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Jul. 14th, 2010 08:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ash48The lovely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
starrylizard has put together another wonderful Vidding Experiment. This time to the very apt song "Rusted by the Rain" by Billy Talent.
I was going to explain what TGRRVE was all about but instead I decided to interview Lizzie so she could tell us all about it. I think the process is fascinating and I wanted to share it with you.
What is TGGRVE and how does it work? Can you also tell us when it started and why?
TGRRVE stands for ‘The Great Round Robin Vidding Experiment’. It is a fun experimental group vidding process that started in April 2008 over on the Supernatural Video Station forums (SVS) and has now been repeated five times, each time with some slight variations on the theme.
It all started whencrystalsc and I both expressed the opinion over at SVS that we should be doing something as a group. I came up with the vague idea of a round robin and ran with it. If you’re in to fic writing, then you may have played with the concept before. Basically, in a fic round robin, one person starts a story and then passes it to a second person who adds the next part and the story goes round and round until someone manages to end it. In this case, the idea was to pass the piece of music from one vidder to the other, each vidder building on what came before. The result was The Great Round Robin Vidding Experiment 1.
We quickly realized that, while it was fun, there was a lot of waiting involved between signing up and finally getting your hands on the vid, so that you could add your part. Also, each vidder was copying the style of the previous parts, which was stifling creativity somewhat.
This led me to changing it up a bit for TGRRVE2. I asked the vidders to suggest song choices and then vote on a song. It just felt a lot more inclusive and democratic that way (rather than me just choosing a piece of music for the vidders). The winning music choice was then cut up and a piece allotted to each vidder. Each intrepid experimental vidder then vidded away simultaneously, not knowing what would come before or after their part in the final project and, when all the pieces were done, I stuck it all back together at the end.
This process worked a lot better, both with the vidders have more of a say and, more importantly, being allowed a much longer time in which to vid. I pretty much stuck with the same process when running experiments 3, 4 and 5, with other slight variations. These included voting on a predetermined theme in TGRRVE4 and, in the later experiments, by popular demand the finished pieces of the puzzle were only sent to me and kept completely secret until the unveiling of the finished product.
What is the hardest aspect of organising and putting together such an experiment?
Initially I struggled to figure out how cut up the music evenly and, more importantly, wondered how the heck I was going to stick the pieces back together again later. With that out of the way, I decided everyone would need to be vidding the same format (e.g. aspect ratio, file format (wmv), rendering quality, etc.) and I tried to think up a few basic rules to make sure everyone would be comfortable with the final product (e.g. no Wincest).
Figuring out all of that basic stuff up front really did my head in, but once it was set up, it mostly ran smoothly.
I guess the only other hard part is replacing a vidder last minute. Things like that happen in any group situation online, but they’re a little stressful when you’ve got people excited to see the finished product. Just ask one of those amazing people who dare to run fic-a-thons about that. At least I was only ever dealing with about 10 people and they were all incredibly nice whenever I got things wrong.
What is the best aspect?
The best thing has been that they really are experiments and they really are a lot of fun. Everyone who joins in, including me, gets really excited and curious about what will be unveiled at the end. I’m really delighted by how inclusive they are, with vidders of varying levels of ability happily sharing the project. I also love how much I’ve actually learned from watching the vids and seeing the different styles, techniques and clip choices that come from individual vidders and yet often flow right into each other so that I wonder where one part starts and another ends.
Do they always work? If not, why not?
That’s a rather subjective question.
I suppose in a traditional sense, if you were to enter one of these vids in one of the many vidding competitions out there, the judges might say there wasn’t a coherent story to the vid and the style changes, etc. (Though some of the TGRRVE vids would possibly even pass those tests). But then, that was never the point of these experiments, so I don’t think there’s much point in looking at them in that way.
Viewed in the context of how they were created, however, I think they can provide insight into individual vidding styles and patterns, and I personally think they even mark some trends over time in vidding styles.
For example, TGRRVE2 was carried out entirely with vidders who use Sony Vegas for their editing. At the time that the experiment was taking place over at the SVS forums, a number of vidders were getting really good with Vegas effects. Usually when someone did find a new use for an effect everyone else wanted to try it out. Being the happy bunch we are, a tutorial would often go up showing us all how to do it. When you watch TGRRVE2, for much of the vid, if I didn’t know how it had been created, I could believe it had been made by one person. There are differences in vidding style, no doubt, but compared to later experiments, there are more similarities than differences. The vid looks amazing by the way! Even later there have been some freaky coincidences, possibly driven by music style or vidding trends. The best one for freaky factor was when two vidders in TGRRVE4, using two entirely different vidding programs, managed to use exactly the same effect of four squares appearing in sequence. It was twilight zone level of freaky and I love it.
I could wax lyrical about the things I’ve learned from making and watching these, but suffice to say there are FIVE of them now, when it was only ever meant to be a one-off oddity. Therefore, in my own humble opinion, I think they’ve worked out rather well.
How do vidders get involved in TGRRVE?
Whenever I start a new experiment, I make a post over at SVS inviting anyone to join in. The mods at SVS have been kind enough to pin the thread for the duration of the experiment in the Videos section of the forum, so it’s easily noticed by the forum members.
I make a point of not excluding anyone who wants to play. I only do a quick background check on their profile for practical reasons, just to be sure that they have made a few vids in the past and will be able to complete their assignment.
I make a point of not excluding anyone who wants to play. I only do a quick background check on their profile for practical reasons, just to be sure that they have made a few vids in the past and will therefore be able to complete their assignment.
Do you think there will be another one?
I honestly don’t know. I always seem to think the one I’ve just organised is the last one. Then people start to ask when the next one will be. I suppose it’ll depend on there being continued interest in the idea. Or perhaps the idea can spread beyond SVS into similar groups in other fandoms. I’d love to see where it could lead.
This may be an unfair question, but do you have a favourite out of the 5 you’ve organised so far?
Oh, that is tough. I love them all for different reasons, TGRRVE2 and TGRRVE3 both have such racy, beat-driven music, which worked wonderfully. It’s amazing what you can pack into 30 seconds if given enough beats! Plus, I think SVS was such a big happy family during that period and there was more excitement around the first few experiments. (I’d never heard of a collab. vid back then.) But I also adore the 4th experiment, where, after yet another heavy season finale, we voted that the vid had to have a happy/ fun theme. I love that vid, it makes me smile every time. Heck, they’ve all been fun to make! I plead the fifth on this question.
Special thanks tostarrylizard for taking the time to participate in the interview. :)
Links to: previous TGRRVEs and The currrent one
starrylizard has put together another wonderful Vidding Experiment. This time to the very apt song "Rusted by the Rain" by Billy Talent.I was going to explain what TGRRVE was all about but instead I decided to interview Lizzie so she could tell us all about it. I think the process is fascinating and I wanted to share it with you.
What is TGGRVE and how does it work? Can you also tell us when it started and why?
TGRRVE stands for ‘The Great Round Robin Vidding Experiment’. It is a fun experimental group vidding process that started in April 2008 over on the Supernatural Video Station forums (SVS) and has now been repeated five times, each time with some slight variations on the theme.
It all started when
crystalsc and I both expressed the opinion over at SVS that we should be doing something as a group. I came up with the vague idea of a round robin and ran with it. If you’re in to fic writing, then you may have played with the concept before. Basically, in a fic round robin, one person starts a story and then passes it to a second person who adds the next part and the story goes round and round until someone manages to end it. In this case, the idea was to pass the piece of music from one vidder to the other, each vidder building on what came before. The result was The Great Round Robin Vidding Experiment 1.We quickly realized that, while it was fun, there was a lot of waiting involved between signing up and finally getting your hands on the vid, so that you could add your part. Also, each vidder was copying the style of the previous parts, which was stifling creativity somewhat.
This led me to changing it up a bit for TGRRVE2. I asked the vidders to suggest song choices and then vote on a song. It just felt a lot more inclusive and democratic that way (rather than me just choosing a piece of music for the vidders). The winning music choice was then cut up and a piece allotted to each vidder. Each intrepid experimental vidder then vidded away simultaneously, not knowing what would come before or after their part in the final project and, when all the pieces were done, I stuck it all back together at the end.
This process worked a lot better, both with the vidders have more of a say and, more importantly, being allowed a much longer time in which to vid. I pretty much stuck with the same process when running experiments 3, 4 and 5, with other slight variations. These included voting on a predetermined theme in TGRRVE4 and, in the later experiments, by popular demand the finished pieces of the puzzle were only sent to me and kept completely secret until the unveiling of the finished product.
What is the hardest aspect of organising and putting together such an experiment?
Initially I struggled to figure out how cut up the music evenly and, more importantly, wondered how the heck I was going to stick the pieces back together again later. With that out of the way, I decided everyone would need to be vidding the same format (e.g. aspect ratio, file format (wmv), rendering quality, etc.) and I tried to think up a few basic rules to make sure everyone would be comfortable with the final product (e.g. no Wincest).
Figuring out all of that basic stuff up front really did my head in, but once it was set up, it mostly ran smoothly.
I guess the only other hard part is replacing a vidder last minute. Things like that happen in any group situation online, but they’re a little stressful when you’ve got people excited to see the finished product. Just ask one of those amazing people who dare to run fic-a-thons about that. At least I was only ever dealing with about 10 people and they were all incredibly nice whenever I got things wrong.
What is the best aspect?
The best thing has been that they really are experiments and they really are a lot of fun. Everyone who joins in, including me, gets really excited and curious about what will be unveiled at the end. I’m really delighted by how inclusive they are, with vidders of varying levels of ability happily sharing the project. I also love how much I’ve actually learned from watching the vids and seeing the different styles, techniques and clip choices that come from individual vidders and yet often flow right into each other so that I wonder where one part starts and another ends.
Do they always work? If not, why not?
That’s a rather subjective question.
I suppose in a traditional sense, if you were to enter one of these vids in one of the many vidding competitions out there, the judges might say there wasn’t a coherent story to the vid and the style changes, etc. (Though some of the TGRRVE vids would possibly even pass those tests). But then, that was never the point of these experiments, so I don’t think there’s much point in looking at them in that way.
Viewed in the context of how they were created, however, I think they can provide insight into individual vidding styles and patterns, and I personally think they even mark some trends over time in vidding styles.
For example, TGRRVE2 was carried out entirely with vidders who use Sony Vegas for their editing. At the time that the experiment was taking place over at the SVS forums, a number of vidders were getting really good with Vegas effects. Usually when someone did find a new use for an effect everyone else wanted to try it out. Being the happy bunch we are, a tutorial would often go up showing us all how to do it. When you watch TGRRVE2, for much of the vid, if I didn’t know how it had been created, I could believe it had been made by one person. There are differences in vidding style, no doubt, but compared to later experiments, there are more similarities than differences. The vid looks amazing by the way! Even later there have been some freaky coincidences, possibly driven by music style or vidding trends. The best one for freaky factor was when two vidders in TGRRVE4, using two entirely different vidding programs, managed to use exactly the same effect of four squares appearing in sequence. It was twilight zone level of freaky and I love it.
I could wax lyrical about the things I’ve learned from making and watching these, but suffice to say there are FIVE of them now, when it was only ever meant to be a one-off oddity. Therefore, in my own humble opinion, I think they’ve worked out rather well.
How do vidders get involved in TGRRVE?
Whenever I start a new experiment, I make a post over at SVS inviting anyone to join in. The mods at SVS have been kind enough to pin the thread for the duration of the experiment in the Videos section of the forum, so it’s easily noticed by the forum members.
I make a point of not excluding anyone who wants to play. I only do a quick background check on their profile for practical reasons, just to be sure that they have made a few vids in the past and will be able to complete their assignment.
I make a point of not excluding anyone who wants to play. I only do a quick background check on their profile for practical reasons, just to be sure that they have made a few vids in the past and will therefore be able to complete their assignment.
Do you think there will be another one?
I honestly don’t know. I always seem to think the one I’ve just organised is the last one. Then people start to ask when the next one will be. I suppose it’ll depend on there being continued interest in the idea. Or perhaps the idea can spread beyond SVS into similar groups in other fandoms. I’d love to see where it could lead.
This may be an unfair question, but do you have a favourite out of the 5 you’ve organised so far?
Oh, that is tough. I love them all for different reasons, TGRRVE2 and TGRRVE3 both have such racy, beat-driven music, which worked wonderfully. It’s amazing what you can pack into 30 seconds if given enough beats! Plus, I think SVS was such a big happy family during that period and there was more excitement around the first few experiments. (I’d never heard of a collab. vid back then.) But I also adore the 4th experiment, where, after yet another heavy season finale, we voted that the vid had to have a happy/ fun theme. I love that vid, it makes me smile every time. Heck, they’ve all been fun to make! I plead the fifth on this question.
Special thanks to
starrylizard for taking the time to participate in the interview. :) Links to: previous TGRRVEs and The currrent one
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 10:12 pm (UTC)Anyway. This was interesting to read! I don't know anything about any technical aspect, seeing as vidding isn't my area of expertise, but it was interesting to read about getting a group of people get together to create something. I love collabs, be it working on the same thing or stuff like Big Bang, so, always great to read people's take on that. ;)
/babbling
Also, this: The best one for freaky factor was when two vidders in TGRRVE4, using two entirely different vidding programs, managed to use exactly the same effect of four squares appearing in sequence. It was twilight zone level of freaky and I love it.
Heh. *rofl*
no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 01:25 am (UTC)Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.
<333
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 07:00 pm (UTC)And, of course, everybody knows I don't do music vids...
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 11:07 pm (UTC)Though - yes - not making music vids would make it very difficult! :D
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 11:17 pm (UTC)So I went back into my little corner knowing that I will entertain myself and a few close friends.