Short Film Remixing on the Internet - Found Footage in the Age of Web 2.0

 

What has long been possible 'in ‘real life’, at least since Dada and William S. Burrough’s “Cut-ups” of cultural history, and since “found footage” became part of the cinematic tradition, is now permeating the world of digital film on the Internet: the appropriation and recycling of existing material in new combinations. Based on forerunner software for editing text, graphics and sound, new tools now also enable online video editing right in the browser window. Anything in digital form is fair game: images, graphics and films – owned, purchased or even stolen! The combination of online tools with filesharing is what makes it all possible, and potential worldwide networking of creative filmmakers – from amateurs to artists – in communities gives the whole thing a new socio-cultural dimension.

 

The technical basis for this development are film editing tools available online, which are known as remixers. To introduce you to this theme, we will provide here an initial overview of the tools and their users.

 

 

Forerunners: Text, graphic and audio remixers on the Internet

 

In the beginning was the word – and that was also the case when it came to applying the new techniques to Internet applications. The first remixes and mashups on the Internet were text-based: the literary cut-up tradition meets randomly generated hypertext. Usually, these online applications enable the user to enter words or his own text in a dialogue window, which is then output again in random order or arranged according to a certain pattern. Today, some of the cut-up machines from the 1990s are still online – such as the Text Mixing Desk from the British Lazarus Corporation for example. A good overview of this scene, which usually invokes William S. Burroughs as pioneer and his coinage “cut-up”, can be found at “Language Is a Virus”. Incidentally, original recordings of Burroughs are available for free as audio files on UbuWeb.

 

Text “mixers” were followed by applications allowing interactive editing of graphics and images in the browser, the results of which could be saved or sent by email. Most applications, however, can only be used to process already existing image elements using pre-defined features. These might include changing the colour or the alignment of the graphic elements. A good example of this kind of programme is “Mr. PicassoHead”, a teaser for the Internet agency Ruder Finn.

 

But the immediate precursors of video remixing are the various music applications. Here, too, as with the graphic programmes, users at first had only the possibility to work with a limited number of set features, for example changing the speed or volume of a specified instrument. The user interface usually imitates the look of a mixing console or sound studio. The first example of this programme genre, available only as offline prototype, was a virtual music studio on CD-ROM called “XPLORA” by Peter Gabriel (1993). This model was soon being replicated on Internet sites. Two more or less game-like online examples from Germany can be tested out on Surfmixer.

 

More exciting are applications that bring techniques from the dubbing and sampling music scene to the Internet, going beyond mere changing or mixing of pre-existing sounds. These advanced applications enable users to upload their own sounds in order to edit them (known as “sampling“) in the browser. The finished mixes can then be saved locally or online, embedded in websites or shared via email. This kind of programme is now available as well from commercial providers such as Razz and Jamglue. As a rule, users must first register on these commercial sites – not least due to copyright issues. Remixers are frequently used by communities, whose members make the resulting tracks available to one another for re-use or remixing. In addition to the commercial suppliers, there are also various platforms on the non-commercial scene. Links and tips on the non-commercial remixing field can be found for example on ccMixter, a site that espouses the Creative Commons licensing philosophy.

 

 

 

Online video remixing

 

Online editing of film clips in the browser is a relatively young technical development. At first glance, the prototypes appear disappointing as they allow only a limited number of interventions. In contrast to the more advanced sound mixers, the fun factor is low, since simple video mixers do not yet offer rapidly tangible results, while manipulating sounds in real time is in comparison child’s play. How one rates them depends of course on the application’s own claim and the system context.

 

The currently available video mixers can’t be compared to professional editors such as those propagated by application service providers to replace locally installed software programmes as a net-based service for the pros. They offer only rudimentary editing options, which, although oriented on professional film editing, cannot, and do not pretend to, replace it.

 

A second aspect is the context. Almost all of the remixing applications for audio and video that are currently available free of charge are tied into so-called social networks or communities, and are thus geared to the amateur milieu. These are often teasers or gadgets whose true function is to serve as portals for filesharing or blog providers out to attract the mainstream public.

 

Nevertheless, these applications and their users should not be relegated too hastily to the realm of amateur video and home movies. They should instead be understood as part of a new participatory culture that is contributing to the emergence of a specific aesthetic that should by all means be taken seriously. The resulting “user-generated content” also attracts commercial interests and forms one basis for new business models being tested by commercial Internet providers.

 

 

 

Example: “Remixer” – a prototype from the research realm

 

The video editing tool “Remixer” is the result of research conducted at the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State University, developed in conjunction with Yahoo! Research Berkeley. Yahoo! Research Berkeley is in turn a research partnership between Yahoo! Inc. and the University of California at Berkeley. The aim of this public-private partnership is to research and invent social media and mobile media technologies. The focus is on applications that make it possible to create, describe, find and share media on the Internet and to edit it as remix.

 

“Remixer“ was developed as prototype for the San Francisco International Film Festival 2006 and tested in the special festival programme “International Remix”. “Remixer” is embedded in a festival website. Visitors to the site can edit films with “Remixer” during the festival, splice them and combine them with other films. As starting material, about 30 films were chosen from the festival line-up and put online in digitized form. For audio editing, soundtracks composed specially for this purpose were also made available.

 

In “Remixer”, the Internet user can clip scenes out of the listed films and combine them in any order and length. Sound can be added scene by scene. A text generator lets the user give his remix a title. The result is then saved to a host server and placed in a website gallery for others to enjoy.

 

This remix tool has since been deactivated. In its place, a demo is now online that functions similarly. But one can still view the results of the original in a film gallery. The user comments reveal that they found splicing together the film excerpts tedious, while the possibility of adding a new soundtrack was praised, as was the user interface. Problematic here was the raw material that was offered, since it took a great deal of time to first view all the films and pick out the scenes that were of interest for the user’s own remix. From the point of view of the organizers, this was probably a pragmatic compromise or a half-hearted concession to the fan culture that plays such an important role in “user-generated videos”. But the material provided was hardly suitable for this purpose, since these were not well-known, popular films, but rather sophisticated independent works that for the most part premiered during the festival.

 

The experiment was repeated in autumn 2006 by Yahoo! Korea with music videos from the cable TV programme “School of Rock” – a popular music show featuring young local bands. In Korea participants could also export their remixes for replay on mobile phones.

 

As a prototype, “Remixer” is not a certified Yahoo product and was evidently dropped following the test phase. Instead of developing its own programme, Yahoo! instead purchased a different remixer, “Jumpcut” (see below), as part of the process of taking over the developer’s entire company and website.

 

URL: http://media.sffs.org/remix/RemixerHome.php

URL (in Korea): http://kr.remixer.multimedia.yahoo.com/remix/yammy_home.php

 

 

Example: “Movie Masher” – professional technology seeks users

 

Considerably more technically advanced than “Remixer” is “Movie Masher” – an application programmed by one of the developers of Flash. “Movie Masher” enables virtually professional film and sound editing on several parallel tracks. Even compositing is possible, as is the use of innumerable filters and effects. Unfortunately, “Movie Masher” has not yet found a buyer who wants to use it as tool!

Demo: http://www.moviemasher.com/

 

 

Example: Eyespot – viral videos and mashup

 

Eyespot is a video sharing website on which remixing is a central feature. Similarly to “Remixer”, Eyespot offers a tool for video editing via drag & drop. But it is much more basic and offers fewer editing options. As raw material for recycling, clips by other users as well as commercials are available on Eyespot. When registering on Eyespot, users must therefore commit to making their films available for use by others.

 

Despite this fact, there are few videos on offer on Eyespot that are based on material actually produced or shot by the users. It’s presumably just too boring to keep recycling the old films of others. Most of the remixes created by Eyespot users are instead based on commercial TV series, music videos or feature films. Eyespot fosters this strategy by making a corresponding offer, which probably represents the heart of its business plan. In a section called “Free Media Sets”, which is actually a mashup page with embedded objects from other sites, license-free commercial clips are offered for sampling. Besides advertisements from the Prelinger Archive – a reputable Creative Commons project – this includes clips from popular TV series and commercial music videos made available by major production companies. There is already a trade name for this kind of material: Media Microchunk! This is used to encourage users, in typical Web 2.0-style, to mix viral advertising clips for commercial products (for free!) and spread them throughout the Internet.

 

 

Semi-professional remixing: Jumpcut

 

Jumpcut is a Californian start-up that has established a small online community around its video editing tool. Yahoo! took over Jumpcut and its 15 employees as a complete package in October 2006, and the company has since been in the process of expanding.

 

The Jumpcut website is a webtop application based on Flash. One of the company founders had a hand in the development of Flash at Macromedia. Flash, which is also behind the success of YouTube, reduces the bandwidth needed to play videos, making for a relatively easy way of integrating many features on a webpage.

 

Jumpcut is for the time being geared toward people who want to share their own films, photos or slide shows on the Internet. There are various upload and import options – either directly from the user’s own computer, via email or as import from other websites such as “flickr”. The basic structure – with features like self-portraits, tags, commentary fields or links to “friends” – is hardly distinguishable from sites like MySpace or YouTube. But the design is pleasantly reserved and the pages are (still?) free of advertising.

 

Jumpcut’s gallery, called “Explore”, provides an overview of the content. This is classified according to media, interestingly enough making a distinction between films (“movies”) and clips. In the Film section are edited films, while unedited recordings are stored under Clips. Within the community, i.e. among registered users, all films or clips published on Jumpcut are free game for further editing by others. But it is also possible to only use the editor function and to save the results privately.

 

Completely new and up until now still unique is the section “open movies” on Jumpcut, which is designed to inspire people to work together on a common film. It remains to be seen whether users will take advantage of this exciting opportunity.

 

In addition to its very easy-to-use upload function, a user’s own or found media can be imported directly into the editor. The editor is the main attraction at Jumpcut, with semi-professional features that put it in a different class from prototypes like “Remixer”. With the Jumpcut tool, the user can edit his own or found audio and video material and add various image, text and sound effects. The range of possibilities for titles or subtitles alone is surprisingly varied. Anyone wishing to try out the editor can do so without registering, on a demo site with pre-installed elements.

 

The number of groups, users and ultimately films is not yet that large compared to YouTube. But Jumpcut is after all relatively new and is still in the “beta phase”. Some of the features are not yet fully developed or not yet sufficiently ‘populated’, such as the “2007 jumpcut film festival” for example, which at the time of writing (February 2007) contained only two competition entries and one comment: a question from an irritated user asking if this was a real festival and, if so, where he could find the regulations! A more promising future can presumably be expected for partnerships with the organizers of other online film competitions, with which Jumpcut is likewise linked.

 

Since the takeover by Yahoo!, the formerly small company now finds itself with much wider horizons for expansion. For example, contracts have been signed with Fox and Warner for the free use of excerpts from their films and television shows. This could soon put Jumpcut in league with the major players on the cult remix video scene.

 

 

Reinhard W. Wolf

 

p.s. To be continued! With themes such as the new DIY aesthetic in participatory Net culture, “collaborative remixability” and film MODs ...