fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4705 ]

[ SECRET POST #4705 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4705 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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06. https://i.imgur.com/piAkXEG.png

I feel like it's more a matter of the fandom. I came across dialogue-featuring fanvids for Buffy and Good Omens, but not for Avatar or the MCU.
(Personally, I don't like it either when there's the vidder's music and the show's dialogue, soundtrack and ambient noise. You can't understand a word anyone's saying and it interrupts the song awkwardly. It's horrible.)

OP - Actually, I think it's more a matter of whether we're talking about the specific thing that is Vidding Fandom (I.e. the specific group of vidders who make vividcon happen and who tend to vid in a fairly specific way, with a kind of recognizable style, ethos, and artistry), or if we're just talking about vidding fandom in lowercase (I.e. people who make fanvids).

There have always been people who's vids are half dialogue and zero commentary. But when it comes to Vidding Fandom specifically, I'd go as far as to say there's almost an unspoken rule that if your vid relies on a bunch of dialogue to make it a whole vid, you're not doing the same kind of vidding anymore.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me. Is your secret about Vidding Fandom changing its credo?

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-11-23 23:32 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-11-23 23:44 (UTC) - Expand

I honestly don't have a problem with this, although I like no-dialogue vids, too. I think the best thing is for there to be a variety.

As long as we don't go back to where people would try to insert bits of dialogue but weren't very good at choosing the right parts or dealing with the audio and were including whatever other audio (i.g. soundtrack music) was occurring at the same time, or those vids where they'd play fairly long chunks of a scene with characters talking to each other but with no dialogue and it looked weird and was less like a vid and more like watching a TV show on mute with the radio playing or the A/V equivalent of a song fic. (I mean, do you even understand the concept of a music video? It's not to just play music over an unedited scene.)

OP - Loling at your description of old badly mad/novice fanvids from the early days of YouTube. God I remember those.

I remember coming across a lot of Doctor Who fanvids like that on YouTube very early on. When I finally found a great one that was like a proper music video (and like the few pre-YouTube fanvids I had seen, so I knew this isn't what all fanvids were like), someone actually said in the comments that they thought the edits were "kinda fast."

*flips table*

I can't get into talking vids. They ruin the music for me and so the immersive experience. There are some vidders who incorporate sounds from the source in time with the music and that works great. But talking? Unless it happens during a long section without lyrics and the vidder has successfully elided the background music from the source, all that happens is the talking yanks me from the montage that's building in my head.

I can't get into talking vids. They ruin the music for me and so the immersive experience.

Agreed. I sometimes don't mind a line or two, usually right at the end of the vid or right at the start (where it can't take me out of the experience), but it's very rare for me to find a vid with dialogue in the middle where I wouldn't prefer it without.

I mean, I think part of it is that it creates a conflict between where the narrative is stemming from. Who is creating the narrative of the vid? In a classic vid with only the musical track, it's the track that's creating the narrative. As viewers we look (listen) to it to tell us the story/message/argument of the vid. But when the vid then brings in dialogue from the source, it disrupts that locked-in quality we have with the musical narrative (undermines it's authority, in a manner of speaking).

some vidders who incorporate sounds from the source in time with the music and that works great.

I do agree with this. It can be done extremely well.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-11-24 10:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-11-26 03:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-11-26 07:36 (UTC) - Expand

Agreed. I don't know when this started but it's annoying af.

*fistbump of agreement*

Agree.
A single line or a few words, in a key moment, sure, but all through the vid, with the music fading (badly) in and out? Or the dialogue/words themselves just incomprehensible? No, thank you.

Yup, exactly. I actually wonder if part of what helped to determine the style of old school vidding was actually that, prior to about a decade ago, it was very difficult to switch cleanly between music and dialogue. Like, it almost always sounded choppy and awful? So relying solely on the musical track may have, originally, stemmed partially from the sheer artistic impracticality of doing otherwise. (It just so happened that it was also - IMO - the more artistically sound decision.)

Then again, most of the old school vidders who still vid have continued to stick to their old school vidding style, even now, so maybe it was always an artistic decision on Vidding Fandom's part. *shrugs*

It doesn't bother me because that's not how we did it back in the days, it bothers me becaues 90% of the time, it just breaks the flow of the video.

Yeah, it bothers me for reasons I feel are legitimate, critical reasons. But the fact remains that it's a newer, shinier style, which means that being critical of it and insisting on the artistic superiority of "how vidding used to be" is bound to result in some people responding with "whatever, grandma."

I've only run into a couple of vids with dialogue. One I liked a lot, but it really was meant to promote the movie to people who didn't know it, so I think it was appropriate. In general, it's not what I'm used to but as long as it doesn't sound like a mess I don't have a problem with it.

Youtube is FULL of dialogue-heavy vids; I'm surprised you've only come across a couple! But to be fair, I don't really have a problem with this type of vid, per se. Like, it can be enjoyable and the technical editing can be quite strong (much stronger than some of the vids of yesteryear).

It's just that this vidding style has taken over so heavily. I've gotten used to checking in on my favorite old-school vidders and seeing their vids have views in the low thousands. And then I try a couple of the vids in the sidebar that have 100K+ views and I just find them bland? Like, yes, very pretty, lots of motion and sharp editing and color saturation, but they rarely give me any of those moments where the editing clicks with the lyrics and it's suddenly so poignant it gives me shivers.

Okay, but this Good Omens vid is still my favorite thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr0AvAdn9MM

That vid is a good example of a really delightful and well made vid...in a style I still don't like. Like, I really can't fault it. It's excellently done. But even the first time I watched it (which wasn't today, though I did just rewatch it now) I remember thinking, "Augh, talking vid!" but also, "Well made and charming talking vid."

I think part of what makes it so good is that the vidder is still doing a lot of what I look to vidding for, which is using what's being said in the track to bring out, juxtapose, and comment on narrative aspects of the text. The biggest thing I dislike about dialogue is that it distracts from that synergistic interplay between text and track, and also it allows the vidder to be lazy and make their points with the text's own words rather than finding a way to articulate them with the lyrics and clip choices alone.

But the vidder who made that vid brought their A game and did a lot of cool interplay between the track and the text.

The cutting is good, but the music if far too loud and drones out the dialogue a lot of the time.

It really does feel more like an ad/commercial for Good Omens set to a Queen song, versus like. . . a fanvid ¯\_(⌣̯̀⌣́)_/¯

I just find it really irritating! I want to just hear the song! And if I'm hanging out alone watching vids and not bothering with headphones and someone comes in to talk to me, I'd love the plausible deniability of it sounding like I'm just listening to a song, but even without that, like... it just bugs me.

OP - I so hear you. Also, I'd never really thought about the whole plausible deniability thing, but heh, you're not wrong.

I've actually found quite a few really great songs over the years through fanvids.

HARD SAME. Though I prefer just a song, I don't mind when the audio is mixed seamlessly (usually only a short line or two). More and more though, vid makers seem to be shifting toward integration of full dialogue tracks with SFX/BGM and ... it's not good.

OP - Yeah, I'm sure I have some vids I love that have a line or two of dialogue that's used very specifically. I think I even have one or two I love that use more than a couple lines of dialogue. I definitely isn't a firm "rule" for me that dialogue in vids equals bad 100% of the time.

I think it's more just about the mindset of the vidder. Are they using the dialogue to highlight what the vid is already saying/doing? Or is the dialogue there because without it, you've just got a bunch of fairly arbitrarily chosen video clips pasted to a track and hey, look, motion and FX and that line you like!

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