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Dammit. I Done Went and Vid-Meta'd: POV. What Is It Good For?
Lots and lots of talk about POV today. I am not in a very vid meta-y place and for once this is a very good thing. I will say this:
Most songs that have lyrics already have a Point of View. As a vidder - it is up to you to determine how this will be interpreted. "I" and "you" lyrics of course can be easy indicators of this to your audience - but not always necessary. The point of view does not have to be a particular character. The POV can be God. Or a group of people. Or a bracelet. Or a sword. Or as Luminosity once memorably remarked when we were discussing a potential vid that I will still do to the Angel episode "Sleep Tight": "It is from the diaper's POV!"
Whatever it is - it is very important. Not to the audience - either they get it or they don't. Make peace with that now. Establishing where you are approaching this vid is important for *you* as a vidder. It gives you something to cling to. It gives you something to build around. It gives you a vehicle to drive the message home and to give meaning to your vid.
Is this vid going to be first person singular? It is. Okay - will we see the character talking? We will. Cool. Alright - will this be a tight first person vid? Will the vid only show the moments in canon that the narrator has witnessed? Or does he know everything? Is the POV first person omniscient?
And so on and on and on... the questions never stop because until you have a clear view regarding what your song is about (and the point of view of the song is one of those absolute core things that you just have to know. It doesn't have to be what the singer intended. It has to be what you know in your heart that this song is really and truly about) then your vid won't know what it is about, either.
And we can use these things and toy with them within the vid to greater highlight what we are doing. Will everyone notice? Nope. Maybe 2 people will notice. But a lot of the audience will get it subconsciously, but that is how most of us incorporate and distill information anyway, so YAY!
The song is your blueprint. Seriously. Blueprint. It gives you everything. If it doesn't and you can't mix it up enough or cut it or whatever to make it what you need? Then you are suffering from poor song choice my friend and there is nothing that can be done to save you. Trust me. It happens. I should post an example. I don't want to post an example cause then you will all know that I suck, but I should post an example.
POV - point of view - is the delivery mechanism. This is how you get whatever it is that you want to get across, across. Does it have to be a conventional POV? NO - but it has to *exist* - it has to be there otherwise you just get a bunch of pretty pictures that ultimately mean nothing.
And I said I wasn't gonna get into the vid meta and dammit. It is just... look - most people watching your vids are not gonna think twice about "Well whose POV is this?" anymore than most people reading your fic are gonna say "Aw man, I hate stories told in second person!" This is because most people just do not stop and think about everything. Some do.
So - some people are gonna read a story and comment that it had POV problems. Other people are gonna read it and say "Eh, I didn't like it" and that is that. Same for vids. The numbers are a bit more skewed but trust me. Subconsciously is the total way to go.
Most songs that have lyrics already have a Point of View. As a vidder - it is up to you to determine how this will be interpreted. "I" and "you" lyrics of course can be easy indicators of this to your audience - but not always necessary. The point of view does not have to be a particular character. The POV can be God. Or a group of people. Or a bracelet. Or a sword. Or as Luminosity once memorably remarked when we were discussing a potential vid that I will still do to the Angel episode "Sleep Tight": "It is from the diaper's POV!"
Whatever it is - it is very important. Not to the audience - either they get it or they don't. Make peace with that now. Establishing where you are approaching this vid is important for *you* as a vidder. It gives you something to cling to. It gives you something to build around. It gives you a vehicle to drive the message home and to give meaning to your vid.
Is this vid going to be first person singular? It is. Okay - will we see the character talking? We will. Cool. Alright - will this be a tight first person vid? Will the vid only show the moments in canon that the narrator has witnessed? Or does he know everything? Is the POV first person omniscient?
And so on and on and on... the questions never stop because until you have a clear view regarding what your song is about (and the point of view of the song is one of those absolute core things that you just have to know. It doesn't have to be what the singer intended. It has to be what you know in your heart that this song is really and truly about) then your vid won't know what it is about, either.
And we can use these things and toy with them within the vid to greater highlight what we are doing. Will everyone notice? Nope. Maybe 2 people will notice. But a lot of the audience will get it subconsciously, but that is how most of us incorporate and distill information anyway, so YAY!
The song is your blueprint. Seriously. Blueprint. It gives you everything. If it doesn't and you can't mix it up enough or cut it or whatever to make it what you need? Then you are suffering from poor song choice my friend and there is nothing that can be done to save you. Trust me. It happens. I should post an example. I don't want to post an example cause then you will all know that I suck, but I should post an example.
POV - point of view - is the delivery mechanism. This is how you get whatever it is that you want to get across, across. Does it have to be a conventional POV? NO - but it has to *exist* - it has to be there otherwise you just get a bunch of pretty pictures that ultimately mean nothing.
And I said I wasn't gonna get into the vid meta and dammit. It is just... look - most people watching your vids are not gonna think twice about "Well whose POV is this?" anymore than most people reading your fic are gonna say "Aw man, I hate stories told in second person!" This is because most people just do not stop and think about everything. Some do.
So - some people are gonna read a story and comment that it had POV problems. Other people are gonna read it and say "Eh, I didn't like it" and that is that. Same for vids. The numbers are a bit more skewed but trust me. Subconsciously is the total way to go.
no subject
::squint:: character v. vidder POV you mean?
no subject
http://www.livejournal.com/users/permetaform/288863.html
no subject
I have no idea what this means. I suspect that y'all are using the term POV and applying it willynilly and this is part of the problem.
POV is Point of View. The person who determines what a vid's Point of View will be is the vidder as the vidder is God for that vid. The vidder can establish a firm first person POV and that is then a CHARACTER'S POV or an OMNISCIENT third person POV where the narrator is unseen and all knowing. Many universe vids (like End of the World as We Know It) are Omniscient Third Person POV.
Sometimes you can play with a first person POV in a vid and either strictly stick with *just* what that person knows or you can open it up and for this one time and one time only - your first person characer knows everything and you have an Omniscient First Person POV. In the case of "Without You I'm Nothing" the vid starts out as a narrow First Person POV (Lex) and in the course of the vid he deduces and figures out things he shouldn't know or see (in canon) only to LOSE it at the end. His memories are ripped away along with his knowledge and his hope. Does it matter to me that most viewers do not get that was my intent? Not at all. Most viewers get what they bring to the vid but that does not affect the actual POV of the vid. That is their watching experience.
In that vid I played with POV and I did so deliberately. This is not meant to limit you. If you have an organizing concept - THAT is POV. That is all POV is. You are just calling it something else. This is semantics.
no subject
On of the definitions, though, and not the most popular usage of it in the fandom and school circles that I've been mostly moving around in, with perhaps the exception of vidding fandom where I got totally confused.
Does it matter to me that most viewers do not get that was my intent? Not at all. Most viewers get what they bring to the vid but that does not affect the actual POV of the vid. That is their watching experience.
::nodnodnod:: that's what I was talking about in my post that I linked to too. I'm saying in it that I don't call vid or vidder's POV "Point of View", I call it authorial intent because to call it Point of View implies narrative.
If you have an organizing concept - THAT is POV. That is all POV is. You are just calling it something else. This is semantics.
Exactly, it *is* semantics, and I argued in the post I linked to that it's important to distinguish it because calling it POV when the term itself is both confusing and restricting is sometimes not so good.