Happy Remix
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Transcript of Happy Remix
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Stephen LaGrange
11/7/12
English 357
Happy Remix
The remix video that I choose to analyze is a music video of the song “Buddy Holly” by
the band Weezer. The music video for the song was released in 1994 and was directed by Spike
Jonze who is a successful director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Some of his most notable
directing work can be seen in the movies such as “Being John Malkovich” and “Where the Wild
Things Are”. Jonze has also directed music videos for other bands such as The Beastie Boys,
Bjork, and Arcade Fire however this video is one of the first he directed.
The music video portrays Weezer performing a live show at the original Arnold’s Drive in
Diner from the hugely popular 1970’s T.V. show “Happy Days”. The video combines
contemporary footage of the band performing in the diner with classics clips from the actual
show. The video is very believable because of the implementation of the original cast members
into the contemporary footage. The biggest cameo from the video is from Al Molinaro the
owner of Al’s dinner. Al is the one who introduces the band at the beginning of the video and
makes you think right away that this is an old
episode of Happy Days. The rest of the video is
edited in the same way to create the illusion that
Weezer actually performed on the show. The
video was met with great popularity and went on
to win 4 awards at the MTV Music Video Awards.
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Formal Analysis
Obviously Weezer did not make an appearance on the show Happy Days, but the
producers in this video did almost everything in their power to make it look that way. The
closure type that is used in this video is subject to subject. Scott McCloud the author of
“Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” would define subject to subject as “transitions that
take us from subject to subject while staying within a scene or idea” (pg. 71). The video stays
within the scene of the band performing in Arnold’s dinner, but then takes us from subject to
subject when it shows shots of the different characters. Some of the best examples of this are
when the members of the band interact with characters from the actual show.
(2:00)
(2:38)
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Mcloud also says that a degree of reader involvement is necessary to render the transitions
meaningful. This is definitely true for this video, but it is these transitions between the
contemporary band and the classic characters that really make the video seem much more
believable and entertaining to watch.
The video is very entertaining, but is there any kind of deeper meaning that the words
and pictures combine to tell us? I did some research on the lyrics from the song “Buddy Holly”
to see if there is any kind of connection. This song (like most if the Weezer songs) was written
by Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo and was written based off his life experiences. To sum it up
quick the song is based on Rivers experiences of discrimination while dating an Asian girl in
America. The most obvious lyrics that say they are being discriminated against are in the first
verse of the song.
What's with these homies, dissin' my girl
Why do they gotta front
What did we ever do to these guys
That made them so violent
Other lyrics come later in the song that explain that his girl is Asian with her eyes being slit and
her tounge being twisted or in other words with an accent. This explains why they are being
discriminated and why she needs protection from the discrimination.
Don't you ever fear, I'm always there
I know that you need help
Your tongue is twisted, your eyes are slit
You need a guardian
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Based on these lyrics and the overall tone of the song it’s hard for me to really see any huge
connections between the song and the video. The video is clips of everyone having a good time
enjoying the live music that is being performed. There is nothing about the discrimination of a
mixed race couple rolled in anywhere within the video. Because the video and the song for the
most part portray two separate ideas I have to classify it as a parallel word picture combination.
McCloud defines parallel combinations as words and pictures that seem to follow very different
courses without intersecting. Even though the actual words of the song do not follow the same
path as the video that does not necessarily mean that the song itself does not go along with the
video.
If I had to place this video on Scott McCloud’s triangle it would be in the far left corner
in the realistic realm. This video pretty much exclusively uses realistic images to create the
remix. The only part that could be considered iconic is the use of the Happy Days logo during
the intermission portion of the video. The only thing that is really iconic about this shot is the
words because even the background shot of the record player is in the realm of realism. Even
though the show was based on the lives of fictional characters they are still considered in the
realm of realism because they were
played by real people. Almost everything
about this video is real and that is the
way that the producers wanted it to be,
they wanted it to be as believable as
possible.
(2:20)
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The idiom of the video is mostly in the realm of experimental tradition. It is somewhat
unique compared to other remixes because instead of simply blending two similar things
together like an old song with a new song it blends together a contemporary song with footage
from a classic T.V. show which is then blended together with contemporary footage that is
made to look like the classic T.V. show. It’s almost more complicated to talk about what is going
on in the video then it is to just watch it. Even with the mix of all of these things together the
video still follows the same recipe for a traditional remix and that is taking something that is
old, combining it with something that is contemporary to create something that is new and
different from anything else.
As far as samples go this remix really only takes samples from one subject and that is
from the classic T.V. show Happy Days. It is pretty clear that the band had permission to use
samples from the show because otherwise they would probably not be able to make the video
in the first place. The really interesting thing about the samples that they used is the extent
they went to make the samples appear to look like they were part of an original episode of the
show. Everything from the clothes, the appearance of the actors, and even the stage that the
band is performing on meshed together in a way to make the video true to a real episode of the
show. The devil is in the details and many details were used to make this remix as believable as
possible.
The transitions that occur in the video were also used to make the video very believable.
They are done so well it is almost hard to notice them when you watch the video in real time.
There are a lot of continuations from the original clips that transition into the contemporary
clips. They do a really good job of masking these clips into the video without the viewer
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knowing that it is happing. A lot of this is due to some of the fast transitions that occur. They
are almost so fast you can’t tell the difference and so much is going on you really don’t seem to
mind that it is happening. Probably the most noticeable clips are when the Fonze appears to be
dancing along with the music. It is clear that the dancing is a clip from an episode of the show,
but a quick transition to a new clip with the subjects back turned with the band in the
background makes it seems like it is happening together. This technique of using an original clip
and then going to a quick transition of the back of the subjects head is used several times
during the video and ends up being very effective.
(3:05)
(2:52)
(1:27)
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Content Analysis
It is fairly clear that the main purpose of this remix is to entertain and I believe that it is
very successful in doing so. It is really hard not to like this video because it is entertaining on so
many levels. I am assuming this was not done by mistake considering that the song Buddy Holly
is the first track on Weezer’s first studio album “The Blue Album”. I’m assuming they wanted to
do a video that would gain a lot of attention to help promote their first album. Somewhere
along the line they must have decided that a remix with an already popular T.V. show would be
a good way to go. The quality of the video really shows that the creators new what they were
doing. A video like this does not come together by accident, they knew exactly what they had to
work with and they knew what scenes they had to recreate to make it seem like it was a real
episode of Happy Days. It is probably also save to assume they had some kind of budget to
make this video otherwise it would probably not be nearly as successful. Whatever the
reasoning is behind the video I think it is very successful form of entertainment and really
stands out as a unique video remix.
Evaluate
As much as I like this video and the song I do believe the video could be more successful
if the song and the video somehow went together better to explain the whole story behind the
lyrics. That is really the only thing that this video is missing that could really make it any better. I
can see how that just might not have been feasible with using all of the old footage from the
show but it would have been very interesting if they could have somehow pulled that off.
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Sources
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.
"Buddy Holly (song)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly_(song)>.
"Weezer - Buddy Holly." YouTube. YouTube, 16 June 2009. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kemivUKb4f4>.