RESPONSE TO VIDDING

First of all, I would like to post a link to my favorite vid ever:

It’s pure genius because it also uses the sound from the actual text to create a pretty catchy song.

According to urbandictionary.com, obviously an extremely reliable dictionary source, vidding is the “act of making fannish music videos.” I wondered if these vids could be negative portrayals of a text. If somebody doesn’t like a certain movie or television series, is it also popular to make a vid showing its weaknesses? I would guess that this is not as possible because chances are that, if you don’t like a text, you don’t know it as well as someone who does appreciate it, and thus would not be able to create as successful a vid because you are not as much of an expert on the movie or television series. Since fan culture is so dominated by females, it’s no wonder that these positive fan vids are also considered a predominantly female product.

Though the word is not officially defined in any legitimate dictionary sources I can find, it’s becoming a huge phenomenon, even being studied and a required assignment in courses. Some people do not define it purely as a music video production, but as the making of fan videos of a certain text. For instance, we had to create a vid for my Storytelling in Media class in order to play with the storytelling techniques that different images can portray. Josh and I made a vid of The Prestige which changed it’s story completely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IamAUw_KWq0

It’s hard to make a vid when you’re not a huge fan of the original text. Though I love the prestige, I have only seen it a couple of times, which means that I don’t know all of the dialogue and the scenes well enough to know exactly what part of the text I’m looking for. This further proves that it is easier to make a vid if you love the text and have seen it multiple times as a fan, paying attention to the scenes and being able to sit through it enough times to remember the images and the moments that can be rearranged to make a good text based off the old one.

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