thuvia ptarth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thuviaptarth) wrote2006-08-20 05:23 pm
thuviaptarth) wrote2006-08-20 05:23 pm
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Premieres/Vid Review: 2
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cesperanza and 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.
cesperanza and sockkpuppettPlaylist
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.
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"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.
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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::
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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.
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That's just because you haven't realized this is show *made* for Depressed Heartsick Whiteboy Music.
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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.
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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.