What I Do In My Office All Day

I probably watch 5 vids a day, every single day. Some days, it's up to 25-30 if I'm cataloguing the vids from the vidding discussion thread on LJ. and i figure... why on earth am i keeping all these to myself?! so i'm going to try and rec more vids as i find them, so here's today's:

the aforementioned thread has been flooded by star trek vids in honour of the new film, and i have to share a few with you. i've never been into trek - every other fandom on the planet, yes, but i seem to have missed this one. but i found the new movie to be really fun and enjoyable even for a non-trekker.

so i'm recommending "Who Found Mr. Fabulous?" by kuwdora. it's fast-paced and tons of fun to watch. check out the imeem stream here.

here's a great one for classic trek: steady as she goes by jesuit24. it's a deliciously fun and campy romp through TOS. check out the stream below:



and for something completely different: i highly recommend chamalla's "dust in the wind" for the whole of BSG. it's a heartbreaking overview of the series now that it's over.



switching gears again so as not to depress you all to death...

SPN slashers has discovered misha collins (aka: castiel/jimmy) and i giggled myself to death watching danegen's "luv song". god help him. check it out at imeem here.

that's all for now, folks!v

A work in progress... all over the place

Well, I'm finally underway and now knee-deep in the preparation for my research. It's quite difficult, actually, because vidding has never really been documented in any in-depth manner in the past (barring a few instances, such as a chapter in Jenkins 1992), there's so much leg-work to be done it's extremely daunting. The part that is both fascinating and very frustrating is that vidding stands at the intersection of different media forms, and also in-between theoretical frameworks and disciplines. It's amazing because I'm kind of treading new territory here and no matter what I come up with it should be pretty unique, but so demoralizing because there's just so many avenues that need to be explored and I think I'm starting to drown in it all.

But that's okay! I can do this, right?

I'm going to share a few more vid recs for all y'all:

- "Ritual Habitual", by Alcoholic Pixie - LINK!. I watched this vid and my mouth hit the floor with how unique it was. I am definitely going to use this vid in my thesis if I can (after I ask the vidder for permission, of course). It's an extremely well-composed Supernatural AU that makes Sam a violent serial killer, who escapes from prison after being convicted of killing Jessica. (How cool is that?) In a way, the show makes this vid almost too easy to create because of its constant scenes of women in danger, as victims, and such. And SPN does share a lot in common aesthetically (mostly in how it's shot) with serial killer and slasher horror films. I would love to use this vid to talk about how vidders reinvent and subvert the original narrative, context, and intention of television series, sometimes completely tossing the original story out the window and crafting their own.

- Another great AU is "Papa Don't Preach", by Eunice and Greensilver - LINK! First of all, I laughed so hard watching this vid that my housemates came to see if I was okay. Yeah. I first thought, "That's so wrong, mpregs are scary, I can't watch this". But of course I also couldn't resist, and I have to admit this vid is a perfect example of a crack AU going ever so RIGHT. If you think about it, this vid's all in the lyrics. It's completely and utterly dependent on the lyrics to lay out the narrative of the vid, and if you don't pay attention to every line you might not get it at all. But if you do follow it, it's a fantabulous example of taking source footage WAAAYYYYY out of context and using that to make the footage say whatever you want it to. I hope to use this vid in my thesis as well, as an example of a fan/vidder exerting control over the characters and narrative and altering it to suit fannish desires.

I really have to get back to my ethics form now (joy), but I did just want to put a call out there (if anyone actually reads this thing) that if anyone is interested in being interviewed as a part of my thesis, I would love to hear from you. You don't have to be a vidder, even - just a watcher of vids, a fan, or even anyone at all. Drop me a comment!

Also - tell me your favourite AU vid and why!