Recs and review
Because why not procrastinate when I’ve been ordered to rec some vids? This is just one from every folder on my hard drive, a fandom potpourri.
BSG: OMGWTFCylons (aka Mr. Roboto), by Nicole Anell: Because it’s funny, and yet also creepy. If you liked “Fix You,” this might make an interesting contrast.
Buffy/Angel: I’m Too Sexy, by OutOfMud: I’m not deep, okay? Get pretty characters bopping to music and I’m happy to sit and watch.
Farscape: Karaoke Soul, by Tazey: Tazey’s trailer for the show is great, but this one gets the nod because it’s Tom McRae, who is the perfect artist for crazy tortured guys like St. John of the Uncharted Territories. Not that Eminem didn’t work too.
Firefly: Play Dead, by Little Heaven: The use of overlays, scene ghosting into scene, is perfect for River’s character. Fair warning: It’s a favorite technique of this vidder, and works less well for Cordelia Chase, but the combination of the Bjork song and the careful editing makes this vid a keeper.
Highlander: Raven in the Storm (password protected; access only by request to the vidders), by Killa & Carol S.: Because it’s Methos, and every metaphor works even if you have only basic show knowledge (“my foot will be there in your door” is my favorite), and because the repeated use of dissolves - there are only a couple of straight cuts in the vid, and I bet you won’t notice them unless you, like I did, watch it obsessively to see - is a perfect example of how to set mood.
Joan of Arcadia: Big Red Boat, Seah and Margie: Because Joan at her best is joy and so is this song. The metaphor of the song is the same as the metaphor of the show - how’d that happen? Well, excellent song selection by the vidders, obviously. I miss Joan!
LoTR: The Mountain, Melina & Shalott: Beautiful song plus beautiful footage. I’m not even a fan of the movies, but the effortless analogies between the characters’ journeys, the incredible use of shape, and the lovely match between lyrics and footage keep this on my list.
Multifandom/Fandom: Walking on the Ground, Seah and Margie: All vidding, all the time. It’s both a celebration and an argument about creativity.
QAF(US): The Dangers of Over-shipping, Sisabet: The vid that got me to mainline season 1 in about 24 hours. The thing is, overinvestment is the only kind of investment I know how to make in a show that I want to produce fannishly about. So I have mixed feelings about calling fan productions “Lord King Bad Vids” and the like, because deep in my heart and shallow in my heart I love this stuff, and I don’t want to have to disavow my geeky and inappropriate joy to be cool in fandom, of all places. Which is to say, this vid is about falling in lust and then falling in love, even if you’ll never say the latter, which adds up to one of my bulletproof kinks.
Smallville: Weapon, Euphony: Obviously I have a huge collection of SV vids (see supra re: overinvestment), so I basically just picked a Lex vid that I like from a number of other mostly Lex-centric vids I like. Wanting can be a finer thing than having - and for Lex, the journey is better than the destination. Which is pretty fucking depressing, if you think about what the journey’s been like.
Stargate (SGA): Hello, by Merry, because thefourthvine provided the link and because it is a perfect use of song. I still don’t know what “the path is chainlinked” means, but I know it means Atlantis.
X-Files: Not Only Human: Try LJ tags here: Scully’s journey, without the new-agey GA voiceover.
Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, eds. Karen Hellekson & Kristina Busse: You’ve got to read Textual Poachers to do fandom studies. This collection is an instant essential on that level. From what I’ve seen, this book is far better than the Matt Hills collection coming out at the end of the year - and I say that as someone with a vested interest in the latter book. Every essay taught me something. Francesca Coppa’s history of fandom and later essay about the relevance of performance studies are alone worth the price of admission. Fan fiction as theatrical performance, explaining the genre’s focus on bodies and on repetition with a difference - this is an idea so brilliant that it seems obvious once she lays it out; and as a bonus, she can really write. Aside from Coppa’s contribution, there are several other suggestions for a general term for forms of writing that claim interpretive power without authority and without closing off the possibilities for other contributions to the same set of texts. This includes Abigail Derecho’s fascinating “archontic,” which she offers in an essay that traces the history of rewriting as a women’s history of writing, sometimes literally in the margins. Many essays focus on Livejournal and the interactions between readers and writers, texts and revisions, public and private, fact and fiction, and other traditionally opposed binary relations that Livejournal in particular and fan culture in general tend to undermine. Recent events have made clear to me that there is a lot less agreement on what our "community" means than I'd like to assume, but the vigorous discussion has been fascinating and I hope somewhat productive. Our diversity will continue to increase, and maybe historical and critical perspectives can give us some guidance on how to deal with the ever-increasing circles of fannish influence.
BSG: OMGWTFCylons (aka Mr. Roboto), by Nicole Anell: Because it’s funny, and yet also creepy. If you liked “Fix You,” this might make an interesting contrast.
Buffy/Angel: I’m Too Sexy, by OutOfMud: I’m not deep, okay? Get pretty characters bopping to music and I’m happy to sit and watch.
Farscape: Karaoke Soul, by Tazey: Tazey’s trailer for the show is great, but this one gets the nod because it’s Tom McRae, who is the perfect artist for crazy tortured guys like St. John of the Uncharted Territories. Not that Eminem didn’t work too.
Firefly: Play Dead, by Little Heaven: The use of overlays, scene ghosting into scene, is perfect for River’s character. Fair warning: It’s a favorite technique of this vidder, and works less well for Cordelia Chase, but the combination of the Bjork song and the careful editing makes this vid a keeper.
Highlander: Raven in the Storm (password protected; access only by request to the vidders), by Killa & Carol S.: Because it’s Methos, and every metaphor works even if you have only basic show knowledge (“my foot will be there in your door” is my favorite), and because the repeated use of dissolves - there are only a couple of straight cuts in the vid, and I bet you won’t notice them unless you, like I did, watch it obsessively to see - is a perfect example of how to set mood.
Joan of Arcadia: Big Red Boat, Seah and Margie: Because Joan at her best is joy and so is this song. The metaphor of the song is the same as the metaphor of the show - how’d that happen? Well, excellent song selection by the vidders, obviously. I miss Joan!
LoTR: The Mountain, Melina & Shalott: Beautiful song plus beautiful footage. I’m not even a fan of the movies, but the effortless analogies between the characters’ journeys, the incredible use of shape, and the lovely match between lyrics and footage keep this on my list.
Multifandom/Fandom: Walking on the Ground, Seah and Margie: All vidding, all the time. It’s both a celebration and an argument about creativity.
QAF(US): The Dangers of Over-shipping, Sisabet: The vid that got me to mainline season 1 in about 24 hours. The thing is, overinvestment is the only kind of investment I know how to make in a show that I want to produce fannishly about. So I have mixed feelings about calling fan productions “Lord King Bad Vids” and the like, because deep in my heart and shallow in my heart I love this stuff, and I don’t want to have to disavow my geeky and inappropriate joy to be cool in fandom, of all places. Which is to say, this vid is about falling in lust and then falling in love, even if you’ll never say the latter, which adds up to one of my bulletproof kinks.
Smallville: Weapon, Euphony: Obviously I have a huge collection of SV vids (see supra re: overinvestment), so I basically just picked a Lex vid that I like from a number of other mostly Lex-centric vids I like. Wanting can be a finer thing than having - and for Lex, the journey is better than the destination. Which is pretty fucking depressing, if you think about what the journey’s been like.
Stargate (SGA): Hello, by Merry, because thefourthvine provided the link and because it is a perfect use of song. I still don’t know what “the path is chainlinked” means, but I know it means Atlantis.
X-Files: Not Only Human: Try LJ tags here: Scully’s journey, without the new-agey GA voiceover.
Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, eds. Karen Hellekson & Kristina Busse: You’ve got to read Textual Poachers to do fandom studies. This collection is an instant essential on that level. From what I’ve seen, this book is far better than the Matt Hills collection coming out at the end of the year - and I say that as someone with a vested interest in the latter book. Every essay taught me something. Francesca Coppa’s history of fandom and later essay about the relevance of performance studies are alone worth the price of admission. Fan fiction as theatrical performance, explaining the genre’s focus on bodies and on repetition with a difference - this is an idea so brilliant that it seems obvious once she lays it out; and as a bonus, she can really write. Aside from Coppa’s contribution, there are several other suggestions for a general term for forms of writing that claim interpretive power without authority and without closing off the possibilities for other contributions to the same set of texts. This includes Abigail Derecho’s fascinating “archontic,” which she offers in an essay that traces the history of rewriting as a women’s history of writing, sometimes literally in the margins. Many essays focus on Livejournal and the interactions between readers and writers, texts and revisions, public and private, fact and fiction, and other traditionally opposed binary relations that Livejournal in particular and fan culture in general tend to undermine. Recent events have made clear to me that there is a lot less agreement on what our "community" means than I'd like to assume, but the vigorous discussion has been fascinating and I hope somewhat productive. Our diversity will continue to increase, and maybe historical and critical perspectives can give us some guidance on how to deal with the ever-increasing circles of fannish influence.