Postmodern mashups make the User Content King

A great video and an interesting blog post from Epic FU.

The video takes a song by Phoenix and matches it with clips from 1980s Brat Pack films. The end result is a brilliant and entertaining mashup, that once posted on YouTube gained the respect of the band and even its own tributes. However, as the posting on Epic FU points out, the very act involved in making mashups brings the producer involved into breach of copyright.

Somewhere along the line there needs to be a careful re-think about this issue. At a school level I find myself in the odd position where I'm told by my exam board (OCR) that while students choosing to make A Level music videos using commercial music won't be penalised by the exam board itself, they may find themselves in breach of copyright when they make the obligatory posting of their content to a website. And that may cost them marks and grades.

In this case the students are not attempting to defraud the music companies or their artistes. They're engaging in an academic exercise. As for most of the mashup producers, they're having fun and quite often bringing added airtime and publicity to bands. Famously, the Red Hot Chili Pepper ran a mashup competition a couple of years ago, inviting fans to make their next music video. The age of collaborative media production is upon us and the relationship between audience and institution has changed. Someone should tell that to the legislators and traditional content producers. As with Apple and the iTunes store a creative and innovative solution is required, so that user generated content can continue to flourish within a framework that doesn't threaten the financial well being of commercial media producers.

For now, the waters remain choppy and grey, but at least there are some great videos being made!

Facing up to production planning

So here I am, having bought a couple of cheap but rather useful Flip camcorders a few weeks ago. A quick reminder - they look like mobile phones, are cheap to buy, as close to idiot proof in terms of operation as a piece of techno-kit can get, and seemingly irresistible to staff and students alike.

Finally, I got one of my test models back yesterday and figured it was time I had a little play with them myself. One of my lower sixth classes was ready to give me and their peers quick pitches about the film ideas they're developing. Filming will begin in the new year, and with only a week to go before the Christmas break begins, it seemed like a perfect moment to put them on camera.

So, I popped the Flip on a tripod, let it record the presentations, including audience questions, then flipped out the USB stick that's inbuilt, connected the camera to my PC, went to YouTube, hit upload, and got on with something else.

As if by magic, when I came back there were the three videos online. Now, these aren't going to win any awards for cinematography, sound or anything else. In fact, with perfect timing, a workman started using a noisy drill half way through our recordings. But, it does mean we have a moving image record of what happened, which is a useful piece of research data to own.

Here are the three presentations. There'll be some more coming tomorrow, and I will also start, now that I've created a Berkhamsted Media channel on YouTube, to upload other student produced material.