Do you think, though, that people who are purely fans of vids *as* vids still need fandom context to grok graduate-level vids? Or maybe, they need it, but not as much?
Yes and yes, IMO, at least for me. I appreciate vids as vids, but I find it much harder to connect to a serious vid in a fandom I'm not familiar with. I can appreciate it aesthetically, I can see that it was well put together, but to the extent the vid relies on context, it's much harder to really feel like I got it, whatever it is. I might be able to recognize that something more is going on in terms of context or metaphor, but a lot of times I think you have to know what that is to emotionally connect (especially in serious vids as opposed to comedy). And if it's a fandom I really cannot stand -- I don't care how good the vid is, the chance that I'll ever have a positive emotional reaction to it is very low. Which is different from appreciating, from a vidder's perspective, what the vidder is doing.
For the reading level theory, a good example for me from Escapade were both the I-Man vids -- I have a passing familiarity with the show and have seen a couple of vids before, both of which I really liked (Kryptonite and Voodoo). But just as with Voodoo, I knew there was way more going on in the vid than I was able to appreciate. They were just above my reading level.
I think what I like about this theory most is that it's a good way to distinguish a failure of the vidder (the vid is good or bad or didn't successfully connect with the audience) to differences in the audience itself, and how they relate to the source. To someone who doesn't know or care about Highlander, Say was probably just another D/M vid that used all those clips they've seen before -- but to fans of the show and pairing, it was something different entirely.
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Date: 2005-03-01 11:07 pm (UTC)Yes and yes, IMO, at least for me. I appreciate vids as vids, but I find it much harder to connect to a serious vid in a fandom I'm not familiar with. I can appreciate it aesthetically, I can see that it was well put together, but to the extent the vid relies on context, it's much harder to really feel like I got it, whatever it is. I might be able to recognize that something more is going on in terms of context or metaphor, but a lot of times I think you have to know what that is to emotionally connect (especially in serious vids as opposed to comedy). And if it's a fandom I really cannot stand -- I don't care how good the vid is, the chance that I'll ever have a positive emotional reaction to it is very low. Which is different from appreciating, from a vidder's perspective, what the vidder is doing.
For the reading level theory, a good example for me from Escapade were both the I-Man vids -- I have a passing familiarity with the show and have seen a couple of vids before, both of which I really liked (Kryptonite and Voodoo). But just as with Voodoo, I knew there was way more going on in the vid than I was able to appreciate. They were just above my reading level.
I think what I like about this theory most is that it's a good way to distinguish a failure of the vidder (the vid is good or bad or didn't successfully connect with the audience) to differences in the audience itself, and how they relate to the source. To someone who doesn't know or care about Highlander, Say was probably just another D/M vid that used all those clips they've seen before -- but to fans of the show and pairing, it was something different entirely.