House of Leaves

Day 22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you've thought about doing? And if not, why not?

I did a pinch hit for festivids this year 48 hours before the deadline approached, which is kinda hilarious because my main reason for I not signing up was the deadline. I was worried that I would hit a dry spell and/or wouldn't be able to pull off the requests in a satisfied manner for the recipient. So it was very gratifying to surprise someone with a vid on such short notice. I love the idea behind festivids to make someone happy and it's awesome to browse through the masterlist and spend days watching vids for small fandoms that are almost forgotten. I won't sign up this year, but I'll definitely want to keep an eye on the pinch hits earlier and not solely relay on giandujakiss for all my fandom information.

Day 20 – Do you ever get ideas inspired from other people's stories, vids, or art in the same fandom?

Strangely there are fandoms I obsessively read fics in for example ST: Reboot or Merlin, which made me draw a blank vidding wise. I think it is because, I love the way authors expand the canon in all these awesome directions that are possible, but could not be explored in the show or the span of one movie. A very old concept picked up from fics that surprisingly made it out of development hell and was finished was Dawn/Spike. This pairing isn't my usual cup, but I was so intrigued by several great Dawn/Spike fics, that I had to try.

It maybe sounds a bit pretentious or natural, depending how you look at it, but my vids are often extensions of my fics (German, so don't bother). In tone and mood, best example would be 'Wood and Nails' - this is the way I saw Dean by the end of S2, beginning of S3 and I'm quite happy that the show later evolved in that direction. 'Clear the Area' is my view of Scully and 'My Skin' is the way I see Cordelia. So I often do character manifestos of sorts. Or a lot of my AtS vids picked up unconventional couples and ideas I used while writing and spinning them into moving pictures. I did write an epic 160k Cordelia/Spike fic among others for them and 'Haunted' became an outlet for this pairing, telling a different spin of their story in my head.

Although these fics and vids are often a result of fanon, because obviously I don't exist in a vacuum, but it is hard to pin-point the influence down to someone other than xandra_ptv. We have developed a perfect symbiosis, in which stealing the ideas of each other will not result in tears, but a damn happy outcome.


Day 21 – Sequels – Have you ever created a sequel to a vid you made, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?

Not a straight up sequel, occasionally I do a tandem of a pairing PoVs or I evolve from one couple to another, but this isn't really how sequels work. So no.

So I'm coming home from a birthday party and Xandra demands that I post my meme drunk. I love my life. Heh.

Day 19 – When you have vid ideas, do you sit down and start vidding right away, or do you write down the idea for further exploration later?

I used to write down detailed scenes with time tables and everything, the first year I vidded. Nowadays I get the lyrics, have a hard look at them, while the song is on repeat and I strategize the key elements in my head. Depending on free time, I organize my video folder, get the track on Premiere and start nonlinear. Or how Xandra calls these early stages, the 'random-ass(ness) clip show'. I like to pretend it's a 'rough, rough draft'. I just pull clips I want to use, scenes that strike me as beautiful and unexpected results while scrolling though my whole-season-avs. And then I shape them into a resemblance of order and flow.

The reason I stopped writing out storyboards was the way I keep overthrowing them, when I discovered a scene that fitted better with what I had in mind or when scenes that worked fine in my head, looked terrible out of place on the timeline. Vidding is part memory game and it's easier to joggle your memory while working with the source. Besides you won't forget the scenes that made you think the song was a good fit in the first place and it is better to compare the feel of scenes, when you have different equally valid choices to pick from on the timeline. Especially long running series like TXF, BtVS, SPN and AtS will touch on certain character developments several times. The characters are growing up in a sense. For 'Matches to Paper Dolls' the line 'If you're asking, I can't say no' was Scully's response to Mulder's crazy plans in pretty much every ep, so that leaves you with around hundred legitimate alternatives.

Besides I'm really a mood vidder when it comes down to it. My projects often lead in a completely unexpected direction, then the one I anticipated and if it benefits the vid I won't stop the flow of consciousness. It gets me places I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

Day 18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your vids from?

Watching a show or remembering a fandom can and will inspire me. The urge to vid this character fucking now is a drive. The song - and finding the right one for a vid idea can become such a trying quest - ties everything together. I love it, when I hear a song and it suddenly transforms and becomes all about a character. Best way to hit off a vid.

In the past I kept waiting for a flash of inspiration from a ideal song, but that resulted in long dry spells. This perfect storm of song, fandom and character is rare and unpredictable, so today I have a different approach. If I want to vid, I will think about a subject that intrigues me. If I have an idea or a theme I will search for song. I will take one that could work and make it work. This is exercise, this is me getting an concept out of my system. This is getting more experienced without the crushing weight on my shoulder to make a flawless vid. So that when I find a perfect song I won't be scratching my head, trying to figure out what that avisynth filter was for in the first place. Or how to prepare mkvs so that I can vid them in Premiere and make whole season-avs out of them.

So the most valuable lesson Xandra taught me in recent months, is to go for a crazy idea and run with it. Doesn't matter if I run it into the ground or it takes off. I won't get anything done overthinking vidding and all the inspirations stuck in my head? The vids that never made a timeline outside of my head? Are lost. And there are a few people out there, who really wouldn't mind spending five minutes of their time with Scully/Krycek or Dean/Ruby/Sam, so why not go for it? The mental road block of my own expectations won't do me any good. Vidding is fun and reminding myself of this fact and all the opportunities it creates, was pretty damn freeing this year.

Day 17 – Titles – Do you try to use something different than the song? Why or why not?

Normally not, the main reason why I changed 'Jesus Christ' to 'Wood and Nails' was to avoid people who would search for the first one. Same reason why 'Jesus was my girl' became 'My girl'. I often shorten the song title. ' What's it feel like to be a ghost?' is a mouthful compared to 'To be a Ghost'.

Day 16 – Summaries – Do you like them or hate them? How do you come up with them, if you use them?

I always take a lyric line to sum up the vid. Not necessarily the one that spoke the strongest to me in the first place, but one that expresses the feel of the vid. I used to hate coming up with an additional summary - something deep and significant to best describe the thing you spend days, weeks, months obsessing over? Worst case scenario ten minutes before you hit the post button? Nightmare fuel. Nowadays it's easier, either I get hit by Xandra with summaries till something sticks or by now, I hit on random quotes and change a fitting one to my needs. I know, it's a bit lazy, but I like to pretend that my second language skills only go so far.

Day 15 – Warnings – What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what's the strangest thing you've warned for in a vid?

I don't remember a complaint about the way I handle warnings so far. I assume common sense according to the source, if you watched SPN, AtS, Se7en or TXF you have to know that violence is a big part of these sources and the lives of the protagonists. I will occasionally warn for dark themes, like incest, gore or raw aggression, when it is something that is exploited beyond what a watcher of the source reasonably can expect. I don't warn for slash, the pairing is right there in the subject line and most likely in the cover image. Fandom as whole has moved on, so that hasn't been an issue for a long time.The only controversial topics, I frequently touch on it consent and power, but usually it is done subtle and on a level, I don't feel the need to warn for. I also think the viewers pick up on the fact, if I use the PoV of a villain, that there might be a dissonance to what they usually anticipate.

Sexual violence - I felt bad that I forgot to warn for it, when I first posted 'Dizzy' and edited the post the next day, because it was so very explicit a rape analogy. That it was played as elaborate joke in the ep didn't excuse me for not warning for the graphics.

Strangest warning would be scribble for 'Around the corner'. It came along with 'Disturbing images, blood and scribble'. Because pages of pages filled with crazy ramblings get freaky in Premiere.

Day 14 – Ratings – how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever vidded higher than you're comfortable with? If you're comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the vid you're making is G-rated instead?

I'm European, language and nudity don't really register as 'bad' and therefore don't warrant a higher rating. Naked skin wasn't even on my radar for this answer till obsessive24 mentioned it in hers. Violence on the other hand is and boy, do I like to vid dark things. Season 3 of SPN has a NC-17 (ab 18) rating in Germany and BtVS/AtS/TXF all come with a R-rating anyway, so viewers get what they seek for.

The whole question did take me aback, because I would go as high as NC-17, if the idea calls for this. Shockingly I never had a vid of mine push the rating because of sex, but plenty that I would consider at least R-ratings for violence. Xandra says it is because I'm a prude, which is untrue and therefore unacceptable. It just seems I use my quota of random one-night-stands, sex and mind fucking on her. So yeah, this means I have to remedy the softcore sex quota and vid QaF at some point in the near future.

Another point I would like to address in regards of ratings is intention. I'm generally drawn to dark characters and like to exploit their edges, so the second question got a big fat yes by going way back to a straight-forward example. 'Kinda I want to' has nothing more than a badly manipulated kiss between Angel and Wes, but the whole vid feels darker for me then the obvious PG-13 it probably deserves. With the implied blowjobs, bloodplay, ensuing torture and dub con, plus hospital visits. There are plenty of instances in my vids, that I find darkly funny with what they imply in fandom tropes and not necessarily canon. I know they go over the head of most viewers and that's exactly how I like it. The squirming feeling they probably sometimes get and can't precisely place, while watching my vids? Yeah, there is a (subjective) reason for it, 'Move' would be a prime example for this.

Day 13 – Do you prefer canon or fanon when you vid (canon shots vs. using shots out of context; AU vs. canon)? Has vidding for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

Let's skip over the first few vids, where I still tried to figure out my editing software more than anything else, basic things like cuts, crossfades or overlays, and I had to work with a very limited amount of clips. Once I had the knowledge to actually tell a story, I started out being very canon oriented and the scenes had to mean something deeper in a very tight context of a relationship to make it into a vid. That's my talking head phase - I truly didn't mind the mouth motion, because I loved the stuff that was said. It was important, so it wasn't jarring to me.

To look out for other stuff was something my early unconventional couples and especially AUs taught me and for that reason alone, I still love them. They truly changed the way I looked at shows and the way I was completely liberated from specific meaning was an unexpected freedom and so I focussed on paralells and had a blast with them, building up a story from next to nothing. You have to search for completely different things in scenes, when you vid AUs. Backgrounds and lightning become more significant. The change of how I prepared my footage was also a big factor: disabled audio. As a result I had to focus in Premiere much more on the facial expressions in a scene. So the way I edit and cut did change dramatically over the years.

Nowadays a shot that looks beautiful might make it into a vid even without much impact on the context, because I can reason it in. I like to think that my vids have a wider context these days, since I like to go for the bigger picture in shows. If the mood of the song fits with the way a scene looks, I will use it. Example would be I rather take a depressing looking scene then the one in which a character explicitly discussed his/her depression. I will rather take a scene of an act, then the one of the reasoning a character gives for it. It's more 'show, don't tell' today and I try harder to include the world a character inhabits to make the viewer understand their motivations better in this context. So as conclusion I would say, I'm more a mood vidder then narrative vidder anyways or at least in the way I understand these terms.

Yes, vidding changed the way I look at all TV shows as potential source material on a superficial level completely. I call it my vidder filter that sometimes picks up on shots I otherwise wouldn't think about. It's very visual. The settings, the mood and especially the lighting of scenes. It didn't change the way I see characters or a fandom, because ultimately you have to work with what you get in TV shows. Which is also the reason, why I get the use of external footage completely. Some stories are better told with more tools in the box or to be more literal, another source on your external hard drive to enhance the mood you are aiming for. Although up to now, I always found what I wanted in a source, even when that means scrolling through several seasons of eps.

Day 12 – Have you ever attempted an "adaptation" vid of a favorite media source but set in a different fandom? (I.e., attempted to bring the 'feel' or 'mood' of one source to a different fandom, like the zombie Mary Poppins vid)

Mmh, I don't think so. Mood manipulation to make a source appear slightly different than it really is, doesn't count, right?