Viividcon panel: Aesthetics (mod notes)
I modded the Aesthetics panel at this last VividCon, and so I have a selection of things for you about it. Below the cut are my panel notes, with embedded links to the vids I discussed (and some I didn't, but had planned to; there wasn't enough time). Below the second cut is my transcription of the notes I took on flip chart during the actual panel. You can also read settai's notes over here, for an independent view.
Many thanks to cesperanza, gwyn, cathexys, lilly the kid, wickedwords, rivka t, and klia for helping me flesh out my thoughts on this topic. And Killa, for talking it out with me.
Aesthetics is grounded in cultural definitions of beauty and the pursuit of beauty. For this panel and context, a definition of aesthetics to start with - the stylistic, musical and content choices which influence how we feel about vids, and give vids a particular look.
Very broad topic, so narrowing this panel to three eras: Pre-VVC (how vids looked predominantly at the time the VVC started; Escapade, slash aesthetic, character studies, narratively driven); early to mid-VVC (rapid technology shifts driving how we made and watched vids, and the stylistic choices and ways vids were constructed, and how we reacted to that as vid-watchers); and the shift to YouTube, and how that has driven a new set of aesthetic changes, influenced what we watch, how we watch it, and the stylistic choices in our vids.
Era 1 - Pre- and early VVC:
Slow cutting, fades but minimal effects (Scarborough Faire by Katharine Scarritt); early VVC vids faster cutting, but still a focus on character, lyrics-driven to tell stories and reveal character. Example: Uninvited by astolat. We wanted to feel things about characters, interact with them, stretch their stories in new directions, reveal things about them. In a way, it was the visual equivalent of writing fan fiction.
Many vids were character studies or relied on the lyrics to drive the narrative, and in some places made it possible to experiment with metaphor as a storytelling device (Rook).
Slash aesthetic which was the basis of most early vidding - the basis on which the Escapade vid show was formed. Character-centric, slow, stories built upon a song choice. The song drives the vid. Nowadays, the tech drives the vid; the song is less the driver. (This Is The Place by Lynn, and then Gasoline by trelkez (mod note: this isn't available online on the vidder's YT channel); ask if the aesthetic is different, or just the techniques used etc. Voiceovers have always been around.
Vids which use lyrics to tell story, have a narrative and theme, vs. vids which are visually dazzling Ecstatic Drum Trip by Luminosity) but don't have a 'story' to tell per se; they may have a theme, but they are not built around chronological presentation of 'story.'
Tech was the driver behind many shifts - which brings me to
Era 2 - the early to mid VVC era, when computer vidding was in full swing and the technology was rapidly changing how we edited, how we got source, how we mixed songs, etc.
Once computer vidding happened, an immediate shift to faster cutting, still using lyrics, but now people began branching out and away from the lyrics doing the entirety of lifting for the narrative - the visuals began to do some of the lifting. Example: the use of outside footage of WWII-era Nazis and persecution of the Jews, as well as use of footage of the Hiroshima bombing, in Jesus for the Jugular by obsessive24; we all bring our own immediate feelings to the vid when we see this footage, which gives us a new layer of context. Once source was easier to obtain and download, it was easier to use.
Talk about how certain vidders began developing recognizable styles with tech - show No Church in the Wild by obsessive24, especially the ending, with overlays.
We also began really ramping up constructed realities, as computers gave us a way to envision what WASN’T there Closer by Killa and T Jonesy) or recontextualize what was more easily (A HREF="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoQEgbBfRFs">Falling for the First Time by sisabet, with its constructed reality kiss which brought the house down when the vid was shown at the con).
Anime vidders - doing amazing things with motion; fannish vidding culture somewhat unaware of it until VVC. There were entire cultures beginning to evolve as tech became more and more available, and there were more places to upload and watch vids that were less insular.
Tech was driving stylistic shifts, and perhaps moving us away from strong narratives and lyrics-driven vids. We saw more experimentation Vogue by Luminosity) which created their own aesthetic shifts in how we looked at and thought about making vids. I would argue slash vids began taking a back seat; we started moving away from vids that make us feel, and toward vids that were more stylistic. Look at the shiny thing.
Also technique began to be a heavy driver in the breathless pace of vids Narrow Escape by jarrow) - good technique was invisible, and was just there as part of the craft of the vid, like good writing. But there were also vids where the cutting was so fast, it left us breathless and possibly cold.
Good tech or tight cutting and technique in a ‘warm’ vid is invisible, because it adds to the feels; good tech in a ‘cold’ vid makes the bells and whistles go off, but if we feel, it's a reaction to the aesthetics, more than a reaction to our love for the source and how it's being interpreted. Example: one of my all-time fave vids
(A HREF="https://archiveofourown.org/works/240249">Dance Dreams by bradcpu) - I’m reacting to the stylish visuals and the tremendous technique, without feeling anything about the source material. It's enough for a vid to exist to be stylish and beautiful. With Narrow Escape, I’m reacting to the source material, and the technique which amps up the tension becomes invisible, because it’s being used to create the feels. I can appreciate the technique in both, but my primary reaction to the Tron vid is to the technique itself and the beautiful visuals, and not the source.
‘Cold’ (stylish) vs ‘warm’ vids (feels) - exploration of what can be done with effects, leading to more and more meta? Some of Lim's vids, as an example; more about the academic examination of a thing, than exploring and amplifying feels about the thing.
As vidders we began using tricks to manipulate source to make it feel less static, such as keyframing, etc, and this made some vids with a static frame feel old-fashioned.
Around 2007, I started making notes in my VVC program that the vids were ‘too long’. A shift to shorter vids, less than 3:30, then less than 3 in some cases. We had begun editing our songs and manipulating them to avoid having them flagged by copyright-sniffing software.
Era 3 - YouTube crashed onto the scene and changed the dominant aesthetic because of its algorithms, the changing way people vid to be noticed and connect there; they went from ‘feral’ vidders (who didn’t conform to fandom’s insular culture and norms) to having their own dominant culture and norms - voiceovers, very long vids, very short vids, text over video, etc
Go Back To Sleep by TikiTyler9 as example of classic YT vidding; layers/overlays, straight through line without narrative or theme, no lyrics, no story. It exists not to make a point, but to be stylish about the thing it wants to talk about (monsters). Flashing lights, etc.
Could be argued that YT has its own aesthetic; eliminated the need for lyrics, and eliminated a lot of the narrative vidding. It’s just snippets, showcasing things a vidder wants to show us about what they are interested in. But vids made now are similar in style, rhythm, etc to YT vids made 8 years ago. Example: War Pigs by Voordeel.
What works on the platform for its users becomes the dominant style.
Moderator's in-panel notes, taken during discussion:
What do you think of, when you think of vid aesthetics?
- What looks good
- Style
- Expressing what we value, what's 'good' and 'cool'
- Music and editing in sync, in service to what the vidder is trying to do
- What series of things the vidding community as a whole is trying to do, not just individual vidders
- Communication of a beautiful or striking thing
- Cultural codes and expectations around techniques (sometimes driven by vidder personality)
- How we agree on the 'language' of vids, external vs intenal (mod note: this is informed by the culture we came up in and learned to vid in)
- Feelings - fitting into an emotional response
- Normative/communal - impacts what we see as 'normal' in vids
- Approaches based on different audiences
- Standards and expectations of the community
What was different aesthetically between This Is The Place and Gasoline, slash vids from 2 different eras?
- Speed of clips
- Technology - easier to choose clips - getting the cutting and speed from the show, vs external manipulation of clips
- Visual shorthands - we know what the slash vid is, we know what we're looking at
- Pro tech - the actual movies better made, cleaner, better edited
- Actions ending in the clip, vs. not being carried through
- Broader cultural aesthetics - community mainstreamed and got bigger
- GOALS inform ongoing aesthetics - progression of tools, and use of that shorthand
- Music is faster, has changed? - genres of music opened up bigger perspectives (country, rap, etc)
- Accessibility - anticipation - tailoring vid to match needs
- Aesthetics as replacement for family or style of vidding (genres)
Aesthetic change -
- External source lifted the narrative
- PRe-existing effects allowed for experiments where vidders threw in the kitchen sink (and allowed for purposeful experimentation as well, as with Vogue, which changed how we thought about using effects)
- The ways we communicated (showed, made available) our vids making it easier to do things like use text in vids - things too small to see, etc
- Popularity informs some vidder choices - what gets more hits and clicks
- Vids can be stylish for their own sake - Club Vivid influencing an aesthetic shift, creating the dance vid
- Nostalgia can inform how we perceive aesthetics - we sometimes re-create what we have eliminated. Ian read a quote referencing that the things we find ugly now, we'll find beautiful tomorrow.
- Podcasts, book vids, etc - we can vid anything now, not just movies and TV; outside source is not just 'outside', it's all potential material to construct reality
- Vidding on the frame level
- Opening credits vids have become an aesthetic or genre
- Velocity vidding - ever-increasing speed
- YouTube close-ups on faces
Many thanks to cesperanza, gwyn, cathexys, lilly the kid, wickedwords, rivka t, and klia for helping me flesh out my thoughts on this topic. And Killa, for talking it out with me.
Aesthetics is grounded in cultural definitions of beauty and the pursuit of beauty. For this panel and context, a definition of aesthetics to start with - the stylistic, musical and content choices which influence how we feel about vids, and give vids a particular look.
Very broad topic, so narrowing this panel to three eras: Pre-VVC (how vids looked predominantly at the time the VVC started; Escapade, slash aesthetic, character studies, narratively driven); early to mid-VVC (rapid technology shifts driving how we made and watched vids, and the stylistic choices and ways vids were constructed, and how we reacted to that as vid-watchers); and the shift to YouTube, and how that has driven a new set of aesthetic changes, influenced what we watch, how we watch it, and the stylistic choices in our vids.
Era 1 - Pre- and early VVC:
Slow cutting, fades but minimal effects (Scarborough Faire by Katharine Scarritt); early VVC vids faster cutting, but still a focus on character, lyrics-driven to tell stories and reveal character. Example: Uninvited by astolat. We wanted to feel things about characters, interact with them, stretch their stories in new directions, reveal things about them. In a way, it was the visual equivalent of writing fan fiction.
Many vids were character studies or relied on the lyrics to drive the narrative, and in some places made it possible to experiment with metaphor as a storytelling device (Rook).
Slash aesthetic which was the basis of most early vidding - the basis on which the Escapade vid show was formed. Character-centric, slow, stories built upon a song choice. The song drives the vid. Nowadays, the tech drives the vid; the song is less the driver. (This Is The Place by Lynn, and then Gasoline by trelkez (mod note: this isn't available online on the vidder's YT channel); ask if the aesthetic is different, or just the techniques used etc. Voiceovers have always been around.
Vids which use lyrics to tell story, have a narrative and theme, vs. vids which are visually dazzling Ecstatic Drum Trip by Luminosity) but don't have a 'story' to tell per se; they may have a theme, but they are not built around chronological presentation of 'story.'
Tech was the driver behind many shifts - which brings me to
Era 2 - the early to mid VVC era, when computer vidding was in full swing and the technology was rapidly changing how we edited, how we got source, how we mixed songs, etc.
Once computer vidding happened, an immediate shift to faster cutting, still using lyrics, but now people began branching out and away from the lyrics doing the entirety of lifting for the narrative - the visuals began to do some of the lifting. Example: the use of outside footage of WWII-era Nazis and persecution of the Jews, as well as use of footage of the Hiroshima bombing, in Jesus for the Jugular by obsessive24; we all bring our own immediate feelings to the vid when we see this footage, which gives us a new layer of context. Once source was easier to obtain and download, it was easier to use.
Talk about how certain vidders began developing recognizable styles with tech - show No Church in the Wild by obsessive24, especially the ending, with overlays.
We also began really ramping up constructed realities, as computers gave us a way to envision what WASN’T there Closer by Killa and T Jonesy) or recontextualize what was more easily (A HREF="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoQEgbBfRFs">Falling for the First Time by sisabet, with its constructed reality kiss which brought the house down when the vid was shown at the con).
Anime vidders - doing amazing things with motion; fannish vidding culture somewhat unaware of it until VVC. There were entire cultures beginning to evolve as tech became more and more available, and there were more places to upload and watch vids that were less insular.
Tech was driving stylistic shifts, and perhaps moving us away from strong narratives and lyrics-driven vids. We saw more experimentation Vogue by Luminosity) which created their own aesthetic shifts in how we looked at and thought about making vids. I would argue slash vids began taking a back seat; we started moving away from vids that make us feel, and toward vids that were more stylistic. Look at the shiny thing.
Also technique began to be a heavy driver in the breathless pace of vids Narrow Escape by jarrow) - good technique was invisible, and was just there as part of the craft of the vid, like good writing. But there were also vids where the cutting was so fast, it left us breathless and possibly cold.
Good tech or tight cutting and technique in a ‘warm’ vid is invisible, because it adds to the feels; good tech in a ‘cold’ vid makes the bells and whistles go off, but if we feel, it's a reaction to the aesthetics, more than a reaction to our love for the source and how it's being interpreted. Example: one of my all-time fave vids
(A HREF="https://archiveofourown.org/works/240249">Dance Dreams by bradcpu) - I’m reacting to the stylish visuals and the tremendous technique, without feeling anything about the source material. It's enough for a vid to exist to be stylish and beautiful. With Narrow Escape, I’m reacting to the source material, and the technique which amps up the tension becomes invisible, because it’s being used to create the feels. I can appreciate the technique in both, but my primary reaction to the Tron vid is to the technique itself and the beautiful visuals, and not the source.
‘Cold’ (stylish) vs ‘warm’ vids (feels) - exploration of what can be done with effects, leading to more and more meta? Some of Lim's vids, as an example; more about the academic examination of a thing, than exploring and amplifying feels about the thing.
As vidders we began using tricks to manipulate source to make it feel less static, such as keyframing, etc, and this made some vids with a static frame feel old-fashioned.
Around 2007, I started making notes in my VVC program that the vids were ‘too long’. A shift to shorter vids, less than 3:30, then less than 3 in some cases. We had begun editing our songs and manipulating them to avoid having them flagged by copyright-sniffing software.
Era 3 - YouTube crashed onto the scene and changed the dominant aesthetic because of its algorithms, the changing way people vid to be noticed and connect there; they went from ‘feral’ vidders (who didn’t conform to fandom’s insular culture and norms) to having their own dominant culture and norms - voiceovers, very long vids, very short vids, text over video, etc
Go Back To Sleep by TikiTyler9 as example of classic YT vidding; layers/overlays, straight through line without narrative or theme, no lyrics, no story. It exists not to make a point, but to be stylish about the thing it wants to talk about (monsters). Flashing lights, etc.
Could be argued that YT has its own aesthetic; eliminated the need for lyrics, and eliminated a lot of the narrative vidding. It’s just snippets, showcasing things a vidder wants to show us about what they are interested in. But vids made now are similar in style, rhythm, etc to YT vids made 8 years ago. Example: War Pigs by Voordeel.
What works on the platform for its users becomes the dominant style.
Moderator's in-panel notes, taken during discussion:
What do you think of, when you think of vid aesthetics?
- What looks good
- Style
- Expressing what we value, what's 'good' and 'cool'
- Music and editing in sync, in service to what the vidder is trying to do
- What series of things the vidding community as a whole is trying to do, not just individual vidders
- Communication of a beautiful or striking thing
- Cultural codes and expectations around techniques (sometimes driven by vidder personality)
- How we agree on the 'language' of vids, external vs intenal (mod note: this is informed by the culture we came up in and learned to vid in)
- Feelings - fitting into an emotional response
- Normative/communal - impacts what we see as 'normal' in vids
- Approaches based on different audiences
- Standards and expectations of the community
What was different aesthetically between This Is The Place and Gasoline, slash vids from 2 different eras?
- Speed of clips
- Technology - easier to choose clips - getting the cutting and speed from the show, vs external manipulation of clips
- Visual shorthands - we know what the slash vid is, we know what we're looking at
- Pro tech - the actual movies better made, cleaner, better edited
- Actions ending in the clip, vs. not being carried through
- Broader cultural aesthetics - community mainstreamed and got bigger
- GOALS inform ongoing aesthetics - progression of tools, and use of that shorthand
- Music is faster, has changed? - genres of music opened up bigger perspectives (country, rap, etc)
- Accessibility - anticipation - tailoring vid to match needs
- Aesthetics as replacement for family or style of vidding (genres)
Aesthetic change -
- External source lifted the narrative
- PRe-existing effects allowed for experiments where vidders threw in the kitchen sink (and allowed for purposeful experimentation as well, as with Vogue, which changed how we thought about using effects)
- The ways we communicated (showed, made available) our vids making it easier to do things like use text in vids - things too small to see, etc
- Popularity informs some vidder choices - what gets more hits and clicks
- Vids can be stylish for their own sake - Club Vivid influencing an aesthetic shift, creating the dance vid
- Nostalgia can inform how we perceive aesthetics - we sometimes re-create what we have eliminated. Ian read a quote referencing that the things we find ugly now, we'll find beautiful tomorrow.
- Podcasts, book vids, etc - we can vid anything now, not just movies and TV; outside source is not just 'outside', it's all potential material to construct reality
- Vidding on the frame level
- Opening credits vids have become an aesthetic or genre
- Velocity vidding - ever-increasing speed
- YouTube close-ups on faces