beccatoria: (crossbones)
beccatoria ([personal profile] beccatoria) wrote2009-02-11 01:09 pm

BSG Vids: I require your assistance, kind people!

Warning: Vid-oriented, potentially egotistical naval-gazing follows! :D

BSG is ending, and hopefully I'll get a chance to learn how to vid other shows but at the same time, I really like the idea of my backlog of vids standing as some kind of visual archive of my Battlestar experience, and the more of the show I can filter through my perspective via vids, the better. I especially want this because so much of my love affair with vidding is tied up in my love affair with this show, it seems right to mark it this way.

So I'm looking for help. Suggestions on what I haven't vid-babbled about yet. It's not quite a call for prompts, more a call to identify segments of the show (character-wise, thematics-wise, plot-wise) I haven't said anything about yet. Although any thoughts on what you'd do with that kind of vid would be welcome as they might jumpstart my brain. Because these are probably not going to be things I'm all that comfortable and familiar with, or I'd have vidded them already.

So screw it, yes, I suppose I am asking for prompts, just...prompts I probably will not be fulfilling any time soon as I have other vidding projects; prompts I may not ever fulfill, and prompts I will almost certainly twist to my own nefarious purposes? But if you'd be willing to take a second to say, "Hey, you know what you never vidded?" I'd be totally grateful.


VIDS

Fast Car
: General overview of seasons one and two.
My Vampire Heart: Boomer, Athena, Helo, Tyrol.
Devils & Dust: Cylon/Religion-centric overview of seasons one and two.
Jesus Walks: Laura Roslin, religion, politics.
Hallelujah: Lee Adama, Laura/Lee relationship, Laura Roslin (note: I really consider this to be my Lee Adama vid. While it's ostensibly about a 'ship, it's completely from his perspective and one of the reasons I love that 'ship is that it brings out the Lee I love best.)
Hummingbird Song: Kendra, Cain, Gina, Razor episodic, violence.
Ghosts: Caprica Six, Caprica/Everyone Who Never Loved Her (too long a list to type out!), love.
Tricks: General overview of season 4.0.
there's a war going on for your mind, laura: Laura Roslin, Cylons, Cylon Hybrid, religion, violence, politics.
Dolled-up in Straps: Gaius Baltar, Head Six, Baltar/Head Six.
About Today: Bill Adama, Adama/Roslin (eeew, yes I typed it, partly because I think this is probably the closest I could ever possibly get myself to making an A/R vid, so I'm kind of desperate to fit it on my "done it!" list...)

VIDLETS
Scar: Kara Thrace, Sam Anders, Scar the Cylon Raider, Kara/Sam, Kara/Scar, Sam/Scar, cylons, rebellion.
The Book of Kara: Kara Thrace, Leoben Conoy, Kara/Leoben, religion.
Rumour: whore-centric season 4.0 overview, humour, sex.
Manifesto: Natalie, Galen Tyrol, Kara Thrace, politics.
Memo: Re: Revolution: Bill Adama, Cylon Centurions, rebellion, violence.
Traditional Cylon Lullaby: Athena, Hera, cylons, possibly reproduction?
Five Loves Six Found: Caprica Six, Natalie, Gina, love, violence, cylons.
I want to be Evil: Tory Foster, Laura Roslin, Laura/Tory, politics.
Saul Tigh: A & B: Saul Tigh, Saul/Ellen, cylons.
Televangelism: Gaius Baltar, Laura Roslin, religion, technology.
Sunday Bloody Sunday: Mambo Remix: Cylons, humans, Cylons/Humans, humour, violence.
I have weird memories of you: Final Five, crossover, cylons.

JOINT PROJECTS
The Tomorrow Project: with [livejournal.com profile] cyborganize. Episodics for season 4.0. Variously covering: cylons, religion, technology, humour, violence, politics, slash, crack, and all of Leland and Lance's daddies.
Ladies' Choice: with [livejournal.com profile] asta77. Gaius Baltar, Lee Adama, Sam Anders, Karl Agathon, humour, sex.



Things I already know I haven't done (but would still be open to ideas about):

- Full-length Kara Thrace vid (I know I've vidletted her a bunch of times, but I want at least one full-length vid for each of the seven credited cast members). I've always planned on doing a vid for Kara, but...she's so fascinating in terms of the show's plot and mythology, I need to wait until her story is finished before I can do this, I think. But...this item probably stands alone in that I'm not stuck, just choosing to wait.

- D'anna. I do have some vague idea of a song I could use for her, but...we'll see. (Vid or Vidlet).

- Gaeta. I have...no ideas here. And I don't want to seem like I'm just jumping on the bandwagon of being interested now he's dead. I always liked him well enough, but he never really jumped out at me. (Vidlet?)

- Dualla. Same as Gaeta. I like her and all (actually I like her significantly more than I like Gaeta) but I just...I can't think of a good thing to say about her. So much of her plotlines were tied up in the quadrangle of doom or her very messy death and I just...I don't want it to look like I only made a vid because she died horrifically or something. (Vidlet?)

- Sam Anders, maybe? I've vidded him both for comedy and as part of the final five, but his only play as Sam was in the last third of Scar. I love him there, but maybe he deserves some screentime of his own? (Vidlet? Or a vid about him and something?)

- Ellen Tigh. Given her recent meteoric rise in importance. Although that's probably one best left on the backburner until the end of the series.

- Various 'ships. I'm not fussed about vidding every 'ship because there are too many and honestly, if I can't vid my second favourite (Laura/Maya) due to lack of source, why should I care about the others! :p But I know that there are some fairly significant ones that I haven't touched like Kara/Lee, although to be totally honest, I'm not really sure what I could that's interesting with that one. But hey, I admire crackship vids, so if anyone has any out-there ideas, shoot. Also, I should probably be ashamed to admit, I kinda 'ship Chief/Sam a little, but no vidlet ideas are hitting me right now.

- That whole parents/children/reproduction/cylon/human mess. I've dealt with cylons and religion thing a million and a half times, but the other half of their obsession - babies - is something I've only skirted the edges of and it also ties into all the parent-child issues among the human characters. So like, at some point I want to make a big messy vid about parents and children and humans and cylons and how babies get made. But...I don't know if I ever will.

Halp?

just so you can turn me down...

[identity profile] jo-lasalle.livejournal.com 2009-02-11 02:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I know you hate the guy, but one vid I would personally love to see would be a serious Zarek/Lee vid -- in the sense of, Zarek's POV on Lee and what has him fascinated there, why he loves pushing Lee's buttons so much.

And the other thing you'll turn me down on for sheer insanity, but oh, it would be cool to see what you'd do with it... civilians. In the fleet. Not the ones we meet as crazies and fanatics. Just regular people and what's it been like there since the Cylon attack. (And no, I don't even know where I'd go looking for the footage; possibly on other shows...)

Have I ever mentioned how much I love there's a war going on for your mind, laura? I think I actually said so about Ghosts, but forgot with that one -- very bad of me! But now I've said it, I love that one.

Re: just so you can turn me down...

[identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com 2009-02-11 03:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Actually, I think you have a point that I've never vidded Zarek. I'm still not sure what I'd do with him since his behaviour is completely inconsistant to me so I'd have to work out who I thought he was before I could vid him. But a vid about Zarek and politics featuring Lee and Laura could be interesting. Although it'd never be half as awesome as State of the Union which I hope I've told you is like the best BSG & Politics vid I've seen. Still. (And thank you for the compliment about War!)

Also I...kind of share in your insanity about the civilians. For real, one of my vague vidbunnies is a vid about the civilians of the Fleet and how the human government and military much seem at times as terrifying and arbitrary as the cylons and what it's like to be stuck in the depths of a ship with no frakking clue what's happening half the time.

The reason I haven't done anything with it yet is a) it's to a song by The National and I'm starting to get embarassed by how much I've vidded to them lately. Like the last three freakin' things I've vidded have been to their songs already. And b) I'm...nervous of having enough civilian footage.

But...maybe I should reconsider its viability. It'd be awesome if I could pull it off; I'm just not sure I can.

Re: just so you can turn me down...

[identity profile] jo-lasalle.livejournal.com 2009-02-11 04:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm still not sure what I'd do with him since his behaviour is completely inconsistant to me so I'd have to work out who I thought he was before I could vid him.

I don't think I'd be the person to vid a character I can't stand, so I don't want to talk you into it (too much :-), but... Before I did State of the Union (and thank you very much for the praise!) I didn't find him *entirely* inconsistent but I was wavering wildly which side of whatever I was coming down on regarding him. Trying to see things through his POV without being ironic about it and him at all (the song is wonderful for its unironic shakyfistness) was an enlightening experience. It didn't make me love him, but it did a lot for my understanding of the character.

Re the civilians... do eeeeeeet!!! Ahem. *g* Would you at all considering taking sources not from the show? Not that I'd know where to look, this is just curiosity asking, because my first thought upon trying something like this would actually be, Where can I steal?

I'm also curious what you'll come up with re: Ellen Tigh. :-) Before I got seriously annoyed with BSG (... or maybe before my third, critical wave of annoyance...) I was vidding her to 'Suzanne' for a while. *g* I found her pretty viddable for as long as that lasted! (Then I got annoyed and had a PC wipe and... well.)

Re: just so you can turn me down...

[identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com 2009-02-11 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I think I'm mostly narked at Zarek because I kind of wanted him as a naive and violent idealist but I can't quite match that to a lot of his later behaviour. I can almost, almost make it fit if I see his rhetoric about the winners making history and the ends justifying the means because he'll make a better tomorrow as somewhat delusional justifications on his own part; fronting with philosophy as he becomes increasingly desperate but I can't... Your vid really did make me feel I understood him much better, but the directions he went in season three and especially in season four still leave me confused. :(

Regarding the civilians, I'd absolutely be willing us use alternate source, but my main problem would be where the hell I'd look for it. Plus often alternate source has entertaining problems like aspect ratio issues or lighting or style that makes it obviously from elsewhere, but my experience with that is very limited.

And OMG, you tried vidding Ellen Tigh? Awesome! Nice to hear she's viddable. To be honest, I don't think I'd try to vid her before the end of the series just because I think the last chunk of episodes might shed serious extra light on her character and who knows what she'll come back like. So...we'll see.

Re: just so you can turn me down...

[identity profile] jo-lasalle.livejournal.com 2009-02-11 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I think the problem (well, a problem) with Zarek is that he didn't fit into the Cylon plot, not really. Or the Cylons didn't fit into *his* plot, or something. The circumstances under which is politics became relevant again were caused by the Cylons, and the before/after there is interesting, but not how he feels about them. Zarek's issues are other issues; he belonged to that other show, the one Lee was supposed to be on most of the time.

The way they've set him up, there's really no self-evident way he'd feel about the Cylons; he probably doesn't love them, but there's also nothing special about his issues with them. So when suddenly his actions become at least partly dependent on how he feels about the Cylons, like it was re: the collaborator episode, that's where -- IMO -- he becomes hugely inconsistent.

(I'm not quite counting the Quorum thing here. For the moment. I know it's canon, so to reconcile Zarek as a character it has to be taken into account, but I'm still not over believing that that was to a cheap ploy to show us who the 'right side' was and am more reluctant to give it weight as something that really made internal sense.)

Re: just so you can turn me down...

[identity profile] beccatoria.livejournal.com 2009-02-11 08:03 pm (UTC)(link)
YES, EXACTLY this about Tom Zarek! The thing that always frustrated and angered and fascinated me about him was how he completely ignored the existence of the Cylon and ended up doing all this shit that in the context of a civilisation on the run was really insanely stupid, but with the conviction of a revolutionary that it was the most important stuff ever. Until New Caprica and the Circle. Although even then I could...kind of understand it with his ideas of a violent revolution to burn off the past, to let the people move forward. That it wasn't really his own anger at the collaborators but rather an understanding that you need a crucible in which to form a new order, because he wants, at every instant, to forget everything that came before and just go forward.

But starting with his fear of Baltar's trial and his behaviour after that I just...it falls down for me. Because either he started caring about the Cylon which...I don't get. Or he still doesn't care and they're just a front for him to manipulate the people into his revolution, which I find more likely and compelling but if that's the case it was poorly handled.

So like, the idea that Zarek doesn't really care that Adama made a deal with the Cylon but does think Adama's a failure as a leader and needs replacing...he'll grab onto the Cylon alliance as evidence of his failures, and transfer all his anger at the system onto that issue. Whatever that issue is today. And today it is cylons. But...again...poorly portrayed.

Actually I think I've even talked about this before here (http://beccatoria.livejournal.com/19680.html#cutid9) although fair warning that's discussion of The Woman, King which...yeah. That episode.

GRR! If only I could vid that but I don't think I could find a song to do so.