of 'spoiler alert' in remix practices to suggest acquiring awareness of the source text first, thus maximizing how the new textual messages were coded through differentiating from the initial ones?

Now, a “Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor” remix of 127 Hours? THAT I’d love to see.

Race Remixed

There was a great article that I read this morning in the New York Times that I think goes along great with the Gilroy reading for this week regarding race. The article in the Times entitled "Race Remixed" discusses new senses of identity and how the United States is currently in the middle of a demographic shift. Within the first portion of the article, it is said that "many young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity" which relates to what we discussed today in lecture. The modern world is considered to be western and white, so often our understanding has lead to a certain counterculture that I think is very interesting to study. It is said that most Americans consider themselves to be a single race, and even President Obama considers himself black, even though his mother was white. With the growing number of mixed-race Americans, more and more people are checking more than one box on forms such as the racial census and its causing quite a debate. You can click here to check out the article in its entirety, and is accompanied by a video along with some images and other multimedia. Enjoy!

White Panda

White Panda is a group of two individuals, Tom Evans (Procrast) and Dan Griffith (aka DJ Griffi) who have become famous for creating remixes from old and new songs alike. The group is based out of Chicago and Los Angeles. White Panda formed in early 2009 and has released a series of musical remixes that usually feature an American Top 40 song that has been remixed with another artist and/or an older song.

An example of this is their remix called Drake and Diane, which you can access here. This song mixes Drake's song "Over" with John Mellencamp's song "Jack and Diane" to create a mashup that showcases both the hip-hop/rap music Drake creates with the American pop-rock image that Mellencamp endorses.

White Panda, like many other remix artists, brings into question issues of ownership and authorship. It can be questioned whether the material White Panda is creating can actually be called their own. The sense of belonging that is created with an original work is now questioned, as is the concept of the original work itself. Do the remixes that White Panda is making constitute what it means to be original? Or are the remixes White Panda is creating simply just an act of repetition and recombination of old forms? These are some of the questions that can be asked of Remix Culture.

A friend of mine attended the White Panda concert in London, ON this past weekend and noted that the audience that was in attendance at the concert was different than she had expected. Does this mean Remix Culture is reaching out to a different group of people than what the original music was capable of? The groups that listen to Drake and John Mellencamp can be said to be very different but when the two types of music are combined, does a new audience and consumer group form?

To listen to more of White Panda's music, their whole discography can be downloaded (for free!) here. It's great to see that remix artists such as White Panda seem to be more about sharing their talent and getting their voice and their creations heard rather than purely publishing their content for monetary and economic value. As danah boyd states in her article "Blogging Out Loud: Shifts in Public Voice," remix is a bi-product of cultural consumption and one that expresses identity development. By allowing the public to download their music for free, White Panda is able to experience the reactions of the public and from these reactions, they are able to figure out where they sit in the realm of cultural consumption and how to remix themselves into popular culture in a more meaningful way and at a more successful level.

Dance Remix

I was recently going through some old e-mails and I found a couple neat youtube videos from years ago. Both consist of remixes and both have the common theme of dance.

I'm sure many of you have experienced the first video, "The Evolution of Dance", which you can watch here. The video consists of a mashup of 20+ songs, starting with Elvis and in consecutive order, ends with Jay-Z. The dancer on stage, Judson Laipply, demonstrates the most relevant and recognizable dance that can be associated with the song and the era communicated through each song. Because this one mashup samples songs in a timely fashion, it tells a sort of story of not only the music that was popular throughout the years, but also of the way popular dance has evolved over time. Laipply does a fantastic job of demonstrating these dances, and what makes it so entertaining for us to watch (even though we did not live through the years in which most of the dances were popular), is that through repetition, we are able to recognize and identify with most of the dances. This particular mashup of song and dance acts as a quick look-back and we can gather a general idea of the musical changes that have happened over time.

The other remix I discovered is one with a similar theme. It it is a series of dance scenes from movies, complied together to one single song, 'Footloose'. You can watch the video here. This video is a compilation of scenes from films from the 1940's with Fred Astaire tapping, to Mary Poppins, to Sandy and Danny dancing in Grease, to Jessica Alba hip-hoppin' in the 2003 movie Honey. What is so interesting about it is that even though all of these scenes are from such different eras and are in such different styles of dance, they all work together to go with the very catchy song. The overall social commentary of this video is more about the last 80 years of dance coming together and successfully working together to create something very entertaining.

I thought that you would all enjoy these videos and that they could be a good basis for topic of discussion regarding remix and dance.

An Online Life

I, like, 98 percent of the rest of Canada's population (this may be a slight statistical exagerration) spend a significant portion of their day online for various reasons. 1) Because I am a student, a lot of my readings are online, as well as a lot of research material 2) it connects me to my friends and family--e-mail, facebook, blogger, tumblr, etc. 3) it entertains me (hello youtube!). While I truly believe that the internet is an amazing thing, and do not want to give it up any time soon, I have started noticing some things which are, for lack of a better phrase, scaring the crap out of me.

Whenever I feed my facebook addiction and log on (my other browser is loading facebook as I type) I notice that the ads on the side of my homepage all pertain to things that I frequently look up. Ads for obscure movies I want to see, upcoming book releases from my favourite authors, discount jewlery--it's all there, begging for me to click on it and spend. It's weird, and a little freaky. I started thinking about why my facebook would be sending me ads that appear to be catered specifically to me. And then it came to me: I never, ever, ever read the terms of agreement for anything that I sign up for. I know its bad, but I feel confident saying that most people are in the same boat as I am. Who really wants to read dozens of pages of absolute boring rambling? Not many. Well, maybe I should.

I always knew the internet was not the most secure of places to share personal information, and we've all heard the horror stories of viruses, hacked e-mails, and credit card theft. So, I've always been careful about my personal info on the net. But these cassy-specific ads are tangible proof that it is just so easy to give away bits of personal business online and not even realize it. Facebook knows what kinds of ads to give me, because I gave it permission in the terms of agreement to follow my facebook activities--what pages do I like? What groups do I search for? It's creepy, weird, kind of genius, and completely my own fault.

But despite all of this, to facebook I will go as soon as I click "publish post".

Within our current capitalist entertainment industry, we (as consumers) not only accept franchise films as they are given to us, but are also given the opportunity to interact with them. It is our job to deconstruct and reconstruct these films in order to make them meaningful, or make them a part of our own lives. New perspectives are brought to life, perhaps different than the intentions of the filmmaker. However I can't help but think... is this consumerism by another name? Creating fan films do allow individuals to interpret the director's visions in their own way, or perhaps even change them, however it is still a form of consumerism. In order for one to create a fan film, or even for a viewer to understand it, there needs to be a pre-existing knowledge of the film and its characters/storyline - therefore it had/has to be consumed at some point. Here is an example of a fan film that I found to be quite funny entitled 'Star Wars vs. Titanic'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtTTWfpWf_c

It is an example of transformative storytelling, combining narratives of both The Titanic and Star Wars to recreate a new story; a battle of the two monster Hollywood movies at the box office. Enjoy!

Remixing Identity

In this digital age it is hard to find someone who isn’t on Facebook. Everyone has some kind of online persona and with sites like Facebook and YouTube it can be difficult to control what kind of images are representing you. This is particularly true for celebrities, whose iconic status is often exploited by media such as entertainment magazines or comedy videos. For example, VeryMaryKate.com is a website that publishes “the unofficial biography of Mary Kate Olsen” in comedic videos.

Moving Out - Very Mary Kate

This remix of a real life creates a character out of a real person and creates narratives around her for entertainment. The video exploits what we know about Mary Kate Olsen and gives us a look into what her personal life might be like.

It is also possible to remix your own online persona. This article from the Vancouver sun gives tips on managing your online identity before applying for a job or a promotion.

Your Online Persona Reflects your True Image - Vancouver Sun

I think this idea of changing and altering your online identity fits in well with our definitions of remix, but on a very personal level. Every time we make a status update or post some pictures, we are remixing and altering the way people are perceiving us, be it positively or negatively.

Make Something Fresh, Out Of Something Stale

As we have begun to realize within lecture, the word remix has many different meanings. It is one thing to hear about it or read about it, but this is one film that goes beyond what I ever expected. Within this documentary, RIP!: A Remix Manifesto, we learn many valuable things regarding remix and copyright. We are introduced to a side of the media that not many people are comfortable discussing and are left pondering what is creativity and what is simply illegal. Taking over six years to make, the film features many remix artists ranging from Girl Talk to Gilberto Gil - each telling their own tale regarding the issues that they have had, or are continuing to have, regarding the many issues surrounding remix culture. I really don't want to give much away, because I really hope that you will take the time (totally worth it) to check it out. Personally, I thought that this documentary was very informative; I even found myself watching it a few times over. It was nominated for many awards when it was initially released back in 2009, and I highly, highly recommend watching it if you never have before. If you are interested, the link can be found below!

RIP!: A Remix Manifesto - Click Here

Remix as Art

I just studied Rudolph Arnheim’s theory on “Film as Art”, and I want to use his structure to prove remix culture is art. Many educated people would argue film is not art it is just reproducing reality mechanically and Arnheim’s goal is to prove this notion wrong. Many educated people may similarly argue that remixed music is not art, it is just a reproduction of the musical art already created. To prove this wrong Arnheim goes over the basic elements of film medium and how different these images are from reality through using artistic resources and working principles of film art (such as camera lenses, continuity editing, and lighting effects to name a few). Similar to film medium elements that allow film to go beyond recreating reality there are digital audio elements that allow remix to go beyond reproducing a song with options of using slight influence to create a completely different sounding song, or the choice to stay faithful to the original and just make a few tweaks in the guitar sound.

A music producer receives all elements of a song separately—guitars, acapella vocal, drums, bells all on a separate recording so the producer can use them or decide to recreate his own bassline, or drums. Remixed music is the reconstruction and rearrangement of a song using sparing or most of the components of the original piece. The main body of the remixed work is actually original work but new material that is only inspired by, not copied original themes. The artistic resources used are found in the digital audio work station and the series of modern audio techniques they are able to formulate. There is always something distinguishable between the original work and the remix, but the artistic remix work comes into play when the producer uses modern audio techniques that rearrange components, write new components and arrange them in a stylistic, unexpected, and at the same time coherent with the song style.

Arnheim claims “art begins when mechanical reproduction leaves off” meaning images we perceive through film is different from images we receive of physical world (Arnheim, 35). Similar to remix work the art begins when we listen to the finished product and it brings emotions and thoughts into our head that the original work might not have done. Music producers are people that create original works as well as remix other songs. Creator control proves that remix work is considered an art because for film they choose what is in the frame, what is left out, what angle, what is most prominent, filmed backwards in time, create new realities, show reality and subjective reality, etc. Creator control for music is the same, they choose what original elements are left in the song, what are taken out, what instruments will be re-written, what synthesizer they will use etc.

I would like to conclude by stating my belief that film is actually a remix, because it uses elements of reality, but is recreated. It is a mix of reality with fantasy and the producer’s imagination. It is influenced by many works and experiences and can often provoke emotions that reality may not in certain situations.

Here is an example of a remix that I enjoy better then the original song.

Original: Florence and the Machine "Rabbit Heart"

Remix: Florence and the Machine "Rabbit Heart" Featuring Switch

Source for post:

Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art, 8-65, 127-53.

Remix and Reclamation

This past weekend I attended the Kitchener Waterloo|Art Gallery opening of the new exhibitions. It was one exhibit in particular that struck me as such an awesome form of remix that I had to share it.

Something About Time is Colwyn Griffith's exhibit. It's a collection of print photography that all channels the same theme about time passing in both public and private spaces; Reclamation, a part of this exhibit, struck me to be a most inspiring and innovative form of remix and visual culture.

Reclamation is in essence a set of print photographs of fast food buildings; McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC, are all visible marked buildings that are turned into or repurposed to be new businesses. It solves the answer to the question: "what happens to the Pizza Hut when Pizza Hut leaves?" The building can be reclaimed for the public, created into an entirely new space; it can be remixed from a corporate paradigm into something completely different, even if it still serves the capitalist purpose.

I encourage everyone to try to get out and see this exhibit. When you look at the pictures, remember how we mark buildings, and remember how easily identifiable brands are (right down to the ARCHitecture). The remix of these pieces shows how remix can reclaim something as large as a building for an entirely new audience. The concept can easily be extrapolated to music, of course, but it goes to show how simply a change of name on a building can serve as a sort of cultural jam to McDonalds, or KFC.

It's worth recognizing landmarks for their value to the community, not for their corporate ties; this form of remix assists with that issue.



by Marcie

Check out this Mash-Up!

With the term remix culture in mind, when I think of cultural aspects of popular music, I instantly think of the mash-up. As most of you probably know, mash-ups are typically songs that have been created by mixing many pre-recorded songs together to create "original works" (I put the words "original works" into quotations due to issues surrounding copying, copyright laws, and other issues). For the past few years, the infamous DJ Earworm, also known as Jordan Roseman, has released short mixes of the top songs of the year that he has titled the United State of Pop mashups. At the end of 2010, DJ Earworm released his latest mashup, which can arguably be said to be better or worse than the previous years, but I'll leave that for you to decide. If interested, feel free to check out the video for DJ Earworm's mash-up below!

Remix and Ownership

As many Waterloo locals are probably aware, the beloved independent video store Generation-X has recently announced plans to close in late February, and that they will be selling off their stock of titles until then. I happened to make my way into the store on their first day of selling DVDs, and was (somewhat unpleasantly) shocked to see the store filled to the brim with customers ravenously grabbing huge stacks of DVDs from the shelves to purchase.

More on Generation-X’s closing here.

I found this somewhat overwhelming, but stopped to think: was this huge mass of people there simply to snap up rare DVDs? Or were they there for the nostalgic association of the discs, to be able to literally ‘take home a piece of Gen-X’ to help commemorate the store?

Here’s a particularly insightful first hand account of the DVD buying spree.

I felt the latter attitude to perfectly represent the idea of remixing identity and ownership of physical products. Remix is something generally understood to, by definition, defy notions of possession and ownership, often playfully pilfering from past works to create a new incarnation of them. In this case, the DVDs purchased would be recognized as not only being ‘from Gen-X’, but also, for the consumer, ‘theirs’ – a new, hybrid form of identity and ascribed possession.

To further complicate things, one of the major reasons for Gen-X’s closing is the impending financial threat to video rental stores of movie piracy and illegal downloading – which, of course, further defies traditional notions of possession and ownership. So, with this in mind, the fact that people still scrambled to buy DVDs shows that even with the possibility to have movies fully accessible for free (albeit without any sense of personal ownership) they still jump at the chance to have some kind of tangible ownership over products like that, especially, it would seem, if it incorporates some kind of remixed identity and emotional association like this.

As such, this Gen-X buying spree, to me, seemed to nicely sum up the idea of remix at its purest: wanting to have something definitively established already, but also being able to put one’s own stamp on it – a fusion of ‘ownership’ between the creator and the remixer.

Remixing Classic Art through the Apple interface

As technology becomes a more permanent fixture in the lives of younger generations, it is interesting and very intriguing to see that technology has the power to make old things seem new again.

A French artist, Leo Caillard, has made paintings featured in the Louvre, some of which are centuries old, new again by introducing the interface Apple uses on its products. People who view Caillard's exhibit are able to flick through the paintings as if they were flicking though images on a cell phone or iPod.

This article is featured in Wired magazine. You can access the entire article here.

I find this particularly interesting because Wired has developed an application for the iPad that brings its print version of the magazine to life. Instead of just writing about topics, Wired adds vitality to its topics by integrating how-to videos, drop-down menus, links to musical acts and other interactive forums.

To find more information about and to access the iPad application, click here.

With Caillard's exhibit making traditionally "high-class" material available to a user interface that the middle-class is more receptive to, the importance of remix culture is highlighted in today's society. Something old is transformed into something new and in turn is available to a different group of people.

Although I had read Wired magazine previous to downloading the application, I am now a much more avid reader and seem to have a higher degree of engagement with the readings since I can now interact with them.

Remix Culture can be used in many different ways to unveil old ideas, images, music, etc. in a way that inspires and engrosses new audiences, either for entertaining or serious purposes.