thuvia ptarth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thuviaptarth) wrote2004-08-18 12:35 am
thuviaptarth) wrote2004-08-18 12:35 am
Vividcon Premieres Show - Initial notes - 1
Okay, first of all, I wish to register a complaint. Everyone told me Vividcon would be sparkly and fun and instructive and welcoming to nonvidders, and it was all of these things. But no one warned me that it would also be a weekend of PAIN. A weekend of watching glowing new art created from ALL MY DEAD SHOWS. Firefly, dead. Angel, dead. Wonderfalls, dead. Dead, dead, DEAD. Oh, my shows. *weeps*
*pulls self together*
This is going to be a non-exhaustive discussion of vids from the Premieres show. I'm not sure I'll have anything substantive to say about any of them, since I don't think I get enough from vids on one viewing to say more than "I like!" or "I don't like!" (Sometimes I don't get enough on repeated viewings to say more than that, but I'll try. Because I went to panels, and I was educated. Yes, I was. I have hand-outs. I learned vocabulary. They built me better, stronger, faster--yes! I am the Six Million Dollar Feedbacker! Except maybe for the faster thing. Maybe I'm only the Three Million Dollar Feedbacker.) I expect to do more thorough reports when I get the con DVDs and/or as I download the vids as they become available online.
Two warnings: (1) I'm not going to cover every vid, though this will be more from failure of memory than from an unwillingness to say what I dislike, because (2) I will say negative things as well as positive ones. But I don't tend to remember vids for shows I don't know -- I had quite literally forgotten most of the Smallville and Stargate vids by the time of the vid review the next morning -- and some vids are just not for me.
Oh, and since this confused me in many of last year's reports: a premiere has been defined as a vid which hasn't previously shown at a con, even if it's been available online. (I gather this is going to change for next year, because of the number of vids submitted.) Vids also premiere in places other than the Premieres show, but I'll be covering those under separate entries.
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killabeez and laurashapiro, Not Only Human (XF)
I'm going to go through most of the vids in playlist order, but I'm putting this one first because it was the vid of the con for me. Laura has now (co-)created two X Files character vids that just blow me away. And although it would be unfair to consider this simply in light of "Rook," since it very much stands on its own, I would like to start off by mentioning how well it does work as a companion piece to the other vid. It was always the interaction between Mulder and Scully that made The X Files for me; I tended to be less interested in either character alone than in both of them together, although Scully was my favorite. So it's something of a surprise to me that both of these vids, which concentrate on the single characters and their different quests, strike me as utterly true--as condensing down the essence of characters I'd always defined in terms of each other, and defining them in terms of their individual selves instead, and not falsifying them despite rendering peripheral an element I'd always considered central. And of course I'm rendering it central again, by the contrast and implication, because I can't escape my own obsessions.
But the vids are just such a study in contrasts: "Rook" has the color scheme I've always associated with XF, the icy blues, the blacks and whites, matching the chilly ethereal clarity of the lead singer's voice; "Not Only Human" draws on the color palette I so loved in the Biogenesis trilogy/"all things"/"Within/Without," the oranges and yellows and deep verdant living greens, and intersperses them with other rich colors, deep golden light and the reds of blood and fire and tattoo ink, colors that match the warmth of Heather Nova's voice. (Some of the scenes with a golden cast -- Scully in the sand, Emily retreating -- I remembered as being white in the show; I suppose I could pull out my DVDs to check, but it seems much easier to just ask Laura if she and Killa put in color filters. ;) Mulder is always, by default, looking up, looking out, looking at the sky; it's a telling moment when he looks down. Scully is looking down at crosses, hands, microscopes, slides; it's a telling moment when she looks up at the sky, and even when she gazes up at the night sky, she turns, she looks back, she looks down. She looks within. She pulls back the curtain to enter Albert Hosteen's sacred death watch; she opens the door of a temple to enter revelation.
So much here, even on first viewing: the paralleling of Scully's religious faith and her scientific inquiry. The emphasis on the body, always the body, the body dying and reborn: the blood from cancer, the blood from gunshot wounds, a corpse disintegrating into the ground and flowers growing out of it, cell division. The dead snake which is the green of living leaves; the dying leaves falling to the ground. The alien's face fading into the child's face: we are not human; they are not alien.
This vid made me so happy I almost cried.
gwyn_r, Valentine Heart (Angel)
Gwyn's vids often have a compelling sweetness; sometimes this works for me, and sometimes it doesn't. And here it really, really doesn't, because I just don't agree with the view of the Wesley/Lilah relationship being argued. The song is beautiful and sweet and sad and resigned: too resigned to feel like Lilah, and too wise to feel like Wesley. In the Vid Review, several people commented they saw the song as an ironic counterpoint to the action; if this is so, I entirely missed it. I felt like the song -- the sound even more than the lyrics -- was arguing for a romantic and optimistic take on the relationship that is just so at odds with my own interpretation of the show that I kept balking at it so badly that I had a hard time focusing on the screen. Maybe on rewatch I'll see the irony others did, or I'll be more persuaded by Gwyn's interpretation.
At the same time, by the end of the vid I was wondering if that Wesley/Lilah story I scrapped a while ago was really unfixable after all, so despite my qualms I was clearly affected in some way.
Mudd, Spooky (Sleepy Hollow)
This song is completely wrong for this film. The lyrics work with the content, but the sound is just too off: the song is too funky and too seventies to work with the film's elegant period-piece feel. I can't say anything about the visuals works to counterbalance this -- it seemed mostly stolid choices with all too many talking heads; I was astonished that a film I remember as having Tim Burton's usual striking visuals and design could be made to look so dull.
flummery (Seah & Margie), What It's Really About and Big Red Boat (Joan of Arcadia)
I was so happy to see two Joan of Arcadia vids listed in the Premieres show. "What It's Really About" made me oddly cranky, and I'm not sure why. I think I considered both vids de facto recruiter vids for Joan, since it's not a show that's popular with most of the vidders I know, and I was unfairly upset that someone recruited by "What It's Really About" would have wrong expectations about the show; this is a neurotic complaint that was well laid to rest by "Big Red Boat," so now maybe I can rewatch "What It's Really About" on its own merits.
Many critics of the show have complained that the Will storylines are so different from the rest of the show; I think they're important thematically, but this vid did make it clear how strikingly different from the rest of the show they are, both in terms of plot and in terms of look. The color palette is completely different than it is for the rest of the show, which tends to the warm and sunny; this really did look like Law & Order: Arcadia. That said, it's a lovely character study of Will, and although I could tell almost from the beginning where it was going and that the climax would have to be Will stumbling into Luke and Joan's arms, I could tell this because the vid was telling a well-defined story. The foreknowledge didn't make the ending boring; it made it feel like coming home.
But the Joan vid I really loved was Big Red Boat, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who was heartbroken the next morning whentzikeh pointed out the song wasn't available for general distribution. This is pretty much quintessential Joan, and quintessential Joan: bouncy, charming, energetic, and loving. And this was a really lovely example of reified metaphor: Joan is building a literal boat, but the metaphoric meaning of the boat in the show is that she's building connections among people--and the song is using the metaphor of the boat in the exact same way. I could tell from audience reaction that this was working as a recruiter vid, and I couldn't be more be delighted by that -- but as someone who already watches the show, I was equally delighted by the way the vid encapsulated the show's most central themes and conveyed its spirit and style.
I was worried that the opening and closing--which both focused on Joan's interactions with the various embodiments of God--might make the vid seem incomprehensible and chaotic to people unfamiliar with the show, but the audience seemed engaged from the very beginning; I think maybe similar movements and actions in the clip choices conveyed a feeling that these clips were connected rather than random? --but I'll have to rewatch to be sure. This was definitely the case at the end; I'd never realized so many of the God incarnations waved good-bye with the same cheerful little movement.
przed, No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts) (Equilibrium)
This was gorgeous. I couldn't believe I'd never heard of this movie, and then in the intermission I remembered that in fact I had heard of it, because at some point over AIMnestra had explained at great length and with great bitterness that it had managed to waste Sean Bean, Christian Bale, and Emily Watson. And I want to rent it anyway now. Because the vid is just that gorgeous.
Sorry, without context and without seeing it again, I'm not sure I can say anything else. I think I did like the climax of the vid which seemed to be Bale's character having to make some sort of decision, and shooting through memories of Bean and Watson, shooting someone, shooting a glass picture window which collapsed to show something else ... ? There were a lot of clips that seemed to be reveals, windows or screens shattering to show something else, scenes pulling back to prove to be remote screens as cameras spied -- I got a sense of energy, urgency, threat, and paranoia.
And also Sean Bean recites Yeats. It's not that I distrustnestra. It's just that it's so pretty. And it quotes Yeats.
This is taking longer than I thought, so I'll stop here. More later.
*pulls self together*
This is going to be a non-exhaustive discussion of vids from the Premieres show. I'm not sure I'll have anything substantive to say about any of them, since I don't think I get enough from vids on one viewing to say more than "I like!" or "I don't like!" (Sometimes I don't get enough on repeated viewings to say more than that, but I'll try. Because I went to panels, and I was educated. Yes, I was. I have hand-outs. I learned vocabulary. They built me better, stronger, faster--yes! I am the Six Million Dollar Feedbacker! Except maybe for the faster thing. Maybe I'm only the Three Million Dollar Feedbacker.) I expect to do more thorough reports when I get the con DVDs and/or as I download the vids as they become available online.
Two warnings: (1) I'm not going to cover every vid, though this will be more from failure of memory than from an unwillingness to say what I dislike, because (2) I will say negative things as well as positive ones. But I don't tend to remember vids for shows I don't know -- I had quite literally forgotten most of the Smallville and Stargate vids by the time of the vid review the next morning -- and some vids are just not for me.
Oh, and since this confused me in many of last year's reports: a premiere has been defined as a vid which hasn't previously shown at a con, even if it's been available online. (I gather this is going to change for next year, because of the number of vids submitted.) Vids also premiere in places other than the Premieres show, but I'll be covering those under separate entries.
killabeez and laurashapiro, Not Only Human (XF)I'm going to go through most of the vids in playlist order, but I'm putting this one first because it was the vid of the con for me. Laura has now (co-)created two X Files character vids that just blow me away. And although it would be unfair to consider this simply in light of "Rook," since it very much stands on its own, I would like to start off by mentioning how well it does work as a companion piece to the other vid. It was always the interaction between Mulder and Scully that made The X Files for me; I tended to be less interested in either character alone than in both of them together, although Scully was my favorite. So it's something of a surprise to me that both of these vids, which concentrate on the single characters and their different quests, strike me as utterly true--as condensing down the essence of characters I'd always defined in terms of each other, and defining them in terms of their individual selves instead, and not falsifying them despite rendering peripheral an element I'd always considered central. And of course I'm rendering it central again, by the contrast and implication, because I can't escape my own obsessions.
But the vids are just such a study in contrasts: "Rook" has the color scheme I've always associated with XF, the icy blues, the blacks and whites, matching the chilly ethereal clarity of the lead singer's voice; "Not Only Human" draws on the color palette I so loved in the Biogenesis trilogy/"all things"/"Within/Without," the oranges and yellows and deep verdant living greens, and intersperses them with other rich colors, deep golden light and the reds of blood and fire and tattoo ink, colors that match the warmth of Heather Nova's voice. (Some of the scenes with a golden cast -- Scully in the sand, Emily retreating -- I remembered as being white in the show; I suppose I could pull out my DVDs to check, but it seems much easier to just ask Laura if she and Killa put in color filters. ;) Mulder is always, by default, looking up, looking out, looking at the sky; it's a telling moment when he looks down. Scully is looking down at crosses, hands, microscopes, slides; it's a telling moment when she looks up at the sky, and even when she gazes up at the night sky, she turns, she looks back, she looks down. She looks within. She pulls back the curtain to enter Albert Hosteen's sacred death watch; she opens the door of a temple to enter revelation.
So much here, even on first viewing: the paralleling of Scully's religious faith and her scientific inquiry. The emphasis on the body, always the body, the body dying and reborn: the blood from cancer, the blood from gunshot wounds, a corpse disintegrating into the ground and flowers growing out of it, cell division. The dead snake which is the green of living leaves; the dying leaves falling to the ground. The alien's face fading into the child's face: we are not human; they are not alien.
This vid made me so happy I almost cried.
gwyn_r, Valentine Heart (Angel) Gwyn's vids often have a compelling sweetness; sometimes this works for me, and sometimes it doesn't. And here it really, really doesn't, because I just don't agree with the view of the Wesley/Lilah relationship being argued. The song is beautiful and sweet and sad and resigned: too resigned to feel like Lilah, and too wise to feel like Wesley. In the Vid Review, several people commented they saw the song as an ironic counterpoint to the action; if this is so, I entirely missed it. I felt like the song -- the sound even more than the lyrics -- was arguing for a romantic and optimistic take on the relationship that is just so at odds with my own interpretation of the show that I kept balking at it so badly that I had a hard time focusing on the screen. Maybe on rewatch I'll see the irony others did, or I'll be more persuaded by Gwyn's interpretation.
At the same time, by the end of the vid I was wondering if that Wesley/Lilah story I scrapped a while ago was really unfixable after all, so despite my qualms I was clearly affected in some way.
Mudd, Spooky (Sleepy Hollow)
This song is completely wrong for this film. The lyrics work with the content, but the sound is just too off: the song is too funky and too seventies to work with the film's elegant period-piece feel. I can't say anything about the visuals works to counterbalance this -- it seemed mostly stolid choices with all too many talking heads; I was astonished that a film I remember as having Tim Burton's usual striking visuals and design could be made to look so dull.
flummery (Seah & Margie), What It's Really About and Big Red Boat (Joan of Arcadia) I was so happy to see two Joan of Arcadia vids listed in the Premieres show. "What It's Really About" made me oddly cranky, and I'm not sure why. I think I considered both vids de facto recruiter vids for Joan, since it's not a show that's popular with most of the vidders I know, and I was unfairly upset that someone recruited by "What It's Really About" would have wrong expectations about the show; this is a neurotic complaint that was well laid to rest by "Big Red Boat," so now maybe I can rewatch "What It's Really About" on its own merits.
Many critics of the show have complained that the Will storylines are so different from the rest of the show; I think they're important thematically, but this vid did make it clear how strikingly different from the rest of the show they are, both in terms of plot and in terms of look. The color palette is completely different than it is for the rest of the show, which tends to the warm and sunny; this really did look like Law & Order: Arcadia. That said, it's a lovely character study of Will, and although I could tell almost from the beginning where it was going and that the climax would have to be Will stumbling into Luke and Joan's arms, I could tell this because the vid was telling a well-defined story. The foreknowledge didn't make the ending boring; it made it feel like coming home.
But the Joan vid I really loved was Big Red Boat, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who was heartbroken the next morning when
tzikeh pointed out the song wasn't available for general distribution. This is pretty much quintessential Joan, and quintessential Joan: bouncy, charming, energetic, and loving. And this was a really lovely example of reified metaphor: Joan is building a literal boat, but the metaphoric meaning of the boat in the show is that she's building connections among people--and the song is using the metaphor of the boat in the exact same way. I could tell from audience reaction that this was working as a recruiter vid, and I couldn't be more be delighted by that -- but as someone who already watches the show, I was equally delighted by the way the vid encapsulated the show's most central themes and conveyed its spirit and style.I was worried that the opening and closing--which both focused on Joan's interactions with the various embodiments of God--might make the vid seem incomprehensible and chaotic to people unfamiliar with the show, but the audience seemed engaged from the very beginning; I think maybe similar movements and actions in the clip choices conveyed a feeling that these clips were connected rather than random? --but I'll have to rewatch to be sure. This was definitely the case at the end; I'd never realized so many of the God incarnations waved good-bye with the same cheerful little movement.
przed, No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts) (Equilibrium)This was gorgeous. I couldn't believe I'd never heard of this movie, and then in the intermission I remembered that in fact I had heard of it, because at some point over AIM
nestra had explained at great length and with great bitterness that it had managed to waste Sean Bean, Christian Bale, and Emily Watson. And I want to rent it anyway now. Because the vid is just that gorgeous.Sorry, without context and without seeing it again, I'm not sure I can say anything else. I think I did like the climax of the vid which seemed to be Bale's character having to make some sort of decision, and shooting through memories of Bean and Watson, shooting someone, shooting a glass picture window which collapsed to show something else ... ? There were a lot of clips that seemed to be reveals, windows or screens shattering to show something else, scenes pulling back to prove to be remote screens as cameras spied -- I got a sense of energy, urgency, threat, and paranoia.
And also Sean Bean recites Yeats. It's not that I distrust
nestra. It's just that it's so pretty. And it quotes Yeats.This is taking longer than I thought, so I'll stop here. More later.
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As for Scully -- the vid I'm starting to see in my head is pretty much nothing like "Not Only Human," because the song is so different, so no worries. It's more like "Rook." Except for the part where it's not actually very much like "Rook." In my head. You know, I think I should just stop talking about this vid and wait to see what it looks like when it's done.