Five things

[frayadjacent]

1. I'm very slowly making my way through Festivids, alphabetically, only skipping vids with "chooses not to warn" (though even then if I'm familiar with the source or I see lots of "that was fun/delightful/sweet" type comments, I'll go for it). I'm really enjoying the vids! A lot of people have posted recs and I'm not going to do that, but if you like vids and you haven't checked out Festivids yet, here they are. Also I've been pleased to find that after watching a vid I can leave not just a semi-coherent comment but I can usually say something specific that I liked about the vid, which I chalk up to having more experience watching and talking about and especially beta-ing vids. It feels nice to have the vocabulary and mental framework to be able to do that without difficulty.

2. kuwdora is going to mentor me/work with me for the rest of the year on vidding! I am very excited about this arrangement. To that end, today I wrote out a timeline of vid projects for 2015, keeping in mind con deadlines and whatnot. It's ambitious but doable if I stay on top of vidding, and if I make the seven vids on the list then I'll have said the most important things I currently want to say about my two most beloved fandoms, BtVS and Xena. If I manage to actually do it, I wonder how that might change vidding for me. I've had a few things hanging over my head and the idea of having them finished this year sounds really really good.

3. I am finally really running again! So much so that I bought a new running shirt, because I was going through them too quickly. My mileage is still painfully low. I look back on the days when I regularly ran 4-6 miles without stopping and I can't imagine it; I'm going more like 2-3 miles and having to stop and walk several times. BUT I'm doing it.

4. I've been really struggling to focus lately. On everything: work, vidding, chores, Festivid-watching, even relaxing. And it's felt related to a general crankiness and uptick in my (mild) anxiety. Last weekend was one of those that just happened, and at the end I didn't even know what I'd done. I hate that feeling and the listlessness keeps building with it, but today I came to a realization: not every day has to have a perfect story arc, a Thing I Did. I don't have to clean the whole house or have an epic day of vid-farr or hang out with people all day. I can poke at a vid and chat with people on Twitter and watch one episode of one show and do a chore or two and go running and just kind of hang out, and *that's fine*. And I immediately felt much better. And I know this will pass; like most people, I imagine, I have phases where my focus is better and phases where it isn't.

5. Shows I'm enjoying right now: Elementary, The Mindy Project, Selfie, and a Key Episode Farscape rewatch. And tonight I'm going to check out Fresh of the Boat.

Comments

Re: this is a total tangent: how best to elicit surprise?

[ghost_lingering]

I think part of my love for the Life After Beth vid is that it's set up to be a vid about a particular kind of introspective ~deep~ film about death and loss and then -- surprise zombies! While I like/love many individual deep introspective films I also have low tolerance for the genre's bullshit. The vid reminds me a bit of a joke I used to make when I was in film school which was: "What does a Godard film with zombies look like?" And the answer is exactly the same. (I think that the follow up joke, if I'm remembering correctly, was "What does an Ozu film with vampires look like?" exactly the same.) There are certain filmmakers (~auteurs~) who are so wrapped up (and whose characters are so wrapped up) in themselves that you could insert zombies in the background of the film, or the foreground, and I honestly don't think things would change. (This applies less to Ozu than Godard. I have major Godard issues. The joke about Ozu is less about his characters and more about the camera work/editing/pacing; I would love to see what a horror film with the same style as Ozu looks like.) This only tangentially applies to the vid, but that sense of "this is a movie about loss and ennui" superseded by "holy shit zombies" is one that I often imagine when I watch particularly poor examples of certain kinds of films.

(This is also why I am suddenly more interested in the Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive; I've been meaning to give Jarmusch another chance anyway -- this makes me more interested in doing so.)

(Rereading this makes it sound like I hate certain kinds of films and that's not entirely true: it's more that I am incredibly fussy about indie & art house films to the point where I either LOVE THEM FOREVER or I HATE THEM FOREVER with very little in between. Oddly both groups occasionally get the "how would this film be different with [x]?" treatment.)

ANYWAY. I fully admit that not everyone would have that same feeling of delight.

I also mostly agree that there is a contract between reader/viewer and creator and certainly I have been angry at creators who have violated it, but there is also a place, I think, for setting up expectations and then subverting them. I don't have a general rule of thumb for that, except that when it works, it can work really well! (When it doesn't work, I get angry though, so ... IDEK.)

Re: this is a total tangent: how best to elicit surprise?

[sanguinity]

The guy I dated in college had wanted to go to film school, and took me to see a lot of art/indie films while we were together. I don't actually hate them now, but I do feel like I've seen a lifetime supply and don't have to see any more if I don't want to. (Sometimes I want to. A lot of the time I don't.) So even though I couldn't name you examples of either director's work I laughed anyway, because I do know the kind of thing you're talking about.

The contract with the reader/viewer can be successfully violated, I agree! But yeah, it's one of those things where people are well within their rights to yell at you if you if they think you didn't pull it off.

Re: this is a total tangent: how best to elicit surprise?

[frayadjacent]

I don't have anything to add, but I've enjoyed this conversation!