We are closing in on the end of 2012, everyone is putting together their Top 10 lists, and editing together their end of the year retrospective video mashups! The first 2012 video mashup that I've seen so far comes to us from Louis Plamondon. He broke the video down into three parts, and here's an explanation of what they represent...
PRIMA PARTE - The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: Pruitt-Igoe was a large urban housing project that became infamous for symbolizing the shattered dreams of many and was subject to a great documentary this year. By the late 1960's, it had gone from a promise of a better future for thousands of families to a place of desolation, poverty and crime. Not unlike the fate of its inhabitants, many characters in this year's motion pictures have had to endure a vision of the future that demanded their hopes to make room for despair. From the Orwellian districts of The Hunger Games to the corporate conspiracies of Branded and the highly-controlled buildings of The Raid and Dredd 3D, dystopia certainly made its comeback this year.
SECONDA PARTE - Tick Tick Boom: A song that has been attempted in online movie mashups countless times. I always wanted to take a crack at it and celebrate every note of explosive silliness that transpire through this epic hit from The Hives. The inspiration I got from Tick Tick Boom wasn't that it clearly promotes balls-out action all over the walls but that it does it with a sense of self-awareness and light parody. This is precisely the tone that we've found in offerings such as Battleship, The Expendables 2, and (last but not least) Joss Whedon's The Avengers. These movies all know they're silly but rather than convincing us of the contrary, they decide to embrace it and focus on giving us what we crave: great walls of fire erupting everywhere and heroes who can't bother to look at them.
PARTE FINALE - Everything is Connected: My third segment was an attempt to explore what can only described in Hollywood as the merger of mainstream blockbusters and small independent films. Now more than ever, young and emerging filmmakers have the affordable technology in their post-production to make their shoestring-budgeted features feel as visually striking as a major studio production. On the other side of the coin, the big studios are increasing financing on their Oscar hopefuls and make sure to spare no expense in order to make a resourceful production look as indie as possible. I tried to blend the little movies, the big ones, and put my emphasis on those who happen to be one but pretending to be the other.
The video turned out really good, and this is the first of many that will come. Check it out and let us know what one of your favorite movies was so far this year.
Thanks to the creator of the video for sending it out way!