Mashups and Pastiche

I went to Guy and Mark’s Digital Adventure last night at the Sydney Film Festival. They were talking about viral short films. One they showed was Brokeback 2 Squadron – will Tom Cruise sue again, one wonders? Here’s a version of it:

A wonderful pastiche of Top Gun and Brokeback Mountain.

Which made me think of mashups for advertising. Check out this clip for Brokeback Mountain Coffee. From YouTube.com

Very cool. And has wonderful possibilities – we’ve had ads from the movies before, but the viral online thing takes it one step further, no? A fundamental role the viewer plays in these has to do with dialogue – we the viewer rank and rate the short movies, music videos and viral ads. We choose to pass them on or delete them. We actively search for more in real time – not try and remember who the director was, when we drop the video or DVD back to the store a few days later. Plus all the other goodies that come with online communities such as feedback and comments. The Dialogue is the Content.

BTW I lent my pen to the guy sitting behind me, so Erietta has promised to write up her notes for me to publish here about the digital films we saw last night.

Technorati tag: Online Communities, mash up, user generated, Brokeback Coffee, Brokeback Squadron Guy Gadney, Mark Storm