Watch two of the "Everything is a Remix" episodes below. Leave at least two responses (one per episode that you watch). See if you can draw connections between chapters 1 and 2 of Steal Like An Artist and the videos.
Then please leave feedback to two other students' responses.
Part 1 - music
Part 2 - film
Part 3 - technology
Part 4 - business
In part 1, I thought it was interesting when it talked about how anyone can make a remix of something. If any can make a remix of something, that means we should all be able to do what Austin Kleon says about taking things from our heroes. We can "remix" certain characteristics of our heroes and put them all together to make our own thing.
ReplyDeleteIn part 2, it says, "transforming the old into the new is hollywood's greatest talent," meaning that successful movies usually originate from another movie or book. This relates to what Kleon says in Steal Like An Artist, "Your job is to collect good ideas." Hollywood is stealing the good ideas from older movies and expanding on them to make new movies.
There are a lot of movies hat are copies I never knew about. It seems that it is hard for film makers to come up with original ideas.
Delete*that
DeleteI agree with Jake; taking bits and pieces from our various heroes and combining them all makes a whole brand new thing. That is where we "find who we are".
DeleteI agree with Jake; remixing things and making them our own is what makes us unique. It is still really hard to come up with new ideas so we all find out who we are based off of others.
DeleteI agree with Matt and Jake. I never knew about some of the original movies that were remixed into a more modern version. Considering how many remixes there apparently are today, I wonder if the "originals" were somehow copied from something else?
DeleteI agree with Matt and Jake, I think that what makes movies so great is being able to build off of other movies and trying to see where that was taken from ,usually that's too hard to do because the movie has so much already being put into it.
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ReplyDeleteSpeaking in regard to Led Zeppelin "adapting" other artists' works, I think that, in their case, what they did was outright theft. Practices like that are why the current intellectual property laws are so terrible.
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DeletePart 1- I agree that any one can remix anything today, but I think it gets harder to seem original because it is much easier for other people to get that reference point that Kleon was talking about now. I think that Led Zeppelin ended up imitating other people and didn't move on to emulating their heroes like Austin Kleon talks about doing. They didn't give credit and didn't add enough of their own flavor.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you need to add your own flavor for people to deem you original, just imitating isn't enough.
DeleteI also agree that you have to add your own flavor. Instead of just copying something else ideas, you have to contribute something of your own and make it unique.
DeleteWhen you think about it, wouldn't anything they would've added been done by someone else? I think that every piece has been done before, but in order to make it "yours", you have to rearrange others' work. To me, your "own flavor" is just a mixture of others'. Nothing is truly original anymore, it's just renovation. People who get too picky about "that's my idea" should think about where the words they used came from. Everything today is reused, nothing is new.
DeleteThis clip on films shows how people took other peoples ideas and change it to their ways. Just as in "Steal Like An Artist" you can't just come up with your own ideas. You are influenced by many different things and you copy. You adapt other peoples ideas.
ReplyDeleteWhile this is completely true, I wonder how much of this is conscious behavior. I'm sure that I have adapted other people's work, but most of that will be subconscious; stuff that I picked up on because it was interesting and caused me to change how I do the same or similar acts.
DeleteFor some reason the idea of stealing like an artist reminds me of a virus without a known origin. The virus evolves and spreads over time until nobody knows where it came from. Ideas are kind of like this. Who knows who was the first person to try communicate, or how it got to be language, or how that became books, etc. Over the time that ideas have existed they have been passed on and modified, like a virus. The thing is that there isn't anything completely new. It has different arrangements and lengths and that's about it. To be an artist you have to come up with an innovative arrangement
DeleteI agree with this 100 percent. Films wouldn't be what they are today without any other outside sources. The only way to create anything "original" is to take a bunch of other people's ideas and mold them to fit your vision.
DeleteWell, here they are:
ReplyDeleteResponse to Music: To be honest, this has always been my greatest criticism of the music industry. While I'm okay with drawing from many influences, blatent covers bug me intensely, to the point where I will outright refuse to listen to them.
Response to Film: I was completely unaware of how much prominent movies, like Star Wars, borrow from other examples of cinema. I did notice the relative abundance of remakes and film adaptations, the scene-to-scene comparison of Star Wars was somewhat chilling.
I also found it weird how similar the scenes in Star Wars were. I wonder if anyone noticed right when the movies came out.
DeleteIt is amazing the amount of similarities. How did more people not notice? He just took all kinds of movies and combined them to make one epic one.
DeleteI totally agree with what you said about the music industry. A lot of new "artists" are down right stealing songs from older music, and making a huge amount of money off it. I try not to listen to them either.
DeleteI completely agree with you Morgan. If I had to put it into words, I wouldn't change one syllable of your comment. Perfect.
DeleteI'm the opposite on the whole cover-hating opinion. I love listening to covers; I think it's cool how one musician can take the work of another and transform it into their own. One of my favorite songs has been redone by so many artists that I had to look up who originally wrote it, and it turns out I don't even like the original version that much.
DeleteIt really surprises me that very successful movies have a lot of similarities to others. The fact that people didn't notice is very shocking.
DeleteI agree with Morgan, I never realized how similar most movies are. I was also shocked when I saw how similar the scenes were, they were almost exact.
DeleteI also agree with Ashley, I think covers to songs give listeners a new perspective on songs. They can sing the exact same song, but their own style and voice makes it unique. Some covers are better than the original song.
I agree with Ashley, I think that if they can change it enough to make it creative and their own version then they can sometimes be even better than the original. I also agree with Morgan thought because some remixes I can't stand to listen to when I hear them.
Delete1. In episode 2, the one about movies, the narrator says, "Transforming the old into the new is Hollywood's greatest talent." This is exactly what Austin Kleon talks about in Steal Like an Artist. He says nothing is original and that the key to creativity is stealing ideas and putting your voice into it. Hollywood steals classics and adds it's own twist to them, and it obviously works.
ReplyDelete2. Episode 3, the technology one, says that the three basic elements of creativity are copy, transform, and combine. New ideas are formed from copying old ideas, transforming them into something unique to you, and combining your ideas with those of others. Again, this is very similar to what Kleon says in his book. Great ideas are unique spin offs of previous great ideas.
I agree with Ashley. WIthout copying from people before us, there would be no new ideas. However, to make them new and different, we have to add something of our own. It's like Ford coming out with a new model of the F-150 each year; they have to add something new each year to make it unique. Otherwise, there'd be no point in making a new model each year.
DeleteIn part 1 it talked about how we can remix anything. If that's true then why aren't more people taking things from our heroes, and remixing them into something original like Kleon talks about? What makes something original is putting something of your own into the remix. Led Zepplin didn't do that and thats why they didn't get credit for it.
ReplyDeleteIn part 2 it talks about how hollywood has taking adaptations from a bunch of movies/books from before our time. So they are doing what Kleon says about collecting good ideas and putting their own spin on it. Knowing that some of my favorite movie scenes are actually from other movies surprises me and makes me wonder how many movies are actually their own.
Led Zeppelin is an incredibly famous rock band, so I think they were pretty rewarded by copying others. They couldn't make a perfect copy, so just them singing the song adds something different to it.
DeleteI think everyone kind of takes from their heroes and remixes their ideas without really realizing it. We pick up everything we do from things other people do; we automatically pick out our favorite ideas and make them our own all of the time.
DeleteI'm sure that the movies that Star Wars draw from are also based on some inspiration. Everything has some basis from other things. Very few things could actually claim to be original. All music is built on inspiration from what other people have done.
DeleteI was also surprised to see how many movies are based off other movies or how they have the same scenes. It's a good example that illustrates that nothing is original.
DeleteWith regards to your "Part 1" post, I think it's because no one thought it would be that simple. I know I never really thought of it that way. That's why I always found it so difficult to create anything new. I never thought of taking a bunch of other's ideas to create my own.
DeletePart , I found it interesting how Led Zeppelin stole a lot of their material without making really any changes to it. They came close to perfectly copying the music, but humans can't make perfect copies. Kleon argues that because we can't make a perfect copy, it makes the stolen item special, making it ours.
ReplyDeletePart 4, It's so true that we are totally fine with copying as long as we are the ones doing it. When others copy us, we get angry. It's a nasty part of copying. In chapters one and two, it doesn't really talk about copying in a negative way like the video does.
I agree with Alex when he says that humans can't make perfect copies. So even if someone tried to exactly replicate someone else's work it will always have their own style and voice.
DeletePart 4 talks about how we take ideas from one another. This is how business moves along . He say's "originals can't compete with copies". This agrees with what Austin Kleon say's. He talks abut how you can't be successful until you give up on making something original and start copying..
ReplyDeleteWe do need original though. I don't think we would move forward as a society as fast if we didn't have any original ideas.
DeleteI think that we do need to be original to keep business going, but there is a point where we need a boost to come up with new ideas and that is where copying comes from.
DeletePart 1: According to Austin Kleon Artists steal work from other people all the time, they just combine it with something else to make it "original." The first video argues that everything is a remix and shows us an example of how many things Led Zeppelin "stole" from other artists. Another connection to the first chapter this video makes is when it talks about finding your own voice/style. "Study everything there is to know about that thinker. Than find three people that thinker loved, and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can..Once you build your tree its time to find your own branch." This is exactly what Led Zeppelin did. They stole from other artists until they found their own voice and style.
ReplyDeletePart 2: "Don't wait until you know who you are to get started." I like how chapter two talks about storing things that you find creative or interesting because even if you don't need it today, you will at some point. If you had a folder with a bunch of ideas that you could look to for inspiration it might just spark you to create something "original." I thought this was great advice because almost everything has already been done, you just need to look at it differently and combine it with something to make it your own. The movie Kill Bill from the second video is a great example of this. Also, almost everything we consider to be original has been recreated in some form.
I agree with hunter about storing creative ideas. I think that this would be a good thing for anyone to do. Because it pertains to that person in particular. It is a way for anyone to store, and remember what inspires them. We are all rarely inspired these days, it would be nice to remember whatever inspired me in the past.
DeletePart 2- It was interesting to see all the influences that Star Wars used. Some of those side by side clips were identical. They combined a lot of stuff into a huge movie franchise. Star Wars is now an icon in its own right. The add a bunch of stuff together to create something new.
ReplyDeleteKinda like the idea that if you add enough stuff and make a couple twists, it becomes original.
DeleteMusic
ReplyDeleteIn the music industry, stealing like an artist is everywhere. Common beats and chords and lyrics can be found throughout the centuries. This video relates to the book by showing that to be an artist, you take from many others and add your own touch to make it "yours." This explains why sometimes I feel like I know "new" songs even if I've never actually heard them before.
Movies
The same goes for movies. All of them can be compared to others. Some have the same plots as others. Some have bits and pieces from all kinds. Genres, subgenres, etc the videos all relate through other forms of art. For instance, this video relates to the book by showing how they steal from others and rearrange, sometimes not much, but at least slightly.
Part 2- It talks about in the book about stealing an idea and making it your by adapting it. Also it talks about how citing more than one source makes it original. Both of these things apply to Star Wars because most people consider it an original but really they just used a ton of different sources.
ReplyDeleteYa it is funny to think that even Star Wars wasn't truly original. But if nothing is truly original then the term original will have to be redefined. ;)
DeleteWoah I think T is onto something. Nothing is original so why even have the word original as an adjective. Nothing is original. I'm going to stop using that word from now on I think.
DeletePart 1- I like and agree that everything can be a remix and that anyone can make a remix. Led Zepplin didn't do this. Instead of using other people ideas and making it into there own, they copied another artist and did a song just like his. It's okay to use others ideas, but you have to contribute something of your own and bring something else to the table.
ReplyDeletePart 2- I didn't realize how much movies and films and films are based off of other movies, books, and even something online. It relates to the book "Steal Like An Artist." Nothing is completely original. Everything is copied or based off another persons idea.
I agree with Brittany on part 1 because we all use ideas from other people, but we just have to put our own twist on them so it is original to us.
DeleteI agree with Brittany's second comment. Nothing is completely original anymore. Everyone is feeding off other idea's and opinions to create and produce something new.
DeleteI agree with your first point. It isn't okay to totally take someone else work and call it your own. If you want to use a few parts of it then cool, but you have to add your own creative ideas into the remix as well.
DeletePart 2- "Transforming the old into the new is hollywoods greatest talent". I had never looked at art and movies that way before but it is true. The best movies are the ones that steal from many other films. I think it is intersting when he goes over the "genre films". Even the movies that aren't based off anything or are "original" share storylines with many other movies.
ReplyDeletePart 4- "When we copy, we justify it. But when others copy, we vilify it". That is very true, it is hard to know when it is ok to copy and when it isn't. There are copies of products all over the place, so that why it is confusing to me. Like the song "Goldigger" is based of of the song "I got a woman" so I don't get why that is ok. You would need permission or a contract with the person your copying right? Someone please clarify this.
I agree with turner, I had never looked at movies in that way before. I knew that some movies ripped off of others if it was very obvious. I never thought that they would rip off of each other to this extent.
DeleteI agree with the movie genre idea. If you really think about movies you have seen, you could fit them all into a genre and then find similarities to them.
DeleteApple copied Xerox's computer ideas to build the Macintosh and added more things that would make the Xerox machine extinct. Apple also brought down the price so it would be more appealing to customers. After all, Apple would not have successfully made Macintosh without stealing Xerox's ideas and using them in their own way. Like in the first chapter, Kleon says that we have to steal everything in some way, nothing is original. They copied, transformed and combined.
ReplyDeleteI believe that even though we think we are coming up with an original idea, there has to be something that is from someone else, even if we don't realize it. I don't think that ideas should be protected so no one can copy or use them because while we may copy ideas, we can develop our own new ideas with them. Sometimes all it takes is an idea from someone else to trigger an idea in your head. They don't have to end up the exact same as the original idea you took from, but they can have aspects of it in your new idea.
If Apple hadn't copied, what Xerox had started maybe wouldn't of become so popular.
DeletePart 1- It really seems hard to make a beat or stuff like that, that really sounds different. There are so many songs that in some form or fashion, they will sound a bit like another song. Like the book talked about, emulating your heroes is different than mimicking them. Where you start might be the same, but what you add to it is what makes it yours.
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ReplyDeletePart 1: Music
ReplyDeleteIf people didn't take some of other's ideas and transform them, music wouldn't have evolved into the thing it is today. By taking beats and rhythms from other songs or genres, they bring back past ideas that were probably important or popular at one point in time. Led Zeppelin didn't become famous by claiming to make original music. They did it by taking other people's ideas, making very few changes to the original, if any at all, and making them popular again.
I agree with Brandi. People need to take other peoples ideas and transform them, because if they had not done that to begin with, like she said, music would not be what it is today. Artists, in particular, feed off of one another. Whether or not they like to admit this, they do. I know some try to stand their ground by saying how unique and one-of-a kind they are, but really? Who are the people that inspired you in the first place? You wouldn't be where you are today if you didn't have them as role models to look up to and follow.
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ReplyDeletePart 2- In part two they talk about how movies typically reuse famous scenes for shots in their own movies. People like familiarity, and those scenes have already proved to be successful themselves, so they reuse them. It also talks about how the plots, and theme themselves are the same. Movies tend to stick to a very narrow plot/theme line. Because people already like those things about the film so why change them.
ReplyDeletePart 3- In part three they talk about how the Macintosh copied Xerox. Macintosh took ideas that Xerox had, but made them way better. Macintosh realized that some of the features were not very user friendly, so they made them better. Plus Mac was able to sell their product way cheaper than Xerox's product.
part 2. I think they should change them though. Who wants the same old same old? Imagine if someone came out with something completely new and original. We all would be amazed because we have probably never seen anything like it before. That's what I'm waiting for.
DeletePart 1 - I feel like there is a limited amount of rhythms that can be made in music and eventually two songs are going to sound somewhat the same. Who knows if they took a certain line from a certain song. I don't know whether to believe this is a good or bad thing but I feel like I'm suppose to pick a side. It's somewhat hard just to accept that this is what is happening and not being able to choose a side. Are there even sides to be chosen?
ReplyDeletePart 2 - I almost regret watching this video. No all I will ever think about when I watch a movie is 'they probably just stole all of this from other movies. this isn't even original.' That is what I like about movies! When a good original movie comes out I'm proud of our generation of movie making otherwise mostly everything is just crap. But I won't even know when it is stolen material or not because I had no idea that Star Wars was pretty much all stolen from different movies.
Mackenzie Kruta
ReplyDeletePart 1 - Music
Remix: To combine or edit existing materials to produce something new. This is happening around us not only in music, but with everything. After watching this video I came to realize that yeah, artists are constantly taking ideas from others for their own music. Just by listening to the radio you can hear similarities between the songs. Not that I am saying this is always a bad thing, it is just a good example of how even the professionals need help with finding ideas sometimes.
Part 2 - Film
I had no idea Star Wars had gotten so many of its ides from other films. Like how he said in the video, different war scenes were taken and used as actual footage in Star Wars itself. It's amazing how they are able to do that actually. I agreed with how he also talked about "the familiar". 74/100 are remixes of other films/videos/books and so on. We really do stick with what we are comfortable in when talking about the film industry. I mean 23 different James Bond movies? Holy crap. Remixing when talking about film basically takes place in any movie and idea's really do come from all over.
I agree with the point about music, seriously so many things that are popular today sound very very similar. While the artists say they're being original, there's no way they're coming up with something totally original.
DeletePart 2: Movies
ReplyDeleteNo matter how many people claim that their ideas for their movies are original, they're lying. Most movies are made from small ideas in other ones and are put together to create one "original" idea. Star Wars a prime example of how all of these ideas come together. It's the selectivity and large amount of the "stolen" ideas that makes them original. They are remakes. That is the only way anything supposedly new comes out. We take a bunch of other people's ideas that we are drawn to and transform and combine them to make something original.
Part 1: Led Zeppelin didn't do anything to create something new; they just took what was already there, maybe changed a few words here and there, and performed it. They took things from the previous artists, just like Kleon says to take things from our heroes, but they didn't add their own uniqueness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Adam, and this is where Kleon says, " If you just mimic the surface of somebody's work without understanding where they are coming from, your work will never be anything more than a knockoff." This is where Led Zepplin went wrong, they didn't understand where the thought process was coming from of who they were copying so it was considered a ripoff.
DeletePart 1: It is interesting to think that Led Zepplin, known as one of the most popular groups of the 1900s, copied most of their music. In the book it says that an artist copies, but then modifies it to be their own. They put their own personal touches to make it different and better than the original work. They didn't necessarily do this, so why were they so popular and such great "artists"? With music remixes now days many songs sound familiar even when they are brand new. Songs such as the Black Eyed Peas "Time of My Life" is just a remix of the hit song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing. They barely had to do any work to come up with a new song besides changing the beat.
ReplyDeletePart two: I have never really thought about how most movies are based on books, TV shows, or other movies. I also have never thought of movies copying books, I just thought most books had movies for them. It's normal to us. I believe movie producers do a better job of copying like an artist in the fact that they do not copy so close that you can really pick it out in the movies you watch. They make changes to most scenes so it isn't so obvious.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree! I've never noticed how most movies are based off of previous things, and how movies in general aren't really as original as we like to think they are.
DeletePart One: I find it interesting how a lot of music really is remixed. Sometimes I don't even realize it because they don't always sound alike. And I think that proves the point that music can be copied but it won't sound the same because it is impossible to make perfect copies as stated in the book. Now that I know that a lot of music is copied and remixed, I think I will notice it more on the radio. Sometimes changes are good and the remixes end up being more successful anyways!
ReplyDeletePart two: Besides when movies have been remade to fit modern times, I never caught on to movies being remixes. If the movie was based off of a book, then I would realize it... but I never knew that some movies are remixes of other movies. Like the Star Wars example, I never would've guessed that it was a remix of a pretty old movie. That just proves that remixes can seem like something completely knew if they change some of the scenes so it won't look the same!
I like the part where they talk about how everyone can make there own remix, a copy of something. What needs to happen is that we need to add our own flavor, this shouldn't be hard to do since making a perfect copy isn't possible. If you don't add your own flavor though, the two can seem very similar.
ReplyDeleteI can usually tell when movies are remixes, mostly when they are made more modern. Most people think that a movie is brand new, when really it is a remix of an old movie you have never heard of!
Part 2: I didn't realize so many of the movies that we know are spin offs from previous ones. I had no idea that Star Wars took things off of so many films. It did exact what Kleon talks about by emulating the previous films, not imitating them.
ReplyDeletePart 1: "Remix, to combine or edit existing materials to produce something new." As it's said in Steal Like an Artist, they say that when every artist is asked where they get their ideas, that only the honest ones say they steal them. I found this really intersting, the fact that nothing is really new, it all came from somebody before. Especially in music, it's so hard to be completely original, which is why basically no one is.
ReplyDeletePart 2: "Audiences just prefer the familiar. . . 74 out of 100 most popular films are either sequels or remixes of earlier films." This really gets you thinking, and now that I'm more aware it's actually crazy true. All fo the things we like to see movies based on things we've already seen, yet we think they are original. Hollywood just tricks us into believing they're something new. This also reminds me of how Steal Like an Artist says absolutely nothing is original, this is especially true in film.
Part 1: I think it's weird how much Led Zepplin copied a lot of their music. In steal like an artist it says, "Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous artists." What Zepplin did wrong is that they did not add their own personal style to make it their own, that is why they were considered ripoffs. Which makes me wonder as to why they got to be so famous.
ReplyDeletePart 2: "74/100 movies are sequels or remixes or earlier film" I think this is because they either thought it was such a great movie before or either a good book and they can make it even better with the technology that we have now. From Steal Like An Artist,"What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before." And I think that movie producers just understand this.
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