Out in remix culture, one is never sure what one will find. Take this video for example. If you watched American TV during the 1980s, you’re likely to remember Diff’rent Strokes, a sitcom that had a kind of far-fetched premise: a rich white widower adopts two African-American children from Harlem, and they live happily together in a penthouse with the widower’s biological daughter and maid. The show’s opening credits were accompanied by an upbeat little jingle (watch it here). Now watch what happens above when someone layers Hitchcock style music over the original. How we interpret the video suddenly does a complete 180. The message that leaps out is not one that we’re making light of. Not at all. We’re simply featuring the clip because it demonstrates so well how music shades the meaning we give to images.
PS Readers have added some other intriguing examples in the comments below.
Peter Kaufman comes to us from Intelligent Television.
reminds me of the clip where someone re-edited ‘the shining’ into something that resembled ‘something about a boy’ by adding a new voice over narration and using peter gabriel’s ‘solsbury hill’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfout_rgPSA
couldn’t agree more. Here is another grand example involving a famous Nike commercial Awake.
http://budurl.com/qh6m
Two virtually identical spots. No copy. Just music but you get two completely different feels.
@TomMartin