Snowy Monday, with vids

[bironic]

festivids is live. The snow is once more falling thickly. Life could be worse.

I

This year I received a vid for a source I was particularly hoping for, the movie Take Shelter: Things That Scare Me by cherryice. Thank you, Cherry!

The vid, like the film, is deeply unsettling in its depiction of a man haunted by visions of apocalyptic storms, unsure if they arise from mental illness or prescience or something else; while Curtis tries to handle the mounting paranoia, he loses his grip on his job and family and sense of reality. The vid does a great job of interweaving those threads plus Curtis' financial anxieties, as well as of expressing his anguish (his face) and highlighting the beauty of the cinematography. The flock of birds, his body jerking, a tree branch swaying in a building wind.

Here is her signed post.

II

I also received a teeny tiny microvid as part of the incredible effort that ghost_lingering put into making Silent Fandoms. "My" microvid is of Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer's father/son relationship in the movie Beginners, which I'd requested for at least one previous Festivids round. It is ten seconds long and engaging and lovely. It starts at 9:26/9:31 as part of Behind-the-Scenes Bonus Material for "Silent Fandoms": Excerpts from a Festivids Masterlist that Never Existed, but don't skip to that timestamp; you should really, really watch the whole 20 minutes of it.

"Behind the Scenes" includes dozens and dozens of impeccably edited minivids made to fit participants' requests that weren't filled in previous rounds. It is such a delight, down to ghost_lingering's margin notes on the interstitial title cards. "Silent Fandoms" builds on that project as a meta tribute to Festivids itself, the vidding process, the community, the variable experience of being in a small fandom. That one, being experimental and employing layers of music and voice and sounds and silence, I am less sure what to make of. Have only seen it once and plan to watch at least one more time now that I've watched "Behind the Scenes." Either way, the amount of work and thought and creativity that went into it is awe-inspiring.

ETA: On second viewing, much easier to grasp. Clever way to portray rare fandoms through audio levels, and lovely inclusions of many participants' thoughts on how (un)popular/loud/quiet their fandoms are.

Here is ghost's thinky post about the (not!)vid. And here is collaborator sanguinity's.

III

I have conflicting feelings about how the vids I submitted are doing, and the limits of my own capabilities, and aesthetics and trends and stuff. Holding those thoughts for later, if at all. Aside from that, the viewing experience has been good so far. Vid quality is pretty consistent. I've made it through less than a third of the collection 99 vids and am holding recs for now. Meantime, I will leave you with some choice quotes from a Festivids-watching get-together last night at laura47's. Another way to play "guess the vid."

laura47: That's the best way to be bisexual.
scribe: Be Batman?

meretricula: That was actually pretty sweet.
shati: I thought his hand would get sliced off at the end.

meretricula: The one with the kind of blank-stare face is the protagonist.