New-to-me vidwatching/feedbacking/discussion challenge?

[chaila]

Hey all,

Sorry for the tumbleweeds at this comm. But I am back with an idea for generating a little more discussion about vids here! This post is just to gauge interest. You are not committing to anything by commenting, but please comment if you think you might be interested or if you have ideas about how to tweak this proposal. It will be easier to think about this if I know how many people are/are not interested!

What I'm thinking of is running some sort of new-to-me vidwatching and feedbacking challenge, perhaps over the course of a month or so. (I know something similar was done on LJ several years ago, so if anyone remembers how that was run please feel free to let me know). Basically, you pick a certain number of vids--say, a minimum of 3, or 5, or whatever we decide on, with no maximum so you can do as many as you want--that you have never seen before. You can find them from recs here, from con playlists from any year, from Youtube, from friend's recs, wherever (and perhaps we can put together a resource list for finding new vids). You watch the vids, comment on them, and then link the vids and repost your comments here at the comm. Discussion about the vid can then be had! Comments for vidders, links to new vids, discussions about vids, everybody wins!

Comments can be any length, from a couple of lines to a whole separate post about a vid. The goal of this is not to require people to write lengthy commentary (though you can if you want!), but I think it'd be awesome to try to have some discussion like we have when we rec, but about vids that are new to us. So you can focus on what you think a vid is doing--your interpretation of its goal or story, how it made you feel, what it made you think about, how it interested you in a source or character, or shed new light on an old source or character, particular moments that worked really well, what it's doing visually or musically, etc. Of course, you can be as adventurous as you want in picking vids to watch, so you decide whether you want to watch unfamiliar fandoms/characters or not.

Thoughts? Anyone? Vids? :)

Comments

Some vague thoughts

[opusculasedfera]

I'd certainly be interested in a challenge like that; it sounds like fun. I think there'd definitely need to be a resource list of some kind because I suspect a lot of us will have seen most of the vids we've heard of.

If you get enough interest to add another layer of challenge, it might be interesting to create some loose categories of new-to-you vids to add some more variety? You could make it optional, but have a secondary challenge to try and review in all the catagories or even just to do all your vid reviews in different categories? I was thinking categories like: "my main fandom", "my old fandom", "sort of in this fandom", "seen the source", "heard of the source", "never heard of it", "classic vid I've never seen", "just came out," and anything else people think might be interesting. (I'll admit this idea is partially about my regret that the strangefandom challenge is now defunct: some of those discussions were really interesting/funny.)

Re: Some vague thoughts

[aphrodite_mine]

This sounds excellent! I'm not very well-versed in vids at all, but categorizing recs is something that definitely appeals to my brain!

Re: Some vague thoughts

[chaila]

I like the categories, I'm just torn between making the bar to entry low and doing something more complicated! (New-to-modding, yes I am).

Re: Some vague thoughts

[chaila]

One idea I definitely want to do is to have interested vidders post links to their vid catalogs in a central location to make browsing for new vids easy. But I also have some thoughts about places to link to find new vids or recs. None of it is new to anyone, I don't think, but it might be useful to have it all linked in one place? And other people may have ideas for resources that I don't know about!

I like your ideas about categories, but I'm kind of torn between making it super easy so maybe there's a little more activity (especially given that interest level hasn't really been high so far? though more people might play once it's going) and doing something more complicated like categories. But also, if this goes somewhat okay, I'd like to do more challenge-type things involving vids, so that may be a way to work in some of these ideas, if not this time? Appreciate your input!

[jjhunter]

I am new like a n00b thing to vidding in most all ways, so this sounds like a marvelous fun thing to do! I cannot make promises about my availability, but I can state my interest with surety.

[chaila]

Yay! Newbies always welcome! :D I think we'll try to make it pretty easy to play, so there's not a huge time commitment.

[soukup]

Neat idea! Can I play, too? Also, I like the idea of assembling a resource page to help participants figure out search for vids -- that would be very welcome.

[chaila]

Yay! I'll figure out some links and ideas for a resource page and put up a post soon looking for more ideas. (One thing I definitely want to do is have vidders link to their vid catalogs, so browsing for new vids/vidders is easy!)

[thefourthvine]

I'm interested!

[chaila]

Woo!

[anoel]

I'm interested! I need to comment more on vids and watch more new to me ones.

[chaila]

Me too! Yay!

[sasha_feather]

I'm game!

[chaila]

Woo!

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

I'd be really interested, particularly because there are no minimum requiries attached - I loved the a href="http://vid-commentary.livejournal.com/"> Comment Challenge but it was a big commitment.

I'm wondering whether ther would be an issue with getting permission of the vidder first? I am not fussed about these things, once it's out there on the nets it's free for all anyways, but some people have some strong views on this. Maybe keeping comments locked to members would be a work-around? But I don't know, I'm very ignorant of netiquette & fandom policies.

[chaila]

Yay! And yes, I definitely want to keep it low commitment and fun (which may mean that it ends up that people don't play because there aren't deadlines and such, but so be it!)

Oh geez I hadn't even thought about permission? You mean because of the comments? I'm not sure it makes sense to get permission to *review* the vids (though I know Vid Commentary required permission...) since people are just...watching and commenting and linking, but maybe I'm ignorant of fandom etiquette too. And I don't want to step on anyone's toes with the reposting comments or whatever. The idea behind that is to spark some discussion and make sure there's something posted here at the comm about the vids for everyone to see. I guess I don't really know...I'd like to think that most vidders would be happy to get some watching and linking, but maybe I live in a rose-colored world.

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

I totally did NOT want to talk you out of it!! I agree that it should be okay since the vids are in the public domain anyways, and anybody could go and post on their own journal about it. I guess it could be a problem if somebody was to review a vid very negatively and in an insensitive way, and that got back to the vidder in some way. But that could be taken care off by having some ground rules, no?

[chaila]

Oh you didn't! I just don't want to blithely be like YAY VIDS and then have people end up unhappy with the whole thing. I think ground rules could absolutely avert this particular problem (like, I don't want it to be no negative comments ever, but I'd like the focus to be more, what is this vid doing? And be constructive, and if you can't find something relatively positive to say, then just pick a different vid?)

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

That's spot on, it covers pretty much all the rules you would want, in one sentence. Well done!

[beccatoria]

YES! Because seriously, I've fallen into a huge vid-watching slump which I'm sure is contributing to my actual vidding slump and this sounds aces. DO IT. I'll play too!

[chaila]

YES. All of this! Will definitely do this, hopefully sometime soonish!

[pellucid]

This sounds excellent!

Because here is this thing that happened to me the other week: I saw Batman with some friends who are geeky but not in fandom, per se. I complained about manpain. They said, "what's manpain?" I said, "oh, let me send you this fanvid, and it will show you better than I can explain!" I sent the manpain vid. I heard absolutely nothing back from any of them. Did they like it? Did they hate it? Did they get it? Did they even watch it? I have no idea.

Meanwhile, this was the first vid I'd (re-)watched in ages, for no particular reason except that I've been traveling and sort of disengaged generally, etc. And it triggered this whole "vids!!!! why have I been ignoring you?!?!?!?" thing, where I went back and rewatched all the vids, and fell particularly in love with Jack Bristow all over again, thanks to Counteragent's excellent vid about him, so there was this whole me-really-loving-vids thing right at the moment when my friends totally failed to engage with a vid, and that was slightly deflating.

All of which is to say, yes, let's engage with vids when there are other people who like vids, too, and yay!

[chaila]

Right?! It's awesome to feel viddish, but the worst when there's no outlet for it. So yes, let us engage with vids and it will be awesome! If I don't feel like vidding right now, at least I can watch and talk about some! (Which, I suspect, will make me want to make some more too).

I love that Jack vid. :)

[bookgazing]

I would be into this challenge. I really like vids when I come across them, but for some reason don't watch loads so suggestions would be welcome.

[chaila]

Awesome. It can be hard to find vids to enjoy if you're not in the habit of it, though the recs here might be a good start!

[gabolange]

I think I will watch and learn! Because I don't know how people talk about vids, and I want to. So . . . I am intrigued, in a lurker sort of way.

[chaila]

Watching and learning is always welcome! :) I know some people for whom watching vids is instinctive, but I know a ton of people who've learned it; I feel like making vids was instinctive, but watching other people's? I kind of had to develop a language to do that with. So who knows, you may or may not ever get there, but it's fun to try! :)