Vine: Incidental Music is the Killer Feature

Vine is the latest craze in the world of smartphone apps, social media and online video, however, the aspect that makes it intriguing isn’t how it acts as “the Twitter of video clips,” but rather, how it transforms amateur video montages into rhythmic musical loops. In the act of creating a short video sequence, the user inadvertently compiles a strangely catchy collage of found sounds. Lazily chopped together jump cuts of people making smoothies never sounded so good.

Strawberry banana protein smoothie #howto #healthy vine.co/v/bviBAwi0D6D

— Aneesa Bey (@AneesaBey) February 10, 2013

In stark contrast to an animated GIF, the Web’s long-established looping video format of choice, Vine is alive with sound. While the silent film appeal of animated GIFs works really well for that medium, you don’t have to watch too many Vines before you realize the substantial impact that sound adds. It should seem obvious that synced sound would greatly benefit a moving picture, but I guess we all love animated GIFs so deeply that the idea of a “talkie” just seemed like a novelty.

The race for who could create a video version of Twitter and Instagram has been going on for some time now, and companies like Cinemagram bet that silent animated GIFs would pull ahead and take home the cup. However, the instant gratification of accidentally creating a cool-sounding video clip is looking like it will be hard to beat.

A property of Twitter, Vine is indeed intended to be its video equivalent. Instead of being limited to 140 characters, you’re limited to creating six seconds of video and audio. It’s not micro blogging, it’s micro Youtubing. You can’t edit what you shoot in post, rather, you’re encouraged to shoot in sequence.

The interface of Vine is perfectly simple. There is no Record button, all you get is a live view of the rear-facing camera. When you touch a finger to the screen, Vine starts recording, and a status bar starts filling up, letting you know how much time is left. Removing your finger pauses the recording, so you have the opportunity to change things up and make your Vine more dynamic.

Once you’ve shot your six second masterpiece, it becomes a loop that plays endlessly, and you can share it on Twitter, Facebook and Vine itself. When you peruse the videos people are making with Vine, you see a lot of self-indulgent crap. The most trite videos are sequences of people preparing food and drink. Hey, ice cubes and a banana in a blender turn into a drink. Wow. Great. Thanks. The saving grace of these meaningless videos are the incidental rhythms that the loops create. You’ll occasionally encounter a humorous Vine, but the rhythms of a chopped up world is the hook.

You can get a good idea of what Vine is all about by checking out the #howto section of the app. Unfortunately, you presently need an Apple device running iOS 5 or higher to take a look. Oddly, you can’t surf videos by going to the website http://www.vine.co/. You either need the app, or you can check out Vines that people post on Twitter. Thankfully, you can also embed Vines. Here’s one that I made about how-to set audio levels on a portable digital recorder:

How to set audio levels on a portable digital recorder #zoomh4n #hdslr #audio #recording vine.co/v/bvvvDQBJVLU

— SamMallery (@SamMallery) February 11, 2013

It may look effortless, but that video was actually kind of difficult to make. Six seconds is a pretty tight time limitation, and presently, you cannot undo a take in Vine. Once you press Record, there’s no going back. However, even though it was a pain, my video does a decent job of effectively spelling out one of the fundamentals of sound recording, and the looping aspect drills the information into your head, over and over again. Come to think of it, most of the good stuff on Vine looks like it required a decent amount of effort to make.

A tour of Twitter HQ with @jj vine.co/v/b52wWbFtpTe

— Jeremy Briggs (@briggles) January 26, 2013