Dear Festividder...
Oct. 10th, 2012 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franzeskaI totally meant to edit my signup one last time, yadda yadda, but of course I never got to it. I never could decide whether I wanted a Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter vid as much as I want a vid to these other things I signed up for. (But it's a great movie, so you should watch it even if nobody requests it for Festivids.) As always, I have things about which I have piles of shippy feelings and for which I want fic too and other things that I'm fannish about but in a different way. Vidding-style fannishness can be, for me, a lot more like general cinephilia... but I'm supposed to be writing a Dear Festividder letter and not meta about the nature of fandom, so I'll spare you. And if you like those optional details minimal as well as optional, spare yourself and stop reading now. >:D
LET THE HARROWING BEGIN!
The Festivids form appears to have put fandoms in alphabetical order, which means I don't have to obsess over whether I'm unconsciously ranking my fandoms by preference and/or whether you'll take them that way. So, in alphabetical order, here are my requests as they appear on my signup:
C.S.I. Miami
Music: How about something big, dumb, and loud like the show? "Unintentional" camp is always good too.
Details: C.S.I. Miami would be my guilty pleasure... if I were capable of feeling shame for my deep and uncritical love of the SHADES OF JUSTICE. I haven't watched the last couple of seasons, but don't worry about spoiling me. My favorite character is probably Ryan for his inability to be a proper woobie: always falsely accused, always unlucky in love, always still a whiny, self-centered jackass who brought it on himself. You'd think he'd eventually have given up on being friends with Eric, but no. (I do love persistence and durability in a character.) And you'd have to be dead not to notice Adam Rodriguez. Woof! Eric's manpain usually bores me, but he's cute with Calleigh. Youtube is already full of Eric/Calleigh shipper vids, but if you want to do something with them and Ryan, that would be cool. If you want to do a shamelessly ogling vid about Calleigh and gunporn, that would be cool too. I love H. I loved his ridiculous relationship with Stetler (until they ruined Stetler, grrrrr). Jake Berkeley isn't my favorite, and I don't care about Speed... Well, unless you want to do some crazy constructed reality thing where Eric wasn't just hallucinating. (External footage and other constructed reality ideas, A-OK.) Predictably, my very favorite part of the show is the episode that got me to start watching in the first place: Ryan being suspected of murdering Horatio. Such a pity they resolved that in like two seconds instead of milking it for all of the idiotic drama it was worth! Really, as long as you do something as ridiculous and free from plausible, genuine angst as the show, I'll love it.
Charlie's Angels
Music: Does it make you think of giant, poofy hair, slow-mo running, and forbidden LESBIAN PASSION? Probably a good choice then.
Details: Eh, heh, heh, heh. Sabrina...
Kate Jackson had a formative effect on pubescent me, let's just say, but I like all of the angels. As usual, I favor corniness, campiness, and ridiculousness, and Charlie's Angels delivers. Poor Kate Jackson reportedly wanted to be a booby sex symbol and disliked being typecast as the intellectual one. My thoughts on the subject of Sabrina are a lot closer to "HELLO NURSE", so I think she got the best deal out of the original cast, but there's no accounting for taste. What I love best about Charlie's Angels is how it's one of the few shows with a female cast that displays the cornball homoerotic subtext of old buddy cop shows. (Sabrina and Kelly, good god, what were they going for there?)
Chee & Leaphorn
Music: I'm planning to vid this to Heart, myself, but I could see anything from cheesy ballads to new age scenery porn-appropriate instrumentals working well. If you want to get political, I guess you could go look at the nammys, but I don't have any specific artist suggestions.
Details: DUMP JANET, CHEE! CAN'T YOU SEE HOW MUCH BETTER YOUR BOSS WOULD BE FOR YOU? Err... It is possible that I kind of have some shipping preferences in this fandom. I read the books as a kid. I found out about the tv version recently. Then my head EXPLODED FROM OT3. But if you want to do something with scenery porn, that's cool too. ;)
Miami Vice
Music: I love music from the 80's. I love corny pop and synthesizers and syncopated rhythms. But MV didn't always stick to its decade, and you shouldn't feel the need to either. Play up the neo noir aesthetic with depressing jazz, update it with a current hit, pick a song to go with a character's backstory pre-80s: it's all good. The only music I'd avoid would be commercial successes of the mid-90s.
Details: I have been known to go on rather in my Dear ___ letters, and no fandom inspires me to logorrhea like Miami Vice. Rico is my favorite character, and I do ship Crockett/Tubbs to an extent, but I love MV for... well... everything. I love the big hair and the 80's clothing. I love the camera angles and ridiculous non-endings. I love Gina getting revenge for her mother's murder and Trudy's crush on the boss. I love season 5 May Ying. I love the femmes fatales. I love the many cheesily doomed victims of the week. I love Rico's optimism and Sonny's manpain. I love Valerie. I don't much care for Zito and Switek and feel the definitive vid for them has already been made, and I think fandom already has enough Crockett/Castillo, but I'm completely open otherwise. You want to do a Crockett/Castillo/Tubbs OT3 or love triangle vid, be my guest. You want to do a visual guide to all of the guns used on the show or a catalogue of Sonny's hairdos by season, by all means. You want to do a vid about a one-episode guest star, I'm there! Shipping, car porn, plot, spectacle: if it's Miami Vice, I will love it.
MV is so gorgeous and visually distinctive, I suspect external footage would be hard to work in, but I am always fine with the attempt and that goes for all of my requests (regular Festivids rules or no regular Festivids rules).
The Losers
Music: Something badass and awesome like the soundtrack. Either that or something hilariously overwrought if you're going for an absurd shipper vid. You know you want to vid Jensen/Cougar to baaaaad country or a current teen popstar. You know you do.
Details: JENSEN! COUGAR! AISHA! DIE COMICS ENDING, DIE!
When I fell for The Losers, I fell hard. Between the movie and the comic, it has everything: big, dumb action. Bright colors. Hot people. Presumed dead plotlines. More big, dumb action. Journey. LOTS AND LOTS OF JOURNEY.
I am, as usual, totally fine with outside source and especially fine with sticking bits of the comic in a movie vid. I like the whole team as a team and Aisha, Cougar, and Jensen in particular as individual characters. I love that Max/Wade vid on Youtube, so if you want to do something totally campy with the villains, that's fine too. Whatever you do, the hammier the better!
Wiseguy
Music: The Steelgrave Arc is all about nostalgia and local color. (Sinatra?) The Profitts live on that coke-fueled party boat. (80's pop?) The Lynchboro Arc is Twin Peaks-y craziness. (Anything goes!) I don't have strong musical associations with the show; use whatever fits your vid concept.
Details: I tend to ship Vinnie/Sonny, but I love the other characters too. If you want to vid Roger's spy shenanigans or Frank's badassery, go for it. (I tend to see Vinnie/Roger way more than Vinnie/Frank though.) If you're more into plottiness, I'd love a recruiter vid that succinctly retells an arc. I love constructed reality and vids that look nothing like their source too. Cross this over or use external footage from another role of one of these actors. Redo the Lynchboro Arc as a Twin Peaks style show with Roger as the lead. Fix the end of the Steelgrave Arc. It's all good.
Enough details for you? NOT FOR ME!
Music: I've said plenty about my views on music and these particular fandoms, but I'd like to reiterate that I do have broad musical tastes in general. What I specifically do not is "like everything", particularly not when "I like everything" means "I like really shitty current britpop and/or nauseating singer-songwriters but hate everything else, especially rap and country" (Hello, every single person who uttered this dreadful cliche during my high school years) or "I only like Cobra Starship and I still hate rap and country" (Hello, far too many people on the internet today). I love rap. I love country. And after this many years, I even like a lot of the radio hits of the 90s. (But if there is any music at all that I would like to burn with fire and exterminate from the earth, it's shitty radio staples from high school, which means 1995-1999.) Lady Gaga I am not fond of, but Ke$ha I love. Katy Perry, Lana del Rey, etc. All fine. Atrocious radio hits of the 80s, even the intensely awful ones that nobody sane listens to now, AWESOME! I have no hipster hatred of success. (One request though: I find Sarah McLachlan utterly hilarious after one too many student dance pieces with titles like 'Rape' and 'Society'. Please, no serious vids to Sarah. I will laugh very hard and then you will be sad.)
I love metal. I love that metal that has the screechy vocals or the screaming or that kind of sounds like someone puked on the mike. (Note: since we are talking about metal, these are each totally distinct kinds which should not be confused for fear of starting a holy war amongst the various factions of metal fans. I couldn't tell you what they're called, of course, but I assure you that they're utterly, utterly different. Really. Especially if any band ever switches between them.Sellouts!)
I love free jazz and noise music. I love that free jazz that makes metal sound like commercial jingles about kittens and fabric softener. I refer, of course, to the unearthly shriekings of Keiji Haino, where one is never entirely certain whether he's done something to himself, a small, defenseless animal, or a guitar. You know that episode of House that Jeremy Renner guest starred on? The only thing wrong with his music was that it was shitty noise music; the style of music sounded perfectly normal to me.
Classical, instrumentals, music in languages I don't speak: all also fine. I also like music in languages I've studied: I listen to reggaeton, rock, hip hop, salsa, and some other stuff in Spanish. I'm not as keen on jpop, but feel free to try to convince me. If you want to get all of your sounds off of freesound.org and not use music at all, that's cool too. I like all kinds of things.
But, really, if I had to pick one type of music that I love above all others, it would be... CHEESY, CAMPY, RIDICULOUS MUSIC. (You're surprised, I know.) If the hair was large, if the egos were larger, if the spray-painted on gold lamé pants were the only thing that wasn't outsize, it's the music for me. Whether it's the intense(ly overwrought) emotion of enka or the eternal lulz of hair metal, as long as it reduces you to helpless laughter and/or fist-pumping, it would make an awesome vid for me.
Vidding aesthetics: In fact, let me take this opportunity to discuss my favorite word. Some people like art that is good. Or tasteful. Or classy. I am not interested in whether art is good; I care only that it is:
AWESOME
Does your inner 13 year-old like it? Can your inner 13 year-old not understand why Mom and Dad refuse to be seen in public wearing t-shirts associated with it? AWESOME! Is it so sincere that a hipster disappears in a puff of smoke every time its name is mentioned? AWESOME! Is it deeply, truly emotional to the point of out-narming narm? SUPER MEGA AWESOME!
Whether it's sparkles every time someone flashes a tooth or winks or whether it's heart transitions every time the word 'heart' appears in the lyrics, I love absurdity in vidding. Hamminess. Corniness. Painful earnestness. Literalism for the lulz. Too much sentiment. All of this is friend to AWESOMENESS and the enemy of irony and emotional distance.
External source: 100% fine with me in any vid at any time provided that it is either from a Festivids-level-obscure source or it is being used in a constructed reality concept. No crossovers with non-rare things, please! Unrequested crossovers are fine though, as are multifandom vids. I really don't care. If you've got a great idea and want to do the extra work, go for it.
My fandoms, let me show you them!
C.S.I. Miami: Split screens! Bright colors everywhere! Neon mood lighting and designer everything in the lab! This show appeals to my inner ferret. My inner ferret high on pixie stix. None of the plots make much sense, but they don't have to because they operate on emotional logic. For example, any time someone is WRONGFULLY ACCUSED (a frequency that corresponds closely to the answer to the question "Is it sweeps week?"), there are many shots of SOULFUL FACES and usually a dramatic ESCORTING THE ACCUSED FROM THE BUILDING scene. Many people felt the first season had potential to turn into a good show and were devastated when the only non-ham on the cast left and David Caruso got to turn everything into the Gary Stu hour. These people are the sort of small-minded fools who clearly do not understand how AWESOME it was when Super H took out the 13414625624513 machine gun-wielding Brazilian gangsters with a normal pistol. Or when he had a DRAMATIC SHOWDOWN at the feet of Cristo Redentor to AVENGE HIS MURDERED BRIDE who was also Eric's sister and who was already DYING OF CANCER at the time. The feelings were dramatic: Naturally, the setting had to be equally outsize. If only this show had started a few years later and starred a more fakely-pubescent cast, it might have found a natural home as the fandom whose epic FEELS ate tumblr. I SHIP THEM ALL! Eric and Calleigh, Eric and Ryan, Eric and Ryan and Calleigh, Ryan and the many, many, many women who have turned him down, turned out to be psycho girlfriends from hell, or ditched him for Eric. Boa Vista, who I don't even like, and Valera whom she was trying to save from her abusive ex husband--not Valera's ex husband, mind you: that would be too easy. No, Boa Vista's ex husband, whom both of them were sleeping with at the time even though this makes no damn sense and he was a horrible person. Super H and his sister in law, or him and Rick, or all three of them. Alexx/dead people. (I lie! I lie! But how awesome is it that the freaky coroner was a woman for once?) Speed/that pornstar who came looking for him after he was dead and it was REALLY SAD and the only time I gave a crap about Speed. *sob sob* And, my god, how did he ever stay dead considering the plot with Horatio's brother, everything H pulled over the course of the series, Eric getting shot in the head, Ryan getting nail gunned in the eye, everyone getting blown up or swept away by a flood or... Pretty much anything else insane. This show never met a disaster, manmade or natural, that it didn't love. It's a true tragedy that it was never able to add supernatural threats: I just know it would have outdone Twilight for sparkles and Blood For Dracula for camp.
Charlie's Angels: I used to watch this on one of those rerun channels that late got gobbled up by UPN or the WB. I liked Charlie's Angels for its diverse and ever-inventive plots. For example, that time there was a bomb in the water cooler in Sabrina's apartment and then the angels told everyone she was dead to lure the bad guy out of hiding. Or the time they did a Most Dangerous Game episode and the bad guys told Charlie they'd already started picking off angels. Or the time Sabrina was dressed up as a mime doing that sword fight and the others ran in right when... (Oh shut up. They were great episodes.) As a kiddo, I was aware only that Kate Jackson was special. More recently, I've taken another look at Charlie's Angels and wondered: Just how gay was it? (repeat with me:) Very gay! To my delight, the internet abounds with evidence of Charlie's Angels' vast quantities of lesyay such as this informative shipper manifesto with a screenshot from what appears to be an Undercover In Prison episode. (I don't remember that one... I think it's time for a rewatch!) Truly, what other show could reproduce for female characters the heights of hammy subtext found in most buddy cop shows about men? Often, shows with primarily female leads deal with hard-hitting social critique and realism. Charlie's Angels dealt with very large hair and ass-kicking. Also, Kate Jackson in turtlenecks.
Chee & Leaphorn: MOAST EPIC SHIPPING. At least this week. Until I start rewatching one of these other sources and my shipper feels reach a critical mass there instead. We used to go to Santa Fe on vacation sometimes when I was little, so while I don't know the geography of the Southwest well, it's still totally nostalgic for me. (Read: I don't notice when these tv movies filmed like 500 miles from where they were supposed to be.) Some people have said they don't feel the show had the grand sweeping vistas of the books, but It did it for me. And the adaptation took everything I was ambivalent about in the books and made it all better! And then it added way more of a buddy cop vibe than I ever got before from Chee and Leaphorn. And then it cast a bunch of smokin' hot people! Adam Beach looks like a movie star, and that's good, but Wes Studi looks old and scarred and kind of evil, and that's better. But he's a great comic actor! There are those awesome little moments when Leaphorn suddenly reveals a bitchy sense of humor. But I love him best when Emma's getting the better of him and he's all grouchy because she's realized he's a big softie under it all. D'awwwww. I had no real opinion about Emma from the books other than that I found it annoying that we only heard about her after she died. Some of my favorite parts of the books are actually in the early ones when Leaphorn is being a bit more action hero-y and is by himself and there's no endless blather about how he'll Never Get Over Emma. Then I watched the first of the TV episodes and was devastated because Sheila Tousey is a babe and her Emma is so charismatic and then she wasn't going to be in the others and WAAAAAH. (I got them from Netflix, okay? There's no cast list printed on a plain DVD minus the case.) So, yeah, there she was in the other episodes and sort of attributing her recovery in part to Chee, which is such a fascinating twist on Leaphorn going back to his roots enough to hire Chee for himself in the books. And he goes to her for advice on her husband and... OH MY GOD OT3 FOREVER! I will vid it myself, but I have not yet had enough time to make this vid as EPIC as it deserves. MAYBE YOU WILL SUCCEED FIRST.
Miami Vice: Should I just recycle past letters here? I have a lot of FEELINGS about Miami Vice, the main one of which is ALLCAPS. (It's a feeling. It is!) While I do have shipping preferences, unlike most of these other sources, I would literally be equally happy with any type of vid about any aspect of Miami Vice. (With the possible exception of the old zine mega-slash ship of Crockett/Castillo or something totally uncritical about Sonny/Gina or Switek and Zito, but even then, if you can convince me...) When I watch Miami Vice, it's like someone has plugged a cable directly into my brain. Bright colors! Big emotions! Plots driven by psychological noir themes instead of logic! Really, really good butts! (Seriously, have you seen PMT? Male stars are usually too skinny or too beefy and don't have that nice, round butt.) I even like the episode about being kidnapped by aliens. I really like the episodes where Rico is off by himself. I love how everyone is cast visually and how the stunt casting was occasionally really freakishly good. Little Miss Dangerous is a shock because most flash-in-the-pan popstars more known for their friendship with Winger than their acting chops would have been a dismal failure in the role, but not here! I don't know if it's because half of the aesthetic of Miami Vice is the camerawork, not the acting or just that Fiona was actually a good choice, but it's a fantastic episode. Normal shows have endings and logic. This one has a teenage hooker serial killer cuffing the lead to the bed when he refuses to sleep with her and then committing suicide against a backdrop of flames. Not only is it visually amazing, but... well... Hello, how many slash fics have I read with that stupid serial killer plot where the killer ~loves someone too much~ to kill them? It's a testament to Miami Vice's tendency to lulzy idfic plots that they actually thought this was a good idea. I've written Dear ___ letters and meta about Miami Vice that add up to be longer than big bang fics. SO MANY THOUGHTS. So I'll just leave you with my favorite one-off villain from the show and how he chooses to confront Sonny with the fact that he knows Sonny is a cop and lying to him:
(Yes, he gets out the poet shirt and loudly quotes Sir Walter Scott from his balcony. I shit you not.)
The Losers: I considered not requesting this seeing as it has its own holiday exchange and all (an exchange that hasn't even done signups yet, I might add, so there's still time for you to sign up for it HINT HINT). Then I considered that it is The Losers, so LOL, like hell I wouldn't ask for it. I have many, many, many feelings about this comic and movie. About half of them are related to awesomeness and bright colors and hot people. The other half are related to sticking my fingers in my ears and going LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA any time someone mentions how the comic ends. I do not accept this terrible ending!And Richie and Archie Kennedy are poker buddies The movie isn't that amazing a movie, but it sure does inspire all kinds of fannish thoughts, and its opening scene inspires a lot of other thoughts as well. (Just why would Jensen build himself action figures and then act out that scene? Between a dog and godzilla? I'm convinced he has furry tentacle porn hidden on all those computers somewhere.) I would love a vid that is hopeful and ridiculous and kickass. I have very mixed feelings about movie!Roque (mainly that I want to dislike the character as he's probably supposed to be, but Idris Elba is too charismatic and it messes with my head) and I'm not that fond of JDM or movie!Clay, but if you want to do a vid about them, I will still like it. Go crazy on this one. Any character. Any constructed reality. Any amount of comics stuff thrown in. Do whatever you want.
If by some strange happenstance, you are not familiar with The Losers, I will explain: Papa Winchester, Mumbles, Captain America, Harrison Wright from Scandal, and a really hot dude you've never heard of from Spain are the A-Team. Uhura, who is evil, badass, wears really tight pants, and has a lot of sex with Papa Winchester for our benefit while destroying a hotel room, finances a bunch of high-tech shenanigans to get back at Michael from The Lost Boys. She also blows shit up. It's really hot.
Wiseguy: *sob sob* My poor deadgay fandom! It had a bright little heyday once upon a time, but that was A. in zines and B. not for a pairing I ship. There are a few old vids, but between (formerly) relatively unavailable source, a small-ish fandom, major supporting characters who changed, and the difficulty of seeing old vids in general, there aren't many that are actually available for watching. That's why I would most like a vid that would work for a non-viewer. Make me a recruiter vid! FIND ME FRESH VICTIMS! Err... That is, I believe one could make many different sorts of narrative vid from this show that would appeal to even a viewer who was not familiar with the source. Allow me to present you with some of the sparkling wit and logical dialogue from the first arc:
And if you want to know why I don't ship Frank/Vinnie or you just like Jonathan Banks on Breaking Bad and are curious, observe:
I SHIP IT!
LET THE HARROWING BEGIN!
The Festivids form appears to have put fandoms in alphabetical order, which means I don't have to obsess over whether I'm unconsciously ranking my fandoms by preference and/or whether you'll take them that way. So, in alphabetical order, here are my requests as they appear on my signup:
C.S.I. Miami
Music: How about something big, dumb, and loud like the show? "Unintentional" camp is always good too.
Details: C.S.I. Miami would be my guilty pleasure... if I were capable of feeling shame for my deep and uncritical love of the SHADES OF JUSTICE. I haven't watched the last couple of seasons, but don't worry about spoiling me. My favorite character is probably Ryan for his inability to be a proper woobie: always falsely accused, always unlucky in love, always still a whiny, self-centered jackass who brought it on himself. You'd think he'd eventually have given up on being friends with Eric, but no. (I do love persistence and durability in a character.) And you'd have to be dead not to notice Adam Rodriguez. Woof! Eric's manpain usually bores me, but he's cute with Calleigh. Youtube is already full of Eric/Calleigh shipper vids, but if you want to do something with them and Ryan, that would be cool. If you want to do a shamelessly ogling vid about Calleigh and gunporn, that would be cool too. I love H. I loved his ridiculous relationship with Stetler (until they ruined Stetler, grrrrr). Jake Berkeley isn't my favorite, and I don't care about Speed... Well, unless you want to do some crazy constructed reality thing where Eric wasn't just hallucinating. (External footage and other constructed reality ideas, A-OK.) Predictably, my very favorite part of the show is the episode that got me to start watching in the first place: Ryan being suspected of murdering Horatio. Such a pity they resolved that in like two seconds instead of milking it for all of the idiotic drama it was worth! Really, as long as you do something as ridiculous and free from plausible, genuine angst as the show, I'll love it.
Charlie's Angels
Music: Does it make you think of giant, poofy hair, slow-mo running, and forbidden LESBIAN PASSION? Probably a good choice then.
Details: Eh, heh, heh, heh. Sabrina...
Kate Jackson had a formative effect on pubescent me, let's just say, but I like all of the angels. As usual, I favor corniness, campiness, and ridiculousness, and Charlie's Angels delivers. Poor Kate Jackson reportedly wanted to be a booby sex symbol and disliked being typecast as the intellectual one. My thoughts on the subject of Sabrina are a lot closer to "HELLO NURSE", so I think she got the best deal out of the original cast, but there's no accounting for taste. What I love best about Charlie's Angels is how it's one of the few shows with a female cast that displays the cornball homoerotic subtext of old buddy cop shows. (Sabrina and Kelly, good god, what were they going for there?)
Chee & Leaphorn
Music: I'm planning to vid this to Heart, myself, but I could see anything from cheesy ballads to new age scenery porn-appropriate instrumentals working well. If you want to get political, I guess you could go look at the nammys, but I don't have any specific artist suggestions.
Details: DUMP JANET, CHEE! CAN'T YOU SEE HOW MUCH BETTER YOUR BOSS WOULD BE FOR YOU? Err... It is possible that I kind of have some shipping preferences in this fandom. I read the books as a kid. I found out about the tv version recently. Then my head EXPLODED FROM OT3. But if you want to do something with scenery porn, that's cool too. ;)
Miami Vice
Music: I love music from the 80's. I love corny pop and synthesizers and syncopated rhythms. But MV didn't always stick to its decade, and you shouldn't feel the need to either. Play up the neo noir aesthetic with depressing jazz, update it with a current hit, pick a song to go with a character's backstory pre-80s: it's all good. The only music I'd avoid would be commercial successes of the mid-90s.
Details: I have been known to go on rather in my Dear ___ letters, and no fandom inspires me to logorrhea like Miami Vice. Rico is my favorite character, and I do ship Crockett/Tubbs to an extent, but I love MV for... well... everything. I love the big hair and the 80's clothing. I love the camera angles and ridiculous non-endings. I love Gina getting revenge for her mother's murder and Trudy's crush on the boss. I love season 5 May Ying. I love the femmes fatales. I love the many cheesily doomed victims of the week. I love Rico's optimism and Sonny's manpain. I love Valerie. I don't much care for Zito and Switek and feel the definitive vid for them has already been made, and I think fandom already has enough Crockett/Castillo, but I'm completely open otherwise. You want to do a Crockett/Castillo/Tubbs OT3 or love triangle vid, be my guest. You want to do a visual guide to all of the guns used on the show or a catalogue of Sonny's hairdos by season, by all means. You want to do a vid about a one-episode guest star, I'm there! Shipping, car porn, plot, spectacle: if it's Miami Vice, I will love it.
MV is so gorgeous and visually distinctive, I suspect external footage would be hard to work in, but I am always fine with the attempt and that goes for all of my requests (regular Festivids rules or no regular Festivids rules).
The Losers
Music: Something badass and awesome like the soundtrack. Either that or something hilariously overwrought if you're going for an absurd shipper vid. You know you want to vid Jensen/Cougar to baaaaad country or a current teen popstar. You know you do.
Details: JENSEN! COUGAR! AISHA! DIE COMICS ENDING, DIE!
When I fell for The Losers, I fell hard. Between the movie and the comic, it has everything: big, dumb action. Bright colors. Hot people. Presumed dead plotlines. More big, dumb action. Journey. LOTS AND LOTS OF JOURNEY.
I am, as usual, totally fine with outside source and especially fine with sticking bits of the comic in a movie vid. I like the whole team as a team and Aisha, Cougar, and Jensen in particular as individual characters. I love that Max/Wade vid on Youtube, so if you want to do something totally campy with the villains, that's fine too. Whatever you do, the hammier the better!
Wiseguy
Music: The Steelgrave Arc is all about nostalgia and local color. (Sinatra?) The Profitts live on that coke-fueled party boat. (80's pop?) The Lynchboro Arc is Twin Peaks-y craziness. (Anything goes!) I don't have strong musical associations with the show; use whatever fits your vid concept.
Details: I tend to ship Vinnie/Sonny, but I love the other characters too. If you want to vid Roger's spy shenanigans or Frank's badassery, go for it. (I tend to see Vinnie/Roger way more than Vinnie/Frank though.) If you're more into plottiness, I'd love a recruiter vid that succinctly retells an arc. I love constructed reality and vids that look nothing like their source too. Cross this over or use external footage from another role of one of these actors. Redo the Lynchboro Arc as a Twin Peaks style show with Roger as the lead. Fix the end of the Steelgrave Arc. It's all good.
Enough details for you? NOT FOR ME!
Music: I've said plenty about my views on music and these particular fandoms, but I'd like to reiterate that I do have broad musical tastes in general. What I specifically do not is "like everything", particularly not when "I like everything" means "I like really shitty current britpop and/or nauseating singer-songwriters but hate everything else, especially rap and country" (Hello, every single person who uttered this dreadful cliche during my high school years) or "I only like Cobra Starship and I still hate rap and country" (Hello, far too many people on the internet today). I love rap. I love country. And after this many years, I even like a lot of the radio hits of the 90s. (But if there is any music at all that I would like to burn with fire and exterminate from the earth, it's shitty radio staples from high school, which means 1995-1999.) Lady Gaga I am not fond of, but Ke$ha I love. Katy Perry, Lana del Rey, etc. All fine. Atrocious radio hits of the 80s, even the intensely awful ones that nobody sane listens to now, AWESOME! I have no hipster hatred of success. (One request though: I find Sarah McLachlan utterly hilarious after one too many student dance pieces with titles like 'Rape' and 'Society'. Please, no serious vids to Sarah. I will laugh very hard and then you will be sad.)
I love metal. I love that metal that has the screechy vocals or the screaming or that kind of sounds like someone puked on the mike. (Note: since we are talking about metal, these are each totally distinct kinds which should not be confused for fear of starting a holy war amongst the various factions of metal fans. I couldn't tell you what they're called, of course, but I assure you that they're utterly, utterly different. Really. Especially if any band ever switches between them.
I love free jazz and noise music. I love that free jazz that makes metal sound like commercial jingles about kittens and fabric softener. I refer, of course, to the unearthly shriekings of Keiji Haino, where one is never entirely certain whether he's done something to himself, a small, defenseless animal, or a guitar. You know that episode of House that Jeremy Renner guest starred on? The only thing wrong with his music was that it was shitty noise music; the style of music sounded perfectly normal to me.
Classical, instrumentals, music in languages I don't speak: all also fine. I also like music in languages I've studied: I listen to reggaeton, rock, hip hop, salsa, and some other stuff in Spanish. I'm not as keen on jpop, but feel free to try to convince me. If you want to get all of your sounds off of freesound.org and not use music at all, that's cool too. I like all kinds of things.
But, really, if I had to pick one type of music that I love above all others, it would be... CHEESY, CAMPY, RIDICULOUS MUSIC. (You're surprised, I know.) If the hair was large, if the egos were larger, if the spray-painted on gold lamé pants were the only thing that wasn't outsize, it's the music for me. Whether it's the intense(ly overwrought) emotion of enka or the eternal lulz of hair metal, as long as it reduces you to helpless laughter and/or fist-pumping, it would make an awesome vid for me.
Vidding aesthetics: In fact, let me take this opportunity to discuss my favorite word. Some people like art that is good. Or tasteful. Or classy. I am not interested in whether art is good; I care only that it is:
AWESOME
Does your inner 13 year-old like it? Can your inner 13 year-old not understand why Mom and Dad refuse to be seen in public wearing t-shirts associated with it? AWESOME! Is it so sincere that a hipster disappears in a puff of smoke every time its name is mentioned? AWESOME! Is it deeply, truly emotional to the point of out-narming narm? SUPER MEGA AWESOME!
Whether it's sparkles every time someone flashes a tooth or winks or whether it's heart transitions every time the word 'heart' appears in the lyrics, I love absurdity in vidding. Hamminess. Corniness. Painful earnestness. Literalism for the lulz. Too much sentiment. All of this is friend to AWESOMENESS and the enemy of irony and emotional distance.
External source: 100% fine with me in any vid at any time provided that it is either from a Festivids-level-obscure source or it is being used in a constructed reality concept. No crossovers with non-rare things, please! Unrequested crossovers are fine though, as are multifandom vids. I really don't care. If you've got a great idea and want to do the extra work, go for it.
My fandoms, let me show you them!
C.S.I. Miami: Split screens! Bright colors everywhere! Neon mood lighting and designer everything in the lab! This show appeals to my inner ferret. My inner ferret high on pixie stix. None of the plots make much sense, but they don't have to because they operate on emotional logic. For example, any time someone is WRONGFULLY ACCUSED (a frequency that corresponds closely to the answer to the question "Is it sweeps week?"), there are many shots of SOULFUL FACES and usually a dramatic ESCORTING THE ACCUSED FROM THE BUILDING scene. Many people felt the first season had potential to turn into a good show and were devastated when the only non-ham on the cast left and David Caruso got to turn everything into the Gary Stu hour. These people are the sort of small-minded fools who clearly do not understand how AWESOME it was when Super H took out the 13414625624513 machine gun-wielding Brazilian gangsters with a normal pistol. Or when he had a DRAMATIC SHOWDOWN at the feet of Cristo Redentor to AVENGE HIS MURDERED BRIDE who was also Eric's sister and who was already DYING OF CANCER at the time. The feelings were dramatic: Naturally, the setting had to be equally outsize. If only this show had started a few years later and starred a more fakely-pubescent cast, it might have found a natural home as the fandom whose epic FEELS ate tumblr. I SHIP THEM ALL! Eric and Calleigh, Eric and Ryan, Eric and Ryan and Calleigh, Ryan and the many, many, many women who have turned him down, turned out to be psycho girlfriends from hell, or ditched him for Eric. Boa Vista, who I don't even like, and Valera whom she was trying to save from her abusive ex husband--not Valera's ex husband, mind you: that would be too easy. No, Boa Vista's ex husband, whom both of them were sleeping with at the time even though this makes no damn sense and he was a horrible person. Super H and his sister in law, or him and Rick, or all three of them. Alexx/dead people. (I lie! I lie! But how awesome is it that the freaky coroner was a woman for once?) Speed/that pornstar who came looking for him after he was dead and it was REALLY SAD and the only time I gave a crap about Speed. *sob sob* And, my god, how did he ever stay dead considering the plot with Horatio's brother, everything H pulled over the course of the series, Eric getting shot in the head, Ryan getting nail gunned in the eye, everyone getting blown up or swept away by a flood or... Pretty much anything else insane. This show never met a disaster, manmade or natural, that it didn't love. It's a true tragedy that it was never able to add supernatural threats: I just know it would have outdone Twilight for sparkles and Blood For Dracula for camp.
Charlie's Angels: I used to watch this on one of those rerun channels that late got gobbled up by UPN or the WB. I liked Charlie's Angels for its diverse and ever-inventive plots. For example, that time there was a bomb in the water cooler in Sabrina's apartment and then the angels told everyone she was dead to lure the bad guy out of hiding. Or the time they did a Most Dangerous Game episode and the bad guys told Charlie they'd already started picking off angels. Or the time Sabrina was dressed up as a mime doing that sword fight and the others ran in right when... (Oh shut up. They were great episodes.) As a kiddo, I was aware only that Kate Jackson was special. More recently, I've taken another look at Charlie's Angels and wondered: Just how gay was it? (repeat with me:) Very gay! To my delight, the internet abounds with evidence of Charlie's Angels' vast quantities of lesyay such as this informative shipper manifesto with a screenshot from what appears to be an Undercover In Prison episode. (I don't remember that one... I think it's time for a rewatch!) Truly, what other show could reproduce for female characters the heights of hammy subtext found in most buddy cop shows about men? Often, shows with primarily female leads deal with hard-hitting social critique and realism. Charlie's Angels dealt with very large hair and ass-kicking. Also, Kate Jackson in turtlenecks.
Chee & Leaphorn: MOAST EPIC SHIPPING. At least this week. Until I start rewatching one of these other sources and my shipper feels reach a critical mass there instead. We used to go to Santa Fe on vacation sometimes when I was little, so while I don't know the geography of the Southwest well, it's still totally nostalgic for me. (Read: I don't notice when these tv movies filmed like 500 miles from where they were supposed to be.) Some people have said they don't feel the show had the grand sweeping vistas of the books, but It did it for me. And the adaptation took everything I was ambivalent about in the books and made it all better! And then it added way more of a buddy cop vibe than I ever got before from Chee and Leaphorn. And then it cast a bunch of smokin' hot people! Adam Beach looks like a movie star, and that's good, but Wes Studi looks old and scarred and kind of evil, and that's better. But he's a great comic actor! There are those awesome little moments when Leaphorn suddenly reveals a bitchy sense of humor. But I love him best when Emma's getting the better of him and he's all grouchy because she's realized he's a big softie under it all. D'awwwww. I had no real opinion about Emma from the books other than that I found it annoying that we only heard about her after she died. Some of my favorite parts of the books are actually in the early ones when Leaphorn is being a bit more action hero-y and is by himself and there's no endless blather about how he'll Never Get Over Emma. Then I watched the first of the TV episodes and was devastated because Sheila Tousey is a babe and her Emma is so charismatic and then she wasn't going to be in the others and WAAAAAH. (I got them from Netflix, okay? There's no cast list printed on a plain DVD minus the case.) So, yeah, there she was in the other episodes and sort of attributing her recovery in part to Chee, which is such a fascinating twist on Leaphorn going back to his roots enough to hire Chee for himself in the books. And he goes to her for advice on her husband and... OH MY GOD OT3 FOREVER! I will vid it myself, but I have not yet had enough time to make this vid as EPIC as it deserves. MAYBE YOU WILL SUCCEED FIRST.
Miami Vice: Should I just recycle past letters here? I have a lot of FEELINGS about Miami Vice, the main one of which is ALLCAPS. (It's a feeling. It is!) While I do have shipping preferences, unlike most of these other sources, I would literally be equally happy with any type of vid about any aspect of Miami Vice. (With the possible exception of the old zine mega-slash ship of Crockett/Castillo or something totally uncritical about Sonny/Gina or Switek and Zito, but even then, if you can convince me...) When I watch Miami Vice, it's like someone has plugged a cable directly into my brain. Bright colors! Big emotions! Plots driven by psychological noir themes instead of logic! Really, really good butts! (Seriously, have you seen PMT? Male stars are usually too skinny or too beefy and don't have that nice, round butt.) I even like the episode about being kidnapped by aliens. I really like the episodes where Rico is off by himself. I love how everyone is cast visually and how the stunt casting was occasionally really freakishly good. Little Miss Dangerous is a shock because most flash-in-the-pan popstars more known for their friendship with Winger than their acting chops would have been a dismal failure in the role, but not here! I don't know if it's because half of the aesthetic of Miami Vice is the camerawork, not the acting or just that Fiona was actually a good choice, but it's a fantastic episode. Normal shows have endings and logic. This one has a teenage hooker serial killer cuffing the lead to the bed when he refuses to sleep with her and then committing suicide against a backdrop of flames. Not only is it visually amazing, but... well... Hello, how many slash fics have I read with that stupid serial killer plot where the killer ~loves someone too much~ to kill them? It's a testament to Miami Vice's tendency to lulzy idfic plots that they actually thought this was a good idea. I've written Dear ___ letters and meta about Miami Vice that add up to be longer than big bang fics. SO MANY THOUGHTS. So I'll just leave you with my favorite one-off villain from the show and how he chooses to confront Sonny with the fact that he knows Sonny is a cop and lying to him:
(Yes, he gets out the poet shirt and loudly quotes Sir Walter Scott from his balcony. I shit you not.)
The Losers: I considered not requesting this seeing as it has its own holiday exchange and all (an exchange that hasn't even done signups yet, I might add, so there's still time for you to sign up for it HINT HINT). Then I considered that it is The Losers, so LOL, like hell I wouldn't ask for it. I have many, many, many feelings about this comic and movie. About half of them are related to awesomeness and bright colors and hot people. The other half are related to sticking my fingers in my ears and going LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA any time someone mentions how the comic ends. I do not accept this terrible ending!
If by some strange happenstance, you are not familiar with The Losers, I will explain: Papa Winchester, Mumbles, Captain America, Harrison Wright from Scandal, and a really hot dude you've never heard of from Spain are the A-Team. Uhura, who is evil, badass, wears really tight pants, and has a lot of sex with Papa Winchester for our benefit while destroying a hotel room, finances a bunch of high-tech shenanigans to get back at Michael from The Lost Boys. She also blows shit up. It's really hot.
Wiseguy: *sob sob* My poor dead
And if you want to know why I don't ship Frank/Vinnie or you just like Jonathan Banks on Breaking Bad and are curious, observe:
I SHIP IT!
no subject
Date: 2012-10-10 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-17 09:41 pm (UTC)seriously, I love your CSI:Miami feels. they are epiccccccc.
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Date: 2012-10-17 10:06 pm (UTC)Yeah, it's html. I pretty much just googled for 'sparkle', 'text', and 'html' and used the first thing I liked. This type of html effect depends on the sparkles being hosted elsewhere and staying put. That particular code is:
no subject
Date: 2012-10-18 12:40 am (UTC)THANK YOU :D (I dimly recall this sparkly text thing from the late 90s. so I'm a slow bloomer. whatevs.)
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Date: 2012-10-18 12:57 am (UTC)But it's from an era before extensive continuity, so if the problem was something else, maybe I can recommend some episodes to start with and which to avoid. Like most cop shows (including the CSIs, I notice), it changed things up half way through the first season, and aside from the pilot, most people give those early episodes a miss. Also, while the women kind of got the shaft in terms of screen time overall, MV was totally fine with shuffling the regular cast off to the side for entire episodes, so you do get things like Gina's episode where she's off avenging her mother's murder. (i.e. if you're like "Where are the ladies?" there are totally individual episodes that are not about Crockett's manpain to the exclusion of all else) There are other recurring things people forget like Pam Grier as Rico's old flame. Pam Grier: Always A++ Or you could just watch the gayest Gay Episode of all time, Evan.
MY SHOW, LET ME SHOW YOU IT!
no subject
Date: 2012-10-18 01:04 am (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kiB36B
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Date: 2013-01-31 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 06:33 am (UTC)I feel like such a fool! D: I knew that deadpan voice was familiar, and yet I didn't even IMDB. For shame, for shame.
(ahem, just ignore the other comment with me getting confused about buttons)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 06:57 am (UTC)(Yes, this is exactly why that comment is in the post. Ha ha ha.)
Icon... guh.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 07:33 am (UTC)