Vidding: Thoughts on Song Choice

[butterfly]

So far I have seen two vids to Hallelujah and heard of others. But all of them seem to be to the Rufus Wainwright version. Thus far, I appear to be the only person who has vidded a different version of the song.

The reason that this interests me is because I heard the song via a vid. I listened to the lyrics and said -- wow, this song is almost what I want. And then I looked up all the other versions of the song that I could get my hands on and ended up choosing the Jeff Buckley version.

The differences between the two versions are actually fairly extensive -- Jeff's version is slower and thus longer (I ended up editing out an entire verse, plus some of the ending, and the vid is still over five minutes long), his voice much smoother, and he pronounces 'hallelujah' differently. All of these things made his version of the song feel vastly more suited to the character of Wesley than the Rufus Wainwright version.

Thinking about this makes me think about song choice in general -- oftentimes, I will watch a vid and be overawed at how completely perfect it is, other times, there is interest found in just how the music conflicts with the source, thus drawing out a completely new side of it.

Two examples:
gwyn_r's Buffy vid to Polaroid Millenium really made me go -- that's my girl. That's my Buffy, right there. Brave and determined and scared and loving. Even the voice of the singer is Buffy, the hesitant young part of Buffy, no louder than the music surrounding her but yet still distinctive.

Flip-side, I never would have imagined a Kill Bill vid to a song like Ring them Bells. The song is low-toned and reverently emotional. But sisabet used the music to show an unexplored area of Kill Bill, illustrating the moments of stillness and of depth. Utterly stunning.

Part of what made me think of all of this was watching rewatching some of the VividCon dvds before Sci-Fi friday. I just really adore vids in general, even stripped of context. Vidding has definitely become a fandom of mine, just one that overlaps most of the others.

ETA: Because renewed interest has been expressed, here (right-click and save) is the 56.3 MB mpg version of my Wes vid, and here is a yousenditlink to a 13.9 MB wmv version.

Comments

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Have you got a link to your Hallelujah vid?

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I do, indeed.

Did you want the higher quality mpg (56.3 MB) or the lower quality wmv (13.9 MB)?

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Higher quality, please!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Right-click and save from here (http://mike.mm1swebcreations.com/lj/butterfly/Hallelujah.mpg)

And I'd love to know what you think.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Ditto. My first thought reading this was "Why have I never seen this Wesley vid you speak of? Why haven't I seen any of these vids?"

And, um... if you link, can I see the lower-quality version? Videos over 40MB have been playing weird on my computer lately.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

This (http://s42.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0MYCLOBJXV2S22Y8ACKVFWGU8T) is a yousendit link to the 13.9 MB wmv.

I would love to know what you think.

guuuh. also *whimper*

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the delayed feedback. But you asked what I think, so now you get the longest comment ever. It's the Neverending Comment.

I am so full of love for this vid. I've now watched it three times, and probably will again. First of all, and probably least significant, I really like the coloring effects. Everything just looked sharper than I'm used to. :)

On the song discussion - I love the (kind of overused) Rufus Wainwright cover of this song, but I'm really glad you went with the slower, guitar-driven version. Especially for the instrumental beginning, which does a lot to establish Wes's mood and how far his relationships have come before the song 'really' begins.

Clip choice - my god I love. This video has an incredible structure to it, with the separate verses to highlight his connection to Fred, Gunn, and Angel, and always tying it back to his place in the group and the loss of it. Each time you manage to say a lot with just a few images.

Lyrics? Guh. Probably because it's something I still struggle with, I love any vidder who can find moments to match a song's lyrics without getting too literal. I kind of broke at "every breath we drew was hallelujah", because *omg* yes, you managed to take that verse and make it about Wesley and Gunn and it works. And then the Angel section leading into "it's not somebody who's seen the light" which I even knew was coming and still seemed so shocking and perfect, and ok, now I'm squeeing incoherently and I will stop.

Thanks for the link.

Re: guuuh. also *whimper*

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Sorry for the delayed thanks. My head's been giving me issues the last couple of days.

I am so full of love for this vid. I've now watched it three times, and probably will again. First of all, and probably least significant, I really like the coloring effects. Everything just looked sharper than I'm used to. :)

I'm thrilled about that. Every single clip had the color messed with in some way, so I'm glad that it worked (and Angel is such a dark show, color-wise)

On the song discussion - I love the (kind of overused) Rufus Wainwright cover of this song, but I'm really glad you went with the slower, guitar-driven version. Especially for the instrumental beginning, which does a lot to establish Wes's mood and how far his relationships have come before the song 'really' begins.

Mood was a big part of why I wanted to make the vid -- the song just screamed Wesley to me, and all the ways that he hurts and is hurt.

Clip choice - my god I love. This video has an incredible structure to it, with the separate verses to highlight his connection to Fred, Gunn, and Angel, and always tying it back to his place in the group and the loss of it. Each time you manage to say a lot with just a few images.

Thank you! Because yes, it's a web of relationships that all intertwine and I'm so thrilled that I managed to show that.

Lyrics? Guh. Probably because it's something I still struggle with, I love any vidder who can find moments to match a song's lyrics without getting too literal. I kind of broke at "every breath we drew was hallelujah", because *omg* yes, you managed to take that verse and make it about Wesley and Gunn and it works. And then the Angel section leading into "it's not somebody who's seen the light" which I even knew was coming and still seemed so shocking and perfect, and ok, now I'm squeeing incoherently and I will stop.

The squeeing is utterly delightful. I can't possibly express just how happy this feedback makes me. So much. Thank you.

[backinblack.livejournal.com]

I love Rufus Wainwright but Jeff's version is so unspeakably beautiful. And, uh, long. I tried to vid it back when I was... patient enough to vid, and I wanted to rip out my hair and eventually just gave up.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

It really is incredibly beautiful.

And yeah, with any other subject matter, I don't think that I would have been able to do the song. But it was so incredibly perfect for Wes, especially as a bit of a requiem.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

Please can I be linked to your version of "Hallelujah"?

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Here (http://mike.mm1swebcreations.com/lj/butterfly/Hallelujah.mpg) (right-click and save) is the 56.3 MB mpg version of my Wes vid, or this (http://s42.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0MYCLOBJXV2S22Y8ACKVFWGU8T) is a yousenditlink to a 13.9 MB wmv version.

I'd love to know what you think.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[amalthia]

After watching your vid, I went and downloaded all the other versions of hallelujah, and the Jeff Buckley was my favorite of the bunch. I think the slower pace made the song more haunting. I don't think your vid would have worked as well to the Rufus version.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I completely agree -- it really does suit him far more than the Rufus version (and Jeff really does have such a beautiful voice in it, as well).

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

waves. I linked to this post over on vidding. Hoping to jumpstart some dscussion on songchoice and song re-use.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/vidding/331245.html

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oo, hey, neat.

Oh, cool, a couple of people over there mentioned that they'd both seen and liked my vid. Sweet!

I'd go and converse, but can't really think of anything that I didn't already say in my post.

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

I'm not much for counterpoint songs in vids, but that's because I tend to be a bit literal when watching/hearing things. I want the words to reflect the action. The only exception to this is humor vids (like the Buffy vid in which the 'Lonely Goatherd' song from The Sound of Music was transposed over Buffy slips), but that is *because* they are humor vids. The words are *supposed* to be juxtaposed on the action.

Of course, I say all this as a watcher, not a vidder, so I could be totally off.

::wishes she could vid, but has no idea how::

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Learning how to vid isn't as bad as it sounds, though it involves a lot more grunt work that I thought at first. But once you start, it's an evil, evil addiction. You start watching vids for fandoms you've never seen, just so that you can see more vids.

Vidding becomes its own fandom!

On the plus side, it's incredible amounts of fun.