Video a-go-go

It’s always a challenge to know exactly how to start off each week’s local video round-up. This week, we start with something decidedly old-school. Here’s a clip demonstrating the nearly lost art of musical anvil playing, which is so cool and eerie that I’m a little surprised there’s not already several novelty musical acts in town dedicated to making the anvil the new musical saw.

Next, we have something timely, pop-culture savvy and definitely local. Here we have a collection of local musicians banding together for a good cause: Ironically performing their version of an iconic message song from the ‘80s. What’s not to like?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve highlighted several films from the recent 48 Hour Film Project here in Asheville. The participants must write, cast, film, edit and submit an entire short film in a mere two days. Recently, the finished films were screened, with awards going to those deemed to be the best of the bunch. One highly successful short film was “Nostalgia,” by Pandemonium, which took home awards for Winner of Best film, Best Director, Best actress, Best use of Prop, and one of three Best Audience Pick awards. A word of fair warning: It’s slightly horror-flick gross in a few places, and may not be work safe.

Other local 48 Hour films include “Runaway Forth”, “The Silver Slugger: The Life and Times of ‘Lefty’ Lober”, “2012 Farce or Phenomenom”, “Everything Comes ‘Round, “Still Life”, “Glueman”, “Sister”, “Wicket Intentions”, “Stuck”, “That’s The Junk”, The School”, and “The Ball Player”.

And speaking of locally made film, here’s a trailer for the Jubilee Summer Orchestra’s silent-film adaptation of Mozart’s Apollo et Hyacinthus. The concert will have already taken place by the time you read this, sadly, but hopefully this won’t be the last we hear about the project.

Some videos obviously call for lengthy explanations and greater context. Others, like this one, can be easily explained in just a handful of words: West Asheville Americana hula-hooping.

And we close this week’s round-up with a reminder of last weekend’s fireworks show at Lake Julian, which is the perfect thing for those of us who wish every summer weekend was the like the Fourth of July.

Of course, this is a mere handful of the dozens of interesting local videos uploaded just this week to YouTube, and a mere fraction of the Asheville-related videos available on the internet. Did we miss a particularly interesting, recently uploaded local video? Share it by leaving the videos URL (but not the embed code) in the comment fields below. Also, please mark it Not Work Safe if there’s any controversial content to the video.