baby's first vid
I've learned that in fandom, one should never say never. In October 2005 I wrote a post about not liking vids. I started reccing vids in May 2006. And now, in January 2007, I have just made my first vid (well, really a vidlet):
Lonesome Wilby (Wilby Wonderful/Lonesome Dove; 11.3MB/1:23, right-click and save ( Read more... )
Lonesome Wilby (Wilby Wonderful/Lonesome Dove; 11.3MB/1:23, right-click and save ( Read more... )
I liked how you sped up the cuts at the end to increase the pace and the tension, which worked really well with the guy trying to hang himself. Nice mood setting.
As for process - I agree. My vidding and writing processes are very similar, and they've both changed over time. I used to do everything entirely linearly and I'm more comfortable bouncing around these days and working on different bits before bringing it together, in both the vid timeline and the story. Although I always have to get a good chunk of the beginning done before I can do that, for the very same reason you mention: I always tend to throw in things that I wasn't aware of when I start that become critical later on.
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The Western-movie theme is sort of contextual: Dan mentions during conversation with Duck that he likes Westerns, and Duck says something like, "that makes sense, you're a bit of a cowboy." Later in the movie Duck wears a western-style shirt and Dan says, "you're a bit of a cowboy yourself."
Part of the reason I didn't do direct comparisons between the characters is that I was a little torn - the one Duck/cowboy thing was obvious because it's the same actor, so would it make sense to assign equivalents and just have, oh, random townspeople? I did think about it a little, for example with the Rebecca Jenkins character, who is the town slut, there is a scene with her at a bar and a little drunk, and I thought of cutting to the classic bar-girl in the saloon. But on the other hand, making Irene - the grim-faced woman - the black-hat with a gun seemed like a nifty way of drawing the parallel. And now that you mention it, I think that you are right, that it might be kind of cool to do it that way, to assign each character a mental image that Dan applies from the Western.
I had (briefly) actually thought of trying to find western movies that these actors were in, and using scenes from those, but the prospect was daunting!
Part of it, though, is that (la la la embarrassing admission) I haven't actually watched all of "Lonesome Dove." I downloaded this episode because CKR was in it, but I started watching it once and it just seemed sort of dull. So I was just grabbing things that were images which appealed to me. I think I was sort of skating on the bits of knowledge that 1) Dan likes Westerns, 2) this is a Western musical theme, and kind of figuring that the parallels write themselves, but, hee, my betas are always telling me that readers are only reading the story I have actually written down and not the one in my head. Obviously this is a problem for me in visual media as well!
The bits with the two women in the middle were sort of Dan meeting the townspeople, being greeted cheerfully ("Hello, stranger...") but knowing the black hat is gunning for him and he's a marked man. Again, this was stuff in my brain that was obvious to me but obviously (heh) not obvious to others.
I think it's interesting not just that your vidding and writing processes are similar, but that they have changed. I have tried to write non-linearly but I can't do it. Even when I know how the scene at the end is going to go, I can't write it until I get there - I've tried, and it's slow as molasses, and I keep rewriting and editing and I hate it.
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Theoretically. Hee.
I really like the horses, though. I know that seems like a stupid thing to point out, but they really drew me in and I knew what I was dealing with right away. Plus the juxtaposition of the blue/green colors in WW with the gold/yellow of the western was very effective.
I have tried to write non-linearly but I can't do it.
I couldn't do it until after I started vidding non-linearly. Weird, huh?
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And yay for horses! I very deliberately picked them because to me Westerns are "horse movies" (this is part of a running joke in my household, because my husband is from a ranching family and is a very good horseman, and he likes movies with horses)...and then when I was watching the first cut of the vid at full size, I realized the movie Dan's watching has a horse in it, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy about that choice.
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