thuvia ptarth

shati posted an awesome Bob-the-Haitian vid. She manages to convey the interiority of a character who's mostly been neglected by the show, and who when he's appeared has been defined by silence and stillness. And the multiple meanings of "persona" and "mask", both personal and racial, are used to great effect.

charmax posted a Heroes vid! About a woman! And it is all red and yellow and not blue! About Nikki and Jessica who I thought nobody else in fandom liked! Maybe later I will have something sensible to say, but for now I am just kind of wheee!

Sometimes I love fandom.

Also, stir_of_echoes's Vengeance of Mine Saith the Lord is an interesting episodic vid built around Supernatural's "Houses of the Holy" that might make a good pairing with Ermac Studios' Lord's Prayer if the con ends up doing the live action/anime vidpairs show someone suggested at the last VVC Dead Dog Party.

Two things that make Heroes vids a nice change from SPN: (1) Ensemble! (2) Color! (Not that I don't still love you, SPN vids! I have much love to express for you still in all your monochromatic and claustrophobic glory! Just not in this post.) Not just color -- technicolor! It's so vivid and bright I could drown in it. That said, a lot of these vids focus on Peter, whose color apparently is blue. I love Peter so much more than I expected way back when he was the whiney kid with emo hair in the first quarter of the season, but if any of you want to recommend vids which focus on other characters and have less blue, I am all attention.

King Tide by ficbyzee
This is an energetic recruiter vid that does a great job of capturing the entire ensemble, or at least the ensemble for the beginning of the season, since the cast has gotten even bigger since then. But I love the revolving earth, the eclipse, the eye; the cityscapes, the computer files, the walls of data, the paralleled falls; all the signals from the beginning that this is a story not about individuals but about interconnections. I love the changes in pace paralleled to the changes in the beat and the melody; the extraordinarily apt selection of moments for each character (Niki: reflections and blood; Claire: false embraces and fire rescues; Peter and Nathan: handclasps and blows; Hiro: Times Square; Matt: a hidden child) and the glory and terror of the king tide, which is the wave of destruction and also the characters being filled with the power to change things.

This feels like a love letter to the entire show. It was the first Heroes vid I ever saw, and it made me excited about the show all over again when my interest was starting to flag.

Minor complaint: The timing of Hiro's "Yatta!" seems off to me, like it needs a bigger musical emphasis than it got.

Desert Rose by phoenixchilde
This is so gorgeous. I would love to see it on the big screen at Vividcon's Nearly New show.

At the_reel, jebbychild called this a Peter vid, which I think is too narrow an interpretation; I'd say, rather, this is about Heroes as a quest, a journey, a mystery, and about Peter, Mohinder, and Sylar, the three men who are trying hardest in the present day to piece together the puzzles, unravel the mysteries, unlock the doors with the clues they've been left. (I wondered for a moment why Hiro wasn't here, but Hiro doesn't think of the world as a mystery; he thinks of the world as an adventure.)

And it's mystery as Mystery: God, Nature, Fate. The mysterious blue of cities and visitations is brightened by the yellow of post-its and cabs, the orange and red of flame, the bright pushpins and cords, Isaac's paintings, Claire's uniform. Moments of knowledge and revelation come with eclipse and sunrise, Mohinder's smile and Mohinder's orange shirt, the entry into another river in another city, Isaac smiling over a painting and a power he can control without drugs, Mohinder smiling over a realization. The use of objects and text as pointers and signs reminds me of heresluck's use of the same in "Benefits of Being Paranoid": The textbook Activating Evolution, the computer screen asking if you'd like to quit, the computer screen full of names (crimson for DECEASED), Sylar's address in Chandra Suresh's handwriting.

The moment which takes my breath away every single time: Peter falling into the sky which is the city which is the river.

Body by virtualinsomnia
This is a terrific Peter character vid: Peter trying to figure out his power and his place in the world, Peter connecting or failing to connect with Nathan, Claude, and Claire. It makes great use of the idea of body, of not having a body, of being too physically present or not present enough, of having a body out of control (exploding). The choice for "But I can see you" is brilliant. I love the long slow sweeps of the city, and especially that virtualinsomnia takes the time for the longer clips in the middle of the vid; there's a lot of variation in clip length and that, plus the careful selection of dissolves, fades to black, and very brief freeze frames, makes the song feel richer and more orchestral than it might alone. There are more effects in the vid than I realized at first: none of them are showy and all of them are effective.

I love the ending scenes with Claire and what Claire represents to Peter (hope, kinship, connection), with that one telling photograph of the Petrelli brothers in the middle; and the final clip is just perfect.

Re: Your Brains by shati
This is a Sylar vidlet. Sylar eats brains. Jonathan Coulton has a song about eating brains. That is really all there is to it, and all there needs to be. I wish the audio editing were tighter and the ending less abrupt, but really -- Sylar. Brains. What's not to love?

Elsewhere and otherwise
sol_se has more recs here that I haven't had a chance to check out yet.