RiP: A Remix Manifesto from Laurent LaSalle on Vimeo.
I mentioned this documentary in class the other day, but after watching it again I wanted to post it, not only because it is relevant to what we were talking about in class, but also because it is just a really good documentary. I realize its longer than our usual posts, but if you have some time and want to watch a good doc, check it out.
The producer really got creative with a lot of different parts of this movie. For example with the titles, I love the way he used colored labels and tape in a stop motion way to make it more interesting. Another good example is when he begins talking about when he was born, he takes home photos and puts them together into sort of a collage, mixed with archival footage, then an animation of how the internet works. For me this is inspiring because it reminds me that not every second of a video has to be just things I shot, I can mix it up, get artsy with it, and still produce a documentary style piece.
This film brings up a lot of great points about copyright issues and what is fair use. Its crazy how expensive it is to be able to use even tiny bits of songs. And I was blown away by some of the lawsuits people are having to deal with. It really makes me want to cut up a bunch of Disney video and make something funny out of it.
I really loved this movie when I saw it as well and I thought that the graphics were particularly cool. It was interesting to see the way in which the movie was brought up in the book we just read and also how it was critiqued. It kinda made me see the movie in a new light. I mean I definitely appreciate the movie still, but knowing that they writers of the book feel that the filmmaker wasn’t exactly honest/right about copyright/fair use definitely has me questioning the film. They said that one section where he dips down the volume because he couldn’t pay for the music was a “powerful piece of miseducation.” While encouraging mashups of his own film as though it’s an act of resistance, the authors of the book note that the the filmmaker and his funders are actually utilizing copyright authority to license the use of the mashups. “Their gesture tells us nothing about anyone’s right to quote from copyrighted material without permission.”