fifty frenchmen can't be wrong (![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
some_stars) wrote2013-02-02 09:57
some_stars) wrote2013-02-02 09:57
(no subject)
I made a secret Festivid! It was extra secret because I didn't even sign up for Festivids this year, on the correct assumption that my brain was not going to be in any shape to make that kind of commitment. Then, about ten days before the vids went live, I went looking around the Dear Festividder letters thinking I'd find someone who'd requested a movie I knew and whip off something quick, so I'd feel less bad about not participating this year.
I ended up vidding a series of four movies instead, so it was definitely whipped off quickly--in fact, for most of the time I was working on it, I thought the deadline was two days further away than it was, and ended up not having time for the crucial step where you put it away for 24 hours to get fresh eyes. Not surprisingly, the end result was not all I had hoped for, and this version has some small but significant improvements. So if you liked it, watch it again, it's better now! (Although if you disagree on any of the changes, I would love to hear it--I'm open to further editing, since I didn't have time/was being too secret for a beta.)
This vid concept might actually have been better done as a multifandom vid, but 1.) I don't have the patience or skills for multifandom vids, and 2.) it's also kind of a tribute, not just to the rejection of Tragic Queers in particular, but to how these stories--and I should say movies, because I've only read one of the novels--create a queer world where not everything is about being queer, where it's omnipresent but doesn't have to be The Story. A repeated theme in these movies is that gay people have other shit going on. But the characters don't "just happen" to be gay, either. Gayness is part of their lives, sometimes it's in focus, sometimes it's not.
Of course this is really difficult to get across in vid form. I think the first part comes across--boo to tragic queer narratives--but the second is very context dependent. And again, it might have been better as a meta vid with lots of sources, because I only had four ninety-minute TV movies to work with for examples. Plus they're supposed to be noir, so I felt a little silly making a vid that was basically "shhhh, only hugs now." I do think, though, that they strike a really good balance between maintaining classic noir tropes and not being so cynical about everything. Arguably it's not noir without the cynicism, but anyway I like it.
I ended up vidding a series of four movies instead, so it was definitely whipped off quickly--in fact, for most of the time I was working on it, I thought the deadline was two days further away than it was, and ended up not having time for the crucial step where you put it away for 24 hours to get fresh eyes. Not surprisingly, the end result was not all I had hoped for, and this version has some small but significant improvements. So if you liked it, watch it again, it's better now! (Although if you disagree on any of the changes, I would love to hear it--I'm open to further editing, since I didn't have time/was being too secret for a beta.)
This vid concept might actually have been better done as a multifandom vid, but 1.) I don't have the patience or skills for multifandom vids, and 2.) it's also kind of a tribute, not just to the rejection of Tragic Queers in particular, but to how these stories--and I should say movies, because I've only read one of the novels--create a queer world where not everything is about being queer, where it's omnipresent but doesn't have to be The Story. A repeated theme in these movies is that gay people have other shit going on. But the characters don't "just happen" to be gay, either. Gayness is part of their lives, sometimes it's in focus, sometimes it's not.
Of course this is really difficult to get across in vid form. I think the first part comes across--boo to tragic queer narratives--but the second is very context dependent. And again, it might have been better as a meta vid with lots of sources, because I only had four ninety-minute TV movies to work with for examples. Plus they're supposed to be noir, so I felt a little silly making a vid that was basically "shhhh, only hugs now." I do think, though, that they strike a really good balance between maintaining classic noir tropes and not being so cynical about everything. Arguably it's not noir without the cynicism, but anyway I like it.
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Would you recommend the movies? They interest me, based on your vid.
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(I recommend the books by proxy, as I've only read--and loved--one, but people with good taste like them.)
Also, thank you! I'm glad you liked it; that sense of queer community--of queer ubiquity--is one of the things I love most about these movies.
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Anyhow I love my vid forever adk;jadfjk maybe it's just because I have all the context, but it works beautifully in my eyes. Can't wait to see the new version!
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