Last summer, when Mindy and Jonathan were planning the Remix Institute, they taped a whole bunch of episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol off the air. They talked about how the election commentary between Obama and McCain was reported on like a game or a contest and voila, the concept for Jonathan’s video remix was born. This is all Jonathan - editing and critical analysis. What a great remix it is! Here is the link to Jonathans website :http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2008/so_you_think

The pressure is on as contestants present their positions on a range
of social and political issues then face the hard-hitting scrutiny of
our panel of judges. The audience at home will delight as candidates
are challenged in ways never seen before on television.

The mainstream media spectacle of American democracy reaches new
heights and this time with a twist. Contestants on our program are in
for a surprise: our panel of experts doesn’t exactly play by the
prescribed broadcast rules. Unlike the corporate news media of today,
which often coddles leading politicians, our judges grill each
candidate on their policies with hilarious and unexpected results.

In this week’s episode only two weeks before the general election,
Senator Obama and Senator McCain have their feet held to the fire over
shockingly similar positions on energy and foreign policy.

Who will be this season’s champion and take home the grand prize?
You’ll have to watch and decide that for yourself, then participate by
casting a vote* for your favorite performer on November 4th!

FURI has launched! We began on Day One by trying to wrap our brains around the idea of copyright law, fair use, free speech and what all of that has to do with mixing and mashing our way to a freer youth culture. Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films came in to talk about the history of copyright and the importance of the fair use clause. Gordon recounted many of his experiences and struggles to use copyrighted material–for both intended and incidental use in his documentaries–and gave us “hot off the presses” copies of the new CODE OF BEST PRACTICES IN FAIR USE FOR ONLINE VIDEO published by the Center for Social Media. We discussed the moral and material interests of artists, which copyright was enacted to best preserve, and we dissected the myriad ways in which copyright can both stimulate and stifle creativity. On more practical levels, Gordon emphasized the importance of attribution when using copyrighted material, both in the credits of a work, and specifically in NOT blurring out any “bugs” or identifiers in our source material. We also dove into the notion of transformation, and both the legal and artistic implications of using copyrighted material in ways that transform it (or fail to do so) into something new and of our own authorship.

Then on Tuesday, Pat Aufderheide was Skyped in for a live video chat. Pat really picked up on the notion of transformative works, and also fielded several questions about copyright in other countries and the recent battle over copyright and court order with Viacom and Goolge/YouTube. Pat talked about her desire to see YouTube and other video platforms include elements from the Code of Best Practices into their notices and “takedown” emails, after their bots remove a user’s video that might be merely a re-posting of copywritten material, but that also might well be a transformative work that legitimately employs fair use. We will be checking in with Pat again later this week, after we digest this mighty manifesto some more.

Political Remix Artist, Jonathan McIntosh, showed and deconstructed examples of his own work. Jonathan also shared with us much of the source footage, and explained both his process and motivation in making his remixes.

Today, we begin creating our own critical music video remixes after watching several examples yesterday such as “George Bush Doesn’t Like Black People” and many others.