"If you've spent time on TikTok, odds are you've seen your fair share of fan edits - intricately crafted montages of film, TV or other clips that are set to popular music. Some are like highlight reels, others are like memes and still others are fantasy-based interpretations of popular media that stray far from the tone or text of the source material."
"These edits rack up millions of views, activating fan communities around titles from "The Summer I Turned Pretty" to "Barry Lyndon." Briana McElroy, the head of worldwide digital marketing for Lionsgate Films, calls them "love letters from fans." Put cynically, they're also free advertising. Hollywood studios like Hulu and Paramount+, noticing the immense viral impact of these TikTok videos, have started to adopt fan edits in official marketing campaigns."
"Lionsgate has gone all in on the format, posting edits every few days of new titles like "The Long Walk" and old ones like "Divergent." "Within our digital marketing team, we operate like fans," McElroy says. "If we're trying to have a conversation with fans online, we need to be able to speak their language." Lionsgate works with "legacy agencies" to craft a more "polished" voice on Facebook and Instagram, McElroy says, while for TikTok it creates content that feels "native to the platform.""
Fan edits on TikTok rework film, TV, and other clips into music-driven montages that range from highlight reels and memes to fantasy-based reinterpretations that diverge from source material. Creators worldwide sometimes use pirated footage and popular songs to craft highly stylized videos featuring filters, neon text, and emotive beats. Hashtags like #SydCarmy accumulate millions of views and activate fan communities around diverse titles. Streaming platforms and studios have noticed the viral reach and begun incorporating fan-edit aesthetics into official campaigns. Marketing teams aim to speak platform-native languages while maintaining polished branding across other social channels.
Read at Variety
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