- Definition & Examples of Fanvids and Animatics
- Best Practices/Suggestions
- Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Feedback for Fanvids
- Additional Reading
Definitions & Examples of Fanvids and Animatics
A fanvid is also known as a songvid, a video edit, tribute and sometimes a fancam. GMV is also a popular term for video game specific edits, just like AMV is for anime music videos.
This fanwork is usually some kind of television or film source with clips arranged in a certain order to create a narrative that is set to audio (usually music and/or dialogue and sound effects).
- Example: War Pigs (2:17) by Grabel424 - a gen Witcher Netflix vid focusing on the theme of violence from season 1. This has some very sharp editing that matches the beats of the song to some really interesting visuals from the show.
- Example: Just Like Fire (3:33) by Tami - an Eskel, Ciri, Geralt, Triss and Yen vid featuring their perseverance from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The vibe and lyrics of this song give emotional weight to the clip choices as they fight and survive the events of the game.
An animatic is a type of fanvid that features storyboarded illustrations and is set to some kind of audio (music, sound effects, dialogue).
- Example: Ciri Portrait | A Witcher 3 animation (0:27) - by abuzzybee. This animatic features a Ciri scene with incredible sound effects and illustration style.
- Example: Hard To Be The Bard | A Jaskier animatic (0:59) - by CosmicWahoo. These illustrations are so fun and well edited to a song from the musical comedy ‘Something Rotten.’ This features a song sung by the Shakespeare character himself. Very fitting for Jaskier!
But I don’t know ANYTHING about fanvids!
Vidders value ALL feedback they receive, especially from non-vidders. Vidders are spending hours making their vids and putting it out in the world. Vidders REALLY want you to watch their vids and know what you think!
This type of fanwork has typically received less comment activity than fanfic over the years because people are afraid of not knowing what to say or saying something wrong. If this sounds like you, please join me in learning how to make a vidder’s year by leaving them some feedback.
Best Practices/Suggestions
Watch the vid more than once!
Just like watching a film or TV episode for the first time, you are absorbing new material. Watching a vid a second time will allow you to absorb the song choice, lyrics and narrative the vidder is trying to tell with the character, pairing or subject.
- Vidders watch and rewatch their vid and song a hundred million times during the process of making the video.
- If you watch the vid multiple times, tell the vidder what you took away from the vid during your first watch. Then on the second viewing, describe if you saw anything new or had a better understanding of the lyrical associations with the character or ship or narrative.
Ask questions!
There are MANY ways to make a fanvid and every editor has a different process. They use different tools, techniques, and ways of telling a story. Different sources of inspiration and tricks they picked up along the way to finish their vid.
- Ask about music selection. They might reveal their inspiration and how it influenced the way they arranged the clips to tell their narrative.
Example: A common question is “Did you have the song idea first or the pairing/narrative idea first?” - Ask what software or apps they use to make their video. You can ask them how long it took (some people can work fast, other people will spend months or years to complete a single project). This will give you insight into the work they undertook before they even started putting the story together!
- Ask about their feelings about the subject they’re vidding. The canon. The characters. The pairing or themes or emotional content of the vid. “Why did you choose this character’s story arc from the first season?”
Insights from a Vidder
- In my 15 years of watching and making fanvids, you never know what the vidder planned and what happened serendipitously unless you ask.
- Some vidders spend hours or days on a 5 second sequence that no one will notice.
- Many, many times the vidders will create amazing sequences, effects or clip choices by pure accident, serendipity, or trial and error. It’s rarely what a viewer assumes when you’re watching a vid unless you are familiar with a vidder’s process or style.
- Learning the story of how vidder’s make their story can give you insights of how they approached a canon’s visuals, character’s emotional arcs and what choices they are making to create the story they are sharing with you. This can reveal new or different ideas of how to view characters, pairings, and themes in a canon source.
Basic/Advanced/Intermediate Feedback
Basic Feedback (Examples/Suggestions):
- Simply showing up and saying, “I liked watching this!” will mean the world to vidders. So will a string of emojis, keyboard smashing and gif reactions.
- Describe how you felt while watching the vid.
Example: “I am SOBBING, this vid has ruined me.” or “I cannot stop laughing because Jaskier is DEFINITELY Taylor Swift… OMG.” - Ask the vidder a question about the song or clip choices to gain a better understanding of what story the vidder is trying to tell.
Example: “Is there an additional meaning when you used this shot of Yen looking sad to [specific lyric]?”
Intermediate Feedback:
- Did this vid make you see a character, ship or subject in a new light?
Example: “I would have never guessed Fiona/Donkey from Shrek would parallel with Yen/Jaskier so perfectly…WTF omg 😍” - Let the vidder know if you made a connection between their song choice and subject matter.
Example: “The lyrics of ‘Control’ speak about being trapped by the world, by your own demons. It fits so well for each of the women in the Witcher. Fringilla and Yen and Ciri all wrestle with villains that live inside their heads. And all these characters really ARE bigger than their bodies or the boxes that society has put them in, whether it’s the Brotherhood or Nilfgaard… oh my god. This has me all thinky!” (a comment I have about “Control” by walktheeagle)
Advanced Feedback (aka quoting a line of fic, except it’s a clip or sequence of clips, to the vidder):
- Identify specific visual or emotional elements in the video. You know something in the vid wowed you and you don’t know how to express it. Rewatch the vid and note a timestamp where the thing happened that made you sit up and go “OH MY GOD???”
Example: “Oh my GOD at 0:35 i started screaming because of the lyrics of this song for Yen!!! ‘Some of them want to use you / some of them want to be abused..’ and you used the shot Sabrina STABBING Yen on ‘use you.’ And THEN you put that shot right next to Yen kissing Geralt on the ‘abused’ lyric at 0:40!! It made me SCREAM because Geralt does walk himself into that connection with Yen and gets abused. That violence and softness parallel is so good.”
Example: “And then at 0:41 the cymbal crash is timed to the opening of Yen’s eye!!! I liked that!!” (comments I have for the vid Sweet Dreams, a Yennefer vid by mithborien)
A starter pack of places to discover some fanvids
A Guide For Discovering Fanvids by kuwdora
AO3 Vid Tags
- Fanvids (13,776 results)
- Embedded Video (5,143 results)
- Fanvids, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types (50 results)
YouTube Searches
@mmhm-vids - a vid rec community on tumblr.
