Dear Gang,

I was interested in getting in touch with anyone who has made, or who knows anyone who has made, dark shadows songvideos.

Songvideos are fantastic! A songvideo is a video (like you see on MTV, or did, in the old days), where there is a song and pictures that go with the lyrical images. People pick out a song, and then pick out a seris of moving clips from the eps, and put them together with two vcr's, and voila. You can now have Quentin and Angelique in love, or Barn and Julia, or you can have anything you like happen, if you've got the right song, and the right music.

I saw one recently at last year's fest, where Julia was the main, featured character, and managed to come out on top and give Barn his comeuppance. I'm not a Julia fan, per se, but I was very impressed with the person who had made this particular vid.

In addition, there are a number of clever home movies that have been shown at the fests over the years. You know the ones....people make the costumes and the sets, and then they create a movie that they'd like to see. "Baby Dark Shadows" was one series, and there were a whole host of others, most of them funny and intense, others of them serious and dark.

One that stands out in my mind was one made by some kids back in the 70's. They had a lot of blood and gore, and I'm sure they ran through the entire supply of their mother's white sheets. They had film of them jumping off the roof, and jumping out of cars, and all the characters, in a grisly voice, would accuse Willie of being the culprit of all sorts of wrongdoings. A gritty little film, I long to contact the maker and express my pleasure and appreciation.

So, if any of you make or know someone who makes songvids, I'd love to get in touch with you, and set up a deal. That goes for the home movies too!

Regards,

Maine Girl

Quote from: ClaudeNorth on April 24, 2003, 12:18:58 AM

And may I say that I plan to align myself with Julia99?  All we ask for is a one-line mention along the lines of, "Well, after Dr. Hoffman cured Chris Jennings, they ran off together and are living happily ever after in a tropical paradise." 

Regards,

John

Make sure PansyFaye sees what we want!! Forget Barnabas . . Julia + Chris/Tom  . .whichever. . one hunk a burning man!   I like the idea John . . Julia runs off to the Caribbean with Chris/Tom and little Amy . ..Barnabas and Sabrina get together!  there ya go!

Send your ideas about the play! Put in your two cents worth! I sent a nice letter saying that it shouldn't be all one sided and focused on, if fans will excuse me for saying so, only Quentin an Angelique. All sorts of characters played good, impactful parts in the Collinwood drama. All of the actors deserve their moment in the sun, so to speak, on the stage. Can we leave out Willie? Of course not! He's the one that let Barn out of his coffin!

And here's a question: Should absent friends be portrayed by other actors?
I say: Perish the thought!!

Maine Girl

Well.....there goes the only chance I'd ever have to meet any of you.  I can't possibly attend this years fest.

I can't even express how sad this makes me. 

raineypark

Well, you can cry in your beer, or, more happily, arrange to meet your nearest and dearest DS companions at a mutual venue. Just you, your pals, some DS tapes or DVDS, maybe some beer, pizza, a hotel room by the ocean, and a whole weekend of nothing but DS, DS, and more DS. What could be more fun than that?

Maine Girl

It's sad news, but not particularly unexpected, I think.  As Nancy has commented, organising conventions is generally a thankless task, and the economics over the past couple of years haven't made things any easier.

I suspect that this announcement probably marks the end of organised Dark Shadows fandom, and without regular sustainance of a headline event, I question what future the show has as a viable entertainment property.

My regards for Dark Shadows and the fandom following is not centered around the fest. Yes, the fest represents the "official" fandom, but heck, what do we care about that?

Other fandoms continue on and on, and are muchly enjoyed without any official representation. Fans enjoy each other, the stories, song videos, meeting in different cities, and talking up a storm. The stars never show up, ever. Case in point is the Starsky and Hutch fandom, still going strong after 20 years. They meet every year in Chicago, and the CAP on this particular gathering is 300 people.  You have to have a reservation to get in. The thing is run by a fan and it is run like CLOCKWORK. There are panel discussion about stories, and art, and songvideos, a video room where you can watch Starsky and Hutch ALL day long, there are discussions about ideas, for example, what if Starsky and Hutch met the guys from the Man From Uncle.  There is an art auction, a banquet, where everyone is welcome and everyone sits with everyone. There are no lines, there are no restrictions (except for a cap on the total number of attendees), and it is such a relaxing time that you come away feeling as if you'd been at a spa for a week. And I don't know about you, but that a weekend at a DS fest feels like I've been beaten for two days, spent three days in the desert, and run uphill in Januray. It takes me a week to recover from that. Now I ask you, is that fun?

Fandom doesn't normally center around the actors who played the roles. Sure, the S and H fandom keep tabs on their guys, but they don't expect the actors to entertain them each year.

I know this might be kinda weird, because the DS fandom is very actor based. But I always felt that it disallowed the fans to focus on themselves with regard to the fandom. It was all actor, actor, actor, and very very hard to go to a panel discussion about a story that someone wrote, or the trend in themes in stories, or the new artist that had produced something wonderful, or whether or not you would want to bring Starsky or Hutch home to meet your parents, when KLS and LP, and DS and JK et all are only a ROOM away. It's like having the TV on all the time! You can't read or write but are drawn to the tv in spite of yourself.

So, perhaps this is a good change for all of us. Sure, there'll be smaller (and in my mind, nicer) fan events springing up, as they will, NOT controlled by the "central commitee" and which more meet the needs of the fans concerned. I mean, I don't need to listen to KLS tell us one more bunny story, but I sure as heck woudn't mind watching DS read some poetry. The actors themselves seem up to doing these smaller conventions, there's no law against asking them, eh?

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Maine Girl