Kirby Ferguson: Authors@Google October 17, 2011

Favorite:

Remixing, mashups and sampling have all been with us for many years now but the saturation of high-speed broadband has seen an explosion in the access to media and its inevitable resampling and subsequent sharing, where the process begins over again. From established names in music (DJ Danger Mouse, Girl Talk) and video (Eclectic Method, Additive TV) to 'amateur' YouTube remixes and mashups (Charlie Bit Me -- Remix, Christian Bale takes David to the Dentist (NSFW)) the remix is here and no amount of litigation is going to make it go away.

Everything is a Remix isn't by any means the first film to tackle this subject, coming as it does on the heels of films such as RiP: A Remix Manifesto, Walking On Eggshells: Borrowing Culture in the Remix Age and The Evolution of Remix Cultures, but Ferguson brings a methodical, example-led approach to the arguments he presents—traveling from William Burroughs to Blues to Folk to RnB to Hip-Hop—in a compelling graphical and auditory style that prevents the delivery from becoming too dryly academic. His filmmaking deftness honed from the hours he's put into his video back catalogue over at GoodieBag.tv.