Starships! (multifandom vid)
| Vid | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Starships! |
| Creator: | bironic |
| Date: | August 2012 |
| Format: | online |
| Length: | 3:36 minutes |
| Music: | Nicki Minaj |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | Multiple Fandoms |
| Footage: | |
| URL: | vid announcement post on youtube |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
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Starships! is a multi-fandom vid by bironic that was made for the 2012 Club Vivid show.
The summary reads: "A celebration of pilots, captains, engineers, crew members, and the spacecraft they love to fly. (And race, and crash, and fix, and play in, and fight in, and...)"
As of August 2013, the vidder notes:
"This vid has since shown at: Connotations 2012, Swancon 2013, Muskrat Jamboree 2013, Vidukon 2013 (space vid show), Wiscon 37 (Ad Astra Per Aspera vid show and singalong vid show), Continuum 9, Nine Worlds, and Vividcon 2013. And it has been featured at: TheMarySue.com, io9 (!), Queer Geek Theory (Alexis Lothian's blog), Obsidian Wings (Doctor Science's blog),.... Riemurasia.net, Giant Freakin Robot, and some other sites, and has been kicking around Tumblr and Twitter. So cool....The vid also showed up on a Finnish TV site (second highest play count after tumblr and before TheMarySue), something called SourceFedNews, a French blog, and Facebook and Reddit, among other places."
A list of sources matched by time code can be found here.[1]
The vid was enthusiastically received at Vividcon and by fans later when it was posted online. Some discussion has centered on the fact that the vid does not actually have "every starship every made" and the lack of crediting or attribution of the vid as the vid was reposted on Youtube, twitter and tumblr.[2]
In 2013, Jetpack Monkey created a remixed version of the vid using older sci-fi and fantasy video source: Starships! (Monochromatic Remix Vid).
In January 2016 Bironic announced that Starships is one of the videos to be featured in a museum exhibit on video mashups at the Vancouver Art Gallery in February 2016: MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture at the Vancouver Art Gallery.[3] The exhibit ran from May 15, 2016 - June 2016[4], and this vid was featured as part of Early 20th Century: Collage, Montage and Readymade at the Birth of Modern Culture[5]
Vidder's Notes
"For those of you who don't know the story, I made this vid in a week and a half at the end of April while working six-day weeks at my day job. That's how much time there was between when I first heard the song/got permission to submit it to Club Vivid, and when Club Vivid vids were due. Words cannot describe the scramble to get enough source—I only own about a third of the above—plus make all the clips, figure out the best aspect ratio, find a good vid structure, define constraints (e.g. only clips where people look happy/enthralled to be flying; only ships in space, not in atmosphere, except for launches/crashes), etc.Having done a bunch of vids before definitely made this one possible; it was like previous experience built up to allow me to do this one in the allotted time. I knew how to rip and encode and clip several different kinds of footage. I figured out how to deal with a Premiere letterboxing problem. I knew that like half the clips needed speed work. I knew how to export for DVD when it was done. All of that and more meant technical problems didn't defeat the project and I had a little more time to devote to things like making sure this wasn't an "all white guys, all the time" show.
The punishing turnaround had its benefits, though. For one, there wasn't time to second-guess a lot of choices; for another, it prevented me from actually attempting to acquire every spaceship-containing movie and representative TV show episode ever and cram them in there. (Even on the last day, I was tugging at my hair about how there's too much Lee/Apollo and no Babylon 5/Red Dwarf/Andromeda/Avengers/whatever. Not to mention anime and other non-Western source.)"[6]
Screencap Gallery
Images are not in the order in which they appeared in the songvid.
In the video, the spotlights shine on the rebuilt USS Enterprise in time with the beat.
The faces of the USS Enterprise crew light up as they see the ship in the docking bay.
Captain Picard and Data travel back in time. Picard is reverently touching the side of the rocket Phoenix, the first warp capable starship that allowed humanity to leave the solar system. Note the parallels between this clip and the next clip.
For many viewers, this clip of WALL-E gently touching the edge of the earth's atmosphere mirrors the wonder and joy they feel in science fiction, fantasy and fandom. It is considered by some to be the emotional pinnacle of the vid.
Kaylee, the mechanic from Firefly, her face lighting up as she repairs the Serenity's stalling engine. In the series and movie, Kaylee has an almost symbiotic relationship with the ship. And, as a ship's mechanic, she also confounds gender roles by pursuing her dream to work on a Firefly class ship.
An RV in space from the movie Spaceballs. Because all starships were meant to fly. Even silly ones. Especially the silly ones.
Reactions/Reviews
2012
"Starships! by Bironic, was one of the many premiering vids. But this one didn’t screen in a cinematic space. Instead it opened Vividcon’s dance party, Club Vivid, where vids play on two huge screens at either end of a room filled with dancing people: some cosplaying, many covered in glitter. The existence of Club Vivid as a venue has, I think, encouraged vidders in the con’s orbit to create more kinetic, danceable vids to high-energy songs. For me, attending merged two of the different kinds of feelings that make their way into my academic work: the joy of dancing at a queer club, and the geeky pleasures of bonding over a shared media love. At the vid convention club, Starships was a rollercoaster reminder of why science fiction has always been my drug of choice, wrapped up to the beat of Nicki Minaj. This is a sublimely edited vid about the visual pleasures and awesome wonders of science fiction media. It’s the essence of fannish feeling distilled: the sensation that has long been described in genre theory as “sense of wonder”. I think a lot about the complicated politics of science fiction: the military histories of computing and space flight, the colonizing impulse that is inherent in the idea of humanity’s expansion beyond the planet. This vid shows and shares what sf has to offer in excess of that; why some of us get hooked on the joys of imagined exploration and its technology, on the stories we can tell about it and the kinds of lives it might make possible."[7]
"I love this. It's glorious. I have a big stupid smile on my face and tears in my eyes. This is why I love spaceships (and why I stare at people who don't understand why, because spaceships!)"[8]
"Starship, this is ... us, in a fantastic blast of exploration and life in a boundless universe, where there's always one more frontier on the horizon. There is so much going on here, and I just loved it."[9]
"This rocks!! Really enjoyed it, the range and the memories and the sheer enthusiasm of the whole thing. Man. Now I want my own starship ;-)"[10]
"I really loved the 'piloting' sequence that ends around 1:24, and the shaky-floor bit, and WALL-E made me tear up a little, no lie."[11]
"You've managed here to express not just the love of space and travel that comes through in all these shows and movies, but also our curiosity and need to explore. I think it's a great song match that could have been a simple vid about spaceships [being] awesome that transcends that and is about the delight of discovery."[12]
"Picard touching Zefram Cochrane's ship on hands up and touch the sky is absolutely magical."[13]
"This is absolutely glorious. You've encapsulated everything I love about spaceship shows: the flight, of course, and the journey, and being part of an awesome team of people who are excellent--but also the arrogant joy (Han! Starbuck!) and the doubt (Sheppard, especially in that clip with the orange glowy light on his face), and just the hope and the magic of flying through space."[14]
"Glorious. Beautifully edited, joyful and hopeful, with a huge capacity for widespread appeal. Perfect opening for Club Vivid -- I'm usually out on the dance floor with the first song, but I totally forgot to dance because I was so transfixed. You could project this on a giant screen at the beginning of Comic Con and the response would be the same."[15]
"THAT is how you make a multi-fandom vid!!! hjwsakljfsdklfj; I am almost in tears, this was so wonderful. And I'm NOT a person who cries at these things. I seriously don't even know where to start. Your timing was phenomenal, your clip choices were GREAT! I kept squealing at the unexpected/quirkier fandom choices (ie. Spaceballs, Galaxy Quest, and Wall-e). I also adored the way you montaged clips with similar themes (especially at the end with all the "out of control" vessels)."[16]
"I cannot believe how good this video is. I've been working in television for 15 years and this is easily top ten in my all time favorite montages."[17]
"I adore that moment at 0:43 where the lights on the Enterprise come on to the beat. As much as I love the people squee in this vid (and I really, really do), I think love the starship squee just as much. I love imagining the tech of the future and I tend to fall in love with the ships along with the crew. The Enterprise, Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, the city of Atlantis – I love all of them intensely, so seeing your vid squee over them is just so amazingly fantastic to me.2:46 I love how you picked very pretty images to go with the song, which gets a bit softer in that part. I especially squeed about Wall-E touching the sky :D.
So much wonder and action and fantastic cutting. I (like many other commenters) LOVE the structure in the vid, how you’ve tied so many sources together. It’s fabulous to watch. I seriously loved every last bit of it. I’d argue that the vid is actually deep – at least it is for me. It encapsulates all of my love and joy for sci-fi shows and movies, and joy is an incredibly deep human experience. I wish I could have seen it premiere at Club Vivid – It is one of my top vids for this year."[18]
"This is just about the best fanvideo I think I've ever seen. In less than four minutes you managed to capture every last ounce of joy from every single fandom that you included in the video, and it it all works so perfectly together. The editing is crisp, and you can really tell how much effort you put into it (even if you did complete it in a week and a half). Serious kudos to you, because this is awesome. (And I may have watched it about a half-dozen times already, just sayin'.)"[19]
"Honest to god, this just made cry.I've been feeling sad lately about the fact that my fannish community is really hard to access from where I currently live and have been wondering if continued engagement with the sf community was really worth all the effort. But then I watched this and remembered that, fuck yeah, starships!
The vid just tapped into my deep gut-felt love of science fiction in a way that I really needed to feel right now, so thank you.[20]
"I saw this on tumblr a little while ago, but I only recently found the link to your post over here. And I just want to say how much I love this video. The first time I watched it, I honestly teared up. Science-fiction has been such a huge part of my life since I was a kid and lately I've been getting really frustrated with a lot of what's been happening in the sci-fi community. And then I saw this and remembered why I fell in love with sci-fi and space in the first place. I probably watch this video a couple times a week now. It's beautifully put together and an amazing pick-me-up when I'm feeling down or just need to get energized. Thank you so much for making this and sharing it!"[21]
2013
"This is one of my favorite vids ever (no lie). It's a perfect combination of music and content, and as a life-long sci-fi fan I adore the love and care the vidder shows to the genre and joy the vid gets across. There are great little character moments, and I particularly liked how Bironic wove together similar situations in the INCREDIBLE HUGE amounts of fandoms into coherent sequences (wormholes, crashes, ode to engineers, and my favorite the spinning/crashing sequence)."[22]
"This video makes me terrifyingly, unrealistically, problematically happy. The kind of happy where I’m suddenly a giddy kid on her birthday who’s just been told that, yes, she can have a pony. And all the sweets. And a new bike."[23]
2016
This fanvid is one of my all time favorites that I always find myself rewatching. I love how it expresses the duel emotions of "yay, we're in SPACE!" and "oh crap, SPACE!", sprinkled with a little awe for the universe. So well edited! :)[24]
2018
IT'S SO FULL OF JOY AND ADRENALINE and it makes you fall in love with sci-fi and space operas all over again[25]
2022
References
- ^ archive link 1; archive link 2.
- ^ Happy birthday, Starships dated August 2013 ("Common criticisms: "This vid is invalid because Babylon 5/Red Dwarf/Andromeda/Lexx/anything anime/something else isn't in it."); reference link.
- ^ Livejournal post announcing the Vancouver exhibit, 8th January 2016 (accessed 9th January 2016)
- ^ MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture
- ^ MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture List of Works
- ^ New vid: "Starships!" multifandom SPACE VID YAY dated August 10, 2012; reference link.
- ^ 3.5 minutes of distilled fannish joy at queergeektheory dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 1 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ Vid Rec dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 2 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 3 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 4 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 5 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 5 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 6 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 7 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 8 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 9 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 10 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 11 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ comment on page 12 of the announcement post dated August 2012; reference link.
- ^ Fan Vid Rec at epic recs dated June 2013; reference link.
- ^ Happy Starships Friday dated April 2013; reference link.
- ^ Youtube comments
- ^ December 7, 2018 tweet
- ^ Rec by lannamichaels posted to Fancake