26-year-old Lindsey Stirling is a quirky American violinist, musician, dancer, performance artist, and composer. Her music is mostly Instrumental Hip Hop combined with classical violin. She has also arranged film and videogame themes and incorporated dubstep in some pieces, e.g. her most popular track "Crystallize".Shortly after her performance on the fifth season of America's Got Talent in 2010, cinematographer Devin Graham contacted her via Facebook in hopes of making a YouTube video together. A few months later, Stirling replied to him and they scheduled to shoot a music video for her new song, "Spontaneous Me". It was filmed the week of May 9, 2011 while Graham was on a nearby business trip. The video gave a major boost to Stirling's popularity and she began making music videos for her YouTube channel regularly.One of her YouTube channels can be found here. She also has her own website.
In the behind-the-scenes for her Assassins Creed III medly, one of Stirling's crew dances about whilst holding two sticks to imitate bowing a violin, in a parody of her own moves. Everyone ends up laughing, though Stirling also pretends to be indignant and say she doesn't look like that.
After the End: The setting for her and Pentatonix's cover of "Radioactive". The video is filmed around some old graffitied buildings and junk in the middle of a desert, and the desolate feeling is enhanced by the heightened contrast in the video.
Agony of the Feet: Although it can't be seen in the finished video, the behind-the-scenes for "Elements" shows it was rather painful to make — she wore thin sandles in a forest full of prickly plants, and had to dance and spin barefoot on a salt flat.
All Just a Dream: The zombies in "Moon Trance". Lindsey's friends are surprised to see her fall over when they vanish, and don't appear to have noticed anything odd.
Be Yourself: The main theme of "Transcendence" is about being who you are and the happiness and freedom that comes with that, rather than trying to fit ideas other people project onto you or how culture says you should be.
Book Ends: The Phantom of the Opera video begins and ends with aged footage of Lindsey entering and leaving the theatre place.
Buffy Speak: When explaining the process of making her music, she describes how she will just do away with dictionary words altogether when trying to express what she wants to do. This is followed with a rather amusing demonstration.
Cheerful Child: "We Found Love" was made in Kenya and includes a number of local people. Some are children who she holds briefly or plays with. She also performs in their classroom, and they clap along happily. Later, she describes what an honor it was to be with them.
Color-Coded Elements: The music video for "Elements" uses this a lot, with water, earth, fire, and air having different dominant colors. For fire and water, she also uses face paint/makeup in blue or red.
She's done arrangements of themes from The Legend of Zelda and The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim (here and here respectively), and the videos for them include her dressing as a variety of characters. A friend of hers often makes costumes for these.
Cover Version: As well as working with other musicians, she has covered arrangements of themes from several films and videogames. Stirling has also stated that she enjoys adding a violin part to popular radio songs.
Creepy Cemetery: "Moon Trance" features a misty and dark cemetery, and she's creeped out even before the zombies come.
The Dead Can Dance: The aforementioned "Moon Trance" features a circle of dancing zombies. They then set up a band, and she joins on her violin.
This is used at the beginning and end of the Phantom of the Opera piece along with artificial aging to make it look like the film is old. Color is introduced when the texture and tempo pick up as the band appears.
The entirety of "Shadows" is done this way, since it is about the shadow and color isn't needed. It adds to the surreality of that video.
Double Vision: Several videos, e.g. "On the Floor Take Three", feature multiple versions of herself dancing or playing the violin, usually using split screens over several takes so it appears she has clones even if they're dressed differently.
Dubstep: Some of her pieces are self-described dubstep violin, with synthesisers used for some rhythm/base instruments and sounds.
Dutch Angle: A variety of angles and dynamic shots are used in her videos, including this one. It's especially noticeable in "Spontaneous Me", where the camera ends up rotating nearly upside down while going into this shot.
Electronic Music: She has at least two electric violins — one is bright purple and shows up in the Phantom of the Opera piece — and many more electric instruments feature in her songs. A video about making her music shows the layering process using computer programs and a keyboard set with weird sounds.
Fantastic Light Source: The "Song of the Caged Bird" video features many lightbulbs and candles packed into old crates. After Lindsey finds a violin and begins playing, they slowly come on until the tiny room is full of light. At the end, her violin glows too.
Grave Robbing: In "Moon Trance", Lindsey scrabbles at a grave and steals a violin from it to defend herself.
Genki Girl: She has a very energetic performance style, involving lots of quick motion and dance on her part and exaggerated body movements, often with a big happy grin on her face while doing so.
Happy Dance: Lindsey sings about how "We're in Europe! We're here in Europe right now, gonna be awesome, so excited!" whilst doing some kind of dance across the screen and back again.
Happy Rain: The water part of "Elements". To make the rain show up on camera, the rain is actually two people with hoses and sprinkler nozzels, backlit to highlight the drops. It's also more reliable than real weather.
I Call Her "Vera": The main violin she uses is a feminine Excalibur, and her stunt violin is named Ingrid.
Ice Palace: The setting of "Crystallize". She prances through the (manmade) corridors and in the courtyard, and at night the palace glows.
Idea Bulb: Inverted in "Song of the Caged Bird" — the initial lightbulb she finds by accident gives her the idea of opening the rest of the crates.
Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Even if YMMV, you have to admit, she's about as close to this as any real person of legal age is going to get.
Instrument of Murder: The Skyrim video had an acted battle. Lindsey used her violin bow as a sword against the bandit.
Laser Hallway: One of these features in her collaboration with The Piano Guys, with the red lasers contrasting with a predominantly black-and-white video. Lindsey carefully plays her way through, around, and under the beams, but the cellist simply turns off the alarm system to walk through.
Living Shadow: The aptly-named "Shadows" doesn't have as many quick cuts and varied angles as some other videos, since it's just her and her shadow projected on a piece of plywood. They start out in synch, but soon the shadow does movements in canon and then puts down its violin to just dance. Lindsey's expression is one of bemusement as she watches, but she keeps playing.
So, I'm a pretty, you know, smiley/quirky/dorky little person, and here I was. I was wearing the costume of Connor, the assassin in Assassin's Creed, who is anything but quirky and smiley and dorky.
Messy Hair: Averted; it doesn't tangle no matter how much crazy dancing she does, and her hair tutorial shows that she wakes up with it fairly smooth and neat.
Mission Impossible Cable Drop: This features, fittingly enough, in the Mission: Impossible video. Lindsey is lowered on a cable to steal music off the pianist's stand, throwing a small object to distract him long enough for it to be snatched. She plays her violin whilst being dropped.
Mobile Shrubbery: When infiltrating the building during the Mission: Impossible piece, both Lindsey and Steven carry potted plants with them briefly in an attempt to hide themselves.
Not a Morning Person: Well, she is, but others aren't. For Easter 2013, Stirling arranged an Easter Egg Hunt for everyone else on the tour bus. She was up bright and early setting out eggs, baskets, and a trail of footprints supposedly by the Easter Bunny, but trying to wake up those touring with her didn't quite go so well. They wondered at how she could do it given that they'd done a show the night before.
One of Us: She arranges video game and film music, and described herself as a video nerd in the behind-the-scenes featurette for "Elements".
Orbital Shot: There's a particularly large one is in the Lord of the Rings medly. She stands in the wind on a hill by the sea, and the shot goes around and above/below her.
Our Elves Are Better: "Celtic Carol" shows her as one of Santa's elves trapped in a workshop. She entertains herself through decorating the area and non-malevolent mischievousness.
Playing with Fire: "Elements" features a lot of fire that she dances around, based in a frame quickly constructed from Home Depot materials.
Pointy Ears: She wears these for her elf cosplays.
Pygmalion Plot: "Transcendence" resembles this in that the man at the computer projects whatever he wants onto Lindsey and she moulds to fit it, and when she breaks out of this he is angry.
Rack Focus: The Game of Thronescover done by Stirling and Peter Hollens used this when the latter finds a chess piece; it moves the focus from his face near the ground to the small brown chess knight.
Robbing The Dead: In "Moon Trance", Lindsey is desperate, what with zombies coming at her, and scrabbles at a grave to get a violin from the ground, with which she defends herself.
Roundhouse Kick: Her dancing often involves a few of these, though they're done more as delicate pirouettes than vicious attacks. When a video includes her in several places, she sometimes cuts to each place while continuing the spin.
Rule 63: She sometimes plays gender-flipped violinist versions of male characters, like Link in the Zelda music video or Connor in the Assassins Creed III video.
Scenery Porn: Lots of videos are filmed in wild and beautiful locations (most of them reachable within a hour's drive from Provo, Utah), and the camera makes full use of this; it's part of the reason for the Orbital Shot mentioned above.
Self-Backing Vocalist: The "Dragonborn" cover involves over a hundred copies of Peter Hollens singing different pieces of the melody and harmony.
Self-Titled Album: Her only album so far is Lindsey Stirling, released in September 2012.
Shattering the Illusion: "Transcendence" is themed around this trope through Lindsey discovering that the projected clothes, backgrounds, places, and so on are not real. When she realises she can step outside the image of a dress to reach for her violin, she is at first hesitant because of the shadows this casts on other projections, but then dances over the scenes like nobody's business, to the anger of the man creating the illusions.
Shout Out: "Song of the Caged Bird" is named after and inspired by Maya Angelou's poem "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings".
Single Stanza Song: "Stars Align" is mostly instrumental, but has some vocals in the form of da-ing followed by "when the stars align". This is repeated a couple times without changes.
Skip of Innocence: Her dances often include skips and jumps as she plays her violin, grinning.
Soundtrack Dissonance: In the Lord of the Ringsmedly, the only costumes she wears are pretty and innocent dresses in a Hobbiton setting — slightly out of place when the piece moves on to battle themes.
The Stoic: Her "orchestra face" is a deadpan, focused expression that she used to use when playing the violin. It's clear that she's gotten rid of that habit, though!
Stunt Double: She has a $40 violin used for scenes in rain, rolling in dirt, etc.; as a good violin costs thousands, this saves it from getting ruined.
Too Dumb to Live: Lindsey's bandmates in "Moon Dance" when they decide to take a shortcut through an ominous graveyard in the middle of the night.
Unlimited Wardrobe: She has a different outfit for every video, not even counting dressups, and sometimes appears with a variety of costumes within just one.
Wanted Poster: The Assassin's Creed IIItheme arrangement includes her cosplay character (the assassin Connor, though she called herself Connie instead) finding a poster for himself and ripping it off the tree.
You Wake Up in a Room: The beginning of the "Song of the Caged Bird" video features this, with Lindsey getting up off the floor and unaware of any way out.
. She also has her own website
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