amedia

On Sunday morning I went to Kat-byrd's half-hour collection of songvids by various vidders based on British TV shows. I knew Kat was a gifted vidder, but I learned from this (and from the glimpse I got earlier of the Starsky & Hutch collection she put together) that she has a good eye for other people's work, and is generous with her praise. Some of the vids were from fandoms I'm not familiar with, but there were three that I whole-heartedly enjoyed.

The first one was a Doctor Who vid (Nu Who) to Linkin Park's "In the End," which seemed to work very well for the Doctor, especially the War Doctor. It had lots of clips that went by so fast they were almost dizzying. I would love to see it again, but I haven't been able to find it online.

The second of my favorites started out with Captain America and some sort of grandiose music, then stopped abruptly with a Pythonesque written announcement about the original vidder being sacked, and turned into a hilarious vid to the tune of "Drive My Car" featuring scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The overall vid is named "Banging them Together" and was shown as part of Festivids, a festival for vids from small fandoms. I have been trying to find this one, too, and keep running into cobwebs. :-(

I did succeed in finding the third one that I loved! It's a Sherlock slash vid by Karliene to an original song written and sung by the vidder herself, "Never Knew I Had a Heart Until It Beat For You." You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjy_ls5fOPI. The vidder did some really interesting and unusual things. She had the lyrics on the screen, which I've previously only seen done for humorous vids, at least that I can remember (e.g. "Trampled Underfoot," "We Should Hang out"). Her lyrics weren't all that hard to understand, but having them written out relieved one of trying to understand a song that was, after all, unfamiliar, freeing up that much more brain RAM to work on integrating the elements of the vid, so I appreciated her choice. Another unusual element was that the vid used entirely still shots from the episode rather than video clips. Kind of like a return to the origins of vidding! But also kind of not--there were interesting differences from the original slideshow vids. (There's another vidder who uses stills instead of video clips, but differently than Karliene; I'm trying to remember who it is. Anyway, I love seeing how people play with and reinvent the traditions of the art form.) While there were no moving clips from the source text, the vid itself moved--the still shots were embedded in a frame that looked like a strip of film, and each shot would come up, sort of steady and focus in, and then move up and down and then on to the next shot. I may not have described it very clearly, but if you watch the vid you'll see what I mean. And I definitely recommend the vid! Just be prepared to have your heart broken.

My two half-hour collections were on Sunday from noon to one.

The first of the oldie-but-goodie vids that I showed was the multi-universe "Shoop." I was afraid people wouldn't like it because of the het content, but people ate up the display of male yumminess on screen without minding that there were chicks there too. There were lots of appreciative noises throughout. A couple of people came in a little late, at the *exact* moment of the lines, "You're packed and you're stacked, 'specially in the back/Brother, gotta thank your mother for a butt like that," which happen to be very well illustrated (ahem) with two nekkid male rear ends in a row. "Wow, we picked the right time to come in!" said one of them, and everyone laughed.

Every vid earned well-deserved applause. People sang along with both the "Masochism Tango" (Batman/Catwoman) and "The Night Chicago Died" (The Untouchables TV show from 1993), pretty much all the way through. There were admiring noises for especially clever matchups between lyrics and clips in "Masochism Tango" and "Under the Sea" (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) . A nostalgic sigh greeted the appearance of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes in One Man Magical Show--the audience appreciated the source universe as well as the vid. There was laughter for the twisted humor of "Tainted Love"(X-Files, Mulder/Krycek) as well as for the silliness (and slashiness) of "Goody Two Shoes" (Highlander).

And I was happy to see that people loved "Pressure," the vid about vidmaking. The cat who has to be lifted out of the video cabinet at the beginning won several "Awww's" and the enjoyment kept going on from there. One viewer was concerned about one of the ways in which the vid shows the passage of time, namely, the way that one fan is reading a stack of zines while the other two work out which clips to use: "Uh-oh--she's gonna finish those zines before they're done!"

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. vids came next. One fan was disappointed that the first vid, "Boy from New York City," featured Napoleon. On the line about how he's cute, she said, "No, he's not!" "Don't worry," I whispered, "Illya gets equal time. The next one is all about him!" "Oh, okay," she said, and watched the rest of the vid in contented silence. Everyone else seemed to like it just fine. The next vid, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," got lots of laughter and cheering as we all watched poor Illya getting whomped in episode after episode. "Istanbul" was another crowd pleaser. I was a little concerned about "Wind of Change," which is very serious and unusual; it's the one that integrates news footage of the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was afraid people would get impatient and complain, or get bored and chat ... there was absolute silence from the audience throughout the entire vid, which I interpreted as a compliment to the vidder. The last two vids, "Let's Make It a Night To Remember" and "Nobody Does It Better," were humorous--no reverential silence here, but lots of laughter!

Even though I didn't make the vids, I was happy to bask in reflected glory for having brought them. And I was so glad they got to see the light of day ... um, the dark of an auditorium? ... again after so many years.

Here are the playlists for the vids I brought:

Oldies But Goodies:
Shoop - Multi - Central Consortium (Libya) - het-sorta
Tainted Love - X-Files - Media Cannibals (Pam & Katharine) - slash
Masochism Tango - Batman Returns - Bunnies from Hell (Judy Chien) - het
One Man Magical Show - Sherlock Holmes (Granada) - Gayle Feyrer - gen
Goody Two Shoes - Highlander - Central Consortium (Jenny) - slashy
The Night Chicago Died - The Untouchables (TV series 1993) - California Crew (Icy Calm) - Gen
Under the Sea - Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - California Crew (Icy Calm) - Gen
Tonight We Ride - Multi-War (12OCH, GG, RP) - Jackie Edwards - Gen
Pressure - Meta - California Crew (Sterling Eidolan & Odd Woman In) - Gen

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. vids:

Boy from New York City - California Crew (Solo Sojourns) - Gen
Poor Poor Pitiful Me - Pam and Katharine - Gen
Istanbul - Deejay Driscoll - Gen
Wind of Change - Deejay Driscoll - Gen
Let's Make it a Night to Remember - Stacy Doyle - Slash
Nobody Does it Better - Stacy Doyle - Slashy