REVELCon 26 Vid Contest - Friday, March 20, 2015
I took notes during this year's vid contest so I could write up a report.
REVELcon 2015 vid show
The vid show began with a tribute vid for Leonard Nimoy. Jamie R. and Jan M. put together a wonderful, chronological series of photographs and set them to the tune of "We'll Meet Again." The song was followed immediately by an excerpt from Mr. Nimoy's interview with a Yiddish oral history project in which he talked about the origin of the Vulcan hand gesture as a Jewish blessing. I thought that it was a terrific idea, not only because it's such an iconic contribution that he made to the Star Trek legacy, but because it made everyone chuckle after a vid that, I suspect, had many of us on the verge of tears. Nicely done, Jamie and Jan!
The first fannish music video, "Good People" by Lesley, made me happy because it was a Forever vid! I love that show and didn't expect to see a vid based on it, so I was tickled. I found it heartwarming and thought the scene choices were nice; I wondered if it could have used more focus, as I couldn't put my finger on an organizing principle, but I'd really have to see it again to be sure.
The second was based on Hannibal--all the Hannibal vids appeared to be well made and intense, but I haven't watched the show and couldn't begin to follow the significance of the clips.
The third video was a Merlin vid by Cruvas Arxantia called "Hail the Hero." It featured a song partly sung in a foreign language I didn't recognize, with subtitles during the foreign-language parts so we could follow the lyrics to the song. I haven't seen subtitles like that in a serious vid before. There was a humorous S&H vid that I saw some years ago to Led Zeppelin's virtually incomprehensible "Trampled Underfoot" that benefited greatly from subtitles, and of course the classic songvid "Smut" left in the subtitles from the gay porn flick, but really, they're very rare even in humorous fannish vids. I appreciated the subtitles and thought they added to my understanding of how the song worked with the clips. I looked up the bits I could remember and found the song, which is called "Hail the Hero (Mo Ghile Mear)" and is partly sung in Irish. I haven't watched Merlin, but it seemed that the flavor of the song--stirring, Celtic--fit very well with the flavor of the chosen clips.
The fourth video was also by Cruvas Arxantia. It was called "Wonderland," although the song was Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," and I was absolutely delighted to see that the fandom was the SyFy Channel's Alice, a reimagining of "Alice in Wonderland" from the same director (Nick Willing) who did Tin Man. The song was startlingly applicable to tracing the arc of the story, and I thought the vidder was really clever in selecting scenes to go with the lyrics, with a good mix of literal and metaphorical meanings. Just one example: of course, on the line "some will win" the vidder used a clip of the roulette wheel, and then "some will lose" focused on the bare feet of one of the gamblers (because they are losing their emotions through an emotion-draining system in the floor), which I thought was a better choice than showing someone losing at one of the games.
The fifth vid was another Hannibal, which appeared to be partly humorous in a gruesome sort of way, but I couldn't really tell.
The sixth vid was "1895" by Diana Williams. The video clips were from the Granada Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett. The audio featured Vincent Starrett's wonderful poem ("221B") read by Basil Rathbone along with a violin playing a musical theme from the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. It was masterfully done and my absolute favorite. It got my vote for Best in Show.
The seventh was another Hannibal vid.
This concluded the "Gen Drama/Humor" section; next came the "Slash Drama/Humor" section.
There were a number of vids to fandoms I'm not familiar with. Fierygoddessofyaoi did what struck me as a cute vid for Psych to "Haven't Had Enough" and two NCIS vids, "I'd Come For You" and "God Gave Me You." Cruvas Arxantia did a Primeval vid called "On My Mind." Holdt did two Captain America vids. One was to a song called "Alight," which featured very spare instrumentation and vocals, so that it wasn't too aurally "busy" when the vidder also incorporated a number of tidbits of dialogue. Even though I haven't seen the movie and couldn't fully follow the vid, I liked how she did that. She did another one to a song called "All of Me." She also did a Loki vid," "Home, which I was partly able to follow (I've seen Thor 2: The Dark World), and liked very much.
Kat-byrd had several vids. "Red Rain," to the song by Peter Gabriel, was relatively short (it didn't use the whole song) and quasi-experimental. Kat-byrd used the black-and-white sequences from the Pros episode where Doyle gets shot and sees himself in a graveyard and incorporated subtle touches of red here and there, which made often-seen footage look different and fresher to the eye, and effectively communicated an eerie mood. She also did a brief, cool Pros mini-vid called "Spooks," which also played with fancy editing, and a Starsky & Hutch vid, "So Cold," focusing on Hutch's reaction in one of the episodes where Starsky gets shot. It's the one that ends with Hutch climbing into Starsky's hospital bed--by turning the footage black and white, she emphasized the angsty nature of the earlier parts of the episode. (There was a brief flash at the end of the video of the climbing-into-bed scene in color, almost startling after the rest being in black & white.) My favorite of her videos was a Professionals vid to Bob Dylan's "Catch the Wind." I liked how the clips kept up a brisk energy while still reflecting the underlying sadness of the song.
Romanse's Sherlock vid "No One's Gonna Love You," set during the third season, used a washed-out, sepia-toned look to convey a thoughtful, melancholy tone.
I also enjoyed Fat Orange Kat's Hawaii Five-O "Kryptonite" video. This was a high-energy vid that made good use of recurring images like helicopters and McGarrett's car (often skidding sideways) as unifying elements. And people holding guns.
Jamie Ritchey's Sentinel vid to the Pink song "Perfect" was upbeat, yet with a relatively serious message about Jim and Blair's relationship. It was the only Sentinel vid in the lot, but we got quality even if we didn't get quantity, and it was very popular with the audience.
The last vid of the show was another Diana Williams vid to a bouncy pop song, "So Damn Hot" by OK-GO, using a rapid-fire display of panels from From Eroica with Love. I've heard of this fandom for years, but don't know a whole lot about it--I'm not sure if these were original manga or doujinshi, or whether the hilarious captions were original or interpolated, but it was a tremendously fun vid.
I was very pleased by the wide range of vids this year, not only in terms of fandoms represented, but in terms of people making interesting, unusual artistic choices, both aural and visual, that made for thought-provoking works.
REVELcon 2015 vid show
The vid show began with a tribute vid for Leonard Nimoy. Jamie R. and Jan M. put together a wonderful, chronological series of photographs and set them to the tune of "We'll Meet Again." The song was followed immediately by an excerpt from Mr. Nimoy's interview with a Yiddish oral history project in which he talked about the origin of the Vulcan hand gesture as a Jewish blessing. I thought that it was a terrific idea, not only because it's such an iconic contribution that he made to the Star Trek legacy, but because it made everyone chuckle after a vid that, I suspect, had many of us on the verge of tears. Nicely done, Jamie and Jan!
The first fannish music video, "Good People" by Lesley, made me happy because it was a Forever vid! I love that show and didn't expect to see a vid based on it, so I was tickled. I found it heartwarming and thought the scene choices were nice; I wondered if it could have used more focus, as I couldn't put my finger on an organizing principle, but I'd really have to see it again to be sure.
The second was based on Hannibal--all the Hannibal vids appeared to be well made and intense, but I haven't watched the show and couldn't begin to follow the significance of the clips.
The third video was a Merlin vid by Cruvas Arxantia called "Hail the Hero." It featured a song partly sung in a foreign language I didn't recognize, with subtitles during the foreign-language parts so we could follow the lyrics to the song. I haven't seen subtitles like that in a serious vid before. There was a humorous S&H vid that I saw some years ago to Led Zeppelin's virtually incomprehensible "Trampled Underfoot" that benefited greatly from subtitles, and of course the classic songvid "Smut" left in the subtitles from the gay porn flick, but really, they're very rare even in humorous fannish vids. I appreciated the subtitles and thought they added to my understanding of how the song worked with the clips. I looked up the bits I could remember and found the song, which is called "Hail the Hero (Mo Ghile Mear)" and is partly sung in Irish. I haven't watched Merlin, but it seemed that the flavor of the song--stirring, Celtic--fit very well with the flavor of the chosen clips.
The fourth video was also by Cruvas Arxantia. It was called "Wonderland," although the song was Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," and I was absolutely delighted to see that the fandom was the SyFy Channel's Alice, a reimagining of "Alice in Wonderland" from the same director (Nick Willing) who did Tin Man. The song was startlingly applicable to tracing the arc of the story, and I thought the vidder was really clever in selecting scenes to go with the lyrics, with a good mix of literal and metaphorical meanings. Just one example: of course, on the line "some will win" the vidder used a clip of the roulette wheel, and then "some will lose" focused on the bare feet of one of the gamblers (because they are losing their emotions through an emotion-draining system in the floor), which I thought was a better choice than showing someone losing at one of the games.
The fifth vid was another Hannibal, which appeared to be partly humorous in a gruesome sort of way, but I couldn't really tell.
The sixth vid was "1895" by Diana Williams. The video clips were from the Granada Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett. The audio featured Vincent Starrett's wonderful poem ("221B") read by Basil Rathbone along with a violin playing a musical theme from the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. It was masterfully done and my absolute favorite. It got my vote for Best in Show.
The seventh was another Hannibal vid.
This concluded the "Gen Drama/Humor" section; next came the "Slash Drama/Humor" section.
There were a number of vids to fandoms I'm not familiar with. Fierygoddessofyaoi did what struck me as a cute vid for Psych to "Haven't Had Enough" and two NCIS vids, "I'd Come For You" and "God Gave Me You." Cruvas Arxantia did a Primeval vid called "On My Mind." Holdt did two Captain America vids. One was to a song called "Alight," which featured very spare instrumentation and vocals, so that it wasn't too aurally "busy" when the vidder also incorporated a number of tidbits of dialogue. Even though I haven't seen the movie and couldn't fully follow the vid, I liked how she did that. She did another one to a song called "All of Me." She also did a Loki vid," "Home, which I was partly able to follow (I've seen Thor 2: The Dark World), and liked very much.
Kat-byrd had several vids. "Red Rain," to the song by Peter Gabriel, was relatively short (it didn't use the whole song) and quasi-experimental. Kat-byrd used the black-and-white sequences from the Pros episode where Doyle gets shot and sees himself in a graveyard and incorporated subtle touches of red here and there, which made often-seen footage look different and fresher to the eye, and effectively communicated an eerie mood. She also did a brief, cool Pros mini-vid called "Spooks," which also played with fancy editing, and a Starsky & Hutch vid, "So Cold," focusing on Hutch's reaction in one of the episodes where Starsky gets shot. It's the one that ends with Hutch climbing into Starsky's hospital bed--by turning the footage black and white, she emphasized the angsty nature of the earlier parts of the episode. (There was a brief flash at the end of the video of the climbing-into-bed scene in color, almost startling after the rest being in black & white.) My favorite of her videos was a Professionals vid to Bob Dylan's "Catch the Wind." I liked how the clips kept up a brisk energy while still reflecting the underlying sadness of the song.
Romanse's Sherlock vid "No One's Gonna Love You," set during the third season, used a washed-out, sepia-toned look to convey a thoughtful, melancholy tone.
I also enjoyed Fat Orange Kat's Hawaii Five-O "Kryptonite" video. This was a high-energy vid that made good use of recurring images like helicopters and McGarrett's car (often skidding sideways) as unifying elements. And people holding guns.
Jamie Ritchey's Sentinel vid to the Pink song "Perfect" was upbeat, yet with a relatively serious message about Jim and Blair's relationship. It was the only Sentinel vid in the lot, but we got quality even if we didn't get quantity, and it was very popular with the audience.
The last vid of the show was another Diana Williams vid to a bouncy pop song, "So Damn Hot" by OK-GO, using a rapid-fire display of panels from From Eroica with Love. I've heard of this fandom for years, but don't know a whole lot about it--I'm not sure if these were original manga or doujinshi, or whether the hilarious captions were original or interpolated, but it was a tremendously fun vid.
I was very pleased by the wide range of vids this year, not only in terms of fandoms represented, but in terms of people making interesting, unusual artistic choices, both aural and visual, that made for thought-provoking works.