Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Too much time on my hands...

I now know why so many employers block YouTube on their employee’s computers.

Forget the porn; that place is a complete time suck. You click over to watch the video of your cousin’s kid singing in the church choir and an hour later, you’re watching videos of cats on record players spinning around.

You don’t mean to, but you do.

I’d managed to avoid YouTube for the most part. I never wandered over without a reason – a direct link to what I needed to watch. To be honest, I never thought to look there for the any of the hundred thousand “must watch” videos everyone was talking about.

Then, one day it happened. I clicked off a blog link to YouTube to see something I’d never heard of before: people mixing scenes from TV shows with music to make their own music videos.

Like this one:

Or this (Probably not safe for work):

Since then, I’ve killed hours on YouTube – hours I’ll never get back – watching these stupid music videos. They’re oddly addictive. I’m a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I loved Buffy and Spike’s relationship, but why did I spend so much time watching it be rehashed over and over again to everything from “Addicted” to “Glory of Love”?

And, dear dog, the hours spent with Star Trek: Voyager videos..

Then there are the videos where the makers take scenes and manage to put them together to tell a completely different story line. Ever wanted to see Buffy and Xander fall in love, fight, break up and make up? There’s a video about that – even though it never happened on the show – thanks to the magic of clever editing. Really clever editing can put characters from two different TV shows together in torrid relationships.

I also watched a lot of recut movie trailers – “Sleepless In Seattle” as a creepy stalker horror movie, “The Shining” as a feel-good love story.

And these:

Or this:


I thought PhotoShop was bad at distorting reality – movie editing software is really scary stuff.

So I’ve wasted hours of my life watching these videos – and I’ve only seen a fraction of what’s out there. But what amazes me is the amount of time someone had to put into these videos. Three minutes of video – properly edited, synced to the music, lots of cool effects – must take hours and hours to produce. Just searching the DVDs for the perfect one second clip to put right there at the big cymbal crash could take hours. And some of these folks make dozens or hundreds of these videos.

Where do they find the time? Trust me, I don’t ask that question lightly. I’ve had too many people ask me that question about writing. I know the correct answer is “You make the time.” Call me a cynic or whatever, but there’s no way I’d spend that amount of time doing something (that dances on the edge of copyright infringement to begin with) and then post it on YouTube for free.

Am I missing something? Am I too selfish? Too greedy? Too stingy with my time? If any of our blog readers does something like this – recut trailers, make music videos, heck, run an unofficial fan site (one of those big ones that are obviously labor-intensive) please let me know. I feel like I’m missing a piece of a puzzle.

Alternately, you could all confess your guilty pleasure internet time-sucks and make me feel a little bit better.

PC

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16 comments:

Playground Monitor said...

I just watch Hugh Jackman doing high kicks with the Rockettes. And now I can watch him dancing at the Oscars.

That Scary Mary one is wild. I can just hear Jack Nicholson saying "Heeeeeeeeeere's Mary!"

Some folks just have way too much free time. Of course, I should talk.

PM's Mother said...

Solitaire anyone? Or maybe Free Cell? A hand or two of Bridge is even better -- and it stretches your brain.

Kate Hardy said...

Scrabble Burst.

Of course, this is limbering up your brain... but it's a bad idea near deadline :o)

(And I'm a YouTube addict, too. That was the only good thing about my soundcard breaking: no point in YouTube without sound, so I stayed away. Now I have the new PC, it's bad.)

Linda Winstead Jones said...

As a Spike fan -- thanks. :-)

My big time wasters online are the games on aol. Bookworm, jewel quest, etc. I tell my husband I'm thinking about work, and sometimes I am, but man, the time can slip away.

LJ

Anonymous said...

Blogs and sometimes AOL. I'm not a YouTube person.
robertsonreads

Angel said...

I've not been to YouTube much, unless I have a direct link, like you mentioned.

Probably for some of these people, this is their hobby. Like golf, reading, or scrapbooking, they can spend hours engrossed in movie editing that they find fun and relaxing after work. Just because we aim to make our hobby a business, doesn't mean everyone does. :)

I'm afraid to watch the clips now. I may find myself cruising over to You Tube to find more...

Angel

Problem Child said...

Kate -- At the rate I'm not getting this book written, I think I need to disable my sound card for a while :-)

LJ-- I (heart) Spike. Angel was all King Of Pain, but Spike just...just... sigh. I can't explain it. And I think he and Buffy were actually pretty good together.

Angel -- Usually the YouTube videos have suggestions at the end of similar things. I turned that off -- didn't want to be responsible for other folks being lost on YouTube today...

robertsonreads -- I've never been on AOL anything (this comes from being married to DG. AOL = Evil.)

PM's Mom-- I do like Free Cell even if I'm not very good at it. Now, Mahjong solitaire online -- hours gone....

Rhonda Nelson said...

Er...Facebook. (And now Twitter, thank you, Kira. :-)

Playground Monitor said...

Are we going to have to have a YouTube/Facebook/Twitter intervention? Hmmmmm?

Katherine Bone said...

Twitter, iPhone, Ebay and now this? And I thought I waisted time doing other things. ;)

Katherine Bone said...

*wasted* Arrrrr!!!!!

Andrea Laurence AKA Smarty Pants said...

You know you can get to YouTube on your iPhone, right? :)

Sherry Werth said...

I am a YouTube fan, but mostly for music videos. I do like BookWorm and Bejeweled but thank goodness I don't know how to play Solitaire or Free Cell. Most of my card playing has been confined to Old Maid and Go Fish and someone would have to remind me of the rules for those. : )
I love to cook so a big time waster for me is Recipezaar and FoodNetwork. Oh, and let's not forget emails from friends, eBay, author websites, writer related info......etc.

PS: Kathy - waisted is a good word. My "waisted" is getting larger from sitting on my arse all the time!

Katherine Bone said...

Something we should all we worried about, Sherry, as we 'waste' our time on the Internet. LOL!

word verif: semons (?)

Lynn Raye Harris said...

Don't forget, PC, that you can access YouTube on your iPhone. :)

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, & MySpace. These take time. And now that I have my iPhone, I'm never far from any of my networking sites. I can Twitter from the airport, FB from the grocery store, or even from the balcony of the concert hall while waiting for Spamalot to start. Oh yes, all this technology is evil. :)

I don't spend too much time on YT - I can get lost watching some of those videos, that's for sure. But I'd never have the patience to make them. Though my Mac has really great movie software.....

Angel said...

Okay, you talked me into FaceBook, but Twitter would require an intervention. Do I really want to know what other people are doing every second of the day? I'm having to remind myself to update Face Book once per day. Sigh... I'm so behind.

Angel