mild successes

while i'm still kind of in the dumps about my thesis in general, i am feeling slightly more enthused about the topic after the really lovely feedback i've received after my first proper presentation on my topic here at my uni.

for our little in-house research student conference, i gave a 20 min presentation on vidding - outlining what it is, who is doing it, blathered on about some of the semiotic crapola that's involved, and showing off a bunch of shiny videos to impress the academics, lol.

while i didn't get a chance to dry-run it (and time it) it was waaaay too long, but the response from the audience was quite positive. it seems as though the topic of vidding was really fascinating, because a great deal of people came up to me afterward and asked a lot of good questions... or just asked me to tell them more about (which i did, happily). one of the conference organizers commented to me something along the lines of "you must have done a good job because you seem to have your own fan club now" because there were so many people standing around me. i don't actually think the presentation went over that smoothly as i had to shorten and skip a lot of content and that's always awful... but hey, a good response is a good response.

here's a short rundown of my vids playlist:

(i stuck to supernatural to make the ways in which the vidders play with the source material much more obvious as they can see how the same footage is used in different ways.)

1. we will rock you, melissa (aka proofpudding).

this video showcases all the manly camaraderie, action-adventure, car-chasing, ass-kicking fun of the series, and is generally in-line with the CW's vision of the show.

2. forgiven and forsaken, loki.

unlike the previous, this video focuses on the melodramatic, interpersonal aspects of the show, giving the viewer some insight into the interactions between sam and dean.

3. things that make you go hmmmm..., deirdre_c

uses a lot of the same clips as "we will rock you" above, but to say something entirely different, drawing out the (unintended?) homoerotic subtext of the series.

4. here in your car, dayln03.

whereas "hmmm" just suggests the slash, dayln masterfully crafts this video uses advanced manips to slash 'dem brothers right up to sex town. (ahem.)

5. women's work, luminosity and sisabet.

you knew this would be in here. while the previous 4 vids focus on the boys, this vid reminds us of the unseen side. it highlights the (mis)treatment of women in SPN and changed how a lot of people thought of the show (myself included).

6. impulse, nycalls0909 (aka antigonesgift).

an AU vid where dean is a serial killer. i discussed how the footage is so readily re-purposed for any desire the vidder may have, and how the pleasure for a viewer is in recognizing how the source material has been taken out of context.

7. channel hopping, ash.

pure intertextual genius. this vid draws hilarious parallels between SPN and television as a medium, dancing from genre to genre all using the same footage. it shows just how media-aware viddes are, and how all-consuming the "mediascape" really is.



that's just kind of a quick word on what i got up to today... and i hope to refine this presentation further to give a guest lecture here at the uni at some stage in the upcoming semester (that's february btw, all you northern hemisphere types).

and now, i have a date... with my couch!