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
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you second statement Sydney. Nothing anymore is original in the movie industry. It's all some how based off of films from many, many years ago. I believe it's a good thing to go off of others ideas sometimes. It's a way to see how certain work can be improved and created into a whole different thing.
DeleteThat is a good way to look at it, Megan! I agree; my mom and i took my nephews to see Mr Peabody and Sherman, and she told me she remembered watching it as a kid! Haha
DeleteIn the video, Everything is a Remix Part 3, I notice that chapter 1 of "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon says the same thing as the video. Having original idea is almost impossible. You can never make an original idea. If someones says they have an original idea it probably means they have not taken the time to find or research of who actually created the idea. I think this is really interesting!
ReplyDeletePart 4 has the same points as the book as well. Both talk about genetics. This is the first type of stealing. An artist see two lines and is asked how many lines there are, most will say 3. Think about it, a baby steal genetic information from both parents to change into themselves. The video states that evolution has three rules. To evolve, you need to copy, transformed, and combined. However, now a days we steal memes. These are ideas, habits, and other things human do.
I think now a days, it's hard to come up with an original idea like you said. It seems like everything that you think about has already been thought about. Some are able to get an idea, but it probably is just based off of another persons.
DeleteI'm glad you watched a video outside of the ones in class! In my opinion, genetics is a confusing topic in relation to this book. Each person born is technically "original". No one else shares the same DNA or fingerprints, and no one ever will. However, the material to make these unique individuals is copied from two other people.
DeleteI think its cool that they connected genetics to stealing and copying. I never would have thought that I wasn't original but am actually just a remix. But I agree that to evolve and progress we need to be something that is copied and transformed.
DeleteI agree with the first video that there seems to be no completely original ideas anymore. They always seem based off of something else. Even if you are doodling in your notebook, you are doing the same thing others have. It is not completely original.
DeleteIt also made me think of what he said in the book about how human hands are incapable of making perfect copies, it is like fingerprints of DNA.
DeleteAfter watching the part one of the videos it made me think about the book we are reading, "Steal Like An Artist." In the second chapter it talks about how nothing is original. I'm sure everything that you think was unique or original can somehow be tied to something hundreds of years ago. It's almost impossible to have an original idea that no one has thought of before.
ReplyDeleteIn the second video, it talks about how scenes in movie are just based off of other scenes in older movies and that they are basically the same thing. It made me think about another segment from the book. It's title is 'Start Copying. It's says we copy our hero's because that who we want to be. If we like watching a scene from a movie, why wouldn't we want to see what ways we can transform it into something different and mind-blowing? We shouldn't copy it exactly the same, but in our own little twist.
I completely agree with what you said about enjoying something and trying to recreate that while adding your own spin on things. It's still a different and creative idea which I think should make up for its lack of originality.
DeleteI like when film and television recreate. Especially if it is something fairly popular that people will recognize. The TV series Psych on USA was a good example of this. They referenced old films, music, actors, books, really anything you can imagine and I loved it.
DeleteI agree with you about how everything that you think may be new can really be related or basically the same thing that someone thought of a long time ago. Its really hard to think of something original at this point in time.
DeleteEven just these videos help prove a point. The second chapter explains that nothing is truly original and that's pretty much what these videos are saying. There's lots of different ways that you can present information and different mediums that are available to do so. Between podcasts, videos, books, blogs, and everything else nowadays, it's pretty hard to be aware of all of the ideas other people have had. You're bound to copy someone else's.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned, the second chapter deals with the reality that you cannot make an idea that hasn't been made before. The second video proves that this aspect this quite obvious in films. It doesn't matter how well done and amazing a movie is, it will follow the same storyline as the ones that came before it. It isn't that the director is trying to blatantly rip off the other guys, though some do, it's that obviously that style of film resonated with them. If you love something, wouldn't you want to try making your own version of it? Another area in which ideas are remade over and over again is in baking/cooking. This may seem a little off base and unrelated, but it's the same concept. Everything you do in the kitchen has been done by someone else, but that doesn't make your chocolate chip cookies any less delicious. Shouldn't the same rule apply to all areas?
I refuse to accept that I wont ever do anything that is new. If I'm copying someone, than who were they coppying?
DeleteI agree that it is almost impossible not to copy someone's work at some time or another. Everything we have is based off of some idea before that. It is also impossible to know that someone on the other side of the globe had the exact same idea you did, so how can you say it is bad we are stealing their idea? We didn't even know they had one. Many people think alike, so it stands to reason that they would have similar ideas and creative thoughts.
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ReplyDeleteI have no negative feelings towards copying. As it turns out, everything I love/enjoy in life is something that a mere copy of a copy.
DeleteAfter watching Everything is a Remix part one, I realized that even some of the most successful people, like the band Led Zeppelin, steal things from others. Some people just steal the general idea and then make it their own, but they didn't. They almost took the exact same things from the other artists, like the same titles. This I don't think is a good thing. I think that people should be able to steal the idea and then improve upon it and make it their own, but not use the same exact thing. I connected this to the part in "Steal Like an Artist" under the heading of The Genealogy of Ideas. It talks about how every new idea is just a mashup or remix of one or more previous ideas. People steal things that are worth stealing.
ReplyDeleteFor Everything is a Remix part 2 I realized that in the movie industry, copying other films is something that happens all of the time. Even some of the greatest films ever use parts from other movies. But I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. If parts in films are really successful and the audience enjoys them a lot, then why wouldn't other film makers copy them? They should consider it a compliment, and maybe the people who stole the idea will improve upon it and we will get better and more inspiring movies. I connected this to chapter one where it talks about how nothing is original. It says, "What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before."
The way I see it, if you are complaining about people copying from other movies, you are looking for something to complain about. I agree that it should be taken as a compliment. People are silly, and the only people that have any reason to be upset are the people that had the original idea. But, who's to say their idea is original in the first place?
DeleteIt's very interesting to learn that the movies that I revere as works of art are copys. The fact that they draw from old movies that I've never heard of has opened up an entirely new realm of cinema that I must explore.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that xerox made a computer before apple did. It makes me think. If I truely have a good idea, will someone draw from it and do it better than I can? Should I focus on building off other ideas instead of my own?
I think that instead of focusing on your own ideas you should focus one part or aspect of someone else's idea. Once you take that one little piece you can be as creative as you want with it.
DeleteI think the first video brings forth an interesting question. It asks, "When is a person stealing and when are they simply remaking an idea to make it their own?" In my opinion, most of the time you see both of them in use. Sure there are some people who deliberately try and take others work, but many people seem to take an idea from a person because they found it was good, and redo it their own way. As it says right away in Steal Like an Artists, we get our ideas by stealing them, but that doesn’t necessarily mean deliberately copy the same thing and pass it off as our own. For example, in music, many of the same tunes are used over and over again in different songs, and yet they are all used slightly differently, therefore changing it into something their own.
ReplyDeleteI feel that in the second video, they had a point that many movies are similar, but I do not think people are deliberately stealing ideas. For example, in Star Wars, some of the scenes are very similar to other movies, but that does not mean the George Lucas sat there staring at different movies saying, "That's good. I think I'll steal from this one." There is probably more of a subconscious aspect to it. You are making a movie and suddenly think, "Hey, this would be cool," not even realizing you got this idea from a movie you saw a year ago. The second chapter of Steal Like an Artist reminds me of this. One of the sections is called Start Copying. It is basically saying that everything we are and learn is from copying others. That means all we learn, we are stealing from others, but are we really stealing? I think we are just learning and putting all of the information we learn together.
In watching episode 1 I found a connection to chapter two of Steal Like An Artist in that we are copying. We learn by copying. Much like the example of Led Zeppelin the book incorporates how the Beatles started out by copying their heroes.We can become like our heroes by copying from all of them and eventually stop imitating and start emulating and making it into our own thing.
ReplyDeleteThe third video also proves a very good point of how we can emulate instead of imitate. The Macintosh computer was really a copy of another device but was changed to make it their own, and to make it better. In making a copy we can never make it perfect so where we fall short is where we evolve it. We take and copy something and give it our own voice to make it different. Transforming their stuff into your own by changing it with your voice is how "new stuff" is made.
Clearly, not everything is an original idea. I don’t think all great ideas should be original. People play off of other people’s work in order to do their own. In the book Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki mentions that people should share their ideas with others in order for people to come up with their own. We should be happy that someone wants to copy us. Of course the need to be credited, but we should be proud that our work or ideas has expanded.
ReplyDeleteWith Led Zeppelin they didn’t give credit to the true writers, which I think is wrong. But, a lot of musical chords and tunes from different songs are very similar. They probably could’ve changed the name up, but I don’t think using bits and pieces of the songs is a big deal as long as they give credit to the true writers of the song they are covering.
Also with the music industry if you look who writes the songs a lot of the people all work together. There isn't very many people who just write their own music. For example Kelly Clarkson has written a song for One Direction. They all build off of each other to be successful.
DeleteI agree with what Hunter said- everyone builds off of each other to be successful. Most musicians don't even write their own music, they pay someone or have another artists write them.
DeletePart 1 had a lot of examples of well known things that were stolen. I think that beyond stealing to be an artist you have to make seem like it was an original idea and that it wasn't stolen. If it comes off as stolen no one will appreciate it or even like it. I also think that if something is stolen it feels familiar and I think you are more likely to like something that you are familiar with.
ReplyDeleteWith part 2 it seemed to me that it was taking an idea and completely putting a personal view on it making something completely different. Star Wars was extremely similar to the other movies but it was a very different feel. I think there should be a way to determine influence versus stealing.
I agree with the first paragraph- part of "stealing like an artist" is making it seem like an original that wasn't stolen. You can't just take a song, not change anything about it, and claim you wrote it. You have to make it different from the original with only a few similarities.
DeleteMusic is very easy to "steal" from, if you listen to a song, and like it and think, "Huh, I could just tweak this here, this there...." and suddenly you have a new song based off of another song. It goes along with what Kleon says about Good Theft vs. Bad Theft, if you transform the song into something new, you will not be ripping people off, but if you are singing the same lyrics with a different tune, and not giving credit, you are a rip off.
ReplyDeleteFor the second video about film, it was interesting to see how alot of movies are similar, and it made me think of how a lot of movies lately are just remakes of old movies, for example, "Mr. Peabody and Sherman", my mom remembers watching it as a kid, but they transformed it to make it more relevant to the kids today. It also goes along with what Kleon said about good vs bad theft. If you steal from many, it is art, if you steal from one, it is plagiarism.
With all the movies that have been produced over the last 30+ years, it would be impossible for them to all be completely original. Artists steal from other artists- its a fact.
ReplyDeleteIn the second video, it talks about movies and how often clips from movies made before are found in movies made today. To me, I don't see the big deal in this. Why waste the money to remake the scene if you could borrow it from another movie? Another point is this- if it was great the first time, it will still probably be great the second time the scene is used. As long as it's not copying the whole movie, I think movie scenes should be recycled.
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