Man, I'm a bad blogger. I wanted to make this a fairly up-to-date blog covering all my various fandoms and what-not, but it seems I'm not very good at remembering to post. Then again, my MySpace is pretty barren, too.
Anyway, let's go straight into the topic of this entry: homemade Silver Dollar City videos. (if you want to see my "SDC -- Priceless" video, skip to the end)
I'm an amateur filmmaker (emphasis on the "amateur"). In fact, I don't really like to call myself a filmmaker, persay, at least not until I've actually made a real film (I suppose you could count my McDonald's skit for my college English 101 class a short film, but it's more of a comedic lesson than a real film).
To this point, I've mostly just made music montages using either old home videos mostly of family shot by my mom or newer home video mostly of SDC shot by me.
So, let's call me an amateur videomaker.
Though I've made one or two "fanvids" (videos using a montage of clips from a favorite TV show or movie, set to a song), my main focus has been Silver Dollar City.
One might ask, "Why Silver Dollar City of all the places you've been?"
My answer would be that Silver Dollar City means to me what Disneyland means to many people... It's a place of magic (a different, more down-to-earth kind, but still it's a kind of magic), it's a place of rest and relaxation. And most of all, it's a place where you can escape from the "real world" and walk around as though you have been transported to another time and setting.
So, why make videos? Well, even though I've been going to SDC for, oh, I think it's 14 years now, I didn't start videotaping until Christmas of 2004.
Why? Well, firstly was because my mom's old video camera was one of those HUGE VHS-size things from 1990, and it had gotten so used and old that it could only work by being plugged straight into an outlet.
Secondly, I didn't get proper confirmation about filming rules at SDC until they updated their FAQ a few years ago, learning that pretty much every area of SDC, including the shows, is open for home-videotaping, except for in the shows that they specify in the pre-show rules not to tape or on Powderkeg and Wildfire (I believe it has something to do with them wanting to make sure you don't lose your camera on the ride, as these are the two most intense of the SDC rides).
So, when I learned that I could videotape, I borrowed my mom's new video camera for a trip I took with my sister and her boyfriend during December of 2004. Upon returning from the trip, I immediately transferred the video to my computer and started making a music video using what I had captured. This became my "Christmas In The City" video, which I've yet to put on my YouTube due to compression issues (it's a 7-min video, and it's difficult to get it within the 100mb maximum for YT).
The video was a hit with my family. My sister insisted it on showing it to her boyfriend, who commented that I should get into advertising (and just recently, my sister showed it to her current boyfriend and his sister, and they both said the exact same thing! I think someone's trying to tell me something....).
I was hooked. Ever since that trip in December '04, I have been videotaping every single trip I make to SDC. The best thing about it is that no matter how much I film on a trip to SDC, it always seems like there's something new to film, even of things I've already got on tape.
What I liked about taping the Christmas Saloon Show was that every show is unique because every show involves the audience, and therefore there are always new and unique experiences that come from involving members of the audience. For example, in the one show of the Saloon that I taped, a guy was brought on stage and asked what he does for a living. His answer garnered a really hilarious joke from "Choctaw Charlie", a joke that was unique because the audience member was unique. I've always thought it would have been cool if SDC had recorded all the shows in the Saloon each day and offer a CD or DVD of it to the audience members who got pulled into the show.
My dad was once one of the audience "volunteers" (however voluntary it actually is for them, LOL) several years ago. They brought up on-stage, asked his name, and had the audience yell out, "Hi, Fred!" The greatest thing about it was that for the rest of the day, whenever someone from that audience saw us in other areas of the park, we'd hear a hearty and friendly, "Hi, Fred!"
And that's one of those things that has endeared me to this theme park and made it more than just a theme park to me. And it's one of those things that has made me so interested in making videos out of what I tape when I'm on vacation there.
To get back to the videos (sorry for the rambling), my next video wasn't made until early this year. And this time it wasn't a video, it was a slideshow set to music. I was having problems with space on my hard drive (video can fill up a hard drive REALLY quickly), so decided to go with a slideshow of pictures that I had taken either with the digital still feature on my video camera (my own personal camcorder that I got in spring of '06) or with a regular camera.
That was the first SDC-related video I put up on my YouTube (after changing my account to "Director" and getting rid of my fanvids, which will be put back up on a new account that I'll link to when I get it up and running).
I put up my slideshow, entitled "Silver Dollar City in Pictures", on May 2, and to this date it's gotten close to 1,300 views. To be honest, I'm shocked, mainly because it's always been so difficult to find videos of SDC on YouTube, and the "fandom" for SDC is a pretty small contingent of people. So to have that many views is pretty shocking (though quite flattering).
Just recently, I was watching a commercial on YouTube for Mastercard and found myself inspired to do a parody, which many people have done. I'm always trying to spread the word of how great SDC is to friends and family so that they can have the great experiences I've had.
So, I decided to parodize the Mastercard Priceless commercials using SDC. It was a quick video, made in just a couple hours. A couple clips, some text-over, add some generic music from the Pinnacle Studio SmartSound library I have, and voila, an SDC version of a Mastercard Priceless commercial.
I uploaded it and that was that. At least, I thought so.
Over the next few weeks it got something around 75 views, not bad, considering I didn't think there'd be anyone searching for an SDC Priceless commercial.
Then I went onto the Inside Track (the official SDC blog) one day and got a huge shock: somehow Conductor Sam, the awesome guy who updates the SDC blog, had found my Priceless video and linked to it on the blog! I was amazed and honored and just... speechless. And he said he LIKED it! For me, that was high praise and I just couldn't believe my eyes. I'm still reeling, 'cause I never expected someone who actually worked at the park to see the video.
Within 3 to 4 days, my views shot up to 250, more than doubling the views it'd made in its first three or so WEEKS!
And just today, I was checking my videos as I do sometimes just to see how they're coming along, and saw under the "Linked From" that BransonWorld.com had posted a link as well (and now my video is sitting at nearly 350 views). And a couple people have embedded it as a comment on MySpace. MY video!
It may not really seem like a lot, especially compared to some of these YouTubers who have thousands of subscriptions and millions of views per video, but for a shy, jobless woman living her life day to day, hoping for some sun to shine after a lot of not-so-great stuff in life.... Well, I'm thrilled (to the point of being just about speechless) that people like the video and that I can bring a little happiness and mirth into people's lives.
I suppose I could be overreacting. I mean, it's not like iCaught or Online Nation or some other national TV show like that has shown it on the air. But for a shy person like me, I find just the smallest amount of attention to be quite overwhelming.
Well, anyway, the point of this whole rambing post is to upload my Priceless video here to my Blogger account, in the hopes that perhaps the compression on here isn't as bad as YouTube's is. Because seriously, the original avi of the Priceless video is *beautiful* on my computer, but the version everyone sees on YouTube has a severe decrease in quality.
So, here goes... Hope you enjoy:
Silver Dollar City -- Priceless
And that's all I have to say... Oh, except that anyone remotely interested in Silver Dollar City should check out the awesome
SDCFans website, and if you'd like, join us on the forums and have fun talking about SDC in the past, present, and future.
'Til Next Post,
~ "Becky" Joy Helvie ~
(aka R. Joy Helvie, amateur videomaker)
