Escapade Sidebar 1: Vid Reading Levels or Beware the Cheese

[wickedwords]

melina123 is the person who originally brought this up, and it made sense to me, so I'm gonna put out a half-baked version of the concept so it can be discussed and refined a bit. Several years ago, the Highlander Media Cannibals created a vid to "Hear that Voice Again." It was a pretty complicated vid, attempting to show how guilt and Duncan's past history and insecurities have fucked up his life. The first person we showed it to, who was a Methos fan without any real interest in Duncan, was very confused by it. "What is this, a graduate exam?"

At that point, all the energy went out of us. If you didn't have a strong background in the character and his history, you couldn't get the vid. It was a confusion of images and sounds that just didn't make sense. The vid seemed to work fine for those who knew Duncan's history and his character, but as that was only about a third of the Highlander slashers at the time, it was a little disheartening. It meant that the audience for the vid would never be that big, as it required too much detailed knowledge of characters and canon to be truly accessible.

So, when Melina made a statement about how sherrold's and my Smallville vid "So Damn Hot" was at her 'reading level' in the fandom, it made a ton of sense to me. You don't have to know a lot about the fandom to access the vid, but you have to know some to get the biggest joke.

And that seemed to be about the level of most of the Escapade audience: a passing familiarity with a lot of fandoms, but wide-spread, detailed knowledge of only a few. Graduate level vids are gonna be a hard sell in that environment, for more than a handful of fans with the specialized education required, and if there's a mismatch between what a first grade/literal interpretation of a scene would be in comparison to a graduate level/metaphorical interpretation -- well, the audience is likely to react to it en masse at grade level one. I think that graduate level vids can and should be shown at cons, but if you want to prevent misunderstood viewings, they should be reviewed by a fan who is somewhat unfamiliar with the fandom prior to the showing to make sure that there's no grade one level joke or perception that would interfere with the more "educated" reading.

An example of this: we used the occasional shot of fire or heat vision on some of our lyric lines, so the grade one read has the audience going "Oh! Fire. Hot. I get it." If you're saying anything more complicated along with that, it may be completely missed. The literal interpretation is the grade one interpretation, and if there is nothing else that the grade one reader can tie into, then they will spend the whole vid reacting to that.

For us, it worked great. For someone else trying to say something complex about the fandom or the relationship or character, it might not.

So beware the cheese.

Comments

[melinafandom.livejournal.com]

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.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

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.

Hm - I agree with you taht this is a good way to parse out whether the vidder failed at communication or the audience simply doesn't have the reading level necessary, but I'm not a HL vid, nor do I particularly care, yet I thought "Say" was wonderful and I got a lot out of it.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

but I'm not a HL vid,

While true, this is not what I meant. I am not an HL *fan* is a more useful statement.

[melinafandom.livejournal.com]

You probably understand the relationship well enough, though -- even if that understanding comes from other vids rather than the show itself -- for Say to be meaningful. Maybe that's true for other sophisticated vid-watchers, too, so it probably isn't a very good example at all :)

So maybe the theory needs expansion to include the idea that even if you don't watch the source of a particular fandom, watching a lot of vids in it over a period of years can itself increase your reading level in the fandom. Which is kind of interesting...

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

*nod* I think that's definitely the case. I wouldn't know who those guys even are without vids. Now I feel like I know them, and I understand their relationship, and it's pretty much all from vid-watching. Especially watching *your* vids.

Which reminds me I need to go look at your new ones!

[heresluck]

...even if you don't watch the source of a particular fandom, watching a lot of vids in it over a period of years can itself increase your reading level in the fandom.

That *is* interesting, and certainly true in my case although I'd never thought about it in those terms before.

I think the "reading levels" concept in general is a *great* addition to vidding vocabulary -- and it'll be an especially useful term at VividCon, I think.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you brought emotional reactions into the discussion, because I'd been thinking purely intellectually.

I do agree that there's a big divide between "vids that get me emotionally" and "vids that don't" which has a *huge* amount to do with knowing/caring about the show. Especially the "caring about" part. *g*

Examples:

A Buffy vid is going to have an excellent chance of grabbing me emotionally, and I will probably get all of the context associated with it. I know the show really well. I read Buffy vids at a graduate level.

A Smallville vid has a poor chance of grabbing me emotionally, but I will probably get most of the context. I know the show pretty well (I watched most of the first three seasons and still occasionally read recaps), but I don't really care about the characters. So while I can read a Smallville vid at a fairly high level, I'm just not likely to engage with it emotionally.