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Feb. 27th, 2005 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oThe escapade art show is happening now, and I just ... I just don't get into the art. So I'm taking this opportunity to comment on the vid show.
The first half of the show seemed not as good to me as in years past.
Straight Up (Paula Abdul), PoTC, Smutcutters I was SO not into this one, mostly because Norrington never appealed to me in the slightest, and the idea that he and Jack Sparrow have some kind of chemistry seems like complete lunacy. Which, I mean, if you see it and like them, more power to you, but I do not at all, so this whole vid just seemed like reaching to me. Oh, there's Jack Sparrow, looking drunk and hot! And oh, there's Norrington, looking ... peevish. So, you're telling me these two LIKE each other? Huh. The thing I did really like about this vid was the piratey-fonted "yo ho ho"s that spilled across the screen whenever Paula sang "oh oh oh" at the chorus. That was very cute.
Give a Man a Home (Blind Boys of Alabama), Due South, Barkley This was an interesting song, but somehow I never felt like the words and music and images came together. This might've been because it's Fraser/Vecchio, but I've seen F/V vids in the past that worked for me, so I'm inclined to blame the vid. The final shot worked, but for me that was about it. But Fraser is pretty, so it was not unpleasant to sit through.
Orinoco Flow (Enya), multimedia, Gayle F and Tashery S. I *really* liked this vid. It was very different, not telling a story at all, just moving from image to image, all kinda of sailing/soaring images from different science fiction or fantasy films, everything from ET to Stargate to Treasure Planet to Clash of the Titans. (There was even a shot from Flash Gordon, which elicited a chuckle from several audience members.) The rhythm of the visuals matched the music, and there were some nice bookending moments. (One of the early clips is Luke in the white karate outfit swinging Leia across a chasm in the Death Star from Ep. 4; it's parallelled by a clip toward the end of a black-suited Luke swinging gold-bikini Leia onto a hover-skiff in Return of the Jedi.) This was one I was eager to show to CGU, and he really liked it,
When I Go (??), LotR, Melina Some slow song, and lots of Boromir, and I really like Sean Bean, and the emotion between Aragorn and Boromir at B's death scene will get me EVERY time, but the rest of this my mind kinda wandered ...
The Chemicals Between Us (???), The Fast and the Furious, Lierdumoa This one worked, I could get the POV, and the lyrics kinda made sense, and the music was fast and fun, and midway through this vid I decided Vin Diesel's definitely on my list of five.
Everything I Do (Bryan Adams, aargh), Star Wars, Angel See now, this is a vid that I can appreciate on a technical level -- the lyrics and the clips mesh well, and it's all about Obi-Wan being in a series of mentoring relationships, so it's got Ewan and Hayden, and then it flashes back to Ewan and Jake and Qui-Gon (sp?) and Ewan, and then it ends with Alec and Luke. And one of the things I love about Ewan McGregor is the way he's clearly doing his best to show how the impetuous guy from TPM becomes the wise old man we met in A New Hope. So all of that was really good, except Bryan Adams UGH! And I know vidders find this frustrating, but for me, while a good vid can influence me favorably toward a song previously unknown to me, if it's a song I already know and already think is massively cheesy, the goodness of the vid just can't overcome that. Oh, and I hate George Lucas because I want to be excited about Revenge of the Sith but I know it's going to SUCK.
ETA: Argh!!! So this actually was not only a Bryan Adams song, it was a very smarmy vid involving Han and Luke. The whole good evolution of Obi-Wan thing was a totally separate vid that came in the second half on the vid show, which I only realized when I started writing that up. Argh.
Nothing Else Matters (Metallica), S&H, Kassidy Rae Huh. I don't really get into Metallica, and I don't really get into S&H, and so this vid just kinda passed me by. One thing I did like: The lyrics were important and hard to make out, so she printed them onscreen at the beginning of the vid. I'm a lyric person in general, so I appreciated that.
In a Big Country (Big Country), Mag7, Gwyneth I was very frustrated by this vid. I love the song, and as soon as I saw it on the program I got how it could work with a Western fandom, and Michael Biehn is yum, but the pieces just didn't come together for me. I felt like there were things there that would have made sense if I knew the fandom and recognized what I was seeing ('oh! that's a pivotal scene in that episode where there's such an incredibly slashy moment!'). But here's the thing: I think a strong vid should work even if you *aren't* familiar with the show, and *at the same time* should have moments in it that are especially gratifying to folks who *are* familiar with the show. I know that's a delicate balance there, and I sure as heck couldn't do it, but ... neither does this vid. There was one well-edited part, when the song goes "hyaah" as a big crowd of men on horses do the same thing. But that was pretty much it.
Do You Realize? (Flaming Lips, I think?), Dead or Alive 2, AbsoluteDestiny I thought I might be a little harsh on the Mag7 vid, but then it was followed by this, and I have NO idea what DoA2 is -- an Asian film, apparently -- but there was still so much I could get from this vid that worked for me.
Karaoke Soul (???), I-Man, LithiumDoll It was fast, and I didn't mind the music, and the music and pictures were edited together well, and I got no effing clue what the heck it's about. But you know, not unpleasant to sit through, just very forgettable (to me). And granted I've never watched I-Man, but see, when I think of I-Man, I get that song Kryptonite stuck in my head, so obviously some I-Man vids do make an impression on me, This one, not so much. (Am I being really harsh? I feel like I'm being really harsh.)
Say (Cat Power), HL, hafital & killa Oh, holy cow. Just when I think I never need to see another HL vid ... this was *great*. No blue-paint-on-the-nose, just lots of *really* angsty shots of Duncan and Methos. It no doubt helped that I really liked the song, but mostly it was just a lot of well-chosen clips showing so much unspoken emotion between these two. And I think they might have used some kind of filter to make the clips all have the same kind of slightly grainy, black-and-white feel. Made me want to go read HL.
Winter (Tori Amos), LotR, Magpie and Wolfling Another really strong vid, this one was like a movie within a movie, focusing on the parent-child relationship between Eowyn and Theoden*, from Eowyn's POV. Oh, it was just so good. It had a real narrative arc. It felt so much longer than 3 or 4 minutes, it felt like 15 or 20, because there was so much story packed in there. There were some really wonderful pairings of lyric with image -- "sleeping beauty" with a clip of Theoden's ensorcelled face; "all the white horses are still and dead" as a banner with a white horse falls to the ground. CGU and I both were totally sucked in and caught up in the emotion of it. Watching it again in my room (becasue they handed out the vid show DVDs at breakfast the next morning!!!), I teared up a couple times, because it's just that moving.
Secretly (Frank Sinatra), SV, Mudd I liked this one, but it didn't stand out the way some others did. For reasons I'm not clear on it's almost always funny to hear [whatever genre you put Sinatra and Cole Porter and Gershwin in -- 20th c. American classics?] with vids. And so the vid starts and there's immediately this jolt of humor, which works because it's SV, which you just can't take seriously. And, you know, Clark and Lex are so easy to vid 'cause they just look at each other that way ALL the TIME.
Ing (The Roches), BtVS, Laura Shapiro It's so nice to see a vid from Anya's POV, because I really like Anya and feel like sometimes she's given short shrift. (Hello, Xander, are you listening to me?? Her death deserved more from you!) So yeah, this vid is Anya, and it's cute and fast and funny but also moving. I've liked just about every vid I've seen from Laura Shapiro, this is no exception.
And then we had an intermission, and I'm going to stop now and post the rest of the show later, because there's a panel I want to go to in 15 minutes.
* ETA I know Eowyn and Theoden are not actually parent and child, but (I think) the relationship is paternal/filial.
The first half of the show seemed not as good to me as in years past.
Straight Up (Paula Abdul), PoTC, Smutcutters I was SO not into this one, mostly because Norrington never appealed to me in the slightest, and the idea that he and Jack Sparrow have some kind of chemistry seems like complete lunacy. Which, I mean, if you see it and like them, more power to you, but I do not at all, so this whole vid just seemed like reaching to me. Oh, there's Jack Sparrow, looking drunk and hot! And oh, there's Norrington, looking ... peevish. So, you're telling me these two LIKE each other? Huh. The thing I did really like about this vid was the piratey-fonted "yo ho ho"s that spilled across the screen whenever Paula sang "oh oh oh" at the chorus. That was very cute.
Give a Man a Home (Blind Boys of Alabama), Due South, Barkley This was an interesting song, but somehow I never felt like the words and music and images came together. This might've been because it's Fraser/Vecchio, but I've seen F/V vids in the past that worked for me, so I'm inclined to blame the vid. The final shot worked, but for me that was about it. But Fraser is pretty, so it was not unpleasant to sit through.
Orinoco Flow (Enya), multimedia, Gayle F and Tashery S. I *really* liked this vid. It was very different, not telling a story at all, just moving from image to image, all kinda of sailing/soaring images from different science fiction or fantasy films, everything from ET to Stargate to Treasure Planet to Clash of the Titans. (There was even a shot from Flash Gordon, which elicited a chuckle from several audience members.) The rhythm of the visuals matched the music, and there were some nice bookending moments. (One of the early clips is Luke in the white karate outfit swinging Leia across a chasm in the Death Star from Ep. 4; it's parallelled by a clip toward the end of a black-suited Luke swinging gold-bikini Leia onto a hover-skiff in Return of the Jedi.) This was one I was eager to show to CGU, and he really liked it,
When I Go (??), LotR, Melina Some slow song, and lots of Boromir, and I really like Sean Bean, and the emotion between Aragorn and Boromir at B's death scene will get me EVERY time, but the rest of this my mind kinda wandered ...
The Chemicals Between Us (???), The Fast and the Furious, Lierdumoa This one worked, I could get the POV, and the lyrics kinda made sense, and the music was fast and fun, and midway through this vid I decided Vin Diesel's definitely on my list of five.
Everything I Do (Bryan Adams, aargh), Star Wars, Angel See now, this is a vid that I can appreciate on a technical level -- the lyrics and the clips mesh well, and it's all about Obi-Wan being in a series of mentoring relationships, so it's got Ewan and Hayden, and then it flashes back to Ewan and Jake and Qui-Gon (sp?) and Ewan, and then it ends with Alec and Luke. And one of the things I love about Ewan McGregor is the way he's clearly doing his best to show how the impetuous guy from TPM becomes the wise old man we met in A New Hope. So all of that was really good, except Bryan Adams UGH! And I know vidders find this frustrating, but for me, while a good vid can influence me favorably toward a song previously unknown to me, if it's a song I already know and already think is massively cheesy, the goodness of the vid just can't overcome that. Oh, and I hate George Lucas because I want to be excited about Revenge of the Sith but I know it's going to SUCK.
ETA: Argh!!! So this actually was not only a Bryan Adams song, it was a very smarmy vid involving Han and Luke. The whole good evolution of Obi-Wan thing was a totally separate vid that came in the second half on the vid show, which I only realized when I started writing that up. Argh.
Nothing Else Matters (Metallica), S&H, Kassidy Rae Huh. I don't really get into Metallica, and I don't really get into S&H, and so this vid just kinda passed me by. One thing I did like: The lyrics were important and hard to make out, so she printed them onscreen at the beginning of the vid. I'm a lyric person in general, so I appreciated that.
In a Big Country (Big Country), Mag7, Gwyneth I was very frustrated by this vid. I love the song, and as soon as I saw it on the program I got how it could work with a Western fandom, and Michael Biehn is yum, but the pieces just didn't come together for me. I felt like there were things there that would have made sense if I knew the fandom and recognized what I was seeing ('oh! that's a pivotal scene in that episode where there's such an incredibly slashy moment!'). But here's the thing: I think a strong vid should work even if you *aren't* familiar with the show, and *at the same time* should have moments in it that are especially gratifying to folks who *are* familiar with the show. I know that's a delicate balance there, and I sure as heck couldn't do it, but ... neither does this vid. There was one well-edited part, when the song goes "hyaah" as a big crowd of men on horses do the same thing. But that was pretty much it.
Do You Realize? (Flaming Lips, I think?), Dead or Alive 2, AbsoluteDestiny I thought I might be a little harsh on the Mag7 vid, but then it was followed by this, and I have NO idea what DoA2 is -- an Asian film, apparently -- but there was still so much I could get from this vid that worked for me.
Karaoke Soul (???), I-Man, LithiumDoll It was fast, and I didn't mind the music, and the music and pictures were edited together well, and I got no effing clue what the heck it's about. But you know, not unpleasant to sit through, just very forgettable (to me). And granted I've never watched I-Man, but see, when I think of I-Man, I get that song Kryptonite stuck in my head, so obviously some I-Man vids do make an impression on me, This one, not so much. (Am I being really harsh? I feel like I'm being really harsh.)
Say (Cat Power), HL, hafital & killa Oh, holy cow. Just when I think I never need to see another HL vid ... this was *great*. No blue-paint-on-the-nose, just lots of *really* angsty shots of Duncan and Methos. It no doubt helped that I really liked the song, but mostly it was just a lot of well-chosen clips showing so much unspoken emotion between these two. And I think they might have used some kind of filter to make the clips all have the same kind of slightly grainy, black-and-white feel. Made me want to go read HL.
Winter (Tori Amos), LotR, Magpie and Wolfling Another really strong vid, this one was like a movie within a movie, focusing on the parent-child relationship between Eowyn and Theoden*, from Eowyn's POV. Oh, it was just so good. It had a real narrative arc. It felt so much longer than 3 or 4 minutes, it felt like 15 or 20, because there was so much story packed in there. There were some really wonderful pairings of lyric with image -- "sleeping beauty" with a clip of Theoden's ensorcelled face; "all the white horses are still and dead" as a banner with a white horse falls to the ground. CGU and I both were totally sucked in and caught up in the emotion of it. Watching it again in my room (becasue they handed out the vid show DVDs at breakfast the next morning!!!), I teared up a couple times, because it's just that moving.
Secretly (Frank Sinatra), SV, Mudd I liked this one, but it didn't stand out the way some others did. For reasons I'm not clear on it's almost always funny to hear [whatever genre you put Sinatra and Cole Porter and Gershwin in -- 20th c. American classics?] with vids. And so the vid starts and there's immediately this jolt of humor, which works because it's SV, which you just can't take seriously. And, you know, Clark and Lex are so easy to vid 'cause they just look at each other that way ALL the TIME.
Ing (The Roches), BtVS, Laura Shapiro It's so nice to see a vid from Anya's POV, because I really like Anya and feel like sometimes she's given short shrift. (Hello, Xander, are you listening to me?? Her death deserved more from you!) So yeah, this vid is Anya, and it's cute and fast and funny but also moving. I've liked just about every vid I've seen from Laura Shapiro, this is no exception.
And then we had an intermission, and I'm going to stop now and post the rest of the show later, because there's a panel I want to go to in 15 minutes.
* ETA I know Eowyn and Theoden are not actually parent and child, but (I think) the relationship is paternal/filial.