fray-adjacent (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
frayadjacent) wrote2014-10-31 06:55 pm
frayadjacent) wrote2014-10-31 06:55 pm
Entry tags:
Miscellany
I finished The Peacekeeper Wars and almost immediately turned around and re-watched the Farscape pilot. I've never done that before (much as I've been tempted at times), but it's been over two years since I started the series, so I hardly remembered it. Needless to say, it held my attention much more this time around. I especially was overwhelmed with Moya feels the first time John sees her, and felt a lot of sadness/excitement for John. The part I'd remembered best was the UST filled conversation between Zhaan and D'Argo, which I very much enjoyed again.
Also, I hadn't realized that Rygel had been the one to break them out of their cells! Good for him. Now he's done like five things I approve of. (I am not a Rygel fan.)
Oh, and the PKW was pretty good too! Some silliness, but also some really fun comedy and action for Aeryn. I felt like she got more agency in the PKW than she did in, like, all of S4, so that was cool too. And I finally found out where the "shooting makes me feel better" line came from -- I always assumed it was from S1 and I'd missed it.
Um, there were a few moments that also made me very sad. I won't say which.
Also I've now watched all the Farscape vids I know about (so, like eight) and they are great. I still never know if people appreciate comments on old vids, which I then often use as an excuse to not do it, but...I might be leaving comments on some of your old vids, folks.
My Orphan Black vid is basically done, but my brain has decided that I have to color and gamma-correct basically every clip. Probably overkill, but it is *so* satisfying to adjust the black levels and see how much prettier the image becomes.
Festivids! I am Festivids-adjacent again this year, which means that if you want to squee/rant/ask for beta at me, I'm up for it!
ETA: I tagged this entry with vidding: history because that topic makes up the bulk of the discussion in the comments.
Also, I hadn't realized that Rygel had been the one to break them out of their cells! Good for him. Now he's done like five things I approve of. (I am not a Rygel fan.)
Oh, and the PKW was pretty good too! Some silliness, but also some really fun comedy and action for Aeryn. I felt like she got more agency in the PKW than she did in, like, all of S4, so that was cool too. And I finally found out where the "shooting makes me feel better" line came from -- I always assumed it was from S1 and I'd missed it.
Um, there were a few moments that also made me very sad. I won't say which.
Also I've now watched all the Farscape vids I know about (so, like eight) and they are great. I still never know if people appreciate comments on old vids, which I then often use as an excuse to not do it, but...I might be leaving comments on some of your old vids, folks.
My Orphan Black vid is basically done, but my brain has decided that I have to color and gamma-correct basically every clip. Probably overkill, but it is *so* satisfying to adjust the black levels and see how much prettier the image becomes.
Festivids! I am Festivids-adjacent again this year, which means that if you want to squee/rant/ask for beta at me, I'm up for it!
ETA: I tagged this entry with vidding: history because that topic makes up the bulk of the discussion in the comments.
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(Sorry, all I have this morning.)
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I have such an intense love for Farscape and Peacekeeper Wars. I was a fan from the beginning, and had to suffer through the heartache of the cancellation and the cliffhanger ending. So when I heard about the miniseries, my joy went through the roof. Just to add to the experience, I was nine months pregnant and due any day when I watched the miniseries, so I felt a pretty intense connection to Aeryn right then.
Farscape was even my first vid (five years ago this month, wow).
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I was nine months pregnant and due any day when I watched the miniseries, so I felt a pretty intense connection to Aeryn right then.
Oh wow, that must have been quite an experience!! My watered-down version of that is that I was horribly homesick (just moved from Seattle to Melbourne, Australia) last year when I watched the first three seasons, so everyone's "I want to go home" stories resonated.
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I can see how your homesickness informed your viewing as well. Farscape is many things to many people. :) I hope your homesickness is under control by now!
I peeked in on the conversation below - may I suggest
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And yes, my homesickness is better now. Partly having been here over a year now, partly (maybe mostly) having moved to an area that better suits my lifestyle and allows me a commute that doesn't make me too stabby.
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There are a TON of Farscape vids, but they weren't made in this community. Farscape, like Xena, spawned its own fandom and vidding aesthetic not part of what I call traditional vidding fandom. Links to over 500 of them can be found at Farscape Fantasy. Many are quite lovely, but the style is different to what you may be used to.
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I'd never claim that the Buffy vidders were deriving what they knew from Star Trek vids; the Buffy vidders I knew were themselves from the Nummy Treat list, another kind of parallel evolution. But I'd say that branch really merged with the vidders who came to Escapade and later Vividcon, whereas the Xena and Farscape vidders remained separate -- except a few people like LithiumDoll and Sebaceanbabe. So while the Buffy aesthetic influenced the traditional one, I haven't seen that kind of cross-pollination happen with FS and Xena vidders.
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I've still only watched a handful of Xena vids, because there's so few in the LJ vidding world and what I can find on youtube I mostly don't like. Not because of the filters and whatnot -- I can enjoy that style of vid, especially if I'm very emotionally invested in the source. In fact I haven't seen a lot of what people call the "youtube aesthetic" in youtube Xena vids! Rather it's because they tend to be very long, with long clips that don't have much to do with the music, use clips that require a lot of context knowledge -- all stuff I associate more with a brand new (or experienced but careless) vidder than with a different well-developed aesthetic.
Anyway, I have definitely heard a lot about Xena fandom generally evolving apart from its contemporaries, using different terminology and whatnot, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case for vids. Sadly though, I haven't managed to dig up many Xena vids from the fandom's heyday -- I'm guessing most of them are offine. Then again, I haven't tried hard. I assume that most of the non-LJ Xena vids I've seen don't represent that different Xena-fandom style that
Uh, that was not about Farscape and not really about the topic of conversation, oops. That's a wandery brain I have. Also, I am going to go check out Lithy and Sebaceanbabe's vids! (I saw one of Lithy's but I'm hoping there'll be more.)
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It would be a shame if the Xena vids aren't archived somewhere. I remember seeing some I really liked back in the day.
they tend to be very long, with long clips that don't have much to do with the music, use clips that require a lot of context knowledge -- all stuff I associate more with a brand new (or experienced but careless) vidder than with a different well-developed aesthetic.
Yes, you see those in every fandom, in every community where new vidders are figuring out the form. But the "clips that require a lot of context knowledge" thing is specifically an OLDER aesthetic, one that hugely informed me as I began as a vidder and continues to influence my work. Vidding has trended away from that in recent years but it was absolutely critical to all but the most whimsical garbage can vids in the 1990s and early 2000s.
As I said I haven't seen enough Xena vids recently enough to comment on the overall aesthetic. I just remember watching them in about 2002-2003 and thinking they were different from the vids I was used to. And then a year or two later I was watching Farscape vids and thinking the same thing.
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Heh. I seem to be surrounded by 20-something fangirls complaining about how old they are, so I feel you a bit on that one. ;)
Yes, you see those in every fandom, in every community where new vidders are figuring out the form.
Definitely, but they seem to make up the bulk of Xena vids I find on youtube. Maybe I need to figure out better ways to search.
"clips that require a lot of context knowledge" thing is specifically an OLDER aesthetic, one that hugely informed me as I began as a vidder and continues to influence my work.
That makes sense! I wonder if part of the shift away from this is due to things like Festivids and vidding cons and the whole "vidding is my fandom" thing, where people are making vids for an audience that includes people who aren't super into -- or maybe haven't even seen -- the source.
I decided my last two Xena vids would be unapologetically made for Xena fans, which means there was more reliance on context knowledge than I usually do (at least intentionally). I definitely respect it.
A big part of what I was thinking about was clips where not much is happening, and the emotion is not from the visuals + music combination but from "that's the scene where they said such and such" plus the visuals.
I was also thinking, and I realize as I say it that this is a separate problem, but many of these vids feature clip after clip after clip of characters giving each other meaningful looks but not really ever doing much. Which I find baffling in Xena because those characters *do* a lot! On screen! In the same frame! Together! It can be vidded.
Anyway, sorry to rant about them, I'm endlessly bummed by the lack of good Xena vids I've found. But I'll go look harder, I'd love to see some of the ones you liked from the 90s/2000s.
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I did a search on the Vividcon vid database, because I remembered bringing at least one Xena vid to VVC when I started VJing. Most of the Xena vids on that list are newer and produced by VVC attendees, but New Age Girl by Rocketchick is the one I brought. You can see my post about that vidshow here but unfortunately both New Age Girl and the Xena vid I had in my alternates list, Macedonian Getaway, have broken links. Fortunately, I have retained my copies of both. You can download them here.
A big part of what I was thinking about was clips where not much is happening, and the emotion is not from the visuals + music combination but from "that's the scene where they said such and such" plus the visuals.
Yes, that is extremely old school. In the traditional vidding community, it grew from a time when there were three networks as opposed to 100 channels, and everyone in fandom was watching the same tiny handful of shows. If you were a media fan, you knew Star Trek and Blake's 7 and, eventually, The X-Files; if you were a slasher, add in The Professionals and Starsky and Hutch and, eventually, Highlander. That was it. And your audience was exclusively the kind of dedicated fangirls who would go to cons or who would mail you ten bucks and an envelope for your vid collection. So everybody really did recognize "that was the scene where Starsky said _____".
I think because Xena fans were Xena fans and not even necessarily fans of other media, the assumption was that your audience would have that deep familiarity.
many of these vids feature clip after clip after clip of characters giving each other meaningful looks but not really ever doing much
Yes, I think that plagues every fandom in its early vid stages. :p
If you want to find old Xena vids that are full of action, I recommend searching for Callisto ones.
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Yeah, and I myself have that kind of familiarity with BtVS, so I get it.
Thanks so much for the links and for the tip about Callisto vids!
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That said: Farscape vids were what I dived into when I started watching vids, so I wouldn't be surprised if some "new" vidders (like myself) count Farscape vidding as a major influence rather than Star Trek, slash, convention vidding, VHS vidding, etc. Certainly it perplexed me the first time that I saw vidding described as being a slash thing and that was during a period of my fannish life when I would have self-identified as a slasher! My instinct says that Farscape vidding, along with Xena and probably BtVS and Firefly, helped broaden the scope of what vidding-at-large could be, and the topics and characters that vids explored. Agree? Disagree? Since I was only just getting familiar with vidding at that time, your instincts are probably closer to the mark.
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Hm, I obviously can't speak for
I can't speak to the second question, about the influence of Farscape vs Xena vs Mutant Enemy shows, but I'm interested!
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It's cool to hear everyone's personal vidding trajectory and the things that influenced them. The first vids I saw were Mulder/Krycek VCR vids, and it wasn't too long after seeing them that I made my first one. Then I went to Escapade and my head exploded. (:
My instinct says that Farscape vidding, along with Xena and probably BtVS and Firefly, helped broaden the scope of what vidding-at-large could be, and the topics and characters that vids explored. Agree?
Absolutely! And I can think of other communities that were big influences as well.
Vidding is still really balkanized, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Every community develops its own norms and ways of doing. But the community I hang out in seems to have been influenced by a lot of different styles in the past 15 years, first through the Internet and then very much through Vividcon and now VidUKon. A vidding generation is only about 2-3 years, it seems to me, and then something new comes along to shape the aesthetics.
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A vidding generation is only about 2-3 years, it seems to me, and then something new comes along to shape the aesthetics.
Yikes, that's so short! I've been vidding about that long and I feel like I'm still just barely figuring it out.
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Watching Farscape through multiple episodes at a time was pretty intense in places, particularly as S1 turned. I'm very glad I watched it, but having bought the complete box set a few years ago, I haven't rewatched it yet. I found the show remarkably intense in places and I find myself oddly twitchy about reliving the experience of watching it.
Apparently Farscape was really popular in Russia, and there are/were a lot of fan communities for it. I got pointed at a couple of really good Farscape vids from one of the communities - if you'd like to see them, let me know and I'll dig out the links from an old vid recs post (and upload the subtitles for the one in Russian). Although for something more lighthearted, I'd very much recommend Weapon of Choice by
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I can definitely see not wanting to re-visit the intensity that show sometimes had.
Thanks for the rec! I'm most interested in vids about the supporting characters, especially Aeryn, Chiana, D'Argo, Pilot, and/or Zhaan, or vids about any character that focus on the wacky zaniness of the show. (I love Laura Shapiro's Mixed Nuts for all of these reasons!) I find I'm less enthusiastic about the John-focused angsty vids or John/Scorpius, which is too disturbing for me!