fray-adjacent (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
frayadjacent) wrote2023-10-15 07:30 am
frayadjacent) wrote2023-10-15 07:30 am
Entry tags:
Dear Festividder
Dear Festividder,
Hello! Thank you for maybe making a vid for me!
If you have a strong vision for the vid you want to make, I'd love to see it! I have a few requests that I'll put at the top of this letter related to music dislikes and triggers -- please do try to follow these requests but feel free to ignore everything else in the letter if it better suits you.
Music DNW
Please no Toby Keith or Tom Petty. I realise these are pretty specific and not commonly vidded, but I just feel strongly about these two!
Triggers
I don't watch sources with very explicit violence and gore, such as Game of Thrones and Spartacus. I also generally avoid sources with cannibalism and sexual violence. These mostly don't apply to my requests, but if you are vidding New Dragon Gate Inn please don't include the execution scene early in the film or any of the cannibalism.
If you vid Golden Girls, please don't include the racism in that series. This occurs mostly through dialogue but I think, for example, there is an episode in which Rose's all-white Girl Scouts troup dress up in stereotypical native American costumes.
Please warn for physical triggers in your vid, including glitch or old/damaged film effects; strobing, flickering or flashing lights; very fast cutting (clips shorter than about 8 frames); strong or unsteady camera motion; and very sudden changes in volume during the song. These things are generally not triggers for me and so it's fine to have them in the vid, but it is important to me that these things are warned for.
My General Taste in Vids
I like character studies, ensemble vids, earnest feelingsy vids, humourous vids, silly vids, check-out-this-badass vids, ironic vids, weird experimental vids -- I think in terms of tone/genre, I like most vids. Though I don't think I'd want a critical vid for any of these sources. I tend to prefer limited to no dialogue, but I imagine that more dialogue heavy vids would work well for a few of my requests, especially Uyen. I by no means expect it, but I do appreciate when someone can use sound effects/foley in a vid (e.g. the sound of swords clashing). I have no idea how to do it myself and it's so impressive to me! I'm also not a huge fan of effects to make the footage look damaged or very old (even when Beyoncé does it, lol).
I don't readily hear song lyrics and I don't like to read vid subtitles (sorry I'm so ornery), so heavy reliance on lyric matches tends to work less well for me and I'm more moved by the vid's narrative as expressed through the clip choice/order/repeated imagery and how the visuals work with the sound of the song. I guess the good news for you is that if there's a song you love but some of the lyrics don't quite work, I almost certainly won't care unless the lyrics are really loud and obvious and the mismatch is really strong. So instrumental music or music in languages other than English are also fine.
My General Taste in Music
If the song suits the vid, it mostly doesn't matter if the music isn't to my taste. There are many vids I love that are to music I wouldn't listen to otherwise. If you want more direction though, my favourite genre is R&B, but I love artists from a range of genres, especially punk rock and some folk/singer-songwriter music. Some artists I love or have historically loved are Beyoncé, the Indigo Girls/Amy Ray, Nicki Minaj, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Ariana Grande, Janelle Monáe, Sleater-Kinney, Le Tigre, Cyndi Lauper, Team Dresch, D'Angelo, Phil Ochs, and lots of music made or produced by Raphael Saadiq. I'm also currently really enjoying Stromae, SZA, Jesse Ware, and Tiwa Savage.
Flatbush Cats Youtube Channel
This is an organisation that produces high quality videos about their cat rescue operations in Brooklyn, New York. Their videos are 5-15 minutes long and tell the narrative of one or a few cats from when the group identifies/catches them until they are adopted. Many of the videos provide information and advocacy about cat/kitten fostering. One of the lovely aspects of their videos is that the ones focussing on kittens always include footage of them as adult cats, fully settled into their permanent home. It's very satisfying! In recent years many of their videos have focused on their goal of building a low-cost vet clinic in Brooklyn -- they emphasise in their videos that lack of affordable pet care is the main cause of abandoned and homeless pets.
Some of the videos include cat death -- for example, I can think of an instance where they rescued a litter of kittens and the mother had died, or one where one of the kittens died before rescue. These instances do not show the cats that died. There is one video in which they rescue a cat with a terminal illness -- this is titled "Rescuing a Street Cat with FIP", and they give a warning at the start of the video. It is a wonderful video but more difficult than most others. The videos also often show cats or kittens with eye infections -- when these are very severe they will usually warn you before showing it, though the warnings are more consistent when the infected cat is the main focus of the video in question. Sometimes they reuse clips for general intro material and don't provide warnings there. I have watched almost all of their videos and cannot recall ever seeing any footage of a cat that was injured or killed by a car, a dog, etc.
I generally envision a vid that is a broad tribute to the work the organisation does -- the wonderful cats and kittens, the various stages of the rescue process, and also perhaps the vet clinic. I think it would be cool if the song was by a Brooklyn based independent artist but absolutely do not require that -- really anything that suits the tone of the vid and what you want to say would be good to me!
Golden Girls
This show was a staple of my childhood and I recently rewatched Seasons 2-6. I am astounded at how lucky we are that they got such outstanding comedic performers all together on one show. I love Dorothy and Rose especially but Blanche is also amazing and hilarious (the Daughters of the Confederacy stuff sucks though -- I feel like a show that was so pro-gay and at least somewhat feminist for its time could have taken the stand that the Confederacy was bad, actually). I love when they dance. If you're looking for some specific direction, I think Dorothy/Bea Arthur is extremely attractive and can't believe the show tries to convince me otherwise, so a vid about how hot Dorothy is would be awesome. I'd rather not have Stanley in the vid except for the occational joke (e.g. the closing the doors on him bit). I kind of love the idea of a Dorothy vid to house music, but
新龍門客棧 | New Dragon Gate Inn [SAFETY]
I love very specific things about this movie: the fun action sequences (especially the horse stunts), the gender play with Brigette Lin's character, the flirting between Brigette Lin and Maggie Cheung's characters, and everything Maggie Cheung does (in pretty much all movies tbh). As fun as Donny Yen is, I'm not a fan of evil eunuch tropes, and while I am OK with an OT3 with Tony Leung's character, I'm not really interested in that character as such. So, please, do as you will with that information! And please no execution scene or cannibalism.
剑雨 | Reign of Assassins [SAFETY]
This is a 2010 Hong Kong/Mainland China wuxia film starring Michelle Yeoh. She plays a former assassin who's trying to change her ways. She has wonderful chemistry with the other lead (it's a het ship that I love) and gets to do some excellent dramatic acting on some beautifully filmed fight scenes. And because I've vidded this film in my Michelle Yeoh vid, I happen to know that while some of the scenes are very desaturated, they hold up great to colour correction and you can definitely bring some colour back to this film. In my opinion this is a great film for vidding because the acting (for the main characters) and directing are much better than the writing! I'd love a vid that could include both the great action/dramatic acting and all the small lovely moments between the two leads who really do love each other.
Renaissance World Tour
I've been enjoying watching livestreams of the performance and also seeing photos and videos of concertgoers (both images they've published and the ones on the Beyoncé website. There are lots of cool directions you could go with this, but one that immediately comes to mind is highlighting the Black queer and femme joy in the dancers and concergoers. The Instagram account RenaissanceWorldTourDancers is great for the former! I'd be very happy to have a Beyoncé song or a song by a different artist on this. Some songs that have come to mind are Alien Superstar, Betty Bussit by Big Freedia, or Rainbow by Big Freedia. The YouTube account Grande Went Next is making excellent recordings of the songs from the Tour if you wanted to go in that direction.
I live in the UK, which has not yet heard if/when the Renaissance film will be released. If at all possible I'd like to see the film in the cinema first, so if it comes out here after its release in the US I'm not planning to pirate it. All of which is to say that it's absolutely fine with me if you use footage from the film, but I don't expect it.
I love Beyoncé's artistic work, but I'm not interested in Beyoncé RPF.
Taskmaster UK
I have against all odds developed a crush on Greg and his extreme bisexuality, and I would love to see a vid highlighting that aspect of the show! Other things I love about the show are Alex being a little shit, contestants getting revenge on Alex for being a little shit, Greg/Alex, and sex jokes. A vid about a specific contestant or group of contestants would also be lovely -- my favourite casts are Series 5, Series 12, Series 13, and the current series (16). Some of my favourite individual contestants are Nish Kumar, Sally Phillips, Guz Khan, Bridget Christie, Judi Love, Fern Brady, Jenny Eclaire, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, and Lucy Beaumont.
Uyen Ninh
Uyen is a young Vietnamese woman living in Germany who makes humourous social media content about life in Germany, culture shock, and her relationship with her German fiance (whose face is never shown). Her humour is kind, warm, and goofy. Her youtube channel is a mix of shorts (which are also shown on Tik Tok and Instagram) and more recently longer form videos including some vlog style videos. A lot of her humour probably requires use of some of her original audio, which seems tricky for a vid since she usually has music over! Honestly any idea you have for vidding Uyen is great, as long as it isn't mean-spirited.
詠春 | Wing Chun [SAFETY]
When I made my Michelle Yeoh vid, this was my favourite of her older Hong Kong films that were new to me. It feels so much like Xena! (Xena is my main forever fandom and was very much inspired by wuxia films, and I personally see the influence the very most in this film.) The fight scenes are loads of fun and great for vidding, but I also really loved Wing Chun's relationship with the two women she ran the tofu stand with. I'd love some OT3, and also some attention to Abacus Fong, who steals so many scenes. Also the FOOT WASHING SCENE. As a content warning in case you haven't seen this film recently or ever, there is a noncon scene played for laughs between Abacus Fong and the man she wants to marry -- she tricks him into sleeping with her thinking she's someone else.
Hello! Thank you for maybe making a vid for me!
If you have a strong vision for the vid you want to make, I'd love to see it! I have a few requests that I'll put at the top of this letter related to music dislikes and triggers -- please do try to follow these requests but feel free to ignore everything else in the letter if it better suits you.
Music DNW
Please no Toby Keith or Tom Petty. I realise these are pretty specific and not commonly vidded, but I just feel strongly about these two!
Triggers
I don't watch sources with very explicit violence and gore, such as Game of Thrones and Spartacus. I also generally avoid sources with cannibalism and sexual violence. These mostly don't apply to my requests, but if you are vidding New Dragon Gate Inn please don't include the execution scene early in the film or any of the cannibalism.
If you vid Golden Girls, please don't include the racism in that series. This occurs mostly through dialogue but I think, for example, there is an episode in which Rose's all-white Girl Scouts troup dress up in stereotypical native American costumes.
Please warn for physical triggers in your vid, including glitch or old/damaged film effects; strobing, flickering or flashing lights; very fast cutting (clips shorter than about 8 frames); strong or unsteady camera motion; and very sudden changes in volume during the song. These things are generally not triggers for me and so it's fine to have them in the vid, but it is important to me that these things are warned for.
My General Taste in Vids
I like character studies, ensemble vids, earnest feelingsy vids, humourous vids, silly vids, check-out-this-badass vids, ironic vids, weird experimental vids -- I think in terms of tone/genre, I like most vids. Though I don't think I'd want a critical vid for any of these sources. I tend to prefer limited to no dialogue, but I imagine that more dialogue heavy vids would work well for a few of my requests, especially Uyen. I by no means expect it, but I do appreciate when someone can use sound effects/foley in a vid (e.g. the sound of swords clashing). I have no idea how to do it myself and it's so impressive to me! I'm also not a huge fan of effects to make the footage look damaged or very old (even when Beyoncé does it, lol).
I don't readily hear song lyrics and I don't like to read vid subtitles (sorry I'm so ornery), so heavy reliance on lyric matches tends to work less well for me and I'm more moved by the vid's narrative as expressed through the clip choice/order/repeated imagery and how the visuals work with the sound of the song. I guess the good news for you is that if there's a song you love but some of the lyrics don't quite work, I almost certainly won't care unless the lyrics are really loud and obvious and the mismatch is really strong. So instrumental music or music in languages other than English are also fine.
My General Taste in Music
If the song suits the vid, it mostly doesn't matter if the music isn't to my taste. There are many vids I love that are to music I wouldn't listen to otherwise. If you want more direction though, my favourite genre is R&B, but I love artists from a range of genres, especially punk rock and some folk/singer-songwriter music. Some artists I love or have historically loved are Beyoncé, the Indigo Girls/Amy Ray, Nicki Minaj, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Ariana Grande, Janelle Monáe, Sleater-Kinney, Le Tigre, Cyndi Lauper, Team Dresch, D'Angelo, Phil Ochs, and lots of music made or produced by Raphael Saadiq. I'm also currently really enjoying Stromae, SZA, Jesse Ware, and Tiwa Savage.
Flatbush Cats Youtube Channel
This is an organisation that produces high quality videos about their cat rescue operations in Brooklyn, New York. Their videos are 5-15 minutes long and tell the narrative of one or a few cats from when the group identifies/catches them until they are adopted. Many of the videos provide information and advocacy about cat/kitten fostering. One of the lovely aspects of their videos is that the ones focussing on kittens always include footage of them as adult cats, fully settled into their permanent home. It's very satisfying! In recent years many of their videos have focused on their goal of building a low-cost vet clinic in Brooklyn -- they emphasise in their videos that lack of affordable pet care is the main cause of abandoned and homeless pets.
Some of the videos include cat death -- for example, I can think of an instance where they rescued a litter of kittens and the mother had died, or one where one of the kittens died before rescue. These instances do not show the cats that died. There is one video in which they rescue a cat with a terminal illness -- this is titled "Rescuing a Street Cat with FIP", and they give a warning at the start of the video. It is a wonderful video but more difficult than most others. The videos also often show cats or kittens with eye infections -- when these are very severe they will usually warn you before showing it, though the warnings are more consistent when the infected cat is the main focus of the video in question. Sometimes they reuse clips for general intro material and don't provide warnings there. I have watched almost all of their videos and cannot recall ever seeing any footage of a cat that was injured or killed by a car, a dog, etc.
I generally envision a vid that is a broad tribute to the work the organisation does -- the wonderful cats and kittens, the various stages of the rescue process, and also perhaps the vet clinic. I think it would be cool if the song was by a Brooklyn based independent artist but absolutely do not require that -- really anything that suits the tone of the vid and what you want to say would be good to me!
Golden Girls
This show was a staple of my childhood and I recently rewatched Seasons 2-6. I am astounded at how lucky we are that they got such outstanding comedic performers all together on one show. I love Dorothy and Rose especially but Blanche is also amazing and hilarious (the Daughters of the Confederacy stuff sucks though -- I feel like a show that was so pro-gay and at least somewhat feminist for its time could have taken the stand that the Confederacy was bad, actually). I love when they dance. If you're looking for some specific direction, I think Dorothy/Bea Arthur is extremely attractive and can't believe the show tries to convince me otherwise, so a vid about how hot Dorothy is would be awesome. I'd rather not have Stanley in the vid except for the occational joke (e.g. the closing the doors on him bit). I kind of love the idea of a Dorothy vid to house music, but
新龍門客棧 | New Dragon Gate Inn [SAFETY]
I love very specific things about this movie: the fun action sequences (especially the horse stunts), the gender play with Brigette Lin's character, the flirting between Brigette Lin and Maggie Cheung's characters, and everything Maggie Cheung does (in pretty much all movies tbh). As fun as Donny Yen is, I'm not a fan of evil eunuch tropes, and while I am OK with an OT3 with Tony Leung's character, I'm not really interested in that character as such. So, please, do as you will with that information! And please no execution scene or cannibalism.
剑雨 | Reign of Assassins [SAFETY]
This is a 2010 Hong Kong/Mainland China wuxia film starring Michelle Yeoh. She plays a former assassin who's trying to change her ways. She has wonderful chemistry with the other lead (it's a het ship that I love) and gets to do some excellent dramatic acting on some beautifully filmed fight scenes. And because I've vidded this film in my Michelle Yeoh vid, I happen to know that while some of the scenes are very desaturated, they hold up great to colour correction and you can definitely bring some colour back to this film. In my opinion this is a great film for vidding because the acting (for the main characters) and directing are much better than the writing! I'd love a vid that could include both the great action/dramatic acting and all the small lovely moments between the two leads who really do love each other.
Renaissance World Tour
I've been enjoying watching livestreams of the performance and also seeing photos and videos of concertgoers (both images they've published and the ones on the Beyoncé website. There are lots of cool directions you could go with this, but one that immediately comes to mind is highlighting the Black queer and femme joy in the dancers and concergoers. The Instagram account RenaissanceWorldTourDancers is great for the former! I'd be very happy to have a Beyoncé song or a song by a different artist on this. Some songs that have come to mind are Alien Superstar, Betty Bussit by Big Freedia, or Rainbow by Big Freedia. The YouTube account Grande Went Next is making excellent recordings of the songs from the Tour if you wanted to go in that direction.
I live in the UK, which has not yet heard if/when the Renaissance film will be released. If at all possible I'd like to see the film in the cinema first, so if it comes out here after its release in the US I'm not planning to pirate it. All of which is to say that it's absolutely fine with me if you use footage from the film, but I don't expect it.
I love Beyoncé's artistic work, but I'm not interested in Beyoncé RPF.
Taskmaster UK
I have against all odds developed a crush on Greg and his extreme bisexuality, and I would love to see a vid highlighting that aspect of the show! Other things I love about the show are Alex being a little shit, contestants getting revenge on Alex for being a little shit, Greg/Alex, and sex jokes. A vid about a specific contestant or group of contestants would also be lovely -- my favourite casts are Series 5, Series 12, Series 13, and the current series (16). Some of my favourite individual contestants are Nish Kumar, Sally Phillips, Guz Khan, Bridget Christie, Judi Love, Fern Brady, Jenny Eclaire, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, and Lucy Beaumont.
Uyen Ninh
Uyen is a young Vietnamese woman living in Germany who makes humourous social media content about life in Germany, culture shock, and her relationship with her German fiance (whose face is never shown). Her humour is kind, warm, and goofy. Her youtube channel is a mix of shorts (which are also shown on Tik Tok and Instagram) and more recently longer form videos including some vlog style videos. A lot of her humour probably requires use of some of her original audio, which seems tricky for a vid since she usually has music over! Honestly any idea you have for vidding Uyen is great, as long as it isn't mean-spirited.
詠春 | Wing Chun [SAFETY]
When I made my Michelle Yeoh vid, this was my favourite of her older Hong Kong films that were new to me. It feels so much like Xena! (Xena is my main forever fandom and was very much inspired by wuxia films, and I personally see the influence the very most in this film.) The fight scenes are loads of fun and great for vidding, but I also really loved Wing Chun's relationship with the two women she ran the tofu stand with. I'd love some OT3, and also some attention to Abacus Fong, who steals so many scenes. Also the FOOT WASHING SCENE. As a content warning in case you haven't seen this film recently or ever, there is a noncon scene played for laughs between Abacus Fong and the man she wants to marry -- she tricks him into sleeping with her thinking she's someone else.
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