Connecting with the audience

[legoline]

I've been watching a lot of VVC vids these past few days and many of them hit me right where it hurts. Seriously. Some of them turned me into an emotional mess.

Which got me thinking about connecting with the audience and, you know, getting an emotional response. I always feel like I have trouble giving my vids that emotional impact and I hope I can learn how to do it eventually, but I was just curious on your take on this--when does a vid hurt you right where it counts? How do you, as a vidder, achieve that response from the audience with your vids? Is it something that can be learned or does it all come down to talent? What are the most important key aspects? (Music, clips?) Are there tricks and "cheats", specific techniques to get an audience where you want it or is it really just a strong narrative paired with an inspired song choice?

I'm curious about what you think

[lillythekid]

That's an really interesting topic and I've been thinking quite a bit about it lately. In the sense that there are many very very excellent vids, but that doesn't necessarily lead to me having a strong emotional response. This can, of course, be dependent on how invested I am in the source, but there are other factors at play as well.

For me personally the song/music/musicality plays a big roll. For example a song that builds up, undergoes changes in pace and maybe even volume,and if this is translated into the vid with the right clip choice, I might have a strong response to it.

Another important factor is the theme of the vid. This is a bit harder to explain. An example for this would be a vid that deals not only with a character I'm very invested in, but which also deals with this in a way I find especially intriguing/fresh/funny/disturbing or all of the above.

Sometimes there are seemingly random bits in a vid that make go "damn" every time I watch it, maybe even make me look forward to that particular part, because it resonates very strongly with me, even though I'm not able to pinpoint the exact reason.

[legoline]

Well I'm glad it's not just me contemplating these things :-)

For example a song that builds up, undergoes changes in pace and maybe even volume,and if this is translated into the vid with the right clip choice, I might have a strong response to it.

Good point there. I just realised that such_heights's "Glosoli" is one of those vids that have a really big build-up both in song and clip choice. It's basically a vid made out of the most beautiful/emotional bits from series 5 and 6 of Doctor Who, and the way she reserves the strongest clips for the finale is really amazing. Gets me every time.

Another important factor is the theme of the vid. This is a bit harder to explain. An example for this would be a vid that deals not only with a character I'm very invested in, but which also deals with this in a way I find especially intriguing/fresh/funny/disturbing or all of the above.

Definitely. I think that's the case with most fanworks no matter the medium, really. There has to be something in the way you tackle a character or aspect that just resonates with the audience.


I guess what I'm getting at--what I just realised, really--is how to properly manipulate your audience to get them to feel what you want them to feel. Which--I don't know, is or isn't the same as connecting with the audience?

[obsessive24]

Such a complicated question. Personally I think the "baggage" the individual viewer brings to the vid controls about 90% of the emotional reaction - their source knowledge, connection to the music, and more importantly their own experience and emotions and thoughts etc. How people connect to the music, especially, feels like it has the ability to make in our individual perceptions a mediocre vid great, or a great vid merely good. I try to make my peace with the fact that it's stuff that we can't control, but sometimes it's a bit depressing when I think about how little effect our actual editing or vid concept really has over audience reaction. Most of it seems to be source/music-related, which I feel can't truly be attributed to the vidder's input.

But the remaining 10%... no hard and fast rules, but from personal experience, these are some of the things I've gleaned over the years that seem to really heighten an emotional response:

1. Corn_Child's vids taught me to use subtle external motion - adding small zooms in (and out, but mostly it seems to work better with zooming in). Her vids are mostly offline now but I managed to find this. Not the best example of her use of external motion, but hopefully it gives a flavour, especially from 2:00 onward. (If it seems rather commonplace now, it's because she pioneered the idea.)
Must Be Dreaming

2. Fabella's vids taught me to use animal metaphors and cutting in to highlight details in the frame.

Animal metaphor example: Me, I'm a Thief

Cutting-in example: Come On, Angel. See e.g. 0:38, 1:16 and loads of other places. Also, this vid is a really good example of Fabella's mastery over object metaphors. The salt at 1:32 gets me every time. So freaking poignant.

3. Loki's vids taught me the power that comes from playing with colouring/contrast/saturation, especially mixing colour and B&W. E.g. Roads

4. Lim had some great advice about looking at the larger emotional picture beyond the motion and musicality, and knowing when to show and hold a facial close-up, and really letting the actor and that clip do the work for you. This is linked to the idea that, if you are faced with a hard choice between musicality or actively ignoring a musical cue in order to hold on to an emotional moment, the vid often works better emotionally if you choose to ignore the musical cue, no matter how counterintuitive it seems.

5. Random other personal thought - landscapes and contextual shots devoid of people seem to work well, but only to a certain extent. There's a particular tipping point where too many landscape shots seem to distance people and make the vid come across as cold. Fabella noted this also in her vid notes to the gorgeous Elemental, a master class in how to do it right.

There was other stuff, but my brain has forgotten them.

[frayadjacent]

Great thread, and thanks for the tips, obsessive24. Thanks especially for pointing out the subtle zooms -- I definitely need to practice that! My attempts at zooms so far have come off really awkward and mechanical looking, so I've never kept them. It looks like part of the key is to a) make it subtle, like you say, and b), add a little "shakiness" to the motion so it's more natural looking (unless what I thought were subtle zooms in your example were actually just the original camera work, lol).

I first noticed the use of animal metaphors in obsessive24's Twilight vid Sunburn, and have tried to keep mental note of how effective it was, though I haven't yet attempted something similar myself.

It's an interesting question of how much emotional impact is due to the vidder and how much is other stuff that is to some degree beyond a vidder's control. Music is obviously a huge deal. Of course we can't ever pick music that will resonate with every viewer, but obviously there is some music that's likely to resonate with *more* viewers than others.

Beyond that, I've been strongly impacted by vids whose music I didn't care for much. Of course that wouldn't have been the case if I didn't strongly connect to the source. A major example is Bradcpu's Living Dead Girl. I can't stand the music, but I was so struck by the editing and concept that I watched it again and again until suddenly I loved it and it did affect me emotionally. Then again, that might not be the case for most viewers -- if I wasn't actively trying to study vid-making as a process, I probably would have never ended up connecting to that vid in that way.

[legoline]

@obsessive24: So it's about being at the right place at the right time? I agree, though.

Thanks for the tip about the subtle zooms--I've been trying my hand at using zooms to get motion into otherwise static clips but I've never conciously used it to evoke emotion. I attempted using it more on purpose with the vid I was working on today, though, and your advice is gold.

Also goos point about #4--I shall remember this. And look up all the vids you linked to

frayadjacent I've had that happen to me before. I've come to like so many songs that I only know from vids, and that I probably wouldn't have liked had I not first heard them in context of the vid.

[amnisias]

Interesting discussion. What makes a gut-puncher vid?

- I'd agree with a lot coming down to the viewers relationship with the source, the theme and the music choice, but since this is not something you can controle I don't think it's worth thinking about too much.

- For me the second layer, and the most important one, is the narrative or concept of a vid. The vids that I tend to respond to particullarly stong emotionally is when the vid is adding something new or different to the source. This doesn not mean it has to be a big concept vid, the best vids are those where the 'new or different' element is very subtle, like an unusual POV, emphasis on a minor character or relationship, reordering of events to pull out a specific causality, showing me a part of a character that I wasn't aware off before, developping the story in a different direction than I expected.

An SPN an vid that tells me that Dean has a tough life and he loves his brother might have great editing and perfect musicality but I still doesn't get me at that place in my gut where I go all gooy inside. Melissa's Crave, a study of Sam's hands, did, as did Lum's Woman's Work. Heresluck Blind Luck highlights the family aspect of Firefly, and Nickis On The Other Side is a House vid about the interplay between religion and faith, patients and doctors. At VVC Greensilver's Neville vid and bironic's SGA vid did that. And mresundances A New World vid. And it doesn't have to be serious - Nicki's Jealousy vid is a perfect example, the hook here being the play with expectations (of slash) and double misdirection.

- The third layer are all the technical and editing 'tricks' that Nicki mentioned. But if that's all you've got, if it's not in service of a strong narrative or vid idea, it's just impressive, not emotinally engaging.

[obsessive24]

Aug 27, 2012 7:56:45 GMT -5 amnisias said:

The vids that I tend to respond to particullarly stong emotionally is when the vid is adding something new or different to the source. This doesn not mean it has to be a big concept vid, the best vids are those where the 'new or different' element is very subtle, like an unusual POV, emphasis on a minor character or relationship, reordering of events to pull out a specific causality, showing me a part of a character that I wasn't aware off before, developping the story in a different direction than I expected.

That's very well put and I agree.

An SPN an vid that tells me that Dean has a tough life and he loves his brother might have great editing and perfect musicality but I still doesn't get me at that place in my gut where I go all gooy inside.

*sigh* Only if that were true for everyone. But clearly it isn't, so we continue to get those vids. Many, many of those vids. I've stopped trying to hide my bitchy SPN vid fatigue. People will just have to deal with it.

[amnisias]

*sigh* Only if that were true for everyone. But clearly it isn't, so we continue to get those vids.

Lol. Ahhhh well.....just because they don't do anything for me as a vid watcher, it doesn't mean I didn't have a biological imperative to create my own 'Dean is suffering' vid. But it was actually my first vid, so I sold it to everybody as my 'learning Sony Vegas' vid. But it was totally an Id vid. As a vid watcher, I wouldn't have touched the vid with a barge pole. What? Nobody said a vidder has to be CONSISTENT!

[frayadjacent]

Never having watched SPN, are your reactions because such a vid's concept is something that's really obvious from the source (i.e., the vid isn't saying anything new), or are they because the vid concept is overdone?

I ask because there once was a time when I really enjoyed watching Buffy vids about Spike's arc, even when they didn't tell me anything new about the character. Things like great editing and musicality, along with my attachment to the source, were enough for a strong emotional impact. But now I'm at the point where I feel like I've seen the same clips over and over (which isn't anyone's fault, they're great clips!) and I'm just saturated. My bar for Spike vids (as opposed to, say, Cordelia vids, of which I have seen ... none that I can recall at the moment) is now much, much higher.

[obsessive24]

Aug 28, 2012 13:35:24 GMT -5 frayadjacent said:

Never having watched SPN, are your reactions because such a vid's concept is something that's really obvious from the source (i.e., the vid isn't saying anything new), or are they because the vid concept is overdone?

Both! I remember enjoying a lot of SPN vids back around s1 and s2 because everything was still fresh and new, and some of my favourite SPN vids from that time didn't necessarily say something new from canon. So some of it is certainly because of clip (or concept like angsty boys) saturation.

But I'm also very critical of the show because I feel like it never shows substantive forward progression, and the two issues are certainly linked. I'm sure hardcore fans will argue that the show/characters have evolved a lot over these 7 years, but I don't see it. All I see is Dean's woobie face over and over and over and over and over again.

[legoline]

Aug 29, 2012 11:13:59 GMT -5 obsessive24 said:

But I'm also very critical of the show because I feel like it never shows substantive forward progression, and the two issues are certainly linked. I'm sure hardcore fans will argue that the show/characters have evolved a lot over these 7 years, but I don't see it.

I was a die-hard fan of that show, up to the point where I flew across the Atlantic to meet J2 at a convention. But after season five, I just couldn't take never-evolving characters anymore. The way Sam never seemed to move past his whiny "No one ever treats me like a grown-up!" (ya think? You just freed Lucifer, you moron) and how Dean continued to take all of Sam's crap and never stand up for himself. At one point I just couldn't take the characters serious anymore. And then there were some other issues, but I could have overlooked those if I'd still cared for the characters.