I have a new obsession. Perhaps you have heard of it. It is called Vine. And I love it. Vine is like the YouTube of Twitter. It is run by Twitter, actually, and it is a video sharing app that lets you record and share videos that are up to 6 seconds long. That’s it. 6 seconds. 6 seconds, and you have your movie. But that, on its own, would just be annoying. There are two other factors that contribute to the craziness that is Vine. One is the fact that the videos are all looped and play endlessly. The other is the constraint that the videos must be recorded live with the app. No editing or filming ahead of time.
The looping, combined with the mechanics of the app that use your finger touching the screen as the signal to record, make Vine perfect for stop motion animation, and there are tons of fun Vines out there that take advantage of this. I made one myself, and I plan to experiment a lot more with it.
And the looping makes it a great tool for music. If you can time it just right, you can get a beat playing over and over again, or write a short song that seems to go on forever. Although I must caution you that sitting and watching the same Vine over and over again can start to mess with your head. You may start to feel as though you are caught in a time loop or that the universe is ending due to a tear in the fabric of the space-time continuum. So watch out for that.
The immediacy of Vine is also really fascinating. When someone posts something, you know that it just happened. They just recorded that. And there are secret hacky ways to get around this to be sure, but for the most part you are watching life unfold in real time, which is really compelling.
So I’ve started thinking about my life in terms of Vines. Would that make a good Vine? How can I play with the looping? How can I play with stop-motion? How can I play with the time aspect? How can I get my kids to re-do that cute thing they just did so I can Vine it? I don’t know if I will get bored with this soon, or if it will be a ongoing obsession/artistic outlet, but if you want to see what I’m doing over there, come on over and look for Tenor Dad. And make some of your own videos too. It’s a lot of fun, and I need more silly things to watch.