Miscellany

[frayadjacent]

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.

Comments

[frayadjacent]

Interesting. I like hearing about what fandom was up to back when I was a silly 20 year old who thought she was too good for television. :)

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 laurashapiro is talking about.

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.)

[laurashapiro]

Farhbotdrusilla is another crossover vidder (as you can probably tell by the name). She's on LJ/DW too.

[frayadjacent]

yay, thank you!

[laurashapiro]

I keep getting reminded in these conversations of how old I am. :p

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.

[frayadjacent]

I keep getting reminded in these conversations of how old I am. :p

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.

[laurashapiro]

Well, if you want to find the old ones, I don't recommend searching on YouTube, as most of them were made before YouTube existed. You might have better luck following links from this old angelfire page.

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.

[frayadjacent]

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.

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!