There have been many research studies I have co-authored, and I have co-edited book chapters for colleagues, but I’ve not until recently co-produced, at least not in the post-modern sense of the term. Oh, I know most if not many theatrical movies you see are co-produced, but the producers are professionals; producing movies is their trade. But there is another kind of co-production that we see more and more of that involves amateurs who either mimic or mash up what professionals are producing. All one has to do is look at the parodies of popular songs on YouTube to exemplify what I mean. The example I’ve provided below is for a song by Lily Allen in which consumer generated video is mixed in with her own video of the song Fear.
The idea of co-production is important because this is one of the ways in which we make (produce) meaning through our own interactions with popular culture. We used to talk about the songs that singers give us; now that’s only the first stop in the production stream. What’s also important is what we do with those songs or movies or whatever. What we do is make, unmake, or remake meaning through our own production; hence, we become co-producers in the popular culture process. I’m sure you can think of other examples of co-production to add.
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I've seen contests and resulting music videos that incorporate fan versions into an "official" product. However, I've never seen one such as that for "The Fear" above, which incorporates both fan video and audio. I think it works surprisingly well for the song/video, although not all songs feature such sing-a-long-y verses. Aside from the singability, I think it makes sense for this song to get this type of fan-coproduction, as "The Fear" addresses how skewed values derived from pop culture currently are. The title of the song itself, "The Fear" connotes something universal, thus attempting to incorporate everyone seems to aid the message of the song.
One recent example of coproduction that comes to mind is the release and success of indie chiller Paranormal Activity. The online movie community had been buzzing about the movie since its premiere at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival in 2007, but that wasn't enough for promoters. Scoring a midnight-showing run in the fall of 2009, Paranormal Activity was becoming somewhat of a cult phenomenon. Starving director Oren Peli looked to the internet to further audience awareness and engagement. He encouraged followers to "Demand It" on eventful.com. On September 25th, the film debuted in a dozen collegetowns across the country, to mostly sellout crowds. The "Demand It" campaign had started. By October 10th, over 1,000,000 people demanded this movie (budgeted at $15,000) prompting studio Paramount to announce a wide-release on Oct 16th in order to fulfill its promise once that million person milestone was hit. The film became a huge worldwide success and is actually both the most profitable movie ever made and the highest grossing R-rated thriller of the past decade.
While this strategy might be more an example of the growing participatory nature of pop culture than an example of coproduction, the next step in the Paranormal saga makes an argument for the latter. On November 5th, as a fan who demanded the film, I was emailed an offer to feature my name in the credits of the DVD release, as means of gratitude from the production team. I now have a sense of ownership when it comes to this movie, and pride at all that it has achieved.
I don't know how I missed this blog entry until just now, but I really appreciated that music video. Lily Allen is actually among the many artists I can listen to over and over again, mostly because she has catchy lyrics, and a funky style in delivering them to her audience. While watching the video, I immediately started smiling because of how much I liked it. The idea of coproduction is appealing to me because it encompasses so many ideas, and can create something wonderful off of a basic idea. When people are able to successfully collaborate on something, it brings together different minds, beliefs, and creates something new and exciting. As you had mentioned, Youtube.com is one of the most influential sites in media right now. Coproducing a clip from a music video, to a random animation, fills the entire site with different ideas coming from all over the world. Without it, things may become bland, and narrowminded. Luckily that isn't the case, and people work on so many things together to ensure that the public will enjoy whatever it is they have to offer.
I really enjoyed this video as well. Yet, I also found it a little disturbing. It seemed as though the lyrics counteracted, or in a sense explained, why Lily Allen used other people singing in her videos. It almost seems as though she cannot be the person she wants to be but instead what others make her up to be. She must conform to what will make her popular, she is being consumed. In the video she is literally made by her fans. In some sense I think this is a comforting idea, that we have a great influence over the singers and the movie stars that we like but we can go so far sometimes as creating them and even destroying them. I’m not sure that it is right for us to have this type of power. I have a feeling that I am reading too much into it though. In general I found this video really interesting. I enjoyed watching all different groups of people coming together to create a video. It also made me appreciate Lily Allen for wanting to create something like this. I have always liked Lily Allen, but this adds to my respect for her because she appreciates her fans. The example Brian gave seems to be more of what I would hope to see when thinking about co-producing (not that I didn’t enjoy the video). The case of Paranormal Activity, having fans that were interested in the movie and demanding it is a really interesting concept. It makes me wonder if this technique was used more often would we see a decline in useless Hollywood movies that really no one wants to see, to think of one recently, The Bounty Hunter. If this co-production leads to us having a say in what is produced and seen I have a feeling that in the future we will see more of this and am intrigued to see what co-producing creates. I have a feeling we will all be a bit famous, if only because our names are in the credits of a movie.
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