Friday Night Drive-In

[sisabet]

OMIGOD!! The vid recs this month at crack_van are actually really good vids like "Dante's Prayer" and "Jig of Life!"

I was thinking, earlier this month, that maybe vidding needed to be addressed as a small fandom in and of itself, since I think the valued aesthetic in it as a fandom is totally different than that of a nonvidder (or non-regular vid watcher).

I think - and this is not meant to devalue past recs - just my opinion (and I am an elitist bitch - says so right there on my icon) that a lot of the Friday Drive-In recs in the past have been made by people that are just either not that familiar with vidding as a whole and are just looking for that vid in their fandom that features *something* they like. And I can get that - where clips to music is pretty much what you are looking for and especially those clips you like watching. And that is great.

To me, not necessarily a great vid and for the most part I have been disappointed with the recs. I mean - I know of a ton of great vids out there that everyone should see -especially if you like vids for vids (and now I need to work on a rec's page - hee) and I think the format of crack van would work great for a month of rec's. But hey - 2 really great vids rec'd in a row today. I'm really good with this, too.

Comments

[superplin.livejournal.com]

I was thinking, earlier this month, that maybe vidding needed to be addressed as a small fandom in and of itself, since I think the valued aesthetic in it as a fandom is totally different than that of a nonvidder (or non-regular vid watcher).

Funny you should mention that. I've just been discussing this topic with macha, since now that our nasty technical issues are (mostly, we hope, god please) resolved, one of our priorities is to increase discussion and display of visual media, both art and vids. And one thing that has come up is that it can be hard for non-vidders to engage in conversations about the work with those who actually do it, because they don't necessarily share the same language or approach the topic in the same way.

Of course, that's also the very aspect that can make such discussions lively and interesting for both sides, if only one can get them going.

I was fascinated by Melymbrosia's (or whatever the hell she's calling herself these days, I get so confused by multiple LJs!) reports from VividCon, how she was using her literary criticism background to produce some great comments and insights, but still felt she was not... quite... there when it came to the milieu of vidding. That she still wasn't quite up to speed and some things people were saying and doing was still slightly beyond her grasp, or out of focus, or whatever.

And her posts support macha's idea that if the vidders "talk among themselves" (the way they surely do at their very own Con) enough, then the others will gradually start to feel more comfortable and engage with them. I think it would be so great to be able to have people from various backgrounds talking about vids from different perspectives, and that's kind of what we've been trying to do in other areas all along. But as you say, the starting points may be far enough apart to make it hard to get the dialogue started in the first place.

None of which has much to do with the main substance of your post about recs, I realize, but it's one of those things where someone says something and you think, "Oh, yeah, that's just like what I was saying the other day," when maybe the connection is visible only to you and everyone else just thinks you're on crack.
Or am I the only one who does that?

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

You make a public announcement and people still bitch, bitch, bitch ... *sigh*

I don't think it's so much vidder vs. nonvidder, except for some very specific technical issues, as educated vid watcher vs. non-educated. You can gain the education by vidding, or you can gain it by film studies, or you can gain it by watching vids and listening to vidders talk; conversely, a vidder who's vidding for social reasons, like a fanfic writer who just writes to please her friends and get egoboo, probably isn't going to learn anything no matter how many vids she puts out.

My issue wasn't specifically vidding vocabulary so much as *film* vocabulary, and a lot of what I learn from vids I can take back and apply to film and TV. I know I've become a lot more aware of visual imagery since starting to watch vids two or three years ago; before that, any analysis I did was specifically textual and literary. And to some extent this works, because narrative is narrative, whether it's prose or comics or film; and to some extent it fails, because an analysis of film that doesn't deal with any of the special qualities of film as a medium is going to be more narrow and limited than it should be.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Exactly! And this is why a review of a graphic novel that does not take into account the *graphics* is not a complete thing. Each of these mediums is on a visual continuum - and that has to be addressed.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

And music. I forgot to say that. Musical vocabulary -- auditory vocabulary, for film -- is important, too.

[superplin.livejournal.com]

You make a public announcement and people still bitch, bitch, bitch ... *sigh*

I know, I'm just so bad at remembering things like this. "It's the ink one, right? No, the accounts one. And where does the underscore go, again?" I'm not good at this level of detail.

I don't think it's so much vidder vs. nonvidder, except for some very specific technical issues, as educated vid watcher vs. non-educated. You can gain the education by vidding, or you can gain it by film studies, or you can gain it by watching vids and listening to vidders talk; conversely, a vidder who's vidding for social reasons, like a fanfic writer who just writes to please her friends and get egoboo, probably isn't going to learn anything no matter how many vids she puts out.

Right! Experience in terms of sheer numbers doesn't necessarily equate to artistic growth.

My issue wasn't specifically vidding vocabulary so much as *film* vocabulary, and a lot of what I learn from vids I can take back and apply to film and TV. I know I've become a lot more aware of visual imagery since starting to watch vids two or three years ago; before that, any analysis I did was specifically textual and literary. And to some extent this works, because narrative is narrative, whether it's prose or comics or film; and to some extent it fails, because an analysis of film that doesn't deal with any of the special qualities of film as a medium is going to be more narrow and limited than it should be.

That's what I was trying to get at, and my failure to express it clearly points at my complete lack of background in anything visual (I wasn't distinguishing between vids and film in general). I loved reading your posts about the Con because you specifically addressed that area between narrative and medium that I find so hard to get at, myself. Which is why I enjoy discussions about vids (and the visual aspects of film and TV, when I'm familiar with the work being talked about): they open my eyes to things I haven't yet learned to see for myself, that I simply don't notice.

Then someone points them out to me and I'm all, "Duh!".

I'd really like to work on discovering this side of the Jossverse shows, and (well-done, thoughtful) vids seem like a good means of entry into this other dimension. If you know what you're looking for/at, which I mostly don't. Yet.

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see a place where vidders rec vids, including why they're rec'ing them, using Big Vidder Words and everything. But the bandwidth and direct-linking issues are problematical...

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Well, that is why I thought it should be treated as a small fandom - one month where someone in the vidder fandom rec's vids and says why (and it doesn't have to be just online stuff - you could rec something and say that it is on such and such compilation/disc). Just like with the Friday Night Drive-In recs - you'd have to line up links and permission a head of time - hence the small fandom thingy (just one month).

I think it would be interesting and also there would be a PRIMER!

::loves primers::

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

You know what that means, don't you? It means you should volunteer to do vidding as a small fandom. ;)

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

But I am inconsistent and lack free time. Also I am irresponsible and liable to lose things.

I think since I had the idea and all - or well - actually I think someone else had the idea (tzikeh??) - well since I am the person who *posted* it - then someone else needs to take it and run.

[permetaform]

YES. HELL YES. I've been saying that vidding's like it's own fandom and am SO right there with you!

...I wonder if there's a server we can use that'll solve the bandwidth issue...

or if somehow we could set up a musicvid.org or something...

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Well - I think letting vidders control how their vids are distributed online (or control as much as they *can*) is very important. Some people are comfortable with password protected sites - others have bandwidth issues - but in the end to each her (and sometimes his) own.

BUT - the way the friday drivein rec's are done now - you need to have the vidders permission and okay to post it. Since a full month of rec's is what? 12-15 posts? I think it could be done - you'd just have to plan ahead and email and get permissions ready to go.

[permetaform]

::confused:: but animemusicvideo.org has you upload the vids to their servers...so unless the vidder specifically links to their own site, there should be no bandwidth issues.(that's why I wish something like that existed for live action vidding.)

But yeah, I think it's be fairly easy to ask for permission =) so it could work

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

See - I would not want my vids distributed there or at an org like it because then I give up all control. I think you will find that a lot of vidders feel this way (especially people that have been vidding along time and were not primarily internet vidders). Most of the best vids on the net are on password protected sites and with good reason.

[permetaform]

is it the copyright problem?

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Well - yes there is that. There is also the problem of someone cutting up the vid you worked on - changing the music and then going "Look at what I made" and there is just a ton of other stuff (I'm mostly afraid of the music industry).

Right now I am comfortable with the vids I have uploaded and I don't think I need a pw protected site - I could decide otherwise tomorrow. I could need to yank a vid right now just because I decide I hate it - and I can do all those things because the only place my vids are being distributed (to my knowledge) is on my own site and thru the WOAD DVDS. I am comfortable with this.

[permetaform]

ahh ::nods:: that makes sense then.

oh hey! did the yousendit's work okay for you? There were issues in the beginning with them downloading properly, but Lum's got them all..

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I have them - but with the last couple of days - I haven't looked at them. I will correct that tonight.

[permetaform]

yay!

hint: start with 'Mitternacht' in Movement, 'The World She Knows' in Narrative, 'Euphoria' in NarrativeEffects.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

refresh my memory: you are evil - right? This is anime - right?

[permetaform]

...Mitternacht has vampires.

Call it payback.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

well, to be fair - the only vampire I have ever truly loved is Angel. There are a lot of vampires I don't even like.

Now flying Aliens in Spandex with Superpowers? ALL OVER THAT!!!

[permetaform]

what, Dragonball Z?

::giggles and runs away::

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

bitch

[permetaform]

::cackles::

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

Which series? :D

[permetaform]

Vampire Hunter D (movie2), Blood: The Last Vampire, and Hellsing

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

Oooooh... both the D movies are so yum, Blood needed more backstory*. Or, you know, a tie-in manga, which there might be somewhere :D I will watch Hellsing one day.

Or rather, I wanted more backstory. Which I almost always do, so that's more me than anything.

[permetaform]

heee, watch the vid. is gooooooooooood.

[trelkez.livejournal.com]

I was thinking, earlier this month, that maybe vidding needed to be addressed as a small fandom in and of itself, since I think the valued aesthetic in it as a fandom is totally different than that of a nonvidder (or non-regular vid watcher).

A random thought prompted by that last bit:

I went to a Stargate convention a few weeks ago, and the vids they showed were from Farscape, since MGM apparently hasn't given Creation Entertainment the go-ahead to show SG-1 vids ('yet,' they say; we'll see, says I). I just could not get into the vids being shown, at all - and meanwhile most of the people in the room were laughing (apparently) on cue. When they were over I was left thinking only, "jesus, that repeating transition with the lyrics spelled out made my eyes bleed," - and the person to my left turned to me and said, "weren't those hilarious?"

That's the first time it'd really ever occurred to me that there were vids for fandom, and vids for vidders.

It'd be nice to get vidders to rec vids. I like the mini-fandom concept.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Well - I think for an uninitiated viewer - the novelty of seeing a vid is huge in and of itself. Then you watch more and more and a sort of sophistication sets in.

You can see this in a lot of newbie vidders - they tend to be extremely literal and go for the easy joke at first and then, as they develop, they start to see that they can do so much more within the medium. I think a fannish primer about that and with links to some really GOOD solid vids would be great fun.

[xanphibian.livejournal.com]

I've wanted to do a vid post for so damn long in my journal, but I'm too lazy (or have been so far, and I don't know if I'm up to it, really). But there's so many people on my flist who rec vids or 'vidders' and it makes my eyes bleed and I get pissy. And I want SO MUCH for there to be one place where people can SEE the difference. Because I get pissy. And I want to shake people and go 'setting clips to music is not vidding!!' but then you know, I have that whole thing where I'm not really a vidder so much as an avid vid fan, and a fan of vidders, and I sit with rapt attention whenever a vidder makes a post about the process of the internal workings of their mind and I just want everyone else to understand that bone deep appreciation and LOVE that I feel for you guys. And it makes me WEEP when people don't GET IT.

/rant

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

And someone just recced "Schism," which makes three.