Idolator’s Tribute-Video Treasury Grabs The Conch Shell

Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she ventures into the world of Lord of the Flies tributes:

Homicidal preteen mob mentality might not inspire you, but that doesn’t mean others can’t enjoy it enough to synthesize images of it with music and crappy editing software. Maybe that’s a cliché, but I run this feature on principles, dammit . Anyway, apparently there’s a surprisingly large contingent of Lord of the Flies fanatics on YouTube, and I think they’ve been underrepresented for far too long. This week’s videos boldly celebrate man’s descent into savagery with second-rate prog rock and the rarely-seen intersection of Boy George and William Golding.

Song: “Heat of the Moment” by Asia Concept: Lord of the Flies as teenage ambitions remembered well. You know what’s weird? Back when I was in eighth grade reading Lord of the Flies for English class we had to make a video project, too. Except we actually had to go down to the creek and act out some scenes ourselves–none of this hiding behind Windows Media Maker and cheesy soft rock. Anyway, despite the general C-minus effort, this video does have a certain charm. It only uses still images, which is usually a major disadvantage, but in this case the strange tempo of the song and cadence of the verses are perfect for dramatic closeups skillfully edited together with zig-zag wipes and slow fade-outs. Plus, this song really couldn’t be attached to something too slick; it wouldn’t seem right. Conceptually, though, this video is a little confused. While it claims to be “In Memory of the Most Supersonic Character, Simon,” when paired with the song it comes off as a justification of his murder (“It was the heat of the moment!”). But aside from this ambiguous intent–and perhaps the hilariously over-simplified summary text–there is little to truly complain about here. The images are well-chosen, it’s reasonably well-edited, and the dialogue inserted at 1:43 is appropriately proggy. (Thanks to Bailey Triggs for the link.) Best music-to-image sync-up moment: This is kind of obvious, but I genuinely like the artsy still of the boys dancing during the lyric “Do you remember when we used to dance?” at :32. Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: There’s a shot of Simon pensively sniffing a flower as Asia sings, “And now you find yourself in ’82/The disco hotspots hold no charm for you,” as if to imply that Simon is an aging party girl rather than a young boy stranded on an island with his murderous peers. There’s also an extremely silly alternating close-up sequence between Simon and the decapitated pig’s head at 2:17.

Song: “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club Concept: Lord of the Flies as the story of a boy, his lizard, and their red, gold, and green dreams. There’s something vaguely inappropriate about this video (probably due to the lyric “You’re my lover, not my rival”), but I’m choosing to ignore those (hopefully unintentional!) undertones in the interest of keeping it light. This is really more like a truly dreadful experimental film than anything else. The repeated use of the chameleon scene is crushingly literal and way too frequent. There’s also a general lack of narrative focus that makes it pretty hard to sit through, and don’t get me started on the editing (shots are way too long, no sense of tempo or rhythm, etc.). I do appreciate the attempt at matching the color-rich images with the color motif of the song, but in the end it’s just not enough to make up for the draggy pace and repetition. Best music-to-image sync-up moment: At 2:46, the song builds up to the chorus and there’s a shot of a tree with some birds in it. Right as the chorus hits the birds scatter and and the shot cuts, almost on beat, to the chameleon scene. It’s the only semi-successful moment. Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: Even though it’s entirely inappropriate to say this about 12-year-old boys, and even though I said I wouldn’t bring it up, the implied love between Ralph and Jack from 1:14 to 1:28 is pretty funny, if only because it’s a consequence of “Karma Chameleon.”

Verdict: Despite its unimpressive production and general simplicity, the Asia video is by far more charming and even slightly more compelling, making it the winner of this week’s match-up and chief steward of the rotting pig head.

Honorable mention: This My Chemical Romance/LOTF video. Shabbily edited, but definitely worth a mention.