Vid chat: visualising effects

[bop_radar]

Vidding chats return! :) For those of you new to them, you can check out previous chats here.

This week's topic is visualising effects and it is co-moderated by lim. We'd really love this chat to function as a kind of shared workshop, with people sharing ideas with each other. So if you have a track out there that you're working with or considering working with and would like some shared brainstorming, share it with us here!

Below is an introduction from each of us.

From lim:

So, for me, effects are no different or separate from vidding; they're not an extra, they're not added on, they're an integral part of vidding, so I have a hard time not visualising them. I make visual associations all the time when I listen to music. Music is a mental landscape through which it's possible to move, populated and dynamic: like a holodeck, I spose.

I do a lot of free association when I'm vidding. In the first mp3 I've recorded myself playing through a track and just chunnered on about whatever the music seems to say, and what it looks like to me, what it sparks in my brain. I do this over and over when I'm vidding, and each time I'll get different ideas, visuals, elements to play with.

Audio file: Vidding Visualisation

I've tried to translate that into words, but it's a pretty right-brain activity, so there's a lot of umming and dorkalicious garblement, but I'm hoping that will encourage you to chunner on back to me without fear of being the dorkiest person in the post, haha!

I invite anyone who has a track they're working with to post it and for anyone who has a response, association, or visual, to comment in that thread.

Remember, we're ignoring the lyrics for now. Treat the voice/s as just another instrument, another element in the musical landscape. Listen to the shimmeryness, or growliness, or gloopiness of a voice, not what it's saying in English.

Then tomorrowish, I'm gonna pick a few responses and actually make what we're see-hearing, and I invite anyone who wants to to join in there too.

From Bop:

I'm a pretty odd one to be co-hosting this perhaps, as I am not a vidder who feels comfortable using effects. But hopefully by doing so I'll help others like me dip their toe in the waters. ;)

I don't know about the rest of you, but listening to lim's thoughts here makes me feel a bit less daunted going into the chat. For starters, I realised that I do already do visualisation work myself, even if I tend to think of it only in terms of clip choices (and not what effects to put on clips). It was also really 'normalising' to hear someone else have rambly associations about a track. And yes, it's really hard to put such a right-brain activity into words, but we can all have a go. :)

I don't want to say too much... I just want to say welcome (back) to vid chats, I hope you will all find this a helpful, friendly and constructive 'space'. It takes a bit of courage to share your thoughts with other vidders, I know, but hopefully this is somewhere where we can all reach out to each other a bit. I'm prepared to be a dork if you are. :p And just a reminder that you are very much encouraged here to reply to other commenters, not just the original poster(s)! And you are welcome here any time--there is no 'late' in vid chats.

For this chat in particular, I really encourage you to share your tracks, as lim suggests--how often do we get a chance to brainstorm with other vidders? Perhaps you could use one you've never been quite sure how to tackle (I know I have lots of those!).

If you don't have a track yourself but want to take part, please, PLEASE feel free to listen to other people's tracks and share your associations or ideas--you don't have to be an 'expert' to do this--we're just messing around here, no pressure, ok? And commenting to each other is a great way to take part here, even if it's just a 'hi, that's a really interesting track! made me think of ...'

And if you have any questions or random niggly things you've always wanted to ask about visualising, then feel free to share those in comments too. By all means share any interesting experiences you've had visualising effects too.

There's no rush either--I would really like to encourage people to drop back in here over the next week or so (or any time!). lim and I will pop into the comments as soon as we can, timezones and personal commitments permitting. See you soon! :)

ETA: Update! We shall relaxedly be attempting to make some things resulting from the conversations herein over the next week or so... we encourage anyone who wants to to try making something (for example "haze on the sand" or "red/green blur") and share it. I promise to handhold for anyone who fears their effects thing may look unintentionally tragic. :) We're just playing, yes? :)

Comments

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

vidding effects workshop thingy, one exercise would be going to FFFFOUND! or tumblr, looking at the first page, and trying to link at least one of them to a fandom visually.
Ohh, we should have one!!! And we should do that! It's a totally different approach for me but that would be the appeal.

I made a vid that tried to capture how I felt lying underneath my Christmas tree while being drunk and looking up at the lights.
Wow! That is so cool! I feel so tied to fixed things in comparison. I mean I struggle with AU work so bad you would not believe... let alone totally freeform self-focussed vidding! It's like my brain actually CANNOT make up something that doesn't already exist.

Thank you for sharing your associations and connections that led to some of your vids--I guess some of them (e.g. Blade Runner) are more obvious to viewers than others, which might be more internal to you (like the girl you taught).

One thing I realise I do is draw heavily on emotional associations--like, I draw on my own life a lot where I can because empathy with a character can provide me with the 'why?' of shot selection or treatment. But it rarely leads to effects and I guess that makes sense because it's not really about the vidding and it's not really bringing anything that didn't already exist--it's just shining a spotlight on what does. If I was to be inspired by art, it might be more likely to translate into effects... that's interesting to me because it helps me understand a little more why I lack this 'effects' brain some people seem to have. It would make sense that I don't as I'm not creative at all and have no understanding of visual art in any form outside of vidding--I really only understand the written word. Rather than feeling that as a lack it's actually helpful to know that that's just not my thing.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Ohh, we should have one!!! And we should do that! It's a totally different approach for me but that would be the appeal.
That could be interesting...

I mean I struggle with AU work so bad you would not believe... let alone totally freeform self-focussed vidding! It's like my brain actually CANNOT make up something that doesn't already exist.
Hhehehe, I'm all, "whatevs, needz moar zombies" and throw a bunch of AU stuff in. It might help to disengage it mentally from fannishness too. Like you're not making a vid for Battlestar Galactica, but trying to tell a different story using that footage.

But it rarely leads to effects and I guess that makes sense because it's not really about the vidding and it's not really bringing anything that didn't already exist--it's just shining a spotlight on what does.
I tend to think of effects as another way to get the point across. Either the POV or a progression or anything else. The way some people use motion or coloring to their meanings to the audience.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

It might help to disengage it mentally from fannishness too. Like you're not making a vid for Battlestar Galactica, but trying to tell a different story using that footage.

This has become increasingly true for me. I used to vid exclusively from a place of fannish passion, but now I'd say that at least half of the time I'm looking at the show as fodder for my ideas. I still love the shows or I wouldn't vid them, but I tend to be waaaaay more intellectual and waaaaay less emotional in my process than I used to be. Fannish love isn't my primary motivator anymore; the urge to tell a new story or explore an interesting theme is what's driving me. The show is raw material; the vid is me.

[lim.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm couldn't feel more differently. I TOTALLY vid from a place of fannish passion. More power to you and following your own way, but I would find that utterly miserably sadmaking. Woe!

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Aww! It's not sad for me at all; I get tremendous joy and exhilaration from vidding, regardless of the level of fannish love I'm feeling at the time. It's the happiness of creative expression that's revving my engines now, the joy of MAKING SOMETHING -- especially when the work is going well.

I do sometimes miss the gonadal drive I used to have when I was writing fic, but overall I find vidding much more satisfying than writing. I don't think I'd trade.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Mmm, that is soo interesting! I suspected that there were some vidders who didn't vid from a place of fannish passion primarily! I think I'm shifting into that space myself (maybe because I'm quite fandomless at the moment but still want to vid?) but it's kind of scary for me... it feels like the vids (well the potential nonexistent yet vids) are a bit more 'me', and for a non-creative person that's scary. When I work from a place of fannishness I feel secure in my vision--if I translate my own fannish passion I'm on track. Working from a more personal place feels structureless (maybe?) to me. It's very encouraging to hear from those that do it though.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

How a great vidder like you can refer to herself as "a non-creative person" is beyond me.

I wouldn't say that I'm working from a personal place, really. The themes I'm exploring are still things that bubble up through canon, for the most part. I'm not typically spinning a yarn that's all my own -- I haven't even done my first AU/constructed reality vid yet! Though that is on tap for 2010. (:

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wasn't digging for compliment! I just never made anything at all before a vid. :) I guess most of my self-identity is wrapped up with supporting others achieve their creative work since I'm a book editor--I work with designers and writers and illustrators: so I am pretty adept and confident about improving or supporting the work of others, helping them achieve their potential, but creating something from scratch myself is really not part of my self-identity. Even vidding... it takes existing footage and music and so the 're-editing' aspect is the one I feel most comfortable with. I still feel mainly that I am expressing someone else's work in a new or different way. And I definitely feel that IS creative... but the further I move from the source the more anxious I get as I'm not used to creating things out of my own head. Which is why this discussion is very stimulating and exciting for me! I do know it's the love of making things that keeps me coming back--it still feels like this precious thing I never had before in my life. :)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I know you weren't digging! That wasn't my point at all.

My point is literally that you ARE a creative person, whether or not you've ever considered yourself one. And I know where you're coming from on this, because I spent most of my early adult life thinking of myself as working in the "interpretive" rather than "creative" arts -- I directed plays instead of writing them, edited films instead of writing/shooting them, etc. I'm a graphic *designer*, not a graphic *artist*, etc.

What I realized was that I was creating these artificial boundaries between myself and the idealized goal of "creativity". I could be many things, but I could never be An Artist. I was elevating art and creativity to some sort of unattainable shining thing that made some people better than others.

I'm through with that. I'm an artist. So are you.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Nice! I totally do the elevation to shiny unattainable... Good call.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I vid from a fannish place where I'm deeply connected to it, but that connection might be a reason why people don't get into the more "experimental" vidding. The might feel they can't do something to the footage or change it because they need to stay true to the source.

I'm sure there are people that look at my stuff and think it's not fannish or even a vid.

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, even though I have a compulsion to stay true to the source as a vdder myself, as a vid viewer I don't really care what other vidders do with the source as long as it engages me. As I said before, if I see a particularly well done vid that "goes off the beaten track" I actually get a bit envious...

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I feel deeply connected and fannish when I vid, but I can see how a disconnect could help other people. Everyone's brain is wired differently and thinking about vidding in another way might help to unleash creativity.