Interview Series 2011: Gianduja Kiss
Until the 25th I'll be posting the results of the Interview Series, with a different vidder featured every second night. All questions posed to the vidders were submitted by you, the members of the community; and though several questions were addressed to all vidders taking part, there are a few specific to each individual vidder as well.
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 Series as a whole can be directed to me at death_is_your_art (at) yahoo (dot) ca.
Apologies to Gianduja Kiss for posting this so late. I was experiencing technical difficulties.
Vidding name: Gianduja Kiss
Vidding since: 2006
First vid and source: “Undone (The Sweater Song),” Highlander
Most recent vid and source: “End,” X-Men films
Total number of vids to date: 59 (aack!)
Link to vids:
Website: http://www.giandujakiss.com/
LJ: http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/tag/my%20vids
Dreamwidth: http://giandujakiss.dreamwidth.org/tag/my+vids
How did you first become aware of vidding? Were you taught by someone or did you start on your own?
I first became aware of vidding from RivkaT. She explained to me what it was and showed me a couple of vids. I think I reacted like a lot of people do - I didn’t really “get” it at first. I didn’t fully understand how vids communicate, and a lot of the ones I saw weren’t for sources/pairings that I felt fannish about, so they didn’t grab me emotionally.
But then I saw some vids for pairings and fandoms I was fannish about - at the time, it was Duncan/Methos, Starsky/Hutch, and I think maybe a bit of Buffy/Spike and Faith/Wesley. And those really packed a punch for me. Suddenly I was obsessed and seeking out anything I could find, at least for those ‘ships. Killa’s and Luminosity’s Highlander vids in particular made me fall in love with the medium.
So, naturally, I started thinking of all kinds of songs that would work for my preferred fandoms/pairings, and then I longed to see those vids, and finally when it got to be too much I snapped and bought Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 (and then realized I needed an external hard drive, so I had to run out and buy that as well), and … here I am. Still with Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, but a whole lot more hard drives.
No one really “taught” me how to vid; I don’t interact with other vidders much in real life, and online I’ll get the occasional technical help on something specific, but mostly I just sort of try to figure out what I need to know on my own.
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?
For a while, I was mostly driven to vid by love for particular ‘ships. These days, though, different things trigger the desire to make a vid. Sometimes I’m interested in a pairing or a character and I’ll try, with varying degrees of effort, to find a song that fits. Most of the time a song will just strike me as viddable, and either it will just seem perfect for a fandom/character/pairing, or I’ll mull it for a while and see if I can come up with an idea that fits the song. So I guess my main sources of inspiration are songs themselves, or pairings that I feel passionately about. And other vids, of course - when I see a very good vid, it’s emotionally moving, and I respond to that by itching to dive into the same source.
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?
Generally the first thing that comes to me is a match of lyrics and source, or a basic sense of vid structure, the story I want to tell. Often I know I want to vid something because a particular lyric/source match occurs to me and it works so well in my head that I have to see it realized. Like, A Little Less Conversation - I had vague ideas for it that I was kicking around, but when the aborted Mulder/Scully kiss occurred to me for that spot in the song at 2:58, I actually started laughing out loud, rushed home, and completed the vid in … oh, probably not more than a few days or a week. (I took a lot less time on each vid back when I was just getting started.) For Wounded, I think it was the structure that first occurred to me - juxtaposing Season 4 Hutch in the slower parts of the song with earlier seasons of a happier Starsky & Hutch in the faster parts of the song, to show how Hutch has changed and how much Starsky misses what they once had.
How about your preferred editorial process? Is it highly regimented, chaotic, or an organic process?
It’s actually pretty regimented now. I create a project and then I create multiple scrap timelines for different types of clips that I think I’ll need for the song. Like, a Supernatural vid might have a scrap timeline for general action, one for John and Mary, one for the boys gazing at each other, one for angels and demons, one for Winchester angst, one for religious symbols, etc, all modified of course to fit whatever my plan is for the vid as a whole. I put all the source on a hard drive, and then I review all of it in my editing program, episode by episode. I clip any scenes that I think might be useful for the vid and I store them in the appropriate timeline. When I’ve completed my review of the source, I then choose clips from the scrap timelines to construct the vid. If I make multiple vids from the same source, I can sometimes reuse the scrap, but often I find that I’m looking for different things in each vid, so scrap from one vid isn’t necessarily all that helpful for another vid even if it’s the same fandom, or the same pairing.
Are there any books, websites, magazines, or other resources that you've used during vidding?
Not really. I usually use dafont.com for fonts for my credits, and once I went searching - unsuccessfully, sadly - for some stock footage to use in a vid, but I think that’s it.
What is your planning process like? Do you visualize with storyboard drawings, write out notes, or something else? Do you start with the music/lyrics/concept/atmosphere?
Most of the time it starts with a song inspiration - occasionally there’s just a song I like that I want to find a vid for, but more commonly a song just suddenly occurs to me as fitting a particular fandom or pairing or vid concept. Sometimes there’s a burst of inspiration and I start vidding right away, but usually, I kick it around for a while, come up with ideas for particular sections of the song, maybe map out a basic structure, before I even open the editing software. In this early stage I’m generally not writing notes; just visualizing. The vid Hard Sun captures it well, for me, actually - I have an mp3 player where I put vidding songs, and I listen to it when I go running; and I mentally vid as I go along. And when the idea is clear enough in my head, that’s when I’ll sit down and actually begin the process on my computer.
Once I’m actually vidding, I’ll often take notes - I’ll have the lyrics out and I’ll mark down ideas for different sections of the song, write down certain images I want to remember to use, etc.
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’m so terrible at titles it’s embarrassing. I only use Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 for vidding - which obviously is a program that’s now several years old - and between the limitations of the software and my own complete lack of technical skills, there’s really very little that I know how to do with titles. Most of the time these days I just try to make them as inconspicuous as possible so that they aren’t actively horrible.
To what degree is your approach to vidding clinical and at what point does it become emotional for you?
It varies a lot with the vid inspiration. Some vids start out straight from my heart, and for some I’m more detached right from the start, where the idea is more of an intellectual than an emotional one. For the more emotional vids, generally there’s nothing that can make the process of reviewing and clipping footage into anything but drudgery, except for very brief moments when I hit an exceptionally emotional scene. (Like, I find it actually painful to clip Sam’s death at the end of SPN Season 2). But the more I put clips on the timeline, the more I can see the vid, or sections of it taking shape, the more I connect with it emotionally, to the point where there’s a drive to finish it just because I want to see what happens, like it’s a half-completed story where I won’t know the ending until I actually create it.
What brings you the most satisfaction about vidding? Seeing the final piece onscreen? Or is it the process?
There are particular points in the process that can be immensely satisfying - like, when I create a sequence that comes together just the way I want it - I can get caught up in rewatching it and not working on the rest of the vid :-). The finished product is rarely quite as satisfying because it will almost never live up to the ideal I have in my mind. I watch and see what I did well, but I also see all the places where I know I wasn’t able to make it work perfectly.
Out of all of your vids, which makes you the happiest? Your vids capture fannish joy, for me, and I'm curious which one makes you the most joyful, and why. I'm not talking about which one you're proudest of, but which one makes you purely happy?
Church. I’m not as invested in Buffy as I once was, of course, but for a long time I was very in love with the Buffyverse, and when I go back and rewatch every now and then, it still manages to inspire glee. And of course, between the two shows, the ‘verse is really quite vast. So Church was my attempt to vid my joy in the source, and at least give a sense of the scope of the show - and like pretty much everything I’ve ever vidded, I think it could be better and there are a lot of things I wish I could improve, but it’s close enough that it makes me happy when I rewatch it.
What has been your single most rewarding moment as a vidder?
I don’t think I have any “single” moments. My most rewarding moments, I think, are when I get a juicy bit of feedback where the viewer saw exactly what I was going for, exactly the point I was trying to make or the character interpretation I was trying to convey - or, conversely, where the viewer saw some meaning in the vid that I didn’t necessarily consciously intend, but when I go back and rewatch turns out to really be there. I love knowing that my vids have an impact on people, and I love it when a viewer can show me something new about them.
On the opposite side, do you feel like you've ever failed at executing a vid idea, why?
All. The. Time. There are several vids where I feel like the final product didn’t live up to the inspiration, although I’m not naming any names. As to why? Oh, probably a combination of factors. Sometimes there just wasn’t the footage available to execute the idea, or at the very least, I couldn’t figure out how to use the footage I had. A lot of the time I feel I didn’t really take advantage of the song style and match my editing to suit it, either because I rushed through it or because my reach exceeded my grasp.
What was the hardest vid (for whatever reason--technical, emotional, timing, etc.) that you have made? How did you persevere? Were you happy with it in the end?
Well, on the most basic level, my first two vids were the most difficult because I was still struggling with the software, obtaining the source, etc. But I’m assuming you’re looking for a better answer so -
Two vids come to mind: Origin Stories and The Pioneers. Both were the ideas of other people - I don’t know if that made them harder, but it certainly put a lot more pressure on me to get them “right.” In both of them, I was trying to convey fairly complex ideas, and both of them posed technical challenges. In Origin Stories, I was really trying to advance my techniques for cutting and manipulating clips - when I made it, I’d really only just started to play around with using the editing itself as a type of storytelling tool, rather than relying on the content of clips alone. And The Pioneers used some difficult layering. As for happy with them in the end? I’m definitely happy that for both of them, the ideas seemed to come through - gauging by viewer comments, a lot of people understood them, and since that had been my big concern, I was really glad to see that. Especially with Origin Stories; there was so much there to Thuvia’s concept, and my highest priority was to make sure it all came across.
However, as between the two of them, I think I’m more satisfied with The Pioneers, even though Origin Stories is obviously one of my most “famous” vids. With Origin Stories, whenever I rewatch it, I’m forever seeing the flaws and the little things I wish I’d done differently. But with The Pioneers, I feel more that I accomplished what I wanted to.
Are there vids that you have ideas for that you're putting off vidding? What are your reasons for not making it?
I do have several ideas in the wings, and I delay for a bunch of different reasons. Sometimes, I just don’t feel the idea is fully baked yet - I have a general sense of something that would be fun but I haven’t winnowed it down enough to a specific enough concept. Other ideas are just kind of massive and intimidating and would require reviewing a lot of footage, and I am not always up to diving into that kind of project. And in some cases, I have ideas for shows that are still airing, and I’m waiting to see if certain things happen, plot-wise - for example, on White Collar, if Kate turns out to be alive, I have totally got the vid ready. For Supernatural, well, I’ve been sitting on an end-of-show vid idea for a couple of years now; as soon as I hear that it’s in its last season, I’ll get cracking.
Do you have any project idea that were never used that you would like to share with us?
Heh. Not really, because even vids I’ve stalled out on, I keep hoping inspiration will strike and I’ll pick it up again. Or maybe use the idea in another fandom. Like, Hell of a Place took over a year to vid because I kept getting blocked, dropping it, and coming back to it later.
You've made a number of wonderful multi-fandom vids. Talk a little about how you approach these? I'd love to know how your process works when assembling a vid using lots of sources with tons of clips to choose from.
Honestly, it’s changed over time. I made a bunch of multis back in my earliest days of vidding, and back then, I was a lot less precise about clip choices. I mean, I’d just discovered vidding and every second was like Vid Farr, it was ridiculous - I could barely leave my computer. So for multis, I mostly just raided my DVD collection and grabbed whatever scenes I could think of offhand that fit the concept. It would be an understatement to say that I watch a lot of television, so I was able to assemble them pretty much just based on my existing knowledge of the sources.
Since those days, I haven’t made a lot of multis. Hourglass is my most recent one, but for that, there actually wasn’t a lot of source, because except for Day Break, I only used one episode of each show featured - the entire vid only had maybe 20 hours of source to review, tops. There, I just googled and wiki’ed around until I found sources that would work (I knew some off the top of my head, of course, but for stuff like Andromeda and Medium and Early Edition, I had to Google!), and then reviewed each episode for useful footage.
The Real Slim Shady - if you call that a multi - was another one where I was using sources that I wasn’t familiar with. Basically I just grabbed a bunch of random episodes of the relevant shows - Netflix, or *aheming* -- and maybe fastforwarded through them until I found a couple of clips that would work well; I didn’t even try to review everything.
Which two or three of your vids would you point to as your most significant attempts to push yourself or try something new?
Untitled Holmes Vid Thing and It Depends On What You Pay come immediately to mind. Untitled Holmes Vid Thing is set to an instrumental acoustic piece, and the biggest challenge there was to build a narrative/concept without any lyrics to assist me. I’m proud of it because, judging by the comments, I was pretty successful in getting the idea across. I’d done vids before to songs that with significant instrumental components - One War, Hell of a Place - but this was the first (and only) completely instrumental vid I’ve made.
It Depends on What You Pay also used a new type of music, for me - it’s my only vid set to a show tune, and that was challenging because I think show tunes are tricky in vids. Sometimes when I see a vid set to a show tune, I feel as though the images don’t “meld” well with the music, though I can’t explain why. So for that one, I was pretty focused on making the music and source blend together. And though it certainly wasn’t my first explicitly political vid, it was - and is - definitely my most “in your face” vid, where I had to balance this humor/anger/horror tone that wasn’t like anything I’d done before.
Do you prefer working with older, closed canon sources, or something new, shiny and still expanding?
I don’t know that I have a preference; most of the time I’m just interested in a fandom and it’s not all that much of a concern to me, for vidding purposes, whether the canon is closed. Sometimes open canon is a little stressful - there have been vids (A Charming Man, for example, and What NY Used to Be) where I felt like I was racing to finish the vid before the new season started, because I feared the characters would be developed in a different direction than the vid was taking, and I wanted to finish the vid while my particular interpretation was still current. But, open canons often - not always, obviously - mean newer shows, which also means less source. And that can be a blessing - less source to choose from but hella easier to manage.
What's the biggest challenge you faced in the vid(s) you've made most recently?
My most recent vid is End, for the X-Men films, sort of half Charles/Erik and half Erik character study, and the biggest challenge there was that there isn’t a lot of source but there are lots and lots of vids, some of which I love dearly. Trying to find something new, and, mentally just trying to distinguish “my” ideas from things I had seen in other vids, was very difficult.
Seamstress, which I made before End, was also difficult, but for different reasons. That’s a classic case where the source doesn’t live up to the ideas behind it - the show could do so much more interesting things with Nikita and Alex’s relationship than it actually does. I think that Nikita’s use of Alex is morally questionable, but the show almost goes out of its way to try to absolve Nikita of any moral responsibility. Which meant that a lot of the time the footage I wanted really wasn’t there. And just as a practical matter, Nikita and Alex aren’t even in many scenes together, which also made things difficult.
Can you talk about how the Seamstress vid came to be? Inspiration, execution and how you feel about the final product?
At least during the first season, I always felt that the show was trying too hard to make Nikita completely benevolent toward Alex, constantly stressing that Nikita was trying to keep Alex out of danger and the only reason that Alex was ever in danger or in pain was because Alex insisted on doing dangerous things for her own reasons, over Nikita’s objections. Which is of course ridiculous; given Alex’s youth and vulnerability, and her lack of complete information, there was no way she could make informed choices. So while the show was trying to tell me that Nikita was uncomplicatedly “good,” I always felt that things were much more ambiguous.
I didn’t really intend to vid the show, however, until RivkaT suggested the song. I knew Dessa and I already had that album, but I never made the connection between Seamstress and Nikita. As soon as RivkaT pointed it out, though, I knew it was perfect for Nikita and Alex and would be a great vehicle for illustrating the problematic side of their relationship.
The actual vidding was a bit of a challenge. The show tells us that Nikita trained Alex in various ways, bought her new clothes, fixed her up and really remade her, but for the most part, we don’t actually see that onscreen. And we know that Nikita rescued Alex from a life of drug addiction and prostitution, but that story is told in one episode with a few limited flashbacks. And those were of course the kinds of scenes that were the most critical for the vid.
I also had to make some difficult choices about focus. Nikita actually does a similar fix-up routine on other characters - particularly another random guy from Division who guest-starred in a few episodes, and a CIA guy, and a girl who appeared in one episode and was a friend of Alex’s. I considered expanding the vid’s scope and showing Nikita’s relationships with these other characters, but ultimately decided against it. The song itself draws a very sharp distinction between men and women, and men are only mentioned in one particular spot; I figured that it would be too messy to try to show these other men and Michael in that spot, and since Michael is far more important narratively, it would be weird if I chose to focus on the other men over him. So I stuck with Michael. As for the girl who was a friend of Alex’s, it was sort of a similar problem. If there had been several girls that Nikita treated in the same way, I’d have vidded them as background to compare with Nikita’s relationship with Alex; but since Alex obviously was the most important and the vid was going to be primarily about Nikita and Alex, I thought it would be confusing to show just one other girl who only appeared in one episode. Also, there were practical considerations - the other girl looked a lot like Alex, and in some of the best scenes with her - like, where Nikita knocks her to the ground and gets her in an arm lock - it’s very hard to tell the difference between them. So I chose to leave out these other characters and keep the focus on Nikita and Alex.
So, once I settled on the focus, the issue was trying to illustrate their relationship, which includes both Nikita’s tough-love sort of aggression, and her affection - and because I figured the end of the vid needed to show their separation, I was particularly focused on Alex’s vulnerability to Nikita, her dependence on her, and ultimately her rebellion. So that progression in Alex’s emotions, I think, became the backbone of the vid, as things become more and more intense for her before she finally breaks.
As for how I feel about the final product? I have mixed feelings about it. I think there’s more depth to the Alex/Nikita relationship and Nikita’s characterization that I didn’t capture, and I wish I could have - I think that’s partly due to the limits of my imagination, and partly due to the real limitations of the footage.
Is there a type of music or type of song you find yourself gravitating toward? Why/why not?
I love “big” songs that have a very clear build up to a climax or crescendo; they make constructing a narrative very easy, and of course, they work well with my favorite kind of story, i.e., angst-with-a-happy-ending (see my other answers). And I prefer songs with a faster pace; I always feel uncomfortable vidding slower songs, because I’m just not confident I can hold the viewer’s interest. Some people do them beautifully but more and more, I tend to default to really fast cuts because surely something will catch the viewer’s interest, right?
How does your editing style reflect the music style that you choose for vids? Parallel, contrast, or is your editing style consistent to you and independent of the music used?
I don’t think I’ve really settled on a style; I try to study other vids and learn from them, and that’s an ongoing process. Generally I try to match the music - very quick cuts for fast songs with a rap-like quality; layering for songs that are more … orchestral, where the music itself has lots of layers to it - that kind of thing.
Do you have any tricks when editing audio?
Nope. I edit my audio in Adobe Premiere - I know there are more precise audio editing programs out there but Premiere’s generally worked for me, so I haven’t bothered to learn another program. I guess I’ve found that the most important thing seems to be to keep the beat steady; you can hide a lot of sins as long as you don’t mess up the beat.
Do you feel that your body of work up until this point is a good reflection of you as a person, or only a reflection of your viewing habits and musical collection?
I don’t know if it reflects me as a person so much as it reflects my fannish interests. Like, a lot of my vids are explicitly political or have a meta component (even ones not generally recognized as my “meta” vids often are intended as some kind of commentary on fandom, at least in my own head - End, for example), and anyone who follows my journal knows that I’m very interested in political and meta analysis of pop culture. A lot of my vids are ‘ship focused, and I’m all about the ‘ship - it’s generally what causes me to have a fannish obsession.
Also (as anyone who follows my journal knows) my favorite kinds of fics are angst with a happy ending, the more angst and the more happy-ending, the better, especially when the happy ending is relationship-focused. And I think that comes out in my vids a lot - I often feel like I’m vidding the same story over and over, where the vid focuses on angst and conflict until the characters overcome it and find happiness in each other at the end, either in a romantic way or in a family/companionship way. (All These Things that I’ve Done, Kyrie, One Foot Boy, What a Good Boy, Hell of a Place, Blaze of Glory, Untitled Holmes Vid, One War).
Are there certain vidding techniques that you feel are uniquely your own? Like a certain signature style that you find yourself defaulting to? If so, what would that be?
Heh, see above. I have a huge kink for angst with a happy ending, and I tend to gravitate towards songs that have a big build and crescendo at the end, so that I can show all the conflict and relationship development and then finish it with a string of happy-emotional-bonding scenes. Even when the story of the vid isn’t quite that divided between angst and happy, I still have a tendency to build to a crescendo at the end as the character finds happiness in some new understanding of him/herself (American Music, What NY Used to Be). So if I have a signature, that’s it.
How does your relationship with your vids change over time? Do you generally love your vids more after some time has passed or do you start focusing more on the flaws? Are there early days vids you're embarrassed by now or do you love them as much as when you first posted them?
It varies. I mean, generally when I first post a vid, I’m in love with it - then I watch it a zillion times and soon all I can see are the flaws, and it almost becomes painful to look at, so I’ll stop watching. And then a few months pass, or a year, and I go back and watch it and think “Hey, I guess it’s not so bad after all.” That’s pretty typical.
As for my earliest vids, I’m embarrassed by some of the execution but I still like the idea behind (most of) them - which is why they’re still all online. If I ever reach the point where I don’t even like the inspiration behind something anymore, I’ll probably take it down.
What's your view on remaking vids you've already done? Do you think it's okay to go back change a vid significantly? Or do you think what's done is done?
That’s a bit complicated. When I first started out, I would often make changes to vids after they were released - because I rushed through the initial editing process and suddenly had a new idea, or I developed a new technical skill and I wanted to go back and use it on the vid. These days, I take more time when making a vid, and though I occasionally cannot help myself and will make a teeny change after the initial release, that’s much rarer, and those changes will happen within a day or two of posting.
I’ve never gone back and seriously re-edited an older vid, although I’m constantly tempted to do so and maybe one day I will. As I said in the previous question, I still like the ideas for many of my earlier vids, even if the technical execution makes me cringe. So sometimes I want to go back and improve them. And for multifandom vids, sometimes new source comes along that I’m tempted to integrate into the vid. (I.e., I sort of want to go back and add H50, Rizzoli & Isles, Star Trek Reboot, Merlin, the Protector, and Sherlock BBC to The Real Slim Shady. H50 in particular has a scene where Danny and Steve are watching an episode of ChiPs and fight over which one of them is more like Erik Estrada, and it’s almost physically painful that I don’t have that scene in the vid. And Haven just had a repeating-day episode with several shots that it kills me not to have in Hourglass, including a scene where one character knocks another character out of the path of a speeding car.). But between deletions and computer crashes over the years, I don’t have a lot of the original files for these, so re-editing some of them would be very difficult, even if I got up the energy to do it.
Have you ever changed things in your vid based upon what you thought the audience would want to see? Versus what you liked better?
Not exactly. My conflicts are always about the shot that my id wants to see, versus the shot that I know is better for the vid overall. My id tends to win most of those battles.
Do you utilize a beta? If so, then what do you find most useful in the beta process? How influential is a beta to the final result of a project?
It varies greatly from project to project. These days I always use betas for vids I’m making for someone else, like auction vids - unless I’m running up against a Festivids deadline :-). Beyond that, it depends how I feel about the vid. Sometimes I feel confident that the vid is as good as I can make it - it’s not that I think the vid is “perfect” or couldn’t be improved by someone - it’s more like, for whatever reason, I feel confident that I’ve taken it as far as I’m capable of taking it. Or I feel like I know what the flaws are and I’ve decided to keep them, because I’ve made choices that please me personally even if they’re not perfect for the vid overall, or because I’ve tried the alternatives and I don’t think I’m going to find better options. But a lot of the time, I feel uncertain - I don’t know whether I’ve made the best choices or whether the idea is coming through or whether a particular sequence looks odd - and that’s when I’ll use a beta.
Sometimes, I feel a vid isn’t worth a beta, such as for a vid that’s like - a trifle, something I knocked off quickly, usually because it had a very simple idea and limited source. I almost feel that for those kinds of vids, if I release it with a beta credit, I’m building up expectations that the vid doesn’t warrant. Which is probably silly, I know, but crediting a beta feels a little bit like a representation of polish. And I don’t always feel like bothering to polish. You know, like the vidding equivalent of a fic that’s written in a couple of hours, while you’re riding the train to work or sitting in class, just to get an idea out there or to satisfy an iddish urge.
Have you consistently used the same beta(s) and grown with each other, or have you changed over time to people specific to each project or each stage in your vidding history?
Nothing very consistent. There are a few betas I come back to a lot because I admire them as vidders, and I trust their judgment, and we share the same fandoms, but often I feel like I have different beta needs for different vids. Some vids need a beta who knows the source; for some I might actually prefer someone who doesn’t because I want to see how the vid reads when you don’t know the canon. Some vids I feel I need more technical help, and for some - like It Depends on What You Pay or Senses Working Overtime - I felt I needed a political gut-check.
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?
This is sort of an odd question for me because I don’t really think in those terms; I certainly don’t think in terms of “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts” when it comes to audiences. Let’s just say that except for one or two occasions when I felt like a person walked away with an interpretation that was the opposite of what I intended, I’m generally pleased to see different interpretations of my vids, even interpretations I hadn’t intended. It’s wonderful when people completely “get” what I was going for - it makes me feel like I succeeded in what I set out to do - but it’s equally wonderful to know that a vid can take on its own unique significance even without my conscious intent.
Do you have heroes in the vidding community? Whose recent work has impressed you? Why?
Oh, this is almost an impossible question - there are so many excellent vidders out there, and the answer would probably be the same people who I rec at my journal. I do have to give particular shoutouts to Danegen and Counteragent, though - both of whom have a way of cutting images together that just makes me gasp. Danegen’s helped me so much as a go-to beta, and I’m currently obsessed with her X-Men vid, Perfect Drug. And Counteragent’s meta vids are just brilliant. I also have to mention Lithium Doll, who is not only extraordinary generous with her time (she basically Saved Festivids), but also produces consistently wonderful work. Big City Life is one of my all-time favorite vids; it makes me feel so much that it’s almost painful to watch. But really, just click my vid recs tag because I am so consistently, overwhelmingly impressed by the quality of the work that I see in our community.
Please name one vid that's had a formative influence on you as a vidder and tell us why.
Don’t Panic and Ability to Swing by Luminosity, and In Your Eyes by Killa, all Highlander, are the vids that made me fall in love with vids. So it would have to be those. (Sorry, I can’t limit it to one - I discovered them about the same time!)
Is there any advice that you would give to someone entering into this hobby?
Just the advice that everyone gives - watch a lot of vids, get a real sense of what you like and why. In my experience, there’s a pretty quick learning curve in terms of vid appreciation - what you like when you just discover vids isn’t the same as what you like after you watch a lot of them, and once you’re a more sophisticated vid watcher, you’ll have a better sense of what you want to try to do in your own work.
If you could create the perfect source for all your vidding needs, then what qualities would this source be required to have to make you a happy vidder for eternity?
NO CREDITS OVER PRETTY SCENES. CREDITS ARE RESTRICTED TO BEING PLAYED OVER TALKY-FACE AND STOCK LOCATION FOOTAGE.
Ahem.
Well, there’s technical/pretty stuff - like, a steady supply of action sequences, or at least dramatic scenes that feature the characters interacting with each other physically as well as verbally. Lots of interesting camera movement and a variety of settings. Pretty special effects.
But really, the main thing would be a strong, complex, tension-filled but ultimately extremely loving relationship between two attractive leads - who never actually consummate their love sexually (at least until the end of the show). I find more fertile ground as a fan - both as a vidder and as a voracious fanfic consumer - before the leads get together. So, for example, I made my Mulder/Scully vid Hell of a Place and deliberately omitted the explicitly romantic/sexual scenes between them, because it’s much more fun when I can build the relationship myself. And most of the time - although not all of it - my fannish id is driven by romantic pairings, or at least very strong emotional relationships between two people, even if they aren’t romantic ones. And I always like to vid my id.
What direction would you like to see your own vidding go in? What new things would you like to attempt in the future?
I really need to upgrade my vidding program and look into things like AfterEffects in order to improve my technical skills. Which is a vow I constantly make. A lot of the time I’m happy without using much in the way of effects but every now and then my limited technical skills do interfere with my “vision.” And of course if I have the programs and explore them properly, then I’m sure I’ll conceive of new things to do technically that never occurred to me before. So it’s definitely something I plan to do.
Can you share with us what are you working on now, or what are you pondering?
I may have one more completely indefensible Charles/Erik vid left in me, with a song choice that will likely baffle everyone who doesn’t live in my head. I’m not sure it’ll ever see the light of day, but I’m thinking about it. I’ve also had an idea for a Fringe vid looking at Green!Olivia’s relationship with Red!Olivia for a while, although that one is kind of complex and I don’t know when I’ll have the time to really focus on it. Beyond that, I’m just thinking about Festivids possibilities. And of course, that end-of-series SPN vid will come along someday!
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 Series as a whole can be directed to me at death_is_your_art (at) yahoo (dot) ca.
Apologies to Gianduja Kiss for posting this so late. I was experiencing technical difficulties.
Vidding name: Gianduja Kiss
Vidding since: 2006
First vid and source: “Undone (The Sweater Song),” Highlander
Most recent vid and source: “End,” X-Men films
Total number of vids to date: 59 (aack!)
Link to vids:
Website: http://www.giandujakiss.com/
LJ: http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/tag/my%20vids
Dreamwidth: http://giandujakiss.dreamwidth.org/tag/my+vids
How did you first become aware of vidding? Were you taught by someone or did you start on your own?
I first became aware of vidding from RivkaT. She explained to me what it was and showed me a couple of vids. I think I reacted like a lot of people do - I didn’t really “get” it at first. I didn’t fully understand how vids communicate, and a lot of the ones I saw weren’t for sources/pairings that I felt fannish about, so they didn’t grab me emotionally.
But then I saw some vids for pairings and fandoms I was fannish about - at the time, it was Duncan/Methos, Starsky/Hutch, and I think maybe a bit of Buffy/Spike and Faith/Wesley. And those really packed a punch for me. Suddenly I was obsessed and seeking out anything I could find, at least for those ‘ships. Killa’s and Luminosity’s Highlander vids in particular made me fall in love with the medium.
So, naturally, I started thinking of all kinds of songs that would work for my preferred fandoms/pairings, and then I longed to see those vids, and finally when it got to be too much I snapped and bought Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 (and then realized I needed an external hard drive, so I had to run out and buy that as well), and … here I am. Still with Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, but a whole lot more hard drives.
No one really “taught” me how to vid; I don’t interact with other vidders much in real life, and online I’ll get the occasional technical help on something specific, but mostly I just sort of try to figure out what I need to know on my own.
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?
For a while, I was mostly driven to vid by love for particular ‘ships. These days, though, different things trigger the desire to make a vid. Sometimes I’m interested in a pairing or a character and I’ll try, with varying degrees of effort, to find a song that fits. Most of the time a song will just strike me as viddable, and either it will just seem perfect for a fandom/character/pairing, or I’ll mull it for a while and see if I can come up with an idea that fits the song. So I guess my main sources of inspiration are songs themselves, or pairings that I feel passionately about. And other vids, of course - when I see a very good vid, it’s emotionally moving, and I respond to that by itching to dive into the same source.
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?
Generally the first thing that comes to me is a match of lyrics and source, or a basic sense of vid structure, the story I want to tell. Often I know I want to vid something because a particular lyric/source match occurs to me and it works so well in my head that I have to see it realized. Like, A Little Less Conversation - I had vague ideas for it that I was kicking around, but when the aborted Mulder/Scully kiss occurred to me for that spot in the song at 2:58, I actually started laughing out loud, rushed home, and completed the vid in … oh, probably not more than a few days or a week. (I took a lot less time on each vid back when I was just getting started.) For Wounded, I think it was the structure that first occurred to me - juxtaposing Season 4 Hutch in the slower parts of the song with earlier seasons of a happier Starsky & Hutch in the faster parts of the song, to show how Hutch has changed and how much Starsky misses what they once had.
How about your preferred editorial process? Is it highly regimented, chaotic, or an organic process?
It’s actually pretty regimented now. I create a project and then I create multiple scrap timelines for different types of clips that I think I’ll need for the song. Like, a Supernatural vid might have a scrap timeline for general action, one for John and Mary, one for the boys gazing at each other, one for angels and demons, one for Winchester angst, one for religious symbols, etc, all modified of course to fit whatever my plan is for the vid as a whole. I put all the source on a hard drive, and then I review all of it in my editing program, episode by episode. I clip any scenes that I think might be useful for the vid and I store them in the appropriate timeline. When I’ve completed my review of the source, I then choose clips from the scrap timelines to construct the vid. If I make multiple vids from the same source, I can sometimes reuse the scrap, but often I find that I’m looking for different things in each vid, so scrap from one vid isn’t necessarily all that helpful for another vid even if it’s the same fandom, or the same pairing.
Are there any books, websites, magazines, or other resources that you've used during vidding?
Not really. I usually use dafont.com for fonts for my credits, and once I went searching - unsuccessfully, sadly - for some stock footage to use in a vid, but I think that’s it.
What is your planning process like? Do you visualize with storyboard drawings, write out notes, or something else? Do you start with the music/lyrics/concept/atmosphere?
Most of the time it starts with a song inspiration - occasionally there’s just a song I like that I want to find a vid for, but more commonly a song just suddenly occurs to me as fitting a particular fandom or pairing or vid concept. Sometimes there’s a burst of inspiration and I start vidding right away, but usually, I kick it around for a while, come up with ideas for particular sections of the song, maybe map out a basic structure, before I even open the editing software. In this early stage I’m generally not writing notes; just visualizing. The vid Hard Sun captures it well, for me, actually - I have an mp3 player where I put vidding songs, and I listen to it when I go running; and I mentally vid as I go along. And when the idea is clear enough in my head, that’s when I’ll sit down and actually begin the process on my computer.
Once I’m actually vidding, I’ll often take notes - I’ll have the lyrics out and I’ll mark down ideas for different sections of the song, write down certain images I want to remember to use, etc.
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’m so terrible at titles it’s embarrassing. I only use Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 for vidding - which obviously is a program that’s now several years old - and between the limitations of the software and my own complete lack of technical skills, there’s really very little that I know how to do with titles. Most of the time these days I just try to make them as inconspicuous as possible so that they aren’t actively horrible.
To what degree is your approach to vidding clinical and at what point does it become emotional for you?
It varies a lot with the vid inspiration. Some vids start out straight from my heart, and for some I’m more detached right from the start, where the idea is more of an intellectual than an emotional one. For the more emotional vids, generally there’s nothing that can make the process of reviewing and clipping footage into anything but drudgery, except for very brief moments when I hit an exceptionally emotional scene. (Like, I find it actually painful to clip Sam’s death at the end of SPN Season 2). But the more I put clips on the timeline, the more I can see the vid, or sections of it taking shape, the more I connect with it emotionally, to the point where there’s a drive to finish it just because I want to see what happens, like it’s a half-completed story where I won’t know the ending until I actually create it.
What brings you the most satisfaction about vidding? Seeing the final piece onscreen? Or is it the process?
There are particular points in the process that can be immensely satisfying - like, when I create a sequence that comes together just the way I want it - I can get caught up in rewatching it and not working on the rest of the vid :-). The finished product is rarely quite as satisfying because it will almost never live up to the ideal I have in my mind. I watch and see what I did well, but I also see all the places where I know I wasn’t able to make it work perfectly.
Out of all of your vids, which makes you the happiest? Your vids capture fannish joy, for me, and I'm curious which one makes you the most joyful, and why. I'm not talking about which one you're proudest of, but which one makes you purely happy?
Church. I’m not as invested in Buffy as I once was, of course, but for a long time I was very in love with the Buffyverse, and when I go back and rewatch every now and then, it still manages to inspire glee. And of course, between the two shows, the ‘verse is really quite vast. So Church was my attempt to vid my joy in the source, and at least give a sense of the scope of the show - and like pretty much everything I’ve ever vidded, I think it could be better and there are a lot of things I wish I could improve, but it’s close enough that it makes me happy when I rewatch it.
What has been your single most rewarding moment as a vidder?
I don’t think I have any “single” moments. My most rewarding moments, I think, are when I get a juicy bit of feedback where the viewer saw exactly what I was going for, exactly the point I was trying to make or the character interpretation I was trying to convey - or, conversely, where the viewer saw some meaning in the vid that I didn’t necessarily consciously intend, but when I go back and rewatch turns out to really be there. I love knowing that my vids have an impact on people, and I love it when a viewer can show me something new about them.
On the opposite side, do you feel like you've ever failed at executing a vid idea, why?
All. The. Time. There are several vids where I feel like the final product didn’t live up to the inspiration, although I’m not naming any names. As to why? Oh, probably a combination of factors. Sometimes there just wasn’t the footage available to execute the idea, or at the very least, I couldn’t figure out how to use the footage I had. A lot of the time I feel I didn’t really take advantage of the song style and match my editing to suit it, either because I rushed through it or because my reach exceeded my grasp.
What was the hardest vid (for whatever reason--technical, emotional, timing, etc.) that you have made? How did you persevere? Were you happy with it in the end?
Well, on the most basic level, my first two vids were the most difficult because I was still struggling with the software, obtaining the source, etc. But I’m assuming you’re looking for a better answer so -
Two vids come to mind: Origin Stories and The Pioneers. Both were the ideas of other people - I don’t know if that made them harder, but it certainly put a lot more pressure on me to get them “right.” In both of them, I was trying to convey fairly complex ideas, and both of them posed technical challenges. In Origin Stories, I was really trying to advance my techniques for cutting and manipulating clips - when I made it, I’d really only just started to play around with using the editing itself as a type of storytelling tool, rather than relying on the content of clips alone. And The Pioneers used some difficult layering. As for happy with them in the end? I’m definitely happy that for both of them, the ideas seemed to come through - gauging by viewer comments, a lot of people understood them, and since that had been my big concern, I was really glad to see that. Especially with Origin Stories; there was so much there to Thuvia’s concept, and my highest priority was to make sure it all came across.
However, as between the two of them, I think I’m more satisfied with The Pioneers, even though Origin Stories is obviously one of my most “famous” vids. With Origin Stories, whenever I rewatch it, I’m forever seeing the flaws and the little things I wish I’d done differently. But with The Pioneers, I feel more that I accomplished what I wanted to.
Are there vids that you have ideas for that you're putting off vidding? What are your reasons for not making it?
I do have several ideas in the wings, and I delay for a bunch of different reasons. Sometimes, I just don’t feel the idea is fully baked yet - I have a general sense of something that would be fun but I haven’t winnowed it down enough to a specific enough concept. Other ideas are just kind of massive and intimidating and would require reviewing a lot of footage, and I am not always up to diving into that kind of project. And in some cases, I have ideas for shows that are still airing, and I’m waiting to see if certain things happen, plot-wise - for example, on White Collar, if Kate turns out to be alive, I have totally got the vid ready. For Supernatural, well, I’ve been sitting on an end-of-show vid idea for a couple of years now; as soon as I hear that it’s in its last season, I’ll get cracking.
Do you have any project idea that were never used that you would like to share with us?
Heh. Not really, because even vids I’ve stalled out on, I keep hoping inspiration will strike and I’ll pick it up again. Or maybe use the idea in another fandom. Like, Hell of a Place took over a year to vid because I kept getting blocked, dropping it, and coming back to it later.
You've made a number of wonderful multi-fandom vids. Talk a little about how you approach these? I'd love to know how your process works when assembling a vid using lots of sources with tons of clips to choose from.
Honestly, it’s changed over time. I made a bunch of multis back in my earliest days of vidding, and back then, I was a lot less precise about clip choices. I mean, I’d just discovered vidding and every second was like Vid Farr, it was ridiculous - I could barely leave my computer. So for multis, I mostly just raided my DVD collection and grabbed whatever scenes I could think of offhand that fit the concept. It would be an understatement to say that I watch a lot of television, so I was able to assemble them pretty much just based on my existing knowledge of the sources.
Since those days, I haven’t made a lot of multis. Hourglass is my most recent one, but for that, there actually wasn’t a lot of source, because except for Day Break, I only used one episode of each show featured - the entire vid only had maybe 20 hours of source to review, tops. There, I just googled and wiki’ed around until I found sources that would work (I knew some off the top of my head, of course, but for stuff like Andromeda and Medium and Early Edition, I had to Google!), and then reviewed each episode for useful footage.
The Real Slim Shady - if you call that a multi - was another one where I was using sources that I wasn’t familiar with. Basically I just grabbed a bunch of random episodes of the relevant shows - Netflix, or *aheming* -- and maybe fastforwarded through them until I found a couple of clips that would work well; I didn’t even try to review everything.
Which two or three of your vids would you point to as your most significant attempts to push yourself or try something new?
Untitled Holmes Vid Thing and It Depends On What You Pay come immediately to mind. Untitled Holmes Vid Thing is set to an instrumental acoustic piece, and the biggest challenge there was to build a narrative/concept without any lyrics to assist me. I’m proud of it because, judging by the comments, I was pretty successful in getting the idea across. I’d done vids before to songs that with significant instrumental components - One War, Hell of a Place - but this was the first (and only) completely instrumental vid I’ve made.
It Depends on What You Pay also used a new type of music, for me - it’s my only vid set to a show tune, and that was challenging because I think show tunes are tricky in vids. Sometimes when I see a vid set to a show tune, I feel as though the images don’t “meld” well with the music, though I can’t explain why. So for that one, I was pretty focused on making the music and source blend together. And though it certainly wasn’t my first explicitly political vid, it was - and is - definitely my most “in your face” vid, where I had to balance this humor/anger/horror tone that wasn’t like anything I’d done before.
Do you prefer working with older, closed canon sources, or something new, shiny and still expanding?
I don’t know that I have a preference; most of the time I’m just interested in a fandom and it’s not all that much of a concern to me, for vidding purposes, whether the canon is closed. Sometimes open canon is a little stressful - there have been vids (A Charming Man, for example, and What NY Used to Be) where I felt like I was racing to finish the vid before the new season started, because I feared the characters would be developed in a different direction than the vid was taking, and I wanted to finish the vid while my particular interpretation was still current. But, open canons often - not always, obviously - mean newer shows, which also means less source. And that can be a blessing - less source to choose from but hella easier to manage.
What's the biggest challenge you faced in the vid(s) you've made most recently?
My most recent vid is End, for the X-Men films, sort of half Charles/Erik and half Erik character study, and the biggest challenge there was that there isn’t a lot of source but there are lots and lots of vids, some of which I love dearly. Trying to find something new, and, mentally just trying to distinguish “my” ideas from things I had seen in other vids, was very difficult.
Seamstress, which I made before End, was also difficult, but for different reasons. That’s a classic case where the source doesn’t live up to the ideas behind it - the show could do so much more interesting things with Nikita and Alex’s relationship than it actually does. I think that Nikita’s use of Alex is morally questionable, but the show almost goes out of its way to try to absolve Nikita of any moral responsibility. Which meant that a lot of the time the footage I wanted really wasn’t there. And just as a practical matter, Nikita and Alex aren’t even in many scenes together, which also made things difficult.
Can you talk about how the Seamstress vid came to be? Inspiration, execution and how you feel about the final product?
At least during the first season, I always felt that the show was trying too hard to make Nikita completely benevolent toward Alex, constantly stressing that Nikita was trying to keep Alex out of danger and the only reason that Alex was ever in danger or in pain was because Alex insisted on doing dangerous things for her own reasons, over Nikita’s objections. Which is of course ridiculous; given Alex’s youth and vulnerability, and her lack of complete information, there was no way she could make informed choices. So while the show was trying to tell me that Nikita was uncomplicatedly “good,” I always felt that things were much more ambiguous.
I didn’t really intend to vid the show, however, until RivkaT suggested the song. I knew Dessa and I already had that album, but I never made the connection between Seamstress and Nikita. As soon as RivkaT pointed it out, though, I knew it was perfect for Nikita and Alex and would be a great vehicle for illustrating the problematic side of their relationship.
The actual vidding was a bit of a challenge. The show tells us that Nikita trained Alex in various ways, bought her new clothes, fixed her up and really remade her, but for the most part, we don’t actually see that onscreen. And we know that Nikita rescued Alex from a life of drug addiction and prostitution, but that story is told in one episode with a few limited flashbacks. And those were of course the kinds of scenes that were the most critical for the vid.
I also had to make some difficult choices about focus. Nikita actually does a similar fix-up routine on other characters - particularly another random guy from Division who guest-starred in a few episodes, and a CIA guy, and a girl who appeared in one episode and was a friend of Alex’s. I considered expanding the vid’s scope and showing Nikita’s relationships with these other characters, but ultimately decided against it. The song itself draws a very sharp distinction between men and women, and men are only mentioned in one particular spot; I figured that it would be too messy to try to show these other men and Michael in that spot, and since Michael is far more important narratively, it would be weird if I chose to focus on the other men over him. So I stuck with Michael. As for the girl who was a friend of Alex’s, it was sort of a similar problem. If there had been several girls that Nikita treated in the same way, I’d have vidded them as background to compare with Nikita’s relationship with Alex; but since Alex obviously was the most important and the vid was going to be primarily about Nikita and Alex, I thought it would be confusing to show just one other girl who only appeared in one episode. Also, there were practical considerations - the other girl looked a lot like Alex, and in some of the best scenes with her - like, where Nikita knocks her to the ground and gets her in an arm lock - it’s very hard to tell the difference between them. So I chose to leave out these other characters and keep the focus on Nikita and Alex.
So, once I settled on the focus, the issue was trying to illustrate their relationship, which includes both Nikita’s tough-love sort of aggression, and her affection - and because I figured the end of the vid needed to show their separation, I was particularly focused on Alex’s vulnerability to Nikita, her dependence on her, and ultimately her rebellion. So that progression in Alex’s emotions, I think, became the backbone of the vid, as things become more and more intense for her before she finally breaks.
As for how I feel about the final product? I have mixed feelings about it. I think there’s more depth to the Alex/Nikita relationship and Nikita’s characterization that I didn’t capture, and I wish I could have - I think that’s partly due to the limits of my imagination, and partly due to the real limitations of the footage.
Is there a type of music or type of song you find yourself gravitating toward? Why/why not?
I love “big” songs that have a very clear build up to a climax or crescendo; they make constructing a narrative very easy, and of course, they work well with my favorite kind of story, i.e., angst-with-a-happy-ending (see my other answers). And I prefer songs with a faster pace; I always feel uncomfortable vidding slower songs, because I’m just not confident I can hold the viewer’s interest. Some people do them beautifully but more and more, I tend to default to really fast cuts because surely something will catch the viewer’s interest, right?
How does your editing style reflect the music style that you choose for vids? Parallel, contrast, or is your editing style consistent to you and independent of the music used?
I don’t think I’ve really settled on a style; I try to study other vids and learn from them, and that’s an ongoing process. Generally I try to match the music - very quick cuts for fast songs with a rap-like quality; layering for songs that are more … orchestral, where the music itself has lots of layers to it - that kind of thing.
Do you have any tricks when editing audio?
Nope. I edit my audio in Adobe Premiere - I know there are more precise audio editing programs out there but Premiere’s generally worked for me, so I haven’t bothered to learn another program. I guess I’ve found that the most important thing seems to be to keep the beat steady; you can hide a lot of sins as long as you don’t mess up the beat.
Do you feel that your body of work up until this point is a good reflection of you as a person, or only a reflection of your viewing habits and musical collection?
I don’t know if it reflects me as a person so much as it reflects my fannish interests. Like, a lot of my vids are explicitly political or have a meta component (even ones not generally recognized as my “meta” vids often are intended as some kind of commentary on fandom, at least in my own head - End, for example), and anyone who follows my journal knows that I’m very interested in political and meta analysis of pop culture. A lot of my vids are ‘ship focused, and I’m all about the ‘ship - it’s generally what causes me to have a fannish obsession.
Also (as anyone who follows my journal knows) my favorite kinds of fics are angst with a happy ending, the more angst and the more happy-ending, the better, especially when the happy ending is relationship-focused. And I think that comes out in my vids a lot - I often feel like I’m vidding the same story over and over, where the vid focuses on angst and conflict until the characters overcome it and find happiness in each other at the end, either in a romantic way or in a family/companionship way. (All These Things that I’ve Done, Kyrie, One Foot Boy, What a Good Boy, Hell of a Place, Blaze of Glory, Untitled Holmes Vid, One War).
Are there certain vidding techniques that you feel are uniquely your own? Like a certain signature style that you find yourself defaulting to? If so, what would that be?
Heh, see above. I have a huge kink for angst with a happy ending, and I tend to gravitate towards songs that have a big build and crescendo at the end, so that I can show all the conflict and relationship development and then finish it with a string of happy-emotional-bonding scenes. Even when the story of the vid isn’t quite that divided between angst and happy, I still have a tendency to build to a crescendo at the end as the character finds happiness in some new understanding of him/herself (American Music, What NY Used to Be). So if I have a signature, that’s it.
How does your relationship with your vids change over time? Do you generally love your vids more after some time has passed or do you start focusing more on the flaws? Are there early days vids you're embarrassed by now or do you love them as much as when you first posted them?
It varies. I mean, generally when I first post a vid, I’m in love with it - then I watch it a zillion times and soon all I can see are the flaws, and it almost becomes painful to look at, so I’ll stop watching. And then a few months pass, or a year, and I go back and watch it and think “Hey, I guess it’s not so bad after all.” That’s pretty typical.
As for my earliest vids, I’m embarrassed by some of the execution but I still like the idea behind (most of) them - which is why they’re still all online. If I ever reach the point where I don’t even like the inspiration behind something anymore, I’ll probably take it down.
What's your view on remaking vids you've already done? Do you think it's okay to go back change a vid significantly? Or do you think what's done is done?
That’s a bit complicated. When I first started out, I would often make changes to vids after they were released - because I rushed through the initial editing process and suddenly had a new idea, or I developed a new technical skill and I wanted to go back and use it on the vid. These days, I take more time when making a vid, and though I occasionally cannot help myself and will make a teeny change after the initial release, that’s much rarer, and those changes will happen within a day or two of posting.
I’ve never gone back and seriously re-edited an older vid, although I’m constantly tempted to do so and maybe one day I will. As I said in the previous question, I still like the ideas for many of my earlier vids, even if the technical execution makes me cringe. So sometimes I want to go back and improve them. And for multifandom vids, sometimes new source comes along that I’m tempted to integrate into the vid. (I.e., I sort of want to go back and add H50, Rizzoli & Isles, Star Trek Reboot, Merlin, the Protector, and Sherlock BBC to The Real Slim Shady. H50 in particular has a scene where Danny and Steve are watching an episode of ChiPs and fight over which one of them is more like Erik Estrada, and it’s almost physically painful that I don’t have that scene in the vid. And Haven just had a repeating-day episode with several shots that it kills me not to have in Hourglass, including a scene where one character knocks another character out of the path of a speeding car.). But between deletions and computer crashes over the years, I don’t have a lot of the original files for these, so re-editing some of them would be very difficult, even if I got up the energy to do it.
Have you ever changed things in your vid based upon what you thought the audience would want to see? Versus what you liked better?
Not exactly. My conflicts are always about the shot that my id wants to see, versus the shot that I know is better for the vid overall. My id tends to win most of those battles.
Do you utilize a beta? If so, then what do you find most useful in the beta process? How influential is a beta to the final result of a project?
It varies greatly from project to project. These days I always use betas for vids I’m making for someone else, like auction vids - unless I’m running up against a Festivids deadline :-). Beyond that, it depends how I feel about the vid. Sometimes I feel confident that the vid is as good as I can make it - it’s not that I think the vid is “perfect” or couldn’t be improved by someone - it’s more like, for whatever reason, I feel confident that I’ve taken it as far as I’m capable of taking it. Or I feel like I know what the flaws are and I’ve decided to keep them, because I’ve made choices that please me personally even if they’re not perfect for the vid overall, or because I’ve tried the alternatives and I don’t think I’m going to find better options. But a lot of the time, I feel uncertain - I don’t know whether I’ve made the best choices or whether the idea is coming through or whether a particular sequence looks odd - and that’s when I’ll use a beta.
Sometimes, I feel a vid isn’t worth a beta, such as for a vid that’s like - a trifle, something I knocked off quickly, usually because it had a very simple idea and limited source. I almost feel that for those kinds of vids, if I release it with a beta credit, I’m building up expectations that the vid doesn’t warrant. Which is probably silly, I know, but crediting a beta feels a little bit like a representation of polish. And I don’t always feel like bothering to polish. You know, like the vidding equivalent of a fic that’s written in a couple of hours, while you’re riding the train to work or sitting in class, just to get an idea out there or to satisfy an iddish urge.
Have you consistently used the same beta(s) and grown with each other, or have you changed over time to people specific to each project or each stage in your vidding history?
Nothing very consistent. There are a few betas I come back to a lot because I admire them as vidders, and I trust their judgment, and we share the same fandoms, but often I feel like I have different beta needs for different vids. Some vids need a beta who knows the source; for some I might actually prefer someone who doesn’t because I want to see how the vid reads when you don’t know the canon. Some vids I feel I need more technical help, and for some - like It Depends on What You Pay or Senses Working Overtime - I felt I needed a political gut-check.
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?
This is sort of an odd question for me because I don’t really think in those terms; I certainly don’t think in terms of “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts” when it comes to audiences. Let’s just say that except for one or two occasions when I felt like a person walked away with an interpretation that was the opposite of what I intended, I’m generally pleased to see different interpretations of my vids, even interpretations I hadn’t intended. It’s wonderful when people completely “get” what I was going for - it makes me feel like I succeeded in what I set out to do - but it’s equally wonderful to know that a vid can take on its own unique significance even without my conscious intent.
Do you have heroes in the vidding community? Whose recent work has impressed you? Why?
Oh, this is almost an impossible question - there are so many excellent vidders out there, and the answer would probably be the same people who I rec at my journal. I do have to give particular shoutouts to Danegen and Counteragent, though - both of whom have a way of cutting images together that just makes me gasp. Danegen’s helped me so much as a go-to beta, and I’m currently obsessed with her X-Men vid, Perfect Drug. And Counteragent’s meta vids are just brilliant. I also have to mention Lithium Doll, who is not only extraordinary generous with her time (she basically Saved Festivids), but also produces consistently wonderful work. Big City Life is one of my all-time favorite vids; it makes me feel so much that it’s almost painful to watch. But really, just click my vid recs tag because I am so consistently, overwhelmingly impressed by the quality of the work that I see in our community.
Please name one vid that's had a formative influence on you as a vidder and tell us why.
Don’t Panic and Ability to Swing by Luminosity, and In Your Eyes by Killa, all Highlander, are the vids that made me fall in love with vids. So it would have to be those. (Sorry, I can’t limit it to one - I discovered them about the same time!)
Is there any advice that you would give to someone entering into this hobby?
Just the advice that everyone gives - watch a lot of vids, get a real sense of what you like and why. In my experience, there’s a pretty quick learning curve in terms of vid appreciation - what you like when you just discover vids isn’t the same as what you like after you watch a lot of them, and once you’re a more sophisticated vid watcher, you’ll have a better sense of what you want to try to do in your own work.
If you could create the perfect source for all your vidding needs, then what qualities would this source be required to have to make you a happy vidder for eternity?
NO CREDITS OVER PRETTY SCENES. CREDITS ARE RESTRICTED TO BEING PLAYED OVER TALKY-FACE AND STOCK LOCATION FOOTAGE.
Ahem.
Well, there’s technical/pretty stuff - like, a steady supply of action sequences, or at least dramatic scenes that feature the characters interacting with each other physically as well as verbally. Lots of interesting camera movement and a variety of settings. Pretty special effects.
But really, the main thing would be a strong, complex, tension-filled but ultimately extremely loving relationship between two attractive leads - who never actually consummate their love sexually (at least until the end of the show). I find more fertile ground as a fan - both as a vidder and as a voracious fanfic consumer - before the leads get together. So, for example, I made my Mulder/Scully vid Hell of a Place and deliberately omitted the explicitly romantic/sexual scenes between them, because it’s much more fun when I can build the relationship myself. And most of the time - although not all of it - my fannish id is driven by romantic pairings, or at least very strong emotional relationships between two people, even if they aren’t romantic ones. And I always like to vid my id.
What direction would you like to see your own vidding go in? What new things would you like to attempt in the future?
I really need to upgrade my vidding program and look into things like AfterEffects in order to improve my technical skills. Which is a vow I constantly make. A lot of the time I’m happy without using much in the way of effects but every now and then my limited technical skills do interfere with my “vision.” And of course if I have the programs and explore them properly, then I’m sure I’ll conceive of new things to do technically that never occurred to me before. So it’s definitely something I plan to do.
Can you share with us what are you working on now, or what are you pondering?
I may have one more completely indefensible Charles/Erik vid left in me, with a song choice that will likely baffle everyone who doesn’t live in my head. I’m not sure it’ll ever see the light of day, but I’m thinking about it. I’ve also had an idea for a Fringe vid looking at Green!Olivia’s relationship with Red!Olivia for a while, although that one is kind of complex and I don’t know when I’ll have the time to really focus on it. Beyond that, I’m just thinking about Festivids possibilities. And of course, that end-of-series SPN vid will come along someday!