I’ve never really thought about the idea of a remix. But, in today’s world I feel many artists are doing this.  They are taking older songs and making it their own through a remix. They add new things to it, but important pieces of this older song are still incorporated. Take dubstep for example. I have heard many dubstep songs that “remix” popular genre music. It’s everywhere these days.

The first reference I looked at was RIP: A Remix Manifesto. It features a short documentary trailer on remix and how it is affecting the world today. Many artists say that it is stealing and that remixes are illegal. I can definitely see where they are coming from. It is THEIR work. However, this movie brought me back to the beginning days of ds106 and the creative commons. I do believe that sharing ideas, thoughts, and even music help create better things.

The second reference I looked at was the book trailer for Steal Like an Artist. I first watched the trailer, then started to explore the website. My favorite thing he said was “you are a mashup of what you let into your life”. I think this is true! We only let certain things in our life, and those things define us. The mashup of of things we let in remixes each individual into something unique. While I was looking through the pictures they had of the book I came across a picture of the page Good stealing vs. Bad stealing. I found this list very interesting. Since looking at a few references I am starting to get the idea that remixing has a lot to deal with creative commons and taking from others (this idea makes sense). One point on the list is that good stealing is stealing from many, while bad stealing is stealing from one. This idea confuses me. I’m not really sure why many is better than one. All the other points make sense but this one.

The first example I looked at was Star Wars Call me Maybe. This was an awesome remix!! It looks like an extreme amount of effort of cutting and putting things together were involved. It was a bit hard to understand with the switching between so many voices, but I embarrassingly know all of the word so I didn’t have too much of a problem. I am extremely impressed that the creator found all of the words in the Star Wars movies. I also did notice that this movie does have a credits section giving credit to the artist and the movie production company.

The second example I looked at was the Buffy vs. Edward: Twilight Remix. This is a perfect example of remix. It takes two films Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. Both have a complete opposite idea of the other. However, the creator of the remix makes the audio and scenes match up as if to tell a new story. This is basically the concept of remixing: to take older things and combine with other things to make a new idea. The only thing I would complain about is the backgrounds don’t really match up and the colors are funny. But, I am assuming in remixing you run into this problem a lot! Since the two film ideas are complete opposite, this new story is quite funny and entertaining. As I was reading the snippet information I noticed the explanation about creative commons license. This video doesn’t have an credits, but dos have this information.

The third example I looked at was Can’t Tase this. A bit cruel, but funny at the same time. When I first saw it I questioned its remix authority. It’s definitely simpler than the other remixes I looked at. It just simply includes one scene that is incorporated into the “Can’t touch this” music video. No other words are used except “Don’t tase me bro”. It’s much simpler, but it is taking two pieces of media and putting them together. However, it doesn’t create something especially new. It just replaces a few words in the song, but doesn’t necessarily create a new song itself. There was also no evidence of a creative commons license of giving credit to MC Hammer or where the Don’t tase me video came from. So, to me the whole idea is a bit iffy on the remix.