remix

by jenks

(The Craft + Carrie) * ♂ = Chronicle

I’ll start by stating for the record that I LOVED Josh Trank’s Chronicle. I’d been excited to see it ever since I first saw the the trailer, below, which is basically structured unlike any other I’d ever seen. And the movie was, indeed, awesome. I wholly agree with assessments like Entertainment Weekly’s that “the movie makes special effects special again,” and that the film’s inventive use of the “found-footage” cinematic convention “allows Trank to stage scenes that aren’t powered by a dramatic arc, scenes that consist almost entirely of the characters just hanging out, making up what they’re doing as they go along” — which, I’ve always contended is the best part of superhero movies, anyway (Wolverine just having a beer at X-Mansion, Iron Man getting trashed at his birthday party, etc.)

“It’s not until late in the game that Chronicle reveals it has tricked us into watching a superhero origin story without our quite knowing it,” EW, adds. And it wasn’t until I left the theater, still totally enthralled with the movie, and already wanting a sequel, that I realized…. I’d seen it before, years ago, as two separate films… starring chicks.

Here are some plot points remixed in Chronicle:

1. A group of high school friends are drawn together through shared possession of uncanny powers. Together they grow stronger, until one of them takes it too far, becoming drunk with power — and mental instability — inevitably having to be stopped by the saner of the group. I just summarized 1996’s The Craft:

2. A shy, friendless teenager, abused by an unstable parent, suddenly becomes the most popular kid in school, only to be brought down that same night by a moment of humiliation, unleashing a wave of rage-fueled telekinetic carnage on said parent, bullies, and innocent bystanders alike. Which is, pretty much, the plot of 1976’s Carrie.

According to Trank, despite the fact that two thirds of the movie’s superpowered protagonists don’t survive to the end, “if it feels like the demand is there and the desire to see how this story can continue is there, we definitely have ideas. It can definitely be expanded.” The sequel better have a chick with powers. Considering the plotline’s on loan from some, it’s only fair.

    



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by jenks

Hacking Into Encom With The Glitch Mob

Super late to my own party on this, but here it is:

Last summer, I came up with an idea for The Glitch Mob to do a Tron: Legacy remix video scored to music from their 2010 album, Drink the Sea, and edited by Khameleon808. We released the video in November 2010 and after that lots of things happened.

Sean Bailey, the head of production at Disney, singled the video out at a press conference. It got a writeup on Wired.com, earning me a lovely compliment along the way for instigating this whole thing. And then, in February, The Glitch Mob were asked to do an official track for Disney’s Tron:Legacy R3configur3d remix album, featuring artists like M83, Photek, Moby, Com Truise, and others reworking Daft Punk’s original tracks from the movie score. R3configur3d just dropped last week and The Glitch Mob’s take on Daft Punk’s “Derezzed” is the first track on the album.

To celebrate the release, Khameleon808 re-teamed with the Glitch Mob to create another audio-visual-gasm.

Enjoy!


    



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by jenks

The Top 5 Social Creature Posts Of 2010

If you’re just joining us, here’s the top 5 things that happened here this year:

1. Why Iron Man Is The First 21st Century Superhero
For the past 70 years we have been living with a 20th century version of the superhero. Until now. Though the Iron Man character was originally created in the early 60s, his most recent incarnation is really the first Millennial superhero. (Then Jon Favreau, the director of Iron Man, retweeted it!! Craziness!)

2. The First 21st Century Vampires
Just as the new Iron Man has broken the mould constricting the superhero archetype, True Blood’s vampires offer a compelling commentary on our rapidly changing present through their own, archly extrahuman relationship to it. (MetaFilter gave it love, too.)

3. How The Internet Killed The Rock Star (…Not The Way You Think)
At this point, to say the Internet’s done away with anything else when it comes to music is, admittedly, a cliché, but, nevertheless, there’s one more, less-publicized casualty: the rock star. Zoe Keating agreed.

4. Your Life Is A Transmedia Experience
“Transmedia” has become the new buzzword for multi-platform narratives, but in the digital age, transmedia isn’t just how we consume entertainment narratives, it’s how we experience the narrative of our lives. This post later became the basis for a panel with me, Marta Kagan, and Jan Libby, at the FutureM conference in Boston.

5. How To Stand In the Face of Powerlessness For A New Generation
As a generation, mine has not known powerlessness. We’ve had so little practice at facing situations where we couldn’t just do something; at fighting them, at living through them. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is my generation’s unfortunate turn to figure out how to stand in the face of powerlessness.

Honorable mention:

The Glitch Mob Drops The New-Tron Bomb
This happened so late in the year that it didn’t quite have time to catch up, but my idea for a Tron:Legacy remix video scored to The Glitch Mob’s music and edited by Khameleon808 is still the 7th most popular thing that happened on Social-Creature in 2010. (It even got into Wired.com.)

Ps. Thanks to Boston Innovation for naming me one of “Five Fresh Faces Leading Boston’s Creative Revolution.” Though I seem to be splitting my time between Boston and LA the past couple of years, (I wish Facebook would let you put “It’s complicated” under “Current city”), it is, of course, an honor to play even a little part in any Boston-based revolution.

See you next year!!

    



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by jenks

today’s awesome ad (mashup) award goes to

Ad #2 (but watch them in order).


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UPDATE:

On December 1st, I received an email from a reader, Dave Clooney, pointing to an NBC Sports article which uncovers the truth about the Jordan ad:

Sorry, it’s a spoof. Someone has taken an old Jordan Nike commercial, “Maybe You Should Rise,” and mashed it with LeBron’s “What Should I Do?”, with pretty good results. But Sun-Sentinel Miami Heat beat reporter Ira Winderman confirms that it’s a forgery in this tweet.

Here’s the original Jordan Nike commercial:

Still, the mashup was so good that it fooled a lot of people. Others just threw it up there without checking. But as Winderman points out, there’s no way Nike is going to undermine its own efforts by letting one of its superstar endorser take a shot at another.

Reminds me of the awesome billboard mashup trend I’d been noticing before:

mashup

mashup

    



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