5 vids that influenced my aesthetic
Funny thing -- greensilver and I were talking last summer during Viddingpocalyse about needing more happy things, and she said she was going to start this meme to get us talking about vids again. And I said, wow, what a great idea! She got wrapped up in other projects and hasn't yet made her post, so mine's been collecting dust for awhile, but I just found it and have her permission to share *g* So, here! Have a meme inspired by greensilver. *presents*
I've talked about some of these vids before as ones that made me want to be a vidder, but I haven't discussed them in terms of aesthetic and how my vidding feels directly influenced by them in that way.
5 Vids That Influenced my Aesthetic
1) Must Be Dreaming by corn_child013
This is the first vid I saw that ever made me really respect and get vids, this is the kind of vid I wanted to make when I first set out, it's the first vid to ever make me cry, yada yada, I've said it all before. There's plenty of stuff in here that I still don't know how to do (masking, the animated border, etc.) Watching it now, years later, I see so many things that I clearly took to heart and did eventually integrate into my style. Technical things like jump cuts to the beat, alternating credits with clips, using white flashes and crossfades, sure, but beyond that, this vid showed me how you can really use the instrumentation of the song and play with it visually. The blue overlays of River at 0:40 and 0:48 on that sound effect are a little awkward (now that I'm looking back), but at the time they really resonated with me. This sense of, wow, I can have several different things going on visually that all work together to create this experience, much like the different instrument tracks are doing. That was a big revelation for me.
Also, amusingly, this vid gave me my first twinge of "but...no, move that clip back!" At 0:52, I always felt the explosion of light should happen on the climax in the music, as opposed to just the cut to that clip happening on that beat. Obviously it's not my call, just saying this strong feeling of where I would place visuals at these musical moments started here for me. If you can vid in your head, you can vid for real. It helps you know who you are when you do something your own way, not just feeling like you're copying others.
But I digress! The end section showed me what you can do with motion, both internal and external, and how you can create the feeling of never stopping if you cut it right. And again with the layering of stories by cutting together the now with the then. God, so many things in this vid were directly channeled into Falling From the Sky. At the time I wouldn't have been able to see it as clearly because it was all I knew. Oh, vidding. ♥
2) Cat Scan Hist'ry by heresluck
This vid was also pivotal for me in the "show me what vidding can do" kind of way in that it showed me what I can do with vidding. Maybe that just sounds cheesy and makes no sense. Must Be Dreaming was a lot of "holy crap, I will never be able to do that" and just gleaning what shreds I could, getting up the bravery to even open an editing program. Cat Scan, on the other hand -- now, here was a powerful vid that had effective elements I could emulate! I loved the intercutting in the intro -- I could do that! Having clips with similar external motion leading into each other -- I could do that! And based on the number of times I have watched this vid, it showed me that you don't have to be fancy to be effective. Little things like the bottle breaking at 0:54 leading into the pan shot of Donnie in his seat, or the mirror pull-away at 1:40. Those were straight cuts that used perfect synchronization and took advantage of internal motion. Those were clips that kept me coming back to this vid. I could do that.
To me, the key to this vid is the build and pacing of it, helped very much by the song, of course, which gradually carries you away like a downstream current. When the bridge hits, there is no turning back. I really pulled on this for Love Turns 40 mostly, but I do focus a great deal on pacing whenever I'm vidding. I also credit this vid for showing me the power of a sequence of interesting, only somewhat related clips with great motion. My favorite clip pairing here has always been the chandelier cut to the girls dancing at 2:50. It gets me every time. This may also be the root of my love for match on action; Paul McCartney was the next vid I made after discovering Cat Scan.
I remember the first time I saw this vid, I think my stomach jumped up into my throat when he stabs the mirror with the knife. That fast-paced segment was my first concrete "THAT. I am going to learn how to do THAT." It was intimidating, but I had to sit down and figure out how to do it. Because, you know, it looked like that took A LONG TIME. What I discovered, of course, is that doing really fast cutting like that is so much easier than slow cutting because nobody really sees what you're doing; it can be sloppy and you can get away with it. (Not that it's sloppy here in the slightest. If you put effort into it, it looks even more awesome.) And even just that lesson of, "oh, that really cool thing isn't actually a nightmare to do?" was invaluable to a newbie like me. So, thank you heresluck for giving me the courage to try something that seemed scary at first. It's one of my favorite things to do in vids now. (...as you may have noticed, heh.)
3) Change (in the house of flies) by obsessive24
Rewatching this vid (you know, twist my arm), I see so many things that make it one of my favorites: bookended symbolism (with match on action, no less!), spiraling external motion, clever use of external images and black & white, a POV shift even a dummy like me can understand, and so on. Nicky's vids always force me to push my own envelope on what I can do with motion, whether it's using what's there or adding zooms or both. This...may have been the first vid I saw of hers? (ETA: Correction, Post Blue was the first.) Regardless, it's the first one that made this strong an impact (as laurashapiro can vouch). What's funny is that there are things in this vid that I tried to incorporate into my own vidding and failed, specifically using black & white. There are versions of Love Turns 40 that were ultimately scrapped, in which I tried to do all kinds of fancy things with color. I absolutely love the lead-in to the bridge where Lex breaks the glass and the color disappears (2:31). Like, damn. I would never have thought to do that! But hey, I could figure out how and try it! So I did, and it...well, let's just say I learned that what you're doing in a vid has to have purpose. Nicky's does; mine didn't. I have a lot of respect for how effective her choices are. I do love that this vid made me examine my own work and look for ways to expand, to try new things (succeed or fail), and to ultimately try to make my vids look more like these others that I loved so much. The only way we can figure out our own identity is by pushing its boundaries.
4) Street Cafe by Kathy, Kay and klia
Oh, man. Y'all, this vid showed me what fast cutting was. I thought I knew! HA! I did not know. But then I did. And I was changed forever. I wanted to do this. I wanted to pick up the viewer on my back and run through a crowded street taking turn after turn and eventually dump them at the end with only half a notion of what they'd just experienced. (You know, because then they have to go back and dig through it again and again.) This vid showed me the kind of vidding I had wanted to do all along and didn't know it yet. This vid showed me what was possible when you push it to the limit. It showed me that it's okay if the viewer doesn't catch half or even a third of what you're showing them the first time, because it's about the experience. It's okay to show a clip for just a few frames. Your narrative is there, your symbolism and elements are all there, you're just packing more in than they could possibly absorb in one go. I love that. (sockkpuppett's Ecstatic Drum Trip has this very same effect on me.) Since then I have tried pushing my cutting faster and faster, particularly with Club Vivid vids. I've never created anything remotely in the galaxy of Street Cafe, but this vid inspires me to keep trying.
5) Wasteland by bananainpyjamas
When I first met bradcpu, he checked out my work and said I really reminded him of dragonchic, which still kind of blows my mind because at the time I had only released crap and she had released awesome things. The first vid I saw of hers was Wasteland, which knocked me out of my seat. That sequence at the beginning with the police cars and Peter on the brick slab...I was sold forever. You know, there's something to be said for diversity in community and being exposed to all kinds of vidding that's so far from your own because it expands your horizons and surprises you and teaches you things. I'm all for that. But this was my equivalent of walking through a crowd of strangers and seeing someone you've never met but already know. Here was a vid that was speaking my language.
She cuts similarly to how I do, emphasizing beats mostly metronomically until the music rises to something requiring more out of control visuals. She puts visual cues even on the same beats I would, like the windows at 2:10. Watching this vid was a bit of an out of body experience. It felt a lot like when you watch your finished vid back through and make sure everything lines up where you want it. So many things about this vid felt just like I would've done it. Or, as a viewer, everything was right where I wanted to see it. It was uncanny. I'd never experienced that before at this level. Of course, this vid was also a lot better than anything I'd ever done, so I'm not saying we're twins or anything, or that I could've made this vid myself. But here was a vid that showed me, again, what is possible for my vidding based on what I like to do with motion, cutting, pacing, music, visuals, etc. Here was a vid that validated my instincts and said, "yes, keep doing what you're doing, because you're not alone in thinking that it's awesome." Here was a vid I could have a real conversation with after one viewing because we got each other. It was like a big sister to my vids, one I recognized and wanted to emulate. This became a big benchmark of what I wanted my vidding to be. I was moving more and more into the realm of action vidding, and this vid proved to me that my heart wanted desperately to be a part of it. It's safe to say that Learn to Crawl owes much to Wasteland, as does Narrow Escape and several of my other vids. I owe this vid -- and this vidder -- a lot. Finding this vid felt like coming home.
I've talked about some of these vids before as ones that made me want to be a vidder, but I haven't discussed them in terms of aesthetic and how my vidding feels directly influenced by them in that way.
5 Vids That Influenced my Aesthetic
1) Must Be Dreaming by corn_child013
This is the first vid I saw that ever made me really respect and get vids, this is the kind of vid I wanted to make when I first set out, it's the first vid to ever make me cry, yada yada, I've said it all before. There's plenty of stuff in here that I still don't know how to do (masking, the animated border, etc.) Watching it now, years later, I see so many things that I clearly took to heart and did eventually integrate into my style. Technical things like jump cuts to the beat, alternating credits with clips, using white flashes and crossfades, sure, but beyond that, this vid showed me how you can really use the instrumentation of the song and play with it visually. The blue overlays of River at 0:40 and 0:48 on that sound effect are a little awkward (now that I'm looking back), but at the time they really resonated with me. This sense of, wow, I can have several different things going on visually that all work together to create this experience, much like the different instrument tracks are doing. That was a big revelation for me.
Also, amusingly, this vid gave me my first twinge of "but...no, move that clip back!" At 0:52, I always felt the explosion of light should happen on the climax in the music, as opposed to just the cut to that clip happening on that beat. Obviously it's not my call, just saying this strong feeling of where I would place visuals at these musical moments started here for me. If you can vid in your head, you can vid for real. It helps you know who you are when you do something your own way, not just feeling like you're copying others.
But I digress! The end section showed me what you can do with motion, both internal and external, and how you can create the feeling of never stopping if you cut it right. And again with the layering of stories by cutting together the now with the then. God, so many things in this vid were directly channeled into Falling From the Sky. At the time I wouldn't have been able to see it as clearly because it was all I knew. Oh, vidding. ♥
2) Cat Scan Hist'ry by heresluck
This vid was also pivotal for me in the "show me what vidding can do" kind of way in that it showed me what I can do with vidding. Maybe that just sounds cheesy and makes no sense. Must Be Dreaming was a lot of "holy crap, I will never be able to do that" and just gleaning what shreds I could, getting up the bravery to even open an editing program. Cat Scan, on the other hand -- now, here was a powerful vid that had effective elements I could emulate! I loved the intercutting in the intro -- I could do that! Having clips with similar external motion leading into each other -- I could do that! And based on the number of times I have watched this vid, it showed me that you don't have to be fancy to be effective. Little things like the bottle breaking at 0:54 leading into the pan shot of Donnie in his seat, or the mirror pull-away at 1:40. Those were straight cuts that used perfect synchronization and took advantage of internal motion. Those were clips that kept me coming back to this vid. I could do that.
To me, the key to this vid is the build and pacing of it, helped very much by the song, of course, which gradually carries you away like a downstream current. When the bridge hits, there is no turning back. I really pulled on this for Love Turns 40 mostly, but I do focus a great deal on pacing whenever I'm vidding. I also credit this vid for showing me the power of a sequence of interesting, only somewhat related clips with great motion. My favorite clip pairing here has always been the chandelier cut to the girls dancing at 2:50. It gets me every time. This may also be the root of my love for match on action; Paul McCartney was the next vid I made after discovering Cat Scan.
I remember the first time I saw this vid, I think my stomach jumped up into my throat when he stabs the mirror with the knife. That fast-paced segment was my first concrete "THAT. I am going to learn how to do THAT." It was intimidating, but I had to sit down and figure out how to do it. Because, you know, it looked like that took A LONG TIME. What I discovered, of course, is that doing really fast cutting like that is so much easier than slow cutting because nobody really sees what you're doing; it can be sloppy and you can get away with it. (Not that it's sloppy here in the slightest. If you put effort into it, it looks even more awesome.) And even just that lesson of, "oh, that really cool thing isn't actually a nightmare to do?" was invaluable to a newbie like me. So, thank you heresluck for giving me the courage to try something that seemed scary at first. It's one of my favorite things to do in vids now. (...as you may have noticed, heh.)
3) Change (in the house of flies) by obsessive24
Rewatching this vid (you know, twist my arm), I see so many things that make it one of my favorites: bookended symbolism (with match on action, no less!), spiraling external motion, clever use of external images and black & white, a POV shift even a dummy like me can understand, and so on. Nicky's vids always force me to push my own envelope on what I can do with motion, whether it's using what's there or adding zooms or both. This...may have been the first vid I saw of hers? (ETA: Correction, Post Blue was the first.) Regardless, it's the first one that made this strong an impact (as laurashapiro can vouch). What's funny is that there are things in this vid that I tried to incorporate into my own vidding and failed, specifically using black & white. There are versions of Love Turns 40 that were ultimately scrapped, in which I tried to do all kinds of fancy things with color. I absolutely love the lead-in to the bridge where Lex breaks the glass and the color disappears (2:31). Like, damn. I would never have thought to do that! But hey, I could figure out how and try it! So I did, and it...well, let's just say I learned that what you're doing in a vid has to have purpose. Nicky's does; mine didn't. I have a lot of respect for how effective her choices are. I do love that this vid made me examine my own work and look for ways to expand, to try new things (succeed or fail), and to ultimately try to make my vids look more like these others that I loved so much. The only way we can figure out our own identity is by pushing its boundaries.
4) Street Cafe by Kathy, Kay and klia
Oh, man. Y'all, this vid showed me what fast cutting was. I thought I knew! HA! I did not know. But then I did. And I was changed forever. I wanted to do this. I wanted to pick up the viewer on my back and run through a crowded street taking turn after turn and eventually dump them at the end with only half a notion of what they'd just experienced. (You know, because then they have to go back and dig through it again and again.) This vid showed me the kind of vidding I had wanted to do all along and didn't know it yet. This vid showed me what was possible when you push it to the limit. It showed me that it's okay if the viewer doesn't catch half or even a third of what you're showing them the first time, because it's about the experience. It's okay to show a clip for just a few frames. Your narrative is there, your symbolism and elements are all there, you're just packing more in than they could possibly absorb in one go. I love that. (sockkpuppett's Ecstatic Drum Trip has this very same effect on me.) Since then I have tried pushing my cutting faster and faster, particularly with Club Vivid vids. I've never created anything remotely in the galaxy of Street Cafe, but this vid inspires me to keep trying.
5) Wasteland by bananainpyjamas
When I first met bradcpu, he checked out my work and said I really reminded him of dragonchic, which still kind of blows my mind because at the time I had only released crap and she had released awesome things. The first vid I saw of hers was Wasteland, which knocked me out of my seat. That sequence at the beginning with the police cars and Peter on the brick slab...I was sold forever. You know, there's something to be said for diversity in community and being exposed to all kinds of vidding that's so far from your own because it expands your horizons and surprises you and teaches you things. I'm all for that. But this was my equivalent of walking through a crowd of strangers and seeing someone you've never met but already know. Here was a vid that was speaking my language.
She cuts similarly to how I do, emphasizing beats mostly metronomically until the music rises to something requiring more out of control visuals. She puts visual cues even on the same beats I would, like the windows at 2:10. Watching this vid was a bit of an out of body experience. It felt a lot like when you watch your finished vid back through and make sure everything lines up where you want it. So many things about this vid felt just like I would've done it. Or, as a viewer, everything was right where I wanted to see it. It was uncanny. I'd never experienced that before at this level. Of course, this vid was also a lot better than anything I'd ever done, so I'm not saying we're twins or anything, or that I could've made this vid myself. But here was a vid that showed me, again, what is possible for my vidding based on what I like to do with motion, cutting, pacing, music, visuals, etc. Here was a vid that validated my instincts and said, "yes, keep doing what you're doing, because you're not alone in thinking that it's awesome." Here was a vid I could have a real conversation with after one viewing because we got each other. It was like a big sister to my vids, one I recognized and wanted to emulate. This became a big benchmark of what I wanted my vidding to be. I was moving more and more into the realm of action vidding, and this vid proved to me that my heart wanted desperately to be a part of it. It's safe to say that Learn to Crawl owes much to Wasteland, as does Narrow Escape and several of my other vids. I owe this vid -- and this vidder -- a lot. Finding this vid felt like coming home.