Think A/V artists, visualists, and VJs can’t get work? Don’t tell that to superstar production team Addictive TV. They’ve been proving that you really don’t need a trailer for a film any more – just hire a VJ. It started when they created a web viral for the movie Take the Lead, and they went on to remix the Olympics

Now, the only problem is, I think you might actually need a VJ for the entire film to make a movie based on a computer game that isn’t crap. (Maybe Max Payne will be The One … even if it does come eons after anyone was playing Max Payne.) But for a couple of minutes, they can certainly make Max Payne cool; whether that sustains an entire cinematic evening I leave to Mark Wahlberg and the production team.

Even cooler, however: remixing Kristin Scott-Thomas and the music of Cole Porter (top). Cole, I’m sure, would approve, as would Kristin’s Greatest Fan, Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson. (I wish I could remember some lewd comment he made about Kristin, but then, this is a Family Site.)

Best of all? Watch them both at the same time. (Get someone to hold open your eyelids for a full-blown Clockwork Orange-style viewing party. Thanks, Brian Kane.)

It’s good stuff. And things are beginning to align – MGM is posting full films on YouTube, though not necessarily under a remix-friendly license (the usual copyright protections apply).

But could people soon be grabbing popcorn and really watching live cinema? Could VJs replace trailers with the same, generic booming sound effects and some dude saying meaningless lines like “Sometimes, the only way home is to start over again.”

Yeah. I think so. History is on our side, people.

More on Addictive TV:

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Create Digital Motion interview: Addictive Remix Olympics Live

Mashups. Sampling a President named Bush. Bah. In the early 90s, life was better. Multimedia collective Emergency Broadcast Network was sampling found footage in truly clever ways — using VHS, artifacts and all. And driving around in massive projection assault vehicles with rotating satellite dishes. And building rockets into golf bags. Really. Now that’s my kind of visualist. Robokid hooks us up with this “documercial” explaining their work (contrats on having a Wikipedia page, Josh!):

If you enjoyed the DJ/VJ grand piano, from EBN’s Gardner Post, you’ve only just seen the beginning. EBN were legendary in their time, but since there was no YouTube in 1992, it was tricky getting hold of their videos. Now, no such problem. Here’s one example of their work, which wins extra points for featuring a piano-playing pigeon:

The SciFi channel has released some chunky packs of footage, music and sound effects, and invited web users to remix and create videos. Ostensibly this is a competition, with the winning video airing on the channel during a future Battlestar episode…

Which I’m sure will be lovely for whoever wins. I don’t really care though, because I’m seeing a swathe of great A/V mashups and theme remixes appearing in the coming months. I can guarantee that there will be Battlestar breakdowns appearing in the next gig I play with Segue21.

The videos are available in AVI and Quicktime, with both Land and Space clips represented, and there are handy “download all” links. The Quicktime packs are bigger (higher quality?), so I’m getting those: 733MB all up. They’re not really anything you couldn’t get from your own DVD collection, but it’s great to see a TV channel being proactive about remix culture. Hopefully next time they’ll give us alpha-matted effects comps of bluescreen shots so we can bring the actors and explosions into our own work.

Download Site.

Via BoingBoing