Mashups, Italian Style!

Image of TotòWell, Antonella Dalla Torre’s Italian 202 class had its first annual La Mattina degli Oscar (The Morning of the Oscars), and it was quite a special event. Good food, everyone well-dressed, and the culture was first rate, now that’s Italian! The occasion was a celebration of the recent work this class put into creating a series of pretty impressive Italian Mashups for their final projects.

The rules of the game were pretty simple:

  • Each group had to use freely available, public domain clips from the Internet Archive to create a narrative.
  • They had to write the script in Italian and get it approved.
  • They were expected to perform the dialogs with passion.
  • Finally, they needed to subtitle the entire film in Italian (most of which range from 2 to 3 minutes long)

The project seemed like a really fun experiment from what I could tell of the classes overall reaction this morning. There was a lot of laughter and kidding once the films were finally screened. Which is a good thing given the tight deadlines and intense collaborative work forced upon the students over a two week span at the end of the semester. I have to hand it to the class as a whole, they met the challenge with gusto. And I particularly have to hand it to Antonella for following and engaging so many of the conversations in regards to teaching and learning in our current moment (some of which happen in her dining room!) and framing out an impressive, pointed, and very powerful example of coalescing various media, languages, and cultures to give rise to some extremely fun and challenging projects. Bravo!

Below are scanned versions of the official “Oscar cards” for each of the five major categories which are followed by the actual mashups: 1) Best Film, 2) Best dialog, 3) Most creative, 4) Best Special Effects, and 5) Best soundtrack/music. (The Oscar cards featured below were designed by Michele Fontefrancesco.)

You can also see higher-quality versions on the class project blog “Il Mashup.”

Image of Oscar card for best Italian Film

Alien Pizza (Best Italian Film)

[youtube width=”425″ height=”355″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np_JfAxuqlc[/youtube]

Image of Oscar card for best Italian dialog

Maria! Maria! (Best dialog)

[youtube width=”425″ height=”355″]http://youtube.com/watch?v=hUEdSB8fO1c[/youtube]

Image of Oscar card for best Special Effects

Libidine e disonesta (Most creative film)

[youtube width=”425″ height=”355″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVNCr4B0Gfw[/youtube]

Image of Oscar card for best effetti speciale

La specie femmina (Best Special Effects)

[youtube width=”425″ height=”355″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOoz5znR0y0[/youtube]

Image of Oscar card for Sonnorra

La storia di Giovanna (Best use of music)

[youtube width=”425″ height=”355″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZFuaUTrgc[/youtube]

This entry was posted in experimenting, fun, Italy, mashup, movies, video, YouTube and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Mashups, Italian Style!

  1. Luke says:

    Brilliant project. Bravo!

  2. Brad says:

    For the record, the award is technically for “Funniest Dialogue.”
    Also for the record, the award is displayed prominently on my desk right now! Che progetto fantastico!!

  3. Reverend says:

    @Luke,

    All the brilliance is Antonella’s, I’m just the messenger.

    @Brad:

    I love it, an Italian student who clarifies my poor, poor Italian. A sure fire reflection of the unreliability of the bava.

    I have to say that your mashup was a blast, the “Wanna Be my lover…” song was an awesome touch and I can’t get it outta of my head. Glad to hear you all liked the project, it was a bit of a risk, but I think it worked out well. Now to read your latest post and catch up!

  4. fontefrancesco says:

    IT’s really nice to have the possibility to watch again your works!
    Besides, very glad my little job was appreciated by all of you!
    take care, guys
    MFF

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