After briefly skimming through Tottel’s Miscellany Songs and Sonnets of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt and others the sonnets I decided to use are 45 (The Lover describeth his being striken with the sight of his love), 97 (A description of such a one as he would love) and 103 (A renouncing of love). The sonnet that will be part of my original remix are sonnet 45 and 97. I will be creating two dramatic video interpretations (in a form of a mini movie) of these poems followed by two songs written by me by adding my own twist or “remix” of these sonnets. In other words, the lyrics I will be writing will reflect the sonnet and poem in modern day Hip Hop/Rap music. Since I am unable to sing, and feel self conscious about my rapping voice I will have my friend Zeke or Josh do the rapping for me. The lyrics were written by me and the beat/instrumental that was produced was done by me and mixed by my friend Zeke. The materials that I will be using in the remix are a JVC 4k 2000 Camera, Bascor 1 BY LED Lighting, Manfrotto 502 Large Tripod (1) Manrotto 502_2, Sony ECM 77B (!) Kit_2, the music production software Ableton, Garage Band, and Soundcloud. Once I finished editing the videos I will upload them to YouTube. The format will be digital. Since, I am doing two dramatic interpretations of sonnet 97 and sonnet 45 the argument I hope to convey with my remix is that I hope my lyrics for the song carry the same type of meaning for the original text but have a slight twist it with it. To put it another way, in Sonnet 97 the speaker is infatuated and describes the “perfect” woman in his eyes but the lyrics will reflect the speaker being heartbroken by the woman. The video will also express the ideas and imagery in the poem but the ending will be unexpected. In sonnet’s 45 video, I am thinking about filming a particular image or motif symbol that was used and have the a narration of the sonnet reflect it. It will also have a song to it but as of right now I am still brainstorming on how I plan to direct and remix it. My work combines both the original text and remixes it in a different type of context. The work that is produced in Tottel’s Miscellany was produced in the sixteenth century (1500’s) but I hope my work brings a modern day interpretation and visualization to it. My work is sort of a mixture between the original text and my own creativity. It produces a visualization aid and dramatic interpretation if it were performed today in front of an audience. My intended target audience for my project are people who are into pop culture, music enthusiast, and for any English majors who are having a difficult time understanding the sonnets and poems. It will bring more clarity to it because when I had to select them I realized the language was difficult to understand because it was Early Modern English and some of the words no longer used in the English language like the term “tress”. The remix will capture all these elements exhibited and provide for some good entertainment.
Hope everyone enjoys and stay tuned for May 15, 2017 when I present it 🙂