Show And Tell - Just A Game I Play, When I Wanna Say

[sisabet]

A problem with reading wank because you are bored (if you are me) is then beginning a post that you absolutely *need* to do and then finding every single statement you make as being very provocative and possibly wank-inducing and then you start trying to tone it down a bit and then you start thinking about possible comments to your post and you get angry in advance about this fictional comments that will probably never exist.

This is also my problem with watching daytime talk shows. I get geared toward the wank and then I see it in everything. Dude - this chick in my office? Trying to start a total flameware. UPS guy? He hates Buffy. I can tell. It's the way he wears his shorts - damned Andrew-luva.

::is paranoid::

And I am trying to formulate a post about Showing and Not Telling in vidding because we should be talking about that. This idea comes up all the time in fic discussions and it equally applies to vidding (and not so coincidentally with what I am currently working on *and* a vid I am betaing... and another vid I want to beta when it is ready, and another vid I want to have made so I can beta and... wow - this applies to A LOT). So we should be discussing this.

And I want to discuss this and talk about it but I read too much wank and it has dissolved my brain and now I am all freaked out about starting a vidding talk and I AM NEVER freaked out about starting a vidding talk.

I freak out over strawberries. I freak out over everything - but not vidding conversations. Well, not in the bad way.

But I don't because - I have no reason.

So, let's talk about showing and not telling in a vid.

What am I talking about for starters? To tell you the truth, I don't even really know. Sometimes I just talk to hear myself think. Or type. Or something.

But there is something here - so bear with me. Let me use an example:

Right now I am at a point in a vid where I want to get a particular message about Chloe across (betas please feel free to skip this next part). I want to show that her fascination with Clark is more than a sexual reaction - it is because she so deeply needs to *know* things and this need prompts her to actually push him continuously (and causes him to not want to be around her) and in effect, betray him. The facts that she likes Clark and he has a secret are not mutually exclusive - one of the things that *attracts* her to Clark is his secret (pre-Pariah).

So I know this - this is one of my starting points in the vid - but how do I *show* this? IMO, the show has addressed this many times -- there have been arguments with Clark and Chloe each season (except for the current season) about her not respecting his boundaries and pushing him continually to tell her whatever it is he isn't telling her (and what he isn't telling anyone, but this isn't about Clark).

And here I have the dreaded "Talking Heads" - yes I can show a series of scenes where Chloe and Clark discuss just this issue. And that is what it will be - talking heads with some emphatic arm movements. Now if the viewer knows the source - they will get what I intend.

But it is still just a series of head shots. Head shots of very pretty people, but this is boring. So now it is up to me to be creative. To try to figure out exactly *how* I am gonna show Driven!Chloe and connect that to Clark and then connect that to her own feelings of loneliness and alienation. Because somehow if she can figure out him or have him - one way or the other, it might make everything better. And then she learns otherwise (but that is later). And this is the part of vidding where you get all of these people moaning and groaning and posting: Vidding is hard.

Because it is.

And there is a way to do this in a vid - to avoid just the talking heads and to use the lyrics to guide us to pick just the right action-y moments of a character and then translate that into a mood and then use this combined with the motion of the camera to create a feeling and THEN to use the mood and the feeling to cut between two disparate images that are actually related and show the PING moment where the audience might possibly get what you are saying.

If this makes any sense at all. I apologize for the disjointed quality of this post. I am slowly working my way back and you know - as long as nothing dissolves into wank we should all just pat ourselves on the back.

Because I wanted to talk examples and now I am facing a mind that is a complete blank. So, um. Yeah - examples. Talk about em in comments.

ETA: The call for examples was more of a call to discuss other vids and how they accomplish Showing and Not Telling. I was just using the Chloe vid thing as an example and also - my brain, so fried. I apologize for the confusion.

I will try to address this topic one day and be much more prepared.

Comments

[pipsqueaky.livejournal.com]

If I've never seen a single episode of Smallville, can I still brainstorm with you anyway? :)

I totally grok what you are saying about Showing and Not Telling. That is one of the most difficult parts of vidding, IMO - especially when all the characters do is talk and talk and talk about their feelings instead of acting them out with nifty little visual metaphors that you can just pop on the timeline and make the audience go "ooooh".

IMO: Facial expressions are vital. Facial expressions are key. If you can get some good shots of Chloe looking determined or longing or alone or whatever, and connect those moments to Clark, the audience will get it.

I do remember a couple scenes (from vids, of course) involving things like newspaper clippings and online articles and so forth whenever Clark has just done some Big Mysterious Alien Thing. If you include, say, a clip of Chloe studying a photo of Clark in the paper alongside the headline "Local Boy Has Deep Dark Secret!" (or, you know, whatever the hell the headline actually was), that would get your point across. Show the investigation. Show Chloe following Clark's trail.

And there are plenty of ways to visually show that someone is being secretive, too. Walking away. Looking down, or not meeting someone's eye. Stepping back when they approach. Keeping a physical distance from them in general. A shot of Clark doing any of these things, followed by a focus on Chloe's reaction, would work wonders.

I don't know if this is the kind of help you were looking for. If you just wanted to talk about Showing and Not Telling in a general sense - oops, my bad. :)

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Oh - no you are right on the money (and totally channeling the SV source without viewing a worthy skill)!

I do want to talk about Showing and Not Telling in general though -- how to get a point across without relying on a audience's knowledge of context clues (and I think you once had that very wonderful analogy of choosing between someone leaving a rose on a pillow or two characters in an intense scene and what would work better in a vid). So while talking heads are boring - reaction shots are not. Demonstrating a character's quest by showing the byproducts of the quest is another great point.

[f1renze.livejournal.com]

I like Pips' suggestions a lot. What's hardest for me about narrating - aside from composition, because *everything* seems to be about composition lately - is how to connect these parts well.

Like in your example:

To try to figure out exactly *how* I am gonna show Driven!Chloe and connect that to Clark and then connect that to her own feelings of loneliness and alienation.

Okay, so now you have clips of Driven!Chloe and Secretive!Clark and Alienated!Chloe. How do you invite the audience to make them cohere?

One way that comes to mind - and I have yet to really explore this - is to use visual likeness. sdwolfup made me aware of this wrt the vid I'm working on. Disconnected-looking parts could be made flow better when there's something consistent in the transitions, like the continued presence of a character. I thought maybe this could be expanded to things like variations of visual blending, e.g., using matching color tones and fades.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in general on making parts of plot cohere. I mean - I know you love vids that make you think, but how much is too much to ask of your audience?

Show And Tell is haaard.

[f1renze.livejournal.com]

Er...I meant sdwolfpup, of course.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Well - your vid is obviously something I am thinking about heavily here. The idea is you are mainly drawing these connections and needing your viewer to make these leaps because the idea is complicated on its own - the fact that it concerns and involves 2 characters fully (and not in a romantic sense) and one character by proxy, makes the job even more daunting.

But this also makes it FUN! Hard - but FUN!

So we need to discuss the overwhelming theme - what is your vid saying? and then address what it is you want your vid to say - and how to reconcile the two things.

And absolutely - using consistency (and breaking that) in things like color palettes, fades, blends all help in maintaining a narrative. Kind of like the AMV thing that absolut3destiny mentions but perhaps a bit more subtle. You really don't want to let your audience know you are manipulating them with certain tricks, but I definately think they are all part of helping you "show" your point.

Also - this means more Angel - right?

[f1renze.livejournal.com]

You really don't want to let your audience know you are manipulating them with certain tricks

Yes, though I LOVE when I can see the vidder's narrative tricks. Unless you meant not to be tacky with effects, hee.

Also - this means more Angel - right?

In conclusion: Clearly.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Yes, though I LOVE when I can see the vidder's narrative tricks

Well yes - because we are obsessed with vidding. We are like magicians watching for one another's tells.

[pipsqueaky.livejournal.com]

The post I made about the rose on the pillow is here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/pipsqueaky/16291.html). (And wow, I said that I was going to reply to everyone who commented, and I so didn't, and now I feel like a tool. Anyway.)

That is only sorta tangentially related to your question. The rose-on-the-pillow thing was about context; like, should you choose a visually-exciting-but-contextually-bland moment over a context-rich-but-visually-boring-or-confusing moment. Which is really more of a question about the intended audience, and how deeply they know the show, which ties in nicely with what wickedwords said about reading levels (http://www.livejournal.com/~wickedwords/211742.html).

The idea of Showing and Not Telling can become a question of context; if your audience is the type who know the show backwards and forwards, you could include all the talky-face you wanted, and they'd be able to remember what was said during those scenes and get the point of the vid that way. But from a purely aesthetic point of view, talky-face = annoying and bad, so - not the ideal solution.

The real problem here is when a show communicates a piece of information *verbally* (Chloe: "Clark, you are hiding things from me and I am upset!") and you need to figure out a way to communicate the same information *visually*.

(I guess the easy way around this would just be to include the relevant dialogue audio in the vid itself. But obviously this wouldn't work in all cases, or even in most of them.)

It really depends on what the information is. In this particular case, the information is "feelings". Chloe's feelings of curiosity and need and frustration. And feelings are usually best portrayed visually with facial expressions or reaction shots. If the information was something else - like if someone gave a big speech about how an apocalypse is coming, and we don't actually see the apocalypse onscreen but you still want to convey that sense of urgency and doom - an action or event is best communicated via another action or event. You'd want to show things blowing up, or battles, or the world going haywire and generally falling apart.

I'm just rambling now, sorry. Vidding talk is fun, but it is best to do it when you're fully awake and making sense. :)

I had this exact same problem with "Ordinary", BTW. Willow talked an awful lot about her crush on Xander, but she very rarely gave any onscreen visual clues, like giving him puppy-dog eyes or whatever. I had to use a combination of the lyrics, and Willow looking upset whenever other girls were around him, in order to get the idea across that she was interested in him romantically.