Dear Festividder 2025
Oct. 3rd, 2025 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eruthrosThank you for making me a vid!
I have a couple things that I put outside the cut tag, because I have two visual triggers:
1) Fast, high contrast flashes of lights or colors. This can be triggered by strobe lights, strobe effects, glitch effects, full-screen lighting effects, or repeated lightning strikes. It can also be triggered by stutter cuts (very fast intercuts of 2-3 frames) where there is high contrast in the footage used for the stutter effect. Stutter cuts are fine between two similar scenes, but not between one dark green and one bright red lit scene, between a nighttime and daytime scene, etc. Flashing has to be very fast to bother me—think three lightning strikes in a second (dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark in one second).
2) Frame rate fuckery—when a show or a vid plays 24 fps footage in 30 fps or vice versa. So, like, when a film puts footage at the wrong frame rate to make it feel awkward or tense, which is super common in action films. (For example, the Bucky/Steve knife fight on the street in Winter Solider.) It can also happen by accident, if footage at one frame rate is put into a project with a different frame rate, or sometimes when a show needs to stretch or compress footage and they do it by duplicating every third frame.
I'll call these out in the source notes below for any fandom where they're relevant.
Please also feel free to run a sample bythingswithwings. She can explain them with examples if that would be helpful.
The rest of this post is additional details if you're interested!
Types of vids: I really enjoy the diversity of vidding styles and genres at festivids and I look forward to seeing your style! I'm down for: any rating, outside source (including crossovers), still footage, critiques, action, deep character studies, shippy vids, action vids, dance vids, slash, femslash, het, gen, canon pairings, and non-canon pairings.
Things I love: people who put care into the work they do; building communities; history and places being related to people and feelings; queer people; joy; speculative fiction; eating the rich; fighting for justice; people supporting each other.
Music: I am happy to watch vids to all kinds of music! I love vids to instrumentals, to dense lyrics-heavy songs, to hip hop, to fun dance songs, to classics, and to things I've never heard of before. I also like vids to non-music, like spoken word pieces or sound effects. I am fine with dialog in a vid.
That said, I'm hard of hearing in a way that makes it difficult to understand lyrics that are mumbly or obscured by the instrumentation (or, like, 50% of the dialog in a modern action movie). I'd appreciate it if you offered subtitles, especially if you intercut dialog and song lyrics.
I asked for: Babylon 5, Backspot (2023) [SAFETY], Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) [SAFETY], Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper, Fancy Dance (2023) [SAFETY], The Great Canadian Baking Show (TV), Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA], Mythbusters (TV), Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, This Place (2022) [SAFETY]
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 is a 1990s scifi tv show about a space station in neutral territory, with a governing body including multiple species who don't always get along. As they say in the credits, it's "a place for commerce and diplomacy." It's also about fascism, and colonialism, and principles. It's about what people do when faced with historic inevitability. It's also got tentacles in it. And space ships?
Why to watch: B5 is one of my favorite shows. It's so thoughtful about what the future could be like, and it's thoughtful about what it means to do good. It's got a bunch of twists, so it's hard to sell to people without spoilers! Let me just say: There is nothing a B5 fan likes better than to talk someone else into watching all of Babylon 5 in order, and ideally with said B5 fan, who will be so excited to watch next to you. Season 1 is shaky at best, but when it gets going it gets GOING. I've never rewatched it at a time when the politics weren't timely.
The old trailers are all VHS footage, and the fan trailers are all massively spoilery, so have the Season 1 opening credits instead. Now available in remastered Blu-Ray!
Request details: Okay so. I have so many Babylon 5 feelings! G'Kar and Delenn are my absolute favorites; I don't think they're really viddable together (tho as I say that I have some thoughts about the decisions Delenn made about Narn). I'd be delighted by a vid about either of them! G'Kar and Londo, G'Kar and war, G'Kar and freedom, G'Kar and religion! Also like G'Kar and his amazing bathrobes? Delenn and prophecy, Delenn and Lennier, Delenn's deep anger and morals. Mira Furlan and Andreas Katsulas both brought so much strength and drive to these characters. <3
I also adore Ivanova! She's so exasperated and determined all the time. I 100% imagine Delenn/Ivanova as the endgame ship of the show and I think they're really charming together as they're getting to know each other is season 2 and 3. Also some years ago someone prompted "what if a Lyta, Ivanova, and Delenn season 4 with no Sheridan" and I immediately also needed that to exist.
I can just keep going forever. The Vir/Lennier relationship! Marcus/Franklin odd coupling around Mars! So many great characters and relationships.
If you're looking for something more ensemble-y, I'd love that kind of vid too: something about the arc, the politics, the resistance to fascism, the goofiness, the interpersonal relationships.
When it comes to single-character focused vids, I don't care about Garibaldi and I'm indifferent to Sheridan except when he's looking at Delenn with stars in his eyes.
I'm also mad at parts of B5, because you can't love a complex show without also sometimes being mad at it. If you want to make a "fuck the Talia ending" vid or some other kind of angry vid, go for it.
Backspot (2023)
Backspot is a indie film about queer competitive cheerleaders Riley (Devery Jacobs from Reservation Dogs) and Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo). This is a queerleading film that's largely about cheerleading and anxiety and perfectionism; Amanda and Riley are already dating at the beginning of the film, so the tension is from their different approaches to cheerleading and different backgrounds affecting their relationship. Also Evan Rachel Wood plays their stern coach (also queer), who Riley idolizes.
Why to watch: Devery Jacobs as a queer cheerleader! A sweet relationship! Women's sports taken seriously! An established relationship film!
Contains: Anxiety (mostly expressed as trichotillomania), sports injuries, vomiting (as a result of difficult sports + anxiety, not framed as an eating disorder).
Request details: You could take a bunch of fun angles on this film! The relationship between Riley and Amanda is super sweet, and I appreciate the way Riley has to work on the relationship when cheerleading and her relationship conflict. I also think there's something interesting in this film about the way Riley idolizes Eileen and her intense drive, and how Riley later comes to appreciate Devon and his support for her after their moment in the club. I'd also be down for a vid about cheerleading as a sport; the hard work the cheerleaders do as well as the way that Riley has difficulty with the presentation and femininity that are expectations of the sport.
Trigger notes: The go pro footage that opens the film is borderline for me in terms of framerate—it's fine to vid it but a long sequence with a bunch of it in a row might be a problem.
Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024)
A gorgeous documentary about a decades-long effort by members of the Blackfoot Confederacy in the USA and Canada to return wild buffalo to their lands.
Why to watch: This film is gorgeous, and it's full of beautiful megafauna thundering across grassy plains. But it's also full of heart and hope: it's about a project that had to involve the whole community, with different people working hard to bring ranchers into the project, to educate children, and to build skills and knowledge. I cried. People working together to do good!
Contains: References to genocide (murder, intentional destruction of buffalo, residential schools, theft of land, allotments).
Request details: I'd love something about community and space: people working together, people forming relationships with each other and with the buffalo and with the land. Something about holding onto hope and working to make it real. The shots of the buffalo are obviously gorgeous and I think they will be a beautiful part of a vid to this source! I will cry buckets.
Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper travels to various natural areas and cities, meeting scientists and conservationists and eagles. He gets to work with people banding birds to learn about changing ecosystems, travel through caves to see rare birds, and learn about conservation efforts. And also he adds many new birds to his life list over the course of the show!
Why to watch: Christian Cooper is a great host: interested, funny, dedicated, and fascinated by what he sees. The show is also often gorgeous, including interesting landscapes and birds! It's very soothing to watch.
Contains: some conversations about animal harm (endangered birds, habitat destruction, etc), some Nat Geo-type touristy language about places like Hawai'i.
Request details: Is this a second request about people doing hard work and community building together to make change? Yes, yes it is, but it's also about Christian in particular—his joy is infectious, and he's super good at connecting to people! I'd love a vid focused on the birds, on conservation, or on Christian bringing those things together. (Also feel free to cross this over with the OTHER birdwatching canon nominated for Festivids this year, The Residence, if you can figure out how to.)
A note about this canon: Christian Cooper emphasizes "superhero" in the opening of each ep because he was a Marvel comics editor; he was one of the first openly gay comics editors at Marvel and he co-created Victoria Montesi, the first explicitly lesbian character in Marvel comics. Christian Cooper is also the birder who was the target of the racist Central Park birdwatching incident in 2020, when a white woman called the cops on him, and so it's extra joyful to see him delighting in birding and sharing that delight with people.
Fancy Dance (2023)
Fancy Dance is an indie film in which Jax (Lily Gladstone) tries to take care of her niece Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson) on the Seneca-Cayuga Nation reservation after Roki's mom disappears. CPS sends Roki to the grandparents she barely knows, and Jax has to try to juggle taking care of Roki, pressuring the federal police about missing Nawi, and investigating the disappearance herself.
Why to watch: Lily Gladstone knocks it out of the PARK, wow. They are just great as Jax, who has to step up now that Nawi's missing; Jax is obviously working hard trying to change her life and be there for Roki in a really tough situation. Lily Gladstone called this a coming-of-age story for both Jax and Roki, and that's really true: like, this is a coming-of-age story and a thriller and also a road trip movie.
Contains: themes of missing and murdered indigenous women, grief, racism, brief gun violence, cops
Request details: There are so many interesting things you could do here! A character study of Jax would be really lovely. There's also maybe something fun in the Jax-and-Roki heist film and road trip movie? Feel free to make a vid that doesn't come to a resolution, and just suspends in that last moment of the dance scene. Although I think it's interesting that Frank and Nancy aren't really framed as villains here, I wouldn't want a vid that focused primarily on them.
A note about this canon: parts of this film are in the Cayuga language, and the director, Erica Tremblay, talks about making a film that's partly in a language with only twenty fluent speakers (none of whom are the actors) in this interesting interview. Lily Gladstone also talks about their portrayal of Jax, queerness, and gender in this interview.
The Great Canadian Baking Show
The Canadian spinoff of the Great British Bake Off, with Canadian themes and ingredients (like Montreal bagels. birch bark syrup, seaweed, and saskatoon berries) and some truly stellar groups of interesting, thoughtful, awesome contestants.
Why to watch: We all know the Bake Off model, but the Great Canadian Baking Show is somehow an even sweeter spinoff. The judges are engaged and delighted by new flavors, and they don't get defensive when they don't know something. Instead, they're peering into the oven next to the contestants and speaking to them as peers. The hosts are thoughtful and supportive. And there are SO MANY good contestants on the show!
Season nine (!!) trailer:
Request details: I made a vid for this show several years ago, but I was only able to use the first two seasons, and the trailer for season nine just dropped! There have been so many great bakers and great running around with cake montages and disastrous bakes that weren't in my vid! I love the energy in the tent and the way the contestants help each other and laugh together. I love the delightful and surprising successes, the way sometimes a technical bake just comes out and the baker doesn't even know why. I'd just like something sweet and fun about this show and these great bakers! I also really like the judges being interested in learning and trying new things. Also let me just say that vidding a baking show is a ton of fun and with all NINE seasons the disaster montages could be epic.
Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA]
Lego has been licensing video games since 1995! The list of games includes many franchises remade as Lego (Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, etc), puzzle games, turn-based strategy in which the characters are classic Lego minifigs, racing games, fighting games, and sandbox games. On the franchise side, they've figured out how to say "I am your father" in a game without dialog, written a disco remix using film dialog and then made a game mechanic to make all the characters dance when it plays, given all the marvel characters custom team up moves, and, for some reason, given Robin an "attract suit" that sucks studs. What they all have in common are Lego bricks—many of the worlds are built using real world Lego brick pieces and logic—and a bunch of silliness.
Why to watch/play: Creativity, building things together, taking things apart, punching flower pots to make Lego bits, putting things together, poking loving fun at the Star Wars franchise, every decision about a Robin suit is hilarious, just generally a fun time.
It's hard to put the whole franchise in a video, so here's a trailer for the game that just came out, Lego Voyagers:
Request details: I love the idea of a vid that combines a bunch of these games into a glorious cascade of minifigs, bricks, and lego bits! I'd love a vid that includes a wide section of all the different ways to play with blocks, a vid that's all franchise games, or a vid that's all standalones: vid the subsection you're most interested in! If you want to do the franchise game side, I'd love a vid that assembled a bunch of franchise game silliness into something funny, sweet, or slapsticky; I listed some favorite bits up above, but in addition every Robin suit is hilarious (Batman: I can fly! Robin: I'm a magnet), I appreciate the Lego Marvel Super Heroes games for their broad comics-y feel of mixing different Marvel teams together to fight an assortment of villains, I am weak for Star Wars content, and I am charmed by riding around Rohan as various LotR characters. On the standalone side, I think Lego Builder's Journey is a particularly interesting game since it has a calm vibe that's so different from the other types of Lego games. Lego Bricktales has that big open world vibe that replicates actual brick-building in a fun way! There are many games I haven't played, and franchise games where I've never seen/played the original, but I like the Lego game vibe generally.
A couple do-not-wants here: the Lego Harry Potter game in its entirety, which I can no longer view as fun; most of Lego Indiana Jones, which replicates what the movies are doing in a way that replicates the racism; Captain Jack Sparrow. (That said, if you want to make a critique vid of the way the franchise games can replicate or emphasize problematic content in the originals, I'd be fine with Indy content there.)
Trigger note: some new Lego games have flashy segments with exploding bricks; they're fine in isolation but a section with a ton of them in a row would be a problem.
Mythbusters
A tv show about science and testing things out: can you make a lead balloon? Does a duct tape boat float? What happens if you jump in a falling elevator? Could that thing from that episode of CSI work? What about that Star Wars physics?
Why to watch: Science, silliness, building things, a cool team working together. Testing things from Hollywood and also from classic math class thought experiments.
Contains: varies depending on the episode, but there are WAY too many cops on this show. Also some myths lead to racist or sexist conversations or costuming.
There aren't any good trailers, so how about "is an axe or a gun the best way to kill zombies" instead:
Request details: Mythbusters started out as low-pressure tv for me—I started watching it withthingswithwings when we were making a giant multi vid about Yuletide, because it was something that definitely wasn't going in the vid so I didn't have to think about clipping. We recently started a rewatch of fun bits and have been enjoying it again, so this is my nostalgia request! I have forgotten a lot of the details so it's fun to see myths again, and also it's fun to watch everyone working together to do absolutely ridiculous things like attach rockets to cars or drop cars from helicopters or make boats out of duct tape or frozen newspaper. I enjoy their low-budget, we're-shopping-at-Mr-S's-and-trying-to-find-cheap-used-cars start, and I also enjoy the later season go big or go home moments. I'd enjoy hijinks, falling down, building-things-and-working-together, team appreciation, or a vid about the build team or Adam and Jamie or both. Kari, Scottie, Grant, and Adam are my faves, and I also really appreciate Jamie's intense weirdness.
Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards
The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards are annual awards for funny wildlife photos and videos, which are submitted by amateur and professional photographers.
Why to check it out: It's fun! A lot of nature and conservation work focuses on the majestic, but these awards honor the fact that sometimes penguins do pratfalls and foxes get the zoomies.
This is mostly photo footage, with a little bit of video; most of the awards categories are for photos. That said there's more video than you might think, but it isn't all listed in the current website menus so here are some links: 2024, 2023, 2021, a couple on youtube, and several more that aren't on their website at insta.
Request details:
Request details: I just think it could be fun to vid and it could make something funny and sweet! What if several orangutans fall down! It would be tough to make a video-only vid (and some of the most classic shots are photos) so I think it would probably have to be a mix of photo and video into something cute.
This Place (2022)
A sweet, complex queer film about Kawenniióhstha (Devery Jacobs) and Malai (Priya Guns) falling in love in Toronto, both of them in the middle of complex relationships with place and home. Malai is Tamil; her father fled Sri Lanka and she's never seen it. Kawenniióhstha is Kanienʼkehá꞉ka and Iranian; she loves her home in Kahnawà:ke and she loves her mom, but she's never met her Iranian father and sees moving to Toronto as a way to try to meet him. Kawenniióhstha and Malai's relationship is sweet and warm, their family drama is complex and interesting, and the sense of trying to find home in this place pervades the whole movie. It's also in five languages because of the character's stories: English, Mohawk, Tamil, French, and Persian.
Why to watch: Lovely relationship! Stellar performance by Devery Jacobs and Priya Guns! A sweet falling in love story where the tension comes from the two leads dealing with home, understanding, and forgiveness for their families!
Contains: parental death, alcoholism, reference to the Kahnawà:ke bridge blockade in the Oka Crisis, reference to the Sri Lanka Civil War
Request details: Do my requests include two Devery Jacobs queer films? Yes, yes they do. Backspot is more of a sports film with a queer relationship in it, and This Place is more of a falling in love story with a complex backdrop. I'd love a ship vid here! Or a vid about finding forgiveness and understanding for the pressures your parents were under, and coming to terms with those choices. This is so much a film about community and identity and I think there are really interesting things to do there!
I have a couple things that I put outside the cut tag, because I have two visual triggers:
1) Fast, high contrast flashes of lights or colors. This can be triggered by strobe lights, strobe effects, glitch effects, full-screen lighting effects, or repeated lightning strikes. It can also be triggered by stutter cuts (very fast intercuts of 2-3 frames) where there is high contrast in the footage used for the stutter effect. Stutter cuts are fine between two similar scenes, but not between one dark green and one bright red lit scene, between a nighttime and daytime scene, etc. Flashing has to be very fast to bother me—think three lightning strikes in a second (dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark in one second).
2) Frame rate fuckery—when a show or a vid plays 24 fps footage in 30 fps or vice versa. So, like, when a film puts footage at the wrong frame rate to make it feel awkward or tense, which is super common in action films. (For example, the Bucky/Steve knife fight on the street in Winter Solider.) It can also happen by accident, if footage at one frame rate is put into a project with a different frame rate, or sometimes when a show needs to stretch or compress footage and they do it by duplicating every third frame.
I'll call these out in the source notes below for any fandom where they're relevant.
Please also feel free to run a sample by
thingswithwings. She can explain them with examples if that would be helpful.The rest of this post is additional details if you're interested!
Types of vids: I really enjoy the diversity of vidding styles and genres at festivids and I look forward to seeing your style! I'm down for: any rating, outside source (including crossovers), still footage, critiques, action, deep character studies, shippy vids, action vids, dance vids, slash, femslash, het, gen, canon pairings, and non-canon pairings.
Things I love: people who put care into the work they do; building communities; history and places being related to people and feelings; queer people; joy; speculative fiction; eating the rich; fighting for justice; people supporting each other.
Music: I am happy to watch vids to all kinds of music! I love vids to instrumentals, to dense lyrics-heavy songs, to hip hop, to fun dance songs, to classics, and to things I've never heard of before. I also like vids to non-music, like spoken word pieces or sound effects. I am fine with dialog in a vid.
That said, I'm hard of hearing in a way that makes it difficult to understand lyrics that are mumbly or obscured by the instrumentation (or, like, 50% of the dialog in a modern action movie). I'd appreciate it if you offered subtitles, especially if you intercut dialog and song lyrics.
I asked for: Babylon 5, Backspot (2023) [SAFETY], Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) [SAFETY], Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper, Fancy Dance (2023) [SAFETY], The Great Canadian Baking Show (TV), Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA], Mythbusters (TV), Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, This Place (2022) [SAFETY]
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 is a 1990s scifi tv show about a space station in neutral territory, with a governing body including multiple species who don't always get along. As they say in the credits, it's "a place for commerce and diplomacy." It's also about fascism, and colonialism, and principles. It's about what people do when faced with historic inevitability. It's also got tentacles in it. And space ships?
Why to watch: B5 is one of my favorite shows. It's so thoughtful about what the future could be like, and it's thoughtful about what it means to do good. It's got a bunch of twists, so it's hard to sell to people without spoilers! Let me just say: There is nothing a B5 fan likes better than to talk someone else into watching all of Babylon 5 in order, and ideally with said B5 fan, who will be so excited to watch next to you. Season 1 is shaky at best, but when it gets going it gets GOING. I've never rewatched it at a time when the politics weren't timely.
The old trailers are all VHS footage, and the fan trailers are all massively spoilery, so have the Season 1 opening credits instead. Now available in remastered Blu-Ray!
Request details: Okay so. I have so many Babylon 5 feelings! G'Kar and Delenn are my absolute favorites; I don't think they're really viddable together (tho as I say that I have some thoughts about the decisions Delenn made about Narn). I'd be delighted by a vid about either of them! G'Kar and Londo, G'Kar and war, G'Kar and freedom, G'Kar and religion! Also like G'Kar and his amazing bathrobes? Delenn and prophecy, Delenn and Lennier, Delenn's deep anger and morals. Mira Furlan and Andreas Katsulas both brought so much strength and drive to these characters. <3
I also adore Ivanova! She's so exasperated and determined all the time. I 100% imagine Delenn/Ivanova as the endgame ship of the show and I think they're really charming together as they're getting to know each other is season 2 and 3. Also some years ago someone prompted "what if a Lyta, Ivanova, and Delenn season 4 with no Sheridan" and I immediately also needed that to exist.
I can just keep going forever. The Vir/Lennier relationship! Marcus/Franklin odd coupling around Mars! So many great characters and relationships.
If you're looking for something more ensemble-y, I'd love that kind of vid too: something about the arc, the politics, the resistance to fascism, the goofiness, the interpersonal relationships.
When it comes to single-character focused vids, I don't care about Garibaldi and I'm indifferent to Sheridan except when he's looking at Delenn with stars in his eyes.
I'm also mad at parts of B5, because you can't love a complex show without also sometimes being mad at it. If you want to make a "fuck the Talia ending" vid or some other kind of angry vid, go for it.
Backspot (2023)
Backspot is a indie film about queer competitive cheerleaders Riley (Devery Jacobs from Reservation Dogs) and Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo). This is a queerleading film that's largely about cheerleading and anxiety and perfectionism; Amanda and Riley are already dating at the beginning of the film, so the tension is from their different approaches to cheerleading and different backgrounds affecting their relationship. Also Evan Rachel Wood plays their stern coach (also queer), who Riley idolizes.
Why to watch: Devery Jacobs as a queer cheerleader! A sweet relationship! Women's sports taken seriously! An established relationship film!
Contains: Anxiety (mostly expressed as trichotillomania), sports injuries, vomiting (as a result of difficult sports + anxiety, not framed as an eating disorder).
Request details: You could take a bunch of fun angles on this film! The relationship between Riley and Amanda is super sweet, and I appreciate the way Riley has to work on the relationship when cheerleading and her relationship conflict. I also think there's something interesting in this film about the way Riley idolizes Eileen and her intense drive, and how Riley later comes to appreciate Devon and his support for her after their moment in the club. I'd also be down for a vid about cheerleading as a sport; the hard work the cheerleaders do as well as the way that Riley has difficulty with the presentation and femininity that are expectations of the sport.
Trigger notes: The go pro footage that opens the film is borderline for me in terms of framerate—it's fine to vid it but a long sequence with a bunch of it in a row might be a problem.
Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024)
A gorgeous documentary about a decades-long effort by members of the Blackfoot Confederacy in the USA and Canada to return wild buffalo to their lands.
Why to watch: This film is gorgeous, and it's full of beautiful megafauna thundering across grassy plains. But it's also full of heart and hope: it's about a project that had to involve the whole community, with different people working hard to bring ranchers into the project, to educate children, and to build skills and knowledge. I cried. People working together to do good!
Contains: References to genocide (murder, intentional destruction of buffalo, residential schools, theft of land, allotments).
Request details: I'd love something about community and space: people working together, people forming relationships with each other and with the buffalo and with the land. Something about holding onto hope and working to make it real. The shots of the buffalo are obviously gorgeous and I think they will be a beautiful part of a vid to this source! I will cry buckets.
Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper travels to various natural areas and cities, meeting scientists and conservationists and eagles. He gets to work with people banding birds to learn about changing ecosystems, travel through caves to see rare birds, and learn about conservation efforts. And also he adds many new birds to his life list over the course of the show!
Why to watch: Christian Cooper is a great host: interested, funny, dedicated, and fascinated by what he sees. The show is also often gorgeous, including interesting landscapes and birds! It's very soothing to watch.
Contains: some conversations about animal harm (endangered birds, habitat destruction, etc), some Nat Geo-type touristy language about places like Hawai'i.
Request details: Is this a second request about people doing hard work and community building together to make change? Yes, yes it is, but it's also about Christian in particular—his joy is infectious, and he's super good at connecting to people! I'd love a vid focused on the birds, on conservation, or on Christian bringing those things together. (Also feel free to cross this over with the OTHER birdwatching canon nominated for Festivids this year, The Residence, if you can figure out how to.)
A note about this canon: Christian Cooper emphasizes "superhero" in the opening of each ep because he was a Marvel comics editor; he was one of the first openly gay comics editors at Marvel and he co-created Victoria Montesi, the first explicitly lesbian character in Marvel comics. Christian Cooper is also the birder who was the target of the racist Central Park birdwatching incident in 2020, when a white woman called the cops on him, and so it's extra joyful to see him delighting in birding and sharing that delight with people.
Fancy Dance (2023)
Fancy Dance is an indie film in which Jax (Lily Gladstone) tries to take care of her niece Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson) on the Seneca-Cayuga Nation reservation after Roki's mom disappears. CPS sends Roki to the grandparents she barely knows, and Jax has to try to juggle taking care of Roki, pressuring the federal police about missing Nawi, and investigating the disappearance herself.
Why to watch: Lily Gladstone knocks it out of the PARK, wow. They are just great as Jax, who has to step up now that Nawi's missing; Jax is obviously working hard trying to change her life and be there for Roki in a really tough situation. Lily Gladstone called this a coming-of-age story for both Jax and Roki, and that's really true: like, this is a coming-of-age story and a thriller and also a road trip movie.
Contains: themes of missing and murdered indigenous women, grief, racism, brief gun violence, cops
Request details: There are so many interesting things you could do here! A character study of Jax would be really lovely. There's also maybe something fun in the Jax-and-Roki heist film and road trip movie? Feel free to make a vid that doesn't come to a resolution, and just suspends in that last moment of the dance scene. Although I think it's interesting that Frank and Nancy aren't really framed as villains here, I wouldn't want a vid that focused primarily on them.
A note about this canon: parts of this film are in the Cayuga language, and the director, Erica Tremblay, talks about making a film that's partly in a language with only twenty fluent speakers (none of whom are the actors) in this interesting interview. Lily Gladstone also talks about their portrayal of Jax, queerness, and gender in this interview.
The Great Canadian Baking Show
The Canadian spinoff of the Great British Bake Off, with Canadian themes and ingredients (like Montreal bagels. birch bark syrup, seaweed, and saskatoon berries) and some truly stellar groups of interesting, thoughtful, awesome contestants.
Why to watch: We all know the Bake Off model, but the Great Canadian Baking Show is somehow an even sweeter spinoff. The judges are engaged and delighted by new flavors, and they don't get defensive when they don't know something. Instead, they're peering into the oven next to the contestants and speaking to them as peers. The hosts are thoughtful and supportive. And there are SO MANY good contestants on the show!
Season nine (!!) trailer:
Request details: I made a vid for this show several years ago, but I was only able to use the first two seasons, and the trailer for season nine just dropped! There have been so many great bakers and great running around with cake montages and disastrous bakes that weren't in my vid! I love the energy in the tent and the way the contestants help each other and laugh together. I love the delightful and surprising successes, the way sometimes a technical bake just comes out and the baker doesn't even know why. I'd just like something sweet and fun about this show and these great bakers! I also really like the judges being interested in learning and trying new things. Also let me just say that vidding a baking show is a ton of fun and with all NINE seasons the disaster montages could be epic.
Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA]
Lego has been licensing video games since 1995! The list of games includes many franchises remade as Lego (Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, etc), puzzle games, turn-based strategy in which the characters are classic Lego minifigs, racing games, fighting games, and sandbox games. On the franchise side, they've figured out how to say "I am your father" in a game without dialog, written a disco remix using film dialog and then made a game mechanic to make all the characters dance when it plays, given all the marvel characters custom team up moves, and, for some reason, given Robin an "attract suit" that sucks studs. What they all have in common are Lego bricks—many of the worlds are built using real world Lego brick pieces and logic—and a bunch of silliness.
Why to watch/play: Creativity, building things together, taking things apart, punching flower pots to make Lego bits, putting things together, poking loving fun at the Star Wars franchise, every decision about a Robin suit is hilarious, just generally a fun time.
It's hard to put the whole franchise in a video, so here's a trailer for the game that just came out, Lego Voyagers:
Request details: I love the idea of a vid that combines a bunch of these games into a glorious cascade of minifigs, bricks, and lego bits! I'd love a vid that includes a wide section of all the different ways to play with blocks, a vid that's all franchise games, or a vid that's all standalones: vid the subsection you're most interested in! If you want to do the franchise game side, I'd love a vid that assembled a bunch of franchise game silliness into something funny, sweet, or slapsticky; I listed some favorite bits up above, but in addition every Robin suit is hilarious (Batman: I can fly! Robin: I'm a magnet), I appreciate the Lego Marvel Super Heroes games for their broad comics-y feel of mixing different Marvel teams together to fight an assortment of villains, I am weak for Star Wars content, and I am charmed by riding around Rohan as various LotR characters. On the standalone side, I think Lego Builder's Journey is a particularly interesting game since it has a calm vibe that's so different from the other types of Lego games. Lego Bricktales has that big open world vibe that replicates actual brick-building in a fun way! There are many games I haven't played, and franchise games where I've never seen/played the original, but I like the Lego game vibe generally.
A couple do-not-wants here: the Lego Harry Potter game in its entirety, which I can no longer view as fun; most of Lego Indiana Jones, which replicates what the movies are doing in a way that replicates the racism; Captain Jack Sparrow. (That said, if you want to make a critique vid of the way the franchise games can replicate or emphasize problematic content in the originals, I'd be fine with Indy content there.)
Trigger note: some new Lego games have flashy segments with exploding bricks; they're fine in isolation but a section with a ton of them in a row would be a problem.
Mythbusters
A tv show about science and testing things out: can you make a lead balloon? Does a duct tape boat float? What happens if you jump in a falling elevator? Could that thing from that episode of CSI work? What about that Star Wars physics?
Why to watch: Science, silliness, building things, a cool team working together. Testing things from Hollywood and also from classic math class thought experiments.
Contains: varies depending on the episode, but there are WAY too many cops on this show. Also some myths lead to racist or sexist conversations or costuming.
There aren't any good trailers, so how about "is an axe or a gun the best way to kill zombies" instead:
Request details: Mythbusters started out as low-pressure tv for me—I started watching it with
thingswithwings when we were making a giant multi vid about Yuletide, because it was something that definitely wasn't going in the vid so I didn't have to think about clipping. We recently started a rewatch of fun bits and have been enjoying it again, so this is my nostalgia request! I have forgotten a lot of the details so it's fun to see myths again, and also it's fun to watch everyone working together to do absolutely ridiculous things like attach rockets to cars or drop cars from helicopters or make boats out of duct tape or frozen newspaper. I enjoy their low-budget, we're-shopping-at-Mr-S's-and-trying-to-find-cheap-used-cars start, and I also enjoy the later season go big or go home moments. I'd enjoy hijinks, falling down, building-things-and-working-together, team appreciation, or a vid about the build team or Adam and Jamie or both. Kari, Scottie, Grant, and Adam are my faves, and I also really appreciate Jamie's intense weirdness.Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards
The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards are annual awards for funny wildlife photos and videos, which are submitted by amateur and professional photographers.
Why to check it out: It's fun! A lot of nature and conservation work focuses on the majestic, but these awards honor the fact that sometimes penguins do pratfalls and foxes get the zoomies.
This is mostly photo footage, with a little bit of video; most of the awards categories are for photos. That said there's more video than you might think, but it isn't all listed in the current website menus so here are some links: 2024, 2023, 2021, a couple on youtube, and several more that aren't on their website at insta.
Request details:
Request details: I just think it could be fun to vid and it could make something funny and sweet! What if several orangutans fall down! It would be tough to make a video-only vid (and some of the most classic shots are photos) so I think it would probably have to be a mix of photo and video into something cute.
This Place (2022)
A sweet, complex queer film about Kawenniióhstha (Devery Jacobs) and Malai (Priya Guns) falling in love in Toronto, both of them in the middle of complex relationships with place and home. Malai is Tamil; her father fled Sri Lanka and she's never seen it. Kawenniióhstha is Kanienʼkehá꞉ka and Iranian; she loves her home in Kahnawà:ke and she loves her mom, but she's never met her Iranian father and sees moving to Toronto as a way to try to meet him. Kawenniióhstha and Malai's relationship is sweet and warm, their family drama is complex and interesting, and the sense of trying to find home in this place pervades the whole movie. It's also in five languages because of the character's stories: English, Mohawk, Tamil, French, and Persian.
Why to watch: Lovely relationship! Stellar performance by Devery Jacobs and Priya Guns! A sweet falling in love story where the tension comes from the two leads dealing with home, understanding, and forgiveness for their families!
Contains: parental death, alcoholism, reference to the Kahnawà:ke bridge blockade in the Oka Crisis, reference to the Sri Lanka Civil War
Request details: Do my requests include two Devery Jacobs queer films? Yes, yes they do. Backspot is more of a sports film with a queer relationship in it, and This Place is more of a falling in love story with a complex backdrop. I'd love a ship vid here! Or a vid about finding forgiveness and understanding for the pressures your parents were under, and coming to terms with those choices. This is so much a film about community and identity and I think there are really interesting things to do there!
