Should I pick Twilight? No, Twilight's for pansies.
Should I pick Harry Potter? It is a candidate, but the MVs can heavily focus on the romantic aspect rather than the emotional aspect, which sometimes can be a weakness.
And finally, should I pick Lord of the Rings? Once again, it is risky due to the amount of alternative universe involved, but, overall, out of these three fandoms, it is the one which mostly focuses on the emotional depth of the characters.
And so, Lord of the Rings* was chosen, but which video do I choose to fall in love with? And that was when one magically caught my eye.
Now, this MV is about our favourite hobbit superhero...*drum roll*... Frodo Baggins! Okay, well he isn't technically my fave hobbit (that place goes to Pippin Took) but I do have a soft spot for him, despite all his crack facial expressions. Nevertheless, this video really does capture the angst and trauma the Ring imposes upon Frodo. This is done through the user's extreme precision regarding the technical factors she has included.
Well, as I've mentioned before, the video is pretty much all about Frodo and how he practically descends into insanity and paranoia because of the Ring. The user has done an immaculate job in picking all the right scenes, especially since Frodo, as I have aforementioned, likes to pull some pretty sweet faces.
"The ring, Sam... it's so heavy." *constipated look*
But as I was saying, before I went on that rather disturbing tangent, the user has picked some pretty suited moments, therefore making this video eye-catching and certainly not plotless. This is due to the fact that all the different sides of Frodo have been displayed for the viewer. This is all evident throughout certain scenes in the video, where we firstly see the strong Frodo, whom is willing to carry the burden and have the Ring destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. Though he is willing at the beginning, we soon see Frodo losing his sense of self control, as he is slowly falling to the power of the Ring. Despite the short duration of the video, it still has a solid conclusion, hinting that Frodo's journey is over, but that there are still scars that will never enitrely heal.
The technical aspect of this video was also quite astonishingly wonderful. One of the first things that stuck out to me was the colouring, which gradually changed as the video commenced. At the beginning of the video, before Frodo begins his journey, there is no colour, but only a blurry effect around the edges of the each scene, which remained throughout the course of the video. After Frodo begins his journey, the normal colours of the film are kept, but the contrast is toned down a bit. The different colour tones and the blurry effect in this video represent, in my opinion, the many emotions Frodo experiences in his journey to Mordor, which are primarily confusion and paranoia. The user is also fairly masterful in her cutting skills. This is due to the fast transition from scene to scene and her effective use of fading.
The song is also another technical factor which added to the emotional depth of Mr. Frodo. The song is another version of Crawling by Linkin Park from their Reanimation album. The remix is called Krwling and what really struck me was the beautiful use of violins at the beginning of the song. This is really suited to this video, due to the context in which Lord of the Rings is set. Not only that, but the song lyrics really do match with the situation Frodo is going through: Crawling in my skin. These wounds they will not heal.
And last, but certainly not least, the user's inclusion of dialogue from the film allowed the video to keep a fair share of authenticity, therefore making it a bit more understandable for the viewer. I think that it is a small but fantastic touch to the video.
Overall, even though it is an exceedingly short MV (1:02), I'm going to give it a 5 out of 5, due to it's believability and it's deep representation of Frodo. I think it's a great LotR fanvid in both content and technical aspects, but that's just me. Here it is for you to judge:
Anyway, thanks for reading! Over and out.
Nadine xx
*No, The Ding Dong Song video did not inspire me to review an LotR vid!
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