Posted by Elisa o n August 11th, 2010
Rich Juzwiak is a blogger for VH1 and his own pop-culture blog which means he spends an enormous amount of (well compensated) time watching and dissecting television. A couple years ago Juzwiak noticed an odd trend in competition-based reality shows, so he collected and edited the clips together. Once repeated and placed back to back, the absurdity and anti-social nature of game reveals itself. Almost Never in any real-life social situation outside the hyper-constructed world of reality tv would someone say the words “I’m not here to make friends”. The remix is great commentary on modern forms of mass media entertainment and it also manages to quickly illustrate how competition can cultivate and encourages deeply anti-social individualist behavior.
Juzwiak’s work and the “frenemy” debate was also explored on an episode of This American Life. These remixes are examples of what have become known as video Supercuts, obsessive video montages constructed from popular tv shows or movies that repeat a certain theme. A classic example would be this montage compiled from every time anyone says the word “dude” in the film The Big Lebowski.
And also check out the 2009 edition that continues to track disturbing “I’m Not Here To Make Friends” trend.
Category: montage
Topic Tags: capitalism, competition, hollywood, individualism, massmedia, reality_tv, supercut, television
Our favorite political pranksters The Yes Men have spoofed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland with an official looking imaginary website. As part of the project they have also created these fantastic re-dubbed video interviews with global economic, government and corporate leaders where each appear to speak in brutally honest ways about real problems and solutions. The remix video of Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) CEO Patricia Woertz apparently did not sit well with the agro-business giant because they quickly filed a takedown notice to have it removed from Youtube. Luckily for us the video is still live on vimeo.
ADM CEO Patricia Woertz (1:10)
http://www.vimeo.com/9011666
Klaus Schwab (1:03)
http://www.vimeo.com/9008921
Queen Elizabeth II of England (0:52)
http://www.vimeo.com/9008826
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (0:53)
http://www.vimeo.com/9008981
See more re-dubbed videos on the Yes Men’s parallel WEF site.
Category: news segment
Topic Tags: capitalism, corporations, economics, environment, government, identity correction
Posted by Elisa o n February 22nd, 2010
Eugene Jarecki, a documentary filmmaker who’s work includes the 2005 documentary Why We Fight, created this remix after making the connection between the current big bank bailout that fostered record profits and the story in the classic Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life. In the film, community banker George Bailey helps the people of Bedford Falls escape a predatory banker Mr. Potter. With support from top financial analysts and the Huffington Post, the idea grew into this project: Move Your Money.
If enough people who have money in one of the Big Six banks (JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it’s meant to be. — Move Your Money Campaign
Category: short film
Topic Tags: activism, banks, bush, capitalism, corporations, economics, identity correction, obama
Posted by Elisa o n August 28th, 2009
This remix by freeyourpixels is a short yet eloquent critique of the US Marines “Red Stripe” online ad campaign. The remix uses still images and TV commercial clips for source materials and implements additive text and precise match-on-action editing techniques to unite them. The red stripe transitions the viewer from one clip to next and was created using After Effects. It’s a brilliant, yet simple, visual motif which echos the brutal imperialist history of the US Marines. The Scarlet Stripe, said to commemorate the bloodshed by US Marine officers during the 1846 Battle of Chapultepec in Mexico, is more often referred to as the Blood Stripe.
Category: tv commercial
Topic Tags: capitalism, corporations, government, iraq, marines, military, terrorism, violence, war
Posted by Jonathan o n December 21st, 2007
This remix is a somewhat low quality visual telling of the 1848 Communist Manifesto using footage of American cartoon characters combined with DIY narration of the text for the audio. While I’m personally not a huge fan of Karl Marx, its a creative and subversive political remix.
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Category: short film
Topic Tags: capitalism, economics
Posted by Jonathan o n September 24th, 2007
This shopping network style remix is actually part of a larger video project called Surplus from ATMO Independent film collective.
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Category: short film
Topic Tags: advertising, capitalism, consumerism, corporations, economics
A classic political remix, made entirely by adding only extra subtitles to re-tale the story of Lord of the Rings in the context of neo-liberal free trade.
Although not quite as good, see part 2 at the link below, the sequel is called The Twin Towers and explores post-911 issues within the United States.
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2004/09/02/twintowers56k.mov
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Category: short film
Topic Tags: activism, capitalism, economics, free-trade, markets, war
