Monday 30 September 2013

Reviews FanVids Collection Small Worlds by Christopher E. Fain



Welcome back; pull up a chair.  I won't be but just a minute.  I've got this autopsy to wrap up.  I promised I'd have the report ready by tomorrow morning and I don't see why it has to be a scheduled issue. It's not as if anyone but Jack needs to see the report, right?

As I've said before, fanmade videos are a form of art like paintings, sketches, and fanfiction.  They may be only tributes to a character, a movie, or an episode, but they can also tell a story within the mix of lyrics, dialogue, and imagery.  Sometimes, those stories are time capsules which create a sort of portrait, but there are other fanvids which tell unique stories of their own. 

Each month we publish five videos found on Youtube which either encapsulate the month's featured episode, is a tribute to the team or a character or a relationship, or stand as a sort of video fanfiction.  During the month, we will post twelve fanvids to the Project: Torchwood Facebook page and you, as readers, can vote on the ones you think should make the final cut.  Vote on every one of them if you like, no one minds, but please do vote.  If you have comments about the fanvid, have at it---your words are valued.  Well, valued as much as anyone values words around here.

And with that in mind, let's begin.

The top five videos are chosen by a process of vote elimination.  The more votes, the higher each video is rated.  At the end, the team tallies things up and bob's your uncle.  That part gets confusing, the tallying up.  You wouldn't think it does, but there you go.

So, for the month of October, the winning fanvids are:


5.
Cells (Owen Harper)
by OfNightside
song: The Servant


This character portrait of Owen Harper (me!) is poignant, isn't it?  The lyrics are well matched.  The use of black and white in the video is appropriate to the starkness of this story, which shows you the development of Doctor Harper's character.


4.
Torchwood Jack/Ianto My Skin
by bassairmoon
song: Natalie Merchant


The song is a beautiful one, changing key at a passionate moment.  Its use with this video, to show the relationship between Jack and Ianto, is heart-moving; the dialogue from Phil Ford's "The Dead Line", strategically placed, is sketchy for quality but drives the point home.


3.
Torchwood: A View to a Kill
by Lady Soliloque
song: Duran Duran


The video quality could be better, but given that the song is marvelously matched to the team and its forays into the dangerous and gritty parts of Cardiff and surrounding areas, it's no wonder this video made the top five.  It gained a lot of followers almost immediately upon being posted.  I wonder how much of that's because of the song itself?


2.
Torchwood: The End
by SophieKemme
song: Florence + the Machine (No Light, No Light)


By far, one of the most popular fanvids we've had.  This video tells the story of that last day in series two, where the world explodes with Jack's past coming back to bite us all.  The song is a driving, fiery piece which works well with the story line itself, bringing back the knowledge of what is being lost.


1.
Ianto Jones - James Bond for a Day
by Allumie
song: Scouting for Girls


This is a happy, fun song and a surprisingly upbeat video, considering that not all of Ianto's moments are wonderful.
It's rather obvious that the tea boy has a thing for James Bond and despite my personal preferences, it's hardly a shock that this would come in at the top slot for the month's competition.  Well done!


And that brings us to the end of another month's fanvideos.  I hope you enjoy them as much I don't.  At least one of us ought to be getting our jollies.  I'll see you again soon, I'm sure.  You just can't seem to learn which is the right way to hold a stun gun, can you?




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