Fan Videos

   (each link is in grey and will take you to an example of a video I am talking about)

            I’m a collector, and I have been since I was very young.  I do not collect things like stamps or baseball cards, these have held no interest to me.  I collect many different things, like manga (over 300), Box sets (about 30), I have a box full of empty Japanese candy boxes, Disney pins, clothing patterns, shiny stickers, and more.  Each collection is put in a specific place in a precise way.  They are almost like little galleries in a museum called my bedroom.  My newest collection, however, is not tangible.  It is virtual and on the internet.  It is the art of the fan made music video.

            Fans have always shown there love for shows, comics, ect in the form of art.  You can buy Spider-man shirts, Sailor Moon paintings, and Harry Potter jewelry.  However a new way of showing love for a particular genre of entertainment is making fan videos.  Most, if not all, are put together with sound.  A verity of video editing programs are used.  From free programs like Windows Movie Maker to five hundred dollar video editing software like Sony Vegas Pro.  Often times the more expensive program owners will produce more visually pleasing videos, but some video editors prefer WMM and can produce lovely videos as well.  Most of these videos are posted on websites like YouTube.  The convince of posting these videos on YouTube is that YouTube lets you make a playlist.  This particular feature of YouTube has made it much easier for people, such as myself, to collect these videos and also keep them organized. 

            Another great thing about these fan videos that there are all sorts of different kinds out there.  Some videos are effect heavy, others are dramatic, and others are humorous.  There is also a growing favoritism to crossovers (example 1, 2, and 3).  This is were you take one character from a movie and place them next to a character to a different movie.  One goes about doing this by using the key and masking effects that come in higher end programs like Sony Vegas.  Also, because so many people love to make videos they have even made “studios” where a few different editors come together to video edit to a song.  The song is broken up into about five or seven different parts and each editor gets a part.  Then all the parts are put together to make a MEP, a multi editor project.

            There are so many different videos out there, and I can’t get enough of them.  I have started my own playlist of the video that I enjoy.  And I am always adding to it.  In fact because of these videos I have even made few myself.  And because of this desire to make some of my own I discovered how much I truly love animation.  This was one of the reasons that I decided to change my major to animation.  So to say that they have had a slight impact on my life is an underestimate. 

Razor

Smooth.  Metallic.   Simple.  Grey.  Perhaps some wood splashed on the handle.  The device folds out emerging from the grip were it had been tucked away.  A simple blade, nothing fancy.  Maybe the blade’s point is round for the inexperienced hand.  Should the hand be a veteran the blade may have a square point.  Either way the razorblade is made for one purpose and one only, to extinguish unwanted hair.  It glides across the skin cutting all in it’s way.  

The next generation of razor, the safety razor, gives the users their vanity but also safety.  Its textured metal handle is attached to the blade, but does not hide it, like the Straight Razor.  The blade is instead has a smooth metal guard.  It is smaller and does the job well for all who use it.

Plastic, colors, and brands.  The only things metal anymore is the blade.  There is no weight to the device, a Barbie doll is heavier.  The color coating screams of who it is to be used by.  Blacks, greys, and blues for the men.  While women have pinks, yellows, and purples.  They are mass produces.  They have one blade, two blades, three, four, five blades with a sixth for trimming.  They have new names Soleil, Schick, Venus, Orbix, and Fusion.  They are manual and they are battery powered.  They have strait blades and circular.  Hers come in crinkly plastic bags with bright pink flowers and ideal photoshopped legs or wrapped in plastic like a gift you pay for with light blues and purples emitting or circling the razor.  His is packaged the same but in place of flowers and bubbles there are waves and strikes of bright light against and black background.  Prices ranging from three dollars to two hundred.  So many choices so many options. 

But though the devices do the same job they are gender specific.  Our hair has not become tougher but we need more razors to cut it.  Male razor packaging has images that represent power, while all they are doing is pulling a little plastic stick with a few blades across their face.  A mundane task that many do mindlessly.  Woman’s packaging shows flowers and other soft images, but the razors cut their skin and form streaks of blood down their legs.

Is the razors modernization a step forward?

Color: Fully Engaged

Disappointing, unsatisfactory, second-rate, substandard, and tacky.  These are words that I would not use to describe the art show Color: Fully Engaged.  The show focuses on color and color theory through different mediums and what people experience as a result of these colors.  Every artist took a different approach to this theme.  A different idea, a different medium, and each gave a different reaction.  Two of my personal favorites where the works of Jeanne Dunning.

Dunning’s had two pieces in this art show, Red Edge with Food and The Edible.  The Red Edge with Food shows an extreme close up of someone’s skin and a thick red liquid.  These two images combine at the center with a harsh strait horizontal line.  The mind immediately believes that the skin is hurt and bleeding.  The stomach twist itself with the familiar sickening feeling that one gets when seeing a particularly gruesome wound.  The other piece, located to the right of The Red Edge with Food titled The Edible, does not give the viewer a more pleasant scene.  There is a kind of thick peach colored ooze that’s been twisted and coiled around a person’s chest.  It gives the spectator the idea that they are looking at a kind of intestine. 

The effect on the viewer is like that of spectators looking on at the aftermath of a car crash.  It’s something you shouldn’t just stop and gawk at but for some reason you can’t tear your eyes away.  The need to know more about these pieces is overwhelming.  And, another wonderful thing about this show, you can know more.  Beside the artist name or work you will find a sign that has the author explain something, read a quote, or simply read about what he or she was thinking about when making their pieces.  Dunning explains that what we are seeing is simply food on skin; it is not blood or some kind of bizarre ooze.  What makes our minds believe that it is, is different colors can be related to different things we already know. 

Dunning showed a mastery of understanding how the mind can conceive colors.  After reading about the pieces I went back to look at the artwork again.  I assumed that now that I had information that I didn’t before I would have a different reaction.  I anticipated that it would be like a magic trick, only magical when you don’t know how it is done.  This was not the case in the Red Edge with Food and The Edible.  In fact, the information that you read on it only seems to intensify how amazing these two pieces really are.  For you can still see the blood and the oozy intestines.  To declare that I was impressed is to say the very least.  And these where only two pieces out of the entire show.

A feast for the eyes as well as the mind, Color: Fully Engaged at Averill and Bernard Leviton A + D Gallery (619 S. Wabash Ave. 1^st Floor) is a must see.  From videos to paper buildings each artist brings something unique to this show.