![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Keanu Reeves is to Vidding as Patrick Swayze is to Collating
I'm trying this post again. Yesterday I accidentally hit one button on my keyboard and all of a sudden my screen went to something LJ-wonky and when I tried to return everything I had written was gone.
I am now convinced that the lost post possibly contained information that when decoded correctly could either lead to world peace or lost treasure in the Andes. The imagined outcome usually depends on how benevolent I am feeling at any given moment.
This past week my milk of human kindness went way past its expiration date, so take the following post with a grain of salt.
Let us start from the top - shall we?
There exists what I like to call the Keanu Reeves Factor in vidding. See, I like Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies with Keanu in them. I just do. His presence comforts and soothes me. Why?
Well, he is good-looking. He isn't incrediblely gorgeous, IMO - just pleasant to look at. His voice hits a register that I personally find pleasing (I think there exists evidence that humans respond well to a certain kind of monotone. It is like those tapes of whale-songs and Enya. Except those things raise my blood pressure). He isn't that great of an actor but as long as he isn't attempting an accent or Shakespeare, I often find I just don't care. I like to watch Keanu in Science Fiction movies because I know exactly what to expect - I know what he will bring to the table and I am on board with that. The plot may veer wildly all over the place. I might have the rug pulled out from under me several times. I might switch realities within the blink of an eye or the drop of a pill and yet... Keanu will remain the same. He is my guidepost - my beacon. I can depend on him to be my stable rock as I try to make sense and process the fantastical elements being tossed my way.
This also explains the career of Will Smith, by the way. It is all about giving the audience that comfort zone - you cast Keanu if you need the hero to be remote. You cast Smith if you need him to be likeable and you cast Bruce Willis if there is heavy lifting involved in the acting.
Simple enough really. But how does this apply to vidding?
Well I will tell you -- just not yet. First of all, I need to get a few - well a couple of disclaimers out of the way.
1. There are no absolutes in vidding. Let's agree now that all rules can be broken (and I am NOT talking about fannish courtesy at all right here - I am talking nuts and bolts vidding) and that I am not speaking in absolute terms here.
2. If you feel that the only way and the appropriate way to vid a song is by strict literal adhesion to the lyrics - ie if the song says "Touch my hand" then someone better be touching someone else's hand onscreen, or if the line talks about being lost in the rain - then we better see some rain -- if you feel this is the only way to vid and dislike vids that do not do this, and want to argue that point please just stop reading now.
Seriously. Stop. Cause we won't agree and feelings will be hurt and what I have to say won't matter to you and you will have wasted your time reading it and I will have wasted my time with this bit right here. We disagree on a fundamental purpose of the craft and neither of us is gonna budge on this one, so you just go on back to your editing software and I'll stay right here and prattle on about stuff that you could care less about and All is Right With the World. See - it is as easy as that.
Okay. - for everyone else - more behind the cut.
Vids that rely on Strict Literal Interpretation as a the only reason they exist are not bad. They are boring. This, IMO, is worse. I'd rather be bad than boring and didn't Mae West say that? Rizzo?
Think about it - think about a vid that fits this description -- typically the only thing you are left with after an initial viewing is a sense that "Hey, that song really fit a lot of the situations that happened on that Show/Movie. Huh." and you never felt the desire to watch that video again for a deeper meaning. The vid could have been wonderfully edited. It could have had beautiful source. It was still boring - Pretty, but Boring. Like this guy named Nick I dated in college. There is only so long you can just look at someone - ya know? Actually, a relationship on pure physical attraction can be sustained for a while, but eventually you are going to have to talk to the boy (or girl!). And if talking to him is a less appealing prospect than cleaning your bathroom - you have serious problems. And if people only want to watch your video the one time? Well, you can always try the "It's not me, it's you speech," but trust me when I tell you - Nick and my problems all boiled down to a severe lack of personality and guess what? It wasn't me.
Don't let your vid be a Nick. Sure he is pretty. Yes, he was picked to be one of Anita Madden's Shirtless Statue Boys at her annual Derby Party. All of these items pointed to a great and wonderful future... but he couldn't carry on a conversation to save his life on any topic other than long term investment opportunities and applying to the FBI. (He owned one CD! It was MAZZY STAR! I used that for 2 weeks of talking points alone, but then I was totally without a net - it was a lot of work keeping myself focused on him when he wasn't, you know, shirtless).
So what do we learn from this? We learn to avoid strict literal interpretation as the sole basis of a vid unless there will be tons of nudity.
Now - this is not to say that strict literal interpretation as the basis of a vid Never Works. Again - there are no absolutes in vidding. Usually, the vids it works with have a couple of things in common: a very clever premise and a vidder(or vidders) who know exactly what they are doing. Vidder who vid, like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sockkpuppett says, with intent.
What does this have to do with Keanu Reeves? I am getting to that, geez. Don't rush me.
Once the lesson about boring vids is learned -- there then tends to be an dramatic swing in the other direction "METAPHOR, METAPHOR, NO COKE, PEPSI" where the vidder totally rejects any and all opportunities to strictly allow the lyrics to dictate the clip choice and to consciously pay attention and seek this out in other vids -- without actually stepping back and thinking "That was a literal move here - why did the vidder make the choice to do this here?"
Because, again, there are no absolutes in vidding - literal interpretation has its place. It is the Keanu Reeves of your vid.
Now a lot of people do this intuitively -- they are making a vid, they are going for the deeper meaning, they are looking at unexpected clip choices to keep their audience both engaged and also - to make the meaning of the vid deepen and... they are giving their audience something to hold onto.
They give them a break - a vid Gimmmee.
Right now I am going to talk about one of my own vids because I am not at home and I don't have access to any other examples and well - hell. It is my LJ - chances are if you have read this far, you've seen my damned vids. Right?
Okay - so in "Two Words" I knew that I was asking a ton out of my audience - I was asking them to accept what was most likely a genre of music they are unfamiliar with, I was asking them to notice that the singers/rappers change and so does the POV and narrative method, and I was asking them to just try to keep up because the song and the lyrics and clips are moving very very fast.
This was a lot to put on the audience - I knew this and so in the Angel POV section (the Kanye part) I made a conscious choice to go strictly literal for "Shoulda been signed twice/Most imitated/Grammy nominated/cheer-leader prom dated" and the reason was kind of the mini reason so many of those strictly literal vids get made - the lyrics really fit the source. But beyond that, they really suited Angel and all of those things actually happened to him and I needed a break in the vid - some humor - a moment for my audience to relax because soon enough we are getting to Darla and "the roof caved in" and Angel stating "Fuck you, pay me" and I knew that this part of the vid is a different kind of interpretation and everything after "barber-shop playa hater/mom and pop bootlegged" was gonna require a ton of emotional investment. So I needed a bit of Keanu. Something to hang onto. An Oasis in the pain, if you will. You know exactly what you are getting with Keanu and sometimes your audience needs that, especially if you are asking a lot of them overall.
Now there are other ways of providing Keanu to the audience -- don't get me wrong. This is just one of them and it requires a lot of thought and intent to pull off. But if it works (and I actually have a list somewhere of vids where it does work and dammit - I don't know where that is) it really is very effective.
And so now you know about the Keanu Factor. Oh, and Patrick Swayze is to collating? What about that? Well, that is all in the hips ;)
I am now convinced that the lost post possibly contained information that when decoded correctly could either lead to world peace or lost treasure in the Andes. The imagined outcome usually depends on how benevolent I am feeling at any given moment.
This past week my milk of human kindness went way past its expiration date, so take the following post with a grain of salt.
Let us start from the top - shall we?
There exists what I like to call the Keanu Reeves Factor in vidding. See, I like Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies with Keanu in them. I just do. His presence comforts and soothes me. Why?
Well, he is good-looking. He isn't incrediblely gorgeous, IMO - just pleasant to look at. His voice hits a register that I personally find pleasing (I think there exists evidence that humans respond well to a certain kind of monotone. It is like those tapes of whale-songs and Enya. Except those things raise my blood pressure). He isn't that great of an actor but as long as he isn't attempting an accent or Shakespeare, I often find I just don't care. I like to watch Keanu in Science Fiction movies because I know exactly what to expect - I know what he will bring to the table and I am on board with that. The plot may veer wildly all over the place. I might have the rug pulled out from under me several times. I might switch realities within the blink of an eye or the drop of a pill and yet... Keanu will remain the same. He is my guidepost - my beacon. I can depend on him to be my stable rock as I try to make sense and process the fantastical elements being tossed my way.
This also explains the career of Will Smith, by the way. It is all about giving the audience that comfort zone - you cast Keanu if you need the hero to be remote. You cast Smith if you need him to be likeable and you cast Bruce Willis if there is heavy lifting involved in the acting.
Simple enough really. But how does this apply to vidding?
Well I will tell you -- just not yet. First of all, I need to get a few - well a couple of disclaimers out of the way.
1. There are no absolutes in vidding. Let's agree now that all rules can be broken (and I am NOT talking about fannish courtesy at all right here - I am talking nuts and bolts vidding) and that I am not speaking in absolute terms here.
2. If you feel that the only way and the appropriate way to vid a song is by strict literal adhesion to the lyrics - ie if the song says "Touch my hand" then someone better be touching someone else's hand onscreen, or if the line talks about being lost in the rain - then we better see some rain -- if you feel this is the only way to vid and dislike vids that do not do this, and want to argue that point please just stop reading now.
Seriously. Stop. Cause we won't agree and feelings will be hurt and what I have to say won't matter to you and you will have wasted your time reading it and I will have wasted my time with this bit right here. We disagree on a fundamental purpose of the craft and neither of us is gonna budge on this one, so you just go on back to your editing software and I'll stay right here and prattle on about stuff that you could care less about and All is Right With the World. See - it is as easy as that.
Okay. - for everyone else - more behind the cut.
Vids that rely on Strict Literal Interpretation as a the only reason they exist are not bad. They are boring. This, IMO, is worse. I'd rather be bad than boring and didn't Mae West say that? Rizzo?
Think about it - think about a vid that fits this description -- typically the only thing you are left with after an initial viewing is a sense that "Hey, that song really fit a lot of the situations that happened on that Show/Movie. Huh." and you never felt the desire to watch that video again for a deeper meaning. The vid could have been wonderfully edited. It could have had beautiful source. It was still boring - Pretty, but Boring. Like this guy named Nick I dated in college. There is only so long you can just look at someone - ya know? Actually, a relationship on pure physical attraction can be sustained for a while, but eventually you are going to have to talk to the boy (or girl!). And if talking to him is a less appealing prospect than cleaning your bathroom - you have serious problems. And if people only want to watch your video the one time? Well, you can always try the "It's not me, it's you speech," but trust me when I tell you - Nick and my problems all boiled down to a severe lack of personality and guess what? It wasn't me.
Don't let your vid be a Nick. Sure he is pretty. Yes, he was picked to be one of Anita Madden's Shirtless Statue Boys at her annual Derby Party. All of these items pointed to a great and wonderful future... but he couldn't carry on a conversation to save his life on any topic other than long term investment opportunities and applying to the FBI. (He owned one CD! It was MAZZY STAR! I used that for 2 weeks of talking points alone, but then I was totally without a net - it was a lot of work keeping myself focused on him when he wasn't, you know, shirtless).
So what do we learn from this? We learn to avoid strict literal interpretation as the sole basis of a vid unless there will be tons of nudity.
Now - this is not to say that strict literal interpretation as the basis of a vid Never Works. Again - there are no absolutes in vidding. Usually, the vids it works with have a couple of things in common: a very clever premise and a vidder(or vidders) who know exactly what they are doing. Vidder who vid, like
sockkpuppett says, with intent. What does this have to do with Keanu Reeves? I am getting to that, geez. Don't rush me.
Once the lesson about boring vids is learned -- there then tends to be an dramatic swing in the other direction "METAPHOR, METAPHOR, NO COKE, PEPSI" where the vidder totally rejects any and all opportunities to strictly allow the lyrics to dictate the clip choice and to consciously pay attention and seek this out in other vids -- without actually stepping back and thinking "That was a literal move here - why did the vidder make the choice to do this here?"
Because, again, there are no absolutes in vidding - literal interpretation has its place. It is the Keanu Reeves of your vid.
Now a lot of people do this intuitively -- they are making a vid, they are going for the deeper meaning, they are looking at unexpected clip choices to keep their audience both engaged and also - to make the meaning of the vid deepen and... they are giving their audience something to hold onto.
They give them a break - a vid Gimmmee.
Right now I am going to talk about one of my own vids because I am not at home and I don't have access to any other examples and well - hell. It is my LJ - chances are if you have read this far, you've seen my damned vids. Right?
Okay - so in "Two Words" I knew that I was asking a ton out of my audience - I was asking them to accept what was most likely a genre of music they are unfamiliar with, I was asking them to notice that the singers/rappers change and so does the POV and narrative method, and I was asking them to just try to keep up because the song and the lyrics and clips are moving very very fast.
This was a lot to put on the audience - I knew this and so in the Angel POV section (the Kanye part) I made a conscious choice to go strictly literal for "Shoulda been signed twice/Most imitated/Grammy nominated/cheer-leader prom dated" and the reason was kind of the mini reason so many of those strictly literal vids get made - the lyrics really fit the source. But beyond that, they really suited Angel and all of those things actually happened to him and I needed a break in the vid - some humor - a moment for my audience to relax because soon enough we are getting to Darla and "the roof caved in" and Angel stating "Fuck you, pay me" and I knew that this part of the vid is a different kind of interpretation and everything after "barber-shop playa hater/mom and pop bootlegged" was gonna require a ton of emotional investment. So I needed a bit of Keanu. Something to hang onto. An Oasis in the pain, if you will. You know exactly what you are getting with Keanu and sometimes your audience needs that, especially if you are asking a lot of them overall.
Now there are other ways of providing Keanu to the audience -- don't get me wrong. This is just one of them and it requires a lot of thought and intent to pull off. But if it works (and I actually have a list somewhere of vids where it does work and dammit - I don't know where that is) it really is very effective.
And so now you know about the Keanu Factor. Oh, and Patrick Swayze is to collating? What about that? Well, that is all in the hips ;)
no subject
So I am picking a really strong vid - a good vid - that could have been better without such a strict literal dependence on the chorus: Wolfling's "Closer to Fine" Six Foot Under vid.
Now, understand I think this is a very good, interesting and emotionally moving vid and the reason I am listing it here is because it could have been better if the choruses were not always literally "going to the doctor" and "looking to the children" -- if she had delved a bit deeper and showed perhaps a clip of the sister dealing with the fallout from her abortion or something like that -- because it did become almost too predictible at the chorus, for me, and this is kind of not good because I don't know the source, so that I was able to predict what the next clip would be based upon just knowing the song... the vid could have been stronger and all it would take is just a tiny reshuffling in the interpretations at a few key moments.
Actually going to the doctor and to the mountains and looking to the children, literally - would have been a perfect Keanu moment at certain points in the vid. Just not all of the time.
no subject
I'm suddenly having a very bad day. I really appreciate your taking the time to respond. I want to learn this stuff and I'm very grateful.
no subject
But yeah, the fact that you need to know the scenes of doctor, mountain, children, to get the other layers and reasons I chose them (the look to the children shot on the Claire chorus for example was her looking at the son she aborted from her trip/fantasy of visiting the afterlife, so it was symbolic of dealing with the abortion), does mean that for people who don't know the source or know how my brain works would only see the literal and not the meanings underneath or why those clips were chosen.
If I was remaking that vid today, I'd choose different clips for maybe four of the chorus lines (the two mentioned above, the children David chorus clip for one that hadn't aired at the time I made the vid and the first Nathan one for one that was less comical and more hard hitting (from his brain surgery, I think.) I'd still keep the others though because for me they do have layers and were examples of the characters searching for meaning. Though I would do so with more awareness that they're more context dependent than I realised when I started.
I do think the experience of making CTF and having it critiqued so gave me a lot to think about and made me more aware of a need for balance between literal and metaphor which may have made me sulky at times but ends up with better, more interesting vids or at least giving more awareness about why I make the choices of clips I do.
Of course I also got feedback for Winter, probably the most metaphoric vid I've had a hand in making, that that was too literal in places so it's obvious I'm always going to be too literal for some people. I've made my peace with that. There's worse things to be called. :)
no subject
Or the early version of "Closer" where Angel tried to address his own daddy issues (don't ask).
Each time I felt very strongly about the choices I made in the vid - very strongly to the point of growling over the body of the vid at anyone that approached it. Each time I eventually agreed with the betas (and the MULTITUDES of betas! Closer had Dawn, Lum, Kamil, Boniblithe, Valerie, Myrtle and Eunice, and Miss M rounding up the corner ::is insecure::) and tried something else - but it was hard and part of the process.
Hell, it is still going on today - Ellen said something about the vid I sent to Escapade and it took me a month to come to terms and change the vid accordingly. But... It did make it better.
So, it takes a lot - a lot of feedback, a lot of developing relationships with other vidders and learning and then... well you are never ever really there, but sometimes you are OH MY GOD!! SOME DAYS YOU ARE CLOSER TO FINE!!!
::gets it::
::dies::
no subject
Yeah, putting a vid through a rigourous beta does help, especially since I am incredibly stubborn at times -- growling over the body of the vid would not be an inappropriate description -- and I need to talk myself into giving up whatever it is that isn't working. For example, Lum was very good at letting me talk myself into framing Running Blind with dying!Wes clips which I had such a hysterical reaction to using at first.
I'm still at the stage where it's difficult to sometimes find a good vid beta (outside of my usual circle who help tremendously but we share a brain so sometimes we also share the same blind spots) who is willing and has the time to take a look at something. But hopefully as I continue vidding I'll get a bigger circle of people I feel I can ask without feeling like I'm being presumptuous or pestering people.
That does seem to be the best litimus test of do you have the correct balance of literal/metaphorical clips -- actual viewers.
Writing's much the same way when it boils down to it -- you need someone who isn't you to go through and make sure the plot twists make sense outside of your brain.
Can't wait to see your new vid -- I see below it's Invisible Man, which is a show I greatly enjoyed watching when it finally made it to Canada. :)
no subject
Seriously, even when an offhanded comment of her's throws me into existential angst over a vid - she is always right about it. Like - the ending of Paradise, she had a problem with something on the original version and damned if I know what that was now... I think it was Fred dying - and I was really resistant to her suggestion because I felt like I literally had to show this: that Angel loses Cordy and then *everyone* but... she was right. That point is taken and made without the vid veering off course in the last 20 seconds.
I'm still at the stage where it's difficult to sometimes find a good vid beta (outside of my usual circle who help tremendously but we share a brain so sometimes we also share the same blind spots) who is willing and has the time to take a look at something.
I love having renenet and Lum as betas (and Ellen was fantastic enough to beta as well on this last vid) - I am so happy with the terrible things they make me do to my vids! See, it isn't that they have to be harsh - it is that I have to listen and be willing to accept what they say. I really should post a before beta vid and an after beta vid because the difference is really quite remarkable in many cases.
I think the best indicator that I have that there exists a Good Beta Relationship here is in, while it is understood we generally share brains and *get* one another -- they are there to point out the weak spots.
And if I wasn't nervous sending something to beta - I'd have to get new betas. It is terrifying - what if they hate part X that you have bled and cried and died over? And this has happened! Renenet told me my very favorite part of Essence gave her a headache! I was devastated - I *loved* that part, it was my reason for being and vidding and without it in the world I just didn't want to go on! And I think I cried and shit and Dawn told me to shut the fuck up and do what (insert renenet's real name) said and I did and it was so much better. I admit that now. At the time I was all making bargains with God to keep it and trying to convince renenet that she was mistaken in her nausea.
But when they comment on something that you love and say they love it too? The relief is palpable. I sometimes shake with it - "Thank God I get to keep this" and all becomes a mantra.
But without betas - I am Angel without Wes. I am Lex without Clark. I am Bo Duke without a car.
God - I'm a hack.