thuviaptarth | Premieres/Vid Review: 2

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Premieres/Vid Review: 2

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sockkpuppett
Playlist

Belinda, "Black Mask" (Batman Returns)
Lum called it a great song choice but said that Belinda had lost her part-way through because of the inappropriate use of literalism; the clip of the cowl was just too much. She really liked the bats flying out on the drumroll.

astolat said that the cowl should have been the last clip; the vid should have ended with that because it's in the voice of Bruce Wayne before he becomes Batman. Lum or Cesca pointed out that this was Belinda's first vid, which got a round of applause because it's an impressive first effort.

Keerawa, "Big Gun" (Farscape)
This was another overly literal effort;

heresluck said that it reduced Aeryn to a one-note character. Lum suggested starting the song on the metaphorical meanings of "big gun" and working around to the literal, but "theshoshanna"> thought it would work better the other way around.

cereta was jerked out of the song by the inappropriate use of Aeryn's real mom and dad, who are the opposite of how they're described in the song.

shalott, "Bukowski" (House)

sockkpuppett thought the cutting was a little too fast;

laurashapiro also thought there should be more variation in the cutting.

vagabondage thought the vid was made by the reaction shots on the first "asshole." This seemed to be a really big crowd-pleaser, and even I could see its charm, as much as I have hardened my heart against Hugh Laurie and his show's dangers for hypochondriacs.

Melina, "Media Vita" (Rome)
Lum mentioned how the visuals and the lyrics parallelled each other--even if you don't know Latin, you know "mortis," dead. She wondered if the anachronism of using Church music bothered anyway. I said that it worked for me, because the Christian resurrection and the story of the vid are both stories of blood sacrifice--Lucius and Caesar are both annointed by priests with bulls' blood, and then themselves are sacrificed (Caesar's bloody robe; Lucius's bloody hands; Titus Pullo in the arena) to the city of Rome, by the city of Rome; blood sacrifices in the story of history.

cereta remarked on the cleverness of anchoring the vid around the Caesar story, whose loose outlines are familiar even to people who didn't watch Rome.

killabeez praised the use of symbolic objects like the eagle standards and the birds flying across the sky.

Jill, "Crazy" and Absolute Destiny, "There Is Too Much Light in This Bar" (both Life on Mars)
From Vividcon, I have deduced that Life on Mars is a cop show with multiple lighting schemes, about a cop who is extremely confused about something or other and has an intense relationship with his television. Nevertheless, I suspect the cop is not a fan responding to the plot developments in his favorite show.

People had a lot to say about these vids, almost none of which I noted down. Someone approved of the Gnarls Barkley, which took her to a Marvin Gaye/Al Green soul place, even though it's a contemporary song; the vid was like watching a Pros vid, updated.

melina123 loved the vid even though she dislikes the show. She may have said, "I've never felt like I was crazy in such a stylin' way," although it sounds more like

cesperanza to me. (The problems of notes with insufficient attributions, alas.)

The Life on Mars vids actually reminded me of something a lot of people said about last year's vid show, which is that it was technically excellent but not fannish, or not emotional in a particular way. I'm not ready to conclude that the difference is in the vids, rather than the Not My Fandom problem, but I thought both of these were excellent and enjoyable and "There Is Too Much Light" was hysterically funny, but I don't remember much about them or feel particularly likely to watch the show.

minnow1212 mentioned something about wondering now, how much of her emotional reactions were tied to palette choice, and I wonder about that for myself, too.

Destina, "Hurt" (Brokeback Mountain)
A lot of us seemed to have started out really worried about whether the vid could do justice to the song (and to the Johnny Cash video, which is tremendously moving) and to have come out of it relieved that yes, it was working,

destina was working it with the depth and empathy it deserved. Shoshanna was reassured that Destina began with the end of the movie, that she wasn't just going to retell the story of the movie (Melina called that the "trap" of movie vids), and particularly noted the parallel clips of Ennis hitting Jack and Jack being beaten to death; the narrative is the narrative of Ennis' guilt. Cesca praised the vid for being "very sparing."

Bunniquila, "Bound" (Coming Up from Behind)
The vid is sepia-filtered, and the version of the song is much slower than the one Killa used; it's a very sexy song that fits the vid's femme fatale aggressiveness.

Andraste, "Ophelia" (Babylon 5)
Fans of the show adored the mix of major and minor female characters. Laura called it the "Anti-Dead-Girlfriend-of-the-Week vid." Cesca liked it even though "I'm actually allergic to Natalie Merchant, I have to take pills for that." The vid breaks the "rules" of "one POV," or it goes for an omniscient POV that makes the audience the omniscient narrator: we're the people who mourn all the women.

Keely, "I Remember When" (Angel/BtVS)
Someone: "Not just another Spike/Angel vid." Laura liked the way the changes in tone matched the changes in musical structure. Zen called it "kickass." It took me until vid review to realize that a possible reading of "I'm better than him" is "I'm better than my previous self"; I'd seen it as more externalized, Spike projecting his self-loathing onto other characters, Angel, Giles, etc.; the vid is the stronger for working both ways.

F1renze, "Ragged Ass Road" (Prison Break)
Lum: "I think y'all are watching the wrong brothers show." Melina praised the "perfect, perfect, perfect song choice" and the use of objects and symbols: the origami swan, the tattoos, the stained glass windows. Shalott loved the crisp, beautiful, vibrant palette and the imagery of the torn scraps of sheet. Laura called it the "perfect con vid"--it sells the show to people who don't watch it and offers even more meaning to those who do.

elynross praised it for illustrating the complexity of the show without requiring contextual knowledge.

*cough* As someone who fell for the other brothers show post-VVC--my god, I wish Supernatural looked half that good.

Abby, "Walk the Line" (March of the Penguins)
The general consensus, with which I agree, was that this was adorable but also too long. It would have been more effective if it were shorter. Abby responded that she had made it as a cheer-herself-up vid after a lousy year; she wouldn't want it to be any shorter because she just wanted to enjoy the adorable-ness.

Eunice, "Lullaby" (Dead Poets Society)

sisabet: I could hardly hear the music because I was deafened by the tears in the back row.
Cesca: There is no crying in vid review!

Someone (I think Cesca? or Killa?) remarked on how the vid gave inanimate objects power, citing the return to the leaves, the book of poetry; Killa contrasted it to the use of objects in Destina's Brokeback Mountain vid.

It made me feel weepy even though I have not seen the movie and found the many teen white boys with brownish hair indistinguishable. (

heresluck, as offended as if they were her very own students: "They are not indistinguishable!" Me: "I cannot tell any of them apart. That's what 'indistinguishable' means." here's luck: [gives me the evil eye])

Dualbunny & Gerry, "One Day Late" (Firefly/Serenity)
People mostly enjoyed this one, although there was some dispute about the last clip of Mal naked on the rock, which a lot of people felt was inappropriately light after the vid's slowly darkening tone. I liked it because it reminded me of the Grr Argh monster saying, "I need a hug" at the end of the credits for "Becoming II"; Joss always does that unpredictable shift of tone.

I had a hard time on the first viewing because I kept thinking, "But--that rescue's not one day late! It's exactly on time! They are rescued!" What? Sometimes I am strange and overly literal. The problem went away in later viewings because you can see the increasing out-of-whackness and untimeliness of the rescues as the vid goes on: first they're on time, then they're a little late, then they're a little later, then they're ... too late.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Me: "I cannot tell any of them apart. That's what 'indistinguishable' means."

You can't tell Josh Charles, Ethan Hawke, and Robert Sean Leonard apart? Dangerous to admit in fannish circles!

They were all white male teenagers with hair some shade between brown and blond, extremely similar haircuts, and identical uniforms. If only the movie had followed the blond, brunette, redhead convention established for any random set of three girls, following the vid would have been much easier.

Well, there were always three or four guys in the sections I taught who I couldn't keep straight, either (the baseball caps only made it worse!), but they didn't grow up to be Dan Rydell and Wilson and Ethan Hawke. ;)

I don't think Josh Charles was in the vid much, because I recognized his mouth on one of the teenagers in a group scene.

Fandom will forgive me my indifference to Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke. I have faith!

I'm really curious about your comments on the Life On Mars vids as somehow "not fannish." I can't tell from your description here exactly what you mean by that. Is it just that they didn't push your buttons or pimp you into the show? Because that would be sad (well, sort of sad -- I'm ambivalent about the show), but it doesn't make the vids not fannish. They're made by fans; they're expressions of fannish media consumption. So I'm sure you're making a distinction that I'm missing.

I was sloppily echoing terminology from some of last year's Vid Review without thinking about it, and I'm not sure I want to dig myself any deeper into that hole there I just put my feet in. (It bears a disturbing resemblance to my mouth ...)

"Fannishness" was brought up as a question about Abby's March of the Penguins vid, too, and so far as whether or not vids are appropriate to show at Vividcon, I'm pretty much of the belief that any vids fans make on fannish time is suitable. (I.e., as we see more fans do professional editing work, I think it would be inappropriate to submit pro work for VVC. But work a fannish pro does on the side just because? Totally kosher by me.)

Re: LoM: It's not that I didn't feel an emotional connection to the vids, because I did. It just felt like a more shallow connection than I'm used to, independent of the artistic gloss of the vids. Now that I think about it, I'm not convinced that it was a quality of the vids rather than of my experience of them, and even less convinced that my reaction was about the vids rather than fandom. Whether I joined in or was a part of it or not, I've been aware of general squee, commentary, vids, fic, reviews--general fannish activity--about shows like SGA, SG-1, Supernatural, etc., in the group that I loosely and unconsciously define as "my fannish community." I *haven't* been aware of that much fannish activity around *Life on Mars*.

Although I haven't been aware of it around *Prison Break* either, and it didn't strike me as non-fannish.

It could really come down to LoM being yellow and *Prison Break* being blue. My brain is a mystery even to me.

Okay, so I swear I refreshed right before I started typing my comment below. Apparently it took me more than twenty minutes to go on at such length. I feel fully answered by your reply to

heresluck here. ::nods:: I'll note that I did see general squee, vids, and heard tell of fic for LoM in my fannish community. Enough so that I downloaded the show to watch it. Um, yeah, possibly becuase of

sockkpuppett's vid Time Bomb, which is, now that I think about it, possibly a bit more of a recruiter vid than either of the LoM premiere vids.

Aaaaaaaaand my email informs me that you have responded to my comment below before I finished this comment saying "hey, I'm answered. Thanks!"

::dives for the Post Comment button::

If anything, I got the impression from VVC that LoM is a hot new fandom; I saw three LoM vids, heard lots of LoM squee, know of lots of people willing to share eps, have in fact watched most of the first season. So I guess the notion that it somehow doesn't have "general fannish activity" around it baffles me from the get-go.

But even if I hadn't known about that, I don't think I'd be inclined to dismiss the vids' fannishness on the basis of a hypothetical lack of fannish activity, because my position tends to be that if it's made by fans it gets to count. I mean, if fannish activity is a criterion, the vast majority of movie vids (except for LotR, PotC, a few others) don't count, and that just seems self-evidently absurd to me.

And that seems to be where you end up in your comment, too. So... yeah, I'm just kind of baffled. Maybe it's just that the notion of dismissing something's fannishness based on a lack of personal squee doesn't work for me, because there are so many shows with which I have no personal connection. Like Supernatural, for example. Heh.

because there are so many shows with which I have no personal connection. Like Supernatural, for example. Heh.

That's just because you haven't realized this is show *made* for Depressed Heartsick Whiteboy Music.

My reaction to that show has nothing to do with its musical possibilities and everything to do with the fact that Rory's boyfriend still needs a haircut and the other guy whom everyone thinks is hot does nothing for me.

Also, most of the women in it get set on fire.

Yeah, that could be a real issue for me.

Word.

So I guess the notion that it somehow doesn't have "general fannish activity" around it baffles me from the get-go.

It just means that our personal fannish communities, although overlapping, are not identical; and possibly that there's an LJ/chat split, at least in terms of subjects covered, if not in terms of people speaking.

I think that when I've heard people talk about various vids not being "fannish," it's usually implying that the vid was less about love of the show/pairing/characters, and more about the whizzbang of snappy editing/effects/glossiness of the vid. It seems to be used as a distinction between older style (particularly pairing-oriented) vids, and newer ones that some people perceive as being more... professional?

It's not really a distinction I consider to be valid; I think the type of distinctions that seem to apply when someone says this vid is fannish, and that one isn't, have more to do with personal vidding styles and the evolution of vidding, in general.

The Life on Mars vids actually reminded me of something a lot of people said about last year's vid show, which is that it was technically excellent but not fannish, or not emotional in a particular way. I'm not ready to conclude that the difference is in the vids, rather than the Not My Fandom problem, but I thought both of these were excellent and enjoyable and "There Is Too Much Light" was hysterically funny, but I don't remember much about them or feel particularly likely to watch the show.

Okay, I want to poke you to explain this more, too. Because that "not fannish, or not emotional in a particular way" thing from last year sounds like something I remember but have been repressing because my reaction to it is/was "OMG BULLSHIT!! PURE, RAGING BULLSHIT!" Er, I'm sorry. Allow me to recast my reaction for public conversation to "I disagree with whoever said that's beginning assumptions both about vids and what they do and fannishness and what it does/is/means/etc." So, I guess I'm interested in what *you* took from that statement that brought it to mind regarding these Life on Mars vids.

It seems to me that a vid in an unfamiliar fandom need *not* make a non-viewer want to watch the show and that doesn't make it an unsuccessful vid. And it certainly doesn't make it an unfannish vid. In other words, pimpin' ain't everything. I'm wondering if the response (either yours or the soon-evolving-into-myth-and=mystery people who reacted that way to last year's vids -- or possibly both, depending on the finer points of distinction between you which I'm sure I don't understand) has more to do with a sense of "I see the ways in which this vid is good as a vid, but its concerns are not my conerns and/or its methods are not my methods and/or I just don't care." Whether that's because of a "not my fandom" thing or a "this vidder's approach to the show or to what vids do is not my own" thing or just a "wow, this subject matter doesn't interest me" thing or something else I'm failing to imagine....those seem to be perfectly acceptable personal reactions to a vid. So I guess, like you, I am not willing to conclude that the difference is in the vids, although I am leaning towards theorizing that the difference is the relationship between the viewer and the vids, with an emphasis on the viewer. But then here I sit, not really understanding the reaction at all. Because in my book if it is a good, enjoyable vid then I'm all over it, even if it doesn't prompt me to want to watch the show or even if some aspect is otherwise off-putting. If it's off-putting enough I suppose I'd shove the whole thing in the "not for me" box in my brain and move on. Vidding as a fandom, man. I'm interested in what vids do and how they work and that means (to me) that I meet them on their own playing field and try to suss out what's interesting about them. If they do work for me then I set to work figuring out why. If they don't work for me then I set to work figuring out why, unless I get bored or hateful at which point I stick 'em in the "not for me" box. If my response is "enh, I don't give half a crap" I move on to the next one. But, um, I'm aware that my take on vidding and vids is just that of one person. Which, see above re: emphasizing the vid-viewer relationship, with an emphasis on the viewer as I try to understand all of this stuff.

"Bullshit" is certainly a fair response. I'm not sure I have more to say than I said to h.l. above.

I guess I think of "vidding as a fandom" sort of the way I think of "books" ... well, okay, no. Let us acknowledge that my relationship with books is deep and strange and not really quite like my relationship to any other objects in existence, and move on. But "vidding as a fandom" maps pretty well onto "comics as a fandom" to me, which is that I have a certain academic interest in its aesthetics but I don't feel passionately enough about it as a form of storytelling to be devoted to vids that hit an emotional button for me.

Okay, this will make no sense to anyone but me, but I see an interesting polarity in your reaction -- which I think I understand -- and the idea of the Lord King Bad Vid. My interpretation of "not fannish" is something like "making choices that are not in some way contingent on an unusual level of investment in what a particular text does for you." This can produce vids of amazing technical merit and storytelling power, but they can feel -- cold, in comparison to the vids that sucked me into the world of vidding. They're not bad, they're just different, and for me the difference reads as emotional temperature. But then on the other hand we have LKBV, which is about half admitting your overinvestment and half disavowing it.

It may just be that vidding is achieving new types of diversity in relations to the source text as well as technical backgrounds. I don't have much of a theory here, just wanted to agree. And as a big fan of LoM -- I think you might like it, in part because it does such a good job of showing rather than telling in the early episodes -- I didn't find "There is too much light in this bar" all that fannish, because the song story is so different than the show story. It was really, really funny, with great choices and it created resonances with the show, but in a way that made the vid fun rather than in a way that led me to think of the show differently. Maybe that's what I mean by fannish?

It is a matter of emotional temperature for me, but having said that much, I'm not sure where it takes me.

vonnie_k, for example, didn't seem to feel any coldness in Too Much Light (http://vonnie-k.livejournal.com/310390.html#cutid1), and I can't remember now if I felt any difference between "Crazy" and "Too Much Light." I *think* I did, but I've gone over this too much already: my memories aren't reliable. I'll have to rewatch the vid, and of course my perceptions have been affected by this discussion.

I am not entirely joking about the yellow. I have very strong and not entirely positive connotations for a 70s decor, especially the colors, and especially that washed-out mustardy yellow.

On the other hand, when I try to define the differences between sf lit fandom and media fandom approaches to the source text, the degree and type of emotional connection keeps coming up as very important.

On the third hand (yay sf!), I've often been disappointed at sf lit fans' reactions to the source text because it's just as shallow, shippy, and shallowly character-oriented as media reactions. I think it's possible to have a character-oriented reaction that's deep, but--I expected something more lit-critical, I guess, or something more engaged with theme than character, and it's the same old who do I like/who should screw whom.

I am not really opposed to LoM and I am perfectly willing to believe it's better than Supernatural; but one of the Supernatural vids hit my hot buttons and none of the Life on Mars vids did.

On the other hand, when I try to define the differences between sf lit fandom and media fandom approaches to the source text, the degree and type of emotional connection keeps coming up as very important.

On the third hand (yay sf!), I've often been disappointed at sf lit fans' reactions to the source text because it's just as shallow, shippy, and shallowly character-oriented as media reactions.

I think that both sf lit fandom and media fandom can and do respond in both of those modes to the source text. Your preference or perhaps just what you're used to (in yourself and/or what you expect from others) in sf lit fandom seems to be lit-critical and in media fandom seems to be emotional, BUT THEY BOTH DO BOTH (often at the same time) AND THAT IS JUST THE WAY IT IS. Sure, if you're priviledging one type of response over the other in a given context and your expectations aren't met, then there's a gap there. But as regards vids, please don't box them into some notion of what you think media fandom looks like, especially if it's one as tiny as this one sounds. Because they're bigger than that. They regularly do more than that. Much of it a form of lit-critical, in my estimation, and I'm collaborating with others to try to work out the ways in which we see vids operating to be able to explain that a little more by next year.

But as regards vids, please don't box them into some notion of what you think media fandom looks like, especially if it's one as tiny as this one sounds.

You keep reacting as if I'm saying that vids are doing something wrong when they don't meet my expectations, when I think I've been fairly clear that all I'm saying is that they didn't meet my expectations and I'm not sure how to approach them. No matter how explicitly I say, There's nothing wrong with this approach; I'm just not sure I like it, and I'm not sure why, you come back with comments criticizing me for not being sure I like something, which feels like a personal attack and does not help me to understand your point or articulate my own better.

I am getting kind of upset that you are turning the statement "The LoM vids I saw didn't hit my hot buttons" into "Stop boxing vids into a corner!"

Both modes of analysis may occur in both types of fandom, but they are not equally privileged or equally common there, based on my experience in lit and media fandoms.

We can have a discussion about what different kinds of fandoms do, and whether there is any difference in them besides the object of fannishness, but if so, I think we should separate it out from the discussion of vids in general or LoM vids in particular, because I am tired of getting jumped on for not liking a couple of vids and not having a perfectly articulate explanation of my complex reaction to complex works of art.

Okay, the thing I think I'm reacting to is the "fannishness" issue. It's the drift from "they don't meet my expectations," which is a personal statement, to questioning the fannishness of something, which goes way beyond individual response, that is tripping my trigger here. And that questioning the fannishness of vids that do certain things and not others seems to be operating throughout this entire discussion.

I think it's fine that you didn't like a couple of vids. If you had just said "I didn't like these couple of vids" and left it at that, then there would be no problem and no question of explanation. I never asked you to explain why you dind't like those vids. It's no skin of my nose or LoM's nose or the vidders' noses if you don't like those vids. But you opened the door to a whole host of larger matters in your self-questioning and I disagree with a lot of the assumptions that have been brought up or referenced by you or others about media fandom and vids and what they do.

Okay, the thing I think I'm reacting to is the "fannishness" issue. It's the drift from "they don't meet my expectations," which is a personal statement, to questioning the fannishness of something, which goes way beyond individual response, that is tripping my trigger here. And that questioning the fannishness of vids that do certain things and not others seems to be operating throughout this entire discussion.

But the argument went in *the opposite direction*. I questioned the fannishness in the post, here's luck challenged me on that, I retracted my previous statement. Rivka questioned the retraction and/or the terms of the argument, and I mentioned some things I thought it might be relevant to explore.

When you and Rivka continue on with the whole "fannish"/"not fannish" thing and the emotional temperature stuff it seems to me it takes the argument right back to the statement you supposedly disavowed. Hence the phrase "operating throughout this entire discussion."

Well, this debate seems mostly over, but since I was one of the people last year who imprecisely used the term "fannish" to describe the concept under discussion here, I figured I'd chuck in my two cents:

I'm relatively new to fan vids (four years, maybe?), but all the vids that I first encountered, that drew me into this area of fandom, were vids that overtly celebrated the vidder's emotional attachment to a particular character or relationship (or less frequently, the show/movie as a whole). And my impression from various History of Vidding discussions has been that vids like that, which whack you with an emotional 2X4, have been the meat and potatoes of vidding from the get-go.

I happen to respond well, and reliably, to vids like that. They're like a drug. I grabbed the word "fannish" to describe them not only because they're so prevalent in fandom, but because they offer easy, obvious access to the kind of passion that drives all fannish activity.

Vids that have other goals -- aesthetic play, interrogation of a genre, etc. -- are less reliable for me. When they work for me, they're brilliant, worlds better than an "OMG they are *so* doing it" vid (after all, I'm someone whose dominant mode of fannish participation is still the episode review). But when they don't work for me, they leave me cold -- I don't even get a cheap high. So the increase in number of vids like this that I saw at VVC last year was definitely a topic of interest to me. If I'd had a better word come to mind, I would have used it; I certainly didn't mean for people to take from it the implication that vids with goals other than sheer emotion aren't made by fans, or motivated by fannish enthusiasm.

But then on the other hand we have LKBV, which is about half admitting your overinvestment and half disavowing it.

All of the comments on Mely's post are really interesting, but this in particular because it so neatly encapsulates what I think drives the LKBV phenomena.

LKBV seems to be a way - consciously or unconsciously - for vidders to negotiate the influx of critical theory and academic fen into the world of fannish vidding and the increasingly powerful technological tools available to vidders while still trying to hold onto their fannish love. In the last five years or so, I've seen marked changes in the responses toward what I'll call traditional fannish attitudes expressed in vids - not that there was every only one point of view in early fanvids. But as the number of computer vidders has exploded and combined with the Internet-driven influx of new fen - especially acafen - I have seen a sea-change.

Vidders can manipulate source (both visual and audio) so much more in vids today than in the past. What is possible today is radically different from even ten or five years ago - hell, even two years ago. Consequently, the tech expectations of viewers and other vidders have been changed dramatically. At the same time, the easy availability of vidding software and hardware means that the numbers of new vidders - many of whom will only ever be casual vidders - have sky-rocketed and the sheer volume of relatively low-quality vids (technologically speaking) has also increased. There's a real disdain - no, perhaps that's not quite what I mean, maybe impatience is a better choice - yes, an impatience that experienced and technological savvy vidders (and viewers, too) express regarding vids that don't take advantage of all possible bells and whistles. Simple simply isn't good enough - even if it is a deliberate choice, not a lack of vidding tech skills.

And post-modernism has crept - or perhaps bludgeoned - its way into vidding, especially via acafen of various stripes (not just the litcrit crowd). Self-reference, irony, satire, parody - all those elements are highly valued, sometimes overvalued in my experience, at the expense of fannish love for the source itself. A vid that isn't ironic, isn't self-mocking in its love for the source, well, those vids are often (more so in some circles than others) labelled as "painfully sincere" or cheesy or "old skool" (and that term is often used with disdain, IMO, though I've seen others protest that it's not inherently a critical, rather a descriptive term) - even if the vid is technically well constructed.

This isn't to say that earlier vids didn't use irony or satire or parody or lacked self-referential nods to fen and fandom; they absolutely did utilize such approaches, and many did it brilliantly. But the privileging of such vids over other styles/attitudes is something that I see far more of today than in years past.

In vidding - and in fanfiction, too - post-modern fen are the current "cool kids" - and though not everyone automatically apes or aspires to be them, the "cool kids" will always exert an undue influence on the general population.

And that, I think, is why vidders have embraced LKBV. Partly as a backlash to vids they perceive as technically well-made but lacking heart, and also as a buffer against being seen as "not cool enough" in their expression of fannish devotion. LKBV comes with an automatic disclaimer: if some fen find it cheesy or OTT or old skool or in any way "not cool" - well, it was meant to be. And if a vidder secretly loves her LBKV in a totally non-ironic way, well she can keep her secret without automatically losing her post-modern audience or jeopardizing her status.

It's been interesting to read people's responses to this year's LBKV show. Several times I've read people announcing they loved a LBKV, with the addendum that "No, really, the vid is so good it isn't really a LBKV" - Man in Motion by Renenet is one good example, and Separate Ways by Pouncer & Barkley is another (though many who love it still clearly see it as a LBKV).

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I agree with what you're saying in large part, but as one of the dreaded acafen I don't want to have destroyed the very thing that compelled me into fandom in the first place. (Vidding doesn't seem to have had as much defensive -- and I wish there were a more neutral term for that -- reaction to "literary" trends. Such reactions often tip over into anti-intellectualism when people are fighting about ways of reading fan fiction, even though both sides are defending their pleasures. Maybe -- wild speculation -- vidders are systematically more likely to agree that frame-by-frame analysis is deeply pleasurable. But then I obviously mean "vidders who are likely to go to Vividcon." It's not clear to me that feral vidders have interlaced with fan-trained vidders to the same extent as fan fiction audiences have overlapped.)

Anyway, LKBV is a defensive reaction, in the sense of defending a certain type of emotional experience, but one that largely accepts the technical/ironic terms of debate. And I want to keep making my overemotional, fandom-specific vids without having to call them LKBVs. I'd even like them to be moderately proficient, though I will probably never use After Effects.

Slight tangent -- SGA may be the fanfic equivalent of the LKBV for many writers. Because of the way the fandom has arranged itself (hmm, I have hidden the agency there, but oh well), there is permission to do a lot of wild things that might raise eyebrows in other fandoms (other than HP, the ultimate feral fandom, and DCU, where the canon always got there ahead of you). Now that I think about it, SGA is often about embracing your elaborate fantasy and taking it as far as you can go, and maybe that means that the "intensely emotional" side of fandom is expanding in its own way, just like the "technical" side, creating more varieties for everyone to select exactly what her taste is. Lots of people accept RPS without shame; why not mpreg and "aliens made us do it"?

Of course, I'm in the midst of reviewing The Long Tail, so maybe I'm projecting.

In regard to...

There's a real disdain - no, perhaps that's not quite what I mean, maybe impatience is a better choice - yes, an impatience that experienced and technological savvy vidders (and viewers, too) express regarding vids that don't take advantage of all possible bells and whistles. Simple simply isn't good enough - even if it is a deliberate choice, not a lack of vidding tech skills.

and

Self-reference, irony, satire, parody - all those elements are highly valued, sometimes overvalued in my experience, at the expense of fannish love for the source itself.

...my reaction is a bit "huh," because that really doesn't match up with my experience of vidding and vidwatching communities. But then again, I'm something of a hermit, so I've probably just missed it. And now I'm curious. Can you point me to the posts or conversations where this impatience and postmodernism has been expressed?

I am with

heresluck in that I haven't seen the kind of breakdown you have, and I certainly haven't seen any vidders particularly invested in postmodern art. I am puzzled also by your analysis of LKBV, because the category was created by Sisabet and has been embraced by, say, Luminosity and Absolute Destiny, who are all among the vidders most likely to use, say, collage or sophisticated technical effects; most of Sisabet's vids, I think, are straightforwardly but not simplistically passionate, whereas Lum and AD use much more irony, although in individual and very different ways.

I couldn't disagree with this theory more. All of my vids contain my heart. All of them, not just the Lord King Bad Vids. As an artist I resent the implication that nonLKBVs are created for some type of fannish acclaim. They are an expression, like anything else, including LKBVs. We all have to admit that somewhere in our hearts we lack a bit of taste and good judgement and listen to Mr. Mister.

LKBVs are us being dorks and embracing that fact. They are the reason Will Ferrell has a career. They come from that place we all have - the inner cheesiness of a vidder.

I'm not trying to distance or disdain these vids while embracing them and I am actually getting so freaking tired of this argument, you have no idea. Why the label LKBV? Cause it is FUNNY, my god! Can we not be funny at all anymore without having to freaking analyze it? I mean who cares about the larger theoretical implications of Lord King Bad Vid? It is Lord King Bad Vid!! Is anyone out there analyzing the larger theoretical implications of Three's Company and Don Knott's career? I was making these vids that were just me releasing something, they were horrible but I *liked* them (and I am disclaiming them in order to seem cool - there were HORRIBLE but likable) and Zen used the phrase Lord King Bad Vid and there ya have it. A few other people decided that this described something they do or it might be fun to do something like this and we had a good time. Now I find I am using it as a backlash to deal with the academic fen (which I find amusing indeed) or to protect ourselves from not seeming "cool." OMG WE ARE VIDDERS! We have no cool cache AT ALL. ARGGGHHHHH

We all have to admit that somewhere in our hearts we lack a bit of taste and good judgement and listen to Mr. Mister.

Do you know why you are me and I am you? It's not the birthday thing. It's because the first album I ever bought--on vinyl--was Mr. Mister's Welcome to the Real World. And, um, "Kyrie Eleison" still makes me tear up.

Is anyone out there analyzing the larger theoretical implications of Three's Company and Don Knott's career?

You know you are just tempting me to look up a cultural studies text on Amazon that does exactly that.

Also, one of the truly great things about Supernatural is that the last two episodes of S1 are preceded by professional LKBVs.

Okaaaayy. I'm sorry that my post touched a sore point for you, but you're misreading what I said, and attributing things to me that weren't in my post at all. I've no objection to discussions with opposing viewpoints, even when emotions run hot, but I won't fight someone else's fight. You're protesting things I've not written.

I know that online communications can be difficult, and it's easy for misunderstandings to proliferate. So I'm going to try and be as clear as I can.

I am not your enemy, nor was I attacking you in any way, personally or as a vidder. I find it incredibly distressing that you felt attacked, as you have long been a vidder whose work I both enjoy and respect and have recommended to others.

In this case, there's little background context that can add clarity to the written word as we don't know each other personally. At best, our interactions have been tangential. We are both on the Vidder list, and have perhaps seen each other's comments in the LJs of other people that we both read. I've read your LJ when you've announced new vids. I sent you positive feedback years ago. That's it for any contact.

I came to read Mely's (someone else that I do not know personally) VVC reports because I saw the links in the VVC LJ. After each VVC, I read as many con reports and vid reviews and vid recs as I can find because I cannot attend VVC, and the reports help me prioritize my download schedule.

Yes, I have an annual post-VVC download schedule. I am a vid fan, and have been for more than a decade. Given the amount of time and energy I expend in tracking down vids, downloading via dial-up, ordering vid tapes and DVDs, hunting OOP vid tapes and DVDs, watching, rewatching, enjoying, analyzing, recommending, and helping others find vids - well, I'd say it's quite fair to call me an obsessive vid fan. I am a fan of vids across a wide spectrum of fandoms, and have enormous respect and admiration for vidding as a fannish endeavor and for many vidders. And a core part of my fannish joy and mode of interaction is analysis: analysis of source and the fanworks that source inspires, whether it is vids or fiction or art. So no, I'm not an uncritically consuming fan, but neither am I someone who views vids in an impersonal light. I find vids - some, clearly not all - have a very powerful emotional resonance for me. Similar to the impact of a great story, a great vid means something to me, and it's something that I revisit. Vids, as much as fiction, are an integral part of my fannish experience.

As a vid watcher who is not a vidder, my experience of vids and vidding fandom is necessarily different from vidders (though I know full well that vidders are also vid watchers). I read Mely's con reports, found them informative and interesting, read the comments, and responded to one point - of many - that resonated with me. There was no hidden agenda, no desire to attack anyone, no interest in upsetting anyone. It was an analytical post because I was responding to an analytical comment; both RivaK's original comment and my response were broad descriptions, necessarily speculative because the LKBV show at VVC is only two years old. It was discussing a trend, not stating an absolute for every vidder or viewer. You and I disagree about LBKV. No problem. But please don't attribute to me things that I did not say.

Okay - I am sorry if you felt that I felt you were attacking me. I will grant you that yours was a comment of many that had added up for me. I was mainly responding to:

And that, I think, is why vidders have embraced LKBV. Partly as a backlash to vids they perceive as technically well-made but lacking heart, and also as a buffer against being seen as "not cool enough" in their expression of fannish devotion. LKBV comes with an automatic disclaimer: if some fen find it cheesy or OTT or old skool or in any way "not cool" - well, it was meant to be. And if a vidder secretly loves her LBKV in a totally non-ironic way, well she can keep her secret without automatically losing her post-modern audience or jeopardizing her status.

Granted - since this was a passionate subject for me, I should have waited to, well chill. I just really really really dislike the idea that LKBV is a distancing mechanism (as you well know now). I'm also kinda hesitant about discussing LKBVs in this way at all - I didn't even really want to make it a show (side note: this was the first year LKBV was an actual show at VVC. Last year it was an informal room party that just kind of kept...going. I felt making it a show kind of put pressure and deadlines and stuff that is antithetical to the purpose of the LKBV and since it DID become a show, I've had to re-evaluate a lot).

And that, I think, is why vidders have embraced LKBV. Partly as a backlash to vids they perceive as technically well-made but lacking heart

Okay, obviously I speak only for myself, not for other vidders who have made LKBVs, but I personally kinda see LKBV as a response to vids (mostly found online, made by feral vidders) that are *full* of heart, completely fueled by heart...and that really kinda suck — technically, aesthetically, narratively, by the standards of all I know and hold dear to my heart according to the standards of my vidding community and, uh, basic good taste. These are "bad vids" (sometimes compressed to "badvids"). The song choice is often cheesy as hell and/or overdone. The vidder's heart is clearly on her sleeve and sometimes people in love change colors just because the vidder figured out how to make her tech do that and they just....lack art (random special effects, what?). It's not that they are simple, it's that they are actively awful. As a personal expression they are valid, but as vids? I think they suck. It's mean to ridicule them in public, but in private chat? I will cop to having done so. And to taking an ironic sort of pleasure in the critique. So, if that's what "bad vid" means, then I see Lord King Bad Vid as a humorous name for an interesting phenomenon: what if you took the perceived attributes of the "bad vid" — heart-on-your-sleeve emotion from the vidder, overly sentimental or bombastic or just plain cheesy song choice, etc. — and vidded it really, really WELL? Technically and narratively and aesthetically pleasing and up to the quality standards of the vidding community that gathers at Vividcon. You might argue that it's just a "good" vid, then, instead of a "bad" one. And I think that's true. But because it's using the badvid — um, tradition? genre? whatever — because its using badvid signifiers in the creation of the "good vid," it falls into this category that has been named LKBV. (Um, I'm pretty sure that's how it got it's name, directly playing off the "bad vid" category.) The way I see it, while there may be some ironic awareness that the content choices should lead to crap, every LKBV vidder I've spoken to about their motivations will tell you that they mean the emotion in what they're doing wholeheartedly.

I don't think it's anything to do with acafen. I run with a few acafen and if I weren't so lazy I may have followed some inclinations in that direction myself, so I'm generally sympathetic to the theoretical whatever. It doesn't take an influx of critical theory and academic fen to account for changing perspectives or methods or interests in vidding. I think media fans absorb the increasingly sophisticated media that surrounds us all and, yes, use their increasingly sophisticated editing tools. We live in an increasingly po-mo world. It may take academics to observe and describe it, but certainly not to mediate the experience of it for non-academics.

A vid that isn't ironic, isn't self-mocking in its love for the source, well those vids are often labelled...
I have no idea where this is coming from. What vids are you watching? All the vids I am watching are *deeply* engaged with and excited about their source. And I continue to be boggled by the supposed existence of these vids that are "technically well-made but lack heart." Or maybe it's just that I think fannish squee flows through both heart *and* mind and there is a corridor just for squee that provides a direct link between those two spaces. And it gets into both the nervous and circulatory systems and from there into every cell and fiber of self until you are a fan imbued with squee and love and love and squee.

"... to vids that DON'T hit an emotional button," is what I meant to say.

OMG, I *so* do! Feel passionately about it as a form of storytelling. Storytelling and analysis. I am, in my head? Developing critical theory, sort of. Possibly my head is going to have to explode and I'm going to sort through the sludgy mess with gloves and buckets before I get it out. But I feel so passionately that I'm willing to break my brain trying to get it to do Things It Was Never Meant To Do. As you back away slowly, careful not to slip on the pile of brains. Look, the brain is blue. You'll like it. Here, put on these hip waders and sign this liability waver.

*eyes your gloves, which are blue, but blue like the acid green in the Harry Potter movies is green; which, in fact, bear a disturbing resemblance to the hands of blue that go two by two*

*backs away slowly*

*does not sign anything*

It seems to me that a vid in an unfamiliar fandom need *not* make a non-viewer want to watch the show and that doesn't make it an unsuccessful vid. And it certainly doesn't make it an unfannish vid.

I have seen people have poor reactions to vidshows because there weren't many shows they knew, but as I say above to Mely, the "nonfannish" claim seems to have less to do with whether someone is into a particular show of a vid, and more to do with... Well, whether they feel a vid has "heart," although I've not actually heard anyone say that. There's a feel on the part of a (relatively few) people, I think, that some newer styles of vidding (and many newer vids) somehow are less about love of a show/pairing/character, and more about gloss/style/effects/what have you. And there's the assumption that if the vids don't move them emotionally, it's about the vid, not about them.

To which I just kind of nod and try not to just throw out, "Well, those vids moved ME...."

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