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I’m Head Over Heels, Literally. Clip of the Day.

Kevin Buist
By Kevin Buist posted 1 year ago
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Ladies and gentlemen, a new meme is born: the literal version of the 80’s music video. This isn’t the first from Youtuber DustoMcNeato — his literal version of A-Ha’s Take On Me scored over a million views in three weeks. The above video is currently just over 100k.

The success is no surprise. The videos follow a well proven formula for viral video success. Take a simple concept that produces both absurd humor and a sense of “why didn’t I think of that?”, combine it with catchy music, keep it around five minutes or less, and you’ve got a viral hit on your hands. If you don’t believe the formula is that simple, go back and re-watch: OK Go - Here It Goes AgainEvolution of DanceDaft Hands - Harder, Better, Faster, StrongerCrazy Indian Video… Buffalaxed!, and I could go on.

I’d like to see DustoMcNeato milk this a little longer, but move on once the imitators start coming in droves. 80’s music videos work pretty well, but what about song and dance numbers from classic Hollywood musicals? Some of those are even more absurd than a chimp in a library.

Summer Blockbusters: Meme Edition

Kevin Buist
By Kevin Buist posted 1 year ago
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The first ROLFCon took place last week. The official website describes the gathering this way, “Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you’ve got ROFLCon.” It’s the most recent edition to a long list of fests and cons I would go to if I had unlimited time and money. Oh well.

For those of us who couldn’t make it, the website provides some goodies, like the playlist of a video session called “Sleeper Hits of the Internet.” All of the videos are hilarious, cool, or both, and all are relatively unknown. Most have around 100k views or less.

With 26 links, the list of videos takes some time to get through. My favorite is Losing You by Jan Terri, embedded above. Other notable entries include America We Stand as One by Dennis Madalone, another bone-chillingly awful music video; Alternative Designing Women TV Intro by Fatal Farm, a demented rehash of the opening of the Delta Burke sitcom; and Special Report by Bryan Boyce, a mash-up from ‘99 combining news anchor talking heads with spooky b-movie monologues.

Editing Theory 101 W/Dramatic Chipmunk. Clip of the Day (sort of)

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 years ago
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chipmunkkuleshov.png

Piper at Lazy Eye Theater has started meme challenging bloggers to build a post around the infamous Dramatic Chipmunk clip, with the goal being to utilize the familiar viral video “in new and different ways but not in ways that might attract creepy middle-aged guys.” Alan at Burbanked answered this challenge by inserting the Chipmunk into a lesson on Lev Kuleshov’s Montage Effect. Kuleshov, a contemporary of Eisenstein, argued that shot order matters because each image in a film is imbued with meaning by the image that comes before it. So suddenly, the chipmunk’s drama makes sense–-”It’s as if that piping hot soup is just outside his reach.” More here.