BSG Vidlet: Televangelism

[beccatoria]

Here is my tenth and final response to thearchive2's challenges! The project is over! Soon I will upload a playlist on my imeem page and direct links to all the vidlets have been added to my dirt simple website.

Title: Televangelism
Video: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Audio: One Love - The Flobots
Summary: God is in the TV the wireless your brain.
Editor's Notes: My thanks to both cyborganize and heyiya for all their help on this one. It was kind of a war with the footage, but I'm pretty happy with the end result. This is in response to thearchive2's tenth challenge: broadcast. And yes, the audio distortions are deliberate!

Direct download available here. 21 megs approx. RightClickSaveAs!

Password: vidses

Watch on Vimeo

Cross-posted to thearchive2, galactica_vids and vidding.

Other vids available here.

Comments

[thelibraniniquity]

Absolutely brilliant. Loved the effects and filters you used. I only wish it could have been longer!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm especially pleased you like the oldfilm effects I managed to cook up - that was basically the killer part of the vid. I knew I had to make it look broadcasty but how was another matter. It all just kept looking wrong til I hit on this version.

Anyway, thank you for letting me know you enjoyed it! :D

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Excellent song + footage treatment to make it seem broadcast! I watched it twice to really pay attention to the masterful cuts/zooms/pans (I kinda can't believe you made this with WMM--you have made it your bitch!).

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it! BSG is such an awesome source for using pans and zooms because it's so free with the camera movement and you can speed that up sometimes for truly awesomely crazy results! (Of course at other times it means you can't speed up footage without it looking ridiculous, but I suppose life is a trade off!)

WMM is totally my bitch, but this is largely because I'm insane enough to stick with it. I don't think I'd have the stamina to if I didn't know it kind of inside out by now. :/

To vaguely continue the discussion from vidding, if you're interested, there are three steps to getting this old-film type effect. (Though usually I don't do anything like that level of, um, post-production? on a vid - this is unusual for me.)

1) I have a custom colour filter that will increase warm tones or cool tones which is pretty nice. It's one of the few custom effects I have that I think is nice enough to keep installed. So this is warmed up a few times to give it a discoloured 70s TV over-exposedy look.

2) Used the standard WMM Old Film effect on some clips (the ones where you can see the lines and splotch marks).

3) The ridiculously painstaking bit that I will probably never again repeat unless I can import the vid into the same project file as this one and do it two minutes at a time! Basically I chopped the entire thing up into 10th of a second clips and then put one standard WMM increase brightness effect on every other one to give it that flickering quality like old film reel.

I'm really quite pleased with how that worked! But yes, I do expect most people to assume that it's just a standard/custom effect. Vidding can be thankless when you're trying to make effects that slip into the background rather than look flashy... *melodramatic sigh!* :p

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

(I love how we're having three conversations simultaneously in different places. Heh.)

That was a great idea to increase the brightness on odd clips to get the flicker effect. So creative!

I must think more on coloring of clips. I read someone's post elsewhere about how they fiddled with the coloring to have two distinct clips from different episodes look more similar/like they were from the same eppy and I thought that was pretty genius too.

I know some people take months with their vids, but three weeks or so seems to be the most I can spend before I start wondering if I'm crazy to be obsessing.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Squee squee yay! I still love it, and am so glad you went with the distortions and effects. This is so the reclamation of the weirder parts of s4 (ok, of the Gaius storyline) for me. And as always I just love the archive conceit; the spliced together footage from different eras (I'm just going to say that in your comments so people can know what it is :) ) and the sense of future post-cylon/humans using bsg footage to make sense of their past...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm really glad that I went with the distortions and effects too. The more I watch it the more sure of the choices I become which is a nice turn around from the usual!

I'm also really pleased I have managed to help you reclaim any of season four, because, yes, the Giaus storyline was hella weird, but having a little more distance from it and a little less visceral terror that they'll make him the actual messiah (I'm sure this will return when the show does, but for now I shall revel in my mellowness), I'm kind of...okay with it. As in, I still think that it's really squicky in places and I'm still not sure how I feel about Gaius buying into his own legend and I still think that The Hub proves him buying into his own legend was awful for him as a human being, but I'm also willing to believe that in the wider context of the show...it might be good. The storyline might make sense.

So to end my long ramblings: yes! I am trying to reclaim it too, and I'm glad that I could help you do so!

(Also hooray for explanatory shout-outs in the comments! :p)

(Also considering the way 'beccatoria' decrypted the Book of Kara, perhaps 'beccatoria' is the diegetic framing this series needs: a future post-human denizen and vid-artist?) /full of self! :P

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

perhaps 'beccatoria' is the diegetic framing this series needs: a future post-human denizen and vid-artist?)

ABSOLUTELY. (You should totally make a webpage for your BSG archive vids based on that conceit. Actually we could have all the cylon vids/artifacts archived at such a webpage... there's a project for someone! :) ).

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

That would be a totally awesome idea, but have you seen my website?

It's dirt simple for a reason.

That reason being my complete inability to design a website. You know, in case you thought it was my deeply awesome sense of 'retro' or something... :p

So basically I completely approve but move we shanghai someone else and make THEM do it. Unless, of course, you want to? *nudge nudge*

WE COULD ALL HAVE POST-HUMAN VID-ARTIST IDENTITIES!

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe it's a project for thr cylon hivemind to consider... Not that I can design a website either, but I did make that vid framework thing. Hmm.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I see from your edited comment that we are cylonically sharing a brain again! :)

(The possibility of me doing it should be understood in light of the fact that I have been meaning to make centurion and cylon internet icons since I did Sons and Daughters, and that I am estimating I will probably finish the vid project I am circling around beginning in earnest around four months from now...)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's what happens when I get distracted, do something else, then hit post before I've finished typing *headdesk*

But yes. It's totally an awesome idea if any of us actually have any time. And I'm excited by any possibility of you doing it no matter the timescale. Plus if it's in like four or five months, that's around the time the whole series will end so it might stand as a cool post-series artifact, and also give us a complete framework in which to reinterpret the vids?

[projectcyborg.livejournal.com]

just jumping in to say that I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT CREATING A YOUTUBE ACCOUNT FOR THE HYBRID for my hypothetical "projection" project.

/hivemind

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes and yay! I did actually think of that but didn't want to mention it as it wasn't my idea/didn't know if you wanted the idea co-opted into an insane hivemind project (though srsly, why would the answer to that question not be obvious to me? :p)

/hivemind.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

I just want to say I have enjoyed your contributions to this entire series. I am kind of sorry to see it end. But I know I still have to go back to a few vidlets and will probably get more and more out of them during rewatch.

Yes, you totally owned WMM during this project. I love the distortion effects in this one. And heyiya's comment is brilliant. Like your vidlet(s) are little Handmaid's Tale-esque remnants from other cycles of BSG times. I LOVE that idea very much!

Thanks so much for making them. So much fun and made me get much more out of the show during this crazy long hiatus!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it and the rest of the vidlets that you've seen!

WMM and I have become some sort of weird hybrid by now, I think! I'm actually considering making a "WMM & Me: It's not as awful as you think!" post along with an opinion poll or something, but we'll see...

I also love the idea of framing all of the vidlets that way. I was always trying to frame a fair few of them within the universe (The Book of Kara, Memo: Re: Revolution and Traditional Cylon Lullaby spring to mind), but it's very satisfying to view the whole thing that way.

Anyway, you're totally welcome - thank you for watching and leaving feedback and I'm really happy that I could help with hiatus fever!

THE HYBRID IS A TELEVANGELIST

[projectcyborg.livejournal.com]

OMG IT'S TRUE. YOU HAVE INSTALLED WMM IN YOUR BRAIN. *AFRAID* I can't believe you created the flickering effect MANUALLY. o_0

I know I was especially cranky about the minutiae of this vid, but I think the final version is fantastic! Going with the audio distortions was definitely the right choice -- it really helps to emphasize the mediated themes. Plus, using audio manipulation like this is very unique!

I LOVE your comments below about broadcast noise/degradation, and how we could extend that metaphorically to religion. All the great discussion here brings home what an impressive and fitting conclusion this is to your vidlet series. BSG references media less forcefully than a lot of other television, while being the ultimate self-reflexive commentary in its subtle and sweeping way. It's BRILLIANT how powerfully you connected up its narratives about religious faith and its narratives about technological uncertainty. And in the midst of the oohing about effects, let's not forget that the cutting is EFFING GENIUS. IT SOUNDS LIKE A SONG THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW.

p.s. I download the deleted scenes -- thank you!!!

Re: THE HYBRID IS A TELEVANGELIST

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Apparently my brain runs on Windows Vista. This should probably worry me. And yes, I created the flickering effect manually. Because I am INSANE.

And thanks for your thoughts on the final version. It's only as awesome as it is now because you were so cranky about not releasing it without proper postproductiontype effects, and if you hadn't been, I would never have thought to manually, um, flickerize it which took a long time, sure, but I love the overall effect it creates.

Anyway, I really appreciate the positive feedback on not only the editing but also the themes. There was a lot I wanted to express and I think the vid itself helped me to put my thoughts in order, because the more I keep doing it, the more I realise that vidding rocks as a method of fannish meta. I'm unbelievable pleased that you 'get' it.

And you're totally welcome for the deleted scenes. :)

[beerbad.livejournal.com]

Love this one!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :D

[chaila.livejournal.com]

This one was so awesome! Love, love the framing devices, both the archival look and sound of the whole thing, and the TVs, radios etc. in the actual vid.

This not a competition, lord hear my prayer.

OMG. *flail*

I don't know if this is what you're going for, but I really loved the contrast of the external and the internal, if that makes any sense. The answers, god, whatever it is, is not in the wireless or in the TV, in the external broadcast, but in their actions, people's relationships with each other, etc. Awesomesauce.

I loved this whole project, even though I suck at commenting regularly. :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so pleased you like it! Don't worry about commenting regularly - I'm bad at that myself and it means I know when people do comment they do it because they want to not because they feel obligated. :)

I'm glad that you picked up not only on the broadcastey effects but also the tvs and radios, etc. in the vid. I really wanted it to be about the way religion is broadcast through the fleet - the way religion and technology intertwine - hence the title.

I have to confess I'd never thought of it as the contrast between internal and external, I think you got something a litlte different to what I was intending. But then again maybe not.

As I said I was going for broadcasting and technology and religion, so I knew I wanted not only literal technological broadcasts (like Baltar's pirate broadcasts) but also the visions - God broadcasting directly into your brain - and the hybrid - perhaps the ultimate merging of technology and the Word of God. (Ha! The hybrid is the ultimate televangelist!)

So, like, the proliferation of religious broadcasts in the Fleet is only a parallel to the proliferation and expansion of these crazy mystical visions; whether you turn on the radio, or sit next to the hybrid, or get high on chamalla, or fly out in your viper and see your dead best friend magically returned from the dead - the signal is transmitting. So ultimately it becomes very personal for each character.

So it's fascinating that you focus on that personal relationship with the, err, "divine broadcast" which I hadn't really focused on so much as, "OMG the divine broadcast is just another kind of broadcasting!"

...does that makes sense? *hopes*

[chaila.livejournal.com]

I totally got the technology/religion theme but ooohh I hadn't necessarily made the visions = broadcasting to your brain connection though I love it. This is rather fascinating because I think you were intending to focus more on the means of communication, technology and the divine broadcast, which is totally awesome and kind of mind-blowing, while my brain must search for Personal Meaning. Because I think the further connections I was sort of making was the way people take the televangelism, the broadcast, the visions, and sort of, live it, personally. The signal in say, Baltar's pirate broadcast leading to Laura making a connection with Emily (and the possible recognition that her beliefs are perhaps not in competition with Baltar's preaching, which OMG I'm still flailing over the "competition" line/clips), or the broadcast!visions leading Laura not to let Baltar die. So the idea I was sort of taking away from it was that the broadcasts, the signals, the visions, don't mean anything until somebody sort of adopts them, believes them, acts them out. Receives them, as it were, in a more active, personal way. So then is the meaning in the external broadcast or in the actions of the person who received it and digested it internally, believed it, put their own spin on it and acted according to it? Which I don't think is actually adverse to what you were saying, but just a bit of a different focus? Something like that anyway. :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you've got that exactly right. Though the fact that you picked up on something else is really awesome. I would also note that I was trying to focus on the broadcast and technological ideas because that was the prompt not because I find your ideas less interesting. Which I totally don't, and in fact I think that Faith is my least-favourite S4 BSG episode (even though it has my favourite S4 scene: the Hybrid's prophecy to Kara) because the Laura and Emily storyline was just so...stupidly lacking in any real exploration of Faith and whether Emily was finding hidden messages in Baltar's static the way Leoben finds messages in the Hybrid's static, or whether she was just a dying woman falling for a common dream among the terminally ill. It was a totally weird mishmash of messages that left me utterly confused as to what I was supposed to think Laura was saying when she told Adama Baltar might be on to something.

So like...I'm very, awesomely interested in the idea that personal interpretation of your faith really changes up what that faith is and what it means. Which ties in to the fact that human oracles seem to be in touch with the same mystic source as the hybrid and make prophecies about cylons and stuff, and isn't that the most extreme example of source-interpretations leading to opposite sides?

I suppose if I wanted to tie these two threads together in the context of the vid, I'd suggest decaying purity of broadcast as it gets older, more warped, more repeated. God transmits into your brain, or God has to reach you through his insane metatron the Hybrid, or God has to reach you through someone fumbling through the dark in a desperate attempt to feed his own ego, and Gaius, in turn, is distributing illegal pirate broadcasts one low-quality, static-filled bandwidth to dying, impressionable women. Who in turn have dreams directly from God.

The word of God might be infallible but just because the TV's telling you the truth doesn't mean you're going to hear it right?

And now I've talked myself in circles and really have no idea what I'm saying aside from: I love it when people comment in my journal and make me do that so yay you!

Finally: I'm so glad that you liked the "competition" line! I was so stuck on that one until it snapped into place. I'm still not entirely sure what it means myself, but yes, I also get a sense of rich, complex, confusion about the nature of the competition between Laura and Gaius and which one of them has access to the source of the broadcast and what it means if it's both.

[chaila.livejournal.com]

left me utterly confused as to what I was supposed to think Laura was saying when she told Adama Baltar might be on to something

I KNOW! I still have no idea. I choose to view it as Laura recognizing exactly what you say about the "competition" line, not buying into Baltar's spiel, just recognizing that maybe not everything is going to turn out exactly like she planned, maybe she doesn't know all the answers. Just accepting of her own uncertainty, of the rich layers and the confusion. Maybe she doesn't have a direct line to the gods, maybe there are conflicting signals, and maybe that's okay?

The word of God might be infallible but just because the TV's telling you the truth doesn't mean you're going to hear it right?

EXACTLY! I shall fall back on a West Wing quote here, as I am apt to do. Someone asks one of the characters if he believes the Bible to be literally true, and he says something along the lines of, "Yes, but I don't think either one of us is smart enough to understand it." And that line PWNS ME. I sort of think that's the idea. No matter where you're receiving the signal from, you're interpreting it. Especially when god speaks through crazy hybrids and weird visions. Not so straightforward is god, especially when the signals being relayed and retranslated through all these channels. And yet everyone thinks they have a Direct Line to the Truth. And just, no. You have a direct line to what you believe to be the truth. And that? Is not the same thing. And now I'm talking in circles. :)

[(Anonymous)]

This is amazing! I will miss your vids - they are always very though-provoking.

You wouldn't happen to have a download link to the full song, would you? Thanks!

-Vanita

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the feedback! I'm really glad you liked the vid. I'll kind of miss the series too, though don't worry, I'm sure it won't be my last ever vid! I just hope any future endeavours will be as successful.

I'm sorry but I don't have a download link to the full song. Though I do thoroughly recommend anything by them. This song is from their first album, Platypus.

together we're much more than the sum of our parts

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

You already know, but The Flobots are the voice of BSG. The rest of the world needs to accept it. This vid fills me with love and joy of BSG, The Flobots, you, fandom, and vidding.

The filter use is minimal to just the right degree and it means something. It gives it an underground pirate-y feel to me. I read how you did the flickering, which is amazing and brillant. There's an XML for it, but it wouldn't look the same as this. I had some trouble writing feedback because it was difficult for me to separate out the parts of the vid to talk about. It's like it comes together as this one thing that melded together. I love that. The effects feed into that too. It's like the vid is a xerox of a xerox of a xerox with the audio distortions going right along with the melting of the themes.

:01 - Right away that zoom pulls the viewer into the vid.
:08 - Nice use of the pan to Gaius to go into his section. The flow of it from character to character is great as glue.
:10 - On beat steps!
:20 - Clap!
rowing it - Witty lyric interpretation and movement on the clip.

Nice use of the Hybrid with Laura to Kara to Sam and the Four. The looping feeling of the characters through their interaction is amazing.

The lyric interpretations and manipulations are stellar. It's witty, funny, and touching.

But wash your feet, give his life as the soldiers watch / And forgive his torturers below the cross It's with this lyrical section that the interplay of religion came across for me with Sam and the other Cylons.

The use of the sources, like tv and radio, are interesting as well. The static, dreams, the recording of Gaius' broadcast with the disimination of it throughout the fleet, phones, the people affected, medical devices, the Hybrid, the ships, the base star controls, the projection, relationships, drawings, painting, HUDs, and so many things. The power of words, thoughts, projections as broadcasts, ideas, and perhaps religion. The xerox of a xerox feeling plays into the religion aspect for me in that religion can be so distorted by man as it is "broadcasted".

In reading the comments, I think it's hi-larious that so many people have had the same idea. You with the website, Julie with the Hybrid's youtube, and my idea of creating a vidshow for the next VVC. I have a spreadsheet thing and a list of the vids I want to include under the Cylonicity artifact framework.

Re: together we're much more than the sum of our parts

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you! Thank you so much for taking the time to put together such wonderful and detailed feedback. This really means a lot to me.

The way I did the flickering was pretty insane but I'm so happy it's a hit. I'm kind of in love with it and am glad I didn't just go looking for an XML because I agree it might not have looked so awesome.

I'm also just so, so pleased that people are getting this whole xerox-of-a-xerox-of-a-xerox feel from this thing. Degraded recordings of degraded recordings from so many sources. Because ultimately that's what broadcast and BSG makes me think of. The degradation of the signal; the lack of a clear transmission? And combined with religion and machinery I think that's fascinating.

Thanks for noting your favourite sections. CLAP! SQUEE! I'm pleased you liked that. And the "rowing it" lyric. I loved the idea and was then somewhat taken aback by how...filthy it ended up looking. I mean, not necessarily in a bad way, but I was like...dude. That's not particularly graphic but it sure is filthy. As in...worse because it's suggestive rather than explicit or something?

I'm also pleased that the religious angle works well for you on the really obviously religious lines. I was a little concerned about how obvious they were and whether people would find them...not necessarily offensive (though I did wonder what people would make of my choosing such a bluntly Christian song and whether it would be taken as a message of support or condemnation or neither) but...overly obvious? Personally I thought it was a nice obvious touch to clarify the message without a necessarily obvious image, so I'm glad it worked.

In reading the comments, I think it's hi-larious that so many people have had the same idea. You with the website, Julie with the Hybrid's youtube, and my idea of creating a vidshow for the next VVC. I have a spreadsheet thing and a list of the vids I want to include under the Cylonicity artifact framework.

OMG I KNOW. We should just give up and accept that our brains are networked.

I'd be awesomely interested in any vidshow you put together! What vids are you thinking about or is it DEADLY SEKRIT?

I have this crazed, half-baked dream of going to VVC next year though it probably won't materialise. :(

[sol-se.livejournal.com]

This is amazingly brilliant! I love it!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :D

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

OKAY, IS BSG TO THE FLOBOTS EVER NOT AWESOME? Wow.

Now I feel bad, because I had all that stuff to say about the Tigh vidlet, and now I get to this and I'm just like... "Wheeeee!" I got nothin', I could just stare and smile and enjoy. Luckily other people were more wordy.

This vid made me miss BSG even more... I think I got more excited over it than the actual trailer. :) Excellent!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION IS NO. BSG AND THE FLOBOTS IS NEVER NOT AWESOME. JUST TO BE CLEAR.

Also, "Wheeee!" is a perfectly acceptable, appreciated, and indeed encouraged response! :D

I'm glad it got you excited for the GRAND RETURN. Oh...BSG. *missage*