Still, the most impressive videos are those with a bit of creative spark, like one that set clips of the thinly veiled sexual tension between Patrick and Art to the sounds of Tinashe’s hit “Nasty.” After Tinashe sings, “Is somebody gonna match my nasty,” we see Art dropping a piece of gum he’s been chewing into Patrick’s hand. Question answered.
Perhaps my favorite “Challengers” cam, however, is dedicated to Patrick, and is scored to a Lana Del Rey ballad. Her lyrics about a “man-child” are perfectly matched to Patrick’s scruffy immaturity. Linking that song, about choosing an emotionally stunted man, with O’Connor’s longing eyes makes perfect sense, and yet is somehow not the obvious choice. “Why wait for the best when I could have you” could have been a line uttered by Tashi herself, but is instead purred by Del Rey. A more rote choice would have been the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score from the film, which has been done, but instead Del Rey’s warble elevates the material as O’Connor peers into Guadagnino’s dreamy lens.
This is why the best fancams are the ones that feel delightfully random. I get giggles thinking about an edit of Bill Hader in the HBO series “Barry” set to the Olivia Rodrigo song “Brutal.” There’s a wonderful absurdity in pairing the malaise of a middle-aged hit man and wannabe actor with Rodrigo’s punky ode to teenage angst. Meanwhile, Charli XCX’s acclaimed new album, “Brat,” has offered a lot of fodder for fancam makers. I thought there was great ingenuity in syncing her “Mean Girls” to images of Robert Downey Jr., Benny Safdie and Dane DeHaan, who all play opponents of the title character in “Oppenheimer.”
Lauren Vinton, an 18-year-old from Ventura County, Calif., paired “365,” Charli XCX’s frantic song about a party girl lifestyle, with Tom Cruise’s frantic behavior in “Jerry Maguire.”
“His character in that movie is having a full-on mental breakdown,” she said in a phone interview. “He’s all over the place, and Charli XCX, her music is all over the place, and I want to bring those two together and try to make something funny out of it, give people a little chuckle.”
Vinton is a big Tom Cruise fan who has created multiple edits centering on him, but he’s not her only focus. She recently posted a fancam dedicated to Austin Butler in “The Bikeriders.” She’s also an aspiring filmmaker, starting college in the fall, who, as of now, hopes to become a professional editor. “I think making fancams has paved that way for me,” she said.
Read More: Focusing In on One Star, Fancams Find a Love of the Movies
