Lipdub & Copyright

Consider the “university lipdub.” A large group of students lip-synchs the performance of a popular song. A moving camera follows the action in a single, uninterrupted take. Because the law chases innovation and popular culture, student filmmakers and record company executives are asking “are such performances – often uploaded to the internet and seen by thousands – flattering homages to bands and performers or abuses of copyright?”

Process & Product

A ProTools session -- or a life lesson?

Not long ago, I met with a frustrated student. "Your teaching style is a poor fit with my learning style," he told me. I think he means he wants direct answers to simple questions. I think he wants me to tell him which buttons will work ProTools' magic on tracks of recorded music in the hour before his assignment is due. The pressures of deadlines and grades are heavy. He needs a thing to turn in.

But neither his product nor even his mastery of a program is my chief concern. The thing and the software are as fleeting as musical tastes and computer operating systems. How do I insulate the student from the same obsolescence? I teach him process. I teach him how to learn. Such teaching is painful, for it often resembles this exchange:

Preferring the Copies

The cast of Spamalot.

The block of Fulton Street surrounding the subway station was a mess of shredded gray cobblestone. Hardhats bobbed in trenches below me. I picked my way through bootlegged copies of recent films, Gucci handbags, and designer perfumes. “One dolla! One dolla! One dolla!” mumbled a man with a scarred ice chest of bottled water. “One dolla today, three dolla tomorrow… maybe five. Get it today.”

Beyond the fare card turnstile, the subway platform was a stifling pit (maybe I should have bought the water). The northbound Number Two was a blessed respite from the triple-digit sauna. The air-conditioned express train whooshed through destinations made famous by decades of movies and television. “The people ride in a hole in the ground,” I thought, recalling lyrics from Gene Kelly’s film, New York, New York.