Vid in progress thoughts

[hazelk]

Finishing this vid is getting to be like the paradox of the tortoise and Achilles, chasing after the endpoint by way of an infinite number of ever-decreasing increments. Things change when the timeline is full, instead of a series of more and less cool parts hung on to a framework it becomes a whole thing and the parts start to need to talk to one another, change one and the entire meaning shifts. Which reminds me of the thing that the people who make the vids that make you want to make vids always talk about. Intent, every clip needs a reason to be and to be there. So I struggle with the difference between reasons and rationalisations but also come to realise that intent applies not just to individual clips but to the vid as a whole, the gestalt if you like. And that’s more difficult because at least individual clips are discrete things, visual objects, but gestalt is a more abstract quantity and if you can’t see it how are you to judge its intentfulness or otherwise?

Walter Murch, among many other insights, had a way of dealing with the vast amount of footage he needed to edit by selecting a series of stills each of which was supposed to represent a particular section of the film. This was much more than just an aide d’catalogue because the very act of selecting that representative still would force him to identify the heart of the scene in question. So can this be applied to vids or at least to good vids? Not to say that a good vid is like a high concept movie and reducible to a single tag line,

“The Grapes of Wrath in Outer Space!”
but that a good vid has a certain coherence, an identifiable heart.

So thinking about it and because I’m on a BSG roll take Lum’s “More than Human,” I think the central image there could be that drop of Sharon’s blood falling at the end. Violence tangled up with sex and blood is identity, Cylon or human. Or here’s luck’s “New Frontier.” This is more difficult because there are images that I love in that vid like the spinning brain and the clip of Mal contemplating River’s sleeping body after the bar incident but trying to be objective I think the key image has to be the one on Haven, the turning point when Mal makes the decision to fight.

Does my “Babies” vid have a central image yet? Well there’s the rub, I think it does or it did when it started and it was a clip of Kobol hanging whole in the sky all blue and pregnant (pun intended) with possibility. At the moment, however, that actual clip has been taken off the time line, although there are other clips that allude to it. It’s a sort of absent protagonist (I mentioned the rationalisation thing didn’t I)? The other problem is that, in the making, the vid has started to deconstruct itself and acquired a much angrier, more radical feminist ending. If that planet is still the central image, it’s rotten to the core. Hmm.

Comments

You make me thinky. I like that.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

You know, the principle of gestalt is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This suggests that if you arrange a vid concept around a particular clip at its heart, and then remove that clip, you could still have a thematically centered vid of high quality. After all, there's still an arranging principle (theme, plot, character transformation, concept) that you've created the vid around.

Individual clips can have huge impact and truckloads of meaning, but I think it's possible to overthink this. In my experience, the most important clip in the vid is the last one, and the second most important clip is actually a series: whatever happens at the vid's climax (or sometimes, during the bridge). I'm not saying the rest is filler; far from it. Just that, if you've nailed those, and your vid has some kind of organizing principle, you can probably relax a bit.

Re: You make me thinky. I like that.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I have the gut feeling that you're right -overthinking is definitely a problem *g* Mostly things like this searching for a defining image are ruses to try and force me to think visually/intuitively rather than verbally/analytically, which tends to be what I default to. It may not sound like it with all the wibbling but mostly I'm feeling quite happy about this vid, the bridge/climax part is good and it feels almost done but something isn't quite right with the ending and it's not any one clip or I could probably pinpoint it. And even talking about this I'm beginning to see how it has to do with why that planet image was the one I started with and how even the mutated version (and I quite like that it's mutated, it feels organic) isn't coming through it needs more.

I still like the idea of looking for a central image and you're absolutely right it needn't be a still image or a single clip, it could often be a series. Like I think "Icebound Stream" centres around those three clips of Fraser/Victoria and the polar bear at the zoo. Or in some cases a cutting style, the jumpiness of "Zebra" or that xylophone-like effect you had in "A Day Like Today." And those central things may be subtly different for the vid maker and for the viewer.

Re: You make me thinky. I like that.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

It may not sound like it with all the wibbling but mostly I'm feeling quite happy about this vid,

Oh, good! I'm glad to hear that. Sounds like you're just experiencing the normal birth pains. (:

What xylophone-like effect? Do you mean the jump cuts? Or...? ::puzzled::

Re: You make me thinky. I like that.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

To be honest I'm not quite sure now I think about it. There's a a sort of soft jumpiness that runs through the whole vid, very different from the jittery jump cutting in "Zebra." I call it xylophony to myself because it seems to echo the way the sound of that instrument fades so quickly, doesn't linger. Not sure if it's just the jump cuts, may also be a tendency to cut just before the moment, before people actually connect.

Re: You make me thinky. I like that.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

may also be a tendency to cut just before the moment, before people actually connect.

That was the point of the whole vid for me, so I'm glad you noticed! I think I see how that seems xylophony. Thanks for explaining.

[luminosity]

Which reminds me of the thing that the people who make the vids that make you want to make vids always talk about. Intent, every clip needs a reason to be and to be there. So I struggle with the difference between reasons and rationalisations but also come to realise that intent applies not just to individual clips but to the vid as a whole, the gestalt if you like

Great post, and I'm commenting before my first cup of coffee, so allowances must be made. *g* Intent. Yes. There has to be a reason for every clip to be there, but I think that, as I vid, my reasons become more articulated, more defined, and the clip choices change to develop the gestalt of the vid. (were there enough commas in there?) The vid has to grow, I think.

Often, I put placeholder images in my vids, e.g., "rain goes here" or "he runs here" or "I want blue/gold with a bullet here." I try to figure out my ending clip first (or second, after the "money shot") because I have to know *where* the vid's going to end up in order to show you *how* it got there. That's not to say that the clips don't mutate and evolve and change. They often do.

ah. coffee.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Coffee good :-)

I do like the idea of a vid as a growing thing. Making them becomes more and more like geting to know a person, there's a sort of give and take aspect to it.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Oh, how interesting! (I am so enamoured with your vid that I had a poke around your journal and found this post.) I'm fascinated by your thoughts on vidding.

a good vid has a certain coherence, an identifiable heart
IMO, your vid had both coherence and heart. *g*

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I babble therefore I am :-)

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

*knows the feeling*