VID: Dance Monkeys (Fred Astair & Ginger Rogers)
I adore Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers.
I want to start with that before I talk about why I made this vid, and what I was trying to achieve, because the fact that I adore Fred and Ginger is the most important part.
When I was a teenager, one of the local TV stations used to play all the Fred and Ginger movies at least once a year, every Saturday night. I was a night owl, so I'd stay up late and watch them, and fall in love with them every time. I still love them, in all their anachronistic glory, and I have wanted to make a Fred and Ginger vid for a long time now. I've never had the right song, though, so it's been one of those aspirational projects sitting on the mental back-burner until the time was right.
And then, a few months ago, shortly after I signed up for Festivids, I heard the song Dance Monkey -- not even the whole song, just a fragment of it while in a taxi on the way to the dentist -- and I knew immediately, even just from that short fragment, that I had found the song for Fred and Ginger. I scribbled down the lyrics and googled them as soon as I could, and when I heard the whole song, yes, yes!
You see, in the years since I was a teenager watching late night TV, both the world and I have changed profoundly. For one, I discovered and fell in love with fan works -- stories about the same characters told over and over in infinite variations. For another, the world has become ever-more corporatised, with fan engagement increasingly seen as a milk-cow by the entertainment industry. It's hard to watch anything without an awareness of that in the postmodern world.
The song was so perfect because it would let me capture both of those elements -- the deep affection I have for the source, but also awareness of the corporate history of these films and the baggage that entails.
When the Fred and Ginger movies were made, there was no TV. Serial movies were a staple of cinema -- an episode of Flash Gordon or Tarzan the Fearless or The Perils of Pauline were part of the package that screened before the feature movie. Similarly, Fred and Ginger danced across the screen with the same cast of supporting actors over and over and over. We get that same fix from TV now, or from fanfic, but in the 30s, film and radio were the media of the moment.
My love for Fred and Ginger is an echo of the love felt by the audience in the 1930s, who drove the creation of these films. I wanted to capture some of that in the vid -- my genuine affection, and the hunger and adoration of all the audiences who have had a similar experience.
But there's that bitter postmodern pill as well, always there at the back of my mind. Not just because audience desire can turn into something frightening, but because of the films' materiality. The original studio, RKO, has long since disappeared, but the Fred and Ginger films are still commodities. They are bundled up as one small part of an enormous media library created out of the legacies of a dozen other studios. They are still making money. These movies are full of flickering ghosts -- nearly a century old now -- who will never be able to rest, because they are still dancing and dancing and dancing to earn their current owners another dime or two.
Fred and Ginger: eternally dancing for us... and for Warner and Universal.
I wanted to capture that in this vid. I think maybe I have.
It's why I had Fred and Ginger start off alone, and then come together (over and over and over). It's why Fred's first dance is a finger puppet and Ginger's is as a clown. It's why I included Ginger's dream sequence where she is directing the dance, and Fred's hypnotism sequence where he's directing Ginger. It's why there's the shadow puppet sequence from The Gay Divorcee. And it's why I ended with their biggest showstoppers -- particularly Top Hat -- because for me the love I feel for the dancing trumps any cynicism raised by the ghosts of postmodernity.
I still adore the movies of Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers. And if I have done my job right in this vid, my affection for the source is inextricably entwined and counterbalanced with those darker ghosts.
Oh, and one final thing to finish off. If you thought this vid was called Dancing Monkeys but it now seems to be called Dance Monkeys, gold star. You're right. I posted to Ao3 before I'd added the credits to the vid, and changed the name before go-live, but forgot to change it on Ao3 as well. I've done so now. :)
Title: Dance Monkeys by
cupidsbow
Visual Source: Fred Astair & Ginger Rogers movies
Music: Dance Monkey, by Tones and I
Rating: PG-13
Relationship: Fred Astair & Ginger Rogers
Warnings: None
For:
odessie
Summary: I beg to see you dance just one more time.
Downloads: DanceMonkeys-SM-cupidsbow.zip (MP4, 25.39MB) or DancingMonkeys-cupidsbow.zip (WMV, 65.18MB)
Streaming: Vimeo (Password = Dance!), or YouTube
I want to start with that before I talk about why I made this vid, and what I was trying to achieve, because the fact that I adore Fred and Ginger is the most important part.
When I was a teenager, one of the local TV stations used to play all the Fred and Ginger movies at least once a year, every Saturday night. I was a night owl, so I'd stay up late and watch them, and fall in love with them every time. I still love them, in all their anachronistic glory, and I have wanted to make a Fred and Ginger vid for a long time now. I've never had the right song, though, so it's been one of those aspirational projects sitting on the mental back-burner until the time was right.
And then, a few months ago, shortly after I signed up for Festivids, I heard the song Dance Monkey -- not even the whole song, just a fragment of it while in a taxi on the way to the dentist -- and I knew immediately, even just from that short fragment, that I had found the song for Fred and Ginger. I scribbled down the lyrics and googled them as soon as I could, and when I heard the whole song, yes, yes!
You see, in the years since I was a teenager watching late night TV, both the world and I have changed profoundly. For one, I discovered and fell in love with fan works -- stories about the same characters told over and over in infinite variations. For another, the world has become ever-more corporatised, with fan engagement increasingly seen as a milk-cow by the entertainment industry. It's hard to watch anything without an awareness of that in the postmodern world.
The song was so perfect because it would let me capture both of those elements -- the deep affection I have for the source, but also awareness of the corporate history of these films and the baggage that entails.
When the Fred and Ginger movies were made, there was no TV. Serial movies were a staple of cinema -- an episode of Flash Gordon or Tarzan the Fearless or The Perils of Pauline were part of the package that screened before the feature movie. Similarly, Fred and Ginger danced across the screen with the same cast of supporting actors over and over and over. We get that same fix from TV now, or from fanfic, but in the 30s, film and radio were the media of the moment.
My love for Fred and Ginger is an echo of the love felt by the audience in the 1930s, who drove the creation of these films. I wanted to capture some of that in the vid -- my genuine affection, and the hunger and adoration of all the audiences who have had a similar experience.
But there's that bitter postmodern pill as well, always there at the back of my mind. Not just because audience desire can turn into something frightening, but because of the films' materiality. The original studio, RKO, has long since disappeared, but the Fred and Ginger films are still commodities. They are bundled up as one small part of an enormous media library created out of the legacies of a dozen other studios. They are still making money. These movies are full of flickering ghosts -- nearly a century old now -- who will never be able to rest, because they are still dancing and dancing and dancing to earn their current owners another dime or two.
Fred and Ginger: eternally dancing for us... and for Warner and Universal.
I wanted to capture that in this vid. I think maybe I have.
It's why I had Fred and Ginger start off alone, and then come together (over and over and over). It's why Fred's first dance is a finger puppet and Ginger's is as a clown. It's why I included Ginger's dream sequence where she is directing the dance, and Fred's hypnotism sequence where he's directing Ginger. It's why there's the shadow puppet sequence from The Gay Divorcee. And it's why I ended with their biggest showstoppers -- particularly Top Hat -- because for me the love I feel for the dancing trumps any cynicism raised by the ghosts of postmodernity.
I still adore the movies of Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers. And if I have done my job right in this vid, my affection for the source is inextricably entwined and counterbalanced with those darker ghosts.
Oh, and one final thing to finish off. If you thought this vid was called Dancing Monkeys but it now seems to be called Dance Monkeys, gold star. You're right. I posted to Ao3 before I'd added the credits to the vid, and changed the name before go-live, but forgot to change it on Ao3 as well. I've done so now. :)
Title: Dance Monkeys by
cupidsbow
Visual Source: Fred Astair & Ginger Rogers movies
Music: Dance Monkey, by Tones and I
Rating: PG-13
Relationship: Fred Astair & Ginger Rogers
Warnings: None
For:
odessie
Summary: I beg to see you dance just one more time.
Downloads: DanceMonkeys-SM-cupidsbow.zip (MP4, 25.39MB) or DancingMonkeys-cupidsbow.zip (WMV, 65.18MB)
Streaming: Vimeo (Password = Dance!), or YouTube
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com