Premiering vids not on the DVDs

[thuviaptarth]

But I want them DVD-shiny! So unfair. I pout.

Thanks for replying to the last post, y'all, and I really will answer comments one of these years when I'm not so fucking tired. Your reward is that you have encouraged me to post more shallow, brain-dead comments. I trust this will make us all happy.

Sisabet, 'Falling for the First Time' (SPN)
http://sisabet.livejournal.com/365864.html
Wow, all the shiny happy vids in this fandom really are about incest. I am puzzled, but okay.

So, first off, I like a lot of the individual bits of this A LOT, and I love every single choice made for the choruses ("Anyone perfect must be lying" = John and Ellen, because parents are liars, and oh the beauty of lovely plainness), but I kind of figured there'd be a manipulated kiss from Sisabet's notes, and there was, and ... it was as much of a disjunction as the first manipulation I saw from the vid everyone else liked, because sheerly in terms of technique it's much better, but it made it clear to me how much incest is not my happy place for SPN. It's not my unhappy place, and I don't begrudge anyone their squee; it's just so much not how I interpret the source that when it crops up it's disorienting. So much of the vid focused on moments that read as so fraternal to me that it's kind of jerk to get to the inserted non-fraternal bit. I'm probably not explaining this well, and should just have left the comment as "Not my thing." It's just that moment of extreme disjunction interests me, as well as why it's more of an issue for me with vids than with fic; although it used to be more of an issue with fic for me than it now is.

Um. Yeah. Navel-gazing rather than vid critique. But I warned you!


Greensilver, 'White Light' (SPN)
http://greensilver.livejournal.com/432875.html
OH WOW! I love the visual distinctiveness of this, the bleached-out whiteness for painful scenes and the oversaturated color for happy ones, or just ones of love or connection, and then I love the story beneath it, the way in the white the only color is the blue of the djinn's eyes and hands, all color a lie a lie a lie a dreamy slower bridge disrupted by the white light of the hanging bulb that becomes all the white light in the vid, in Dean's life, ending with the loss, the kiss, the sacrifice, the white light everywhere.

The harshness of the vocals, repetitive, urgent, grunting, that urgent beeping-tootling speeding up even beneath the color scenes, except the bridge -- I love it so much.

I think this is probably gorgeous and different and distinctive enough to be worth it even for people who don't watch SPN, but the contextual knowledge adds even more -- it's a perfect marriage of technique and theme.

(And as an aside, I feel like some of this year's standout vids were SPN, that more of them hit the sweet spot that appeals to both fans of the source and people who don't know it -- "Women's Work," "Want," and "White Light" -- though it may be because I do know the source now. Also, I don't mean this is a slam against the SPN vids that premiered last year, most of which I like and one of which made me watch the show.

(Also, many of this year's SPN vids used clips of Dean kissing women. I approve of this trend and encourage it to continue. If you are thinking about using a clip of Dean kissing a woman and you are not sure how it will be received, be assured that I am here, supporting you in this clip use all the way. You can think, "Well, at least this vid will have an audience of thuvia," and it will be totally true. Be there for me. I will be there for you.)


here's luck, 'People Get Ready' (Heroes)
http://heresluck.livejournal.com/235191.html
Right now this vid is my Heroes happy place. It is my Heroes happy place in the way the show itself stopped being, because of all the evil moms and the whiteboy emo and the women shoved off into families and/or ineffectuality; it is my Heroes happy place the way the show had the potential to be, and kept blowing. It has even restored my lost affection for Peter and Nathan, because I love their story as part of an ensemble; I just don't love it as the big climax to the whole show. here's luck takes all the stuff I love--Claire's strength and determination, Hiro's purpose and joy, Peter's vulnerability, Mohinder's reluctant helpless thrall to his own hunger for knowledge; the visual brilliance and the complexity of generations and family--and erases/elides all the stuff I hated. In particular, I love how the black men the show presents as threatening (and then, yes, does offer some complexity for) are introduced in the vid as compassionate or loving: I love how much bigger a role the Haitian plays (in the vid world he has a name); how DL is here not as an ex-con but as a father and husband; how Charles Devaux is so much more central, so much more effective, the only parent who looks at the children as the other parents turn away, and the one Angela Petrelli bends to kiss: the remade hidden heart of the show. (Poor Simone is little but a picture still; but she is such a gorgeous picture, I love it anyway.) I love that we get Nikki's story without hooker-wear. I love the radiation spreading from the grave as Ted's hands, Peter's hands, hands. I love that Peter and Nathan's story isn't about the dramatic climax or the fight with Sylar, but about the decision to help or not, about brothers taking hands; I love that the end of the vid is where I always felt the true strength of the show was, in Claire taking up a gun, Hiro taking up a sword, getting ready. Getting ready. Past generations passing on all their love and lies and weapons, and the darkness covering the sun: a darkness that is a terror and a marvel both.

It's my Heroes happy place because it's an ensemble vid in the way the show didn't always succeed in being an ensemble show.

Comments

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I kind of figured there'd be a manipulated kiss from Sisabet's notes, and there was, and ... it was as much of a disjunction as the first manipulation I saw from the vid everyone else liked

I am still creeped out by it, as I was in the first vid, and I think I am much happier in the incest place than you are. but manips always creep me out, and it was very jarring to me, because I knew it hadn't happened on the show. I watched the vid a few times last night, and flinched at the kiss every time. I like the vid a lot, but I think I would LOVE it unreservedly without that manip in.

many of this year's SPN vids used clips of Dean kissing women. I approve of this trend and encourage it to continue. If you are thinking about using a clip of Dean kissing a woman and you are not sure how it will be received, be assured that I am here, supporting you in this clip use all the way.

Me, too.

[cofax7]

I like the vid a lot, but I think I would LOVE it unreservedly without that manip in.

I think... yeah. If the vid didn't have the manip, and hadn't been announced as a Wincest vid, my love for it would be unmitigated. As it is, I like a lot of it enormously, but I feel like I'm forced to read against Sisabet's intent in order to not feel like I'm enjoying incest. Plus, ignoring the kiss. Which wigs me out a bit.

Eh, I'm not explaining this right: I feel like I'm subverting the vid by refusing to read it as incest, the same way Sisabet is subverting the show by reading as incest. Except I think I have to work harder. *g*

Still, it is in many ways a lovely vid, and I was in the mood for a happy vid about the Winchesters, one that didn't focus on all their pain and losses (or anyone else's).

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

You privilege authorial intent more than I do, I guess. Though as I said, it's not really the incest that bothers me.

I feel like I'm subverting the vid by refusing to read it as incest, the same way Sisabet is subverting the show by reading as incest. Except I think I have to work harder. *g*

Heh.

Still, it is in many ways a lovely vid, and I was in the mood for a happy vid about the Winchesters, one that didn't focus on all their pain and losses (or anyone else's).

*nod nod*

[cofax7]

Well, I don't know that I privilege authorial intent here, so much as it wasn't possible for me to see the vid blind. I already knew, going in, that it was a Wincest vid. Everything else followed from that. But frankly, I'm glad I did know, because otherwise I would have been completely thrown out and squicked by the manipulated kiss--as it was, I was prepared for it and therefore wasn't taken by surprise.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

OMG! I totally forgot I could post from email without logging in. Awesome!

Anyway: See, my discomfort with the vid starts before the manip, and I'm surprised that the manip is the only definitive line-crossing for you. The song is *so* strongly a romantic love song--even more explicitly than "Two Step" the song--and the vid is *also* more strongly romantic than "Two Step" the vid. (I read "Two Step" the song as romantic and "Two Step" the vid as not, or prefer to read it as not, while believing that to be against Lum's intent. Which turned out to be wrong but anyway.) The visuals-in-conjunction so clearly set up the confusion/encounters as sexual/romantic from so early on that it is a huge cognitive dissosance for me, because these scenes I read as so strongly fraternal are being so clearly recontextualized as sexual. And I've been wondering why it jars me here but not in "SOS" or "Protege-Moi", and I think it's that "SOS" and "Protege-Moi" signal via extreme stylistic choices that they're weird, alternate, out of the show-level reality in one way or another that it offers me a necessary distancing from the show and my default interpretation of it, which otherwise the visuals would reinforce. "Falling for the First Time" is in this very precisely located uncomfortable place for me *because* in some ways it is a much closer recreation of the texture and feel of the show than "SOS" and "Protege-Moi," and all Sisabet's considerable skill in getting across *exactly* her intent just makes that spot *all the more uncomfortable* because it pins down the location all the more precisely.

Oh! I'm happy now. I know what's going on in my head, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

I doubt I'll watch sisabet's vid, since I am allergic to pecans, but I'm interested generally in how the reception of manips in a vid differs from the reception of extratextual footage. Because I have seen objection to specific footage (a la "Godwin's Law in Visual" or "Did you need to be that graphic?" or similar issues), but I don't perceive many to be put off by the concept in general.

(I will admit that the explicit shot in "Closer" was startling, because my first thought was "Wow, I so did not know that 1960s TV was allowed to show that!", but I didn't object to it, and once I got used to the idea of outside footage, it became relatively seamless.)

I suspect that manips are hard to take, as opposed to outside footage, because outside footage is still "real," still something filmed that actually happened, that's just being reinterpreted. (For occasional movie-making values of "actually happened.") A manip is something that we know didn't occur, or else there'd be unmanipped footage of it. The question is, is that a qualitative difference, that the viewer cannot overcome in her mind, or will viewers eventually get used to manips and consider them seamless too?

Also, there is the basic "my hed is pasteded on yey" distaste for bad manips; I imagine you'll know manips have become acceptable when people don't notice the material is manipulated.

[cofax7]

FWIW, the manip isn't bad--it's well-executed, shadowy and very short.

It's an interesting question; I wonder if the use of the manip makes the vid a Constructed Reality vid? Rather than a classic/traditional slash vid?

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Not having seen the manip in question, I'll take your word for its quality. Still, I can't imagine it isn't tainted by the association with legions of craptacular, WTF-y manips over the years, just like I can't say "adolescent poetry" without unconsciously thinking "bad adolescent poetry."

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Watch greensilver's vid! Guarantee'd pecan-free!

I have been thinking about the manipulated source vs. external source issue, and I think the problem is a combination of the manipulation itself, the newness of manipulation as a technique no matter how seamlessly done, and the particular thing the manipulation is being used for, which in this case I have a strong negative reaction to. "Closer" is one example, and so is morgandawn's SPN vid from last Premieres; external footage doesn't bother me there, and manipulations wouldn't bother me any more than any other noticeable visual alteration of source, because they're not being put in the service of an idea that's just not my preferred reading of the text.

Honestly, I think it's the pecans, not how they're cooked.

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

The "outside source is real, manips are not" argument only works when you can tell the difference.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

I can usually tell the difference between a still of an actor and a still of the character he plays. Technical invisibility doesn't erase the cognitive difference between source text and created footage. I think the difference is exacerbated, in this case, with the knowledge that if that footage had actually happened we would be on Fandom Wank x 1000 by now; but it's rare vid footage (in a canon I know) that I can't reasonably place.

I think a seamless manip might work in a much bigger canon -- 8 years of canon instead of 2, say -- but the further away from canon's general range of material the manip is, the bigger the cognitive disturbance in the viewer will be.

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

But your argument was that manips aren't "real" vs external footage which is real... However, when you have technical invisibility you presumably have as much congitive dissonance as with borrowed footage. That was my argument.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. I... still am not sure I agree, or maybe it's going to be a case-by-case thing, because outside footage usually isn't trying to persuade you that it's canon footage. (Maybe, in some cases, it is.)

(Can you tell I am totally trying to noodle out the logic of it extemporaneously??)

[heresluck]

You will have DVD-shiny! At least of People Get Ready. You just don't have it RIGHT NOW.

Very much enjoyed your comments on the vid, by the way; it is, as always, nice to see somebody noticing and appreciating stuff I was mostly doing for my own happiness. *g*

I have a whole post-in-progress on the ways in which the Heroes season finale, although it didn't turn me off the show, did annoy me by squandering its potential. Maybe I'll get around to posting that before the new season starts...

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

OMG SO MANY TYPOS AND TENSE CONFLICTS I can't fix until I get home! *weeps*

I am glad I didn't sound like I was dumping on your show squee! I think *Heroes* is actually instructive as a show that gets just enough right that you can really tell where its generic conventions and unexamined assumptions are tripping it up.

[heresluck]

My show squee for Heroes, though genuine and substantial, has always been tempered by a fair amount of facepalming. One of the things I enjoyed about making the vid, at least when I wasn't tearing out my hair, was getting to do exactly what you commented on: recalibrate the importance of some of the characters and plot points. Several folks commented, both in draft stages and after the final release, that the vid struck them as a sort of AU where the finale hasn't happened yet, to which I said: yeah, pretty much. *g* I vidded the show as I wanted it to be, which intersects only incompletely with the show as it actually was.

[cofax7]

FASCINATING.

Especially to someone who still hasn't seen the show, or the vid. *g*

[heresluck]

I'm glad you thought so! But the recalibration and incomplete intersection aren't that unusual, right? I mean, it's only what every slash vid does: take the parts we want to highlight and leave out the bits irrelevant to our purposes (which means varying percentages of canon depending on the show). Having now made several slash vids (...and wow, that's still a weird sentence to type), I can say that I found it a lot harder to do the necessary sorting and highlighting for this vid, because the criteria for choosing clips were a lot fuzzier and the number of characters to include was so much higher, but the basic process felt similar.

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

I was saying to--Laura, maybe?--that the thing that's so frustrating about Heroes is that they're trying. They are! They're trying really hard. And so when they get it wrong that's actually more frustrating in some ways than shows that obviously aren't even bothering to try.

[oyceter]

OMG YES about the finale! I still love the show, but there are as many argh moments as there are squee moments for me, and I particularly disliked how it ended.

OTOH... I still hold out hope for S2! Writers! Do not fail me! Please?