Becky Kelly

Remix Video by Dualbunny

Visual Culture and Language
Zufelt
Slash Shipping in Legend of the Seeker featuring If I Had You by Adam Lambert

Description
This video created by Dualbunny and posted on the website livejournal.com is a slash vid.1
The video features clips of footage from Legend of the Seeker, a television show filmed in New
Zealand and aired in the United States for two seasons from 2008-2010. The two characters shipped2
in this video are the protagonist, Richard Cypher, and the antagonist, Darken Rahl. The video features
one song played throughout, Adam Lambert's If I Had You.

Analysis
Word/Picture Relationship
Videos present another look at how a Word/Picture Relationship can be applied, because while
the movement and sound of a video is different from the static image and text of a comic or photo

1 A slash vid is a remix video created to highlight an imaginary relationship between two characters of the same sex
who are not canonically together, that is, their relationship does not exist in the actual show or movie.
2 Shipping is a term for a fan wanting a certain fictitious couple to be together. Ship is the shortened form of
relationship. Ships can be canon (official) or not.

essay, the same relationship categories can be used. This remix provides an example of how an
additive combination can be used in a video.
The video clips from the show are the important content here, as Dualbunny was trying to
present this imaginary relationship between these two particular characters. However, as McLuhan
says in Medium is the Massage, ...in all electric phenomena the visual is only one component in a
complex interplay.3 Dualbunny's use of Adam Lambert's song was an important and intentional
choice. The lyrics match up with certain aspects of the video, such as the lines about leather and
flashing lights, which are shown in the clips. Had she decided to use a slow and soft song, the action
shots of sword fighting would have been at odds with the accompanying music. The song and video
work together to enhance each other. The relationship between the lyrics of the song (the words) and
the video (the picture) is an additive combination.
An additive combination is ...where words amplify or elaborate on a image or vice versa.4
The Adam Lambert song is about longing for another person so much so that nothing else matters, and
the video uses clips from the show to propose an imaginary relationship between Richard Cypher and
Darken Rahl with edits to support this ship. These two elements, the song and video, were put together
by Dualbunny to present a possibility she saw when viewing the show. Separately, the two elements
would still present a longing for another person and a relationship between the two men, but together
they become more solid.

Closure
All of the video clips for this remix are from Legend of the Seeker, a television show that was
broadcast by Disney and ABC, therefore, the show had potential for a large audience. Even today, it is
still available to watch on Hulu. McLuhan had some words to share about the audience of shows such

3 McLuhan, 125
4 McCloud, 154

as this one. Today, the mass audience can be used as a creative, participating force.5 By making
this remix, Dualbunny, a member of that mass audience, has indeed participated and contributed to the
work. Her contribution, having been posted online, has become a new addition to the Legend of the
Seeker world. Therefore, in addition to being a member of the audience, she has taken what she saw in
the original and reworked it to also ...become both author and publisher.6
As an author or contributor, Dualbunny has decided how we, the audience, are going to see
these two characters from Legend of the Seeker. By simply rearranging the order of specific clips, she
has changed how the audience is intended to interpret the closure between each shot and clip. Doing
this, she has basically changed how the closure between each shot is classified. Knowing that the video
is a remix, one would be able to tell that the closure between each clip originally would have been
something along the lines of scene-to-scene, ...which transport us across significant distances of time
and space.7 By editing the clips into a new order, she had effectively rewritten them into a new story
where that jump in time and space does not exist as it had before. The new order disguises these clips,
which were possibly taken from different episodes or seasons, as having a subject-to-subject type of
closure, where she ...takes us from subject-to-subject while staying within a scene or idea.8

Composition
The composition of the video is clearly intended to imply with it's order that Richard Cypher
and Darken Rahl are in a relationship of sorts, however, there are a couple of repeating imagery that tie
the entire video together. ...In photography, the repetition of forms of shapes is an important
compositional technique.9 Dualbunny has repeatedly used close-ups of the men's faces when showing
emotion and shots of swords. The close-ups are meant to show the expressions of longing and love on
5
6
7
8
9

McLuhan, 22
McLuhan, 123
McCloud, 71
McCloud, 71
National Geographic, 100

the men's faces. The swords, she has stated at VividCon, the video remix convention the video was
first shown at, are meant to be phallic symbols, which serve to underline the homosexual nature of a
slash video.

Evaluation
Word/Picture Relationship
The song matches up well with the content of the video, having lines that describe the imagery
seen in the video. While I find the song effective at portraying the mood and action of the video, I
question how the use of the entire song doesn't count as copyright infringement. It may be less of an
issue as it's not on YouTube or some other more popular site.

Closure
The closure can be a bit tricky since she is taking clips from so many different episodes. The
differences in time and space are still somewhat evident, though I'm sure there's only so much video
she could use from the two seasons that gave her the shots she needed. The video does seem to span a
good length of time, almost like a few months. Considering she took the clips from so many different
places in the show, she did a reasonably good job of disguising that time gap between clips.

Composition
The composition of the video gives the impression of two enemies meeting and an attraction
rising between them, which they try to deny before giving in and running away defending each other
and being loyal. The repetition of close-ups and swords ties everything together from beginning to end
by using similar imagery.

Sources
http://dualbunny.livejournal.com/127479.html
McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The Medium Is the Massage. New York: Bantam Books, 1967.
National Geographic Complete Photography. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2011.
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics. New York : HarperPerennial, 1994.