Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Critical Contexts: Television Studies, Fandom Studies, and the Vid
- 2 Approach: How to Study a Vid
- 3 Proximate Forms and Sites of Encounter : Music Video and Experimental Tradition
- 4 Textures of Fascination: Archives, Vids, and Vernacular Historiography
- 5 Critical Spectatorship and Spectacle: Multifandom Vids
- 6 Adapting Starbuck: Dualbunny’s Battlestar Galactica Trilogy
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
6 - Adapting Starbuck: Dualbunny’s Battlestar Galactica Trilogy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Critical Contexts: Television Studies, Fandom Studies, and the Vid
- 2 Approach: How to Study a Vid
- 3 Proximate Forms and Sites of Encounter : Music Video and Experimental Tradition
- 4 Textures of Fascination: Archives, Vids, and Vernacular Historiography
- 5 Critical Spectatorship and Spectacle: Multifandom Vids
- 6 Adapting Starbuck: Dualbunny’s Battlestar Galactica Trilogy
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Abstract
What does it mean for a series or f ilm to be adapted to a vid? The final chapter of Fanvids is an analysis of three Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) vids, designed to examine both the vid's relationship with adaptation and the central role that songs play in making meaning in vids. Vids rely heavily on their soundtrack to structure meaning, with vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation vital in completing the vid’s reinterpretation of its source text. In this case, the music, voice, and star image of the recording artist Pink are used to appraise Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace. Each vid in the trilogy was made at different points during Battlestar's production; the trilogy reflects the character's development and memorializes the series’ (frustrated) potential for a particular kind of feminist representation.
Keywords: fanvids, television, fan studies, adaptation, Battlestar Galactica, Pink
Moving on from questions of history and of spectatorship, this chapter addresses three key aspects of how vids make meaning: through intertextual conversation with their source texts, by adopting semiotic density from the songs used as soundtrack, and by using established vid genres to guide interpretation. This chapter focuses on a case study of three Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi Channel, 2004-2009) character study vids by Dualbunny—God Is A DJ (2006), Cuz I Can (2007), and I’m Not Dead (2009)—to analyse the construction of narrative and argument through the interplay of popular music and moving images in the vid form. In relation to the growing body of literature on the use of popular, pre-existing, pre-recorded music on television, this chapter will investigate the aural aspect of the vid, particularly in relation to how music is key to the vid's work as an adaptation. The chapter begins with an overview of Battlestar Galactica, followed by an analysis of God Is A DJ. It continues with an extended discussion of popular music and television as a way into talking about how vids use music. The chapter rounds off with analyses of the second and third vids of the trilogy, which each account for the central character's development over the final two seasons of Battlestar. As Julie Levin Russo has pointed out, ‘vidding is not merely visual but also audiovisual, and music is an inextricable component of the form’ (2017: 1.9).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- FanvidsTelevision, Women, and Home Media Re-Use, pp. 179 - 218Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020