butterfly | VividCon 2007: Saturday

I started out with two panels yesterday -- 'External Aesthetics' and 'Vid Structure'.

External Aesthetics: One of the things that

killabeez and

absolutedestiny talked about was 'stealing' effects from shows or movies, which is something that I've done for both of my Supernatural vids -- the credits for Prayer are taken directly from the way Supernatural's first season credits were done, while I used the 'vision effect' from Supernatural for a section in my new vid, It's Not Over (to be posted when I get home on Tuesday). It's something that I did very consciously both times -- I wanted to invoke the same feeling that seeing those effects made me feel, which was exactly the sort of thing they talked about here, only they talked a great deal of about interesting silent film techniques that have carried over and various influential filmmakers in the early parts of the film industry. It was neat.

Vid Structure:

dualbunny talked a lot about how structure is what makes your vid feel like one cohesive whole, rather than a lot of clips all lumped together. It really made me want to go through my vids and actually write out the structure of each of them because I'm mostly playing it by ear when I vid -- I have plans, but plans can change, and I have 'meanings' and 'messages' and such, but those are subjective. If my mom understands what I'm trying to say in a vid (whether or not she enjoys the vid is a different question), then I figure that it makes sense. But the panel made me more conscious of the choices that I've made, such as in Into the Fire, where I very deliberately do parallel Rose's relationship with the two versions of the Doctor, even as I show their journey together in a not entirely nonlinear fashion (if you haven't seen it, it's bookmarked by Doomsday, but the first verse is Nine and the second is Ten... and the lyrics of each verse are identical and the musical bridge is entirely about pointing out the identical and parallel moments that exist).

So, both panels made me think about the way that I vid a bit more and I can't think of that as a bad thing.

After that, I had some lunch and then went to two vids shows -- 'Daughter of Experimental Vids' and 'Movie Vids' -- then I went to the 'Movie Vids' panel and stayed for 'Town Hall: Vidding and Visibility'.

Daughter of Experimental Vids
So, there's this vid that has the most beautiful man that I have ever seen -- it's called Pon de Replay (it's by

astolat) and it's to a show called Entourage. He's... fantastically gorgeous. I looked him up, after I first saw the vid, and I saw him in The Devil Wears Prada, where he is adorable, but not as amazingly pretty as he is in this vid. I had to go put the show on my netflix queue (at the top!) so that I can see more of him. Just... wow.

Other great vids that I have things to say about:

Post Blue (

obsessive24) remains one of the best vids that I have ever seen. Just... wow. It's such an effects-heavy vid, but because of the song and the point of view, it feels so perfect. For me, this vid now completely encapsulates River and her relationship with Simon and their relationship with Mal.

The Lonely People (

laurashapiro) is possibly one of the most depressing vids that I have ever seen. Rose starts in blue and the Doctor gives her life and color and joy and then... she's trapped in blue, for the rest of her life. Wow. I don't think I could have watched the third season if I'd had this vid in the back of my head the whole time -- what I felt in the first place was bad enough. But it made me wonder if this vid isn't where the Doctor's been living -- Rose is trapped in blue and he can't reach her.

Vogue (

sockkpuppett). Hysterically brilliant. Now, I'm a person who would rather pluck out my own eyeballs than actually watch 300 (having been burnt badly with Sin City), but I adored this vid.

Movie Vids
Some of the vids in this vidshow are on my top 25 vids list -- Destiny Calling (

charmax), Street Cafe (Kathy, Kay, and Jill), Dante's Prayer (

killabeez), and Girl Anachronism (

lierdumoa) are all great favorites of mine. Uninvited (

astolat) creeped me out brilliantly, as it always does. Both Cells (

obsessive24) and 1916 (Zeneyepirate) worked better for me here than they have previously -- Cells an extraordinary amount. It's safe to say that I now love the vid. Sometimes, seeing it on the big screen makes quite a difference.

Then there was the 'Movie Vids' panel, which I found very interesting, having made a handful of them myself (one of which, The Tower, premiered in 'Nearly New' and will be appearing on my livejournal once I return home Monday/Tuesday).

They talked a lot about avoiding the 'linear trap' and about how one of the ways to do that is to focus on a character, relationship, color, motion, metaphor, or symbolism. One of the pluses and minuses of making a movie vid is having limited source, something that I've also found to be true in fandoms with short runs, such as QAF(UK). It's easer to actually go through and clip the source, but it can limit what you're able to do (though, as

absolutedestiny showed us at Club Vivid, if you're determined, you can accomplish anything. His Gone with the Wind vid just kills me).

When I've vidded movies myself, I've always concentrated on characters or relationships, limiting the scope of the movie and narrowing down the focus to what I wanted to show. The Thunder Rolls (Brokeback Mountain) and Push It (Star Wars) are both character-focus vids, while Wicked Little Town (Moulin Rouge) and The Tower (Loving Annabelle) are relationship vids from one character's point of view, focusing on their struggle.

Anyway, I found the panel quite interesting.

Then we had the 'Town Hall' panel which was... fascinating. I'm probably not the person best equipped to report on that, as I take lousy notes, but it was very intriguing, with a lot of focus from an academically-focused feminist activist perspective.

After that,

jic and I had dinner with

morgandawn (and her husband

xlorp),

par_avion, and

cmshaw and then... *dramatic drumroll* it was time for Premieres.