(no subject)

[katallison]

My tiredness is epochal. It is legion. It is like the forces of Mordor attacking Helm's Deep, or something. In the rain.

And yet it is also oh, so boring, so I shall not discuss it further. I could witter on about my guilt over having fallen behind in posting recs for crack_van -- see, I remember now why I never did a recs page, there's such fraughtness in the whole thing, the myriad possibilities of giving offense or causing sniffliness or whatever, especially in dS.

Or I could try to get a handle on some of the thoughts I had in response to laurashapiro's recent post, about losing her squee. (Laura! You know I love you! My failure to respond to your post is just due to the epochal tiredness, and also I am a jerk!) And yet the thoughts aren't really so much about Laura's post as they are about something barkley posted not long ago, about vidding and over-vidded scenes in due South, the reading of which gave me a chill. Which is not (I hasten to add) a bad thing, and I wish my ensuing comments to cause no bad feelings for Barkley or anyone else posting in that thread.

The thing is--OK, I *get* the deal about over-vidded scenes. I have heard numerous people say that they really can't deal with seeing any more Duncan/Methos vids, because every single clip extant of Methos, or Methos and Duncan together, has been included in so very, very many vids that they've burned out their emotional charge. Those scenes have, as it were, lost their squee-factor. And I *get* that.

But I find myself thinking that maybe that's an occupational hazard of vidding. Vidders, after all, are working within a really very constrained space--there's the clips, there's the song, and beyond a certain point they're unalterable, you have to work with what you're given, and you can interpret and shade and combine these given factors to create new layers of meaning, sure, no question. But--

OK, speaking as a writer? And switching it back to dS for a moment--there are indeed overwritten, as well as over-vidded, scenes in the fandom, of course, and yet I know that there's no scene in the show so overly familiar that I couldn't take it and twist it in a hundred new directions--new POV, alternate backstories, different emotional overtones and implications and flavorings. I was reading dsudis's new story lately (and hey, Dira! I owe you much feedback! Reprise the "I am a jerk!" music!), and one thing that struck me was how she took little bits and shards from the episodes, and so casually, masterfully, with a flick of the wrist, cast them into an entirely new storyline.

I feel confident that, as a writer, I could keep confabulating dS stories until I'm too old to see the keyboard, and still not get to the end of the stuff I could come up with, or want to say. The one where everyone's born ten years earlier and Ray's prime Vietnam draft-bait and flees into Canada. The one where Fraser's the charismatic cult-leader, bent on a moral regeneration of the world, who ends up wreaking havoc. The really dark one with Vecchio and RayK and Fraser all dealing with the aftermath of Armando.

Which is to say, it's all AU, but as a writer I have that available to me. I'm loosely bounded by canon, sure, in the sense that the characters are who they are and I have to wholly mindful of that when I twist them into new situations. But still ...

And, see, what's really intriguing to me is that quite a few of the most outstanding vidders I know also have made a mark as writers and have produced some really fine stories, but feel that in vidding they've really found their metier, their voice. What I keep wanting to ask--and I'm terribly afraid here of sounding patronizing or dismissive or something, when that's not at all what I'm feeling--is, how do you come to terms with the relative limitations you work under in vidding? How do you deal with the frustration of not having that *one* scene, that *one* clip, that you really need, because the goddamned TPTB didn't see fit to film it? How do you not burn out when you're looking at the same set scenes over and over again? How do you keep your squeee?

All of which is really, I guess, just a way of saying I'm fundamentally a writer and not a vidder; as much as some vids have opened my head up with a great whoooshing sound, when trying to do vids I end up feeling thwarted and hampered. But still, I'm curious about how others experience it.

And I should just set this entry aside for re-thinking and editing in the morning, when I'm less epochally tired, but I'll probably just hit "update" and take my lumps. And stagger off to bed. Maybe tonight I'll get some sleep, which would be nice.

Comments

Keeping the squee

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I think that there is a hard, cruel reality in fan fiction and fan vidding that people keep slamming into: this isn't original work. And if you prize originality above everything else, you will be disappointed. At that point, you start working the edges -- the relationships and characters that are puffs of authorial work, or songs, images and fandoms that are obscure and unknown -- and from this, you craft a masterpiece. It's original, despite starting as a derivative work.

But most fans in a fandom look for stories that center on their favorite characters in their favorite fandoms; they are looking for the familiar. I have seen people in HL watch *hours* worth of D/M and people in DS watch *hours* of the same clips and never get tired of the images and stories that pay them back for their interest in the characters and fandom -- but anyone not in the fandom is bored by vid number three.

So the highly original fiction as well as the highly original vid may be critically praised, but it doesn't necessarily win over large audiences right out of the gate. It may be a slow builder, and over time, prove to be enduring and popular, but it still lacks that initial 'oomph.' It's hard to keep hitting that wall over and over, to feel like you've gone through all this work and effort to craft something original within the constraints of it being a fan work, and not feel that work is rewarded.

To keep your squee, when working with highly original work, I think you have to define your core group of fans as others who like highly original works. Not 'fans of the fandom' or 'fans of this pairing' or even 'fans that I know', but 'fans that value originality as much as I do.' Otherwise, it's pearls before swine, and no one will be happy with that.

Re: Keeping the squee

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

I love you. You know that, right?

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Man, I love both of you to pieces -- and Kat, as well. *g* You've both made me feel so much better about all the times I heard that particular fandoms/clips/whatever are overdone. Such wise, wise women, and so articulate, with the questions and the responses. I'm all guh about all three of you.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

This is great stuff, Rache--I've bookmarked this entire thread to come back and think more on and respond to, when I'm not slammed at work and about to fly out of town for several days. *g* Thanks so much for these comments, and I will reply at some point, honest!

*hugs*

[thete1.livejournal.com]

Dude, I have *exactly* the same issues/questions about vids, and geekturnedvamp didn't agree with me, and she didn't agree in a really intelligent way that I wish I could remember.

*snerk*

Um. Yeah.

But the HL vid problem is *so* there for me in terms of lost squee...

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

My tiredness is epochal. It is legion.

::hugs you and makes you capuccino::

And yet the thoughts aren't really so much about Laura's post as they are about something barkley posted not long ago, about vidding and over-vidded scenes in due South, the reading of which gave me a chill. Which is not (I hasten to add) a bad thing, and I wish my ensuing comments to cause no bad feelings for Barkley or anyone else posting in that thread.

The thing is--OK, I *get* the deal about over-vidded scenes. I have heard numerous people say that they really can't deal with seeing any more Duncan/Methos vids, because every single clip extant of Methos, or Methos and Duncan together, has been included in so very, very many vids that they've burned out their emotional charge. Those scenes have, as it were, lost their squee-factor. And I *get* that.

I get it, too, but on more than one level, I don't buy into it. I think the only reasons this factor should matter to a vidder is if a) they feel they might not have chosen the best clip(s) available to illustrate exactly what they want to say, and they are questioning whether they could find a clip that would communicate a particular feeling or idea more clearly, or b) they're deciding whether to show the vid at a multi-fandom vidshow.

destina said something very insightful to me the other day, and I hope she won't mind me repeating a snippet of it here. She was talking about vidders who are "vidder's vidders," in the same a writer can be a "writer's writer." The question is, is that the kind of vidder that you want to be? I think there's a place for all kinds of vidders and writers and artists in fandom, and at different times I'm turned on by different aspects of each. Sometimes the intellectual part of me really gets into a breathtakingly original, brilliantly-crafted vid with images I've never seen before and know nothing about. Sometimes, I can even find that emotionally powerful and rewarding. (Gwyn & Jo's "Darkness, Darkness" for example.)

Other times, I want to immerse myself in the characters I love and experience their familiar story with a new intensity, through a subtly different lens, and I could not care less that I've seen the images before countless times. I feel for those who don't care about those characters and really don't care if they never see those images again -- but I don't think that says anything about the vid at all beyond the choice of where and when to show it.

The other factor that comes into play is that if you worry about vidding or writing things that have already been done, already been said, you miss the chance for inspiration to strike and for an idea to come that will let you hit both audiences at the same time. The vid that comes immediately to mind is the one I showed at the aesthetics panel last year -- Michelle's "Love Is Blindness." That vid is all about Duncan and Methos. It's purely emotional, it's powerful, it's visceral -- and it is composed of images that we've seen in very few vids, with a look that is wholly fresh and unique.

Anyway. I completely recognize the value of originality and freshness, but at the same time, I think art is about more than that - a lot more. I make the vids I want to see, and only afterwards think about whether anybody else wants to see them. If I'm thinking about using a clip I know has been used a lot, I'll dedicate some extra thought to whether it's the very best choice, and whether there's some way I could use it that will make it fresh. But really, shouldn't I be thinking that about every clip anyway?

Besides, 9 times out of 10, you'll guess wrong about what people will respond to anyway. *g* Better to just let that go right now, and decide for yourself what kinds of stories you have to tell.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

This is lovely, hon. I'm with you here.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

I'm in the embarrassing and time-stressed situation of having to tell you, and Rache, and Laura, thank you so much for these wonderful and thought-provoking comments, which I *really* want to come back to and talk more about, except after two days of getting slammed at work I'm about to fly off out of town for several days, so it won't be until next week, but this is wonderful stuff, and I'll be thinking it over! {{hugs}}

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

{{{hugs back}}} Have a safe trip!

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Killa already said a lot of useful things here, but I've been thinking for twelve hours about how I'm going to respond, and I just can't stop myself at this point. (:

First of all:

Or I could try to get a handle on some of the thoughts I had in response to laurashapiro's recent post, about losing her squee. (Laura! You know I love you! My failure to respond to your post is just due to the epochal tiredness, and also I am a jerk!)

*laugh* I'll buy the epochal tiredness, but not the jerk part.

I want to mention that my current squeelessness is very much unrelated to vidding, in particular (which still provides me creative squee if not the same kind of fannish squee that reading and writing fic did). And it's not to do with that "it's all been done before" feeling that seems to be needling you. I just feel sort of...worn out and used up, and I think that's coming from the fact that I feel I've thought, said, written, or vidded pretty much everything I want to about my two major shows. kormantic said I need a new fandom, and she's probably right.

I also want to jump in on this:

something barkley posted not long ago, about vidding and over-vidded scenes in due South, the reading of which gave me a chill.

...because my answer to Barkley was that, with DS in particular, I think the field is wide open. There just aren't that many DS vids. I think the both of you, and any DS vidders for that matter, should not even *think* about "over-vidded" clips -- there are, what, 25 vids for the whole fandom? Come on.

And I do think that what killabeez said is true, that considering your audience is relevant: DS fans, in general, are going to yum your vids up with a big spoon. Even if it weren't for the scarcity issue, we who love these characters want to see them, want to see what you have to say about them, and don't care a wet slap if we've seen that underwater kiss or train station platform shot a bazillion times.

Not so for non-DS fans, it's true. But are they your target audience? If so, then you may want to think about what will appeal to them, too. But I don't think that means freaking out over "over-vidded" clips.

I also think "over-vidded" clips (yes, I always put that in quotes, because it's not a phrase I really believe in) have a few advantages, in that there's a kind of money shot feeling about most of them which you can twist, bend, reverse, or exploit depending on how you use them. They have a predictable emotional impact, which is a big deal, really -- most clips, decontextualized, don't offer you any kind of emotional givens. So, for example, say you want to use the shot of Fraser running along the platform with his hand outstretched. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, is going to associate that with Victoria, even if we don't see her in the clip. So you could cleverly create storyline that has a reference to Victoria without ever showing her in the vid. Or, you could play on the deeper associations with the clip: Fraser willing to give everything up, Fraser desperate. That clip then becomes a metaphor for desperation, a kind of black hopeless striving, maybe. You've eschewed literalism, your audience is riveted, and you're cooking with gas.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that clips never mean only what they appear to mean.

(continued)

continued from previous post

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Finally, the heart of the matter:

how do you come to terms with the relative limitations you work under in vidding? How do you deal with the frustration of not having that *one* scene, that *one* clip, that you really need, because the goddamned TPTB didn't see fit to film it?

I used to feel this way a lot, I mean practically all the time, when I first started vidding. I'd go to the computer holding one perfect clip in my mind, the clip/lyric match-up that inspired the entire project, only to find out that it didn't work at all -- too short, the angle all wrong, talky mouths, or maybe it just didn't at all look in reality the way it looked in my head. For my first few vids, at least 50% of my choices were made with resignation, second choices all, because my first choices hadn't worked out or didn't, in fact, exist.

This is of course particularly true for slash vids. Fraser and Ray are never going to give you those onscreen kisses you want, let alone the oodles of hot sex. Vidders of canon relationships have an easier time of it, in a way, because they have kisses and more available to them.

As you point out, a writer can make anything she wants, pretty much. Small wonder that so much of fanfic is so explicit -- not just sexually, but emotionally explicit. Everything we want to see, but the show doesn't give us, is laid out often in minute detail.

Vidding, OTOH, is all about what's *im*plicit. It makes so much sense to me that the first vids were slash vids: vidders grabbing the clips of all those smoldering glances and supposedly casual shoulder clasps, pointing and squealing "There! There! See?" Those clips were *proof* of a subtext the vidder felt when she watched the show.

Although vids rely on movement, which implies action, and although vids must of course use clips of things that actually happened in canon, they are, whether they deal with relationships, individuals, or overarching themes, all about subtext.

Once I started letting go of my preconceptions about which clips I *needed*, I found that, like a writer, I was able pretty much to make whatever I wanted out of the materials at hand. As a vidder, my interest lies in retelling canonical stories with different emphases, exploring events or feelings that might have gotten glossed over in the show, or characters that received short shrift. I think of this as "telling deeper." And again, that's all about subtext: picking a clip not because of what it literally shows, but because of the emotional information it carries -- which can be due to context, movement, facial expression, or even something as deceptively shallow as color.

Does this make any sense to you?

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Aarghh -- Laura, this totally makes sense, and leads me off into a whole bunch of new thoughts, and I'd love nothing more than to take several hours and carry on this whole conversation, except that after a hellish work week I'm about to fly off to Baltimore, and so--it'll have to be next week, drat, but I've bookmarked the thread and shall return. Thank you so much for all of this, you (and Rache, and Killa) rock beyond the telling, and I only wish we could all sit down together right now and actually *talk* about this stuff. *g*

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I wish we could talk in RL, too. ::pout::

But not to worry. Come back and look me up. (: Seagulls and beer await you.

Re: continued from previous post

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

As a vidder, my interest lies in retelling canonical stories with different emphases, exploring events or feelings that might have gotten glossed over in the show, or characters that received short shrift. I think of this as "telling deeper."

Thank you, my dear, for summing up exactly what writing fanfiction (at least in the Turningverse) has felt like for me, in one wonderful little sentence. :-) I've recently branched out into both fanfiction that tells more original stories and original fiction, and I've enjoyed it, but my real fanfiction love will always be what you describe here.

-J

Re: continued from previous post

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Glad to help!

[rliz.livejournal.com]

... Hey, by the way, speaking of vidding: I've seen vid credits for you in a couple places, like

> vids by:

> Carol S, Don C., Jackie K, Kat Allison, Kady Mae, Kellan Dane,
> Killa, Luminosity, Melina, OSF Productions,
> The Shimmertwins, Taselby

in this tape-for-sale announcement, but I've never been able to googlingly find out more; can I ask how many vids you've done before and if it would be possible for a girl to get her grubby hands on one?