- How To Watch A Fanvid, a blog entry from Henry Jenkins all the way back in 2006, when a certain Star Trek vid to Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" hit it big. Now I've actually met many of the people in this entry or the comments!
- New York Magazine: The Vidder, a 2007 profile of Luminosity, one of the best vidders around.
- Fan Vidding: A Labor Of Love, another Henry Jenkins blog post from 2008 about videos about fanvidding that were created by vidders (many of whom I have since met) and Project New Media Literacies (which I worked for, but was not involved in this project).
- Organization of Transformative Works page on vidding, with all the vidding NML videos.
I love vidding. It's beautiful and fun and transformative. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it turns me on to new music and makes me see things in new lights. I've heard lots of people say they don't watch vids because they "don't get them". Please don't let that keep you away! Lots of vids are just meant to be enjoyed on a relatively shallow level, and even if there are many levels, you don't need to see them all! Don' stress, just watch.
There is a whole lot to be said about vidding. The history of vidding, the copyright aspects, the social aspects, the transition to digital, the rest of the world discovering vidding... but I'm just going to talk about some recent events and my own participation.
This month was Festivids! I mentioned it here: http://lauraboylan.blogspot.com/2010/01/ive-been-considering-just-defaulting.html Festivids is a brand new event where fanvidders come up with a list of movies and TV shows and the like that are rarely vidded and make requests of something they want to see. Everyone also makes a list of what they are willing to make, and it gets put into a database and people are assigned someone to vid for, which the do anonymously. The vids were put up anonymously two weeks ago, and today all the vidders were revealed. While waiting for the reveals, vidders (including myself) have been hanging out on IRC and trying to guess who made what.
I've been aware of fandom for a very long time, and involved in various ways for over a decade. Since I graduated in June, I have made a concerted effort to get involved in fandom, and I am extremely happy with the results. Fandom is full of amazing, clever, creative, talented, kind people. I didn't realize until recently how much giving and gifting there is in fandom, how many exchanges like festivids and Yuletide there are. On some level, all fanworks are for other people to enjoy, but there is something just lovely about crafting something specifically for someone else, who probably isn't even your friend. For me, it was a great kickstart into writing fanfiction and making vids, it provides a deadline (and I work best under deadlines) and it gives me something to work with, which mskes it easier to get started. Also, it gives you a very clear audience, which is one the standard tricks of creative work, knowing your audience. For instance, for my yuletide story I worked in a green energy plotline because I thought my recipient would like it based on what I read in her blog. I think one problem I have with this blog is that I have no idea what audience I am writing for besides "not my usual audience". I assume you don't have the same background as my normal audience to make myself explain things. Honestly, I have no idea if anyone even reads this. I've never told anyone about it, and maybe everyone else in Iron Blogger skips it for not being about version control or AI.
There is tons more to say, but it's gotten late so I'm going to wrap up here and show you the vid I made and the vid I got.
I got "Enchantment", a vid about the Japanese film "Kamikaze Girls", about a lolita girl and a biker girl living in rural Japan. It was fairly obscure among vidders -- my vidder didn't even get matched on it, she picked it out and watched it based on my requests! Many people have said they plan to watch the film because of this vid, and one group already reported in that they loved it! I am very excited for other people to fall in love with this film! Here it is! Watch it!. I don't know this vidder, but we know at least one person in common in real life, and we live in the same state. The vid she got is also awesome, from a Bollywood film about India's first female field hockey team that I just put on my netflix queue. (And the person who made that vid is someone I talk to online, who gave money to Haiti relief for me to make her a rum cake. The circle of fannish giving!)
And now, my own vid! My very first! It is to "The Princess Bride", which means it got a lot of views, being such a well known source.
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