When I started vidding, way back in 2004, I thought I knew enough about style and technique from fangirling other vidders. I was wrong. Ha, that was me too. It sounds dumb to say that knowing the name for something will mean you'll be better at doing it, but the thing is, if you know the name, you know the definition. That's why I think it's kind of important to read at least a little bit of meta before you get started in vidding.
It wasn't really until I started to get better on my own that I received more critical reviews. Which is just ass backwards if you ask me. It's backwards but it also makes sense. I like to think that I'm a pretty good vid beta and while I'll beta for friends, I'll also offer to beta for complete strangers if they ask for one and I see it. I've gotten a whole range of vids from the stranger sets. Some of them have completely blown my socks off with how awesome they are and even though they are awesome, I can still send back a 3 page email of things to fix up. Others though, are not so great and it can be hard to come up with anything to say to them except "start over" which I'm never mean enough to do. The thing is, a vid needs to have a strong story line/theme to be good. If it's a random shippy vid set to a love song with just clips of the characters together... well you can throw a few technical suggestions like "extra frame at 1:04, transition at 4:56 is too flashy" but at the end of that, the vid is never going to be anything more than mediocre because there's no backbone to it. It's like you're showing them how to colour within the lines instead of showing them how to make something original. The best you can do in that situation is maybe refer them to some meta.
To equate it to fic, if the story line is bad, well you can go in and fix the grammar, spelling and maybe throw a characterization suggestion in but you can't totally redo it for them.
If a *vidder* (I use the term loosely here) I think the difference is that you need some kind of artistic talent to vid/write fic technical ability isn't really enough. I mean, I can write. Obviously, since I'm doing that now, but I would never write fic because I know I'm not any good at it. I think you can learn how to be an artist but there are very few people who just *have* it right out of the gate.
I may have just rephrased what you said. I just wanted to throw my two cents into the pot. No, you brought up some points I meant to bring up but forgot. Thanks for stopping by :)
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Ha, that was me too. It sounds dumb to say that knowing the name for something will mean you'll be better at doing it, but the thing is, if you know the name, you know the definition. That's why I think it's kind of important to read at least a little bit of meta before you get started in vidding.
It wasn't really until I started to get better on my own that I received more critical reviews. Which is just ass backwards if you ask me.
It's backwards but it also makes sense. I like to think that I'm a pretty good vid beta and while I'll beta for friends, I'll also offer to beta for complete strangers if they ask for one and I see it. I've gotten a whole range of vids from the stranger sets. Some of them have completely blown my socks off with how awesome they are and even though they are awesome, I can still send back a 3 page email of things to fix up. Others though, are not so great and it can be hard to come up with anything to say to them except "start over" which I'm never mean enough to do.
The thing is, a vid needs to have a strong story line/theme to be good. If it's a random shippy vid set to a love song with just clips of the characters together... well you can throw a few technical suggestions like "extra frame at 1:04, transition at 4:56 is too flashy" but at the end of that, the vid is never going to be anything more than mediocre because there's no backbone to it. It's like you're showing them how to colour within the lines instead of showing them how to make something original. The best you can do in that situation is maybe refer them to some meta.
To equate it to fic, if the story line is bad, well you can go in and fix the grammar, spelling and maybe throw a characterization suggestion in but you can't totally redo it for them.
If a *vidder* (I use the term loosely here)
I think the difference is that you need some kind of artistic talent to vid/write fic technical ability isn't really enough. I mean, I can write. Obviously, since I'm doing that now, but I would never write fic because I know I'm not any good at it. I think you can learn how to be an artist but there are very few people who just *have* it right out of the gate.
I may have just rephrased what you said. I just wanted to throw my two cents into the pot.
No, you brought up some points I meant to bring up but forgot. Thanks for stopping by :)