#kandy fong

[9151967]

This May 25th will be the 50th anniversary of the first publicly shared fanvid as created by Kandy Fong. Originally shown to the United Federation of Phoenix in 1974, Fong's video debuted a year later at Equicon 75/Filmcon 3. She made it by using discarded bits of film from Star Trek (in her own words, a lucky dowry from her husband), a slide show projector, and tape cassette.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

It is from this slideshow and others that followed that we have gotten music fanvids and AMVs (Animated Music Videos) within modern fandom.

Kandy Fong's Fanlore article

Kandy Fong's AO3 profile

Oral interview with Kandy Fong and Marnie S. (2012)

A History of Vidding

[meeedeee]

The Art of Vidding

Scroll long enough on social media and you will inevitably stumble upon a video edit. These are short clips of the world’s favorite movies,

"Some companies have replicated the fanvid format for multimedia advertising campaigns. Because teenagers so often jump to social media after consuming content, video edits can become an incentive to dive deeper into a particular brand. It is addictive because, “video editors always compose the best movie scenes into one edit,” said Melanie Candelo, a junior at NEST+m who enjoys watching video edits on Instagram. “The transitions are always on beat with the music,” she added, suggesting that our natural affinity for beat drops and predictive timing might just play a role in the vidding craze. ...

“It’s probably something of a milestone that this year’s Best Director [Chloé Zhao] and Best Screenplay [Emerald Fennell] Oscar winners weren’t just women, but women who have talked about their fanfiction and fandom experiences,” said Claudia Rebaza, staffer at the Organization for Transformative Works."

[wecustomize-blog]

This gets a little into the details of language, and Kandy Fong's video recording of - mixing Star Trek stills on a slide projector with Leonard Nimoy singing "Both Sides Now" is certainly a remix. But is it a customization of Star Trek? or the song? This difference doesn't matter too much outside the context of our project. But when we are trying to bring so many people together the details become important. And for the video, even if it's relation to the project is a point of discussion in the bigger scheme - it started the culture of vidding, without which our conversation would be much more limited. So thanks Kandy.

-Sean Olson