Hungarian Rhapsody

Vid
Title:	Hungarian Rhapsody
Creator:	California Crew
Date:	before 1992
Format:	VCR
Length:	6 minutes
Music:
Genre:	constructed reality
Fandom:	Multiple Fandoms
Footage:	Remington Steele, Magnum P.I., Riptide, Moonlighting, Hunter, Simon and Simon, and others
URL:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Hungarian Rhapsody is a VCR gen multiple fandoms vid made by the California Crew vidding collective. It was cited by Henry Jenkins in his book Textual Poachers as an example of a constructed reality vid:

"Fans call these works "constructed reality videos"; their creators build original narratives, often involving multiple media universes, through their recontextualization of borrowed images. The California Crew's "Hungarian Rhapsody" suggests the potential complexity of the "constructed reality" video. The group displayed their knowledge of Los Angeles geography as well as their combined familarity with a large number of different fan universes in a six minute video that combines footage from Remington Steele, Magnum PI., Riptide, Moonlighting, Hunter, Simon and Simon, and other popular series. The series protagonists assemble at the Universal Sheriton Hotel, a location where each of the series had filmed, to attend a detectives convention. Just as Steele is preparing to address the group, Tom Magnum answers the phone and learns of the murder of producer Stephen J. Cannell (footage drawn from his cameo on a Magnum PI. episode). What follows is a remarkable montage sequence-some 189 shots long-as the various characters try to solve the crime and chase the suspect through the hotel. California Crew intertwines multiple lines of narrative development: Magnum tries to leap between two buildings, only to end the video trussed in a hospital bed; Rick Simon tackles the suspect, yet Steele takes the credit; Laura Holt watches a television news report of the incident. Working entirely from "found footage," woven together from several different series, California Crew constructs a compelling and coherent crossover."

Jenkins goes on to explain that one of the reasons California Crew has been able to make such complex constructed reality vids is that they are able to pool not only vdiding source (each vidder taped their favorite TV shows and not all TV shows overlapped) as well as knowledge of that vidding source (they could call on each other to help find specific clips). It is an impressive example of vidding collaboration.