Multimedia (multiple media)
| Synonyms: | mixed media |
| See also: | Multimedia (Multiple Fandoms), Audfic, documentation!fic, podvid |
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Definition
(adj.) any Fanwork that includes more than one type of media (text, image, audio, video).
Usage History
With the introduction of CD-ROMs in the 1990s, "multimedia" was used to describe the kind of content that could be loaded on these disks: a combination of text, images, audio, and video. Because of the resulting increased visibility of "multimedia", many fan communities started incorporating the general usage of the term in their fannish vocabulary.
Outside of fandom, the term exclusively refers to any project in which multiple types of media are used.[1] Within fandom, particularly on LiveJournal, the term usually has the same meaning--a fanwork that uses multiple media types (audio, video, still image, text) in its creation. Multimedia's first fandom definition -- a vid, zine, or other fanwork that uses source from many fandoms -- is also still in use.
Multimedia Fanworks
Fanworks made using multiple content types are often considered particularly inspiring. Examples include:
- Missed the Saturday Dance by Zoetrope, which mixed audio, video, art, and written formats to tell a story. (SGA)
- flesh mechanic by kel and lise (link) combines "paper" documents (letters, maps, news clippings) with created webpages (an Ebay page, a page from MTV.com, etc.) and pages of narrative. (popslash)
- "The Kids Aren't All Right" by Christine Everhart (vanityfair.com) (link) by M. It's both a gen character exploration of Tony Stark and a fictional meditation on the politics of the Iron Man universe; the piece appears to be a Vanity Fair profile written by a character in the movie-verse, with accompanying appropriate graphics and pictures. (Iron Man)
- The Four Quarters 'verse, written by trinityofone with art by wychwood, especially the Bootleg installment, in which the narrative and songs are interwoven. (SGA)
- Podvids such as cupidsbow's Keylines and the podvid created by busaikko for bitter-crimson's The Epic Tale of John & Rodney, Two Girl Scout Cookies In Love (both SGA)
- Some of the fanworks produced for Artword (for instance, Proof by Maverick & Politt) combined fanart and fanfiction in more integral ways than (the more common, such as in Big Bangs and Reverse Bangs) "illustration-for-a-fanfic" or "fanfic written for a fanart prompt." (SGA)
- The fanvid created by alltimemcfly for sparkly_stuff's I'm On A Ship combines vidding with filk, using the lyrics sparkly_stuff came up with in the picspam. (Star Trek (2009))
- The Shoebox Project by Lady Jaida and Rave, a multimedia collaborative fic that combined fic with images (photos, letters, cards, diary entries). (Marauders-era Harry Potter)
- Golden (Zutara) by ZutaraOPM, an Avatar: The Last Airbender multimedia Social Media AU told through a mix of writing, images, and audio.
Multimedia Collections
Sometimes challenges that include requests for art, vids, and fiction such as the Pornish Pixies femslash challenge are termed multimedia challenges as well. A ficathon that accepts multiple types of media, may also be called a Thing-a-thon.
Some archives are multimedia, such as the Mulder/Krycek Multimedia Archive, which includes images, sounds, videos, and fanfic.
Another example is the OTW's project Open Doors, which is designed to give a home to various fannish projects. These may include fanworks in a variety of separate formats, as well as fanworks that themselves are multimedia, such as Missed the Saturday Dance.
Multimedia Challenges
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
- The Pornish Pixies femslash challenge
Multimedia Archives
References
- ^ multimedia, Dictionary.com