Interview Series 2010: Fabella
Additional questions, as well as discussion is welcome in the comment section; however, the interviewed vidders are under no obligation to respond, or to respond in a timely manner. Any questions on additional interviews or the up-coming Meta Series can be directed to me at death_is_your_art (at) yahoo (dot) ca.
Vidding name: Fabella
Vidding since: Childhood, but officially since 2005.
First vid and source: Unknown, Stargate SG-1
Most recent vid and source: "Dead Sharks Don't Swim," The OC
Total number of vids to date: 42+
Vid Links: LJ tag
How did you get started? Were you taught by someone or did you start on your own?
I started completely independent of vidding fandom. I'm positive that I've told this story a hundred times, but long before I even knew what a vid was or had ventured onto the internet, I started to vid in a somewhat unique and difficult method. My tools were videotapes, a camcorder, a television, a tripod, and a cdplayer to create vids. I think I was, oh, maybe nine years old. It required a lot of running back and forth. I would know what scene I wanted for each second, and have found it on the video tape, have the camcorder set up and focused on the television, play a clip with the music in the background while recording with the camcorder. And then, after all of the running around, stopping, playing, pausing, etc, I would re-record onto a different VHS tape the whole video segment, to the song, without the jerky pauses. It was... an imperfect system, admittedly, but I toiled away a lot of homework time that way. I made mostly X-Files vids to Sarah McLachlan songs. When I discovered vidding online, I knew I had to figure out how it had been done.
When did you realize that "Hey I enjoy this whole vidding thing, and I might be pretty decent at it"?
Almost immediately when I discovered vidding online, in 2005, it began to get in the way of my writing. That's when I realized how much I enjoyed it. It wasn't until later that I would realize how much it had always been a part of my life, and associate my childhood videos with vidding until later. I think I'm only just coming to terms with the fact that "I might be pretty decent at it".
Do different things tend to trigger your desire to make a vid, or does it tend to be something similar each time? What's your main source of inspiration?
Each time, I'm triggered by a feeling. I know that sounds so deliberately obscure, but I can narrow it down to a *denied* feeling, something I need to express that I feel I haven't seen before, or seen enough of, to feed my own desire. Whether that be in the show, in the fandom, or another form, what I vid somehow was not there for me. Supernatural may have thousands of vids at this point, but there are still hungers left for me, and that is why it remains viddable to me.
Once you have been inspired, what's the first aspect of a vid that comes to you? Is it the visuals of the source? The song edit? The colors? Something else?
What comes to me first in the process of creating a vid are certain lyric/visual combos, perhaps what drew me to the song in the first place. Its those lyric connection with clips where I might have said 'aha! this song belongs to this source." Beyond that, I think I always begin a vid knowing that there are a few key scenes I absolutely MUST include to make my point, solidify my narrative, whatever the goal of the video is, scenes that I must find room for whether the lyrics specifically call for them or not. It is in that way that I balance the control the song has over the idea, and try to create a solid video that isn't dependent on lyric interpretation.
What factors contribute to the design decisions when creating titles for your vids? Are they determined just from qualities inherent to the source or are there outside influences?
I go back and fourth on creating titles. Sometimes I get fancy, other times I stick with plain. When I do get creative, the title must in some way connect visually to the vid, through effects, colors, or theme.
What motivates the use of effects? Are they part of the pre-vid planning process, or are they decided upon when the vid is in-progress? Does it come naturally or is it something you work for?
Effects are in-progress tools that I use. I never plan a video's effects before the video is solidly on the way. It is story over effects for me, as a vidder, though I think effects can be as important, especially with a new generation to whom effects within vidding are as much a part of the vidding language as narrative structure. I hope that I manage to balance story AND effects, because that is always my goal. Because effects do not come naturally to me, I build my story first, and then turn to effects after, as a sort of 'enunciation' to what I'm saying... Doing it this way, once I have clips down that I know I'm going to keep, saves me from struggling through effects that I might have done away with entirely by deleting a clip.
What's your favorite part of vidding? What's fun about it for you?
My favorite part of vidding is SEEING it. The creation part, I guess, would be another way to phrase it. Putting together clips with music and other scenes that would have otherwise never shared a three minutes space... I think it can open eyes to new ideas and feelings. It brings the source alive in a completely different way than it previously was. That is definitely my favorite part.
What has been your single most rewarding moment as a vidder?
I would have to say that my most rewarding moment was being given the VVC scholarship in 2008, getting that help to attend Vivicon when I truly never would have gone otherwise. It opened me up to the reality of my audience, and the reality of other vidders. When I say that, I mean I lost a lot of my fear of them and could begin to really respect them vs. blinding idolizing them.
One of the most notable things about your history as a vidder is the number of terrific RPS vids you've made. What draws you to vidding RPS? How's it different from vidding fictional source? And which of your RPS pairings was the most fun to vid?
It's wonderful to hear that I'm notable for this, because I feel like I have to amp it up during RPS videos, and I think the challenge is what draws me to the source. I feel like it's almost an entirely different medium of visuals to work with, despite being video. I'm drawn, also, by the lack of conventional vidding boundaries. RPS vids require their own set of rules to be solid videos, such as extreme focus on creating context, and it's like learning a new language to discover what those rules are going to be. The difference between RPS vidding and fictional source is largely the type of source you, as an artist, are going to be working with. There is less dynamic footage in much of RPS vids (though sometimes the footage can be amazing! Music Video footage for band/muscian rps vids can be tremendously appealing) which means the vidder has to try really hard to avoid being static and bland. In some ways, I think there is a lot more freedom in vidding RPS, because as much as it's based on real people, it's more fictional than fictional sources, which have context, and characters with known backgrounds and seasonal arcs. Much of RPS is based off of interviews, and the audience is mostly unlikely to be familiar with every interview ever or the same interviews as the vidder. It's vidding a narrative from scratch.
My favorite RPS pairing to vid for was definitely Justin & JC of *Nsync. There was a ridiculous amount of source, much of it containing exciting motion and bright colors, and it basically hadn't been explored before, so there weren't tired clips that I had to force myself not to use. I could basically do what I want. Plus! I got to appropriately vid *Nsync songs, which just doesn't work in most other circumstances, I'm sorry to say.
Which two or three of your vids would you point to as your most significant attempts to push yourself or try something new?
Documentary
I chose this because I attempted RPS vidding seriously, here.
Heartless
I chose this because I attempted to mix up my vidding style visually.
The Boy Was A Puppet
I chose this because I think it was the first video where I really... got it. I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. I worked really hard to make it solid.
What two or three things about vids and vidding do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
a) I wish I'd known more about aspect ratio.
b) I wish I'd thought more about motion, and how one clip could continue into another clip, and change how the audience sees that clip.
c) I wish I'd learned pacing. In my opinion, choosing not to vary clip length according the audio and visual cues can break a solid video.
Are there any types of vids that you won't vid and why? Along those same lines, is there a music genre you won't vid?
I won't vid about characters I dislike, or vid negatively about those characters. I will vid negatively about characters I like, however, which is... interesting, I guess.
You said in your notes for “POV” that vidding about love, sex and desire was your niche. Do you approach your vids, and these subjects from an intellectual or emotional point of view?
I feel like it's very hard for me to separate the two: intellectual and emotional. If anything, I think a lot of my vids show the rip between thinking and feeling. The dilemma is often what the brain wants goes against what the heart wants. One character knows better, but feels such and such a way. Another character thinks she shouldn't feel such a way, when really, she absolutely should. I'm so confused about how I feel most of the time, and I consider constantly why I feel the way that I do, and I vid in that same mode: how do they feel, why do they feel that way---and yes, it's often about love--romantic, or otherwise.
Other than those mentioned above, are there any themes or patterns that you've noticed in your body of work, or that other people have pointed out to you?
It's been pointed out to me that I'm a color and motion editor, and it's true. If I haven't tweaked the colors on a video, or throughout the video, it's definitely on purpose and a conscious decision on my part... made for a reason.
How would you describe your editing style as a whole?
Incidental. Reactionary. I vid how I'm feeling at the moment, even if I'm inspired by a show, or an arc, and even if I have a grand plan, and even when I think very deeply about the video. That plan is influenced and changed by my mood. Half of my videos would be completely different videos had I been in a different emotional state when I vidded them.
How do you feel about audience interpretation vs. original intention? Does it bother you if someone enjoys your vid, but while interpreting it in a way that you never intended or even considered? How big of a role should the audience play in defining a vid?
I'll be honest---it bothers me a little, but only if what I AM trying to say goes completely invisible, because then I think I failed to convey my point. It doesn't bother me if more was gotten from it, or alternate interpretations, or if they flat out think I am wrong. And even the little bit that it bothers me, I recognize that when it leaves my space, the video is being translated through the years of experience each audience member brings to the table; it will never be the same for them as it is for me. Even for me, I will watch the video in a new way each time, shaped by the moment I'm watching it in. I can't expect them to stay within my carefully shaped sandbox if I can't even do the same.
If you had to choose to BE any one of your vids, which would it be and why?
Office Politics, because it is a happy, happy video and it has more of the better pieces of my personality in it than others.
If all but one of your vids are erased from history, never to return (you can't reconstruct them, nor can you get anyone else to do it for you), which one would you keep and why?
I would choose to keep POV, because I feel like that video is the best, most solid video that I have made to date. Also, there is a little mystery remaining to it, a little pretty, and a love story. I want to be represented that way.
As a viewer with vidding experience, is there anything that tends to consistently put you off viewing a vid?
I definitely get annoyed by a lot of clip fragments, floating around. The .03 second clips that you just know the vidder did not intend for the audience to see, with comments like, "but I didn't feel like changing it, hahaha!" Though, hey, I may be guilty of doing the same thing. *shifty eyes* Still, if there are a lot of them, I pretty much cannot watch the vid. And though I will watch and enjoy videos without this, the videos that I end up truly loving have great pacing, mix it up between fast and slow cutting. A vid that is all half to one second clips makes me as tired as vids that are all five second clips.
What direction would you like to see the vidding community going in? Are there things you would like to see more of or less of?
I would like to see more crossover between youtube and livejournal vidders. There is some, but each brings a certain aesthetic to their vids that I enjoy. I'd like to see more mingling between these two groups, and perhaps the adopting of styles.
What direction would you like to see your own vidding go in? What new things would you like to attempt in the future?
I would like to continue to tighten the skills I have, and learn more about the techy side of vidding, the numbers and ratios behind the scenes. I'll put learning effects under that umbrella. I would also like to vid more general character studies in the future. As much as I love being a vidder of romance, sometimes I wish I was not so obsessed with it. In life as in vidding, I suppose.
Vidding name: Fabella
Vidding since: Childhood, but officially since 2005.
First vid and source: Unknown, Stargate SG-1
Most recent vid and source: "Dead Sharks Don't Swim," The OC
Total number of vids to date: 42+
Vid Links: LJ tag
How did you get started? Were you taught by someone or did you start on your own?
I started completely independent of vidding fandom. I'm positive that I've told this story a hundred times, but long before I even knew what a vid was or had ventured onto the internet, I started to vid in a somewhat unique and difficult method. My tools were videotapes, a camcorder, a television, a tripod, and a cdplayer to create vids. I think I was, oh, maybe nine years old. It required a lot of running back and forth. I would know what scene I wanted for each second, and have found it on the video tape, have the camcorder set up and focused on the television, play a clip with the music in the background while recording with the camcorder. And then, after all of the running around, stopping, playing, pausing, etc, I would re-record onto a different VHS tape the whole video segment, to the song, without the jerky pauses. It was... an imperfect system, admittedly, but I toiled away a lot of homework time that way. I made mostly X-Files vids to Sarah McLachlan songs. When I discovered vidding online, I knew I had to figure out how it had been done.
When did you realize that "Hey I enjoy this whole vidding thing, and I might be pretty decent at it"?
Almost immediately when I discovered vidding online, in 2005, it began to get in the way of my writing. That's when I realized how much I enjoyed it. It wasn't until later that I would realize how much it had always been a part of my life, and associate my childhood videos with vidding until later. I think I'm only just coming to terms with the fact that "I might be pretty decent at it".
Do different things tend to trigger your desire to make a vid, or does it tend to be something similar each time? What's your main source of inspiration?
Each time, I'm triggered by a feeling. I know that sounds so deliberately obscure, but I can narrow it down to a *denied* feeling, something I need to express that I feel I haven't seen before, or seen enough of, to feed my own desire. Whether that be in the show, in the fandom, or another form, what I vid somehow was not there for me. Supernatural may have thousands of vids at this point, but there are still hungers left for me, and that is why it remains viddable to me.
Once you have been inspired, what's the first aspect of a vid that comes to you? Is it the visuals of the source? The song edit? The colors? Something else?
What comes to me first in the process of creating a vid are certain lyric/visual combos, perhaps what drew me to the song in the first place. Its those lyric connection with clips where I might have said 'aha! this song belongs to this source." Beyond that, I think I always begin a vid knowing that there are a few key scenes I absolutely MUST include to make my point, solidify my narrative, whatever the goal of the video is, scenes that I must find room for whether the lyrics specifically call for them or not. It is in that way that I balance the control the song has over the idea, and try to create a solid video that isn't dependent on lyric interpretation.
What factors contribute to the design decisions when creating titles for your vids? Are they determined just from qualities inherent to the source or are there outside influences?
I go back and fourth on creating titles. Sometimes I get fancy, other times I stick with plain. When I do get creative, the title must in some way connect visually to the vid, through effects, colors, or theme.
What motivates the use of effects? Are they part of the pre-vid planning process, or are they decided upon when the vid is in-progress? Does it come naturally or is it something you work for?
Effects are in-progress tools that I use. I never plan a video's effects before the video is solidly on the way. It is story over effects for me, as a vidder, though I think effects can be as important, especially with a new generation to whom effects within vidding are as much a part of the vidding language as narrative structure. I hope that I manage to balance story AND effects, because that is always my goal. Because effects do not come naturally to me, I build my story first, and then turn to effects after, as a sort of 'enunciation' to what I'm saying... Doing it this way, once I have clips down that I know I'm going to keep, saves me from struggling through effects that I might have done away with entirely by deleting a clip.
What's your favorite part of vidding? What's fun about it for you?
My favorite part of vidding is SEEING it. The creation part, I guess, would be another way to phrase it. Putting together clips with music and other scenes that would have otherwise never shared a three minutes space... I think it can open eyes to new ideas and feelings. It brings the source alive in a completely different way than it previously was. That is definitely my favorite part.
What has been your single most rewarding moment as a vidder?
I would have to say that my most rewarding moment was being given the VVC scholarship in 2008, getting that help to attend Vivicon when I truly never would have gone otherwise. It opened me up to the reality of my audience, and the reality of other vidders. When I say that, I mean I lost a lot of my fear of them and could begin to really respect them vs. blinding idolizing them.
One of the most notable things about your history as a vidder is the number of terrific RPS vids you've made. What draws you to vidding RPS? How's it different from vidding fictional source? And which of your RPS pairings was the most fun to vid?
It's wonderful to hear that I'm notable for this, because I feel like I have to amp it up during RPS videos, and I think the challenge is what draws me to the source. I feel like it's almost an entirely different medium of visuals to work with, despite being video. I'm drawn, also, by the lack of conventional vidding boundaries. RPS vids require their own set of rules to be solid videos, such as extreme focus on creating context, and it's like learning a new language to discover what those rules are going to be. The difference between RPS vidding and fictional source is largely the type of source you, as an artist, are going to be working with. There is less dynamic footage in much of RPS vids (though sometimes the footage can be amazing! Music Video footage for band/muscian rps vids can be tremendously appealing) which means the vidder has to try really hard to avoid being static and bland. In some ways, I think there is a lot more freedom in vidding RPS, because as much as it's based on real people, it's more fictional than fictional sources, which have context, and characters with known backgrounds and seasonal arcs. Much of RPS is based off of interviews, and the audience is mostly unlikely to be familiar with every interview ever or the same interviews as the vidder. It's vidding a narrative from scratch.
My favorite RPS pairing to vid for was definitely Justin & JC of *Nsync. There was a ridiculous amount of source, much of it containing exciting motion and bright colors, and it basically hadn't been explored before, so there weren't tired clips that I had to force myself not to use. I could basically do what I want. Plus! I got to appropriately vid *Nsync songs, which just doesn't work in most other circumstances, I'm sorry to say.
Which two or three of your vids would you point to as your most significant attempts to push yourself or try something new?
Documentary
I chose this because I attempted RPS vidding seriously, here.
Heartless
I chose this because I attempted to mix up my vidding style visually.
The Boy Was A Puppet
I chose this because I think it was the first video where I really... got it. I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. I worked really hard to make it solid.
What two or three things about vids and vidding do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
a) I wish I'd known more about aspect ratio.
b) I wish I'd thought more about motion, and how one clip could continue into another clip, and change how the audience sees that clip.
c) I wish I'd learned pacing. In my opinion, choosing not to vary clip length according the audio and visual cues can break a solid video.
Are there any types of vids that you won't vid and why? Along those same lines, is there a music genre you won't vid?
I won't vid about characters I dislike, or vid negatively about those characters. I will vid negatively about characters I like, however, which is... interesting, I guess.
You said in your notes for “POV” that vidding about love, sex and desire was your niche. Do you approach your vids, and these subjects from an intellectual or emotional point of view?
I feel like it's very hard for me to separate the two: intellectual and emotional. If anything, I think a lot of my vids show the rip between thinking and feeling. The dilemma is often what the brain wants goes against what the heart wants. One character knows better, but feels such and such a way. Another character thinks she shouldn't feel such a way, when really, she absolutely should. I'm so confused about how I feel most of the time, and I consider constantly why I feel the way that I do, and I vid in that same mode: how do they feel, why do they feel that way---and yes, it's often about love--romantic, or otherwise.
Other than those mentioned above, are there any themes or patterns that you've noticed in your body of work, or that other people have pointed out to you?
It's been pointed out to me that I'm a color and motion editor, and it's true. If I haven't tweaked the colors on a video, or throughout the video, it's definitely on purpose and a conscious decision on my part... made for a reason.
How would you describe your editing style as a whole?
Incidental. Reactionary. I vid how I'm feeling at the moment, even if I'm inspired by a show, or an arc, and even if I have a grand plan, and even when I think very deeply about the video. That plan is influenced and changed by my mood. Half of my videos would be completely different videos had I been in a different emotional state when I vidded them.
How do you feel about audience interpretation vs. original intention? Does it bother you if someone enjoys your vid, but while interpreting it in a way that you never intended or even considered? How big of a role should the audience play in defining a vid?
I'll be honest---it bothers me a little, but only if what I AM trying to say goes completely invisible, because then I think I failed to convey my point. It doesn't bother me if more was gotten from it, or alternate interpretations, or if they flat out think I am wrong. And even the little bit that it bothers me, I recognize that when it leaves my space, the video is being translated through the years of experience each audience member brings to the table; it will never be the same for them as it is for me. Even for me, I will watch the video in a new way each time, shaped by the moment I'm watching it in. I can't expect them to stay within my carefully shaped sandbox if I can't even do the same.
If you had to choose to BE any one of your vids, which would it be and why?
Office Politics, because it is a happy, happy video and it has more of the better pieces of my personality in it than others.
If all but one of your vids are erased from history, never to return (you can't reconstruct them, nor can you get anyone else to do it for you), which one would you keep and why?
I would choose to keep POV, because I feel like that video is the best, most solid video that I have made to date. Also, there is a little mystery remaining to it, a little pretty, and a love story. I want to be represented that way.
As a viewer with vidding experience, is there anything that tends to consistently put you off viewing a vid?
I definitely get annoyed by a lot of clip fragments, floating around. The .03 second clips that you just know the vidder did not intend for the audience to see, with comments like, "but I didn't feel like changing it, hahaha!" Though, hey, I may be guilty of doing the same thing. *shifty eyes* Still, if there are a lot of them, I pretty much cannot watch the vid. And though I will watch and enjoy videos without this, the videos that I end up truly loving have great pacing, mix it up between fast and slow cutting. A vid that is all half to one second clips makes me as tired as vids that are all five second clips.
What direction would you like to see the vidding community going in? Are there things you would like to see more of or less of?
I would like to see more crossover between youtube and livejournal vidders. There is some, but each brings a certain aesthetic to their vids that I enjoy. I'd like to see more mingling between these two groups, and perhaps the adopting of styles.
What direction would you like to see your own vidding go in? What new things would you like to attempt in the future?
I would like to continue to tighten the skills I have, and learn more about the techy side of vidding, the numbers and ratios behind the scenes. I'll put learning effects under that umbrella. I would also like to vid more general character studies in the future. As much as I love being a vidder of romance, sometimes I wish I was not so obsessed with it. In life as in vidding, I suppose.