Dear Festividder
Hi, fellow Festividder!
Thank you in advance for making me a thing! <3 I know I will love it, because you are clearly a person of excellent taste, who shares at least one of my somewhat eclectic collection of interests :-) I hope you have an awesome time vidding!
As I've said in previous years, I have no particular vid bunnies for any of these sources, so you should make the vid of your heart that you will have the most fun with. That said, I've found in the past that having some guidance on recipient's tastes/thoughts/feelings has really helped me, so here's some ramblings you can totally ignore if you like:
Music
I'm not fussy about song choice - my favourite artists are an odd mix! Female singer-songwriters with stunning voices feature heavily (Vienna Teng, Regina Spektor, Laura Marling, Florence & the Machine, Marina & the Diamonds, Janelle Monae, Joan Baez, Sinead O'Connor...) but then so do old guys who have basically lost their voices (Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave), folk music (Bellowhead...and anything involving sexy folk violin), strummy-guitar-type people (Paul Simon), indie-rock-type people (The Killers) orchestrally-epic-type people (Muse, Elbow)....basically if it isn't heavy metal or sweary rap I will probably like it. And whilst I love all of the aforementioned artists and would be delighted to have a vidsong by any of them, vids are one of the main ways I discover new artists, so would love to be introduced to someone new! I also really enjoy ridiculous comedy songs in vids.
General vidding thoughts
I love ALL VIDS but am a particular sucker for any of the following in this (non-exhaustive) list: character studies, vids that explore close friendships/romantic relationships, teams and found families, vids with lots of swishy motion, vids with punchy cutting on the beat (or things hitting other things on the beat!), vids that focus on the inherent beauty or imagery in the source, visual parallels (mmmmm parallels...), montages, meta vids, feel-good comedy vids, people laughing/smiling/dancing/hugging/being kind to each other, dorky facial expressions, flaily hands (actually, just hands), the following people's faces - Michael Palin, Aamir Khan, Jeremy Brett, Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai, Anna Chancellor.
Sources
Michael Palin's travel shows (TV series)
This was my only nomination for FV last year, and I fully intend to nominate it every year until someone makes a vid for it. Michael Palin's many and varied travel shows are things of joy and beauty and delight and I looooove hiiiiiiim. <3 A vid celebrating lovely Mr Palin travelling the world, seeing new things, having new experiences, meeting new people, weathering the occasional mishap whilst being a polite, kind, affable, hilarious, ridiculous gentleman - that would amazing! This is the only one I had any vague musical suggestion for - I thought this song could be nice, but feel free to ignore that and go with whatever you would enjoy vidding!
Monty Python's Flying Circus (TV series)
Because comedy vids are the BEST, and I want to be reminded of just how much I love Monty Python. I haven't seen *all of Monty Python ever*, but the 'best of' collections were very important to me as a teenager. Favourite sketches include...well, where to start? The Dead Parrot Sketch, the Cheese Shop Sketch, the Argument Clinic, Novel Writing Live From Wessex, People Falling Past The Window, the Lion Tamer, Upperclass Twit of the Year, Bicycle Repair Man, Vicious Gangs of Old Ladies, The LUMBERJACK SONG (Hi Mr Palin), The Spanish Inquisition, The Ministry of Silly Walks, Highwayman Dennis Moore...and probably about a bajillion others that I've forgotten because I haven't watched them in a long time. I would love a vid that just has fun with the groundbreaking silliness of this show :-)
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (1891 TV series)
More cracky British comedy! DOUGLAS ADAMS! <3 I was introduced to H2G2 first via the books, then via the TV series on VHS, and only came to the radio series much later. Consequently, tiny purplefringe imprinted on this hilariously wobbly TV interpretation quite strongly. (Though I still have no idea how they expected anyone to take Zaphod's second head remotely seriously.) ANYWAY. A vid about Arthur Dent's No Good Very Bad Galactic Holiday would be fab. Or Wacky Fun In Space With Ford, Arthur & Friends! Or, I don't know, a character study of Marvin the Paranoid Android, or even a Guide entry about the TV show itself. Anything! If you have offered this, you are clearly a hoopy frood who knows where your towel is and I love you already.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (aka Granada TV series)
Slightly less cracky but still a TV series about a British cultural icon close to my heart (apparently that's my theme this year) - SHERLOCK HOLMES. I don't think there's much to say here. I love Sherlock Holmes. I love the ACD stories, and I adore the faithfulness with which they are recreated here. But above and beyond the actual plots, I just love HOLMES AND HIS WATSON(s). God, Jeremy Brett is just amazingly beautiful and perfect and his face and his hands and his mannerisms are just...*dreamy sigh*. A celebration of his physicality, or a vid about life at 221B would make me very happy.
The Hour (TV series)
I only watched this show very recently, and it's just captivating. As always, I was more interested in the characters than the unfolding plot, so a character/relationship study would be my preference, over a vid focusing on the intrigue of the various scandals and mysteries. Bel and Freddie. BEL AND FREDDIE OMG. I loved their relationship, in all its nuanced glory - I love them giggling and drunk and dancing and jumping on beds together, I love their lingering stares, their in-jokes, their easy friendship in S1, their more complex longing in S2, their complete inability to admit the thing that is GLARINGLY OBVIOUS between them. I also love them both as individuals, and am particularly interested in Bel's relationships with all of the other women in the show. I love all the female characters, and think there are some really fascinating dynamics between them - and I especially LOVE LOVE LOVE Lix and omg if you want to make a vid entirely about her (and Randall, who is also wonderful) then GO FOR IT because she DESERVES it. (I'm really not a Hector fan, I'm afraid. I mostly found him too boring to care about, until the very end of S2.)
3 Idiots (movie)
And now for something completely different. This film, and the three main characters, give me All Of The Feelings. I love the vibrancy of it, the warmth, the joy, the earnestness, the wacky fun (am a big fan of wacky fun), the Three Musketeers-esque camaraderie between the eponymous idiots, and the heartbreaking sincerity with which the film deals with some truly tragic issues. Any vid that captures all the trust and the joy as well as the deep emotional core of the friendship between Rancho, Farhan and Raju would be wonderful. <3
Lagaan (movie)
As you may be able to tell, I really love Aamir Khan quite a lot...I have no particular ideas for what you could do with this film, but it's beautifully shot and there is some wonderful choreography that might be fun to work into a vid. Whether you choose to focus on the underdog story or the love story between Bhuvan and Gauri - or both! - I really don't mind, because it's all amazing. The only thing I am not so keen on is the unrequited love story between Bhuvan and Elizabeth, so would prefer that not to be the central focus. Elizabeth herself is lovely, but I'm not a fan of love-triangles...
The Sims (game)
I have NO IDEA how you would vid this, so all the points to you if you offered it. A VAST PROPORTION of my childhood/teenage years (as well as basically all my pocket money and later on my babysitting money…) was spent on these games - the Sims 1 and alllll the expansion packs, then the Sims 2 and all THOSE expansions. Oh, and the guide books with all the hints and tips and cheat codes. And on top of that I spent hours downloading additional content (clothes, objects, etc) in the creaky days of dial-up internet. I just...it was all so wacky and fun and ridiculous. I was always way more into creating people than building houses (which apparently makes me weird and different amongst the majority of Sims fans). If you can make any sort of vid at all that captures the weird and wonderful and occasionally traumatic experience of playing the Sims and/or being a Sim, then OMG I AM EXCITED. Obviously, if we match on this fandom and the only version of the game you can work with is the Sims 3 (or 4?! I hear that's a thing now) then that's cool too - it may look more high-tech, but I'm sure it's the same ridiculous experience. <3
Thank you in advance for making me a thing! <3 I know I will love it, because you are clearly a person of excellent taste, who shares at least one of my somewhat eclectic collection of interests :-) I hope you have an awesome time vidding!
As I've said in previous years, I have no particular vid bunnies for any of these sources, so you should make the vid of your heart that you will have the most fun with. That said, I've found in the past that having some guidance on recipient's tastes/thoughts/feelings has really helped me, so here's some ramblings you can totally ignore if you like:
Music
I'm not fussy about song choice - my favourite artists are an odd mix! Female singer-songwriters with stunning voices feature heavily (Vienna Teng, Regina Spektor, Laura Marling, Florence & the Machine, Marina & the Diamonds, Janelle Monae, Joan Baez, Sinead O'Connor...) but then so do old guys who have basically lost their voices (Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave), folk music (Bellowhead...and anything involving sexy folk violin), strummy-guitar-type people (Paul Simon), indie-rock-type people (The Killers) orchestrally-epic-type people (Muse, Elbow)....basically if it isn't heavy metal or sweary rap I will probably like it. And whilst I love all of the aforementioned artists and would be delighted to have a vidsong by any of them, vids are one of the main ways I discover new artists, so would love to be introduced to someone new! I also really enjoy ridiculous comedy songs in vids.
General vidding thoughts
I love ALL VIDS but am a particular sucker for any of the following in this (non-exhaustive) list: character studies, vids that explore close friendships/romantic relationships, teams and found families, vids with lots of swishy motion, vids with punchy cutting on the beat (or things hitting other things on the beat!), vids that focus on the inherent beauty or imagery in the source, visual parallels (mmmmm parallels...), montages, meta vids, feel-good comedy vids, people laughing/smiling/dancing/hugging/being kind to each other, dorky facial expressions, flaily hands (actually, just hands), the following people's faces - Michael Palin, Aamir Khan, Jeremy Brett, Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai, Anna Chancellor.
Sources
Michael Palin's travel shows (TV series)
This was my only nomination for FV last year, and I fully intend to nominate it every year until someone makes a vid for it. Michael Palin's many and varied travel shows are things of joy and beauty and delight and I looooove hiiiiiiim. <3 A vid celebrating lovely Mr Palin travelling the world, seeing new things, having new experiences, meeting new people, weathering the occasional mishap whilst being a polite, kind, affable, hilarious, ridiculous gentleman - that would amazing! This is the only one I had any vague musical suggestion for - I thought this song could be nice, but feel free to ignore that and go with whatever you would enjoy vidding!
Monty Python's Flying Circus (TV series)
Because comedy vids are the BEST, and I want to be reminded of just how much I love Monty Python. I haven't seen *all of Monty Python ever*, but the 'best of' collections were very important to me as a teenager. Favourite sketches include...well, where to start? The Dead Parrot Sketch, the Cheese Shop Sketch, the Argument Clinic, Novel Writing Live From Wessex, People Falling Past The Window, the Lion Tamer, Upperclass Twit of the Year, Bicycle Repair Man, Vicious Gangs of Old Ladies, The LUMBERJACK SONG (Hi Mr Palin), The Spanish Inquisition, The Ministry of Silly Walks, Highwayman Dennis Moore...and probably about a bajillion others that I've forgotten because I haven't watched them in a long time. I would love a vid that just has fun with the groundbreaking silliness of this show :-)
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (1891 TV series)
More cracky British comedy! DOUGLAS ADAMS! <3 I was introduced to H2G2 first via the books, then via the TV series on VHS, and only came to the radio series much later. Consequently, tiny purplefringe imprinted on this hilariously wobbly TV interpretation quite strongly. (Though I still have no idea how they expected anyone to take Zaphod's second head remotely seriously.) ANYWAY. A vid about Arthur Dent's No Good Very Bad Galactic Holiday would be fab. Or Wacky Fun In Space With Ford, Arthur & Friends! Or, I don't know, a character study of Marvin the Paranoid Android, or even a Guide entry about the TV show itself. Anything! If you have offered this, you are clearly a hoopy frood who knows where your towel is and I love you already.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (aka Granada TV series)
Slightly less cracky but still a TV series about a British cultural icon close to my heart (apparently that's my theme this year) - SHERLOCK HOLMES. I don't think there's much to say here. I love Sherlock Holmes. I love the ACD stories, and I adore the faithfulness with which they are recreated here. But above and beyond the actual plots, I just love HOLMES AND HIS WATSON(s). God, Jeremy Brett is just amazingly beautiful and perfect and his face and his hands and his mannerisms are just...*dreamy sigh*. A celebration of his physicality, or a vid about life at 221B would make me very happy.
The Hour (TV series)
I only watched this show very recently, and it's just captivating. As always, I was more interested in the characters than the unfolding plot, so a character/relationship study would be my preference, over a vid focusing on the intrigue of the various scandals and mysteries. Bel and Freddie. BEL AND FREDDIE OMG. I loved their relationship, in all its nuanced glory - I love them giggling and drunk and dancing and jumping on beds together, I love their lingering stares, their in-jokes, their easy friendship in S1, their more complex longing in S2, their complete inability to admit the thing that is GLARINGLY OBVIOUS between them. I also love them both as individuals, and am particularly interested in Bel's relationships with all of the other women in the show. I love all the female characters, and think there are some really fascinating dynamics between them - and I especially LOVE LOVE LOVE Lix and omg if you want to make a vid entirely about her (and Randall, who is also wonderful) then GO FOR IT because she DESERVES it. (I'm really not a Hector fan, I'm afraid. I mostly found him too boring to care about, until the very end of S2.)
3 Idiots (movie)
And now for something completely different. This film, and the three main characters, give me All Of The Feelings. I love the vibrancy of it, the warmth, the joy, the earnestness, the wacky fun (am a big fan of wacky fun), the Three Musketeers-esque camaraderie between the eponymous idiots, and the heartbreaking sincerity with which the film deals with some truly tragic issues. Any vid that captures all the trust and the joy as well as the deep emotional core of the friendship between Rancho, Farhan and Raju would be wonderful. <3
Lagaan (movie)
As you may be able to tell, I really love Aamir Khan quite a lot...I have no particular ideas for what you could do with this film, but it's beautifully shot and there is some wonderful choreography that might be fun to work into a vid. Whether you choose to focus on the underdog story or the love story between Bhuvan and Gauri - or both! - I really don't mind, because it's all amazing. The only thing I am not so keen on is the unrequited love story between Bhuvan and Elizabeth, so would prefer that not to be the central focus. Elizabeth herself is lovely, but I'm not a fan of love-triangles...
The Sims (game)
I have NO IDEA how you would vid this, so all the points to you if you offered it. A VAST PROPORTION of my childhood/teenage years (as well as basically all my pocket money and later on my babysitting money…) was spent on these games - the Sims 1 and alllll the expansion packs, then the Sims 2 and all THOSE expansions. Oh, and the guide books with all the hints and tips and cheat codes. And on top of that I spent hours downloading additional content (clothes, objects, etc) in the creaky days of dial-up internet. I just...it was all so wacky and fun and ridiculous. I was always way more into creating people than building houses (which apparently makes me weird and different amongst the majority of Sims fans). If you can make any sort of vid at all that captures the weird and wonderful and occasionally traumatic experience of playing the Sims and/or being a Sim, then OMG I AM EXCITED. Obviously, if we match on this fandom and the only version of the game you can work with is the Sims 3 (or 4?! I hear that's a thing now) then that's cool too - it may look more high-tech, but I'm sure it's the same ridiculous experience. <3