Please join me in welcoming Katie Freund to FandomResearch! When I was first putting the site together, I knew I would have to ask Katie for her input. She’s one of the first people I met in Toronto. I’ve watched her present on misconceptions about slash in Japan, and she’s helped me write pieces for Frames Per Second. This is another peek at Katie’s expertise, this time on fanvids, intertextuality, and how to read both as a researcher.

“It starts with a story, doesn’t it? And then you get the music to fit the pictures.”

“It’s more like visual fanfic, I think—“

“Yeah, exactly – it’s the story I see in my head when I hear the music… It’s taking it out of your head and putting it out there so other people can see it too.”

“It’s closer to making something like art, isn’t it? It’s drawing a picture for people, a visual text for them to follow.”

There are six of us crowded around a table stuffed with junk food and my single voice recorder in a hotel room in England. I am listening to a group of editors I am interviewing debate the origins of vidding, or fan-made remix videos at VidUKon, a fan convention. It’s a story, I am told, a visual version of fan fiction. It’s an individual’s imagination, their art: vids can be complex treatments of race or gender in popular television, in-depth examinations of certain characterscertain characters, or tributes to beloved shows now cancelled. But above all else, it’s fun.

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