WisCon Vid Party

Well, first, I do have a vid that uses audio that is not a song! It is a Firefly vid that is about Shepherd Book's faith as well as the way that black men are positioned in the Firefly universe and it is to dialogue from Pulp Fiction (Samuel L. Jackson talk to me forever!). Link to the vid "Shepherd" here. I talk quite a bit about the process — including the decision to use the audio I did — in my notes in the post.

That's a pretty specific case, though, and the process I had for making/concieving of that vid was very different than my typical process! I do have a list of songs that jumped out at me as This Should Be A Vid About A Thing, but I've also had to do song hunts for The Perfect Song About A Thing. Usually the later happens when I'm vidding for exchanges and the former happens when I am just making a vid. I also have a list of Songs That Would Make Good Vids But Fuck If I Know What They Would Be About. And I do keep an ear out for songs that would work for vague ideas I have that haven't quite coalesced, often because I haven't heard a song to focus the idea yet.

When I hunt for songs it's a process. Since my song hunts typically are exchange based I usually start a playlist of "songs that remind me of fandoms/characters I offered" before assignments go out. Sometimes this yeilds suprising results. The year I vidded Capital Scandal for Festivids I found the song I used only because I was looking for songs that might work for a vid for the Pixar movie Brave. I honestly just typed "brave" into iTunes to see what came up and lo the song "Brave" by A Particularly Vicious Rumor appeared. Despite the fact that it sounded nothing like the Pixar film, I added it to my playlist because it's an interesting song and the playlist was just for generating ideas anyway. When I finally got my assignment I realized that the song fit Cha Song Joo.

Likewise, when I participated in Tight Present, I made a playlist of songs that dealt with issues that TSCC raises: technology, religion, parenting, etc. Losing Our Religions came out of the fact that I got distracted while adding "songs about religion" to the playlist and started to do a cover hunt for covers of Losing My Religion. And Elephant Connection came from my This Would Make A Good Vid But Fuck If I Know What About list. Because, damn that is one creepy song. But it was Sanguinity's request that put the song in a new light for me and made me think: yes, actually, this WOULD be a good song for TSCC.

When a song jumps out at me as a vid, though, it's a bit different. It often takes me much much longer to make the vid; perhaps this makes sense since if I'm just making a vid for shits and giggles there isn't a deadline involved. I have a laundry list of "songs to vid" and only a small fraction of them have been made. Clipping tends to be a huge hurdle for me — it's just so boring! — that actually making vids without the pressure of a deadline can be difficult. Right now I have something like 10 vids that I have songs for (let's see … 2 - Inception, 1 - Farscape, 1 - Harry Potter, 3 - BtVS, 1 - Soldier's Girl/Boys Don't Cry, 1 - West Wing, 1 - Hong Gil Dong) with another half dozen or so that I have solid ideas for but that I probably won't make for whatever reason (1 - Hunger Games, 1 - Angel, 1 - Smallville, 1 - TSCC, 2 - multi, 1 - Stargate, 1 - Painter of the Wind). Some of these ideas I've carried with me for a long time; like heresluck says, I do get false positives, but these are the ideas that have stuck. If the vid idea still interests me 6 years later then, yeah, I'm probably going to eventually make it. I just have to finally sit down and clip.