Songvid Rec and Review: Sex Vids
Jun. 7th, 2004 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eruthrosSo I was talking about the long, long list of comedy, satire, and parody vids I posted, and I said "mmmm sexy" to describe them. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
friede said "really?" And I had to explain that, no, not really, not sexy sexy, just very good vids. But it made me think about how rarely sex is actually the theme of a vid. Relationships, yes; sex, no. So here are some sex-themed vids, not at all consistently sexy, but dealing with sex a lot.
T. Jonesy and Killa's Star Trek:TOS vid to 'Closer,' song by Nine Inch Nails.
This vid begins with the words "what if they hadn't made it to Vulcan in time?" Which means that, yes, this is an AU pon farr-rape Kirk/Spock vid. Don't let that turn you against it -- this is quite possibly the best vid I've seen recently; the editing is impeccable, the effects are brilliant, and the clips are perfect.
Just the opening credits -- timed to the percussion from the song -- let you know what you're in for; the words dissolve and go fuzzy and jerk around the frame, coupled with brief flashes clips. Really brief flashes. And then the vid proper starts, and it's red toned, and it's Spock and the harp-thing, and then it blurs out and it's not, it's Spock angry, it's Spock violent, and then there's a tunnel-vision effect and the first words of the song "you let me violate you" and Spock's mind-melding Kirk and wham! we know where this is going, and we know we're in Spock's head, and we know it's not going to be linear and it's not going to be pretty, and I'm all of 15 seconds into this vid but it just rocks so much.
The effects of the vid are just fabulous -- there are about a billion of them, but they're not distracting; they're actually an integral part of the story. My two favorite recurring effects are one that skips a few frames in various scenes, usually matched to percussion, so that the action isn't smooth (the first example of this is at about 0:55, I think). It's a beautiful way to show the disruption and Spock breaking down, and so is my other favorite effect, which is a washout of the highlights that really pulls the whites up -- makes them flash out.
The red-tint gave me pause the first time I saw the vid -- for all of thirty seconds, before it became part of the universe of the vid. Afterwards, I realized that it's incredibly brilliant; one of the things that throws me out of constructed reality vids is the fact that everything's always changing color; the vidder uses a great clip from one episode where Character X is leaning on a wall, and another clip where Character Y looks all smoldery, but they don't quite match because the color's off, and the lighting is off, and they're in front of two totally different colored walls. And the red tint fixes that -- fixes it so well that it took me multiple viewings of the clips beginning at ca. 2:50 (the climax of the vid) to realize that they're actually not one unit, and that Kirk and Spock are in totally different contexts there. And that was just because I was trying to work out clip source.
I have very few quibbles with this vid, really, but one of them is that I still don't really understand the tunnel-vision effect, where the image is blacked out on the edges. At first I thought it was intended to indicate the beginning of one of Spock's Pon Farr fantasies, but it doesn't really correlate with any part of the story like that. And it's a big effect for me, more distracting than assisting in telling the story, so I keep wanting it to sync with something, but it doesn't.
Still a gorgeous vid. Absolutely gorgeous. Accomplishes what it means to do and is distressing and horrible and gorgeous. I could go on and on about this vid, but I should probably stop.
Available at Vids by Killa and Friends. Password required. Quicktime (.mov) only, and it's BIG -- 1272 kbps.
Sisabet's Angel and BtVS vid to 'Closer,' song by Nine Inch Nails. That song is absolutely not a theme of this rec/review. Nope, not at all.
Sisabet does something entirely different with "Closer," and so this vid is actually sexy -- if you're an Angel/Spike fan. It's about violent (sorta) consensual sex between vampires, so that's okay. It takes more of the "let" and less of the "violate you," if that makes sense. It's vaguely a constructed reality, mostly not, because the context of the clips is usually important (e.g. "I've got no soul to tell" -- Angel losing his). But on the other hand the nakedness is mostly out of context.
There aren't any credits at the beginning -- it goes straight to the naked: naked Angel on the beat, black screen, naked Spike, etc. So you know from the beginning that it's a vid about ... naked people. *g*
The effects are good, but not as exciting as in T. Jonesy and Killa's "Closer." Scenes freeze before changing, which is an interesting effect.
Sisabet has a tendency to use sound clips from the show over guitar breaks and things in her vids, and I think it would work better if the original sound files had been matched in volume -- it's a little distracting sometimes as is. But although the first set of sounds here don't work so well for me, the second set -- Spike's "blood" speech intercut with Angel saying "I'm not an animal" -- works really well both for the song and for the Angel and Spike the vid proposes.
I think my biggest nitpick with this vid is that it's only half a constructed reality -- so I'm paying attention to clip context to get meaning, and then there are clips where Spike's naked and Angel's naked and I think I'm supposed to be picturing that as them being together and naked, but since I'm paying attention to clip context I'm hyper-aware that the clips are from two different moments.
It's a good vid, though, overall; unfortunately, it suffers from comparison to T. Jonesy and Killa's vid, and since they're to the same song it's hard to keep from making that comparison. But still a good vid, fun, and with good cutting and interesting effects.
Available at Head Tilt Videos. No password. Windows Media Video only.
JS and AAR's Buffy vid 'Bad Touch,' song by Bloodhound Gang.
This vid has a great opener to make the song fit the show -- it starts with a clip of Spike saying "don't make it sound like something you flip past on the discovery channel." Hee. And then the first bit of the intro music is timed to Buffy dancing. So good start. And you've got to say that the song chorus is pretty much season six Buffy/Spike in a nutshell. I think the fact that the verses are more spoken than sung makes the song an odd choice for a vid, though. It works, but it's definitely unusual.
Personal favorite clip: Buffy threatening Spike with a spatula to "like my waffle house hash browns." And Buffy and Spike under carpets to "lost catacombs of Egypt." And Spike going down on Buffy to "sunk my battleship" is also fun. There are a number of really fabulous facial expression shots in this vid; it's unusual to see headshots used so well.
I found the clip from Halloween, at about 1:20, distracting -- I mean, yes they've got this whole history and all, so season two clips are plausible, but Buffy popping up off the table there in her princess dress makes me go "huh?" every time. Maybe it's just not well-timed to the music. There's also a clip from the X-files in this vid, which is really weird. There is a line about XF, but the clip falls just a bit after the end of that line -- if it fell on the word "X-Files" -- and wasn't so long -- I might not notice it as much. As it is, it's about half a line, so it cuts to Buffy before feeling finished, but is too long to just flash over the screen. It makes me tweak. Also, I get a one or two moments where the clip jumps, which may just be my setup. Overall a fun vid, although not my favorite.
Available at Buffy Music Videos. No password. MPEG Video only.
Bonus vid: Pamela J. Smith's Stargate SG-1 vid 'Get Off,' song by Prince. This doesn't perfectly fit today's theme -- it's themed around Daniel's intergalactic liasons, but it's also got a fair quantity of background semi-unrequited Jack/Daniel. At least, that's how I read it. So I won't talk about it at length. It's a good vid, though, and close to the theme, with slash bits and het bits and alien bits and sex with mirrors. Hence the bonusness.
Available from Versaphile. No password. Real video 8 only.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know of any sex-not-love vids where the sex is fun, fabulous casual sex? Because all three of these vids are violent sex, and I can't think of a single vid -- the Daniel Jackson one mentioned there comes closeish -- where there's no romance AND no violence. Hmmmmm. I probably would need to find QAF vids for that, huh?
Next week: Action vids. Maybe. (Or maybe vids about villains. Or about minor characters? Reinterpretations of canon? Romantic relationship vids? Unrequited love vids? Something. If you care, or want to see something I haven't mentioned, comment.)
Previous recs and reviews here.
I link to vidder's sites unless they prohibit it, but you'll notice that a lot of links are to password-protected sites. Even if you don't usually do that sort of thing, really, it's okay to ask for a password -- vidders aren't trying to keep you out. They're trying to keep TPTB out, and they're trying to make sure that new fans understand that distributing other people's vids -- especially to TPTB -- is not okay, so they have you send a little statement explaining that you know that. So it's easy, it's painless, heck, sometimes it's even automated, and in return for asking you get fabulous vids. Where is the bad?
Edited 7:10 to fix stupid mistakes (seesineala's comment below). I should never post when on cold medicine.
friede said "really?" And I had to explain that, no, not really, not sexy sexy, just very good vids. But it made me think about how rarely sex is actually the theme of a vid. Relationships, yes; sex, no. So here are some sex-themed vids, not at all consistently sexy, but dealing with sex a lot. T. Jonesy and Killa's Star Trek:TOS vid to 'Closer,' song by Nine Inch Nails.
This vid begins with the words "what if they hadn't made it to Vulcan in time?" Which means that, yes, this is an AU pon farr-rape Kirk/Spock vid. Don't let that turn you against it -- this is quite possibly the best vid I've seen recently; the editing is impeccable, the effects are brilliant, and the clips are perfect.
Just the opening credits -- timed to the percussion from the song -- let you know what you're in for; the words dissolve and go fuzzy and jerk around the frame, coupled with brief flashes clips. Really brief flashes. And then the vid proper starts, and it's red toned, and it's Spock and the harp-thing, and then it blurs out and it's not, it's Spock angry, it's Spock violent, and then there's a tunnel-vision effect and the first words of the song "you let me violate you" and Spock's mind-melding Kirk and wham! we know where this is going, and we know we're in Spock's head, and we know it's not going to be linear and it's not going to be pretty, and I'm all of 15 seconds into this vid but it just rocks so much.
The effects of the vid are just fabulous -- there are about a billion of them, but they're not distracting; they're actually an integral part of the story. My two favorite recurring effects are one that skips a few frames in various scenes, usually matched to percussion, so that the action isn't smooth (the first example of this is at about 0:55, I think). It's a beautiful way to show the disruption and Spock breaking down, and so is my other favorite effect, which is a washout of the highlights that really pulls the whites up -- makes them flash out.
The red-tint gave me pause the first time I saw the vid -- for all of thirty seconds, before it became part of the universe of the vid. Afterwards, I realized that it's incredibly brilliant; one of the things that throws me out of constructed reality vids is the fact that everything's always changing color; the vidder uses a great clip from one episode where Character X is leaning on a wall, and another clip where Character Y looks all smoldery, but they don't quite match because the color's off, and the lighting is off, and they're in front of two totally different colored walls. And the red tint fixes that -- fixes it so well that it took me multiple viewings of the clips beginning at ca. 2:50 (the climax of the vid) to realize that they're actually not one unit, and that Kirk and Spock are in totally different contexts there. And that was just because I was trying to work out clip source.
I have very few quibbles with this vid, really, but one of them is that I still don't really understand the tunnel-vision effect, where the image is blacked out on the edges. At first I thought it was intended to indicate the beginning of one of Spock's Pon Farr fantasies, but it doesn't really correlate with any part of the story like that. And it's a big effect for me, more distracting than assisting in telling the story, so I keep wanting it to sync with something, but it doesn't.
Still a gorgeous vid. Absolutely gorgeous. Accomplishes what it means to do and is distressing and horrible and gorgeous. I could go on and on about this vid, but I should probably stop.
Available at Vids by Killa and Friends. Password required. Quicktime (.mov) only, and it's BIG -- 1272 kbps.
Sisabet's Angel and BtVS vid to 'Closer,' song by Nine Inch Nails. That song is absolutely not a theme of this rec/review. Nope, not at all.
Sisabet does something entirely different with "Closer," and so this vid is actually sexy -- if you're an Angel/Spike fan. It's about violent (sorta) consensual sex between vampires, so that's okay. It takes more of the "let" and less of the "violate you," if that makes sense. It's vaguely a constructed reality, mostly not, because the context of the clips is usually important (e.g. "I've got no soul to tell" -- Angel losing his). But on the other hand the nakedness is mostly out of context.
There aren't any credits at the beginning -- it goes straight to the naked: naked Angel on the beat, black screen, naked Spike, etc. So you know from the beginning that it's a vid about ... naked people. *g*
The effects are good, but not as exciting as in T. Jonesy and Killa's "Closer." Scenes freeze before changing, which is an interesting effect.
Sisabet has a tendency to use sound clips from the show over guitar breaks and things in her vids, and I think it would work better if the original sound files had been matched in volume -- it's a little distracting sometimes as is. But although the first set of sounds here don't work so well for me, the second set -- Spike's "blood" speech intercut with Angel saying "I'm not an animal" -- works really well both for the song and for the Angel and Spike the vid proposes.
I think my biggest nitpick with this vid is that it's only half a constructed reality -- so I'm paying attention to clip context to get meaning, and then there are clips where Spike's naked and Angel's naked and I think I'm supposed to be picturing that as them being together and naked, but since I'm paying attention to clip context I'm hyper-aware that the clips are from two different moments.
It's a good vid, though, overall; unfortunately, it suffers from comparison to T. Jonesy and Killa's vid, and since they're to the same song it's hard to keep from making that comparison. But still a good vid, fun, and with good cutting and interesting effects.
Available at Head Tilt Videos. No password. Windows Media Video only.
JS and AAR's Buffy vid 'Bad Touch,' song by Bloodhound Gang.
This vid has a great opener to make the song fit the show -- it starts with a clip of Spike saying "don't make it sound like something you flip past on the discovery channel." Hee. And then the first bit of the intro music is timed to Buffy dancing. So good start. And you've got to say that the song chorus is pretty much season six Buffy/Spike in a nutshell. I think the fact that the verses are more spoken than sung makes the song an odd choice for a vid, though. It works, but it's definitely unusual.
Personal favorite clip: Buffy threatening Spike with a spatula to "like my waffle house hash browns." And Buffy and Spike under carpets to "lost catacombs of Egypt." And Spike going down on Buffy to "sunk my battleship" is also fun. There are a number of really fabulous facial expression shots in this vid; it's unusual to see headshots used so well.
I found the clip from Halloween, at about 1:20, distracting -- I mean, yes they've got this whole history and all, so season two clips are plausible, but Buffy popping up off the table there in her princess dress makes me go "huh?" every time. Maybe it's just not well-timed to the music. There's also a clip from the X-files in this vid, which is really weird. There is a line about XF, but the clip falls just a bit after the end of that line -- if it fell on the word "X-Files" -- and wasn't so long -- I might not notice it as much. As it is, it's about half a line, so it cuts to Buffy before feeling finished, but is too long to just flash over the screen. It makes me tweak. Also, I get a one or two moments where the clip jumps, which may just be my setup. Overall a fun vid, although not my favorite.
Available at Buffy Music Videos. No password. MPEG Video only.
Bonus vid: Pamela J. Smith's Stargate SG-1 vid 'Get Off,' song by Prince. This doesn't perfectly fit today's theme -- it's themed around Daniel's intergalactic liasons, but it's also got a fair quantity of background semi-unrequited Jack/Daniel. At least, that's how I read it. So I won't talk about it at length. It's a good vid, though, and close to the theme, with slash bits and het bits and alien bits and sex with mirrors. Hence the bonusness.
Available from Versaphile. No password. Real video 8 only.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know of any sex-not-love vids where the sex is fun, fabulous casual sex? Because all three of these vids are violent sex, and I can't think of a single vid -- the Daniel Jackson one mentioned there comes closeish -- where there's no romance AND no violence. Hmmmmm. I probably would need to find QAF vids for that, huh?
Next week: Action vids. Maybe. (Or maybe vids about villains. Or about minor characters? Reinterpretations of canon? Romantic relationship vids? Unrequited love vids? Something. If you care, or want to see something I haven't mentioned, comment.)
Previous recs and reviews here.
I link to vidder's sites unless they prohibit it, but you'll notice that a lot of links are to password-protected sites. Even if you don't usually do that sort of thing, really, it's okay to ask for a password -- vidders aren't trying to keep you out. They're trying to keep TPTB out, and they're trying to make sure that new fans understand that distributing other people's vids -- especially to TPTB -- is not okay, so they have you send a little statement explaining that you know that. So it's easy, it's painless, heck, sometimes it's even automated, and in return for asking you get fabulous vids. Where is the bad?
Edited 7:10 to fix stupid mistakes (see
sineala's comment below). I should never post when on cold medicine.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-07 03:14 pm (UTC)Keep up the recs.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-07 04:23 pm (UTC)I think passwords are a good idea, honestly, but I understand that they intimidate a lot of people, who are all "but I have to write Good Vidder X and ask her for a password? what if she doesn't like me? what will I say?" And I think a lot of people miss out on good vids that way. Which saddens me -- I wish I could convince people that it's okay to ask.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-07 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-07 04:33 pm (UTC)I hadn't thought about the original NIN vid -- wasn't it browner, though? More yellow-sepia-brown than red? Still, a very good point. Interesting. Hmmmmm.
I don't think it had the tunnel effect, although it had about a bazillion effects, mostly silly. Also I don't think it had the stuttering frames or the highlights, at least not highlights as highlighty as in this vid. (Yes, am still on decongestants whee!)
Cool: vid recs! Will dl later
Date: 2004-06-07 05:36 pm (UTC)I recced Sisbet's "Closer" vid for
Sisabet says that it was the first vid she made that showed at a con and that it's still probably one of the most popular vids she ever made, even if it's not her personal favorite either.
In this post she revisits the creation the vid:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sisabet/70898.html
~~Vid Archives~~
Smallville
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sisabet/70898.html
BtVS/Angel:
http://www.buffyvids.com/archive/AngelBuffy.html
Re: Cool: vid recs! Will dl later
Date: 2004-06-07 06:46 pm (UTC)I hadn't seen Sisabet's commentary -- thanks a bunch for that link.
I think you have a copy-and-paste error there, though -- the Smallville vid archive is at Some Distant Galaxy.
Re: Cool: vid recs! Will dl later
Date: 2004-06-07 09:46 pm (UTC)