fray-adjacent

umadoshi asked: describe your comfort zone: a typical you vid.

In a nutshell, a character study looking through the lens of a relationship (not necessarily romantic). Or, more accurately, a study on how a relationship shapes and changes a character. I suspect that this wouldn't describe the majority of my vids, but it would describe a plurality. It's probably more true of my recent vids than my past ones; none of my Buffy vids focuses on any of her relationships. Even "Deeds That Have Made Me" is not about her relationship with Angel per se; it's about the lasting effects that killing him had on her.

This isn't so much because it's what's comfortable as it is an expression of what interests me and what kind of music gives me vid bunnies.

Speaking of, it's more accurate to say that I have a major comfort zone when it comes to music. I really prefer to vid music with lots of acoustic instrumentation, kind of in the broad folk/indi genre. I think only two of my vids fall outside this category. And probably about half of my current vid ideas are this general type of music as well. I just find music like that really fun and easy to vid.

I'm doing that vidding meme! And am happy to take more requests.

violace asked: Is there a genre or style you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole?

I don't know that I'd call it a genre or style, but anything with a lot of graphic violence -- or, more accurately, certain specific types of graphic violence. I can't even stand to watch that stuff, much less vid it. I also probably wouldn't do much with explicit sex/porn, but I won't say never. Actually the more I think about it the more it appeals to me as a challenge -- some day.

I suppose there is a style of vid to cheesy love ballads (e.g. Celine Dion) and whatnot that I can't really imagine making because I can't stand the music. I do genuinely appreciate the earnestness of such vids though. And I had to talk myself out of including Power of Two as a candidate vidsong for Xena Vid Series From Hell, so even that boundary is apparently squishy.

thirdblindmouse asked: Is there a section of canon above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

So, since TBM asked, I'm going to talk about Xena canon here, because it's a shared interest and because that's the fandom where this question is easiest to answer. Because as much as I enjoy the camp and the slash and the fun of Xena, there is basically one thing that has inspired my intense fannishness for the Xena/Gab pairing and for the show overall, and that is Xena and Gabrielle's ongoing debate about How to Fight the Good Fight*.

For me, the two parter "The Debt" from Season 3 and Gabrielle's pacifism arc which is a focus of season 4 (but resonates throughout the series) are the center of this debate. In the early seasons of the show, Gabrielle is generally shown to be -- and believed by the characters to be -- the one with a more developed moral compass.  "The Debt" tears this apart by showing Gabrielle how much more complex the world is, and that a knee-jerk "killing is wrong" position can cause more harm than not. It is forever to my dismay that the S3 Rift Arc focuses so much on Hope and leaves Gabrielle's betrayal of Xena in "The Debt" as background, but I choose to read it differently, and that is an important part of both my XVSFH vids so far ("Become You" and "Starkville").

As Gabrielle spends more time with Xena and her worldview grows more complex, she finds that her love of Xena and her wish to not commit violence are irreconcilable. For a while she tries to practice non-violence while accepting that this is not an option for Xena, and tries to make it work. But it doesn't. It can't. So ultimately she chooses Xena, and I think breaks a little bit of her heart doing so.

I continue to be blown away by this arc, because I so often find the presentation of pacifism on shows to be obnoxious, heavy-handed, or dismissive. Xena takes pacifism seriously, and it also takes the violence of the world the characters live in seriously, and it integrates those themes into the characters' relationship -- it makes it deeply personal. And that is why I love it.

(OK, the other main reason I love Xena/Gab is because those two are always telling each other how much they love each other. That kind of open, honest communication is my relationship catnip, see also my love of Friday Night Lights.)

*This is also like 80% of my love for Angel the Series, and Gunn's character arc in particular, the other 20% being Lorne.

I listened to some of my current & future vidsongs on my run today, and had a couple of revelations:

1. My Angel WIP, which I'd nearly given up on because the song doesn't build and I was starting to feel like the vid doesn't go anywhere, is totally salvageable.  I just need to edit the song!  At 3.5 minutes it is too much song for what I'm trying to say, but at ~2 minutes it will work fine.  And now that I attended heresluck and nestra's audio editing panel, I'm more confident I can!  (I'd already edited the audio some to get it down to 3 1/2 minutes, but now I'm ready to get in there with a mf-ing chainsaw.  First chorus and second verse will likely not survive the Wrath of Fray.)

2. I worked out some point-of-view issues I'd been struggling with in visualizing a Xena vid that I hope to make but haven't started yet.  I knew I wanted multiple points of view, but I wasn't sure how to go about it.  But I listened to the song once and really focused on that aspect, and it became totally clear how to structure the POV, thanks in part to greensilver and sweetestdrain's "A Matter of Perspective" panel. (kass's panel notes.)  \o/

Now I just gotta make the damn things.  :/

(Also, I am posting this in part because of the discussion during joyo's panel on motivation.  I'm thinking maybe if I post about my works in progress I'll be more motivated to finish them?)

It's festivids reveal day!  Or at least, it will be when you're reading this.  Or maybe it is much later by now.   Anyway, my first ever festivid was "Sons and Daughters", a Whale Rider vid for eruthros.

Happy Festivids!

Title: Sons and Daughters
Source: Whale Rider
Vidder: fray-adjacent
Song: "Sons and Daughters" by The Decemberists (edited)
Length: 2:56
Characters: Pai, ensemble
Content Notes: About the support and empowerment that characters offer each other.

Download: zipped 92 Mb H264 mov, subtitles file included

Streaming Password: daughters


( Commentary on technical and creative process. )

Title: The Island
Vidder:fray_adjacent12
Fandom: The Black Stallion (1979)
Song: Little Jonathan/The Wall by Paul Cantelon (from the Everything is Illuminated Soundtrack)
Warnings: Spoilers for first 1/3 of movie only.

( Download and streaming under cut )
My god vidding a movie sure is easier than a TV show.  Or at least it's less work finding clips.  My first vid where I chose the topic before the music -- and finding the right song took longer than clipping did.

I wish I'd finished this soon enough to submit it to Vividcon's "Let My Lyrics Go" show, but alas.  Maybe next year I'll have something in VVC.  :)