In addition to fanfiction, fanvids are one of the most common creative projects that fans take part in. A fanvid, or fan-made video, is pretty much exactly what it sounds like- a video made by a fans for or about their fandom’s TV show or film. In many respects it’s similar to fanfiction in goals, but it uses visual and auditory cues rather than the written word.

Henry Jenkins commented on fanvids in a response to a widely circulated Star Trek fanvid. He commented that they have become much more common in recent years due to technology making it easier not only to make videos (using digital software) but to distribute them (using sites like YouTube). He noted:

“YouTube is the place right now where work travels from one grassroots community or subculture to another. There are real advantages to such a site since it results in cross-influences and more innovation, experimentation, and diversity, yet there are also losses to this process of decoupling amateur media from its original contexts of production and consumption.”

As with fanfiction, fanvids viewed by people outside the fandom can misinterpret or simply not understand what the fan is saying or why in the video. This is particularly true involving videos depicting romantic or sexual relationships. However, some fans have taken the technology posing this potential problem and turned it into a positive fandom project. A YouTube channel, Are You Watching Supernatural, contributes to fandom by making short promotional videos of Supernatural designed to attract more viewers to the show. Fans enjoy them because they are well-made videos that echo literary and social themes in the show and emphasize reasons Supernatural is great to watch. However, by targeting non-fans, the videos are also able to reach across the social lines a closed fan community can sometimes create in order to connect with those unfamiliar with the show and the customs and practices of fandom.

In addition to promotion of the fandom, fanvids let fans tell visual stories using methods unavailable to the fanfic writer. The combination of picture and sound produces a different effect on the viewer than a story does in its reader. For example, the video below (by KrokiRefur) edits clips from Supernatural of the characters’ car and pairs it with a song about a car-turned-serial-killer. A fanfic of this nature would be difficult to take seriously, but the video works because of the way she put it together.

This kind of video is what Jenkins calls a “constructed reality” video. The most sophisticated fanvids are not the ‘music video’ equivalent of a TV show or movie; instead, they use digital media to create an original story. As he puts it,

“…It creates a new story by linking together shots from the original series as opposed to using those shots simply to interpret or provide an alternative emotional perspective on events already depicted in the aired episodes.”

Another option afforded to fanvids unavailable to fanfiction is commentary on the show or movie’s cinematic style in the show’s own medium. For example, Ash is a fan who made this video to link Supernatural to various film traditions it employs in the show.

The resulting video is both entertaining and thoughtful to watch, as she uses the video to comment on Supernatural’s visual and historical ties to the Western, horror and film noir genres.

Recommendations

Searching on YouTube with a TV show or movie as the keyword is a quick way to discover many, many fanvids. One simpler way to do it, however, would be to use ‘vid rec’ communities such as this one, which is specific to Supernatural, or this one, which has multiple fandoms represented.

I would also recommend Deirdre-C’s fanvids. She ranges from funny to serious and is very good about matching clips to appropriate audio. She also has an ongoing list of recommendations which are helpful for me. I’ve found that often the best people to recommend fanvids are those who make videos themselves; they’re attuned to the visual cues which make a video great that I might only be subliminally aware of.

LostImortal’s Youtube account was deleted by Youtube a few days ago. Wondering who LostImortal is? She makes some of the best Rob vids like the ones below. She also posted the How to Be casting vids.  I suggest you subscribe on Youtube. You can subscribe to her new account here.  Here are a few of her vids. I’m glad she made a new account and started re-uploading her vids.

More after the jump!

Tengo varios posters de Charmed que ya no quiero, tengo uno bastante grande creo que era de la bravo alemana donde salen Rose, Alyssa y Holly vestidas con trajes dorados en un fondo primaveral.

Ese será el primer premio, los segundos y terceros premios serán posters de las chicas en solitario.

Reglas:

Fanvid de Phoebe y Cole.
Me da igual formato, canción o tamaño pero tiene que estar publicado en alguna web que yo tenga acceso a ella, nada de sitios privados donde haya que registrarse para ver los videos.

Si no pesan mucho se pueden mandar a mi correo: pilihalliwell@yahoo.es

No hay límite de fecha por ahora.

Por fi participad.

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Julian_McMahon_Spain/index.php?showforum=9

I have a thing for Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children AMVs. Browsing youtube this morning, I came across a recently-added FF7 AMV by Nella using “Forgotten Children,” and couldn’t believe how well it fit (and that I hadn’t seen it done before):

Let’s see… any good new fanvids on Youtube today?

Have you noticed that a lot of fanvidders are using Sony Vegas now? Remember, vidders, cool effects are no replacement for creativity.

Also, the world probably doesn’t need another Bill Kaulitz “Fix You” fanvid.

OOOh, new speedpainting video!

Nice!

Today is a beautiful Spring day… you should pass the time enjoying it. Or by watching a really weird, kind of mindblowing fan video!

If “mishearing” lyrics is an art, Youtuber clsscrock is a prodigy or something. This is something I can’t do. Sure, I’ll genuinely mis-hear a lyric or hear an “English” word in the German lyrics here and there, but my brain doesn’t try and interpret the German words into English in that literal, phonetic  way. Maybe that’s why I find Misheard Lyrics fanvideos so entertaining. For the life of me, I could never “translate” a song like that.

Usually, the results are hilarious, but clsscrock tried something different, using “Spring Nicht.” She somehow managed to translate the entire song into misheard English with a cohesive storyline. Sure, some parts don’t make a lot of sense, but still – it’s a story. A disturbing, super-angsty story where “Bill” has killed for love. Insane. I usually can’t stand “fanfic” type fanvids, but this fascinates me:

This morning, Evangeline Lily was on Regis & Kelly. Yes, I watch Regis & Kelly. In fact, I got so caught up in it I was almost late for class (sorry Anna). Anyway, Evangeline was adorable and beautiful and made me feel so bad that I hate her character so much. They talked about snowboarding and how she’s Canadian and then she brought something up that made me stop and go “.. really?”

Regis asked her how she stays on top of all the mystery of the show. She said she used to watch every season before starting to film the next, but now there’s so much she couldn’t possibly. Instead, she started watching Lost fanvids on YouTube.

For those of you unfamiliar with fanvids, allow me to explain. Fans of a certain show or character will collect video clips and assemble them in a short video set to music, and then post them on YouTube. Sounds reasonable enough, right? Unfortunately, the fans that do this tend to be of the most ridiculous variety. They make videos about their favourite characters being together (regardless if that’s ever happened on the show) set to cheesy love ballads. These videos are hilarious and occupy hours of my time, but I would never recommend them to anyone who wants to learn more about the show. Maybe Evangeline has just missed all these insanely awful fanvids? Well, I sure haven’t. Please enjoy my favourite god awful fan made music videos.

 
A Sayid/Claire love story

I love this one so much, because Sayid and Claire could not have possibly had less on screen contact. I’m hard pressed to think of a conversation they’ve ever had. So making a fake movie about them being in love pre-island? Kind of ridiculous.

A tribute to the Smoke Monster

Good old Smokey terrorizing our castaways to the tune of Welsh electro-punk.

Sawyer/Kate

Remember when I said there was overwrought cheesy love songs? This is the definition. Also features clips of Kate obviously recorded off a tv. (I found a Jake/Kate version of this video, by a completely different person, set to THE SAME SONG! At least be original, shippers).

Shannon/Sayid and Kate/Sayid and Shannon/Boone

I’ll just let the creators description fill you in:
This is a Shayid centric video with a little bit of Kayid and Shoone. I couldn’t get a lot of anything but first season stuff so that’s basically what it is. The story is that Sayid and Shannon were together before the island but they broke up and now Sayid is w/Kate and Shannon is with Boone That all changes when Shannon and Sayid start hanging with each other. They realize that they are still in love but are torn with b/c of their other relationships. Hope you enjoy! Forever Shayid!
Also, it’s set to a Hinder song. HINDER.

You Found Me (Official)

An official ABC promo music video, just to prove that it doesn’t always have to be cheesy. And now that I’ve sidetracked myself,

The Best Lost Promo Ever

Directed by David La Chapelle, set to Portishead, cost millions of dollars, only aired in the UK and had four different versions. Beautiful.

Alright, I have now spent the past two hours on YouTube. I’m done. Next time you’re bored do yourself a favour and look up fanvids – trust me, they’re hilarious.

Well, it says I can post videos here but no video formats are allowed for uploading and the embedding thing is not working… uh… Õ__Õ;  Oh well, I’m a newbie, so probably I’m doing something wrong.

Okay, so I’m posting a link to my photobucket page until I find out how to manage things here. Sorry ’bout the trouble.

This is a simple tribute to Hetalia. First time using Windows Movie Maker, haha… If you have the patience to watch it until the very end you’ll see a lovely omake picture.

Oh, and it will be even better if you read the lyrics translation that’s right below the vid. I tried to make the sequence of pictures follow the meaning of the song.

After seeing the video, can you guess who is: a) the naughty dango; b) the kind dango; c) the dreamy dangos; d) the prim dango; e) the four dangos on a skew; f) the baby dango; g) the old dango; h) the rabbit waving a hand?

Click on the link below.

A family of hundreds

And here is the song lyrics:

A Big Dango Family

Chorus 1
dango dango dango dango dango dango daikazoku
Dango, dango, dango, dango, a big dango family
dango dango dango dango dango dango daikazoku
Dango, dango, dango, dango, a big dango family

yancha na yaki dango yasashii an dango
The naughty fried dango, the kind red bean dango
sukoshi yumemigachi na tsukimi dango
The dreamy Mid-Autumn Festival dango
osumashi goma dango, yotsu ko kushi dango
The prim sesame dango, the four dango on a skewer
Minna,  minna awasete hyakunin kazoku
Everyone, everyone comes together and it’s a family of 100s

akachan dango wa itsumo shiawase no naka de
The baby dango is always within happiness
toshiyori dango wa me o hosometeru
The aged dango has its eyes narrowed

Chorus 2
nakayoshi dango te o tsunagi ooki na marui wa ni naru yo
The chummy dango hold their hands together and make a big, round ring
machi o tsukuri dango boshi no ue minna de waraiau yo
They build a town on the dango planet and everyone laughs together
usagi mo sora de te o futte miteru dekkai otsuki-sama
The rabbit is trying to wave in the sky; the huge moon
ureshii koto kanashii koto mo zenbu marumete
Happy things, sad things all rolled together

Repeat Chorus 1 and 2

Too bad it’s just comedy, eh?

The act of setting clips from TV shows to music in order to make a music video has been popular in fandom for ages, but while some of the results are clever and witty spins on pretty much any show you might care to mention, some of the others are not so great. This week MIT professor Henry Jenkins posted the first two parts of a documentary series on the world of fanvidders, inspiring Jill Weinberger and Liz Shannon Miller to hash out, once and for all, what makes a fanvid great. (The answer? Not Olivia Newton-John.)

Liz: Well, Jill, the time has come. After being on the internet for years and years now, I’ve seen a fair amount of fanvids.

Jill: They’re hard to avoid.

Liz: Yeah. So many tv shows, so many compilations of clips set to Sarah McLachlan ballads.

But now, the vidders are making vids about the process of making vids, and the process comes full circle.

Jill: Well, it was inevitable. But we’re soon going to need a new word for when you’re being meta about calling something meta. Ow. Brain hurts.

Liz: I have to admit that there are times when the sheer quantity of fanvids on YouTube get on my nerves. It’s not that there aren’t a lot of really well-edited ones, it’s just that there are a lot of bad ones and they tend to clutter up search results on YouTube when I’m trying to find a particular clip from an old TV show. For purely academic reasons, of course.

Jill: Plus a lot of the well edited ones are by people focused on the same show or couple, so there’s sort of a density of even the good stuff that might be more than what the average person needs.

Liz: The Organization for Transformative Works holds the belief that fanvids are a valid art form, which I, as a transmedia nerd, can totally respect. But I think like all art forms you have to consider the artist’s motivations and intentions in evaluating their success as art.

Jill: I kind of max out on the shipper vids for characters that have never had or even really flirted with having a relationship. I think it’s safe to say when it comes to Harry Potter, Harry and Hermione aren’t going to make it as a couple. Let’s move on.

Liz: Hopelessly Devoted to You? Ugh. They are twelve. And it is weird.

Jill: There’s for sure a certain forcing-the-issue aspect of some of these vids, in that you can set almost anything to a heartfelt ballad and have it end up looking like a love story.

Liz: No kidding. Remember how much mileage people got, back in the day, out of the Brokeback Mountain thing. Brokeback to the Future, we remember you well.

Jill: What I think is interesting about the OTW doc is that from what I’ve seen, people talk about why they like making and watching fanvids, but not many people talk about what makes a GOOD fanvid.

Liz: Yeah. And I think that’s key. I’m totally down with embracing the medium as an art form-

Jill: But how do you judge success?

Liz: I guess the question is — what is the artist trying to say about the subject? And is there any complexity to their argument? I guess they don’t necessarily need to make any sort of statement, but a point other than “I like whatever” is nice.

Oh, and on a shallow level, music choice is important too. I think half of my reaction to most fanvids is the fact that I don’t like the songs selected.

Jill: I think MY favorite fanvid is the most brilliant pairing of topic and music EVER. Whereas other people might find it kind of mean. And yet, this and that damn Hopelessly Devoted Harrmione thing have pretty close to the same amount of views, so how can you say one is more successful than the other?

Liz: What works for me about the Coin-Operated Boy vid is that it has a point-of-view — the music makes a clear statement when paired with the images. This is a video about the character of Riley and how he fits into the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe.

Jill: As opposed to just sad face clips set to a random broken hearted love song.  So we’ll agree that a fanvid becomes something of artistic merit when it becomes more than a sum of its parts.

Liz: Exactly. And there are some great ones. This video, by iMeem user Absolute Destiny, is why I will always give a recommended fanvid the time of day. What the vidder does here, if you’ll allow me to get overanalytical and nerdy, is juxtapose old female tropes with the emergence of the 21st century action heroine, celebrating the arrival of girl power in sci-fi television. And it’s also really cute and well-edited.

Jill: I’m sorry, I can’t pay attention to what you’re saying because I’m busy watching this really awesome video.

Okay.  That was the best thing ever.  I do think, though, that it’s the editing that makes that successful way beyond just the potential in the concept. You could have used that song and those shows and come up with something that was fun and fresher than most fanvids and fine, but the editing, making the particular images work with the particular breaks in the music, really is artistically masterful.

In other words, the thing that makes a fanvid really good is the same thing that makes any video really good — a good idea executed well.

Huh. That seems anticlimactic, doesn’t it?

Liz: A little. The important bit, I suppose, is whether or not studios and the RIAA should fuss about the theft of clips and music.

Jill: I think the music is probably more likely to run into problems than the images. Because a fanvid is clearly in support of the show, but maybe an artist doesn’t want their song used to promote someone else’s product.

Liz: A good call. I mean, what if it turns out Olivia Newton-John was a staunch Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley supporter?

Jill: Wow. That is probably the first time anyone has ever posed that particular hypothetical.

Liz: And yet it’s relevant in this case.

Jill: I think the thing is here, while I don’t think anyone would dispute that our favorites are good, the fact is, hundreds of thousands of people really, really love those run-of-the-mill, longing look, sappy ballad shipper videos.

Liz: But the more bad stuff there is, the more chance that good stuff will emerge. If 90% of everything is crap, then the more crap there is, the larger in number that other 10% might be.

Jill: Aren’t you a glass-is-half-full-of-enjoyable-video girl.

Liz: 10% full, actually.

Jill: A shot glass full of enjoyable video, if you will.

Liz: I’ll take it.

This week, I would like you to think about the question of adaptation in terms of fan production.

By your posting deadline, you will have seen fanvids and read some fanfic in addition to having read a number of articles on what makes Buffy popular and how online fan communities interact with media. (Think all the way back to Jenkins – we’ve been skirting around this question for some time.)  Now, I would like you to apply some of your readings to your experience with a particular fanfiction or fanvid.  How does it exemplify the issues we have been discussing?  What themes in Buffy does it seem to play off of?  How does it go about re-writing the series or making it its own?  How is it similar to/different from mainstream adaptations?

Please include links to any fanworks you discuss so other readers can view the original for reference.

Since we’re going to be talking about fanfiction, fanvids and other derivative works soon, you guys should really check this site out.  It’s not only very informative, it’s also a lot of fun:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DerivativeWorks

Wow. And I thought I was weird for wanting to pair Shi Hoo and Iljimae together.

Here are two funny, but not really on purpose videos Iljimae’s spawned.

- In first place we have the video that nicely captures the Shi Hoo/Shi Wan/Yong dynamic. It’s actually well done, but be careful not to be drinking anything when you watch this. Click here to watch.

- This one is pure fun. All the cute moments of Iljimae! Click here to watch.

Sevenses