REmixed - Oops! I Did It Again

Found footage project I made a couple years ago. Gnarly.

REmixed - The Fender Element

Awesome mash up of The Fifth Element and Futurama.

©opyright Final Project - "Can' Stop It"

"Can't Stop It" by Gabriela Maestre & Sophie Shah is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Yey! After terrible rendering mishaps and failed exports, I was finally able to upload my Copyright final project. It was a group effort concocted by me and the wonderful Ms. Sophie Shah.

The video depicts remix culture at a very rudimentary level. We collected all of the footage from archive.org, a huge collection of licensable media that works closely with Creative Commons. Because the licensing is free and asks you to comply with easy requirements, we were able to legally remix other works and create a new one. We found "Frequencies Coming" by Blowz on jamendo.com, another site that concentrates on licensing music.

Thank You Internet! or Cyriak, My New Favorite on YouTube

Cyriak makes insane, WTF, animated shorts that just blow my mind. [Note to self: learn motion graphics.] In this interview a couple years ago, he makes a comment on how even though he is a loner, he would probably be in his apartment watching his shorts if there was no Internet. Thanks to the unlimited system of tubes, he gets thousands of hits on his growing list of videos.  Check out his channel here. Below is one of his newest videos called "Meow."

Why Would I Want A Record Player?

I really, really, really want a record player, just a basic turntable I can hook up to my Mac and speakers and listen to music. Considering that physical data storage devices (i.e. - records, cassettes, CDs) are becoming an outdated medium, it is interesting that people actually still buy vinyl records.

When I went to preschool, we would always have Sing & Dance time. The teacher would put some dainty music on and we would gather and dance in a circle. This was all circa 1990. Cassette tapes were still very much in use but my teacher would pull out vinyl records and play them for use to dance to. I can't even remember what songs were played, but yeah, they were played right off of vinyl records.

So what's the fascination with records? There's that understood debate that vinyl records have the best playback quality. I think even though quality is very important with music, the portability aspect is the biggest downfall of the record, and subsequently the CD. I know DJs use records but there is s much music engineering technology that most just hook up their computers to digital turntables and jam away.

I think this limitation in music portability is what made records, tapes and CDs so valuable. Think about it. It's the 90s. You're getting ready for a 5 hour flight, and you only have enough room for a couple CDs. You're gonna pick your favorite CDs or that new CD that you really want to listen to. I think we appreciated the CDs we kept with us more by not having all of our music with us all at once.

[Update: Probably won't get a turntable until I have my own apartment.]

Final Paper Topic

So finals are busting my butt, hence the lack of posts but I'm sure the holidays will bring many more fun internet stuff. In the mean time, I'm currently working on my Digital Media final paper due tomorrow around noon. Here's my topic, which will end up being a lot narrower once I write the paper:

Internet Phenomena and Remix Culture

    My final paper will consist of 3 main topics: Internet Phenomena (viral videos and memes), how and why they become viral in the first place; the Internet, how it serves as a platform for many forms of media – especially audio and video; finally, Remix Culture, how current society is obsessed with the reuse of original content, legalities over copyright infringement, and how the Internet and Internet phenomena correlate to the “procreation” of Remix Culture.
     Internet phenomena are very much present when any user surfs the web. But what is it about these videos or memes that attract Internet users? What causes a video or media in general to become viral? How has this affected communication, in the news and in advertising for example?
     The Internet has become a very large part of technology, especially in the advent of Web 3.0 and the still-present Web 2.0. What is Web 3.0? Why has it shifted from professional content to user content? What makes the Internet different from other media and communication platforms?
     Remix Culture has pretty much taken over all media industries, and continues to be massively produced throughout different mediums. What is the cultural significance of amateur media production? What are the implications of digital media for copyright? Can this movement exist without the Internet?

My final paper will be posted tomorrow (hopefully)!

[UPDATE: Thought it was a bit compromising if I posted an essay here but I did get a B on it!]

Internet Vices

Epic explanations of contemporary social media.