Vid meme days 10-12

[labellementeuse]

More vids! I don't think I'm going to be very talky today, though.

Day 10 - A vid that makes you laugh
United States of Pop, by llenka
Community; dance moves; warning for very fast, very highly-lit cutting that even I, who have no vision issues, find a bit difficult to watch; spoilers for the whole season

THIS VID GUYS. There is really nothing to this vid except: "Hey, look at the Community cast dance like crazies", and yet that is all to make me laugh and laugh and laugh. I do think the song choice here is brilliant - it's a mashup of the top 40 from last year, which I think is really clever because Community is so soaked in popular culture. And um... that's really it. I don't even particularly like the technical stuff here - I think the footage is oversaturated and I think the cuts are sometimes just too fast - and yet I love this vid.

Best Bits: 0:13-0:18 - this is hilariously good dance cutting. 1:16-end - same again! And well, this vid is only 1:30 long, I find pretty much all of it funny.

Honourable mention: Cartoon Heroes by mamoru22


Day 11 - An AMV you love
This one was tough for me because I'm not at all into anime and the only AMV I've ever really liked is Failed Experiments in Video Editing, which is really good and funny and I'm sure if you're a vidder you'd find it even funnier.

However, I don't really feel that's enough of a sample for me to rec AMVs with authority, so instead I'm going to rec a vid that I love that I could fit into one of these categories:

Big City Life, by lithiumdoll (You can get it here, I couldn't find a vidpost.)
Dark Angel; Max; spoilers for the whole show; violence.


This vid, along with one or two others, sits in my head as "the vid of the show". They're vids which use perfect songs and vid the entire tv show - usually it's a short series, like Firefly or, as in this case, Dark Angel. Vids like this one aren't just vidding the plot; they're vidding the series' overarching theme and each of its characters, and they usually leave me feeling breathlessly passionate about a show that I love. This one is no exception. The editing is truly stand-out (obvs, haha). I find the use of colour in this vid especially great, and all the more great for being subtle - I didn't notice it the first few times I watched the vid (perhaps because I wasn't watching all that critically.) The way some shots have been faded to B&W, in some places selectively, works really well for me in that the colours reflect Max's mental state. B&W is when Max's training and Manticore's destructive influence and control is working on her; colour, straightforwardly, is when Max is resisting that and living her own life. Putting it that way makes it sound really trite! But it's so subtle and careful in the vid that it's not anvilly at all.

I love how many of the characters also get their own time in this vid - although it's mostly about Max. Alec, Logan, Joshua - Original Cindy could maybe have had more time, but um, I always think that, so. But fundamentally the vid, like the show, is about Max. And it's just... really good and you should watch the vid, and then you should watch the show, because it is awesome (not that I'm bitter about it being cancelled for Firefly... not at all...) I think the use of the balloon image throughout is really great and not overdone.

Best Bits: For the colour stuff I was talking about, I love 2:59-3:05. At first the flaming X is the only thing in colour; as Max blasts through it, color soaks back into the scene. Similarly, I love colour going away at 1:37. I love the sequence from 0:36-1:09, which deals with the X5 kids as children and adults, I think it's wonderful. "it's funny/how hard we try" is particularly good. 1:19-:27 - I love the cutting from Max with Cindy to young Max and Max with herself. Great colour contrast, again. Both versions of "I'll share some wisdom with you" go well with the lyrics. 1:50-2:02 is sad and beautiful, and then 2:03-2:12 does so much with Alec in so few shots that I'm amazed.

From 2:35-2:56 there's this incredible statement of what's happened to Manticore's progeny since the destruction of Manticore at the beginning of season 2. And then Max's head comes up at 2:58 with "Duty", and this really reminds me of the bit with the kids at the beginning of the season: she tells them there's not much Manticore gave them that was good, but unit cohesion, taking care of each other, that was good, that was their duty. And so that moment in the vid, to me, is the moment (just like in the show) where Max has processed and come to terms with herself as an X5, as one of Manticore's children with her brothers and sisters, and realises that she can use some of what Manticore gave her to look out for her family. IDK I'm not explaining this all that well, but I really dig it. And so of course the next shot is her busting down the flaming X. Awesome, awesome stuff. Ugh, I love this show so MUCH.

Day 12 - A relationship vid you love

So right, I don't really watch shipper vids, so instead what I'll talk about is the range of relationships vids can make me love. See ... I'm not really a gen reader. I'll usually read many different pairings in a fandom, but there's only one fandom I read gen in and it's not a vidding fandom anyway. But vids can make me watch any damn thing.

Proud, by dualbunny
Battlestar Galactica; the Adama-Thrace-Roslin family; violence, explosions.

So this vid is about, basically, Bill Adama, Lee Adama, Kara Thrace, and Laura Roslin, and how much they love each other. Or how much they did in the earlier seasons of the show, but w/e; and also it's about how family makes you make difficult decisions. That's all I really have to say about it except watch it watch it watch it.

Moving Right Along, by sdworlfpup
Farscape; Crighton/D'Argo; violence, explosions, spoilers through Peacekeeper Wars; blink-and-you'll-miss-it downer ending.

OH THIS VID. OK, so this is a pairing vid, but it's a vid for a pairing that I don't remotely ship, and yet this vid, it is so funny that for at least 30 minutes after watching it I do! I do ship it! I CAN'T EXPLAIN THIS ONE AT ALL, JUST WATCH IT.

stuck to you by humansrsuperior
Doctor Who; Eleven/Amy/Rory; all spoilers; TV violence (nothing really bad); sugar-sweet cuteness.

And this is the straight-up I-love-their-faces pairing vid. Guys, I LOVE THEM. I CAN'T LOOK AT THIS VID SENSIBLY THEY'RE JUST SO DAMN CUTE AND *flaily* YESSSS.

And one thing about food:

So the other day I prepared and froze some World Peace Cookies, except I stupidly left out the chocolate chips so I was like, wow, they're gonna suck. (protip: even without the chips these biscuits are still pretty great, I was just making excuses.) BUT then I was thinking about something I was reading on Debbie Does Edmonds the other day about yoyos and thinking how GOOD the icing that sandwiches together a yoyo is, and I thought - ooh, yeah. That would be awesome.

And it was.

Butter Icing

50g butter, very soft
1/2 C icing sugar
2 T custard powder - USians and other non-Commonwealthers, I believe the standard sub is vanilla instant pudding mix, although that's usually in Nanaimo bars and IDK how it'd work here.

1. Beat all together
2. Enjoy on delicious cookies.

A highly recommended combination, although you really can only eat one.