Soda Jerk work exclusively with sampled material and pirated cinema to make rogue documentary films. I LOVE Soda Jerk. I was looking at them last year in reference to deconstructive montage last year and I’m interested in their appropriation of film and video in regards to copyright.
For instance ‘The Was’ is a part mash up part music video using 100 (highly recognisable) films in a collaboration with The Avalanches and their music, Whilst ‘After the Rainbow’ (below, 2009) appropriates ‘The Wizard of Oz’, transporting Judy Garland to see her future ‘forlorn older’. The series Séance Fictions (previously named Dark Matter) is concerned with corporeal experiences of time, and how these relations are mediated by screen technologies. Each work in this series stages an encounter between the past and future selves of a deceased screen star.
Its quite brilliant and imposter syndrome seeps in. I’M NOT THAT SMART!!!
When you look at the credits to ‘After the Rainbow’ you see it includes material from 12 film / video sources including Donnie Darko & Twin Peaks: Fire walk with me. Just they have manipulated the material to all look like its one film. And that is why I am researching this New York based duo (made up of Australian siblings). Not only to enjoy what they do but HOW they do it. Is that it? Crediting? Is it how much time you use the snippet? This needs more research of its own. Copyright.
They use many copyright protected films as the source of their ‘fantastical story lines’ and state they position themselves squarely on the side of freedom for media piracy. They even made an anti-copyright manifesto disguised as an epic Hollywood style film Hollywood Burn (2011). 10 years in the making. I wont say they haven't gotten in trouble. The Ian Potter Foundation gave them $100,000 to make Terror Nullius (below, 2018), then withdrew promotional support, distancing themselves from it and calling it 'un-Australian' (whatever the hell that means). Yet ACMI backed them and ran it.
So I guess its; give it another meaning (context), add to it a bit, credit it, don’t use it for its entirety and go for broke (hopefully not ‘go broke’ from lawsuits…ie the 5th parameter - choose wisely).