Remember all those discussions/rants on websites, the lists and LJ
about the evils of songfic? More specifically, how it sucked as an idea
because, simply put, one person's music is another person's godawful
noise? I've come to the conclusion recently that the same can be
applied to vids. Not that the idea sucks, because it's a great fan
activity and the core idea rocks, but because most of us don't have the
same taste in music.
I'm very,
very musically oriented
and if the song doesn't work for me (isn't appropriate for the
situations, doesn't sync up with the actions, just plain blows) then
the whole vid, at best, does nothing for me. At worst -- which just
happened -- it makes me screech in horror and delete it.
As an
example, I've just come from a highly reced vid site where everything I
looked at was, IMHO, crap. Not the videos themselves, because I thought
that the editing was very well done and the movements were synced
wonderfully with the music, but the songs. They sucked harder than an
industrial strength Hoover.
The song "Holding Out For a Hero" was used in one vid. Now, as a child
of the 80s the only -- I repeat, the
only
acceptable version of that song is the one originated by Bonnie Tyler
on the "Footloose" soundtrack. I was able to grit my teeth and live
with what was in "Shrek 2" because the actions/animations accompanying
it were pretty cool, but what was used in this vid I just tried to
watch? Oh my dear god. Teh Suck does not begin to describe it. The song
was raped, pillaged and burned shamelessly and any hope I had of
possibly enjoying the vid was gone the minute the first notes were
mangled.
But, that's just
my opinion. And that's the
problem. It's the same problem encountered in songfic: the song you
think personifies the story and gives it new meaning and depth, someone
else is just as likely to think it's utter dreck. It doesn't matter how
obscure the artist or how commercialized and Top 40, it's bound to rub
someone the wrong way somehow.
If I had the software/skills, I'd probably do a SG:A vid to either "O
Fortuna" from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, or
Franz
Schubert's Piano Trio in E flat major, D. 929 (Op. 100) (second
movement) from "Barry Lyndon."
I think those would make awesome vids, but I can hear the screams now
of all those out there who loathe classical music, the same way I'd
react to so much of what others out there call "good" music.
The
point being, for all that the idea behind vids is pretty cool, it, like
songfic, is one that I just don't think works. Not for me, and, unless
I'm totally unique, which I doubt, for others out there, too. In the
two months since I've started watching them, I've found a total of one
vid that I consider excellent. The rest have been either blah or
excrutiatingly bad. And it's all due to the music.