Festivids Letter
Oct. 22nd, 2021 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metatxtDear Festividder,
Thank you so so much for making me a vid!!! I am really extremely excited and am sure I will love whatever you make. This is my first year participating in a three years so really the novelty of someone making me a vid is huge :D
VID STYLE: I like a wide range of vid styles and approaches, including ship vids, character studies, thematic vids, critique vids, comedic vids, experimental audio! LKBV, etc. I have enjoyed vids with zero effects and strictly well-paced jump cuts and I have also enjoyed vids with elaborate effects and compositing. Do what feels right!
AUDIO: I love learning new music or just appreciating the song choice of a vidder, so please don’t feel beholden to my particular faves! I listen to a super wide range of music - including jazz, Broadway, Opera, experimental audio, soundscapes, etc. As well as my usual rotation, which includes Janelle Monàe, Lizzo, BTS, Lil Nas X, Stevie Nicks, George Michael, Prince, MUNA, and 80s classics. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of classic 1950s Black Rock and Roll - like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Big Mama Thornton, Bo Diddley, etc. but again - that’s just a trend. Last year I was listening to a lot of New Orleans Jazz, SF JAZZ COLLECTIVE, Tom Petty, Carly Rae Jepsen, Dolly Parton, Haim, Animal Collective, etc. Anyway, deep dives are welcome. Experimental audio is welcome. Find something that clicks for you and I’ll follow!
THINGS THAT THROW ME OUT OF A VID:
Visual elements that make it difficult for me to enjoy a vid:
- Stutter edits and extreme rapid cutting (think every 1-2 frames) make it impossible for me to watch.
- Strobing effects - for example, fast cutting between scenes that are either very dark and very bright.
Audio elements that make it difficult for me to enjoy a vid:
- while I do like vids that use clips of diegetic audio intercut with a different audio source, if the sound overlaps too much it is hard for me to follow and enjoy.
- songs by abusers or with slurs
WARNINGS AND SUBTITLES:
I like warnings and subtitles. They help people enjoy vids!
DIRTY COMPUTER [SAFETY]
This emotion picture has my heart. I just. I don’t think there’s a bad direction here. Vid your heart out. Choose the vid that makes you feel excited. I will watch the hell out of literally any Dirty Computer vid and be in awe. The complex feminist politic of Janelle Monàe is a Big Mood. Here are some ideas though, again, run with what inspires you? OT3 vid. Janelle/Tessa vid. Vid celebrating their dirt.
Awhile back, I was really interested in a vid that ties her Cindi Mayweather albums and universe to her musical influences and to her science fiction influences (this is a totally optional deep dive ask!). Although Dirty Computer is not so much a Cindi Mayweather character-piece, but a Jane character piece, the musical influences and science fiction influences are stronger than ever. I would love a vid that explores Dirty Computer in the context of Janelle Monàe’s influences, in music or science fiction.
Most importantly, I love how this universe interrogates questions of personhood and citizenship through the lens of cyborgs and Afrofuturism to reflect on issues surrounding race, class, sexuality and gender. I love the thematic through-lines of love, sex, music and rhythm as modalities of resistance.
THE GOOD FIGHT
This is extremely not a safety fandom! - I mean it’s not M.A.S.H. level, but there are 50 full hour-long episodes. So I want to be clear about one thing - which is that I would *absolutely love* a vid that focuses exclusively on a single season or even episode (like that 2016 AU bottle episode!)
The Good Fight is frequently the smartest show on television about Tr*mp-era politics and there’s certainly a lot you could do with that - a tribute to the decline of democracy? Ultimately though, my favorite characters are Diane, Liz, Marissa, and Lucca and I would adore a character study of any of them! I really ove a lot of the storylines about underground activity - whether it’s Diane and Liz participating in that resistance group or Marissa helping Judge Wackner (Mandy Patinkin) in his private court system.
MOLLY OF DENALI
Where do I even begin with Molly of Denali?! A Peabody winning children’s show and one I never would have tried if I didn’t have a toddler and decide to put on shows that *I* would like. Molly of Denali is some of the best Native First Nations representation I’ve ever seen? Molly and her best friends, Tooey and Trini live in rural Alaska. The target audience is 7 year olds and yet the writers are able to routinely engage with questions around colonization, cultural loss and reclamation in ways that are completely accessible and age appropriate. It’s remarkable and certain episodes still make me cry! There is also a LOT of JOY in these episodes. The joy of community and togetherness and learning. Cabbagezilla where Molly and Trini have to problem-solve an animal eating Trini’s potential prize-winning cabbage, or the two-parter when Tooey’s dog is pregnant with puppies!
My very favorite dynamic is how Molly and her friends are portrayed as children but also as people considered full members of their community. Their learning and experiences are universally intergenerational. Adults also appreciate them! They are treated with respect. They aren’t siphoned off to kids storylines - they are full community members who engage in community work with the perspective of children and the willingness to learn. I love how people work together to solve problems and help each other. I love how the show treats their mistakes as understandable attempts, failures as part of the learning process, and let’s them take ownership of their learning process, reflecting on what they knew at the beginning of the episode and how the process has brought them to a deeper awareness.
RPF - STEVIE NICKS
Stevie Nicks is a twirling magic witch and I love her. Give me shawls, give me twirling, give me Stevie Nicks hexing men and specifically Lindsay Buckingham on stage, give me Lucy Lawless as Stevie Nicks in that SNL Sketch “Fajita Roundup” even though it is really Lucy Lawless. Give me the essence of Stevie Nicks who bathes in the moonlight of a full moon skinny dipping in a pool with only women (it’s a THING). Give me the wisdom of Stevie Nicks crone reflecting on her long journey. Honestly, there’s not much you could do here that would bum me out. Probably the only thing you could do that would bum me out is a Stevie/Lindsay ship vid. While I appreciate their relationship in its time, I am so beyond over his shiiiiit I don’t think I could watch that joyfully.
RPF - WICKED CAST aka CHENZEL
Let’s be real here for a minute, I’m a tinhat. There’s the earnest RPF vidding interests above that everyone would agree is a canon of reality, and then there’s…. the historic ever-building tinhat lovefest for the actors who play Galinda and Elphaba in Wicked. Do I think Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel were in an actual romantic relationship? I’m honestly not sure! I waiver on this point. Do I think they are star-crossed and have each been in love (or may still be in love *ahem* Cheno) with each other at some point in their lives? Very much. I’ve been happy to think fondly on 2003 and dip my toe in the fanfic now and again, but then the Tony’s happened and suddenly all Chenzel fans went on high alert. (Go watch that performance here). For a retrospective on 2003-era Chenzel, I highly recommend this compilation. That said — a compilation does very different things than a ship!vid. I would LOVE a ship vid of Chenzel. And while I have always seen them as my OTP here, I definitely subscribe to the idea that the magic of Wicked is that *all* Galindas and Elphabas fall in love with each other in the course of performing. If you’d like to take it that direction, I am here for that too!
STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
I had no idea I was going to love Lower Decks so so so much. It is funny as HELL. Meta as hell. And I love how much deep Star Trek knowledge and layers are in each episode. I looooove how they both tear down the frequent weird bullshit of Starfleet but also acknowledge that it’s the world they have to work within and Lower Deckers, but also sometimes the Captain, can’t operate entirely outside these limitations. I LOVE how WEIRD shit gets. I love Tendi’s dog!! OMG I love that dog! I love that whole fucking episode. I LOOOOOVE Mariner with my whole heart. She is PHENOMENAL. I love Boimler rescuing Borg babies over and over again and I love that newly classic pose of him spread eagle with his legs in the air. I love Rutherford learning the horrors of how people come back from the dead? And I LOOOOVE Shaxs screaming about how fighting Fascism is a full time job. I just fucking love everything Lower Decks chooses to be. Go apeshit wild here. I will love it with my whole heart.
WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY [SAFETY]
OMG this movie. I love this Emily Dickinson. I love the narrative structure contrasting the “official Emily Dickinson story” with what scholars have since unearthed about her actual life. I love how we get to see a lifetime of being in love with Sue AND the toll of being a genius poet who is under appreciated in her own time and being a queer in a time when she couldn’t actually build a life with the love of her life AND how very much she does her own fucking thing anyway and makes joy. I love the scenes with her baking and lowering bread to the children. I love allllll of the energy in her writing scenes. Gawd, I am such a fucking sucker for a woman passionately writing longhand in period dress (I mean, is anyone surprised by this? *hides face in hands*) All the hidey-holes for her poems?! LOVE LOVE LOVE. I love how they actors also decided when Emily and Sue kiss it is always so frantic and desperate and hungry?!! Anyway, literally anything you do here would be wonderful. Character study, ship vid, something experimental, it all sounds delightful.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so so much for making me a vid!!! I am really extremely excited and am sure I will love whatever you make. This is my first year participating in a three years so really the novelty of someone making me a vid is huge :D
VID STYLE: I like a wide range of vid styles and approaches, including ship vids, character studies, thematic vids, critique vids, comedic vids, experimental audio! LKBV, etc. I have enjoyed vids with zero effects and strictly well-paced jump cuts and I have also enjoyed vids with elaborate effects and compositing. Do what feels right!
AUDIO: I love learning new music or just appreciating the song choice of a vidder, so please don’t feel beholden to my particular faves! I listen to a super wide range of music - including jazz, Broadway, Opera, experimental audio, soundscapes, etc. As well as my usual rotation, which includes Janelle Monàe, Lizzo, BTS, Lil Nas X, Stevie Nicks, George Michael, Prince, MUNA, and 80s classics. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of classic 1950s Black Rock and Roll - like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Big Mama Thornton, Bo Diddley, etc. but again - that’s just a trend. Last year I was listening to a lot of New Orleans Jazz, SF JAZZ COLLECTIVE, Tom Petty, Carly Rae Jepsen, Dolly Parton, Haim, Animal Collective, etc. Anyway, deep dives are welcome. Experimental audio is welcome. Find something that clicks for you and I’ll follow!
THINGS THAT THROW ME OUT OF A VID:
Visual elements that make it difficult for me to enjoy a vid:
- Stutter edits and extreme rapid cutting (think every 1-2 frames) make it impossible for me to watch.
- Strobing effects - for example, fast cutting between scenes that are either very dark and very bright.
Audio elements that make it difficult for me to enjoy a vid:
- while I do like vids that use clips of diegetic audio intercut with a different audio source, if the sound overlaps too much it is hard for me to follow and enjoy.
- songs by abusers or with slurs
WARNINGS AND SUBTITLES:
I like warnings and subtitles. They help people enjoy vids!
DIRTY COMPUTER [SAFETY]
This emotion picture has my heart. I just. I don’t think there’s a bad direction here. Vid your heart out. Choose the vid that makes you feel excited. I will watch the hell out of literally any Dirty Computer vid and be in awe. The complex feminist politic of Janelle Monàe is a Big Mood. Here are some ideas though, again, run with what inspires you? OT3 vid. Janelle/Tessa vid. Vid celebrating their dirt.
Awhile back, I was really interested in a vid that ties her Cindi Mayweather albums and universe to her musical influences and to her science fiction influences (this is a totally optional deep dive ask!). Although Dirty Computer is not so much a Cindi Mayweather character-piece, but a Jane character piece, the musical influences and science fiction influences are stronger than ever. I would love a vid that explores Dirty Computer in the context of Janelle Monàe’s influences, in music or science fiction.
Most importantly, I love how this universe interrogates questions of personhood and citizenship through the lens of cyborgs and Afrofuturism to reflect on issues surrounding race, class, sexuality and gender. I love the thematic through-lines of love, sex, music and rhythm as modalities of resistance.
THE GOOD FIGHT
This is extremely not a safety fandom! - I mean it’s not M.A.S.H. level, but there are 50 full hour-long episodes. So I want to be clear about one thing - which is that I would *absolutely love* a vid that focuses exclusively on a single season or even episode (like that 2016 AU bottle episode!)
The Good Fight is frequently the smartest show on television about Tr*mp-era politics and there’s certainly a lot you could do with that - a tribute to the decline of democracy? Ultimately though, my favorite characters are Diane, Liz, Marissa, and Lucca and I would adore a character study of any of them! I really ove a lot of the storylines about underground activity - whether it’s Diane and Liz participating in that resistance group or Marissa helping Judge Wackner (Mandy Patinkin) in his private court system.
MOLLY OF DENALI
Where do I even begin with Molly of Denali?! A Peabody winning children’s show and one I never would have tried if I didn’t have a toddler and decide to put on shows that *I* would like. Molly of Denali is some of the best Native First Nations representation I’ve ever seen? Molly and her best friends, Tooey and Trini live in rural Alaska. The target audience is 7 year olds and yet the writers are able to routinely engage with questions around colonization, cultural loss and reclamation in ways that are completely accessible and age appropriate. It’s remarkable and certain episodes still make me cry! There is also a LOT of JOY in these episodes. The joy of community and togetherness and learning. Cabbagezilla where Molly and Trini have to problem-solve an animal eating Trini’s potential prize-winning cabbage, or the two-parter when Tooey’s dog is pregnant with puppies!
My very favorite dynamic is how Molly and her friends are portrayed as children but also as people considered full members of their community. Their learning and experiences are universally intergenerational. Adults also appreciate them! They are treated with respect. They aren’t siphoned off to kids storylines - they are full community members who engage in community work with the perspective of children and the willingness to learn. I love how people work together to solve problems and help each other. I love how the show treats their mistakes as understandable attempts, failures as part of the learning process, and let’s them take ownership of their learning process, reflecting on what they knew at the beginning of the episode and how the process has brought them to a deeper awareness.
RPF - STEVIE NICKS
Stevie Nicks is a twirling magic witch and I love her. Give me shawls, give me twirling, give me Stevie Nicks hexing men and specifically Lindsay Buckingham on stage, give me Lucy Lawless as Stevie Nicks in that SNL Sketch “Fajita Roundup” even though it is really Lucy Lawless. Give me the essence of Stevie Nicks who bathes in the moonlight of a full moon skinny dipping in a pool with only women (it’s a THING). Give me the wisdom of Stevie Nicks crone reflecting on her long journey. Honestly, there’s not much you could do here that would bum me out. Probably the only thing you could do that would bum me out is a Stevie/Lindsay ship vid. While I appreciate their relationship in its time, I am so beyond over his shiiiiit I don’t think I could watch that joyfully.
RPF - WICKED CAST aka CHENZEL
Let’s be real here for a minute, I’m a tinhat. There’s the earnest RPF vidding interests above that everyone would agree is a canon of reality, and then there’s…. the historic ever-building tinhat lovefest for the actors who play Galinda and Elphaba in Wicked. Do I think Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel were in an actual romantic relationship? I’m honestly not sure! I waiver on this point. Do I think they are star-crossed and have each been in love (or may still be in love *ahem* Cheno) with each other at some point in their lives? Very much. I’ve been happy to think fondly on 2003 and dip my toe in the fanfic now and again, but then the Tony’s happened and suddenly all Chenzel fans went on high alert. (Go watch that performance here). For a retrospective on 2003-era Chenzel, I highly recommend this compilation. That said — a compilation does very different things than a ship!vid. I would LOVE a ship vid of Chenzel. And while I have always seen them as my OTP here, I definitely subscribe to the idea that the magic of Wicked is that *all* Galindas and Elphabas fall in love with each other in the course of performing. If you’d like to take it that direction, I am here for that too!
STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
I had no idea I was going to love Lower Decks so so so much. It is funny as HELL. Meta as hell. And I love how much deep Star Trek knowledge and layers are in each episode. I looooove how they both tear down the frequent weird bullshit of Starfleet but also acknowledge that it’s the world they have to work within and Lower Deckers, but also sometimes the Captain, can’t operate entirely outside these limitations. I LOVE how WEIRD shit gets. I love Tendi’s dog!! OMG I love that dog! I love that whole fucking episode. I LOOOOOVE Mariner with my whole heart. She is PHENOMENAL. I love Boimler rescuing Borg babies over and over again and I love that newly classic pose of him spread eagle with his legs in the air. I love Rutherford learning the horrors of how people come back from the dead? And I LOOOOVE Shaxs screaming about how fighting Fascism is a full time job. I just fucking love everything Lower Decks chooses to be. Go apeshit wild here. I will love it with my whole heart.
WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY [SAFETY]
OMG this movie. I love this Emily Dickinson. I love the narrative structure contrasting the “official Emily Dickinson story” with what scholars have since unearthed about her actual life. I love how we get to see a lifetime of being in love with Sue AND the toll of being a genius poet who is under appreciated in her own time and being a queer in a time when she couldn’t actually build a life with the love of her life AND how very much she does her own fucking thing anyway and makes joy. I love the scenes with her baking and lowering bread to the children. I love allllll of the energy in her writing scenes. Gawd, I am such a fucking sucker for a woman passionately writing longhand in period dress (I mean, is anyone surprised by this? *hides face in hands*) All the hidey-holes for her poems?! LOVE LOVE LOVE. I love how they actors also decided when Emily and Sue kiss it is always so frantic and desperate and hungry?!! Anyway, literally anything you do here would be wonderful. Character study, ship vid, something experimental, it all sounds delightful.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
no subject
Date: 2021-10-28 06:38 am (UTC)