Vid Commentary Meme 08

[beccatoria]

I saw this like...a month ago on kiki_miserychic's LJ and thought, wow, awesome! And meant to comment and meant to post it here and like the punk I am, forgot. Anyway, I accidentally stumbled across the meme again while LJ surfing on someone else's LJ and thought, dude, I totally forgot to post that!

It might be more apt to do this once my vidlet series project thingamabob is finished, but frak it. By then I'll probably be burned out with vidding or something, plus I'm bored and trying to stretch out my Saturday because Saturdays > Sundays.

SO:

If you want commentary on aspects of any vid I've made, post a comment. Let me know if there are particular questions you'd like me to answer, choices you'd like to talk about, or elements of the vid you'd like me to expound on (favorite moments, etc.).

I feel vaguely presumptuous assuming anyone really cares about why I did what I did in my vids, but whatever - like my entire LJ, commenting is entirely optional! :D

Comments

[chaila.livejournal.com]

I care! I want you to talk about "Ghosts"! Because, seriously, I am fascinated by some of your choices in that vid. To me, it comes across as a vid that's as much about Caprica's relationship with other women--D'Anna, Boomer, even Laura--as it is about Baltar and Tigh. Did you intend that or am I mapping my own biases onto it? :D I guess specifically, it'd be sweet to hear your thinking in your choices of Boomer and D'Anna on the "cold ground" and surrounding lines, which I think were my favorite parts. And also, LAURA, expound on Laura! She's relatively present in the vid for someone that Caprica's actually had very few scenes with; is this just b/c of the opera house stuff or were there other reasons?

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Ooh, great questions; you make me glad I posted this.

There are two main reasons for all the things you're asking. Firstly was what I wanted to do with the vid. I watched Sine Qua Non and after my initial SPORFLElarious moments I realised how...completely tragic Caprica's situation was - trapped in yet another loveless relationship. Before that episode, I really liked her character; had been frustrated by how underused she was in S3 and early S4, had a few thoughts on why she was the way she was. But for the first time her desperate quest for just...someone to love her and how no one ever pays enough attention to her to notice how deep her capacity for love is really hit me. And I couldn't shake how profoundly sad that was. The way she was marginalised by both the characters and the show itself. So I decided I wanted to vid her.

But I absolutely did not want it to be a vid about how she was pining after Gaius. Because she's so, so tangled up with Gaius even though her most interesting developments are when he's not around. So from the start, my concept was to make it about her and EVERYONE she's tried to love, in whatever way and how it never, ever works out. So that was always going be be, primarily, Gaius, Head!Gaius, Tigh, D'anna, Boomer and Hera.

So no, you're not mapping your own biases onto it; it's about Caprica's longing for a sense of connection and I thought if I wasn't deliberate about including those other women quite strongly, they'd fade and people would think they were there by coincidence or accident not design.

The second issue that affected my editing choices was footage. Discounting short framing scenes where she's in the background talking or something, I think I basically used something from every scene she was in that was significant for her, including at least one deleted one, except for the scene where she realises Gaius is lying about the infected Baseship, which I did use in an early draft but it was unclear what was going on to anyone who hadn't just rewatched all the Caprica footage.

Basically, she's not in this show very much. So the entire last section with the opera house visions and Laura and a bit of Athena is in there as much for necessity because there is nothing else as me trying to say that she's in love with Laura. I always wanted to end the piece with her opera house visions, Hera and D'anna's opera house visions, but I included Laura...partially for padding reasons. Which makes it sound kind of soulless which makes me unhappy because I actually really love her being in there. Even though I don't classify Laura as someone Caprica's fallen in love with (they don't interact much though OMG THEY SHOULD), she's definitely very important and tied up with Hera. So when I realised I could include her I was really happy about that (since she's my favourite).

The other reason I wanted to include Laura even though she doesn't strictly meet the criteria of "people Caprica loves and gets ignored by," is because I wanted to use the vid to situate her in the show and point out that via these crazy visions she's really frakking important, as a kind of manifesto/commentary on the show itself failing to love her.

The "cold ground," lyrics: OMG I'm so glad you like them. I had minor wars with my betas about keeping D'anna in there because originally the ending broke from Caprica's POV to D'anna's POV too strongly, but that shot I really wanted to keep. My original storyboard was going to have Caprica lying dead after Doral shot her on the first "cold ground" lyric and then that meant I felt I should have someone else dead on the second. But when I got that far, even though I was going for nonlinear editing, I wanted to use dead Caprica after she got shot not much later, so I put Boomer on "cold ground" since that was the part of the story I was telling then. Which made the decision to put dead!D'anna in the Opera House an easy one.

So those shots were half-planned, half-developed on the fly.

And...I hope that answers everything? Thanks for the chance to babble about this! If you have any more questions, let me know!

[chaila.livejournal.com]

Ooohh this is kind of awesome. You did a really good job with a minor-ish character, because nothing comes across as padding or compensating for lack of footage. I don't even know why, but Laura just fits in this vid, even though she isn't among those people that Caprica's tried to make a connection with, which is why I was really curious about those choices. I suppose it's because they are connected in spite of themselves. (Or maybe it's because I assume that everyone wants Laura to love them. . . ) I don't know, but it just works!

I'm glad you won your beta wars on the cold ground lyrics. :) Those clips just add an element of tragedy and make it less about the men and more about how it just always blows up in her face. Very nicely done.

And I'd never considered the external meta commentary on how the character gets shafted by the show, but she really does. I really like hearing about the creation of specific vids, because I know I'm not going to get every nuance of a vidder's intention, but I often wonder how much of a vid I'm "getting" and how much is sailing right past me, for whatever reason. Basically, yay vid commentary and thanks for letting me yammer to you about vidding lately. :D

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that it's interesting to you! :)

I suppose it's because they are connected in spite of themselves. (Or maybe it's because I assume that everyone wants Laura to love them. . . )

I assume that too. Gods know I do.

Though to offer a serious answer, or at least one less rooted in the obvious Unifying Theory of BSG - Everyone Loves Laura - I think it's because she slides effortlessly into the vision storyline and also because while they aren't emotionally close, she's the face of the snake pit Caprica walked herself into when she walked onto Galactica and into a cell. Much more so than Adama or even Tigh, Laura represents that cold, polite, distrusting, confused POW imprisonment; and that is a key part of her characterisation especially if, like me, you believe her going to Galactica was as a result of everything blowing up constantly in her face and an exhausted inability to deal with any more of that happening. The narrative of the vid is very nonlinear and I don't expect most people to follow it, but it is coherent to me at least, and she ends up 'in prison' very early on, and narrates most of her time on New Caprica during the Occupation, her affair with Gaius and D'anna and her leaving the Basestar in flashback. So I suppose - though I've never specifically parsed it this way before - a lot of this is about Caprica while imprisoned by Laura.

I often wonder how much of a vid I'm "getting" and how much is sailing right past me, for whatever reason.

I know exactly what you mean about never always getting all the vidders intentions. Though honestly that doesn't bother me too much in terms of my own vids: it's like a puzzle, which is why I love feedback (you know, aside from the obvious ego boost!) - to see what other people pick up from it. But I do agree, it's always fascinating to hear the genesis stories after you've had time to form your own reaction.

I never really figured that the meta-commentary of the vid on the show's use of the character would be obvious to all, simply because my goal was to use the limited footage to make a vid that made her look like a big part of the show so I suppose in some ways I succeed if the viewer doesn't remember how shafted she is material-wise, but I confess I enjoyed getting the chance to explain it to you.

And thank YOU for letting me yammer at YOU about vidding!

I've vidded casually for about three years, but it's only in the last six months that I've really gotten back into it/into it heavily for the first time. So it's wonderful to be meeting all these vidders and having new vidders blooming on my flist. It's just GLEE, I tell you. Please, never stop vid babbling at me. It's like my shiny new toy.

ETA: OMG it's your birthday today! Happy birthday! :D

[chaila.livejournal.com]

So I suppose - though I've never specifically parsed it this way before - a lot of this is about Caprica while imprisoned by Laura.

Oh I am in love with those thoughts. Deeply. I'm totally going to go rewatch the vid through that lens, as Caprica narrating New Caprica etc. through flashback because that hadn't clicked with me as a framing device. But the reason I love this is because it IS Laura more than anyone who represents what happens to Cylons on Galactica, the sort of cold, distant but ever-present threat of being expendable, totally worthless, mistrusted. And the few times that they have interacted, Laura comes with GUNS, lots and lots of guns. Sometimes so she can just make a big show out of being "compassionate" like with the Baltar-trial stuff and sometimes more benignly just because she's the president so guys with guns follow her around, but it is always very, very painfully clear in their interactions who has power and who does not. So yes, I think that does go a long way towards explaining why Laura fits here, even apart from the vision stuff, because in general, Laura is often nothing so much as a symbol. And I totally agree that it's Laura who's this face more than Tigh, who, unlike Laura, is hardly ever presented as being in control (also because they can't make Tigh the symbol of the jailer and then have her have his baby. Nuh-uh, I won't accept it). Also, I always find that shot of Laura and Tory watching Caprica in the cell from behind the glass to be so creepy, like Caprica can't even have that one private moment, there's always cameras and mirrors and someone lurking, watching, so that totally fits as well. (Gods if I now want to make a vid about Laura-as-jailer and force and power, I will BLAME YOU). I have a tendency to make Laura the center of everything, but how can I not when she can so clearly be the center of everything??? :)

As for not fully grasping a vidder's intentions, it actually doesn't bother me at all with respect to my own vids either. I think it's awesome that people see stuff I hadn't intended or see it differently than the way I intended, and yet somehow I always feel slightly guilty for missing stuff in other people's vids. Clearly I should connect those two things and realize that most vidders probably feel more or less the way we/I do about it. But still, it is awesome to get in depth into a vid like this and discuss it and see how much more awesome that makes the vid (which I already thought was pretty awesome). Layers, I like them.

And I have fallen so, so hard for vidding in a short amount of time and I'm so obsessed and gleeful about it, so yay shiny new toys! And thanks for the birthday wishes! :D

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

also because they can't make Tigh the symbol of the jailer and then have her have his baby. Nuh-uh, I won't accept it

OH WORD. One of the things that made me fascinated rather than repulsed by that pairing was my genuine belief that Caprica was the instigator in the sexual part of that relationship and it was genuinely not something Tigh ever expected. Of course, that's not to say that her sexualised response or his violence toward her or, well, the entire damn situation isn't due to exploitation or the things that have been done to her to leave her character in this situation, but it was certainly a different vibe than stockholm syndrome ickiness.

It was more, I'm so desperate for love I'll take anything ickiness...

I'm still disturbed by how hard I fell for that effed up relationship since like...90% of the avenues they can take the story in from here are WORLDS OF SQUICK. *le sigh*

(Gods if I now want to make a vid about Laura-as-jailer and force and power, I will BLAME YOU).

HOW CAN I ENABLE YOU INTO DOING THIS?

Seriously that is...a vid I want more than bread. If I can increase the likelihood of it happening through bribery, encouragement, or sacrificing things to dark gods, TELL ME!

[chaila.livejournal.com]

Eh I don't have a song in mind and I'm not very good at finding a song for a vid idea; so far I've only vidded when the song more or less hits me first. And I have like three other vid ideas I want to make! At this point, I'm pretty sure there's actually something WRONG with me. But five minutes of thinking about the idea have me really wanting it to exist, because it could be AWESOME (OMG Laura going from not wanting the gun in season 1 to being totally at ease surrounded by and directing force OMG), so something tells me it will have to happen eventually. Although since it was your awesome thought in the first place, you could very well make it too, you know, and save me the trouble. :D

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Late reply!

Stop trying to foist your awesome vid ideas off on me, woman! :p It wasn't really my awesome thought, it was an awesome thought you had extrapolated from my awesome thought but still a) different and b) in the form of a vid!

Seriously, though, I understand what it's like to have a vague vid idea but no concrete idea of how to make it. Just...let it live in your head for a while, and if you want to make it, you'll find the song.

Anyway, if there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with me, so I'm probably not the person to go to if you think this is a problem... *enables you* :p

[chaila.livejournal.com]

Hey, to be fair, this is the first time I tried to foist. The other time, the idea was totally independent but mutual (and, I still vow, will someday exist). :D

I get very impatient. But there's no reason. Laura will always be around rocking my socks and it's not like canon can supersede this idea. So yes, I shall let it simmer and we shall see.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ooh! I'm coming to this a little late, but I would love for you to talk about my favorite vid of yours, "there's a war going on for your mind, laura". Just anything about it -- the genesis of it and your favorite moments (I'm always very interested in that - people should praise themselves more). It'd be interesting to hear you expand on the use of Kara and Baltar in the vid, 'cause obviously they're both really tied in with the Cylons *and* with Roslin, and I always get this vibe of them, like... demanding her attention as much as the Hybrid.

I also kinda want to hear about some of the less-obvious lyrical choices in the second half, like the lines over D'Anna, Natalie, and Baltar's "a record executive records a demo of his apology."

Part 1 of Insane Wordiness.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hey, no worries about being late; late comments are always a great surprise. :)

Also, I'm proving again that I'm DAMN WORDY, especially about this vid, it seems. So two-part comment, sorry!

This is probably my favourite vid that I've made too, though that's a close call. I certainly think it's the best vid I've made both technically and thematically. Its genesis story is actually a little weirder than most of my vids which are either "OMG SONG, SONG!" or "OMG THING FROM THE SHOW I MUST VID, WHERE IS THE SONG?!"

In this case, kiki_miserychic had put the Flobots back on my radar due to her most awesome Handlebars vid, and I was listening to their new album and the first section - "there's a war going on for your mind," is a standalone under-a-minute track that was just screaming BSG to me. I spent about five minutes wondering whether it should be a Tigh or a Laura vidlet (yes, srsly) but went with Laura because a) I like her more and b) I didn't think that Tigh had quite enough material whereas with Laura I could connect her to everything along the Religion-Cylon-Politics spectrum and really make a vid about just...the entire show with her as a filter.

So I made that fifty-or-so-second vidlet and my mission statement was basically - EVERYTHING important that's happened to Laura on this show EVER must be represented within this tiny timeframe. Make it work. So I did and I showed it to cyborganize, my beta, and she was like, "dude this is awesome but the ending is too abrupt. You need to make it into an entire vid."

And I was like, "Um, how, that's all there is of the song." Although there was this companion piece - "We are winning," at the end of the album, but I was convinced it was too...hopeful. And I didn't want to make a hopeful vid about S4 because S4 was not, well, hopeful to me. But it was pinging me with cylon imagery and I had vague plans to make a cylon-centric vid with it after the series ended, if the footage fit. So I sent it to cyborganize who promptly said, "Yeah, I have no specific ideas but you do realise that the old woman talking is CLEARLY the Hybrid?" And I went, "No. I did not realise that, but I do now and ALL MY PROBLEMS ARE FIXED! LAURA VS THE HYBRID IN A RAP BATTLE!"

Because by putting this whole thing through the Hybrid, having the Hybrid addressing Laura and trying to fill her with hope while standing on wrecked Earth...that makes it awesome. That makes it no about S4 being hopeful to anyone sane but about the Hybrid's ability to look utterly in love with Kara while declaring that rocks are about to fall and everyone's about to die. Framed as an exaltation to fight the war for your mind and make it work, Laura even if it's been sucky so far.

Um...that was long. Oops. o_O

Regarding the lyrics, once I knew I was going to do Cylons for most of the second segment (eventually shifting to Laura-and-Cylons right at the end), I approached it in the same way I did the intro. EVERYTHING important that's happened to a Cylon has to be in there, however briefly. So for the first time in a long time I actually scripted it and just randomly filled stuff out and worried about making the different lines connect later (and even then only vaguely: THANK YOU INSANE HYRBID NARRATOR). Some were easy, like the patriot reporting for duty. Some...weren't. Some are fairly tenuous and at times I was playing a game of, "Crap where can I fit in X from the show; how can I make it work with this lyric?"

Part 2 of Insane Wordiness!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

The lyrics you ask about specifically:

Baltar as the record executive. The lyric seemed to be talking about a corrupt/and or sleazy person apologising unexpectedly. Along with the sex-and-drugs attitude of the music industry and the connotations of sleeping one's way to the top and his crazy sex-cult, that seemed kind of apt for Baltar. I couldn't think of any actual Cylon to put there, so I used him in the context of his Cylon One-God cult and his 'apology' being him getting almost killed while ministering to that Centurion (an important Centurion moment I wanted in there somehow), which leads to his crazy confession where the one thing he doesn't do is apologise, ironically. That's the 'deep' explanation anyway. The other reason he's there is that I thought it would at least be entertaining to say, "HEEE BALTAR IS A SLEAZY RECORD EXEC!"

Natalie on the police officer making reverse 911 calls? That was really easy for me actually, it was one of the first ones I wrote down. Because "instructing residents to take to the streets" just screamed Natalie's Centurion insurrection, and it had the nice ring of a 'reverse' 911 call. The soldiers they usually call for help are coming to kill them instead. And then I intercut it with Natalie herself getting shot as Athena decides to "take to the streets." Also I wanted Natalie reasonably close to the "patriot" line as I also think Natalie is a patriot. I think she and Athena actually share that line in the vid, though clearly the stress is more on Athena as she continues over the 'jumpsuits' section.

D'Anna's was one of the last lines I filled. I couldn't think of many instances of art that didn't involve Starbuck and I knew she had to be the bridge between the Cylons and Laura again at the end of the vid. Ultimately D'anna and her drawings of the Final Five went there by default because I could find visuals to match both the drawing images, the 'adult filmstar' image and 'smiling'. It's totally not the intention of the lyrics, but I did like the way I had her naked as an adult filmstar and then fully clothed and smiling but also, you know, DYING. It ended up being one of my favourite parts of the vid, I guess.

Though saying that seems wrong since I'm hardpressed to pick favourite parts of this vid. I'm still just so awed that I managed to finish it and it exists.

It might sound a copout to say it, but I guess my favourite part is the concept. I still just absolutely love it. The war for Laura's mind, with a rap-battling hybrid hijacking the airwaves to give her a pep-talk.

Oh, I forgot Kara and Baltar! Kara was always going to have to be in the vid simply because her destiny is so intertwined with the Cylon. So important Cylon moments, like...nearly everything to do with Leoben, and the Mandala, and religion, and all the stuff on the rebel basestar when she arrives and her visions of the Hybrid (considering the thrust of this vid). But she started being an actual player rather than simply a supporting character when I realised I needed a bridge back to Laura. Kara almost is the link between Laura and the Hybrid in 4.07, and is certainly the link between human and cylon, theologically. Kara and Laura are the two mythological and religious poles of a show about cylons, so in a vid about Laura and cylons, it seemed wrong not to include her.

Baltar's inclusion was a little more haphazard, for which I apologise because I know how you love him and I wish I could tell you that he was more deliberate. Basically he snuck in so often because he just is present in so many important Laura moments and cylon moments. Which, like you say, is a testament to the way Baltar's desperate for attention from both parties - Laura and the Cylon. I think it's just that Baltar's standing within the mythos of the show is still so...unclear? Kara and Laura obviously have actual prophetic status. Baltar as...an insane pretender or just as important? Still up for debate...

[projectcyborg.livejournal.com]

of course I am no way deprived of commentary on your vids :D. but I'm going to ask about Jesus Walks, which is before my time. my question is, HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME?

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Um, lots of cookies? :p

I'm going to assume that you're asking like, how I got the idea or somesuch? Like most of my best ideas it was a reaction to my environment and other creative endeavours going on around me. As you know, I've vidded a few songs with better known counterparts to the same music. When I vidded JW, I wasn't at all aware of the very famous version about Gunn, but it was another vid that put it on my radar. sdwolfpup, I think, made like a forty second vidlet of the song to Braveheart, and I was somewhat tickled by the hilarity of Kanye West to 15th century Scotland and William Wallace as a totally inappropriate Jesus.

I know that's how I discovered I quite liked Kanye West at any point. My actual decision to vid Roslin to it is a embarassingly hazy; I remember it as some crazy idea that refused to leave me alone until I gave up and listened to the track trying to think of images and was shocked to realise I already had nearly all of them. I believe key components in that process were a) a friend and me joking about inappropriate Jesuses and her making fun of my obsession with Laura Roslin and me totally defending that Laura Roslin > Jesus AND YOU, and b) a rash of jokes on LJ about how Laura Roslin was a sekrit gangsta.

I wish I could remember better because it's one of the best vids I've ever made and while I know I was totally in charge of the clip choices and editing, I also remember feeling very much that it was something I vidded due to the atmosphere on LJ, and the other creative material I was encountering and the discussions I was having and reading, which was new for me as previously my vids had been much more solely products of my own mind. And probably poorer for the lack of interaction with wider fandom. But yeah, at the time I felt very odd about that and curious and wondered if somehow it made it less...mine or my idea or 'genuine'?

In that sense, I suppose, JW was my first "meta" vid, considering how meta doesn't have to but is often a response to memes that travel through fandom; things we never would have thought of in an isolated viewing environment but are parts of our ongoing discussions with each other?

Um, I hope that answers the question? ;)