Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em

[fan_eunice]

I said I was going to talk more about vidding right? Here I go, because this morning I opened up Premiere again to work on the epic season 5 Doctor Who vid that I keep stalling out on and one of the issues I keep having is one that I meant to bring up at the Big Emotion panel that we didn't have time to go into great detail on (I think we did briefly address it, but I kinda don't remember a lot of what was said because public speaking freaks me the hell out).

Basically, as the post title says how do we apply Kenny Rogers advice and know when to hold 'em in a vid? Long clips are bad right? Except when they are good. For drawing out tension (build, motherfucker!), for allowing a particular emotion to settle and wiggle under the skin and stay there (perhaps I should not watch so much Monster Inside Me on Animal Planet because I just freaked myself out), a well placed slow reveal or long clip can utterly wreck your audience or leave them primed and ready to be wrecked in the best way (see sockkpuppet's work for some amazing examples of this).

My issue remains the argument in my own head that happens every time I do this between 'too long, you are boring the shit out of your audience' and 'not long enough! you haven't snared them yet!'
Sometimes it is obvious (the long slow pull back on McMurphy's face in Mother Mary and the slooow pan up to the Elm St. sign with Freddy's shadow on the street in Legends Never Die were gimmes), but most of the time I find myself kinda lost?

And this current vid I'm working on has a lot of spaces where this choice has to be made due to it's structure and I continue to flail all over the timeline trying to decide, changing my mind, deciding again, changing again. I swear to god this first verse alone has had so many reincarnations I think it is approaching enlightenment, I will not be surprised if the next time I look at it all clips are replaced with a single one that simply tells me there is no spoon or some shit.

So. When do you hold 'em? When do you fold 'em? Do you know when to walk away, and when to run? And if you do for the love of the TARDIS share with the class.

Comments

[laurashapiro]

I hold 'em more often than not, as even a casual observer of my vids can tell you. It's not that I am not capable of fast cutting, and I do use very short clips when it makes sense.

But more often than not, when going for Big Emotion, I believe in giving the audience a chance to understand what they're seeing. The amount of time that takes will vary according to audience, but I make my vids to suit me, and I'm of the MTV generation rather than the XBox generation.

What I learned in Wonder of Birds is that if you want to pack a particularly fannish-feeling wallop, you have to pause for a few moments on the face of the beloved -- even at the risk of slowing down the vid's momentum. Because there's the kind of flying that is all about fast motion and fast cutting, and then there's the kind of flying that's all about OMG I LOVE HIM/HER/THEM SO MUCH LOOK AT HIS/HER/THEIR FEELINGS!!!

Another rule of thumb to consider: the more context your audience brings, the faster you can cut. I held much longer on Chae Ohk fighting Jang Sung-Baek than I would have on Buffy jumping off the tower. If the audience is doing the heavy lifting for you, you don't need more than a couple of seconds. If you're introducing something new, longer is better.

JMO. YMMV. ETC.

[fan_eunice]

*nodnodnod* I've been working on that in general since the first thing I learned was to cut faster (rightfully so, since I wasn't cutting slow to a purpose...just filling space and that's *boring*)...so backing off and learning 'okay, and now it really is okay not to' causes a twitch response :)

But also, I'm thinking here not just of 'slow' vs. 'fast' cutting but deliberately using a long drawn out clip (sisabet provides an example in the VIP she posted in the livejournal comments, and also brings up the end of A Day In The Life...which, yes, that with the long, long, slide up to HOLY SHIT.)

[laurashapiro]

A Day In The Life! Oh, how I love that vid. ♥

I see what you mean, though; specific moments where long clips are called for. I tend to agree with SDW that for me the decision is about how the vid feels. I imagine there's some form of analytical thinking going on when I make those choices, but I'm not always aware of it.

[fan_eunice]

Yah, it seems like 'go with your gut' is the standard :)

Just talking about it has helped kind of clarify where that gut reaction comes from for me (specific types of musical cues, context within the vid itself from surrounding clips and such)

But is tricky, this is usually when I threaten to give up vidding in favor of knitting, but having started to learn to knit I no longer consider that the easier option.

[laurashapiro]

You are probing deeply! I like that. Gives the meta extra crunch.

I'd say that my gut usually listens to the music more than anything. Most of my choices made during the editing process are in response to musical cues, but of course these don't occur in isolation: the combination of musical cues and feeling or meaning I want to create in the audience at that point are the magic combination.

I think. Usually. Except when they aren't.

[lapillus]

I think along with all the other good reasons mentioned her and on LJ, there are some good reasons to hold clips depending on your audience. If you expect much of your audience to be unfamiliar with the source, a longer clip gives them more time to orient themselves and to gain some context, either or both of which can be useful. Just be sure that there is enough information in the extended clip to do that. Alternately if you expect your audience to know the source VERY well (this happens much less often than it used to with vids - there is just too much source out there these days and most folks are fannish butterflies to one extent or another) you can use extended clips for them to do some of the work of connecting the clip to things you don't picture (think of the first vid in this year's challenge show and how the still images made the audience do the work of the connecting things.) In either case, if you do hold a clip make sure you give folks enough direction of what to think about so they aren't making grocery lists while waiting for the next clip.

[fan_eunice]

I actually find myself a bit baffled by anyone who can identify specific context for all but the most iconic clips in a show regardless of how familiar they are with it, 'cause I totally can't do it. Sometimes I worry because I'll deliberately use my own context blindness to cut faster and use musical/facial/object etc. cues to draw connections and create context even when the actual clip I'm using isn't a fit in show context. I am forever terrified of someone who can recognize things that quickly going 'now wait just a second, in that scene the Doctor was clearly talking about cheese, not contemplating the meaning of the universe, WHAT GIVES?'

Ahem, yes, anyway. I do pay more attention to context when a clip is held because there's that much more chance the viewer is gonna go 'heeeey...I think? Isn't that where he is looking at...cheese?'

if you do hold a clip make sure you give folks enough direction of what to think about so they aren't making grocery lists while waiting for the next clip.

*nodnodnodnod* I think this is a key factor in whether or not a long clip is deliberately creating something or just...boring. Like, make sure there is something *happening* in it, set it up and knock it down, don't just leave it hanging there?

[lapillus]

I wouldn't worry too much about folks getting caught up in context, as long as it's reasonably clear from the start of vid that you're not counting on context to make sense of things. I mean, you'll probably get one or two people with things like that (mostly folks who are very context sensitive), but most folks it won't be an issue. The real problem is when vidders switch how much context they're using. Unlike literalism where you can pretty easily go from more to less literal (in serious vids) or less to more literal (in comedy) it's very hard to switch the depth of context required, I suspect because it takes longer to process.

[franzeska]

I think it depends heavily on how you've been taught to read vids. If it's something I've gotten into, I probably will be able to identify context just because I'll have watched the whole thing recently. But I very rarely find that interfering with watching a vid that takes things out of context. It's all just footage. If someone's smiling, they're smiling. Maybe if the rest of the vid is clearly about a specific episode, it would bug me, but it doesn't usually.

[laurashapiro]

It's all just footage.

Increasingly, this is how I view TV shows!

I have often wished that all viewers would embrace this point of view, especially when making some of my more esoteric or enthusiastically de- and re-contextualized vids. But then I remember that bringing context is a big part of what makes vids fannish to a lot of people, sometimes even to me.

[fan_eunice]

Well, there's context and then there's context. :)

A clip used out of context of the scene it was in isn't necessarily out of context with the show if that makes any sense? If I'm building a narrative about the Doctor being lonely and I use a shot of him being sadface, then the specific context of the scene from which I ganked that shot is less important than tapping into expectation tied to the larger story I'm associating it with. One that might translate to someone who doesn't watch the show (because he looks SAD), but will have more reference to someone who knows the Doctor's backstory. The vidder can make them think of Gallifrey within the context of the vid even if the scene it was removed from really was about cheese.

[laurashapiro]

Totally with you, there. And it's good to make the distinction between show context and scene context -- I think most people can go along with a vidder who attempts to decouple scene context from a clip, as long as the vid is consistent with their understanding of the show context.

That said, I've talked with several people who were not able to follow where a vid is going because they are incapable of separating the clip from the Doctor's feelings about cheese in that scene. It might be a less common thing to encounter nowadays, but it's still out there.