My Year Films

There have been many original pieces of work that people have created that have been remixed before, none of which compares to the original film “My Year 2016” and the remixed version “My Year 2017”. The film “My Year 2016” was created by film-maker Sam Kolder, an avid adventurer, photographer, and videographer. The new film went viral, a craze of influence came about on millennials and aspiring film-makers. Some may have seen this to be influence, appropriation or even plagiarism, but when film-maker Rob Strok created a remixed version of Sam Kolder’s video titled, “My Year 2017”, the video blew up almost as much as Sam Kolder’s video did. These two popular videographers seemed to have been competing for fame or showing off their amazing editing skills. Sam Kolder’s video “My Year 2016” included new effects and a beautiful color grade scale applied over the video clips that gave a orange and teal look. This soon became a trend and was soon applied to the video Rob Strok created, “My Year 2017”. The two films are both very similar, they share the same idea’s such as video clips with exotic locations, crazy experiences and cool effects such as a zoom in or a zoom out effect. This would be considered influence by Lethem. The author Lethem stated, “influence as a classification of Remix is defined as “having an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.” Influence is shown through the remixed video created by Rob Strok by having the same story being told. One year, all the crazy memories, exotic locations and funniest moments all being filmed professionally and then compiled into a harshly edited film. Through remix, the message Sam Kolder wanted to bring in his original film was to travel the world, experience things one has never experienced before, and to enjoy the memories that a person makes, this message was also conveyed this exact same way through Rob Strok’s film even though it was a remixed film. This helps show why remix is a part of our culture and should not be considered plagiarism.