Vividcon vid reviews
Let's see how far through this project I get before giving up, shall we?
I'm not going to try to link to each vid individually; playlists with links can be found here.
Intro: Man, I've watched this three times and I still can't understand all of the lines. The parts that I did understand were funny, though. What have we learned from this, boys and girls? That's right: We have learned to never say Yo Mama to Spock.
Metaphor, by Speranza, Seah, and Margie (multifandom): Sexual metaphors galore. The inclusion of the VVC llamas (and a canonical one!) in this cracked me up. Fannish camelids FTW!
Sea Fever, by here's luck (Slings and Arrows): One of my favorite new vids of the con, maybe my very favorite. This is a beautiful evocation of the warm side of Slings and Arrows, and by extension of the love of artistic creation; it gives me the same feeling the show gives me when, in the last moment, someone rises above and the play comes together.
Fight the Power, by Deejay (mostly Tropic Thunder): Meh. Silly, but didn't do much for me.
All Apologies, by Cappy (Twilight): Edward/Bella. Unfortunately, this particular segment of media fandom overwhelmingly reacts to Twilight with giggles, and so there was a bit of an expectation mismatch with this during the vid show, I think. Really it's a well-made vid, but so far as I can tell not meant to be particularly funny. (There was some debate on that point.)
Grown So Ugly, by Acridnym (Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer): No matter whether he's Angel or Angelus, he's a crappy, crappy boyfriend. I was entertained by this vid. Oh, Angel, you try so hard, and yet you can be such an asshole.
We Are, by dragonchic (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles): I enjoyed this as a MY SHOW! vid. I don't know that I got out of it what I was supposed to, though; my main thinky reaction is "wow, I'm pretty sure this is a vid of that show a whole lot of people seemed to complain about TSCC not being." Which is not a slam on the vid! I'm just kind of amused by that. Things go boom with great enthusiasm. (If I had to make a wild guess based on lyrics, I'd go for "collateral damage," but that doesn't really work for me with the visuals, so.)
Cassandra, by hellpenguin (Merlin): By no means the most smoothly made of the Merlin vids I saw--not all of the source matches, for one thing--but for all of that it's the only one of them that stuck with me. (I've never seen Merlin.) Morgana, who dreams and loses.
(The "blonde bursting into flames on the ceiling" seen-most-times-clip of the con, incidentally, was "Uther signals for someone's head to be cut off." On the plus side, Anthony Stewart Head makes an attractive Uther, so I shouldn't complain.)
Hard Sun, by bradcpu and Laura Shapiro (Firefly and fandom): This vid got a mixed reaction at the con; a lot of people found it puzzling, or in a few cases got it but didn't particularly like the execution. I liked it a lot; I read it as, basically, "we love our fandom and take it through the day with us," and not as a vid about Firefly qua Firefly at all. It could've been any show (though I think Firefly was a particularly workable choice for several reasons, among them that the show itself is about travel, and that the show inspired a certain, uh, devotion).
Meta vids are risky. As soon as they say "us," I'm evaluating whether or not I agree, and if I don't a big wall comes down between me and the vid. This us felt like me, though, and so I felt connected to it instead, even though Firefly isn't a show I was ever fannish about.
See the USA (In Your Chevrolet) by Carol S. (Supernatural): Hee hee hee cute. The black-and-white makes it.
Pretty When You Cry by diannelamerc (Dollhouse): Quite successfully creepy, though I'm not sure about the wallpaper.
Mad About You by gwyneth (Mad Men): Femininity as a weapon and a vulnerability, both. I don't watch the show, but know enough about the general plot (and which woman is which) to be able to follow the vid just fine, and I really liked it.
Learn to Crawl by jarrow (Battlestar Galactica (2003)): A vid about Kat and her relationship with Starbuck; definitely slashy, though it could be read as gen pretty easily. I always liked Kat, partly because for some time she was one of the only secondary pilots whose name and face I could keep straight, but also because she backed up Starbuck's role, in a way; Starbuck wasn't the only pushy female fighter jock in the fleet. So I was pleased to see that this was a vid about her, and I enjoyed it.
(As a side note, Premieres was, sadly, pretty white. Of thirty-seven vids, two focused on PoC and three more had PoC in prominent roles. Not something the concom can do anything about--people submit what they submit--but I hope next year is better.)
Sleeping with Ghosts by butterfly (Star Trek TOS and movies): Spock and Kirk, circling back around to each other over and over again. I thought the vidder did a good job matching the older source, which was professional and thus presumably much clearer originally, with the much grainier source from the reboot, and I enjoyed this as a classic hits of Kirk/Spock vid. I might have cut it off a little bit earlier, though.
It Comes and Goes in Waves by M'lyn and Jo (Varg Veum movies): So before premieres I suggested, mostly humorously, that this vid's source was going to turn out to be Finnish. As it happens, it's actually Norwegian; after Premieres I was explaining the Finnish thing, and upon being asked how one could tell the difference between Finnish and Norwegian, another person in the conversation came up with "Quenya's based on it" at the same time I did. So, uh, we're geeks.
Anyway! A well put together vid about a Norwegian detective around whom it is apparently not safe to be a woman. (Through, so far as I can tell, no fault of his own.) It doesn't particularly make me want to seek out the source--procedurals, meh--but I do kind of want to visit Norway now.
Turn Around by lizbetann (Bones): An affectionate gross-out. The increasingly disgusting skulls did make me laugh, though I think it probably would have been a better vid at half the length.
Marble House by hollywoodgrrl (Doctor Who): If this were something about which I was fannish, I probably would have adored it. I still like it quite a bit; it's the story of Martha and John Smith in 1913, the tragedy of what is experienced and lost, and, in the end, of the Doctor walking away. Dancing, even.
I do love the beginning so so much--it's gorgeous.
Video Killed the Radio Star by Dualbunny (The Wizard of Oz): Yeah I don't know. Apparently this is a Wicked vid, except it uses footage from the movie? So I didn't really get much out of it other than "ooo, pretty." It is awfully pretty, though. The colors, wow.
American Tune by Greensilver (The West Wing): This actually got me more in the original viewing than it did in this second one, but I still feel a little sniffly when the nominating convention shows up. For lo, I am become cynical, but apparently not that cynical. (I react the same way to the Fourth of July.) Ensemble, series-wide.
Make Your Own Kind of Music by Barkley (Multifandom): Aww, fannish shows! We love you an awful lot. Well, Barkley does. I only love some of you. Shh, don't tell.
I'm not going to try to link to each vid individually; playlists with links can be found here.
Intro: Man, I've watched this three times and I still can't understand all of the lines. The parts that I did understand were funny, though. What have we learned from this, boys and girls? That's right: We have learned to never say Yo Mama to Spock.
Metaphor, by Speranza, Seah, and Margie (multifandom): Sexual metaphors galore. The inclusion of the VVC llamas (and a canonical one!) in this cracked me up. Fannish camelids FTW!
Sea Fever, by here's luck (Slings and Arrows): One of my favorite new vids of the con, maybe my very favorite. This is a beautiful evocation of the warm side of Slings and Arrows, and by extension of the love of artistic creation; it gives me the same feeling the show gives me when, in the last moment, someone rises above and the play comes together.
Fight the Power, by Deejay (mostly Tropic Thunder): Meh. Silly, but didn't do much for me.
All Apologies, by Cappy (Twilight): Edward/Bella. Unfortunately, this particular segment of media fandom overwhelmingly reacts to Twilight with giggles, and so there was a bit of an expectation mismatch with this during the vid show, I think. Really it's a well-made vid, but so far as I can tell not meant to be particularly funny. (There was some debate on that point.)
Grown So Ugly, by Acridnym (Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer): No matter whether he's Angel or Angelus, he's a crappy, crappy boyfriend. I was entertained by this vid. Oh, Angel, you try so hard, and yet you can be such an asshole.
We Are, by dragonchic (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles): I enjoyed this as a MY SHOW! vid. I don't know that I got out of it what I was supposed to, though; my main thinky reaction is "wow, I'm pretty sure this is a vid of that show a whole lot of people seemed to complain about TSCC not being." Which is not a slam on the vid! I'm just kind of amused by that. Things go boom with great enthusiasm. (If I had to make a wild guess based on lyrics, I'd go for "collateral damage," but that doesn't really work for me with the visuals, so.)
Cassandra, by hellpenguin (Merlin): By no means the most smoothly made of the Merlin vids I saw--not all of the source matches, for one thing--but for all of that it's the only one of them that stuck with me. (I've never seen Merlin.) Morgana, who dreams and loses.
(The "blonde bursting into flames on the ceiling" seen-most-times-clip of the con, incidentally, was "Uther signals for someone's head to be cut off." On the plus side, Anthony Stewart Head makes an attractive Uther, so I shouldn't complain.)
Hard Sun, by bradcpu and Laura Shapiro (Firefly and fandom): This vid got a mixed reaction at the con; a lot of people found it puzzling, or in a few cases got it but didn't particularly like the execution. I liked it a lot; I read it as, basically, "we love our fandom and take it through the day with us," and not as a vid about Firefly qua Firefly at all. It could've been any show (though I think Firefly was a particularly workable choice for several reasons, among them that the show itself is about travel, and that the show inspired a certain, uh, devotion).
Meta vids are risky. As soon as they say "us," I'm evaluating whether or not I agree, and if I don't a big wall comes down between me and the vid. This us felt like me, though, and so I felt connected to it instead, even though Firefly isn't a show I was ever fannish about.
See the USA (In Your Chevrolet) by Carol S. (Supernatural): Hee hee hee cute. The black-and-white makes it.
Pretty When You Cry by diannelamerc (Dollhouse): Quite successfully creepy, though I'm not sure about the wallpaper.
Mad About You by gwyneth (Mad Men): Femininity as a weapon and a vulnerability, both. I don't watch the show, but know enough about the general plot (and which woman is which) to be able to follow the vid just fine, and I really liked it.
Learn to Crawl by jarrow (Battlestar Galactica (2003)): A vid about Kat and her relationship with Starbuck; definitely slashy, though it could be read as gen pretty easily. I always liked Kat, partly because for some time she was one of the only secondary pilots whose name and face I could keep straight, but also because she backed up Starbuck's role, in a way; Starbuck wasn't the only pushy female fighter jock in the fleet. So I was pleased to see that this was a vid about her, and I enjoyed it.
(As a side note, Premieres was, sadly, pretty white. Of thirty-seven vids, two focused on PoC and three more had PoC in prominent roles. Not something the concom can do anything about--people submit what they submit--but I hope next year is better.)
Sleeping with Ghosts by butterfly (Star Trek TOS and movies): Spock and Kirk, circling back around to each other over and over again. I thought the vidder did a good job matching the older source, which was professional and thus presumably much clearer originally, with the much grainier source from the reboot, and I enjoyed this as a classic hits of Kirk/Spock vid. I might have cut it off a little bit earlier, though.
It Comes and Goes in Waves by M'lyn and Jo (Varg Veum movies): So before premieres I suggested, mostly humorously, that this vid's source was going to turn out to be Finnish. As it happens, it's actually Norwegian; after Premieres I was explaining the Finnish thing, and upon being asked how one could tell the difference between Finnish and Norwegian, another person in the conversation came up with "Quenya's based on it" at the same time I did. So, uh, we're geeks.
Anyway! A well put together vid about a Norwegian detective around whom it is apparently not safe to be a woman. (Through, so far as I can tell, no fault of his own.) It doesn't particularly make me want to seek out the source--procedurals, meh--but I do kind of want to visit Norway now.
Turn Around by lizbetann (Bones): An affectionate gross-out. The increasingly disgusting skulls did make me laugh, though I think it probably would have been a better vid at half the length.
Marble House by hollywoodgrrl (Doctor Who): If this were something about which I was fannish, I probably would have adored it. I still like it quite a bit; it's the story of Martha and John Smith in 1913, the tragedy of what is experienced and lost, and, in the end, of the Doctor walking away. Dancing, even.
I do love the beginning so so much--it's gorgeous.
Video Killed the Radio Star by Dualbunny (The Wizard of Oz): Yeah I don't know. Apparently this is a Wicked vid, except it uses footage from the movie? So I didn't really get much out of it other than "ooo, pretty." It is awfully pretty, though. The colors, wow.
American Tune by Greensilver (The West Wing): This actually got me more in the original viewing than it did in this second one, but I still feel a little sniffly when the nominating convention shows up. For lo, I am become cynical, but apparently not that cynical. (I react the same way to the Fourth of July.) Ensemble, series-wide.
Make Your Own Kind of Music by Barkley (Multifandom): Aww, fannish shows! We love you an awful lot. Well, Barkley does. I only love some of you. Shh, don't tell.