RiP: A Remix Manifesto – Watch the whole film here

This final unit further examines the legal, artistic and cultural implications of “remix” media arts through the creation of your own remix video. For this project, each of you will create an “open license” music video created entirely out of “public domain” (legal) materials from the Internet Archive, CC Mixter and Creative Commons. Yes, that’s right … you will NOT be simply grabbing stuff off of Youtube (and we’ll talk about the reasons).

Lawrence Lessig – on remix, creativity, culture and the law

Sampling: From collage to video

Throughout the course we have “sampled” a variety of different media types – from photographic collages, to digital imaging, to web content and sound. This final project combines most of these forms into a single product. You will be selected tracks from CC Mixter for your music samples and selected moving image clips from Internet Archive for the video.  If you wish to create an original video using samples of your own you are welcome to do so on your own time after the course. For the purposes of this unit, you will be learning video editing and remix production approaches with pre-selected clips.

All of the related course links (tools, videos and additional resources) for this unit will be published HERE

Assignment: A remix video
We will begin this unit with an inquiry into using public domain and open license materials via a guided tour of CC Mixter and The Internet Archive.  We will then learn how to edit audio and video clips using Windows Movie Maker.

Here is a very simple version of the assignment I created using Kaltura and Open Source cinema. I’ve combined video of skateboarding, with video game footage and a music track.

Further exploration:

Want to make a quick remix video right now? Check out Open Source cinema - a simple online tool to create and remix videos. This tool is mostly for contributing to the RiP film. NOTE: Unfortunately you cannot download your finished videos (so this is more of a toy than a production tool).

This week we’ll be exploring the wonderful world of the web – creating your first online web profile using WordPress (which is the same tool I used to make this blog).

Why wordpress?

WordPress is one of the most simple – and stable – web publishing platforms online. It’s such a great platform that many international magazines, news sites and major media sites use it as their website publishing platform. There are TWO versions of wordpress:

Click below to read more!

1) WordPress.com — the blogging tool (also used to learn the basics of the website building tool)

2) WordPress.org — the website publishing tool (for advanced users and programmers)

We’ll be using WordPress.COM (the simpler blogging and publishing tool).

WordPress started off as a blogging tool but is also used for all kinds of purposes – from portfolios to news sites. WordPress also makes a complete website product (wordpress.org), which requires you to have: 1) advanced web coding/programming knowledge 2) web server experience 3) paid hosting (a few 100$ a year) and a domain name (also something you pay for).

Getting started with WordPress: Creating your site

Here are some tutorials to get you started … do as many of these as you want. We’ll go over all of them in class.

1. WordPress set up – you’ll need to log in to an email account to complete this part. You’ll be asked to think of a title for your blog/site. I recommend using your last name plus “portfolio” or “profile” – as your title. The final name will look like this: mcbrideportfolio.wordpress.comOR mcbrideprofile.wordpress.com OR you can name it something else.
http://wordpress.tv/2009/01/05/signing-up-with-wordpresscom/

2. Using Themes: Don’t try this one unless you found the first one easy. We will go over this one in class. It’s how you pick the design of your site. WordPress comes with pre-installed design themes – this allows you to choose a pre-designed theme rather than having to build one from scratch (which can take months).
http://wordpress.tv/2009/01/13/previewing-and-activating-themes/

3. Publishing a post. OK, so you’re a whiz at this! Great, now try writing your first post. A post is the content you put up on the site (what you’re reading right now is called a post).
http://wordpress.tv/2009/01/15/writing-and-publishing-a-post/

4. Pages (the about page, tutorials and how to use this blog – at the top of this page – are all “pages”). When you create your portfolio or profile site you will create a few basic pages: About me/biography, Contact and different sections. There are only ever a few Page sections at the top of a site. The rest of your stuff will go into “categories” (see the left hand side of this page).
http://wordpress.tv/2009/01/14/adding-an-about-me-or-any-other-static-page/

5. Widgets (all the neat stuff on the side of the blog like categories, links and pages etc). You can put all kinds of neat stuff on the side bars of your blog – flickr buttons, little video plugins, links to your social profiles online, even Twitter updates! Widgets allow you to customize what sections of your site you want to provide access to – categories, links, pages, archives, etc.

http://wordpress.tv/2009/07/24/wpcom-widgets/

* Special thanks to Bryan for suggesting a few more intuitive categories to search this post!