The Great 2007 Luminosity Vidder Meme of '07

[sisabet]

I'm sitting at my computer anxiously awaiting VVC registration and so I decided to answer the vidding questions Luminosity asked here, although I told her last night that she already knows the answers to all of this.

Cutting due to length

What does vidding "feed" into you?

The need to create - to communicate. It is complicated and I'll probably talk more about this in the answer below this, but I do feel that sometimes I can get all tripped up verbally. I have these things I want to say about these shows I love and I want to participate in the discussion but sometimes it just doesn't satisfy me. The give and take of conversation is just too... well, in order to converse you have to listen to other people and when I am putting together my thoughts and feelings I NEED that. I need the discourse. But, once I figure something out - I just want to say it. Later on, later on I'll debate my position or defend it or even possibly ammend it, but when I am flush with discovery of "OMG this is totally what is happening right here!" I am not in any position to debate, I just want to share with the obvious use of "share" not being an even exchange of ideas, but rather, me foisting a big pile of my emotions in your lap. Because it is totally based on an emotional reading - some things about my fandoms are precious and if it makes me cry to think about it, then I am sure as hell probably gonna vid it. Also, if you hate Buffy, you are dead to me!

Ahem.

I am just not confident in my verbal ability to always get this across and not take opposing opinions to heart (see above comment regarding Buffy and dead to me). Now, with a vid? A vid I can show you and I am okay with you getting whatever you need out of that vid and taking it anyway you take it because if I am at the point where I am posting it? I am fairly sure that it pings me emotionally the way it needs to ping me and it will probably work on others the same way.

And if you want to argue the merits of one of my vids? I am totally down with that.


Is there an empty space that it fills, or is it just a marvelous extra in your life?

Hee - you said something about something filling empty spaces. HEE!!!
*is 12*

Yeah - there is this need that I have to make something and then look at what I've made and declare it good or whatever. Maybe I read Genesis one to many times and have a God complex but I don't think so. I think I am just driven to be able to create something and right now that something is vids. I used to knit and try to create designs with that (which, um, yeah I'm not a designer) and there was a time where I drew and there is always an intention in me to paint but I just never seem to do it, mostly because I am only kinda okay at these things (and my hands hurt). I always have ideas for stories in my head but whenever I translate that onto paper they flatten out and get really unreal and unsatisfying and just - I bore me on paper. It sucks. Vidding is the first time I've ever looked back on what I have made and can go "Holy shit. I don't suck. Wow."

So, yeah - I think looking back on my vids, it is pretty obvious that I use this as a form of emotional outlet. I joke that I am the "Hugs and Death" vidder but dude, I totally am. I've made "Peacekeeper" and S.O.S. and "Paradise" and "Perfect World" and "Be So Glad" and "Dr. Who on Holiday" (where the theme was "okay there is death. And more death. And still more. But we will fight for our hugs! WHOOT") and my latest vid "Turn You Inside Out" where I used every single hug (except for the kinda-relieved-you-didn't-die-dude neck hug from "Home) in the show to date. Hell, I centered my thesis around those hugs. Actually, if those hugs didn't happen? I wonder if I would even be vidding this show? As evidence, I'd like to point out the fact that despite being AMAZINGLY gaga over SGA and totally down with all the characters, I've yet to complete a vid. I attribute this to John Sheppard's totally inpenetrable personal bubble. I love this about him, but damn if I have anything to work with in a vid. Hee.

The *only* time I am not obsessed with hugs and death? Spike and Angel. And then I am obsessed with punches and death which, if you know the show, is the exact same thing.

I think I have issues. Vidding as therapy, yo.


What do you learn from watching other vids, or do you learn anything?

Last night Cappy (younger sister) and I were watching "Bricks" and at the end of it she was quiet and I was quiet and then she asked "So, do vidders ever get, like, jealous of other vids? Do you watch something and wish you'd made it?"

I sat silently for another second and then responded "Oh, hell yeah." I think my voice was just a little hoarse.

But the thing I get, for as much as I *seethe* with jealousy is that I am also so excited when I see someone else's project and it hits me just the right way because OMG YES! You did this! I can watch this all day. And part of that is just a love for the artform - just a love for how it makes me feel. Eventually I am gonna wanna take it apart and figure out what you did that made me feel the way it did and I'll learn from that. Lately it feels like as our technical levels increase, my ability to parse why a vid is doing what it is doing goes down. For example: Bricks. Damn I love this vid. Hell if I can pin-point how it does what it does because it is deceivingly complex and when I try to break it down I get all confused and turned around. But I know that it works and I know how I feel but then I feel so many different things. And YAY! I LOVE THIS! This will keep me busy for a year.

And vidders keep doing this. We keep upping the bar and while, yeah, it makes verbal conversation a little stilted as we struggle to keep up with words, but I think eventually we'll catch up and be able to talk about it again as much as we used to. I think. I hope.



Do you think that vidders put a piece of themselves into their work? Or do you think it's just a sort of technical exercise or something in between?

Both - but personally? I'm not interested in technical exercises. I tolerate learning the tech so I can say what I want to say how I want to say it, and I only learn as much as I need to know for the current vid.

Sometimes I'll watch a vid and think that it has all the elements of a vid I would normally adore, but it just is not affecting me. I have to make the emotional connection - and it doesn't mean I have to be in the fandom (although the presence of characters you already are connected to does help, don't get me wrong) - but it has to make me feel something: anger, terror, grief, joy - anything really and I am its total bitch. And if a vid doesn't connect that way to me, I just won't like it.

I look around at the vidders I am close to and we all have one common thing despite a huge variety of styles: we heavily invest ourselves in what we do. And I think that is just key, probably the most important thing really. If I don't feel almost exposed when I post a vid? I probably held back too much. Even comedy. Even snark. And this might be a problem for me. A few years ago I was in with my manager for my performance eval and he was all "Liz, your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness" and he said it all solemnly and was just so grave that I totally cracked the fuck up right there. But I tend toward the...well, I can be very very earnest in my vids. To the point of squick. Actually, I worry I bypass squick and just fly right into cheese.

There is a reason I am the greatest advocate Lord King Bad Vids will ever ever have.

But, I have all these vids I just won't ever finish or show more than a few people because of this. Like there was this one time with Fraser? And if you think *I* am overly sincere and earnest you have not seen me with Fraser (outside of very strict parameters guarded by polar bears). We totally are terrible together. Also, I can't make LKBVs about Fraser (what I normally do to overcome the cheese) because I overly invest and spend too much time crying.


Can you draw the line in what you can teach a person re vidding and what has to just come from within that person?

Well, I think a lot of it does come from the person - but certain tricks of the trade, like cutting techniques and concentration on reaction shots and dynamic movement - I think these are things we had to learn over time and yet it was easier for me than the vidders that came before me because I cribbed the hard won lessons they had learned. So I think, exponentially, every vidding generation has the tools laid out more and more as they enter the fandom.

But then we get into the entire soul of vids and while I believe in it, it is hard to discuss. It is like porn. I know it when I see it.


Do you think that vidding illuminates anything about you TO you? Something that you may not have been aware of?

Yeah - I think vidding actually helps me be startling well-adjusted considering what I do every day. I can deal with horror stories and come home and just funnel it out. Even before I switched careers, I was doing that, it was just instead of abused children, I was funneling out a desperate sense of unfulfillment at my job.

Now that my work feeds more of my soul, I was worried I wouldn't vid and when I went through that dry spell I panicked that it was over. I couldn't vid anymore. Turns out I was just tired and emotionally wrung out and just needed some days off.


Have you ever been pimped into a fandom by watching a vid? Elaborate?

Other than Buffy and The X-Files and comics (all which pre-date me being online) - my entrance into a fandom is either by fic or vids. Or both. Always.

Have you ever had a vid "made to order?" How did you feel about it once it was finished? Was it anything like what you wanted or expected?

There was this one time that heresluck made me and renenet a Due South vid in secret! I don't think I've mentioned it before, but that was AWESOME. She gave me something I really needed to see and I was not able (see my vidding problems with Fraser listed above) to make the vid I needed to see. I love her and I had no idea she was doing it but HOT DAMN. That vid is amazing.


What are your favorite types of vids? Universe vids? Arguments? Lyrical? Mood pieces? AU's? Something else?

Yes. Those are all my favorite types of vids ;)

That being said, I do have a special place in my heart for *that* particular slash vid - you know the one - the one where it is just your guys, up on screen, doing that thing that makes them...well, your guys. Sniff. I was just watching "Bohemian Like You" and I was all "Oh. My guys! Yes!" so yeah. I love those vids.

Comments

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

It is like porn. I know it when I see it.

You are totally the really good porn. :D

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

But the thing I get, for as much as I *seethe* with jealousy is that I am also so excited when I see someone else's project and it hits me just the right way because OMG YES! You did this!

Yes. I have had this dual-response many times, where I'm green with jealousy but I'm so happy for the vidder for having created it and for myself because now I can watch it and enjoy it forever and ever.