To change the message from its original content I feel has been done time and time again. Many people have taken advantage of this technique for example:
My first response to this was to laugh but then when watching it go on I realized it wasn't very funny and just nonsensical. What is the message here? How does one maintain the comic sense of remix with a message (be it false or not) and use it as a tool to say something new that can be taken seriously while being enjoyed as a form of escapism? This I find is difficult.
Natalie Bookchin takes a more serious contemporary stand point and makes you dig for her commentary within a youtube phenomena world. What is the purpose of remix on youtube?
Last year, I had to make an appropriated found footage piece (http://www.vimeo.com/20040555). I decided to take the comedic route but was later punished in my critique for it being half-baked and not having a strong enough message. When discussed with my professor my intended message (the abuse of youtube as a tool) had not come across properly but was in fact a good message after-all. I found myself wanting to form a sense of escapism and communal laughter. Does everything have to be so serious?
I am left at an in between with this project to take the serious or comedic fashion. Yes, I am passionate about comedy but also do not want it to distract the viewer from the message. The remix experiment has begun. Wish me luck!
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ReplyDeleteWell put. As you mentioned above, the challange is finding that perfect balance between humor and seriousness so that the message gets communicated but does not take itself too seriously. The way I usually try to go about it is to win the audience over with humor, relate to them, then communicate what you really want to say.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this is our primary goal as filmmakers. To communicate. We use storytelling and the image as rhetoric. We are trying to get a reaction, either physically, mentally, or emotionally, from our audience.
For instance, if I showed you a short clip of someone getting fired from their job at McDonalds it would be essentially meaningless. But, if I preluded that clip with a few shots showing that same person going to class, studying during lunch breaks, and tutoring their younger sibling right when they got home. Then one day, after an exhausting night of studying for a big test, they wake up late. They would have made it to work on time but they had to drop that younger sibling off at school and thus arrived to work half an hour late. Since there are so many people looking for jobs right now, the manager of the McDonalds has no problem firing the student because they know a replacement, who will be completely dedicated to the job, is readily available. Now, you might feel more sympathetic (unless my writing is terrible :-)).
P.S. the example is not meant to be humorous. I just used it to show that we have to make a connection with the audience before we hit them over the head with a message. Humor is just one way of going about it, or in the case of the example, sympathy.
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