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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
Our brains are fried.
no subject
Or not. Don't kill yourself over one verse. Send it to beta and see what they think.