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Post by franzeska on Nov 24, 2011 14:41:03 GMT -5
I'm curious about vids that violate vidding's sacred cows. No, not like that, you perverts: Vids with talky face, lots of obvious transitions, sparkles and glowing and effects, vids that are too long or too short or use the wrong music, vids that are nonetheless fantastic. I just stumbled across this one Miami Vice video on Youtube that I think makes excellent use of those uh... star iris wipes (is that what they're called?) and other obnoxiously overt transitions with neon edges just to make them extra inescapable. I do think it drags a little bit in the middle, but what was so striking to me was that the vid mostly uses footage from only four or five episodes, and the very beginning up through the star wipes is mostly from the pilot and uses footage that is in the credit sequence, and I still found it fresh here. For a lot of shows, the neon cheese would be too much, but you can see how it was already in the canon. The split screens and freezing and so on make this very familiar footage feel new to me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxk2y6u8aJoWhat are your favorite vids that prove that there are no "rules", only things that are harder to pull off?
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Post by astarte on Nov 24, 2011 17:41:54 GMT -5
A few years ago I stumbled over a Farscape vid to Seether's 'Bother' and even having watched outstanding technical vids to that song in fandoms I knew, this vid blew me away. I didn't know the first thing about Farscape and the vid had several issues, PoV and editing in particular, but nothing captured the raw emotion of the song better than this vid for me. Even when I found a different Farscape vid version. The other one is still my favourite, it just tapped into all these feelings perfectly without holding back. Another example I found recently is this Arthur/Merlin vid on www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlEbunoB6HA. It has a few PoV issues and stray frames, but it is this perfect storm of song, characters, coloring and movement to make me fall in love with it. It's just - gah. With all the smiles and longing and interesting editing choices.
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Post by franzeska on Nov 25, 2011 13:34:57 GMT -5
it is this perfect storm of song, characters, coloring and movement to make me fall in love with it. It's just - gah. With all the smiles and longing and interesting editing choices. Ooh! I see what you mean. It's such a great song choice too (on top of being used to good effect by the vidder).
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xandra
New to the Pub
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Post by xandra on Nov 25, 2011 16:57:18 GMT -5
It's all about style and mood. You can break any of the rules if fits what your trying to do.
80s/90s neon and inventive wipes totally work for Miami Vice.
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Post by killabeez on Dec 2, 2011 0:15:41 GMT -5
There's some talk in the intro thread right now about talkyface, and I'm working on a vid that has a tiny bit of it. One of my other favorite vids I've made has some deliberate talkyface. The reason it is in there is it the vid was made for some friends in the fandom, one of whom is hearing-impaired, and I deliberately put in a couple of clips I intended for her to lip-read.
Maybe it was that vid that inured me, or maybe it's just because I come from a somewhat older generation of vidding, but there are times when talkyface works for me. I have two instances of it in my current VIP. One, the character says, "I'm sorry." The other, he says, "Let me come with you." These are important to the story, and I like them in the vid. Am I "wrong?" Talk to me about talkyface. Can it ever work? Can you think of any vids where it does? (I'm not talking about lip-synching. I mean actual talkyface.)
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nos
Pub Regular
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Post by nos on Dec 2, 2011 2:05:02 GMT -5
I go waaaay out of my way to get rid of talky face. (Again, this might be more due to my vidding early years than anything) And it starts to grate on my nerves if there is too much of it in a vid. An otherwise fantastic vid can be destroyed by it to me, and this a personal opinion. I've talked to a lot of vidders that say it doesn't bother them as much. But nothing has me hitting the back button faster than a close up shot of someone talking.
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Post by obsessive24 on Dec 2, 2011 3:21:34 GMT -5
For me, I think it can work, especially talky face paired with an emotional face shot that communicates the exact feeling that you need to get across. Can't think of any examples off the top of my head, though. I remember reading and agreeing somewhere that talky face often doesn't work because the emphasis is on the emotion of the words, rather than the emotion of the face, and if you had a choice and since you're working in a visual medium with the words muted out, why wouldn't you go with the visual over the words that people can't hear? But this is assuming all else is equal in the two theoretical clips you could have used.
I think I'm more able to accept talky face if I can see that clip choice is perfect but for the talking, and on balance it's better to have the clip than not to have talky face. But Killa, I sort of get the feeling that your question is about whether it'd work to have a clip in there for talky face's sake (or, for the sake of what they're saying in that specific moment). I think that's more likely to throw me out of the vid, but I think theoretically it can be done in a way that doesn't throw me out. Like/dislike of talky face is such a subjective approach, though. Again I wanna say "generational gap"...
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Post by gnattery on Dec 2, 2011 4:26:24 GMT -5
I've been coming around to the idea of talkyface, and thinking that for me it depends on the type of vid as to whether it really throws me or not. There are some kinds of vids where I just have a total zero tolerance policy for it, and others where it's totally fine. I think a lot of it has to do with the style, and part of that is whether it's following more traditional vidding conventions, or newer ones.
For example, I was watching some of franzeska's vids today, and the talkyface in her vids totally works. I think it's a combination of the simple cutting style, and the fact that they were for Miami Vice. It's an older show, and so seeing vidding styles more similar to traditional vidding isn't jarring for me. Talk all you want, guys, it's cool. I'm just watching clips of this show set to music, and this show had talking in it. No probs. I think talkyface tends to have this kind of cheesy feel that is often not at all at odds with the fandom cultures of older shows.
For vids of the newer style though, using lots of special effects or fast and zippy cutting, it's a totally different thing. I think the more modern a vid looks, the less I'm likely to tolerate talkyface. Especially if there are lots of pretty effects going on, or if the cutting is faster, like it tends to be nowdays. If the vid is trying to give me a heightened sense of mood or emotion, if it's trying to have some style in it not already present in the show's clips, then talkyface is totally unwelcome. It's kind of like... newer style vids are trying to be more separate from the original source. More a creation of their own. And talkyface just doesn't work for that style.
Of course, there are some older-style vids that don't manage to pull off the talkyface at all either, though I think that's for reasons other than the talkyface. The talkyface just becomes more apparent when that's the case. Or maybe it looks bad when they using talkyface clips that have a really bad speech to movement ratio in their meaning, like obsessive24 was saying.
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Post by valika on Dec 2, 2011 4:37:08 GMT -5
I don't like talkyface in videos generally, but I have to agree with those who say it can work really well. SOme of my all time favourites contain talkyface, too and this don't bother me at all. And it's a matter of taste, too.
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eunice
Pub Enthusiast
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Post by eunice on Dec 2, 2011 10:30:48 GMT -5
I think the talky-face rule, like most vidding 'rules' is more of a guidepost that says to me 'be deliberate' rather than 'don't do ever'. If it's in a clip I'm considering using, that's when I start asking more questions...why this clip, what am I trying to convey with it, is it really the best clip to do that within the context of this vid. Shouting and crying often don't read as 'talky' because of the motion and emotion. Clearly readable lip movements of a few words might be easy to parse and add contextual impact. A mid-range shot with solid points of visual interest and movement might cancel out talking characters. Etc., etc., etc.
I think it gets thrown down as a hard line in the sand because it's an easy one to mess up if the vidder isn't being deliberate about it. Kinda like the difference between laying down a very long clip just because it fills up a space rather than choosing to deliberately rest on an image for emotional or tension building impact.
And, really 'be deliberate' is a guideline for every editing decision...it's just that I think some of them become more obviously messy/distracting than others when they aren't, and that's how they end up getting hard lines drawn around them.
tl;dr: Talky-face, long clips, cutting on a beat...whatever, throw the 'rules' out the window as long as it is a deliberate choice.
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Post by obsessive24 on Dec 2, 2011 10:45:06 GMT -5
And, really 'be deliberate' is a guideline for every editing decision...it's just that I think some of them become more obviously messy/distracting than others when they aren't, and that's how they end up getting hard lines drawn around them. tl;dr: Talky-face, long clips, cutting on a beat...whatever, throw the 'rules' out the window as long as it is a deliberate choice. Very well said all around! can't agree more. I've heard the same sentiment couched in terms of "know the rules before you break them", but that gives off a somewhat different tone, although I think the intention of that statement comes from a similar place. Your explanation is much clearer, though.
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Post by killabeez on Dec 2, 2011 10:53:58 GMT -5
I think the talky-face rule, like most vidding 'rules' is more of a guidepost that says to me 'be deliberate' rather than 'don't do ever'. If it's in a clip I'm considering using, that's when I start asking more questions...why this clip, what am I trying to convey with it, is it really the best clip to do that within the context of this vid. Shouting and crying often don't read as 'talky' because of the motion and emotion. Clearly readable lip movements of a few words might be easy to parse and add contextual impact. A mid-range shot with solid points of visual interest and movement might cancel out talking characters. Etc., etc., etc. You so smart. Yes, I think that's exactly what I think. Especially the part about shouting and crying—the few times when I've consciously left it in, it's because the emotion on the face matched the emotion in the music, and the actual dialogue was just a small reinforcement. For example, the vid I was talking about that I made for a fan who's hearing-impaired—the two bits I left in are Duncan saying "ooh, you're irritating!" and later, Amanda saying, "You can be really irritating sometimes!" Both were played for comedy in the episode, and those two actors give kind of hilarious snarky face, so the expressions were as good as the words. Or so I thought, haha. Same with my "I'm sorry" clip. It's the expression on his face when he says it that I really wanted, and the lips moving didn't bother me. @obsessive24 - I'm not sure, now that I've thought about it, that this is really a generational thing. Or rather, I'm like from a transitional generation. I've usually hated talky-face, too, and avoid it, but... this might be more of a "vidding is my fandom" vs. "my fandom is my fandom" thing. Prioritizing character emotion and context over visuals, to some degree. In certain cases. Maybe.
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nos
Pub Regular
Posts: 95
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Post by nos on Dec 2, 2011 11:06:30 GMT -5
I agree that shouting or crying doesn't count as talky face, at least to me. I have used shouting before. I also, in my last video, tried to time it so that River mouthed the word 'Go!' at the beginning of the video. (Even though she was saying 'drive' in the actual source). But it worked for me, not sure how it worked for everyone else.
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Post by franzeska on Dec 2, 2011 11:45:37 GMT -5
Talk to me about talkyface. Can it ever work? Can you think of any vids where it does? (I'm not talking about lip-synching. I mean actual talkyface.) As is probably obvious, I really like corny, cheesy vids, so I love talky face when it enhances the camp value of something. I think it's way underrated as a source of comedy. It's not just that it's distracting because the emphasis shouldn't be on the words: people often make weird faces when they talk. The things facial muscles do during speech are not as aesthetically pleasing as how people look when they're intentionally posed, and they don't have the kind of nice, smooth movement of someone starting to smile. So while it can be funny to use talky face to parody somebody else's style of vidding (well, funny to the person doing the parody), I think it can also be funny period, without any specific meta commentary on vidding aesthetics. My MV vids are totally full of talky face. And not even as a source of comedy. Guilty as charged! I tend to agree that it's easier to get away with it in a simpler, slower vid of an old show. There's a strong expectation, IMO, of a lot of shots of two leads grinning at each other, leaning in, having no personal space. (Hello, every Starsky & Hutch vid ever and 90% of the canon footage.) And when you get those sort of leaning in + knowing grin shots, the character is almost always starting to say something. (Think any canon shot of any pair of buddy cops either exiting a door together or at the same desk. Every single one of them looks just like this.) I do think it's awfully hard to use the purest form of "talky face": gigantic closeups of faces with the lips moving and absolutely nothing else happening in the shot. I know, to some, that's the definition of 'talky face' but I've seen a lot of criticism of vids that have medium closeups (torso shots) or medium shots with really overt lip movement. I think those really depend on how much other movement there is in the clip, your cutting style, the music, etc. But I wouldn't use an extreme closeup of lips unless I intended for the audience to lip read or I were attempting lip syncing. I also really wonder about the effect of con vidshow viewing vs. viewing when you have more time and the effect of foreign languages. I've done two different MV vids with really bad lip sync (characters' mouths move in time with the lyrics, but if you're paying attention, it's clear the lyric and the original dialogue don't match). I expected the one at VVC to get a lot of criticism for talky face, but nobody said a thing. I wonder if hearing singing in Spanish primed people not to expect to lip read. Or people could have just been being kind or been distracted by other things, but I was surprised no one mentioned it at all. (http://vimeo.com/27751893 password=miamivice I had to work really hard to keep other talky face out of this since it's a femslash vid that cuts out all of the male leads, and that means there were about 5 canon scenes I could use. The intentional mouth movements are 0:35, 0:41, 1:10, 1:22, 1:40, and 1:56.) The other one I sent to BASCon, and it has some really overtly terrible lip sync right at the end on the punchline. It still got a huge laugh for that part, I think because it goes by pretty fast, and that part of the song is really distracting (sudden talking/punchline delivery after singing). I was counting on the dramatic head tilt/body language and dramatic and appropriate facial expression to make it work in a con show. (http://vimeo.com/28251390 password=miamivice The really bad lip sync is at 1:13 and especially at 1:38, though there's talking all over the place in this because I have no shame.)
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Post by astarte on Dec 2, 2011 14:37:01 GMT -5
I agree with gnattery that it can work for older fandoms and a certain editing technique. Not so much in a very effect heavy, fast cutted vid, because it can be very jarring and pull you out of the moment. I didn't mind it much when I started vidding, because I was more focused on dialog and I still had my audio in Premiere while clipping. So if there were a verbal revelation I was okay with keeping parts of the talkyface. Nowadays I try to avoid it, but I also used it deliberate in 'My Skin', when Cordelia rejects Angel with a clear, 'No.' I think short statements like 'I'm sorry' or 'I love you' are really easy to understand and can absolutely work in context of the lyrics or the conveyed emotions of the face.
And like franzeska said, medium range shots that have for example hand movement or other body language can absolutely work. Especially head tilts and grabby hands.
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