Zack Silver: Remix assignment

For my remix assignment, I choose to focus on one of my hobbies: collecting movie posters. I love movie posters mainly with the idea that they are an image, either simple or very detailed, that can sum up a 90-minute movie. Some can be the simplest still from the film, or others can be an extensive 27 by 40 inch picture of all the characters, action scenes and special effects in a film. Ever since I started working at a movie theater over 2 years ago, I have collected real size movie posters for films that have recently come up. Most of the blockbusters, Oscar contenders and more I have in a big box in my basement at home. Not sure what I will do with all them one day, but I right now love the idea of having over 200 posters in my possession.

For my assignment, I choose to “remix” the movie poster for the film Up. The original poster is a simple image of a balloon floating in the sky, but symbolizes many themes in the film. I composited 2 remixes of this poster. One turns the balloons upside down, going against the film title Up. When initially looking at this image, you get a negative feeling, thinking the balloon is going to crash. You might think this was a negative film, while in fact it is a very positive one. For the second remix poster I copied the balloon image, and pasted it on a completely different picture of a volcano with lava I got from creative commons. This also is a very negative image, not the happy Disney film one things they are seeing. It also lies as that scenery is never actually in the film. Both of these posters create a sense of “false advertising”, if Disney were to publish them and put them in the movie theaters. I wanted to express in this project how changing a few little things on a poster, can in turn completely change the meaning of the film and what you want the viewer to think before they see it.